Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I'm honored to join my colleagues in commemorating the 91st anniversary of the start of the Armenian Genocide.

Genocide is a very powerful word, and should be reserved for only the most horrific examples of mass killing motivated by a desire to destroy an entire people.

Without a doubt, this term is appropriate to describe the unimaginable atrocities suffered by the Armenian people from 1915 to 1918.

During this period, more than one million Armenians died from starvation or disease on long marches, or were simply massacred by the Ottoman Turks.

Some still deny these events, or try to justify them as an extension of war.

But the debate on this historical issue has been settled. The distinguished International Association of Genocide Scholars, among others, has concluded that it is undeniable.

Others, including some who accept the historical facts, say Congress should not pass a resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide because it will irreparably damage our relationship with Turkey.

This is a phony argument.

The European Parliament, the Council of Europe, and many European countries, including France, Germany and Italy have formally recognized the Armenian Genocide.

Yet this has not dissuaded Turkey from actively seeking to join the European Union.

At some point, every nation must come to terms with the wrongs committed by previous generations.

For Germany, the Holocaust. For South Africa, Apartheid. And for our country, slavery and the treatment of Native Americans.

In the same spirit, Turkey should allow--and indeed, encourage--an open and honest discussion of the Armenian Genocide.

Adolf Hitler once remarked, ``Who remembers the Armenians?'' The answer is, we do.

And we will continue to remember the victims of the Armenian Genocide, and other genocides, because, in the immortal words of Spanish philosopher George Santayana, ``Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.''

Madam Speaker, several years ago we discovered that Iran was operating a secret program to enrich uranium and carry out other sensitive nuclear fuel cycle activities.

Iran's failure to report these activities to the International Atomic Energy Agency was a blatant violation of its obligations under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

The more we have learned about Iran's nuclear program in the intervening months, the more obvious it's become that Tehran's true intention is not peaceful power generation, but the development of a nuclear arsenal that could threaten the United States, our allies in the Middle East, and any other part of the world within the range of Iran's increasingly sophisticated ballistic missiles.

Any seeds of doubt on the purpose of Iran's nuclear activities were dispelled once and for all by their outright rejection of a sensible proposal offered by our European allies and, more recently, Iran's resumption of uranium enrichment in defiance of the international community.

The election of Iranian President Ahmadinejad has made the urgency of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons that much greater.

His messianic world view, vocal support for ``wiping Israel off the map,'' and close ties to Hezbollah, Hamas and other terrorist organizations make the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran truly unimaginable.

Everyone hopes we can find a diplomatic solution to this crisis, and the IAEA's recent decision to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council was a long-overdue step in the right direction.

But tough words must be backed by tough action, and we have got to keep the pressure on Russia and China to support meaningful measures that will cause the Iranian regime to reevaluate the wisdom of its current course.

And, through this legislation before us today, we must push our own Executive Branch to enforce the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, legislation passed by Congress back in 1996 to deter investment in Iran's oil and gas sector.

By requiring the President to impose sanctions on foreign firms that continue to invest in Iran, we hoped to starve the Iranian regime of hard currency necessary to pursue nuclear weapons and support terrorism.

In the months after ILSA was signed into law, there were strong indications that it was having the intended deterrent effect.

But then, in an effort to avoid offending our allies, the Clinton Administration made a decision not to enforce the law--a shortsighted policy continued by President Bush.

H.R. 282 would close a legal loophole that has allowed the State Department to sit on investigations for years without making a determination, one way or the other, if a foreign firm has in fact made an investment in Iran.

Madam Speaker, this legislation won't make Iran's nuclear program go away, but it is an important step in the right direction, and--with 360 cosponsors--sends a clear signal that Congress is extremely concerned about this critical matter.

Mr. Speaker, today, I join Representative Boucher in introducing the Patents Depend on Quality Act of 2006 (PDQ Act). Introduction of this legislation follows a series of hearings conducted by the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property which ascertained that the current patent system is flawed. Over the course of the last 4 years, there have been numerous attempts to define the challenges of the patent system today. For example, the Patent and Trademark Office developed their Twenty-First Century Strategic Plan, not much later the Federal Trade Commission released a report entitled ``To Promote Innovation: The Proper Balance of Competition and Patent Law and Policy,'' The National Research Council published a compilation of articles entitled ``A Patent System for the 21st Century,'' and two economists authored a critique of patent law in a book titled Innovation and Its Discontents. These accounts make a number of recommendations for increasing patent quality and ensuring that patent protection promotes, rather than inhibits, economic growth and scientific progress. Consistent with the goals and recommendations of those reports, the PDQ Act contains a number of provisions designed to improve patent quality, deter abusive practices by unscrupulous patent holders, and provide meaningful, low-cost alternatives to litigation for challenging the patent validity.

Past attempts at achieving more comprehensive patent reform have met with resistance and recently have resulted in a call for additional hearings. However, the call for legislative action is loud. The New York Times has noted, ``[s]omething has gone very wrong with the United States patent system.'' The Financial Times has stated, ``[i]t is time to restore the balance of power in U.S. patent law.'' Therefore, today, we are introducing a narrowly tailored bill to address some of the more urgent concerns.

I firmly believe that robust patent protection promotes innovation. However, I also believe that the patent system is strongest, and that incentives for innovation are greatest, when patents protect only those patents that are truly inventive. When functioning properly, the patent system should encourage and enable inventors to push the boundaries of knowledge and possibility. If the patent system allows questionable patents to be issued and does not provide adequate safeguards against patent abuses, the system may stifle innovation and interfere with competitive market forces.

This bill represents our latest perspectives in an ongoing discussion about legislative solutions to patent quality concerns and patent litigation abuses. We have considered the multitude of comments received on prior patent bills. We acknowledge that the problems are difficult and, as yet, without agreed-upon solutions. It is clear, however, that introduction and movement of legislation, not necessarily additional hearings, will focus and advance the discussion. It is also clear that the problems with the patent system have been exacerbated by a decrease in patent quality and an increase in litigation abuses. With or without consensus, Congress must act soon to address these problems.

Thus, we introduce this bill with the intent of propelling the debate forward in the 109th Congress.

The bill contains a number of initiatives designed to improve patent quality and limit litigation abuses, thereby ensuring that patents are positive forces in the marketplace. I will highlight a number of them below.

Section 2 creates a post-grant opposition procedure. In certain limited circumstances, opposition allows parties to challenge a granted patent through an expeditious and less costly alternative to litigation. In addition, Section 2 provides a severely needed fix for the inter-partes re-examination procedure, which provides third parties a limited opportunity to request that the PTO Director re-examine an issued patent. The current limitations on the inter-partes re- examination process restricts its utility so drastically that it has been employed only a handful of times. Section 2 increases the utility of this re-examination process by relaxing its estoppel provisions. Further, it expands the scope of the re-examination procedure to include redress for all patent applications regardless of when filed. In addition, Section 2 contains a limitation on use of inter-partes re- examination procedure as a ``second bite at the apple'' after district court litigation. Other provisions in this bill, such as the second window in the post-grant opposition proceeding, will sufficiently address the quality problem in patents which have already issued.

Sections 3 and 4 permit patent examiners to consider certain materials within a limited time frame submitted by third parties regarding a pending patent application. Allowing such third party submissions will increase the likelihood that examiners are cognizant of the most relevant ``prior art,'' thereby constituting a front-end solution for strengthening patent quality.

Section 6 addresses the unfair incentives currently existing for patent holders who indiscriminately issue licensing letters. Patent holders frequently assert that another party is using a patented invention and for a fee, offer to grant a license for such use. Current law does little to dissuade patent holders from mailing such licensing letters. Frequently these letters are vague and fail to identify the patent being infringed and the manner of infringement. In fact, the law tacitly promotes this strategy since a recipient, upon notice of the letter, may be liable for treble damages as a willful infringer. Section 6 addresses this situation by ensuring that recipients of licensing letters will not be exposed to liability for willful infringement unless the letter specifically states the acts of infringement and identifies each particular claim and each product that the patent owners believe have been infringed.

Section 8 is designed to address the negative effect on innovation created by patent ``trolls.'' We have learned of countless situations in which patent holders, making no effort to commercialize their inventions, lurk in the shadows until another party has invested substantial resources in a business or product that may infringe on the unutilized invention. The patent troll then steps out of the shadows and demands that the alleged infringer pay a significant licensing fee to avoid an infringement suit. The alleged infringer often feels compelled to pay almost any price named by the patent troll because, under current law, a permanent injunction issues automatically upon a finding of infringement. The threat of a permanent injunction would, in turn, cause the alleged infringer to lose the substantial investment made in the allegedly infringing business or product.

While we may question their motives, we do not question the right of patent trolls to sue for patent infringement, to obtain damages, and to seek a permanent injunction. However, the issuance of a permanent injunction should not be granted automatically upon a finding of infringement. Rather, when deciding whether to issue a permanent injunction, courts should have the discretion to weigh all the equities in order to prevent the violation of a patent right. That requires balancing the inventor's exclusive right designed to provide the incentive and reward for invention and those equities which may be necessary for the public interest, such as whether the patent troll has ``unclean hands,'' the failure to commercialize the patented invention, the social utility of the infringing activity, the loss of invested resources by the infringer and, of course, the quality of the patent. After weighing the equities, the court may still decide to issue a permanent injunction, but at least the court will have ensured that the injunction serves the public interest. Section 8 accomplishes this goal.

When considering these provisions together, we believe that this bill provides reform necessary for the patent system to achieve its primary goal of promoting innovation. As the New York Times has pointed out, ``[t]here is legislation in the House to address th[e] issue[s], and it needs to be taken up.'' We hope introduction of this bill will facilitate the necessary movement of patent reform legislation.

I would especially like to thank Congressman Boucher with whom I have been working on patent reform for the past few years even before the issue was en vogue. Also deserving of thanks are the many constitutional scholars, policy advocates, private parties, and government agencies that continue to contribute their time, thoughts, and drafting talents to this effort. I am pleased that, finally, at least a consensus has emerged among the various collaborators in support of the basic ``post-grant opposition'' approach embodied in the legislation. This bill is the latest iteration of a process we started over 5 years ago.

Though we developed this bill in a highly collaborative and deliberative manner, I do not want to suggest that it is a ``perfect'' solution. Thus, I remain open to suggestions for amending the language to improve its efficacy or rectify any unintended consequences.

As I have said previously, ``The bottom line is this: there should be no question that the U.S. patent system produces high quality patents. Since questions have been raised about whether this is the case, the responsibility of Congress is to take a close look at the functioning of the patent system.'' High patent quality is essential to continued innovation. Litigation abuses, especially those which thrive on low quality patents, impede the promotion of the progress of science and the useful arts. Thus, we must act quickly during the 109th Congress to maintain the integrity of the patent system.

I thank the chairman for yielding. I congratulate him on his new position.

The gentleman from Virginia, the gentleman from Maryland, the gentlewoman from California, myself, and a number of other Members of the House are driven by our concerns related to the lack of information available from the university community about their antipiracy efforts. A Judiciary subcommittee, chaired by Mr. Smith of Texas, has issued a request to the Government Accountability Office to gather data on whether schools have adopted strong acceptable use policies, enforcement mechanisms, in addition to whether they are taking action on DMCA notices, and monitoring local agency networks where much of this piracy is taking place. This information is important so that the extent of the problem can be assessed.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Judge Arthur K. Weinstein on the occasion of his retirement. Judge Weinstein is being honored by his colleagues, family and friends for his lifelong commitment to public service.

After graduating from Boston University, Arthur's mother encouraged him to ``do something for the world.'' Inspired by her words, he joined the Peace Corps. He was assigned to a small, remote village in Malawi, Africa where he helped build a clinic for infants which is still in use today. Although he had to extend his stay an additional year to complete the project, he never wavered. The clinic has helped save the lives of hundreds of thousands of children.

In 1969, not wanting to veer from his personal mission, Arthur moved to California to attend UCLA and earn a masters degree in public health. He then served as a senior health educator for the county of Los Angeles. During these years he married, raised a family and attended evening law school classes. His strong interest in public service led him to become a defense attorney for the State Compensation and Insurance Fund and a certified specialist in Workers Compensation Law.

Arthur Weinstein was appointed a Workers Compensation judge nearly 5 years ago, achieving a long sought after goal. He has earned a stellar reputation and the respect of his peers. Judge Weinstein is married to Dina and they have three grown children and six grandchildren.

I ask my colleagues to join me in saluting an outstanding member of the community, Judge Arthur Weinstein.

Mr. Speaker, several years ago, we learned that Iran was operating a secret program to enrich uranium and carry out other sensitive nuclear fuel cycle activities.

Iran's failure to report these activities to the International Atomic Energy Agency was a blatant violation of its obligations under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

The more we learn about Iran's program, the more obvious it's become that Iran's true intention is not peaceful power generation, but the development of a nuclear arsenal that could threaten the United States, our allies in the Middle East, and even Europe.

Any seeds of doubt on this issue have been dispelled once and for all by Iran's rejection of a sensible proposal put forward by Great Britain, France and Germany, and more recently, its move to resume uranium enrichment.

The election of Iranian President Ahmadinejad has made the urgency of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons that much greater.

With his comments about the Holocaust being a ``myth,'' endorsement for ``wiping Israel off the map,'' and enthusiastic support of Hezbollah, Hamas and other terrorist organizations, this vile anti- Semite has made his true intentions crystal clear.

The IAEA's decision to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council is a long-overdue step in the right direction.

But tough words must be backed by tough action. We must continue to push the other members of the Security Council--especially China and Russia--to meet their international obligations.

Congress should also pass H.R. 282, the Iran Freedom Support Act. This important legislation will close a loophole in the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act that has allowed successive administrations to avoid penalizing foreign firms that continue to invest in Iran's oil and gas sector.

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to vote today on H. Con. Res. 341 because I was traveling on official business to a Middle East regional security conference in Athens, Greece, and then on to Egypt and Israel for meetings with top government officials. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. Speaker, a top Hamas leader was recently quoted as saying the U.S. would ``get used to Hamas in a year or two.''

I'm afraid he's sadly mistaken. America will never accept a Palestinian Authority controlled by a terrorist organization--1 year, 5 years, 10 years or 50 years from now.

Hamas must face reality. Either they meet the conditions of the international community--recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, renounce terrorism and disarm--or face a massive reduction of assistance and isolation.

The civilized world should not bend to Hamas; they must bend to us.

This resolution--to be followed soon by binding legislation--sends an unambiguous signal to Hamas and the rest of the world that Congress will not bankroll a terrorist government responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians and committed to the destruction of Israel.

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to vote on S. Con. Res. 79 today because I was traveling on official business to a Middle East regional security conference in Athens, Greece, and then on to Egypt and Israel for meetings with top government officials. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to my long time friend, Yoggi Riley, in recognition of her February 3, 2006, retirement from the U.S. Postal Service. Ms. Riley had a long and distinguished career with the Postal Service--almost 38 years. She proved herself a leader through her tireless work with the Postal Workers Union. Throughout her career she helped improve the lives of countless other postal workers through her union service.

In September 1967, Yoggi began working at the Post Office Department as a special delivery messenger. After witnessing the hardships experienced by the postal workers on the picket lines during the 1970 New York postal workers strike, which spread throughout the country, she joined the San Fernando Valley Area Local Branch of the American Postal Workers Union, APWU. This decision not only changed her life, but because of her tenacity as a union leader, it ultimately impacted the lives of many others. While her desire to help fight for and protect the rights of her fellow employees was kindled by that strike, it has continued to burn brightly throughout her career.

Yoggi's exceptional leadership as a union representative became apparent during the 1970s. In 1979, she was elected President of the local union and ultimately served two terms. During her tenure, the quality of service and the reputation of the local union increased markedly. Although she turned over the reins of leadership to spend more time with her family, whenever the union needed her she rose to the occasion. When organized labor fell on hard times and employees were required to work longer hours for less pay, the local union sought out Yoggi's help. She returned as Office Manager, and served as Secretary and then as Treasurer.

Her leadership was tested in the mid-nineties when postal management attempted to change the definition of a special delivery messenger and in the process deprive workers of their right to be represented by the union of their choice. During this crisis, she sprang into action, helped confront management, and enlisted the support of the national union. She then entered into a test case to resolve the issue through arbitration. Acting in concert with the national union, an agreement was reached with management that all messengers would remain, as stated in the law, in their union of choice. This was a great victory for postal workers.

Yoggi settled into a job as Mailing Requirement Clerk advising postal customers about the best way to make and prepare their mailings. In 2001, the Postal Service recognized Yoggi with its Diversity Award, an honor justly deserved. Although she has now retired from the UPS, Yoggi has not retired from her quest to help postal workers. In recognition of her passion and ability to help postal workers, the APWU has asked Yoggi to conduct seminars on retirement and to help other workers appropriately prepare for that transition. Not surprisingly, she has taken on this challenge with zeal and will, no doubt, continue to make a tremendous impact.

Yoggi is a very special woman. In addition to all she has done on behalf of postal workers, she has also devoted herself to raising a family. She is married to Lester Riley and they have two children and six grandchildren. The time and energy she gave to coaching children's baseball and t-ball was so well known that the community renamed the playing field across from her home after her.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in saluting Yoggi Riley, congratulating her on her retirement, and wishing her success in all her future endeavors.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this generous amount of time in the context of the deliberations on this bill.

I would like to lay a little bit of a foundation for a question which I would like on my time to yield to either Mr. Dreier, because we have spoken privately about this issue for so long, or Mr. Putnam, who very specifically and straightforwardly addressed the issue on the floor.

And that is, the background, I have said on a number of occasions in the Rules Committee and in the Judiciary Committee and on the floor yesterday that this bill is either an insult to our intelligence or a con on the American people. And I say that, and those are harsh comments, and I do not use that language a lot around here, because one of two things is going to happen: Either the leadership of this House and the Rules Committee is refusing to allow us to address a fundamental and essential question of whether or not to have a program for the adjustment of 11 million or more people now in this country where they would come out of the shadows, be identified, deport the criminal aliens and find a way to condition those who are working in this society into coming out and giving us their true identities; and dealing with future shortages and a temporary guest worker program, particularly for seasonal industries. The refusal to do that tells me that J.D. Hayworth is right.

There is one of two agendas here. One agenda is the agenda that Mr. Putnam and that Mr. Flake hoped for, and that is we will pass a bill with a number of really some very silly and harsh provisions; the Senate will clean those up, turn it into a comprehensive approach; and the people here who have been screaming the word ``amnesty'' for any effort to solve this problem will now be forced to come back and cast a vote for it.

I do not think that is what is going to happen. This bill will probably pass today, and we will never again in this Congress see the immigration issue. And guys will go back to their districts, and they will talk about how they tried to get tough on the border and they tried to do something.

This is not a border enforcement bill. There is a case that we could try to do some things on the border to be more effective than we have been. When this bill tries to deal with employer verification in the context to our 11 million people in this country who are working without documents or without work status, we know it can never go into effect. We have to either deal with that and then do employer verification, which is the critical component of a comprehensive approach, or we are never going to pass this bill into law.

So what I would like to do is have Mr. Dreier or Mr. Putnam, and I do not know how they want to do it, if they would be willing to, explain to me what the fairness is of not letting this body decide, and J.D. Hayworth has one view, Howard Berman has another view, but decide whether or not on a critically important issue that the President has spoken of the need for, others have denounced, why we cannot have a debate and a vote on that kind of a program.

I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, just to clarify, there are provisions about border enforcement in this bill, but when you implement, as this bill pretends to do, a massive comprehensive verification system, that has nothing to do with border protection. That is about ensuring that no one gets hired who is here without status. We cannot do that with 11 million people in this country, many of whom are working now.

I am sorry for cutting the gentleman short.

Madam Chairman, reserving the right to object, and I do not intend to object, might I ask the author of the amendment, as he was speaking I was wondering what was going on. It sounded like he was giving a very articulate and reasoned, I disagree with some of the points, but reasoned position for an amendment that he was not allowed to offer under this rule.

I am wondering whether he thought it might have been appropriate that a coequal branch of the Congress, the House of Representatives, on an issue as fundamental as the one he has just spoken to might have been allowed to have had a couple of amendments in order for this issue to be discussed and voted on in this body. Would that have been a sensible way to approach this issue?

I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

Madam Chairman, further reserving the right to object, in case anyone noticed, the gentleman from Arizona did not support rules which prevented us from discussing maybe the most important issue involved in the context of whether or not to pursue comprehensive immigration reform.

Madam Chairman, I withdraw my reservation.

Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I would ask the chairman to consider one specific thing about one very discrete narrow part of the manager's amendment.

In the fantasy world we are in, should this bill ever actually become a law, the issue on the passport violations that the gentleman from Michigan just spoke to, there are limited situations where someone that you and I and everyone around would agree truly was a refugee, with a well-founded fear of persecution, escaping from a politically repressive regime took advantage of some kind of falsified and altered passport in order to escape.

The only question I have, as we look at the manager's amendment now, there should be some discretion here in the context of either criminalizing or deportation to allow a situation where that was the purpose; the person met the full test of a refugee and that that not become a basis for deporting him or her back to the regime or incarcerating that person or charging them with a criminal offense.

Madam Chairman, I felt that answer was not totally satisfactory from my point of view.

Would somewhere in the context of the language of that provision or the report language indicate that it is not our intent in that situation, with your classic refugee purpose?

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I do not oppose the amendment. In fact, I think it should be labeled from ``our lips to God's ears.''

If we say that by a certain date we will stop and Homeland Security will stop, using the chairman's definition, will have operational control so that no terrorists, no illegal aliens, no drug smugglers ever come into our country; if we say that and we say it strong enough, then maybe it will happen.

And after we do that, I suggest a bill that says that by a certain date we eliminate poverty, and pass that, and a few other very important goals that I think we all share here.

Mr. Chairman, I am not in opposition, but I would like to claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I congratulate and agree with the notion that no immigration benefit should be given to any alien until all relevant background and security checks have been completed and any suspected fraud related to the granting of such status or benefit has been fully investigated and found to be unsubstantiated.

The gentleman from Florida is right. He has said in the context of his comments for this amendment that he believes that is happening now, and he may be right. I do not know that it is not. But all I know is that for my congressional office and for my colleagues' congressional offices, every time our staffs call regarding the processing of an immigration application, we hear there is nothing we can do. We are waiting for the FBI to get an answer. Why the FBI is just choosing the cases our congressional offices do, to hold back on providing information and denying immigration benefits, I do not know. In other words, what you say and what you ask for is correct, but the problem is not so much with the immigrant. The problem is with the bureaucracy.

The resources, the leadership to get these terrorist lists, these watch lists, the criminal database up to date so we can get this information in a quick time is very important.

I would just like to tell a quick story about the NSEERS program in Los Angeles. They had a registration date for different countries. If you are here from Iran on a nonimmigrant visa, come in on such and such date and register. People did that. Huge numbers of people flocked into the Los Angeles office of INS to do that.

The FBI was totally unable to give any clearance to the people who were coming in. Huge numbers of people were held, detained and kept overnight over a weekend thinking they were just going to file a registration form because the FBI could not get the clearance. That is a scandalous way to treated a number of people who came here as refugees fleeing the tyranny of the ayatollah because our bureaucracy failed to provide the answers.

So to me the answer here in Homeland Security and the FBI and in the other critical agencies is to get these lists and this other critical information online and accurate and quick so that we can move ahead with legitimate requests for these benefits that should be conditioned on getting that information out.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

I want to understand the state of play. If this amendment goes to a vote, a recorded vote, then am I to understand that the chairman and the Republican leadership has offered a tough bill and now they are asking their colleagues on the majority side to soften the criminal penalties for illegal immigration?

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me an additional minute.

To follow up, I support very strongly the Velazquez amendment, and I am glad that the chairman and the majority support it as well. It is very important. But as I look at the bill, I find an issue that will take a higher precedence than the problem of the backlog in terms of our constituents and in terms of our congressional offices and I think will put that far in the background in terms of things that most bother them, because under the Alien Smuggling and Related Offenses provision of the bill that we will be asked to vote on, anyone who assists, encourages, directs, or induces a person to reside in or to attempt to reside in or remain in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such person is an alien who lacks lawful authority to reside or remain in the United States, is subject to penalties of up to 5 years in jail if it is not for commercial purposes. If it is for commercial purposes, understandably, it would be tougher sentences.

So when a person calls my district office and talks to my congressional staff and says, I was here on a temporary visa, the date passed, I have an immigration petition pending, is there anything I can do? if my office assists that person or suggests that person go see a lawyer and perhaps if my assistant does not call the Department of Homeland Security and tell them to pick that person up, my staffer, potentially, is subject to criminal penalties. Congressional staff do not have congressional immunity. That means I am going to have to do all the casework in my district office. I think we need a little correction of the base bill in this particular area of alien smuggling. We are sweeping very widely here.

With that, I urge adoption of this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

There is an interesting juxtaposition going on between the gentleman's amendment and the base bill. The gentleman says something that I think is very important: we have got to prioritize. The priority in a country where there are 10, 11 million people who are here without status and under this bill and would, therefore, becoming guilty of a criminal offense, he says let us get the 500,000, whatever number it is, who have committed crimes of violence and economic crimes and murder and drug dealing and all these things. And he is right. No one can disagree. That should be the most urgent priority.

But in a universe where you have criminalized all 11 million, you have lost our ability to do that. So what is so funny about the argument for the gentleman's amendment is that in the context of this, all 11 million, it is the flip side of where some people have to wear a band designating it and the way of protesting that is everybody wear the band. You have lost your ability to prioritize.

Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, and I do not intend to object, I wanted to simply point out to my friend from Colorado that before he praises this legislation too much, he should make sure there really is a strategy to turn it into a law, because I am very skeptical that you will ever see this bill coming back from here, very skeptical. If I had to bet, I would bet these provisions which you like and which you think make this into an attractive proposition and a serious attempt will never be seen again.

I simply want to add one other point: one day I would like you to explain to me how the employee verification system, which I think, like you do, is a critical part of dealing with the problem of illegal immigration, will ever get implemented in the context of 10, 11, 12 million people in this country in unauthorized status.

I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

Mr. Chairman, without accepting the gentleman's assumptions about the worthiness of the bill, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. Chairman, parliamentary inquiry.

Are we now voting on the Sensenbrenner amendment to reduce the crimes on illegal immigrants?

To soften the penalties?

Mr. Chairman, this is a very important amendment because if this amendment passes, we go down the slippery slope of 1986.

There are three parts of this amendment. It takes the base bill, which creates one of the four steps, one of the four pillars that I think are vital to doing something about illegal immigration, which is a meaningful employer verification system. And it says, essentially, the penalties for employers who do not use that system and hire people in violation of our law, they get one free bite. They say they did not know, they were acting in good faith, penalty totally waived.

Secondly, you provide a safe harbor for subcontractors. Everybody knows what goes on in agriculture and in construction. Growers hardly at all hire the people anymore. They bring in a farm labor contractor. He hires somebody else. They get the coyote. They go out and they recruit. I did not know what the guy was doing? I get a safe harbor.

They create dummy subs. They have no assets. There are no meaningful penalties. They go off scot-free. This amendment gives them a safe harbor.

This is the employer's way of dealing with your effort to try to deal with illegal immigration, weaken and undermine the whole structure of a comprehensive system.

Now, everyone knows that I do not like the bill because it is not comprehensive, but the way to make this bill right is not to go and do the employers' work in getting them out of the problem. That was our flaw in 1986. Employer sanctions were a joke. If this amendment passes, employer sanctions are once again a joke. And you will be back here in 20 years with millions of more undocumented workers brought in by employers who have no accountability.

And the third part is you put caps on the maximum penalties. The exploitation and money that could be made by hiring people who are afraid to complain, who are willing to work at very low wages and maybe under the minimum wages of our own laws and of the States they are working in, and you now cap the penalties. The bill before it had a serious strengthening of the penalties for these activities by unscrupulous employers. Now you have put a cap on them.

So a safe harbor when they go out to a contractor, so they have no liability. Their first violation, they get it waived. They say, I did not know. I was acting in good faith. I did not know, even though you have a verification system under this bill. And then you put caps on it so that they can make an economic test, that it makes more sense to find the undocumented person who will work at a very low wage at very long hours under very onerous conditions, that they make more money by that, and they have a cap penalty that they know they never have to go beyond.

Do not do this and claim you are serious about dealing with illegal immigration. This is a gaping whole in the whole structure of your legislation.

I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Listen to Mr. Kolbe, Mr. Upton and Mr. Hayworth. This rule will bring to the floor a bill which is an insult to the intelligence of the American people and an insult to the intelligence of this body. We can have all kinds of debates; guest worker, no guest worker; birthright citizenship, no birthright citizenship; fence, no fence. These are legitimate arguments to have. But a bill that the Speaker of the House, the chairman of the Rules Committee and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee know cannot solve the crisis of illegal immigration, they know from the start, that they bring up and ask this body to pass in order to tell the American people they are doing something about a problem they know cannot be solved by the bill they are presenting is insulting the intelligence and trying to con the American people. This rule should be rejected for that reason.

In this bill is an employer-eligibility system which is a critical component of a comprehensive approach to dealing with illegal immigration. How are you ever going to impose effectively an employer- verification system where every person who is hired and every person who is now working has to be verified by the Social Security Administration when you have 11 million people in this country, almost all of whom are working except for the children, almost all of whom are working in undocumented fashion for an employer, the heart of the perishable fruit and vegetable industry, the heart of a number of other industries in this country, and expect that system to pass. This is a con.

There are only two things going on. Mr. J.D. Hayworth is right: Either they expect the Senate to add the program for adjustment of status and guest workers and bring it back to the floor to the squeals of many of the people on the other side of the aisle, or they intend never to see this bill again but say for the next elections that they are solving a problem or trying to solve a problem that they know intellectually and personally and have said over and over and over again in conversations and in the press will not solve the problem.

Vote no on the rule. Reject this con, put together a proposal that solves the crisis in illegal immigration, that does something about the national security issues that illegal immigration threatens, that does something about the humanitarian tragedy that now exists, that recognizes the crisis and that provides the solution that the American people are entitled to.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman yielding me the time.

I am told that the chairman of the committee, I was not on the floor, in his comments after our ranking member spoke said, This shows the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. Democrats are for amnesty. Republicans are not.

I remember back in the campaign in 1968 for President, or one in one of his races for Governor, George Wallace made the comment that, No one was going to out-``seg'' me.

Those kinds of charges and that kind of misuse of language is done by people who know that they are trying to fool the American people into thinking they are doing something.

This bill will never become law. It may pass this House, but it will never become law for the very reasons that it does not take a comprehensive approach to the problem.

The chairman of the Judiciary Committee says it is already illegal to come to this country without permission, without a visa of one kind or another; and he is right. That is why we call them illegal immigrants. And he says, so all we are doing with this bill is dealing with the people who came legally and then overstayed. I guess that is because the first part of it, dealing with the people who came here illegally, has worked so well. That is why every year hundreds of thousands of people are able to cross this border and work in this country. A few do some horrible things. But they come and the law has not made a difference. Unless you take a comprehensive approach, you will never solve the problem.

If what the chairman defines as amnesty is amnesty, then George Bush is for amnesty; John Cornyn, the Senator from Texas, is for amnesty; Senator Kyl of Arizona is for amnesty; and the chairman himself by saying that there needs to be a guest worker program eventually is for amnesty, because when the people who came here illegally get to come back into this country, because they have left or they have applied from within this country to work in our fields or our restaurants or other industries that have become heavily reliant on unauthorized workers, we are saying you get to do what you came here to do even though you committed an illegal act.

The fact in 1986 was not amnesty. None of the proposals now for a comprehensive immigration proposal include amnesty because they are all based on meeting certain future obligations, paying fines, continuing to work, coming out of the shadows, going through a background, learning whether or not they have committed any criminal acts other than the entrance here.

At the heart of why this bill will never become law are the reasons that the gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert) spoke to. In this bill is a very logical employer verification system. It was what was missing from the 1986 bill. It is why the 1986 bill did not work. But everyone knows you can never implement an employer verification system unless you deal with the 11 million people who are now in this country. Because otherwise every grower, every restaurant owner, every hotel, every tourism industry, huge numbers of construction firms are all going to get the answer back on this verification system: the person you have working for you is not here legally; you will have to fire them. They will be closed down.

That will never happen. The employers of this country will never let that pass, because this bill will not even allow us to offer an amendment to make it comprehensive, to accept every one of the provisions, some of them to my way of thinking are draconian and over broad, but accept every one of the provisions of this bill and just add that aspect of the bill that can make for a coherent whole. They will not even let us bring that as an amendment.

I urge that Members of this House rise above the demagoguery that is going on about who stands for what and oppose this bill until we are allowed the chance to vote for a tough, comprehensive bill that does something real about illegal immigration.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask my colleagues to join in saluting my good friend Chief United States District Judge Consuelo B. Marshall. Judge Marshall has stepped down from her role as Chief Judge and was honored by the Los Angeles Chapter of the Federal Bar Association on December 6, 2005, for her lifetime commitment to public service.

Judge Marshall has devoted her distinguished career to the struggle for civil rights, justice and tolerance for all people. After service as Deputy City Attorney for the City of Los Angeles, and a period with the firm of Cochran & Atkins, she was appointed as a commissioner on the Los Angeles Superior Court where she was assigned to Juvenile Court, Family Court, and Civil law and Motions. In 1976, she became an Inglewood Municipal Court Judge. In 1977, she was elevated to Los Angeles Superior Court Judge and assigned to the criminal division. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the United States District Court for the Central District of California and in 2001, she became the first woman to serve as Chief Judge of that District--an outstanding achievement.

Judge Marshall is an exceptional woman whose accomplishments are legion. The Los Angeles County Bar Association recently named Judge Marshall the Outstanding Jurist of the Year. She is also the recipient of numerous other awards, including the Los Angeles County Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Award, the Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Thomas Bradley Distinguished Citizen Award, the Women Lawyers Association Los Angeles Ernestine Stahlhut Award, the Langston Bar Association Bernard S. Jefferson Jurist of the Year Award, and many more, too numerous to mention.

In addition to her professional duties, Judge Marshall generously contributes her time and energy to many worthwhile organizations. She currently serves on the Los Angeles Board of Governors of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers. She served as a member of the Board of Directors for the Weingart Center, a non-profit facility providing health and social services for the homeless, and the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. She also served on the United States Sentencing Commission's Drug Violence Task Force which was created in an effort to understand the relationship between drugs and violence.

Judge Marshall was a well respected and admired faculty member of The Rutter Group and the Trial Advocacy Workshop at Harvard Law School and has lectured extensively in many parts of the world.

It is my distinct honor to salute Consuelo Marshall for the exemplary leadership she has shown as a Judge and for her outstanding contribution to the field of law.