Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, today I notified Speaker Ryan, Leader Pelosi and Governor Snyder of my retirement from the United States House of Representatives.

It has been a privilege and an honor to serve the citizens of Detroit, Michigan as their United States Congressman in the 13th and 14th Congressional District for more than 50 years.

I came to Congress in 1965. Since then, I have devoted my entire career to improving the lives of my constituents in Detroit and fighting for justice everywhere. These years witnessed a profound evolution in civil rights, led by millions in the streets who marched for justice, and people of conscience in the Congress--both Democrats and Republicans--who heard them and enacted the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and other landmark reforms.

I have been at the forefront of the civil rights movement, I have been a champion of justice for the oppressed and the disenfranchised. I have never wavered in my commitment to justice and democracy. I am proud to have been part of that rich history.

I have been privileged to be a founder of the Congressional Black Caucus and to represent the United States Congress as Dean. I spearheaded and passed the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Act, the Violence Against Women Act, the Hate Crimes Act, the USA Freedom Act, and the extensions of the Voting Rights Act into law. I have led the fight against mandatory minimum sentences, hoping to reverse the devastating incarceration rates for African Americans and poor people, I have tried to pass a universal healthcare law (H.R. 676) every Congress since 1989. I have introduced H.R. 40 to study reparations for slavery, and I deeply appreciate those handful of courageous colleagues who have joined me.

For Detroiters, I am proud of what we have been able to accomplish by bringing hundreds of millions of dollars in critical grants and federal funding to Southeast Michigan to revitalize our great city, attract rich talent, and return us to prosperity.

I vehemently deny any and all allegations of harassment or dishonor, but I recognize that in this present environment, due process will not be afforded to me. I was taught by a great woman, my mother, to honor women. The first employee I ever hired was Mrs. Rosa Parks, who worked in my office for 22 years. It has been a great honor to work alongside some of the most talented and honorable staff on Capitol Hill and in Detroit, both women and men.

Given the totality of the circumstance of not being afforded the right to due process, in conjunction with my current health condition, and to preserve my legacy and good name, I am retiring.

I hope that my retirement will be viewed in the larger perspective of my record of service, and as I enter a new chapter, I pledge to continue my commitment to a progressive vision and a better future for this country that I love. I owe that to the legacy of my father, John Conyers, Sr., who integrated labor unions in this country; to my brother Nathan, who integrated business and is my ``main man'' and to my loving wife Monica, my sons John III, whom I believe offers hope to this generation of leadership, and who is committed to being an advocate of fairness and justice for all, and Carl Edward who never leaves my side.

I cannot allow the great work of this body or the important work or the goals of the Democratic Party to be distracted. It has been the greatest honor and privilege of my life to represent the people of Michigan in the House of Representatives, but that responsibility will now fall to my colleagues and my successor. They have my deepest support and prayers. Jobs, Justice, Peace.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to be here to support--well, I don't think it is going to be support. It is really more in opposition to this so-called Sunshine for Regulations and Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act.

Well, why? Well, because it is anticonsumer.

Well, why? Because it is antienvironment.

Well, why? Because it is antiprivacy.

Not surprisingly, a broad consortium of more than 150 organizations strenuously oppose this bill, including some of our best nonprofits: the National Resources Defense Council, for example; the Sierra Club, for another example; Public Citizen; and a lot of labor organizations and other groups.

Title I of this bill, for example, has one goal: it is to discourage the use of settlement agreements and consent decrees that compel agencies to follow the law.

When enacting new statutes, Congress routinely establishes deadlines for agency action, particularly when it involves urgent public health and safety concerns. When agencies fail to meet these deadlines, a party with standing may file a lawsuit under section 7 of the Administrative Procedure Act to ensure that the agency performs this mandatory, nondiscretionary duty. By delaying the enforcement of statutory deadlines, the bill, however, jeopardizes public health and safety, which explains why the previous Obama administration issued a veto threat to similar legislation considered only last Congress.

Title I imposes nearly impossible hurdles for agencies seeking to resolve the deadline lawsuits and gives opponents of regulation multiple opportunities to stifle agency regulatory actions.

With respect to consent decrees concerning a rulemaking, an agency would be forced to go through two public comment periods--one for the consent decree, and one for the rulemaking that results from the consent decree--doubling the agency's effort. In addition, it would allow any affected party to intervene in opposition to a proposed settlement agreement or consent decree.

Contrary to the claims of those who support this measure, the Government Accountability Office has found no evidence that these deadline lawsuits are collusive. As the Justice Department, which represents most Federal agencies, acknowledged earlier this year, these agencies are left with few defenses, if any, to these lawsuits.

I am also concerned that H.R. 469 will inevitably generate more litigation that will result in millions of dollars of additional transactional costs, all of which will be borne by you know who--the American taxpayer.

For example, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, in its analysis of the bill's predecessor from the last Congress, concluded:

The measure would impose millions of dollars in additional

costs, most of which would be incurred because the litigation

involving consent decrees and settlement agreements would

probably take longer under the bill, and agencies would face

additional administrative requirements.

That is a quotation. In other words, Title I of this bill is a costly solution, again, in search of a problem.

Now, Title II of the bill isn't much better. For instance, Title II overrides the Privacy Act to require publication of sensitive personal information of victims of government abuse or unlawful conduct, which raises serious privacy concerns.

Although proponents of this measure argue it will increase government transparency, its real effect will be to force the Treasury Department to publish, on the Internet, the names of individual victims of government misconduct compensated for their claims by the Judgment Fund, including victims of race and sex discrimination, and so, in effect, revictimizing victims harmed by the Federal Government.

Finally, Title III would facilitate the ability of the House majority to intervene in pending cases where the Justice Department has already determined that it will not defend the constitutionality of a Federal law.

Not only do these provisions raise possible separation of powers concerns, it is unclear why they are even needed.

This measure has not ever been the subject of a single hearing or markup by the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives. As a result, there has not been any opportunity to consider these critical issues and to analyze the ramifications presented by Title III.

For all of these reasons, I must, accordingly, urge my colleagues to oppose H.R. 469.

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

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, my amendment would exempt from H.R. 469 settlement agreements and consent decrees intended to prevent discrimination based on race, religion, national origin, or other protected category.

Given the often systemic nature of discriminatory conduct, settlement

agreements and consent decrees provide an invaluable means to provide for general relief for non-identifiable victims and to prevent future discriminatory acts.

In particular, they are instrumental in enforcing critical civil rights protections in a wide variety of cases, including voting rights violations and predatory lending practices based on race. Other examples include the use of consent decrees by the Justice Department to address unconstitutional police pattern or practice activities.

For example, in 2003, the City of Detroit entered into a consent decree with the Justice Department concerning the inappropriate use of force and arrest practices by the city's police department. As a result of this decree, the police department implemented vastly improved practices that have substantially reduced the incidence of fatalities caused by law enforcement activities, a goal that the Judiciary Committee Chairman Goodlatte and I very much endorse.

According to the department's civil rights division, these decrees facilitate institutional reforms, such as improving systems for supervising officers and holding them accountable for misconduct, as well as ensuring officers have the policy guidance, training, equipment, and other resources necessary for constitutional and effective policing.

Unfortunately, H.R. 469 would make the use of such remedies exceedingly difficult by subjecting them to numerous procedural and potentially meritless court challenges.

A particularly concerning provision of this bill is its broad and ill-defined authorization allowing virtually anyone to intervene with respect to a proposed settlement agreement or consent decree.

For example, imagine a proposed settlement agreement intended to restrict a city's school district from discriminating against Muslims. Under the bill, any anti-Muslim or neo-Nazi organization could petition the court to intervene for the purpose of opposing such agreement on the ground that it ``would affect'' such person.

This is just one of the many fundamental problems presented by this thoroughly flawed and, I think, harmful measure, and, so, accordingly, I ask my colleagues here to join me in opposing H.R. 469.

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

Mr. Chairman, although H.R. 469 has many flaws, I am particularly concerned that the bill's broad and ill-defined requirements would effectively delay and possibly deter civil enforcement agencies from providing general relief in discrimination cases, discourage courts from enforcing these settlements, and also invite costly and needless litigation.

In response to this problem, my amendment would simply exclude from the bill's burdensome requirements settlement agreements and consent decrees intended to remediate generalized harms in civil rights cases.

Mr. Chairman, this is a commonsense amendment, and I urge my colleagues here to support it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. Chairman, the Stop Settlement Slush Funds Act would prohibit the Federal Government from entering into or enforcing any settlement agreement requiring donations to remediate harms that are not ``directly and proximately'' caused by a wrongdoer's unlawful conduct.

I, regretfully, oppose this measure for several reasons. To begin with, the bill would prohibit these types of settlement agreements even though they have been successfully used to remedy various harms, particularly those caused by reckless corporate actors.

For example, these settlement agreements helped facilitate an effective and comprehensive response to the predatory and fraudulent mortgage lending activities of financial institutions that nearly caused the economic collapse of our Nation, and that led to the Great Recession.

In fact, settlement agreements with two of these culpable financial institutions, Bank of America and Citigroup, required a donation of less than 1 percent of the overall settlement amount to fund foreclosure prevention and remediation programs to help harmed consumers.

Now, contrary to the majority's claim, the Justice Department did not use any of these settlement agreements to fund active groups. Notwithstanding the production of hundreds of pages of documents by the Justice Department, along with hundreds of pages of documents produced by private parties, we have not seen a shred of evidence that the government included unlawful or politically motivated terms in its settlement agreements with Bank of America or Citigroup.

The majority also asserts that these settlement agreements are used by the Justice Department and other agencies to circumvent the congressional appropriations process. But existing law already prevents agencies from augmenting their own funds.

By law, donations included in settlement agreements must have a clear nexus to the prosecutorial objectives of the enforcement agency. And both the Government Accountability Office and the Congressional Research Service have concluded that settlement agreements providing for secondary remediation do not violate Congress' constitutional power of the purse.

Finally, H.R. 732 would prevent the remediation of systemic harms in civil and criminal enforcement actions.

These settlement agreements allow parties to resolve their civil or criminal liability by voluntarily remediating the harms caused by their unlawful conduct. For some types of unlawful conduct, such as discrimination based on race or religion, secondary remediation of harms may be the only remedy available for systemic violations of the law.

The victims of such conduct are typically not themselves parties to the underlying action. Therefore, secondary remediation in the form of voluntary compliance and training programs serves as an important tool in these cases to protect victims of discrimination. Yet H.R. 732 would effectively prohibit such relief.

Given these serious problems and some others presented by the bill, I strongly am led to oppose H.R. 732.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline), a distinguished member of the House Judiciary Committee, who is ranking member on the Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen).

Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentleman from Tennessee an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler), who is the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson), who is a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), the ranking member of the Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 20 seconds to the gentlewoman.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks).

Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, in closing, I note that a broad coalition of public interest organizations, including Public Citizen, Americans for Financial Reform, the National Urban League, among others, strongly oppose H.R. 732. They warn: ``This measure would undermine law enforcement goals by reducing the availability of suitable remedies to address these kind of injuries to the public caused by illegal conduct.''

This bill is, in effect, a gift to lawbreakers that comes at the expense of families and communities impacted by injuries that cannot be addressed by direct restitution, and so I have to ask: Why are we giving a gift to lawbreakers in the guise of H.R. 732?

If you value, as I do, upholding the rule of law, then you will join me and many others in opposing this seriously flawed measure.

I thank everyone who has participated in this discussion, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, Members of the House, this amendment makes a bad bill even worse. To begin with, it would prohibit cy-pres distributions pursuant to which parties attempt to find the next best use of funds that remain after a class action settlement has been finally administered. Cy-pres is especially important in actions where the recovery is so small for an individual class member that he or she may not bother to make a claim or where a distribution is not practical.

For example, courts under cy-pres may permit unclaimed settlement funds to provide indirect compensation to the class, such as future price reductions or remediation efforts. As a result of this amendment, however, the unclaimed settlement funds would be returned to the very entities that caused the injury in the first place. Simply put, this amendment would benefit the wrongdoers to the detriment of the victims they harmed.

In addition, this amendment would restrict the amount of compensation a victim could receive under a settlement agreement to the extent the victim was actually harmed by the wrongdoer. The amendment completely ignores the pragmatic realities of systemic harms, such as widespread long-term or latent environmental damage like lead-contaminated public water drinking systems--think of Flint, Michigan--where the extent of a victim's exposure to such harms may be difficult and, perhaps, even impossible to quantify.

In a letter opposed to this amendment, a group of public interest organizations, including Earthjustice, Public Citizen, Alliance for Justice, the Center for Justice & Democracy, and the American Association for Justice, said it is terrible public policy because wrongdoers would benefit from a windfall for cheating and harming consumers, undoing the accountability or deterrence function of the entire settlement. This is absolutely the wrong result, and so I urge that this amendment be rejected.

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

Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, my amendment would exempt from H.R. 732 settlement agreements that direct funds to remediate the indirect but catastrophic effects of unlawful conduct resulting in lead contamination in public drinking water.

Lead contamination in public drinking water is potentially a national public health crisis as older cities continue to rely on aging lead pipes for the delivery of public drinking water.

A report from the American Water Works Association estimates that this problem could potentially affect millions of water service lines. For example, Highland Park, located in my district, has been dealing with issues resulting from aging lead pipes. Just last month, officials closed public water fountains and fixtures due to unsafe samples of lead in public drinking water.

The well-publicized Flint water crisis is another painful example of the disastrous consequences of lead contamination in public drinking water.

The director of the pediatric residents at Hurley Children's Hospital in Flint wrote: ``To understand the contamination of this city, think about drinking water through a straw coated in lead. As you sip, lead particles flake off into the water and are ingested. Flint's children have been drinking water through lead-coated straws.''

The Flint water crisis has generated numerous lawsuits by individuals, local and State agencies, and public interest organizations such as the Natural Resources Defense Council and the American Civil Liberties Union.

While these cases tend to involve numerous victims directly affected by unlawful conduct, they can also affect the interests of persons who are not parties to the case or are likely to receive compensation for unlawful conduct.

Given the systemic nature of lead contamination in drinking water, settlement agreements resolving civil and criminal liability related to the Flint water crisis may require setting aside funds for unidentifiable victims, directing payments to address generalized harm, or establishing an environmental compliance program to avoid lead contamination in the future.

Unfortunately, these entirely legitimate forms of indirect remediation of environmental harms would be prohibited by H.R. 732.

Mr. Chair, accordingly, I urge my colleagues to support the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee).

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

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, in my role as a member of the House Committee on the Judiciary, I have always taken a serious view of my oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigations. It is vitally important that we keep a close watch on the activities of law enforcement, especially regarding their operations in domestic intelligence gathering. In the wake of September 11th attacks, a time of crisis when civil liberties can be viewed as a luxury, it was important to ensure that all Americans could rely on the Constitution to both protect our rights and protect public safety.

As we all know, the FBI has a long, troubling history of using its broad investigatory powers to vulnerable or dissenting groups in our society. As a long-serving member, I was here in Congress when the reports of the FBI's surveillance activities against African-American groups involved in the struggle for civil rights first surfaced in the press.

Centralized operations under COINTELPRO officially began in August 1956 with a program designed to ``increase factionalism, cause disruption and win defections'' inside American Communist Party. Tactics included anonymous phone calls, IRS audits, and the creation of documents that would divide the American communist organization internally. An October 1956 memo from Hoover reclassified the FBI's ongoing surveillance of black leaders, including it within COINTELPRO, with the justification that the movement was infiltrated by communists.

In 1956, Hoover sent an open letter denouncing Dr. T.R.M. Howard, a civil rights leader, surgeon, and wealthy entrepreneur in Mississippi who had criticized FBI inaction in solving recent murders of George W. Lee, Emmett Till, and other black people in the South. When the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), was founded in 1957, the FBI began to monitor and target the group almost immediately, focusing particularly on Bayard Rustin, Stanley Levison, and, eventually, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. During the 1960's Director J. Edgar Hoover also used COINTELPRO to spy on and attempt to discredit civil rights activists and members of the Black Panther Party.

After the 1963 March on Washington, Hoover singled out King as a major target for COINTELPRO. Soon after, the FBI was systematically bugging King's home and his hotel rooms, as they were now aware that King was growing in stature daily as the leader among leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. Amidst the urban unrest of July-August 1967, the FBI began ``COINTELPRO--BLACK HATE'', which focused on King and the SCLC as well as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), the Deacons for Defense and Justice, Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the Nation of Islam. BLACK HATE established the so-called Ghetto Informant Program and instructed 23 FBI offices to ``disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of black-nationalist hate type organizations.''

The program was successfully kept secret until 1971, when the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI burgled an FBI field office in Media, Pennsylvania, took several dossiers, and exposed the program by passing this material to news agencies. In 1976, the ``Church Committee'' (Sen. Frank Church-Idaho) launched a major investigation of the FBI and COINTELPRO. Journalists and historians speculate that the government has not fully released the many dossiers and documents related to the program.

Against this backdrop, the Congressional Black Caucus is justified in its concern about the FBI's investigation of African-American political organizations. The coining of the phrase ``Black Identity Extremists'' and claims with ``high confidence'' that these groups are likely to target law enforcement based on ``perceptions of police brutality against African Americans'' takes us back to claims about groups like the Black Panthers in the 1960's.

While it is important that the FBI monitor all threats domestic, its activities around the American Muslim community and efforts to ``combat violent extremism'' have raised questions about tactics and constitutional norms. The CBC has called for an FBI briefing on the origins on this research and the Bureau's intended next steps. I have supported this request in my role as Ranking Member on the Judiciary Committee and intend to keep a close eye on the Bureau's activities. This is not the time for a COINTELPRO 2.0 in America.

Mr. Speaker, as the Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee, I join with my colleague, Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations, in expressing our appreciation for Regina Milledge-Brown's service to the Committee.

Regina has enjoyed a distinguished career in service to our Nation. Regina is an employee of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), who joined us on detail at the beginning of this year. An attomey who graduated from the University of Georgia School of Law, Regina has worked for over fifteen years at ATF in various capacities. In her detail to the Committee, her experience with law enforcement and firearms issues has been an invaluable assistance to the Members and staff of the Committee.

Regina has worked on a variety of important issues as the Committee has pursued its legislative and oversight agenda during 2017. In addition to her work on firearms-related issues, Regina has worked on issues such as hate crimes prevention, forensics, DNA identification, law enforcement grants, the protection of law enforcement officers, operation of federal prisons, reauthorization of the United States Secret Service, protecting the victims of trafficking, and preventing violence against women.

In these and other legislative issues, Regina has displayed a high degree of professionalism and personal commitment, providing Members of the Committee and staff with wise counsel.

In all of this, Regina has demonstrated magnanimity, energy, and enthusiasm, which has helped all of us immensely.

We thank Regina for her selfless service to the Committee and our country, and wish her the very best as she returns to the ATF at the end of her detail.

All of her colleagues here will miss her dearly and continue to value her friendship into the future.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the contributions of an extraordinary individual, Michael Lieberman, who in September celebrated 35 years at the Anti-Defamation League. Over his 35 year tenure with ADL, Michael has made invaluable contributions to the civil rights community on issues such as religious freedom, fighting anti- Semitism and all forms of discrimination, and striking the right balance between security and civil liberties.

As ADL's Washington Counsel, his advocacy for hate crime legislation is particularly noteworthy. Michael worked to secure passage of a comprehensive federal hate crimes law for more than 15 years. His leadership on this issue was instrumental in the passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which was signed into law by President Obama in 2009. Michael also chairs the Hate Crime Coalition for the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the most important civil rights coalition organization in Washington, and is widely recognized as one of our nation's foremost experts on hate crime laws.

As ADL's point person on Federal and state response to bullying and bias-motivated violence, Michael has participated in a number of academic and law enforcement training seminars on the subject-- including training at the FBI Academy at Quantico. He has written numerous pieces on the issue, including training manuals and articles for criminal justice and civil rights publications. In 2015 he received the Justice Department's 2015 Meritorious Public Service Award for his leadership work in building coalitions to combat hate violence.

Michael embodies ADL's mission. He works tirelessly to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all. His entire career has focused on making the world a better place for all individuals, regardless of who they are or where they came from. He is a remarkable professional, mentor, and friend. Everyone that has an opportunity to work with Michael is constantly impressed by his drive and passion to make a difference. His work at the League has made an impact on countless lives, and we thank him for his substantial contributions to the community and our nation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. 782, the Providing Resources, Officers, and Technology to Eradicate Cyber Threats to Our Children Act of 2017, and thank my colleague from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), who has worked so diligently on this matter.

Mr. Speaker, this bill authorizes appropriations for this program in the amount of $60 million for each fiscal year from 2018 through 2022. These figures are consistent with current appropriated levels.

We must continue to protect our children from the daily threats that permeate the electronic platform and endanger the well-being of our children.

Earlier this morning, as has been said, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations held a hearing addressing these very problems. As ranking member of that committee, I vow to continue my commitment toward eradicating this infectious poison that has claimed the innocence of so many of our youths.

I look forward to working with my colleagues and others on these very important issues. That is why I support the measures put forth in this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of S. 178, the Elder Abuse Prevention and Prosecution Act. I thank the chairman of the Judiciary Committee for his excellent work in this area.

This legislation would increase protections for elder abuse victims, which is very important, as a vast majority of cases of abuse, neglect, and exploitation of older adults in the United States often go unreported and unaddressed.

Each year, nearly $3 billion is taken from older adults due to financial abuse and exploitation, and this is happening across all racial, social, economic, gender, and geographic lines.

This important measure increases protections for victims by, first, ensuring support for Federal cases involving elder abuse. This support will include the requirement that the Attorney General designate at least one assistant United States attorney to serve as an elder justice coordinator in every judicial district to prosecute, train, assist with, and conduct public outreach on elder abuse.

Additionally, this measure would also require that the Executive Office for United States Attorneys operate an elder abuse resource group and a working group to advise the Justice Department on elder abuse issues.

Secondly, this measure would require the establishment of best practices for local, State, and Federal data collection to focus on elder abuse, including, for example, the total number of Federal investigations of elder abuse and locations where cases are filed.

Findings under this legislation include the fact that older adults who are abused are three times more likely to die earlier than older adults of the same age who are not abused, and that up to half of all older adults with dementia will experience abuse.

For these reasons, a third component of this measure that I find extremely important and valuable is the enhanced victim assistance to elder abuse survivors. This measure would require that an annual report be submitted to Congress on the funding under the Victims of Crime Act of 1984 for victims of crimes who are elders.

And finally, this measure adds a new definition of ``telemarketing and email marketing'' under the telemarketing statute to protect victims of such scams, which typically involve elders.

We must do everything possible to support victims of elder abuse and prevent the abuse from occurring in the first place. And so for these several reasons, I am very pleased to support the bill with the chairman of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, the elder abuse problem has devastating consequences to the victims as well as their loved ones, and it is an affront to America's older adults. It involves the exploitation of some of our most vulnerable citizens.

This measure includes a multipronged approach to prevent elder abuse and exploitation, protect the victims of elder abuse and exploitation from further harm, and bring the perpetrators of these crimes to justice. Accordingly, I am pleased to urge my colleagues to support this measure.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin my remarks today by extending my condolences to the family and friends of the 59 individuals killed in the shooting in Las Vegas, and I express my best hopes for the recovery of the more than 500 persons who were injured.

This Congress has a responsibility to find a way to prevent tragedies like this, as well as the daily incidents of gun violence in our communities, but instead of considering legislation to prevent gun violence, the House is spending today pushing a 20-week abortion ban that will disproportionately hurt women and families who face some of the most medically complex situations imaginable.

So it is with great pleasure that I oppose H.R. 36, because it is a dangerous and far-reaching attack on a woman's constitutional right to choose whether or not to terminate a pregnancy.

Roe v. Wade's basic holding is that a woman has a constitutional right to have an abortion prior to the fetus' viability, which is generally considered by the experts to be around 24 weeks from fertilization. By banning previability abortions, H.R. 36 is a direct challenge to Roe.

Another serious flaw, in my view, of H.R. 36 is that its narrow rape exception completely misconstrues the difficult challenges that survivors of sexual assault face and the very real reasons why a rape or incest may go unreported. So by requiring that a rape or incest survivor provide documentation to corroborate her statement that she was raped, the bill's sponsors seem to be saying that maybe women cannot be trusted to tell the truth about sexual assault, and they certainly cannot be trusted to make their own private healthcare decisions.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this dangerous and mean-spirited legislation.

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

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen).

Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman

from Colorado (Ms. DeGette), the co-chair of the Pro-Choice Caucus.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal), a member of the Judiciary Committee.

I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutch), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. DelBene).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. McEachin).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Adams).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Speier).

Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Madam Speaker, how much time remains on each side?

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Ms. Clark).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Frankel).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Bonamici).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Carbajal).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), who is a senior member on the Judiciary Committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman from Texas an additional 30 seconds.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel).

Madam Speaker, how much time remains on both sides?

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, in closing, H.R. 36 is a dangerous and unconstitutional bill that demonstrates a fundamental distrust of women to make private decisions that are best for themselves and their families. It is, therefore, unsurprising that this legislation is strongly opposed by the Nation's leading civil rights organizations, the medical profession, and women's groups.

In addition, 36 religious organizations noted in a letter to Members opposing this bill that the decision to end a pregnancy must be left to an individual woman, in consultation with her

family, doctors, and any others she chooses to involve, in keeping with her personal beliefs.

Madam Speaker, for these reasons, I urge my colleagues to please oppose this dangerous legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate the people of Taiwan on the 106th anniversary of their republic, celebrated on October 10th. October 10th, known in Taiwan as ``Double Ten Day'', is revered by the Taiwanese people--just as Fourth of July is here in the United States. It commemorates the Wuchang Uprising, which triggered a revolution that led to the overthrow of China's imperial regime and the establishment of the Republic of China.

Since the Republic of China was founded on January 1, 1912, the people of Taiwan have developed a democracy of which they should be proud. They are our 10th largest trading partner, including more than $200 million in purchases from my home state of Michigan. They are an economically and socially growing nation, that has recently implemented a single-payer National Health Insurance (NHI) system. This system is similar to legislation that I have been championing in the U.S. House for more than a decade, and which Bernie Sanders recently introduced in the U.S. Senate. I believe that America has much to learn from this work, and I am eager to see them succeed in guaranteeing their citizens a universal right to healthcare--a practice America would do well to follow.

I also want to commend the people of Taiwan on their success this past year, in which they inaugurated their first female president--a first not only for the island, but also the first woman elected head of state in Asia in her own right, who was not related to a notable male politician.

I want to congratulate my friends across the ocean and wish them a very happy 106th Double Ten Day.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 3229, a bipartisan, commonsense measure intended to protect the safety of federal judges and judicial employees.

The bill accomplishes this critical goal by extending the authority of the Judicial Conference to redact sensitive information contained in the financial disclosure reports filed by these individuals pursuant to the Ethics in Government Act of 1978. Specifically, H.R. 3229 would extend this authority for 10 years, that is, until December 31, 2027.

I am an original cosponsor and strong supporter of this bill for several reasons.

To begin with, absent a further extension of this authority, the Judicial Conference's ability to redact sensitive personal information from the financial disclosure statements filed by judges and judicial employees would cease

and thereby create potentially serious security risks to these individuals.

Judges and judicial employees are often the subject of threats, harassment, and violence. Like probation officers, these individuals routinely interact with disgruntled litigants and convicted criminals who may hold grudges against them.

A resentful litigant seeking to take revenge for a judicial decision can learn of a federal judge's home address, his or her spouse's place of employment, or a child's school, among other types of sensitive information, by requesting a copy of the judge's financial disclosure report.

During 2016, for instance, a federal judge was shot in front of his home, a murder-for-hire plot against a federal judge was uncovered, and threatening letters were sent to other judges.

Fortunately, section 105 of the Ethics in Government Act grants the Judicial Conference the authority to redact certain limited information from financial disclosure reports when the release of such information could endanger a judge, a judicial employee, or a member of their family.

Congress has extended this redaction authority on 5 previous occasions, most recently on January 3, 2012.

Another reason why I support H.R. 3229 is that the Judicial Conference has exercised its redaction authority with demonstrated restraint.

As required by the Ethics in Government Act, the Conference has promulgated regulations requiring a clear nexus between a security risk and the need to redact sensitive information.

In addition, the Act requires the Judicial Conference to report annually to Congress on the number and nature of redactions as well as the reasons for them.

Based on a review of these reports, it is clear that only a small percentage of the financial disclosure reports filed contain an approved redaction of some information in the report.

For example, less than 3 percent of financial reports contained an approved redaction of some information over the past 5 years.

Finally, the need to extend this redaction authority--which will expire in just over 3 months--is a time-sensitive security matter that requires prompt consideration of H.R. 3229.

Accordingly, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 3229, which will simply extend the Judicial Conference's current redaction authority for an additional 10 years.

In closing, I want to commend Congressman Hakeem Jeffries for his leadership on this important legislation. We share his commitment to protecting the security of those public servants who serve in the federal judicial branch.

Accordingly, I urge all of my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, trumpeter and composer Nicholas Payton will be honored this year by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation at the Jazz Concert that will take place during the 47th Annual Legislative Conference. Mr. Payton will perform at the concert with bassist Ben Williams, who will present his Protest Anthology. The concert will take place on Thursday, September 21, 2017, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, in Washington, DC. Mr. Payton will also receive the 2017 CBCF ALC Jazz Legacy Award for his contributions to jazz and world culture. To acquaint you with his accomplishments, I am pleased to share the following biographical information from Mr. Payton's website.

Like a master chef possessing a deft sense of proportion, taste and poetic flair, this forward-looking heir to the traditions of New Orleans blends an array of related musical food groups--Bebop, Swing, the Great American Songbook, New Orleans second-line, Mardi Gras Indian, Instrumental Soul, Rhythm-and-Blues, Urban, Hip-Hop, and various Afro-descended dialects of Central America and the Caribbean-- into a focused sound that is entirely his own argot.

On his latest recording Afro-Caribbean Mixtape, propelled by keyboardist Kevin Hays, bassist Vicente Archer, drummer Joe Dyson, percussionist Daniel Sadownick, and turntablist DJ Lady Fingaz, Payton seamlessly coalesces his interests, drawing on a global array of beats, melodies and harmonic consciousness to serve his lifelong conviction that music is a process by which the practitioner uses notes and tones to map identity and tell a story.

Payton states, ``I've incorporated elements from all the things I've written and spoken about for years. It speaks to the moment politically in an overt way that my other albums don't. On a musical-conceptual level, I think it's my greatest work thus far.''

Payton's aspiration to reclaim and redefine Black American Music fundamentals is a fulfillment of his birthright. He grew up across the street from Louis Armstrong Park, historically known as Congo Square, situated deep in the Treme, the neighborhood home base of many seminal New Orleans musicians and artists. In the 19th century, on Sundays only, enslaved Africans were allowed to gather in the public space of Congo Square to openly express African culture through singing, dancing and the playing of drums. Payton's mother, Maria, is a former operatic singer and a classically-trained pianist, who at 70, still performs in church; his father Walter, a bassist-sousaphonist and music educator was a mainstay on the Crescent City music and recording scene. He would take his young son to gigs. He gifted Nicholas a trumpet when he was four.

``Our house became a rehearsal space for whatever band my father was in,'' Payton recalls. ``We had a big living room and a grand piano, and other instruments. Trumpet appealed to me most of all the instruments I saw around, and I got one for Christmas when I was four.'' In just his childhood, Payton also became a proficient practitioner of tuba, trombone, woodwinds, piano, bass and drums. Before the age of 9, he sat-in with the Young Tuxedo Brass Band, a unit formed at the turn of the century that specialized in traditional repertoire. By 11, he received his first steady gig in the All Star Brass Band, a group of peers led by Trombone Shorty's oldest brother, James Andrews, who were deeply influenced by the rhythmic and harmonic extensions of various bands. Mardi Gras Indian music was in his back yard, and he played no small number of rhythm-and-blues and hip-hop sessions. ``I played all sorts of music,'' Payton says. ``I did everything.''

As a small child, Payton took as role models the ``kool kats'' who attended his father's wee-hours rehearsals: drummers James Black and Herlin Riley; saxophonists Fred Kemp and Earl Turbinton; trumpeter Clyde Kerr, Jr.; and pianists Ellis Marsalis and Professor Longhair.

Not long after joining the All Star Brass Band, Payton started digging into his father's record collection and came across Miles Davis' Four and More, with George Coleman, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams. ``I put on the second side first, and from the moment I heard Tony's 8-bar intro on sock cymbal, I was like, `I want to play music for the rest of my life.' I listened to that record every day, to the point where I learned all the solos. I wasn't trying to transcribe them. I'd just listened to it so much that I learned all the music, every bassline, everything.''

``After that, I listened to Freddie Hubbard, Red Clay, and then I went to Clifford Brown. Then I went to Louis Armstrong, who I wasn't really into at the time. Even though I was playing in brass bands, I saw myself as doing something more modern. Wynton Marsalis and Terence Blanchard were my hometown heroes. I wanted to go to New York and play with Art Blakey, and do what they did. But Wynton told me, `All that stuff you're checking out is cool, but you need to check out Pops.' I was like, `Man, I don't want to listen to that Uncle Tom music.' I thought about the handkerchiefs and bucking eyes, the things that were shameful and debilitating to Black people, and I didn't want any part of it. But through Wynton's influence, I started investigating Armstrong, and found Pops was the catalyst for all of this other stuff that I love and listen to. I developed a simpatico.''

On the strength of his New Orleans upbringing and various concert appearances playing Armstrong repertoire on Jazz at Lincoln Center engagements with Marsalis, Payton--who had already established bona fides as a consequential modernist trumpet voice as a member of Elvin Jones-led ensembles on various tours and albums (Youngblood, Going Home and It Don't Mean A Thing)--was soon branded as ``the second coming of Armstrong.''

With the 2001 Armstrong homage, Dear Louis, Payton said ``farewell to a perspective on playing music in terms of a repertory view of the masters,'' and hello to the notion ``that I would solely create music from my perspective as a young man in this world today.'' That perspective, he adds, ties directly to his formative New Orleans experiences.

In 2014, Payton changed the name of his label from BMF to Paytone and released a trilogy of albums--Numbers, Letters, and Textures--that showcase the fruits of his decision a decade earlier to eschew the practice of writing tunes in favor of ``creating moods, distilling the compositional element to its most essential thing.'' He said: ``If a melody comes into my head while walking through an airport, I'll hum it into my Voice-Memo. If I dream a melody at night, I'll walk to the keyboards in my bedroom and play it into my phone or recorder. I stockpile these ideas, and quite an accumulation of motific themes have built up.''

Payton's ability to infuse early 20th century repertoire with idiomatic authority and life force elicited a comment from the late trumpeter Adolphus ``Doc'' Cheatham, who shared bandstands with the seminal pioneers of the 1920s and beyond, and was 91 when he recorded the Grammy-winning Doc Cheatham & Nicholas Payton in 1996. Doc described Payton, ``He is the greatest of the New Orleans-style trumpet players that I've ever heard. And every time I hear him, he sounds better and better. I haven't heard anybody like him since Louis Armstrong.''

Mr. Speaker, Nicholas Payton is a living jazz treasure and I urge all members to join me in commending him for his magnificent contribution to American and world culture.

Mr. Speaker, the resolution I am introducing today expresses the sense of Congress that it and the states should consider a constitutional amendment to reform the Electoral College and to establish a process for electing the President and Vice President by a national popular vote. The resolution also encourages the states to further their efforts to form an interstate compact to award their Electoral College votes to the national popular vote winner.

This Sunday, September 17 is Constitution Day, marks the 230th anniversary of the Philadelphia Convention's approval of the Constitution. We should rightly celebrate the day that the Framers endorsed the basic framework of our democratic system of government enshrined in our Nation's governing charter. Yet, we should also use this day as an opportunity to reflect on the fact that the Constitution still retains the Electoral College, a fundamentally

anti-democratic process for electing our Nation's highest federal officeholders.

On five occasions in our history, the Electoral College has permitted the national popular vote winner to lose the presidential election, including the most recent election, where Hillary Clinton won nearly 3 million more votes than Electoral College winner Donald Trump. This occurs because a presidential candidate needs only 270 electoral votes and 48 states award their electoral votes on a ``winner-take-all'' basis. As a result, the Electoral College creates perverse incentives for candidates that further distort the presidential campaign process in undemocratic ways.

For example, the Electoral College encourages candidates to focus their campaign efforts on only a handful of so-called swing states. During the last presidential campaign, for example, both major party candidates largely bypassed three of the four states with the largest populations and skipped campaigning in 12 of the 13 smallest states as well.

Additionally, the Electoral College is an anachronistic institution intended, in part, to protect the institution of slavery. According to Yale Law School Professor Akhil Reed Amar, who participated in a forum on Electoral College reform sponsored by House Judiciary Committee Democrats last year, the Electoral College was established, in part, to preserve the political influence of slaveholding states. Although enslaved populations were not allowed to vote, slave states insisted that three-fifths of enslaved persons be counted when determining a state's representation in the House, which in turn affected the number of Electoral College votes allotted to the state.

Given its history and undemocratic nature, it is clear that the Electoral College system must be replaced with a process that determines the election of the president and vice president by a national popular vote. As such, Congress and the States should consider a constitutional amendment to reform the Electoral College.

And, Congress should also encourage the States to reform the Electoral College through the formation of an interstate compact. Eleven states representing 165 electoral votes have already entered into an interstate compact to cast their electoral votes for the national popular vote winner. When enough states--representing 270 electoral votes--join the compact, the presidential election will essentially be determined by national popular vote, obviating the need for a constitutional amendment.

In a democracy, no person's vote should be worth more than any other person's vote. Congress should affirm its commitment to this essential principle and definitively declare that the American people, not state- based Electors, should have the power to directly select the President and Vice President of the United States.

Mr. Speaker, jazz artist Ben Williams will be honored this year by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation at the Jazz Forum and Concert during the 47th Annual Legislative Conference. Mr. Williams, an internationally renowned bassist and composer, will also perform his Protest Anthology at the concert, which will take place on Thursday, September 21, 2017, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, in Washington, D.C. Mr. Williams will receive the 2017 CBCF ALC Jazz Innovator Award for his highly creative and multi-faceted contributions to jazz and world culture.

I am very proud to have known this very talented artist for many years. I am also pleased to share the following details of his impressive career as they appear in his biography.

Ben's mother used to work in my Capitol Hill office. When she took Ben, an energetic and curious six-year-old, into the office on his school break, a watchful eye was in order. One afternoon, while rambling around my personal office, Ben discovered a huge object that instantly captured his imagination. The shiny upright bass was like nothing the kid had ever seen. He tapped on it. He popped a string. He climbed up on it. ``What is this thing?'' he wondered.

Twenty years later, Ben Williams is still surprised at that chance meeting.

``Its low frequency attracted me,'' Williams recalls, ``the way the instrument felt when I touched it. Then later, just the feeling of playing a groove. When you play a bass the whole instrument vibrates. It almost feels like the spirit of another human being. It's like dancing with somebody and being in full contact with them. And the sound of the instrument appealed to me. It's warm and deep and it resonated with me.''

On the eve of his first CD, State of Art, Ben Williams had become one of the most sought after bassists in the world, his resume a who's who of jazz wisdom: Wynton Marsalis, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Terence Blanchard, Christian McBride Big Band, Nicholas Payton,

Paquito D'Rivera, Cyrus Chestnut, Benny Golson, George Duke, Eric Reed, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Roy Hargrove, and Mulgrew Miller, to name a few. State of Art signaled Williams' emergence as a prominent voice in the greater jazz community.

Ben's warm, woody tone, flowing groove, melodic phrasing, and storytelling approach has found favor among not just musicians, but also a larger audience. A bandleader, musical educator, composer, and electric and acoustic bassist, Ben was the winner of the 2009 Thelonious Monk Institute International Jazz Competition, a prestigious and important award that has propelled many a promising career. Working with New York's finest jazz musicians even before graduating from Juilliard, Williams showcased his band, Sound Effect, at The Jazz Gallery in New York, receiving an enthusiastic New York Times review. Writer Nate Chinen stated, ``Williams took several long solos in his first set at The Jazz Gallery . . . and each one felt more like an entitlement than an indulgence.'' Williams has recorded and performed regularly as a member of bands led by saxophonist Marcus Strickland, pianist Jacky Terrasson, and vibraphonist Stefon Harris. He has led his own groups at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, Harlem Stage, Rubin Museum of Art, Tribeca PAC in New York City, and SPAC in Saratoga Springs, NY.

Growing up in a family of musicians, visual artists, and rappers, young Ben Williams didn't plan on being a bassist and band leader. He wanted to be a rock star. His heroes were Prince and Michael Jackson, not Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus. Once again, a chance meeting altered his future.

``I'd been playing piano by ear, but I wanted to play guitar,'' Williams recalls. ``My middle school offered a strings class where figured I could learn guitar. Then I got there and it was all violins and cellos--no guitars. So I choose the coolest instrument I saw, the bass. It just looked right.''

Williams was a natural. He excelled on both bass and piano, and once enrolled at the Duke Ellington High School of the Arts, he became a star student, performing in jazz band, gospel choir, and orchestra, as well as extracurricular gigs. Williams graduated with honors and with a Best in Instrumental Music Award. He won scholarships from the Fish Middleton Scholarship Competition of the East Coast Jazz Festival, the International Society of Bassist's Competition, the Steans Music Institute, the Duke Ellington Jazz Society, the International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE), and the DC Public Schools City- Wide Annual Piano Competition. Williams received his Bachelor's in Music Education at Michigan State University in 2007, and his Master's in Music from the Juilliard School in 2009.

``In high school I dedicated myself to the bass and to jazz,'' Williams says. ``I knew this could be a profession, and if I could do what I love for a living--man, what is better than that? You always feel like a student playing jazz, there is so much to learn. There's never a point where you think you've arrived. I am trying to get better every day. Even Roy Haynes, when you see him play you get a sense that he is still trying to find new things.''

Like many self-aware jazz musicians, Ben Williams has several influences, from ``Wayne Shorter, Stevie Wonder and Duke Ellington'' to ``hip-hop and gospel, Little Dragon, Billy Joel, Marvin Gaye.'' And like his colleagues in the new guard of jazz, Williams is constantly looking ahead, seeking the music's potential and his place in it.

``I've worked with Stefon Harris' Blackout for the past few years,'' Williams cites. ``He has definitely been a huge influence in my concept of playing music. We have a similar viewpoint to music and jazz. He's very much about addressing modern times and not rehashing old material. To really interpret what is happening right now, a lot of jazz musicians are into hip-hop and R&B, but they don't put that into their music. We keep up with the times and we're not afraid to put that into our music.''

To other musician's music Williams brings his great natural skill and determination to explore, to expand boundaries while sustaining tradition. State of Art is a mature statement stamped with his voice, the next step in Ben Williams' evolution.

``I wanted to make an album that regular nine-to-five people could enjoy,'' Williams says; ``and to make a deep artistic statement as well. I like music that grooves, and I make sure that my music feels good.''

``I always bring a certain energy to whatever the musical situation is,'' the soft-spoken musician adds. ``I try to be a team player and be supportive, but also, I try to add my voice to the situation. It's a fine balance between putting your stamp on things and being supportive. I've found that balance pretty well.

``The diversity of my musical upbringing has allowed me to be comfortable in many different musical situations. I don't try to sound like anyone else, I just try to be honest musically and bring a youthful spirit.''

Mr. Speaker, Ben Williams is an accomplished young artist and band leader that has made a lasting impression on jazz as an art and as a field. Ben Williams has become a national jazz treasure of international acclaim, and I urge all Members to join me in commending him for his magnificent contributions.