Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words, and I rise to oppose this amendment.

I have a great deal of interest in education. I have been married to a public school teacher. He taught for 24 years. When I was a graduate of college, I taught public school for a time before I started raising our four children. When I first started being interested in public policy, I ran for our local board of education, and I served there for 4 years before I went into the State legislature in Colorado. One of my committee assignments that I requested right away was the education committee because I feel very strongly that a good education is one of the best tools that we can give a child in order that they might have a successful life.

I have faced the challenges that public school teachers face. I am very appreciative of the job that they do. I am, most of all, however, very respectful of parents. You birth a child, you nurse a child, you get up with them in the middle of the night when they are sick, you try to instruct them on what they should eat, you try to instruct them on how they should behave, you instruct them in the moral arena; but somehow or another when it then comes to education, some people think that parents do not have the ability to make a good choice for their child. Well, of course they have the ability. But most of all they love that child, and they have a very strong desire for that child to be successful.

So who are we, who is anybody to tell parents that they cannot make a choice for their child? And as parents, one of the things that we want to do is we want to have hope for our child's success. We all know our children have different learning styles. Even within a family, children are very different; and parents make various choices for the different children. And I think that we should trust parents to know what is best for their child. I think that we need to empower parents to make an educational choice for their children.

Again, a quality education is one of the best things that we can give a student. It empowers them to make choices in their life. It empowers them to have a realization of success. I think that when parents are seeing their children fail in a school that it is very important that we empower them to make a selection for their child that will give them hope, that will empower them.

When I was on the school board, when I was a teacher, when I was involved in my children's education, one of the things that the educational community continually asked for was parental involvement. Everybody knows that one of the best predictors of a child's success in education is the involvement of their parents. Let us let these parents in D.C. be involved in their children's education.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address one of the most important issues we will debate during the 108th Congress, the reauthorization of TEA-21.

TEA-21 funding ends on September 30, 2003, less than 30 days from now. So far, this Congress has failed to even introduce a reauthorization bill. As our highways, bridges, and city streets fall apart, this House has failed to act, and time is running out.

Tragically, instead of seeking out creative transportation reforms, it seems that many in this body have decided that raising taxes and indexing them to inflation is the best way to be good stewards of taxpayers' money. This idea is not only counter to our Republican ideals, but it also is irresponsible, regressive, and counterproductive to our efforts to pass meaningful tax cuts earlier this year.

When Coloradans sent me to Congress, they did so knowing that I am a fiscal conservative who wants to make government smaller, not bigger. I will not stand idly by while their taxes are being raised. What Member of this body ran on a promise to increase taxes by almost 50 percent? Not one of us. The majority of my colleagues ran on promises of smaller government and lower taxes.

It is time to see a TEA-21 reauthorization bill with meaningful reforms.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 2210.

While the resources spent for Head Start have been very significant, hard-earned dollars of our taxpayers, the results have been mixed. Studies indicate that children who are enrolled in Head Start make some progress, but are still lagging far behind the national average in school readiness.

Let me share some research from Health and Human Services. In 1997, Head Start children entered the program at an average of the 19th percentile in early learning knowledge areas and graduated in the 23rd percentile. That left Head Start students 27 percentile points behind the national average.

In the 1997-98 school yard, Head Start students actually decreased performance in letter recognition.

In 2000, Head Start children entered the program at an average of the 21st percentile in early learning knowledge areas and graduated in the 24th percentile. That left these Head Start children more than 25 percentile points behind the national average.

Sadly, in the 2000-2001 school year, the Head Start students made no gains in letter recognition.

A recent publication by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services again concludes that both higher- and lower-achieving Head Start children have low scores overall and show limited progress after completion of the Head Start program, another way of saying they enter and leave the Head Start program with below average skill and knowledge areas.

We know that disadvantaged children need all the help they can get because in order for them to succeed in school, well before they enter school they have to have this knowledge base. We can predict how they are going to do in school by the progress they have made when they enter. The importance of all children achieving academic parity upon entry into kindergarten is critical, because children who start behind have been shown to never catch up.

I am very much in support of this bill, and I commend the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) and the staff and members for their hard work.

The stakes are high with these disadvantaged children. We need to do everything we can to prepare them for school.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 2210 and in opposition to the substitute. I wish to emphasize the important work that religious organizations do and to support their right to staff on a religious basis.

The landmark Federal law prohibiting religious discrimination in employment includes an explicit exemption for religious employers in section 702(a) of title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and nothing in title VII provides that a religious organization loses its exemption because it receives Federal funds.

Any Federal legislation governing Federal social service funds should continue to protect the rights of religious organizations to hire and staff on a religious basis when they take part in Federal social service efforts. To do otherwise would deny religious organization rights they have enjoyed for decades under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

As the New Republic's legal critic, Jeffrey Rosen, has made clear: ``Preserving churches' ability to fire or refuse to hire people who reject their religious values is . . . necessary to protect religious autonomy and State neutrality.''

Faith-based organizations cannot be expected to sustain their religious drive without the ability to employ individuals who share the tenets and practices of their faith, because it is that faith that motivates them to do the good work they do.

Faith is an idea, not an immutable characteristic. Faith is not tied to the color of one's skin, to one's genetic makeup, or to one's ethnic ancestry. It is a unique blend of emotion and intellect that can be shared by anyone.

I strongly support a religious organization's right to staff on a religious basis, and I commend them for the good work that they do and the good work they will do in regard to Head Start.

Mr. Speaker, it was nearly 5 decades ago in the spring of 1954 that Reed Larson went on what he believed to be a temporary leave from his job as an engineer for the Coleman Company in Wichita, Kansas, in order to lead a new grass-roots advocacy group called Kansans For Right to Work. Larson and his group members were determined to pass a State right-to-work law protecting employees from being forced to join or pay dues to a labor union in order to get or keep a job.

Because they first had to deal with a hostile Governor, the job took longer than originally expected. By the time Kansas's right-to-work law was finally passed in November of 1958, Larson had been on temporary leave from the Coleman Company for 4\1/2\ years. After the Kansas victory, Larson was quickly recruited to lead the then 4-year-old national Right to Work Committee from its headquarters right here in our Nation's Capital and his temporary leave from the Coleman Company became permanent.

For the next 44 years Larson stood at the helm of this organization, which has aptly been hailed as the Nation's preeminent defender of workers' freedom. I rise today to pay tribute to Reed Larson because of his long, selfless commitment to the right-to-work cause and because late last month at Mr. Larson's own recommendation, the board of directors of National Right to Work Committee appointed then executive vice president Mark Mix as the new Right to Work president and Larson as executive committee chairman.

Reed Larson is still fighting for the right-to-work cause, but his role in the coming years will be in a different capacity than during the last 5 decades, marking the end of an era for the National Right to Work Committee and for opponents of forced unionism nationwide.

Mr. Speaker, I have the utmost respect for Mr. Larson's continued involvement with the right-to-work cause. Almost anyone else who had accomplished what Reed Larson has over the past 49 years would be content to rest on his laurels. During the 1950s, roughly 30 percent of private sector employees nationwide were forced to join and remain in a union. If they refused, they would be fired. Today it is 7 percent of private sector employees who are compelled to pay union dues or fees in order to keep their jobs. One major reason it is now possible to envision the day when every American private sector employees enjoys the personal freedom to decide whether or not to affiliate with the union is the invaluable assistance Reed Larson and the National Right to Work Committee has given to State right-to-work efforts.

Thanks largely to the sound advice of Reed Larson and the committee, the number of State right-to-work laws has grown to 22, with the most recent law being approved less than 2 years ago in the State of Oklahoma. Furthermore, not a single right-to-work law that was in effect when Mr. Larson took over the committee in January of 1959 has been repealed or rendered inoperative through court action, although Big Labor has spent countless millions of dollars on bids to destroy such laws.

The most notorious of these schemes was union officials' Capitol Hill campaign to eviscerate all State right-to-work laws through repeal of Taft-Hartley section 14(b) in 1965 and 1966. Under Reed Larson's leadership the committee saved State right-to-work protections by convincing Senate minority leader Everett Dirksen of Illinois to lead a filibuster against 14(b) repeal.

Mr. Speaker, I proudly salute my good friend Reed Larson and the National Right to Work Committee's 2.2 million members. I applaud their unwaivering dedication and tireless action on what should be every American's birthright, not to be forced to pay tribute to a labor union in order to get or keep a job.

May God bless you, Mr. Larson and his wife. He is a true American hero and many Americans owe him a debt of gratitude.

I do represent an area that has wide open spaces. A few years ago, I attended the 50th year anniversary of YW Electric in Akron, Colorado. This rural utility serves a vast area. There were individuals at that anniversary celebration that remembered the day that they got electricity to their rural home. Of course, rural Americans want all of the amenities that we have because of electricity. It just so happens that rural electric lines are built in areas that are remote. It just so happens that that is where raptors are. Again as the gentleman from Colorado said, no one could anticipate the time when laws would be interpreted in such a way that when a bird landed on lines and was electrocuted, a rural electric could be found guilty of an intentional taking.

Mr. Chairman, I just ask that you work with us in order to resolve this problem. There, of course, is no intention in the taking of a bird. When lines are changed to pose less danger to birds, of course, those costs will be passed on to our ratepayers, the individuals who purchase electricity from the rural electrics. We would just ask for the chairman's help in this issue solving this in a reasonable way so that it will be beneficial to all of us who care about the birds, but those of us who realize that we have to have some common sense in this approach to whether or not a rural electric is guilty of an intentional taking when a raptor dies because they have landed on the lines.

Mr. Speaker, if I had been present during the vote on the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2004, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. Speaker:

Dear Mrs. Skelton, Happy Birthday to You!

Juanita Skelton, nee Juanita Katherine Campbell, was born

on July 8, 1913, near Panhandle, Texas. She graduated from

White Deer (Texas) High School in 1930. That year she was

Vice President, Girl Favorite, Editor of the Annual, General

News Reporter for the Weekly Newspaper, President of the

Library Society, President of the Dramatic Club, and Yell

Leader for the Pep Squad, and a guard on the women's

basketball team. Of course there were only 13 members of her

graduating class. She was referred to as ``our seniors' most

representative girl.''

She graduated from West Texas State with a Bachelor of Arts

degree in 1934 and started teaching in Canadian, Texas. She

married Hiram Bowmer Skelton on March 3, 1944, when she was

31 years old. They lived in Panhandle, Texas and she helped

him run the movie theatre that the family owned. When her

husband died, she moved with her son to Arlington, Texas in

1953. She resumed being a high school English teacher at that

time. Mrs. Skelton went on to get her Master's in Speech

Pathology from Denver University in 1956 and became the first

speech therapist in the Arlington School District in 1956.

She became the Coordinator of Speech Therapy in 1957 and the

Coordinator of Special Education in 1965. She also became the

first Director of Special Education in 1974. Mrs. Skelton

retired in 1978 after 25 years with the Arlington School

District.

During her years in special education, Juanita received the

following recognition and awards: President of the Texas

Association of Administrators in Special Education

``Administrator of the Year Award for Outstanding

Leadership;'' Texas Council for Exceptional Children Award as

the ``Outstanding Contributor to Special Education.''

In 1989, the Mayor of Arlington, Texas recognized Juanita

as the ``outstanding senior citizen.''

She moved to Fort Collins, Colorado in 1997.

Again, congratulations on your 90th birthday!

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), specifically Mary Miller and John Knapp of the La Junta, Co., NRCS Office for all of the wonderful work they do for rural Colorado and many of my constituents in Colorado's Fourth Congressional District.

NRCS has worked diligently to help farmers and ranchers in Eastern Colorado through this time of hardship and drought. Moreover, Mary and John have given special attention to briefing congressional staffers on many of the issues facing these farmers and ranchers. Their service to the agricultural communities of Eastern Colorado is greatly appreciated by my staff and myself.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule and in support of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003.

We are told that most of these partial-birth abortions take place in the fifth and sixth month. This is the same time that I got to share in a most wonderful experience, one of the most wonderful experiences of my lifetime. My son and daughter-in-law invited me to come in for the ultrasound of my grandbaby.

It was incredible to me as the three of us were in that room and as the technician went about moving the instrument around on my daughter- in-law's abdomen what we saw inside of that womb. We saw the profile of a little boy, a profile that made us realize that he was going to look much like his father. We saw his little faithful heart beating away. We saw the little gestures that he made with his hands. As we looked at that little boy, my daughter-in-law and my son knew what they were going to name him. They were going to name him after his great grandfather. I left that and I went out and I bought the little outfit that that little boy would wear home from the hospital.

May we end this horrible practice in our Nation, where we are endowed by our Creator of certain inalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment. We have had issues that come up which I call perennials. Year after year they come up and, fortunately, in my opinion, this one keeps failing every year. I am glad that the House rejected this amendment in 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, and 1996.

Whenever this amendment is brought up, the word ``choice'' is always brought into the conversation. I would urge my colleagues to respect the choices of the American taxpayers. The men and women that get up and go to work every day and pay their taxes in this country have spoken very clearly that they do not want their tax dollars used to provide abortions.

Military treatment centers, the very centers that are funded by these American taxpayers who get up and go to work every day and pay their taxes, should be used and dedicated for the healing and nurturing of human life, not taking the life of the most vulnerable of all human beings, the unborn child.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to address my comments specifically to those who would prevent religious organizations, faith- based organizations, from receiving Federal funds to help unemployed Americans.

Religious organizations have often been denied Federal funding simply because they have a religious name or an identity or they hire on a religious basis. Our President has called on his administration and Congress to remove these barriers, and I wholeheartedly support that.

I would remind my colleagues that during the 1990s President Clinton supported four laws that allowed religious organizations to retain their right to hire on a religious basis while they were receiving Federal funds, just as Republicans are doing today, to ensure that faith-based organizations can be part of the Federal job training and worker relief system under the Workforce Investment Act. The four laws that were passed during the Clinton administration were the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Act, the Community Services Block Grant of 1998, welfare reform of 1996, and the Community Renewal Tax Relief Act of 2000.

Faith-based organizations cannot be expected to sustain their religious mission without the ability to employ individuals who share in their tenets and practices. It is that very faith that motivates these people to help Americans that are in trouble.

Members of faith-based organizations should enjoy the same right to associate with those that share their unique vision, just as other known-religious groups do. For example, Planned Parenthood may refuse to hire those who do not share its views about abortion. Planned Parenthood Federation

of America received over $100 million in Federal funds to support the things that they offer in fiscal years 1997, 1998, and 1999. Equal treatment requires that religious organizations, faith-based organizations, have the same right to hire on idealogical grounds.

Let us allow faith-based organizations to retain their unique character and help and assist Americans who need a job.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have my name removed as a cosponsor of H.R. 2.

Mr. Chairman, as we look at a disaster such as this, it is hard to comprehend the misery and the suffering. We look at women and the children and the men that are dying such horrible deaths, and it is hard to take it all in. But what we look for in Africa is a ray of hope, a ray of hope for these people; and we see this ray of hope in Uganda. And we see a ray of hope with abstinence education. Abstinence is not just a moral issue. It is an issue of whether or not we will teach people what the healthy life-style is. If we are compassionate about the people in Africa, if our hearts go out to the people that are dying, that are in incredible suffering and misery, we want to do something that works. We want to have something that will give these people hope, that will give them life; and I am in strong support of this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment that I am offering today is all about local control. It is all about meeting the needs of a group of children that is in private schools, special ed students that are there; and each one of us would certainly agree that we need to meet the needs of these students. Quite frankly, they are not being met today. Although these children generate funds and are in the count that the public school uses, the Federal dollars flow to the public school, and then these dollars very often do not reach the child in regard to purchasing the special services that they need.

This amendment would rectify that by giving the local school districts an option of issuing a certificate to the parents of these special ed students on an average amount of $1,400 so that the parents could purchase the services that these children need.

This makes great sense since we want to educate all children well. The children in public school have due process right with their parents.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Franks).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder).

(Mr. SOUDER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo).

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

This amendments paints all dealers with a very broad brush. In fact, every one of us knows that all retail gun sales are subject to a Federal criminal background check, either directly by the FBI or by a system that the individual States use. If a dealer violates any Federal or State law on gun sales, it loses its protection under this bill. If retailers are sued out of business, the protection for the manufacturers would be absolutely meaningless. This is a blatant attack on our second amendment rights and on our law-abiding citizens.