Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley) for his support of the legislation as well as his managing of it here today, and his general goodwill for all people in this country. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 54, the…
Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley) for his support of the legislation as well as his managing of it here today, and his general goodwill for all people in this country.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 54, the Congressional Gold Medal Enhancement Act of 2005, and I do urge its immediate adoption after consideration of the amendments today.
Congress created the Congress Gold Medal honor in 1776 to recognize military leaders, and awarded the first medal to George Washington for his heroic service in the Revolutionary War, as the chairman indicated earlier. Since then, the gold medal has evolved to become the highest civilian honor Congress confers to express gratitude for distinguished service, to dramatize the virtues of patriotism, and to perpetuate the remembrance of a great event. The legislation we consider today seeks to maintain the prestige of the medal by limiting the number that may be awarded in any given year.
To understand the need for such legislation, a little history of the medal is in order. As I mentioned, the first Congressional Gold Medal was struck in 1776, in Paris, for America had no appropriate facilities at that point, at the behest of the Continental Congress, which had not yet declared independence from Great Britain. The recipient was General George Washington, and the act that inspired the medal was his leadership of the Continental Army in driving the British from Boston.
In the next dozen years, Congress awarded six more gold medals to individuals for heroic action in the Revolutionary War. That is an average of one medal every Congress. By comparison, in the 108th Congress we authorized five medal programs honoring seven individuals and one couple. In the 106th Congress we authorized seven medal programs, but because of multiple recipients, the number of medals totaled more than 300.
Mr. Chairman, all of those medals were deserved, and I supported their authorization. My concern, and a concern shared by many Members, is that the luster and the importance and the meaning of a Congressional Gold Medal will be tarnished if we do not limit the number we award. Reversing this trend will protect the medal's prestige.
Mr. Chairman, this is a simple piece of legislation with great meaning. It will ensure the future integrity and true honor of the award. It is my goal that each recipient, President, civil rights leader, military hero, inventor, or noted healer, who receives the Congressional Gold Medal will remain part of a unique honor bestowed by the United States Congress.
As you may recall, Mr. Chairman, we had a similar problem a decade ago with commemorative coins. While commemorative coins are not as prestigious as Congressional Gold Medals, both are used to recognize moments in history. These coins have also helped raise money through surcharges for a worthy cause. A decade ago, the commemorative coin program had gotten out of control, with many coin programs approved each year, and many of the programs costing taxpayers money. One blatant example is the 1996 Olympics coin program that the GAO estimates cost taxpayers $26 million.
In response, Mr. Chairman, I authored and Congress approved the Commemorative Reform Coin Act. Now coin programs are limited to two a year and demand full cost recovery for taxpayers before any surcharges are paid. Additionally, before Congress can consider a coin or medal program, two-thirds of the House, 290 Members, must cosponsor the legislation to demonstrate broad bipartisan support. And having done that, I can tell you it takes broad bipartisan support to get the 290 Members.
I believe that the reforms to the commemorative coin program have been extraordinarily successful. Since these reforms were enacted in the 104th Congress, commemorative coins have not cost the taxpayers a dime. Instead, the programs have raised millions for worthy causes, provided valuable collections, and, importantly, restored prestige to commemorative coins.
But something disturbing happened when we reformed the commemorative coin program. The number of Congressional Gold Medals saw a dramatic increase. From 1776, when Congress created the medal, to 1904, Congress approved 47 medals. In the last 100 years, Congress awarded 86 medals, including 20 in the past decade, since the commemorative coin reforms. And this number jumped even higher, over 300, when including multiple recipients for each medal.
Mr. Chairman, over the years, Congressional Gold Medals have gone to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson, Mother Teresa, Elie Wiesel, Pope John Paul II, British Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and Tony Blair, Jonas Salk, John Wayne, and Robert F. Kennedy, among others. Reading the list of all the medal recipients and the deeds that earned the medal is quite inspiring. To maintain these medals as the highest of honors, the legislation before us would limit the number of medals that may be awarded to two a year, and clarify that recipients are individuals and not groups.
I understand there is concern by the minority that one bill per year should be designated for each party.
I feel it is important to note that proposals in the past have been sponsored in about equal numbers by Republicans and Democrats, and I do not really recall any discussion of the recipients' or the sponsors' party affiliations. In my view, any such discussion would be inappropriate, as these awards should be awarded in true bipartisan fashion.
In practice, however, not through statute, the Committee on Financial Services requires a two-thirds cosponsorship before considering proposals to award medals, a practice that the Senate has now adopted. I believe by the adoption of these simple changes, we can preserve the prestige and the integrity of the Congressional Gold Medal Program, something I believe all Members support.
I encourage my colleagues to join me in maintaining the integrity of the Congressional Gold Medal by supporting this measure. I urge immediate and unanimous passage of H.R. 54 with no amendments but the manager's amendment.
Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Chairman, not to prolong the discussion, because I think the gentleman from New York is making some very valid points that should be debated, one of them which is an amendment which is not included here today, and
that is the issue of the groups. We have checked the history of this. To the best of my knowledge, and the gentleman may have some different evidence, I do not think it is different because it is fairly clear who has received these medals, it has always been individuals historically. It was never couples. That is only something that has happened in the more recent couple of decades, perhaps a couple of times. As far as the groups are concerned, there have only been three altogether.
Certainly I am not suggesting any of them are not deserving, for goodness sake. They all are. The Navajo Code Talkers clearly are deserving. That obviously created some problems because of the volume of the medals, and it was done in sort of an unusual procedure. The Red Cross is another very deserving, and so are the veterans of the Civil War, which is the other group we found, although that was done much after the Civil War. There are all kinds of groups out there.
The Congressional Gold Medal of Honor has always been bestowed upon an individual in a very special ceremony to honor that individual. It is not easy to get done. I do not know if the gentleman has done it. As I said before, I did it. It is difficult to get 290 signatures on anything around here. So it is difficult to get done. So obviously it is going to be somebody who is deserving. It is going to be as bipartisan as could be. You cannot do it with one party or the other. You have got to get everybody. That is what the history of it is.
We tried to develop this legislation to have a great recognition of what we consider to be the greatest honor this Congress can give to a limited number of individuals, which was always what the intent of it was. There are a whole lot of ways of recognizing groups. You and I could sit here and name groups for hours at a time that could be honored. But the Congressional Gold Medal was never really created for that purpose. That is the intent of what we are trying to do in the legislation. I just wanted to make that point in the history of it.
Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield further, I do not mean to reiterate or repeat too much. Looking at the history of these Congressional Gold Medals, though, I think is very telling in terms of what we are doing because the history has always been to individuals for outstanding achievement. So in terms of the groups, I really think we should honor that. That is not disrespectful of any group that has gotten it or all the other groups who are potentially eligible out there if you use them in that criteria of measurement.
But the other issue is interesting, and that is how many of these should we be able to have? First of all, the history of the gold medal has been very bipartisan. I think, as we all know, when we are dealing with that many signatures, it is going to be bipartisan. There is no question about that. But my sense is that the two a year is not as limiting as one might think when you really again look at the history of this. In fact, if anything, it would be an expansion over what the total history of it has been. By the time you go through a legislative session and you gather 290 signatures and you go through committee and you go to the floor, and I have handled these bills, they often happen the last day, by the way, so it is always very confusing in terms of what we are doing, I think you are going to find this is not as limiting as one might think.
Again, I recognize the fact that it is a bigger country, that there is much more going on in the country and that kind of thing, but we are really trying to make sure that this is truly an honor for somebody who does something extraordinary in science or the arts, or an elected official or somebody of that nature, usually a President, I think the only elected official who has ever been honored; people in religion, people who have just absolutely stood out in their circumstances.
My sense is while we can argue here on the floor that it is limiting, I think the bottom line is it is not going to end up being as limiting as one might think. Hopefully it would not be. Obviously if that happened to be the case, it is something that could always be revisited, but I just do not think it is going to be the case.
I believe that straightening this out is actually going to make these gold
medals much more of a distinction than perhaps they would be if we allowed this to continue, particularly with the commemorative coin changes, increasing the pressure to try to do so many of these.
Mr. Chairman, I will be brief. First of all, this is not a killer amendment. This is not an unreasonable amendment, and the sponsor has certainly always been a very reasonable Member of Congress, and we are arguing at the margins here in terms of what we are doing, and I recognize that. And I recognize these arguments because they are compelling to a degree.
Having said all those things, I still oppose it. And let me explain why. It is not a lot different from what I have already said, Mr. Chairman, and that is essentially we are trying to make this a medal of true distinction for true heroes of the United States of America. I also believe, by the way, and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley) said something I thought was interesting, and that is it is difficult to get the names on the legislation. So the first year becomes a little more difficult, and that is true. We sort of learn techniques in this when we have done it.
One is we take it to conferences or big gatherings of people and pass it out that way. The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne) will always be a hero in my mind because he took it amongst the Democrats and got a lot of signatures when I was struggling with it on a bill that I did last year, and I appreciate that a great deal. But I have learned when one really applies oneself, they can do it reasonably rapidly; and hopefully the committees will be able to be responsive to it and will be able to do two a year if that is what we decide to do. But my judgment is four in total in the course of 2 years is sufficient.
And I am worried about the influx that is going on. The chairman cited the numbers. I do not remember the exact numbers. It was something like 45 medals in the first 120 years and now 10 times that many in the last 10 years. That means that this has increased, I think, at a rate that is too rapid, and again I do not in any way belittle anyone who has received this because they are all very distinguished people. But having said that, we want this to be the highest honor possible. So my judgment is we should defeat the amendment. If at some point it proves we need to expand this, we would certainly consider that. But I think we should try to restore this program to where it was before.
Mr. Chairman, I made a couple of these points before, and again I will not repeat too much here, but first and foremost is the 290 signatures. I do not know if one party is ever going to have 290 Members or not, I sort of doubt it, at least in the time most of us are around here, and you need both parties in order do this.
I learned with the coin that I did, which was Benjamin Franklin. I cannot tell you, and hardly anyone can tell you, whether Benjamin Franklin was or would have been a Republican or a Democrat in his history. We do not know the politics of people like George Washington, and certainly the people who have been from other countries, a number of individuals who received medals here in the Congress of the United States.
In the history of the gold medals, as I believe the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley) pointed out, it has been as much Democrats, even more so than Republicans. Even on the business of the commemorative coins, a number of the sponsors in the Senate have been Democrats as well.
I just have never noticed a lot of politics in this, I guess is my point. It seems to me I have been asked to sign these, and I generally sign them, unless it is something I think is spurious, by Democrats and Republicans. I do not
think about it. Certainly, if a party feels it is being slighted, they can say we are just not going to sign on to something.
I do not think this needs a political balance. What it really needs, I think, is to find out, if we are going to do two, who the two most distinguished individuals are who should be recognized and go ahead and recognize them, apart from whatever the politics may be. I do not think it is going to fall down along political lines.
So I do rise in opposition to this. I just think it is sort of a necessary strain on having a political balance on something which is not essential.
I yield to the gentleman from New York.
Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, and I will be glad to yield further in a moment, it typically has not worked that way. Typically, the way you do it is, somebody comes to you with the idea, maybe it is a Thomas Edison or somebody of that ilk, of that nature, and you generally will then go to your leadership or to the leadership on the other side or to the chairman of the committee and say, Look, I am interested in getting this done. If I am going to go out and get the 290 signatures, I want some idea that it is going to be considered.
I would be dumbfounded if you had five on one side and five on the other. In fact, I would be dumbfounded if you had two on one side and two on the other. You generally sort of pre-clear it; and, generally speaking, politics has just not entered into it. Before you go through all that effort and work, you want to get a pretty good idea that the bill is going to be able to get at least through the House. Then, by the way, getting it through the Senate is another whole other issue that you have to deal with as well.
So, typically, we have not had a surplus of these. Generally speaking, when we have gotten to the 290, it has already been pretty well agreed upon by leadership.
As the gentleman knows, on commemorative coins, they can be done in out years. We are doing coins already for 2007 and years beyond that, I believe, at this point. But almost always you work it out in advance.
As the gentleman knows from our committee work, I do not know of any time where we have actually had to pick and choose at the committee on these coins. It is almost always worked out in advance and agreed upon.
Mr. Chairman, I truly do not worry about this from a political point of view. I really do not think this is a necessary amendment to deal with that, based on what I have seen. I do not think limiting it to two is going to change that at all.
I certainly would support the best people, which is what we are trying to do. Frankly, most of these bills, while there may be a Democrat sponsor or a Republican sponsor, almost always has a cosponsor from the other side. You cannot really do it without sponsors from both sides. So there is much more bipartisanship in this process than almost anything I know about in this Congress.
Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, technically, as the gentleman and I both know, we have seen a lot, the majority is always going to control ultimately what is going to happen on the floor. It will go through the committee and go to the floor.
I still go back to a whole history. I have been here for 12 years. I have watched these medals. I have never seen a bit of politics in these medals. I just have not seen it.
I do not think the limiting of the numbers is really going to alter that. I think a large part now is because you need all those signatures, you just cannot do it in a partisan sense.
So I do not think this amendment is necessary. I think it brings in an element of politics that frankly we just do not have in the legislation. So I will oppose it. I understand the gentleman's arguments, but I would oppose the amendment.