Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, this week and in the coming weeks the American people need this House and Senate and the President to work in a bipartisan fashion to come up with a monetary policy and a fiscal policy here that will help our economy. It needs to be temporary, timely and targeted. And I would hope that we can work with our Republican colleagues in a bipartisan fashion to direct that to people in the middle income and lower income levels who need the help and will spend the money immediately.

To give rebates to people who are making a lot of money, people earning salaries such as we are in Congress, and others, is not the right thing to do. We need to give money to people who are suffering the most from the high gas prices, from the loss of employment, and from the other economic effects that are hurting the people at the bottom.

I ask my Republican colleagues and the President, and hopefully he will in the State of the Union, address those who need help the most and help this American and world economy.

Mr. Speaker, 25 years ago, I was a freshman member of the Tennessee State Senate, and on that occasion, the University of Memphis now, then Memphis State University, became number one in the country in basketball. It was the first time that we had ever had a number one ranking, and I got up on the floor of the Tennessee Senate and spoke proudly about my basketball team and their number one ranking. That night, my Tigers lost, and they were no longer number one.

Well, today, 25 years later and a freshman Member in the United States House of Representatives, the University of Memphis is again the number one basketball team in the country. Should I talk about them? Not.

Madam Speaker, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has dropped over 10 percent, and all economic indicators indicate that we are in serious financial trouble. This Congress needs to respond on behalf of the American people. Unfortunately, in the past this Congress has responded by giving tax breaks to the wealthiest, and it has created the largest gap in income between the upper 1 percent and the other 99 percent, probably in the history of this country.

We need to work in a bipartisan fashion. We need to work together. The previous speaker was correct: We need to give money back to taxpayers. But they need to be the working taxpayers, who are suffering the most, the people who are now unemployed, not able to pay taxes because they have lost their jobs, or people who need help with food stamps, and people who will immediately put that money into the economy, not the wealthiest who have savings in the hundreds and thousands and millions of dollars and can live on through this and survive it and won't put that money back into the economy.

The tax breaks of the past were mistakes. The spending needs to be for people who are suffering. They are the people who know the hard economic times we have. I read my e-mails on a daily basis and there are many people out there suffering who need economic help now. We need to act in a bipartisan fashion, but remember those who suffer the most.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, the subject of my Special Order today is the birthday of one of America's greatest citizens, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. King's birthday will be celebrated next week with the national holiday on Monday, one of the only men or women to have a holiday named for them in this country. At one time, of course, we celebrated the birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and now we celebrate Presidents Day. But we celebrate Dr. King's Day, a great American and an individual who changed this country for the better and whose life is a testament to fortitude and courage, faith, and a desire to make America better.

On April 4, 1968, 40 years ago this year, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. That was a defining moment in the history of America, indeed, in the history of the world. While Dr. King's death should not and will not ever be forgotten, I think that today on what would have been his 79th

birthday, we should remember his life because it was his life, his actions and his eloquent words, that truly challenged us as a Nation to consider where we were and where we could go.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 15, 1929, the son of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. and Alberta King. As we all know, Dr. King followed in his father's footsteps and became a minister at the age of 24 in Montgomery, Alabama, where just 2 years later Rosa Parks refused to comply with the Jim Crow laws, which required her to give up her seat on the bus to a white man. The subsequent Montgomery Bus Boycott, led by Rev. King, changed America. The boycott lasted over a year but resulted in the Supreme Court decision outlawing racial discrimination on public transportation. Only in his mid-20s, Martin Luther King's passion and commitment were already affecting the laws of our Nation.

During his life, Dr. King's house was bombed and his government wiretapped his conversations. But Dr. King never wavered from his commitment to nonviolent change. Dr. King turned a mirror on America, and the reflection was not good. It was ugly. America was not the land of the free but it was a land built by the enslaved. The very Capitol Building in which I speak and in which we make our laws was built by slaves. Dr. King pulled back the quasi-fiction that has so often been touted as patriotism as if to say, ``but what about these Americans?'' And those are his words: ``But what about these Americans?'' Jim Crow laws, which had created two Americas, which had denied access and opportunity for so long were held up for examination, and they failed the examination, as they should have.

We are not there, ladies and gentlemen. I wish we were. I wish we had achieved the dream where the content of one's character is what each person is judged by, not by the color of one's skin. We are not there, but the good news, the positive message that Dr. King has etched into our national conscience is that one man can make a difference. One young man can step forward and live his life with purpose and dignity, can become the voice of all those whose voices have been stilled, whose hope has been lost. No assassin's bullet could stop what Martin Luther King had begun. Today, as we celebrate a birth which has changed us and which continues to challenge us, let us remember his dream.

Dr. King's words are what he's best remembered for. And in his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, his words will be played constantly over the weekend and through Monday as we remember how he challenged us, how he inspired us in the 1950s and in the 1960s. Radio station WLOK will be, I know, having a tribute to him in Memphis, and other places all over the country will do the same. And in Memphis there will be a basketball game, a national basketball game, that will celebrate civil rights victories of this country. Particularly Bob Lanier will be there and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and others. And we look at the steps which we have taken in this country to make the country better through sports and basketball, and I commend David Stern and the NBA for having that game in Memphis on Dr. King's birthday.

At this time I would like to read some quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as will be read and as will be heard throughout this country in the coming week and the coming weekend. Many of them resonate with the issues of today.

``A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.'' And we need more leaders like that today who mold consensus.

``A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.'' Remember, Mr. Speaker, Dr. King was speaking during the time of the Vietnam War. We have another Vietnam, I think, today in Iraq, and we are spending more money not on military defense but on military offense and leaving programs of social importance behind. And I question the spirituality of where this country presently is, spending so much in Iraq and so little in America.

``A right delayed is a right denied.'' And there are so many rights which have not been granted to people and not just on the basis of race and religion and national origin but also of sexual orientation. ``A right delayed,'' Dr. King said, ``is a right denied.''

Dr. King said, ``Almost always the creative, dedicated minority has made the world better.'' And indeed they have. We are a country of minorities making for a great majority, and when we don't respect the rights of the minorities, we endanger ourselves.

Dr. King said, ``An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.'' And I would ask each of my colleagues to hold that thought in their minds when they vote and to realize it's not just the nature of their districts and their individual concerns which are important but the broader concerns of this country, as Dr. King said, ``the broader concerns of all humanity.''

Dr. King said, ``An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.''

Dr. King and many civil rights workers violated the law, the law of the country, mostly in the South, Jim Crow laws, that said people were separate and inherently unequal. He did that with Rosa Parks when they challenged the laws that said African Americans were to ride on the back of the bus. And he challenged, along with President Johnson and this Nation in the 1960s, the law that said there could be separate establishments and would be by law for people based on race for entertainment, different public facilities, eating establishments, hotels and motels, colleges and schools. Those were wrong laws. They needed to be challenged, and they were challenged by Dr. King and many civil rights leaders, and the world changed in the 1960s.

Dr. King said, ``At the center of nonviolence stands the principle of love.'' He also said, ``Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies or else? The chain reaction of evil, hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars, must be broken or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.'' And, Mr. Speaker, I reflect on this when I think about what we are doing in the Middle East. Hate begets hate. Wars produce more wars. And we are in an abyss.

Dr. King said, ``He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.'' One must actively oppose evil. And oftentimes in the debates in Congress, you have to remember Dante, and Dr. King has a quote similar to Dante, that the warmest spots in hell are reserved for people who in times of controversy stand on the sidelines. Certainly something Dr. King did not do.

In Dr. King's great speech just outside the Capitol on the mall, which I recall watching on television and which I am thrilled to be a Member of this House of Representatives so near to the mall where Dr. King gave his ``I have a dream'' speech, he said, ``I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a Nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

``I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

``I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.''

As I said earlier, Dr. King's dream has not totally been achieved, but we are getting closer to it. We are engaged in a Presidential debate where his words and actions are subject of much debate. But I have no doubt that Dr. King would be proud of all the candidates in the Democratic column who are running for this office and know that they are children of Dr. King's dream. To see an African American gentleman have a legitimate chance to be President of the United States and to see a woman have that same opportunity is what Dr. King talked about.

And they should be judged not by the color of their skin or by their gender but by the content of their character.

``Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,'' Dr. King said. And that's something to be remembered when we see nooses hung in small towns or people being shot, tied behind cars because of aspects of their personage of which they had no choice.

``It may be true,'' Dr. King said, ``that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.'' And that is important. We have a Senate and a House that passed a condemnation of the lynching that took place in this country in the 20th century. And this House, hopefully, will pass another proposition that says that we apologize for having been part of a Nation that allowed for slavery to occur and had laws that permitted it and for Jim Crow laws that saddled this country with unjustice for 100 years thereafter.

Dr. King said, ``Life's most persistent and urgent question is what are you doing for others?'' And that's a question that my friend Irbin Salky has often said to me, that the purpose of why we are here on Earth is to help others. And it's part of the Judeo-Christian religion and creed to care for others, and that's why we are here.

Again, Iraq and Vietnam, they are parallels, and Dr. King's words ring true today. He said, ``One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.''

Indeed, many of the hopes of people in our inner cities, people that are left behind by what has been considered a great economic opportunity for many Americans, mostly the richest, have been left behind because of the moneys we have spent in Iraq rather than spending them on the people in this country.

There are many parallels, and I think I know where Dr. King would be on the issue of war and peace, on the issue of choosing Iraq rather than choosing America, the cities that have been neglected, the inner cities, Appalachia, Katrina victims, and others. Dr. King said: ``The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.'' He always felt that the arc was bending in the right direction, although slowly. And justice and change do move slowly but they do move. We have change. Change is not revolutionary; it's evolutionary. It happens, but it happens in increments. But Dr. King and people like him made it move at a stronger pace, and it's necessary to have agents of change. Agents of change have moved the society forward.

One of the most prophetic quotes that I think I saw, and there are so many to review in thinking about Dr. King, he said: ``The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.'' I know from my sponsorship of an apology for slavery and Jim Crow and some of the comments I have read, there's a lot of guilt in this country and it's making it difficult for people to engage in a dialog and understand and honestly see what slavery did for many people's lives. Not only did it cause the African Americans and have them be enslaved, but it caused a lot of people to make a lot of money and have a lot of great economic fortune at the expense of the enslaved, and then of the Jim Crow citizen that served their needs for 100 years.

The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important. I think about Martin Luther King, who died at the age of 39; I think of John Kennedy, who served in this House and lived to the age of 46; I think of his brother, Robert Kennedy, who died at age 42, but affected so many of us. All of these three men affected me in a great way. Their assassinations in 1963 and 1968 affected this world, but it affected me in a great way. It was the quality, not the longevity, of their lives that was important. And they didn't wait for tomorrow. They had the fierce urgency of now that Dr. King talked about to make a change, to make a change and a difference while they were on this Earth and to affect their fellow man and fellow woman.

``The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.'' Once again, Dr. King implores us to have moral character and fiber and to stand up for what is important for America. And he said: ``We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.''

Dr. Martin Luther King was a special man. He took his talents and he used them for his fellow man. He inspired us all. This country and this world is much the greater for his life. It is indeed a testament to him that this Congress under the unyielding leadership of Representative John Conyers passed a bill to make his birthday a national holiday. It's a national holiday that should be held in high esteem by all men and women in this country, because Dr. King was special and unique and stood up for all people and stood for the height of American ideals.

I hope that everybody will take a moment over the weekend and on Monday on the celebration of his birthday to think about some of the things that Dr. King stood for: challenging the system to make it better; for peace; for people who have been left behind in our society; doing for the least of these and trying to make the world a better place.

My city bears great scars for his death having taken place there. There was nothing unique to my city. It was something wrong with this country that somebody out there put a reward up for Dr. King's death and that somebody wanted to claim that reward and didn't have a regard for the humanity of Dr. King. In Memphis now there's a National Civil Rights Museum dedicated to the civil rights movement and to Dr. King's life and ideals, and I invite and encourage everyone to come to Memphis to visit the civil rights museum, which is at the spot where Dr. King was killed at the Lorraine Motel, which has been preserved, and to celebrate his life and to celebrate his values, not only on his birthday but on every day, for Dr. King was a great American. I am just lucky, as we all are, that he came my way.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the time, and I know that you, like me, will reflect on Dr. King's works and will keep him in our hearts as we try to do what's right for America in this 110th Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 10 o'clock and 5 minutes p.m.) the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, January 16, 2008, at 10 a.m.

Madam Speaker, on Monday morning five libraries and five museums throughout the country were honored with medals at a ceremony that was presided over by Mrs. Laura Bush.

The Memphis Library and Information Center was one of the five libraries and the only big city library to be honored. I was honored to have nominated them for that recognition and honored to be there with them when the library was so recognized.

Libraries are very important to the future of this country, for people of all standings of wealth need access to books, access to computers, and access to other materials. The Memphis Library takes services to the community and gives people in their neighborhood the opportunity to read and make available to them cultural outreach.

We also have a television and radio station that is operated by our library, and it is an important facility, and I am proud that it's Tennessee's first facility to receive such an award and the first in the mid-South.

Congratulations to my city. You have a very proud congressman.

Madam Speaker, today, this Congress will adjourn. I want to thank the people of the Ninth District of Tennessee for giving me the honor to represent them in this Congress.

From the first vote that we, as freshmen, took to break the glass ceiling and elect Speaker Pelosi to whatever the last vote is today, during this year we passed historic legislation on energy, on ethics, and the environment. We've done things on children's health care that hasn't come to fruition, but we've tried, and the same thing in ending the war.

This has been a Congress that has tried to accomplish a lot, has accomplished some, brought change for the American people, and will continue to do so next year.

I have had the honor to stand up in my district for The MED, for LeMoyne-Owen College, for the COPS program, for Blue Cross at the University of Memphis, and for our largest employer, Federal Express.

Madam Speaker, it's been a grand year. I am proud to be a Member of this United States Congress and to represent this great country.

God bless the United States of America.

Madam Speaker, last night I voted with a great majority in this House and every one but one Republican on a resolution to recognize the benefits and honor of Christmas and the Christian religion. I read that resolution and agree that Christianity is a great religion, a lot to be learned from it, and the teachings of Jesus are wonderful.

I would ask my colleagues on the Republican side who voted for this, the Members of the Senate, and the President to remember those teachings and do God's work here on Earth: ``There but for the grace of God go I,'' and ``Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.''

The President is supposed to be vetoing the CHIP bill today which would give health care to children. That's not in the spirit of St. Nick or, I believe, in the tradition of the Christian religion or the Judeo-Christian religions. Nor is it in that same spirit that we would take away from people that need help with college education, with health care, and with research for diseases, and for responsible fiscal policies and for taking care of God's Earth.

I would ask that we not just pass resolutions in name, but in spirit, and we honor the great religions and do God's work on Earth.

Mr. Speaker, the United States Postal Service, and I use that term because that's their formal name, has announced that they're going to stop using, having vending machines at the post office. That means that Americans will not be able to go to the post office when they need to get a stamp this holiday season, tax time or whatever, and realize they need stamps and be able to go to the postal service to buy a stamp. It seems the U.S. Postal Service is taking service out of their name.

Older people can't just very easily decide to learn how to use the Internet or have an Internet and poor people don't either. The postal service says people can buy stamps online. They can call an 800 number. They can buy them by mail. But if you need something for an immediate postage, if you don't have the Internet, if you're old, and it's difficult to stand in line because you're handicapped or disabled, this is a great disservice to America.

They say the machines aren't working. Well, Federal Express wouldn't do something like this. They'd improve the machines or find a new machine. And if the machines didn't work at Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola would buy new machines.

The United States Postal Service should be for service and for the customer and maintain the vending machines. I'm preparing legislation, and I'll be sending a Dear Colleague out, Mr. Speaker, and hope all will join us in putting service back in the USPS.

Madam Speaker, on Monday evening, the President hosted a holiday party for Members of Congress and others. A good time was had by all. It was a wonderful time and the President was a marvelous host, but I had to think in that moment about the holiday spirit and the idea of giving and caring for people who need something and providing for them.

I asked the President at that time to use some of his compassionate conservatism to help us get through this budget. There are people that need help with their heating bills this winter. There are people that need policemen and protection for their neighborhoods. There are people who have problems with illnesses in their families, whether it be cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes or heart disease, which research dollars could help them with. There are people that need help with Head Start and education in this country and children that need health care.

Madam Speaker, I think in this Christmas season we ought to think about why we're here, who we should be helping and what we ought to be doing. Part of it is helping others and people who need a little bit more. The President was elected on an idea of compassionate conservatism. It's time to be compassionate. Part of that is being compassionate to take care of people here in America.

Bring it home, Mr. President.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the chairman and Mr. Green for bringing this legislation.

It is my honor to serve on the House Judiciary Committee, where this matter had a hearing. It is unfortunate that in 2007 we have to have a hearing on such matters, but as Mr. Baca, Mr. Cummings and others have so well expressed, these are symbols of racial hatred, of intolerance and intimidation and oppressive factors, trying to intimidate people into not exercising their rights. Predominantly, these have been used against African Americans, but also against other ethnic minorities.

Growing up, one of the stories I heard about many times was a man named Leo Frank. Leo Frank was accused and unjustly convicted of a crime in Georgia, taken out of his jail in 1915 in Marietta, Georgia, and hung by an angry mob. Mr. Frank was later found by the courts and the Georgia system of justice to have been illegally, improperly convicted and was given a posthumous pardon, but a little too late.

As with so many incidences with lynchings throughout the South against different minorities that people didn't understand and they showed their ignorance by employing vigilante tactics to take the law into their own hands, this couldn't be rectified, because Mr. Frank was dead.

This was an unfortunate part of our history. The Klan was a part of it, but there were people beyond the Klan that engaged in it. And rather than being like the Statue of Liberty and welcoming people to this country, this great land of opportunity where people could pursue happiness and enjoy freedom, the symbol of the noose has told people you are not welcome, you are not to exercise your rights, and you should be weary of trying to speak up and exercise your first amendment rights and be what America is all about.

This legislation needs to pass. When nooses are displayed, they are anti-American. They need to be investigated for criminal enforcement by our Justice Department, and they will, with this resolution's passage. I thank Mr. Green for bringing it. I want to say that, unfortunately, in my jurisdiction in Memphis, there was a situation in Germantown, Tennessee, where three people at the Germantown Performing Arts Center recently in August put a noose out. They were fired. They should have been prosecuted as well. The noose does not belong in America.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Berman for bringing this legislation.

It is obvious we need such a bill, for America should never be a haven for people who commit crimes against mankind. And that is what genocide is, a crime against mankind. It is ironic that God's rightest creature, human beings, are the only species that God created that commits genocide. Animals attack each other out of need for food or for other reasons, but not to destroy and kill an entire other group of animals. Only man, with his ability to think, can create the most unhuman-like crime against mankind, which is the attempt to kill others because of ethnic differences. That is an irony and a shame. And the fact is that we should never be a country that does anything but try to make this world a better place. People should not find America a harbor when they escape from the area, whether it be Darfur or Rwanda or any other place where genocide has been committed.

As a Jewish person, I have known about genocide because we know about the Holocaust and Jewish people have had relatives and possible would- be relatives if our ancestors had not emigrated to this country who would have been victims of this Holocaust or who were. So many of us have been to the Holocaust Museum or Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, or other places or concentration camps and learned.

I would submit that this bill, as the previous bill about nooses, should make a strong statement from this Congress, Mr. Speaker, but to the American people and the educators of this country that what we need in this country is more education about tolerance, more education about the horrors that we have had in the past in history. Because if you don't learn from history, you will repeat it again. And here we are, almost 2008, talking about genocide and nooses and oppressive tactics used by groups to intimidate religious and ethnic minorities and people of different backgrounds.

I commend the authors for bringing the bill, and it is a bipartisan bill and that is what we need, but there are so many other aspects that we need to look into.

Elie Wiesel, who was cited just recently by a Member on the other side, said that people who hate, hate everyone. People who hate Jews hate blacks, hate Hispanics, hate gays.

We have had hate crimes come up in this Congress that have passed and hopefully we will have a hate crime that passes, because hate in any form, whether it is racial, religious, or sexual orientation is just that, it is hate, and it is un-American and it is something unfortunately unique to humankind that should be stamped out and abolished in this country, and this Congress should not allow it, countenance it, or in any way condone it.

And so I thank the chairman and Mr. Berman for their leadership and the other people who have worked on this bill, Mr. Forbes and others, and we should work together in a bipartisan fashion to make this country what it is supposed to be, and that is an area where we can work together and hopefully one day have the Age of Aquarius and a place where we don't have these problems that we have had in the past.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the President issued eight Presidential Medals of Freedom to eight great Americans. It was a beautiful service, and the President did our country proud at that program.

One of the recipients was the Reverend Benjamin Hooks, who's a resident of Memphis, one of my constituents, a great man who rose from a segregated South to the heights of the Federal Communications Commission and the NAACP in this country.

Also honored were Harper Lee, the author of ``To Kill a Mockingbird,'' and Mr. Francis Collins, who did the Human Genome Project. You know, we're 99.9 percent the same, and that's what the Human Genome Project told us.

President Bush asked Rev. Hooks what can we do to move race relations forward. I'll tell President Bush some of the things we can do, Mr. Speaker. We can care about children and pass a children's health care program, many of those children being African Americans and minorities. And we can pass programs that allow for scholarships for young people at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

There's much we can do, Mr. President. You did good on Monday. Let's keep doing good.

Madam Speaker, I had the opportunity about a month ago to visit Iraq. When I did, I traveled on a C-130 with troops into Baghdad and drove in a Humvee through the city with our troops.

While there, I made the decision that I would do everything I could to support the troops. The troops are giving all they can; and because of that, whichever side of the aisle you sit on, you need to support the troops and support the veterans funding bill that's coming before this House, in whatever manner it comes, because the troops come first.

This veterans bill gives veterans the increases in medical care, in benefits for veterans and increases in their pay and increases for the soldiers' salaries that they need. This veterans bill is important.

When we were in Qatar, the general there, General North, said, Do one thing when you go home, don't forget the troops, don't forget the veterans who have been injured, and fund them and fund their veterans bill.

No matter how it is presented, we should support the veterans and vote for the bill.