Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I would like to seek unanimous consent to withdraw as a sponsor on H.R. 3547.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the recognition. It's a great honor to be a member of this class and a Member of this Congress.

I can testify, having spent really a lifetime in local and State government, about the talent level that exists in this class and, to be honest, this Congress. There are numerous people who are committed to issues and have a wealth of talent and knowledge, and they put that to work on a daily basis to try to come up with the best solutions for the American people for a new direction in this country.

The gentlemen I'm with are four of the leaders in this class and in this Congress. I really want to commend the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Yarmuth) for bringing this article I issue to the fore. The op-ed written in the New York Times by Mr. Adam Cohen really brought forth all the points that Congressman Yarmuth thought about when he brought this campaign to our attention and the freshman class adopted it.

Article I does make it clear that Congress makes the laws and Congress is where the power starts. It's really supposed to be the strongest arm of government because it truly represents the people, and this House has 435 Members. Each Member in the history of this House, and there have been about 10,000 people who have served in this House over the history, have been elected. Nobody, if there's a vacancy, gets appointed. In this place, not like the United States Senate or your State legislature, there aren't any interim appointments. Every person is elected by the people at home and they're supposed to represent those people, and I think it happens here.

This House needs to assert its power, and one of the areas where it's been doing it, particularly in the Government Reform Committee which Mr. Waxman chairs, and looking into actions of this administration is also the Judiciary Committee, where I'm blessed to be a member with Chairman John Conyers. We've had the opportunity to look into the Justice Department, which Mr. Hodes brought up. The Justice Department we found has politicized that office to the extent that it's really embarrassing I think to us as members of the committee, Members of us particularly who are attorneys and know what the attorneys and judges are supposed to be in terms of being impartial in the way they mete out justice, and I think to the judiciary at large in this country.

The politicization of that office has been greater than I think at anytime in the history of this country. The cases that have been brought we have found have been based, oftentimes, on the politics of who the defendant is.

We had the discussion last week of the case in Mississippi where one gentleman was indicted and another gentleman was not investigated. The gentlemen did the same exact thing. They each guaranteed loans, which was legal in Mississippi, to a justice, a Justice Diaz of the Supreme Court.

One gentleman made contributions that guaranteed a contribution of $65,000. Another gentleman guaranteed contributions of $80,000. The gentleman who guaranteed the $65,000 was indicted and tried in a Federal court. The gentleman that made the $80,000 contribution wasn't indicted or even investigated.

They each loaned a home to Justice Diaz when he had family problems and needed a new place to stay. They were co-owners of the home, Mr. Scruggs and Mr. Minor. The one gentleman who was the man that made the $65,000 loan and was indicted was indicted for loaning his home to the Supreme Court justice. The other gentleman wasn't.

What were the differences in the gentlemen? Well, one man was one of the top ten contributors to John Edwards for President, a Democrat. One man supported Democrats and trial lawyer issues in Mississippi. He was indicted. He was convicted the second time, and he's spending now, started serving 11 years in jail and was fined $4.5 million, 15 times what was recommended.

The other gentleman, man named Dickie Scruggs, is also a trial lawyer. He wasn't even investigated. He did the same exact thing. He donated a half a million dollars to Republican activity, a quarter of a million dollars to the Bush-Cheney reelection effort, and he, for whatever reason, may have nothing to do with it, he happens to be the brother-in-law of one of our colleagues in the Senate, Trent Lott.

So if you look at that case, and it's hard for anybody to look at it and think that there wasn't politically selective prosecutions, which makes

Lady Justice have to turn her eyes and maybe shed tears at what's happened in Mississippi. That's happened in Alabama where a Governor was indicted and convicted of things that ordinarily wouldn't even be investigated.

We've seen U.S. attorneys, Republicans, appointed by President Bush fired because they didn't go after Democrats or they didn't go after voting actions that people in the Republican Party wanted pursued.

So oversight's real important in the Judiciary Committee. We've seen it. And the Justice Department, I mean, that's an area where Caesar's wife should be beyond reproach. Every area of government should be beyond reproach, but justice first. Justice is supposed to be blind, and justice has not been blind, and the work of Chairman Conyers and his staff and the members of that committee exposed much of that.

This Congress has done a lot of good. The idea that Mr. Yarmuth brought up from the President where he suggested we've been wasting time, that's ridiculous. The fact he's tried to veto bills or has vetoed bills and threatened vetoes shows we've been doing some things that are effective and good.

The minimum wage should have happened years ago. We finally got a minimum wage. The people at the bottom of the economic ladder needed that step up. We passed the minimum wage.

People that need a step up and to start college educations, they got Pell Grant increases, they got the cost of their loans reduced so they won't be saddled with high interest rates in the future on their loans. To help kids get a start and go to a college and to not, when they get out, have a tremendous debt to pay back is important. To be able to have Pell Grant money to give them a better start is important. These are two of the best initiatives that I think we have seen.

When I was a State Senator I worked on college scholarships, and I worked on minimum wage. I am happy to be in a Congress that have seen both of them effectuated and made a change.

We have looked at global warming, we have passed some bills that require renewable energies, and we have looked at bills that will help clean up our environment, which is definitely in jeopardy. And we have looked at the budget. We have put our future generations in debt, this administration and this Congress, by spending, spending, spending, not having a PAYGO bill.

The future of this country is in jeopardy because of the recklessness of the past Republican Congress and this President for spending too much money, sacrificing our goodwill overseas with a foreign policy that has been reckless after we had a President in Bill Clinton who had a balanced budget, a surplus, in fact, and the respect of the world for this country. We have lost the respect of the world, we have lost our budget surplus, and, finally, we have restored a modicum of fairness by giving an increase in the minimum wage, increases to kids going to college, help with health care and work on the environment.

I am very proud to be a Member of this Congress, this class and this Congress, and the differences you see are healthy and good. Rubber stamp shouldn't exist in government. There should be healthy debate. The conflict of ideas produces better ideas. That's why this Democratic Congress is so important to the future of this country.

Thank you, Mr. Klein.

I think when I first addressed this group and, Mr. Speaker, I mentioned how proud I was to be a Member of this body and this class, and I think the people who have listened to this discussion realize why I'm so proud to be a member of the class. The talent is here, as some people have State legislative experience, some come straight from the private sector, and each brings a different perspective but a concern for the people and a concern for change and direction of this country and for the middle class.

Mr. Hodes talked about Ms. Miers and Mr. Rove not obeying the subpoena that was issued for them to come to testify before the Congress. This Congress is looking at having a contempt charge brought against them, which I think we should have done earlier. We need to have a contempt charge brought, and we need to have them be punished for their contempt of this Congress, which, in essence, is a contempt of the American people and a contempt of the Constitution and of all things good that the American people stand for.

I am proud to be a member of this class, to support SCHIP, for health care for children and for all Americans.

Madam Speaker, the City of Memphis, Tennessee, has lost one of its finest citizens, Kenneth Whalum, Sr.

Kenneth Whalum, Sr., passed away last night. He was a pastor, he was a two-time city councilman, he was a father, he was a family man, he was a leader in our community.

For 30 years, he was the pastor of the Olivet Baptist Church and very highly respected in the community and among the clergy. For 8 years, he was a city councilman, one time as a district councilman in a community known as Orange Mound. Then when he saw a higher calling and the need to address a higher subject, he ran against an incumbent city councilman, at the time

unheard of, and was elected at large, one of the first African Americans elected at large to the Memphis City Council.

He was also a postal service employee and had a career there and rose through the ranks to director of personnel. For that reason, this House, and this week with the President's action, the post office at Third Street in Memphis, Tennessee, will be named the Kenneth T. Whalum, Sr., Postal Building. That is a tribute to his work and all postal employees.

He had a family of which the City of Memphis is proud. His son Kenneth, Jr., is a pastor and a member of the school board. His son Kirk Whalum is a world-renowned saxophonist, and his other son Kevin is a musician with a contract and a poet.

There have been many great families in the City of Memphis to get involved in politics, but none greater than the Whalums. The hair of the hypocrite never was upon this family, and the idea of discrimination and bigotry or intolerance never disgraced them either. He was a leader in biracial politics and activities in the City of Memphis. He was a leader in being bipartisan as well.

There have been few people like Kenneth Whalum, Sr., in the City of Memphis. There will be few to come. I share his loss greatly. He was a supporter of mine who, although he had a stroke and had difficulty walking, came down and did a political ad for me when he could hardly get up the stairs, and on television it was like an angel speaking. When John Conyers came to Memphis in February, he made it up a whole flight of stairs to see John Conyers, and a happier man I have not seen. He knew the post office was being named for him before he passed. I am happy he knew that and I am happy I knew him. We have lost a great leader.

Mr. Speaker, earlier this week, Memphis, Tennessee and the Nation lost a great photographer and a great public personage in Ernest Withers. Ernest Withers died at the age of 85. He was a gentleman who was at the right time at the right place with the camera that took the picture that showed the civil rights movement, showed the history of Memphis, Tennessee and its progress from segregation to integration to a city that's one of America's great cities today.

Mr. Withers was one of the first African Americans hired as a police officer in the city of Memphis in 1949. He left that profession and went into photography. And whenever there was an event, Mr. Withers was there. He took a picture of B.B. King and Elvis together on Beale Street. The King and the King together on Beale, back in about 1956, when B.B. was thin enough that you wouldn't recognize him, and Elvis was thin too.

He had pictures of Dr. King and the civil rights movement. He covered Oxford, Mississippi; he covered Medgar Evers. He covered all of the major civil rights events that came throughout the mid-South.

He was published in People Magazine and the New York Times, and Ebony and Jet, and was honored by the Memphis College of Art with an honorary degree in 1992, and by the Missouri School of Journalism for his great work in photography.

He'll be missed in Memphis, and his collection needs to be maintained and made available to all citizens for remembrance of what went on during the civil rights era. He'll be missed by all of us. He'll be remembered in history books and museums.

Mr. Speaker, President Bush and congressional Republicans have no problem writing blank checks

for the war in Iraq, but ask them to prioritize the health care needs for 10 million low-income children, and they can't be bothered. Every month, every month we are spending $9 billion in Iraq that is borrowed from our children, because the President has always demanded that funding for the Iraq war be classified as emergency spending and, therefore, not subject to the pay-as-you-go rules.

Three-and-a-half months of Iraq war funding equals the funding needed to extend health care coverage to 10 million children over the next 5 years. Unlike the war, our children's health is fully paid for with absolutely no deficit spending; yet President Bush vetoed this bipartisan compromise because he said it included excessive spending.

Mr. Speaker, House Republicans need to show the President that there are other priorities in our Nation besides the never-ending war in Iraq. They should send that message by joining us tomorrow in overriding the President's veto and caring about our Nation's children.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the chairman and the ranking member and Mr. Shuster for doing such a wonderful job on this bill. The chairman is passionate about this issue, and the American people are fortunate to have people in the Chair's position who are knowledgeable and passionate about the subject matter.

I rise today in support of the H.R. 2095, and am pleased to be a cosponsor of this legislation which would reorganize the Federal Railroad Administration as the Federal Railroad Safety Administration, and requires the Secretary of Transportation to develop a long-term strategy for reducing the number and rates of accidents, injuries, and fatalities involving railroads. It is not just linguistics; it is action and direction.

The city of Memphis, which lies along the Tennessee border, is a major hub for the railroad industry. The city ranks third nationally in the number of class 1 railroads. According to the Memphis Regional Chamber, 220 trains pass through Memphis every day. Between January and July of 2007, there were 36 rail accidents in Shelby County, two of which were fatal. Consequently, railroad safety is critically important to my district.

I was pleased that this Congress passed and enacted H.R. 1401, the Rail and Public Transportation Security Act, which was designed to enhance the security of our railroad transportation systems. The bill also adopted an amendment I introduced which called on the Secretary of Transportation, in consultation with the Homeland Security Secretary, to work to minimize the hazards of toxic inhalation hazardous material.

This legislation today goes further by focusing on rail safety for passengers, pedestrians and train workers. The bill changes the hours of service rules for railroad workers and includes measures to improve areas where railroad tracks cross roads. This happens

too frequently in Memphis, particularly in the university district.

In response to inspection personnel shortages, the measure requires the Department of Transportation increase the number of Federal Railroad Safety Administration safety inspections and enforcement personnel, setting targets that are reachable and good for the public. I urge all Members to support passage of the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I just had the opportunity to travel in a bipartisan codel to the Middle East, particularly to Baghdad.

Robin Williams had an album at one time, ``Reality, What a Concept.'' I thought about it while I was there. I saw a lot of reality. I saw our soldiers in life-and-death situations and doing it in a heroic fashion. They told me about their need to be redeployed over there not every 15 months, but every 12 months because the pressure is wearing on them and on their personal lives. The divorce rate is high, and it really takes a toll on their lives. They see the people working for the private companies over there making so much more money than them, the contractors, and they say, why should we re-enlist. But they do it because they're proud Americans.

But then we met with Prime Minister Maliki, and he said the sectarian war was over. Well, Prime Minister Maliki, it's not, and until the Iraqis deal with reality and deal with the Sunni and Shia differences, there won't be peace in Iraq and our soldiers will be working for a group that doesn't understand the problem, which is their own internal politics. The Iraqis must resolve their differences.

Madam Speaker, I just returned on a codel from Baghdad, among other places, with four other Members, a bipartisan trip. I am proud to report that our troops are doing a marvelous job under the circumstances in which they have been placed.

To ride in a C-130 with American soldiers going into combat, seeing their faces and realizing that they were going into harm's way was very, very emotional; to ride in a Humvee with soldiers who faced an enemy that they didn't know who it was because friends and enemy look alike; and to be in the streets of Baghdad.

I was buoyed by the enthusiasm of our troops but know they are going to need help over the years with veterans benefits. We were in Landstuhl, Germany hospital today with a soldier who lost his leg on Friday. Continuing injuries will cause a continuing commitment from the American people and a continuing commitment to make sure that Iran does not exercise undue influence.

Prime Minister Maliki reasserted his desire to provide defense for his own country with help from America with equipment and not to have Iran interfere. I wasn't as extremely enthusiastic about what I saw in the country of Iraq, which has been ravaged, or their government, which needs much improvement.

But our troops are beyond reproach and they need our support.

Mr. Speaker, on Sunday night a football player, a young man named Taylor Bradford on the University of Memphis football team, was murdered on our campus. The football team, the City of Memphis, and the

university mourn the passing of this fine young man.

We play a game tonight on ESPN2 against Marshall, and there will be a moment of silence, a moment of silence for that young man's memory.

But while it is a national news event because he was a football player, he is an example of people who have senselessly been killed in this country, and there are crime problems everywhere. That is why we need to pass the COPS bill that this House has passed and the Senate should pass to provide community policing and aid for local governments to hire more policemen, to have feet on the streets to protect our citizenry.

While there are horror stories in Baghdad, there are horror stories in America; and we need to protect our own.

I will remember Taylor Bradford, and I will remember all victims of senseless crime tonight.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday there was a continuing resolution with a motion to recommit that attacked

MoveOn.org. I voted against that motion to recommit, and I did it because it attacked the first amendment.

There is a tradition in the House that we address the conduct and not speech, speech which is protected by the first amendment, that flag, and the Constitution, the Bill of Rights.

Now, when we start to attack speech and don't attack other speech, by implication we approve of the other speech. This House by not attacking Don Imus for his statements about African American women, this House by not attacking the individuals who questioned Max Cleland's citizenship or his honor, this House that did not condemn Rush Limbaugh and his statements about Senator Hagel and Michael J. Fox, or Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson who question people who are gay and lesbian and feminists for the attacks or Katrina.

When we attack one group for speech and don't attack others, by implication we approve the other's speech, and that is wrong, and that is why the motion to recommit was wrong, and it is a dangerous precedent.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday this House passed a conference committee report on SCHIP that will give health care for over 4 million children, something we long should have done.

Forty Members of the Republican Party joined with us, but many Members of the Republican Party, just like the previous speaker, sensed that something was wrong with the bill because it was, quote-unquote, an earmark. That alleged earmark, not really

an earmark, was in my district. It says that the States of Mississippi and Arkansas can pay for the health care that their people receive at the Charity Hospital in the City of Memphis, Tennessee that is losing $20 million a year and more treating people from Mississippi and Arkansas who are indigent.

That is not an earmark. That is allowing a State the option to pay for care received by their citizens that they otherwise wouldn't receive and that another county taxpayer group or city people are paying for. It is equity. It is long due. It wasn't an earmark. And I hope my colleagues will refrain from continuing to refer to this in such a way. It is a calumny that shouldn't be repeated on this House floor.

Mr. Speaker, I thank this House for passing that conference committee report and correcting an inequity in health care.

Mr. Speaker, it came up in the point of order about a question of an earmark, and it was raised by the Republican side that that earmark was in my district. And they questioned something that maybe I should have done.

The fact is that part of the bill is in my district. It's The Med, a public hospital that renders charity care to people in Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, and the boothill of Missouri; a hospital almost out of business because of how much charity care that it renders to the folks in those States.

I have no interest in that hospital but that as a congressman who supports that hospital. No personal interest whatsoever. I have great political interest in it because it serves my constituents, the people of Mississippi, and Arkansas. It is questionable whether that is an earmark or not. It was put in with the help of people across the aisle, and I appreciate my Republican colleagues from the State of Tennessee who helped get this in the bill because they see the need to help folks from Mississippi and Arkansas get health care that is provided at The Med and is not reimbursed to The Med. They lost $20 million in funding last year, the citizens of Shelby County who provided that funding at The Med for people in Mississippi and Arkansas, and that funding should continue.

Patients don't stop at State lines and neither should funding. And all this provision does is allow States to request Medicaid reimbursement for their citizens being treated at The Med in Memphis, Tennessee, the ``City of Good Abode.'' I am proud to be a Congressman from Tennessee, and I am proud to represent The Med and take umbrage at any suggestion that I violated any rules in seeing that I worked with my colleagues from Tennessee on the Republican and Democrat side to see that this inequity was corrected.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the ranking member.

I rise in support of H.R. 2881, the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act of 2007, which would authorize $66 billion for Federal aviation programs.

This legislation would provide for the Airport Improvement Program, for FAA facilities and equipment to accelerate the implementation of NextGen, which will enable the FAA to replace and repair existing air traffic control facilities and equipment, as well as to provide for the development of high priority safety-related systems.

I must say, however, Mr. Chairman, that I'm extremely disappointed that this legislation includes language that would abolish 80 years of legislative and legal precedent by allowing FedEx Express workers to unionize under the National Labor Relations Act, as opposed to the Railway Labor Act which has traditionally covered all airline employees. And the Ninth Circuit United States District Court in California has reemphasized that, and it's the law of the land.

FedEx Express is the largest employer and economic driving force of the city of Memphis, which is predominantly the Ninth Congressional District, which I represent.

This provision raises a number of questions and concerns regarding the consequences of this precedent for other carrier employees and employers, and it could have been addressed during a hearing on the subject. Unfortunately, in a marked departure from T&I Subcommittee's normal practice, no hearings were held on this issue.

Mr. Chairman, I speak in opposition to FedEx Express language, not as an opponent of workers' rights to collective bargaining, but as an advocate of what I believe are the best economic interests of Tennessee's Ninth Congressional District and this Nation, which needs a steady stream of interstate commerce provided through the Railway Labor Act.

However, I signed on as an original cosponsor of this legislation because I support the vast majority of its provisions, including the language added by Aviation Subcommittee Chairman Costello, which provides for consumer rights, environmental and noise concerns, safety issues and flight attendant, air traffic controller and pilot work conditions.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the committee chairman and the Aviation Subcommittee chairman, as well as the committee ranking members for their hard work on this bill in bringing together an effective measure that includes input from a great number of expert stakeholders across the airline industry. The overall content of this bill is sound, and I believe the few provisions about which I remain concerned will be addressed in the conference.

I urge my colleagues to support this measure.

Mr. Speaker, 4 years ago, Army Staff Sergeant Morgan D. Kennon became the first victim of the Iraqi war from the city of Memphis.

Staff Sergeant Kennon joined the Army immediately after high school, hoping to earn enough money for college and eventually become a lawyer. He was guarding a bank in Mosul when he was killed.

His father said, ``He was a beautiful kid. He was a serious-minded youngster who was devoted to fulfilling his mother's wishes. If his mother needed anything, instead of being out in a park playing basketball, it was his joy to go out and do whatever he had to do to help her.''

On 9/11, I received an e-mail from his sister, Miss Nicole Crawford. I will read it:

``I am the sister of Staff Sergeant Morgan Kennon. I just wanted to know exactly what you and other Members of Congress and Members of the Senate are doing to bring our troops home. It has been almost 4 years since my brother was killed, and we still don't know why he was killed.

``Mr. Cohen, it is not just hard for the soldiers serving in Iraq, it is hard for their families also who worry about them. It is especially hard for the families that have lost loved ones in Iraq.

``Please don't take this the wrong way, but if the Democrats don't do something soon and force Mr. Bush's hand, there will not be a Democrat in the White House next year. The people of this country voted for the Democratic Party because they want change.''

Ms. Crawford, I am for change. I am not going to vote for any additional funds but to redeploy our troops. I feel your pain.

Mr. Speaker, we will hear from General Petraeus today and tomorrow. I think we all need to reflect, as we will this evening in a memorial for the victims of 9/11 and a day like December 7 that will live in infamy, that while we may disagree on how we should respond to the terrorist threats that we have in the Middle East, that we should disagree in an agreeable manner because we are all Americans and no matter what position we take, we all want the best for this country. We want peace and prosperity, and we want our soldiers to be safe and to be supported.

There were heroes on the airplane in Pennsylvania who tried and did deter the terrorists from possibly attacking this building or the White House. Their motto was: ``Let's roll.''

As we remember them, I ask Members on both sides of the aisle if they disagree, which we will, to disagree in an agreeable way. Let's roll for the American public.