Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank my dear friend from South Florida and, indeed, a colleague in the Florida legislature, a mentor, advisor, and a dear friend of mine for many years. And I want to congratulate the gentleman for his leadership, because as long as I have known the gentleman from South Florida (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart) when he sees wrongdoing going on, he speaks out and he does so with a passion and a fervor.

The gentleman understands the difference between freedom and oppression because of his background on the Communist state of Cuba and the freedom he enjoys and fights for every day and hour of his waking life here in America. And I want to thank the gentleman for being such a great friend not just of mine but, more importantly, to freedom.

The gentleman has asked me to explain the inexplicable: why a man like this would be held hostage; why diversity would be held hostage by his critics; he has asked me to explain why somebody with incredible merits, impeccable academic background, incredible moral background, a hard-working gentleman who came to America as a 17-year-old and has led and proven the American dream.

The gentleman has asked me to explain why enormous integrity is actually held against an applicant for the United States Federal bench, and I cannot explain the inexplicable even though I am a politician, while there will be some politicians that will try. Being punished for having all the enormous merit that Miguel Estrada has is something that I find very personally offensive. I think it is offensive to the American way. I think it is offensive to the entire notion of an independent judiciary.

And I will state for those of the American public that are watching tonight, maybe they do not understand all the details of what it takes to succeed and get to the Federal bench. I want to boil it down.

I am a former practicing attorney in business in the real estate field. I want to boil it down so I think that normal people, people that really are not politicians or lawyers, can understand. There are really two basic qualifications, I think every American would agree with this, in order to get appointed to and succeed on the Federal bench:

Number one, you need to be fit. You need to be fit morally. You need to be fit intelligently. You need to be fit academically.

Number two, you need to adhere to the United States Constitution and to the rules of law.

I would suggest to my great friend that the sin that Miguel Estrada is being accused of is that he is enormously well fit and he is enormously dedicated to adherence to the Constitution and the rule of law. And that bothers some people because they want to pull it aside. They want to twist the Constitution. They want to rewrite the Constitution.

I will tell you that one of the things that the gentleman is being held up for is because when he was asked specifically how he would rule on specific cases that might come before him as a United States Supreme Court Justice, he said that he would have to decline to say specifically, because the entire notion of an independent bench is not to make promises.

It is not like the political world that we live here in the Congress. It is not like the executive branch. In the executive branch and the legislative branches we share our biases with the voting public. We say we are for this and we are against that. People get to vote in a representative democracy in

favor of one candidate against another because of their political biases. But on the bench you are supposed to put your political biases away and you are supposed to adhere to the Constitution and adhere to the rule of law. That is what offended political activists who want to take over the judiciary and use it in a way to take over the representative government. In my view, that is the fundamental reason why Miguel Estrada has been torpedoed.

But he has another sin. The fact that he is, as the gentleman understands, a great colleague of mine, he represents a great district in south Florida, both east and west coast. The notion that this is a gentleman with an ethnic background that is not white, Caucasian like me, but that comes from a wonderful part of our American society, but he does not adhere to the liberal big-government notion of rewriting the Constitution in some people's minds disqualifies him from serving on a bench that they want to turn into a political operation.

And by the way, the wonderful thing about the arguments that we are able to make, and our colleagues on behalf of the Miguel Estrada nomination, is that no individual critic of his has come forward with a specific sin. They admit that he was one of the brightest students, actually the brightest student, magna cum laude, editor of the Law Review at Harvard Law School, as the gentleman pointed out. He has the intellectual IQ. They have admitted that he has incredible integrity. There is no question about the gentleman's integrity. He has fantastic integrity.

They have admitted that he has got a great background, that he has worked hard, that he has lived the American dream. Their problem is that they cannot point to one flaw in this man's character, his capability, his academic career, his working career. And so as a sort of camouflage for why they are really opposed to Miguel Estrada's nomination to the Federal bench they say this; and, by the way, as the gentleman knows, he would be the first Hispanic American ever on this appeals court that he has been nominated to. They say little things like he has not disclosed secret advice in a legal memorandum to his client.

Now, I can state that while I was a business and real estate lawyer, that if we are going to force every applicant to the Federal bench to disclose secret memorandums and advice to their clients, a couple things will happen: Number one, nobody who has ever written candid advice to their clients in the public or private sector will ever apply to the bench. We will disqualify all the best lawyers in the country, because the truth of the matter is that the obligation of an attorney is to zealously advocate for their client and give them candid, secret, private advice. The attorney/client privilege is critical because if you do not have it, your lawyer will not tell you the truth about what you need to do to protect yourself.

There is a second application here in terms of undermining the attorney/client privilege, and that is that people in government will not get the best advice that is available. If lawyers who work for the government know that everything they say to their clients one day will remain public, then the President, individual Members of Congress, and others will know every day that their lawyers are not going to tell the truth to them. What their lawyers are going to prepare is documents prepared later for a publishment so that the whole world will see exactly what their advice to their clients was. This will undermine the entire legal system in my view, and, in all candor, anybody who has ever been subject to a traffic ticket, some sort of criminal problem; who has had a civil litigation matter, if they can imagine; a divorce, for example, as my colleague may know some people, we dealt with some divorce law in Florida.

Imagine going through a divorce and as a spouse fighting over a child's custody, fighting over issues of whether or not you will be able to get enough alimony to support your children. Imagine if everything your lawyer tells you or writes to you is going to be published in the New York Times and the rest of the journals throughout the world tomorrow, imagine how candid and honest and decent your lawyer is going to be with you. He is not.

Well, I have some sure thought, and then I know the gentleman has some other Members here that are really passionate about how offensive it is about what is happening to Miguel Estrada. But I will tell you this: There is a double standard. Miguel Estrada would be the first Hispanic ever on this bench. He is a Solicitor General not in just the Republican administration, but he worked for President Clinton's administration. He got high marks everywhere he worked.

The problem is this. The critics of Miguel Estrada do not want a vote. They do not want a debate over his talents, his capabilities, his integrity, his morals, his academic achievements; and they especially do not want to discuss the fact that this wonderful gentleman came here as a 17-year-old, lived the American dream, and now is an outstanding American statesman. They cannot vote against a man if they have to live with a description of his incredible achievements.

So what the critics are using is all sorts of excuses. And as the gentleman points out, they have never ever once demanded that any of the nominees in the past live up to the technical requirements that they are trying to place on him. The double standard the gentleman speaks about, in my view, is because Mr. Estrada is a lesson to Americans that you do not have to think, just because you are a Hispanic American, in a one-little-box mentality. You do not have to be a liberal activist. You do not have to promise to undermine and rewrite the original intents of the United States Constitution. And the lesson that the liberal critics want to teach not just Mr. Estrada, but everybody else, that they are going to crush you if you believe that the Founding Fathers wrote what they meant, meant what they said. And we are especially going to crush you if you come from some minority background or if you are a woman, for example, because they never, never want to have a day in America where people, regardless of their ethnic background or their gender or their race or their

religion, can actually think outside a small liberal box.

And I want to tell the gentleman once again that for as long as I have known him, he has been a freedom fighter. When he sees wrong going on, he leads the fight to basically stand up for decency, for values, for the American way. I am a huge fan of the gentleman from south Florida and I believe, as I know he does, that if we just let the American people know that there is a crime being committed in public against Miguel Estrada, that two things will happen: Number one, he eventually, despite, despite this ugly episode led by his opponents attacking him in a surreptitious way because they cannot do it directly, he has no flaws in his background; despite that, he will end up on the Federal bench.

Secondly, the wonderful news is that free thinkers throughout America, regardless of whether they are women or what their religion is or what their ethnic background is, will be sent the message they do not have to pander to the liberal left wing special interest groups; they can be true to the United States Constitution; they can still make it as a Federal judge. That is a great message.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 33 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``Yea.''

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the gentleman from Georgia for joining the Florida delegation this evening, and I want to thank him for his wonderful dialogue last night with my colleague from Florida. I am glad to be here with two great friends and colleagues from the Sunshine State.

I want to tell my colleagues that one of the reasons that my colleague here tonight from south Florida is so passionate about this issue is that his family shares something that apparently Mr. Estrada is now going through, and that is suffering because of their political philosophy. This is not just persecution of a man by denying him access to the door of the Federal bench because of his ethnic background or because he has assimilated into the American dream too quickly.

But there also is a component here, as we know, that has a philosophical

component. There is a litmus test not just on how Hispanic one is that is being set up by the critics of Miguel Estrada, this incredible leader and a great American, but there is an also a litmus test that is based on a certain philosophy that they are terrified will be lived from the bench, and that is that there are some that would like to see the bench turned into a completely activist judiciary, full of biases where unelected judges would become a super legislature. They would rewrite the Constitution. They would ignore the laws passed by Congress or ignore those that they did not like.

For example, if we look at the First Amendment alone, there is an establishment clause that basically is very clear. It says that ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.'' Because of that, we have liberal activists saying that judges should impose, because they know full well elected members in our great democracy that would never impose a provision that would say you cannot recite the Pledge of Allegiance, words like ``one Nation under God.'' This is a liberal activist judiciary. And the real goal here, if I can tell my colleagues and the Speaker, is that we want to have a litmus test, according to the critics of Miguel Estrada, so that unless you are prepared to substitute your political bias and your judgment for that of the elected representatives of the people, then they do not want you on the bench.

And I will hopefully engage in a dialogue with the gentleman from Georgia and with my colleagues from Florida so that we can talk about some of the real, underlying reasons why this is going to become such a huge battle here in the Capitol.

I will finish with this, if I may, and that is that lot of us do not want; we joined a great justice, Antonin Scalia who, in his wonderful book, ``A Matter of Interpretation,'' says, you should not have a judge who is going to have a conservative interpretation of the Constitution or a liberal interpretation or a strict interpretation or a loose interpretation, but a textural interpretation.

In other words, we want judges that will apply the rule of law, that will read the statutes that we as an elected body pass, that will look at the text of the United States Constitution, that will, in their fairness and wisdom and incredible credentials like Miguel Estrada has, will be able to protect the wonderful Constitution that we have.

Unfortunately, there are some critics of Miguel Estrada that do not want an independent judiciary; they want a litmus test by philosophy of judicial liberal activism, and I find that offensive as well.

It is not just the fact that Miguel Estrada, if the critics have their way, will be denied the opportunity to be the first Hispanic ever to serve on that great court but it is the way it is happening.

There have been several committee hearings. Normally judges at this level receive at most one or two committee hearings. They have had many more than that. But with respect to the problem and the issues they have had, they have been unable to identify any sin that this man is guilty of, either philosophically, with respect to his integrity, his background, his impeccable qualifications. And so what they have engaged in, the critics of this great man, is a whispering campaign. And they are trying, not to vote down the nominee, what they are suggesting, these critics, is that we will not have a vote at all. And after all, if the real reason you are sabotaging the opportunity for Miguel Estrada to go to the bench is not something you will admit in public, then do not have a vote. If it is something that you are willing to stand up with honor and respect in debate in a free forum in front of the entire world, then go into debate and have that vote. That is the democratic process.

But to use a procedural mechanism to deny the opportunity of a great man to get a fair vote up or down, my great colleague from Florida suggested that this incredible, a man has a 15-to-nothing highly qualified vote from the American Bar Association, but on top of that the American Bar Association says this: ``Vote them up or down. But do not hang them out to dry.''

The people that want to hang Miguel Estrada out to dry are afraid to explain to the American people in a public vote why they oppose the nomination.

Now, whether it is for, as some of us suspect, that terror that a great Hispanic leader that loves the Constitution and a textual defense of the Constitution may not be the liberal activist they want or whether it is some other political reason, that this would be a great opportunity to show the American people that folks from all different backgrounds, diversity, ethnicity, religions and philosophies can be great jurists, I do not know exactly what their real motives are and we will never know until we have a fair vote under the democratic process that all of us can all judge up or down.

Announcement of the Speaker Pro Tempore

I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston). I think that is especially true, that this man is a great role model.

As we have been discussing here tonight, Miguel Estrada was not born in America, much like Secretary Mel Martinez of Housing and Urban Development who comes from my community. We are so proud of our home son here in the Cabinet.

This is a wonderful man who was not born on American soil, but I can tell my colleagues Mel Martinez defines what it is to be part of the American spirit and to be a success story. Much like Secretary Powell, who was not born specifically on the continental mainland of the United States, but now is a model for all of us, not just in the military, but his leadership internationally.

Now here is an opportunity for a young Hispanic man at the age of 17 to come live the American dream and be the first Hispanic on this very prestigious court, and some people are terrified that the bottle of success without handouts or welfare or any system of, for example, racial quotas, this man can have a huge success and a wonderful career because of his own merits and his deep belief in the United States system and our government.

One thing, if I may, I want to talk about not just the litmus test that we mentioned earlier of whether Miguel Estrada is Hispanic enough, because we do not understand what that means, but I want to talk about the fact that the litmus test is based on a certain nominee's judicial philosophy.

I would suggest to my colleagues that everybody I know supports the notion of judicial independence. The problem is, some of the critics of Miguel Estrada support the notion of judicial independence meaning the judges should be independent by the written words in the statutes and the Constitution and they should be free to essentially make it up as they go along.

Others of us believe deeply that judicial independence is critical, that we not have an over-excessive interference from one branch to the other. I do not believe the executive, for example, ought to be able to fire justices when they do not agree with them. The Constitution prohibits that. I do not believe that the Congress, if we were mad at a particular judge or a bench, should be able to reduce their salaries to punish them, and our Constitution prohibits that.

The Founding Fathers thought deeply about the judicial independence from other branches, but they also believed deeply that the judges should never be independent from the laws and the Constitution as written, and I want to quote Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Thomas Ritchie, ``A judiciary independent of a king or executive alone is a good thing, but independence of the will of the Nation is a solecism, at least in a republican government.''

The bottom line here is that I believe that many of the opponents of Miguel Estrada are terrified of this man because he believes deeply that the Founding Fathers wrote what they meant and meant what they wrote. And I will share one more example of a judiciary. I am still with the First Amendment. We will go through all of the amendments, if my colleagues like, in terms of judicial excessiveness and lack of willingness to stick to the text, but I already started with one portion of the First Amendment, and I want to go to another, the freedom of speech clause.

Liberal activists have argued, for example, that freedom of speech protects Nazis that want to march through Skokie, Illinois, a place that had many victims of the Holocaust reside there, and yet the freedom of speech provision prohibits and the First Amendment prohibits school children from singing Silent Night as part of a Christmas choir play. I think that sort of overreaching is the kind of liberal activism that the opponents of Miguel Estrada are insisting on as their litmus test before they will support his or any other nomination.

If my colleague will yield on that point, I just said that the people that are criticizing Miguel Estrada, when they do not even want to have a vote, they want to suggest we ought to have these weird interpretations of the establishment clause, and yet the very people that enacted this Constitution, in my hometown where I was born, in Philadelphia, thanks to Ben Franklin, a great Philadelphian, who said this at the Constitutional Convention when he suggested that they ought to begin every day, as they put together the most wonderful document that ever defined the relationship between free individuals and their government, here is what he said as they suggested that they start with prayer.

He said, How can it be, basically referring to Matthew, that a sparrow cannot fall to the earth without God's watchful eye, and yet we can create this document without his watchful assistance? I am paraphrasing Mr. Franklin because, of course, we do not have the specific records from that convention.

But the bottom line is that the people who put our Constitution together do not want us here today, as they lie above us in heaven for their great deeds, they do not want us to allow the legislative branch to hijack the judicial branch and impose a litmus test that judges have to ignore, the written words of either statutes or the Constitution.

We are doing our constitutional duty by speaking out, and I thank the gentleman for the opportunity to be here.

The gentleman from Georgia is so right. This is one of the greatest success stories of my legislative career. I am sure my colleague from south Florida will tell the gentleman the same thing.

Because of what the Congress did, we in the State of Florida were able to enact reforms that actually took some 780,000 Floridians off the welfare rolls, off of complete dependence on government and basically created opportunities and freedom and work and jobs for them. And we now are down to less than 150,000, almost a 75 percent reduction. We are so terribly proud of that.

As the gentleman knows, the old system of welfare was set up by compassionate people, by people with big hearts, but what they really did not realize is what the effect of the system that they built actually had on individual decision-making. Because as the gentleman from Georgia knows, poor people are not dumb. They respond to the same incentives as the rest of us.

If we look at the old welfare state in America, what it told, particularly and primarily young women with children, what it told them was this, look at it like a contract lawyer would look at it. It said, we will give you free gifts from government. We will give you AFDC checks, housing assistance, food stamps. We will give you health care for your children, some 72 other entitlement programs that you may be eligible for. But in order to get these free gifts for taxpayers, you have got to promise us a couple of simple things.

Number one, promise that you will not get married to anybody who is working because if you do, we will take all of your health care for your children away; we will take your AFDC checks, your food stamps. All these other benefits will disappear.

Number two, you have to promise us that you will not go to work yourself, because if you go to work, we will take away your health care benefits for your children; we will take away your food stamps, your AFDC checks, your housing assistance.

The third thing that this contract wants you to know is that if you have additional children while you are stuck in the system, we will give you bonuses.

Poor people are not dumb, my colleague knows that. They responded to the incentives we set up.

So we took advantage of the opportunities provided by the great leadership here in the Capitol, allowing the States, under the 10th amendment and principles of Federalism, to try to solve our welfare mess, and what we have done is this. We have gone from 750,000 Floridians stuck on this horrible system of perverse incentives that got them into a trap that they just could not crawl out of, and we have gotten them into free opportunities.

Let me tell my colleagues who the beneficiaries are of this, if I may as I close, on how grateful I am that you gave Florida the opportunity while I was there and while my colleague from south Florida was there.

Taxpayers are huge beneficiaries because they do not have to support people that are out there successfully working in their environment. Families are beneficiaries because many men actually are no longer the enemy of people that need help. We have designed a system that can reunite the mom and dad. That is great for the entire family. It is especially great for the mom and the dad that can spend time together and the children that can have the benefits of a two-parent family, which we know is so important.

Third is the huge benefits to single moms, who now get up at a certain time, get cleaned up, get showered, get off to a job where they are contributing members of society and taxpayers. They do not have to feel like they are enslaved by a system they cannot get out of. Those are all beneficiaries.

But the most important benefits I would suggest we have not even seen yet. Because we have a whole generation of young children in Florida and throughout the country that are growing up not watching their role model or their main parent watching TV all day or engaging in some more pernicious behavior, such as drugs, prostitution or black-marketing. They are watching the people that are raising them get into the work system, be part of the

American Dream, pay taxes, and be contributing members of society. I believe that there is a long-term dividend in the psychology and the culture of young children thanks to what we accomplished on welfare reform.

I am so honored to be here now as we work hard to reenact this liberating bill, and I thank the gentleman for his leadership.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield for just a second. Sadly, the truth of the matter is we have been told by our Surgeon General and other experts that the biggest problem children have in America today is not hunger but obesity. After 6 or 7 years of welfare reform, we need to get back to exercising, working out, and into good nutrition. But certainly hunger is not the major problem we have with today's youth after 6 years of welfare reform.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to join my colleague from Florida in recognizing Crosswinds in Brevard County, Florida.

President Bush reminds us that America is a great, compassionate nation, and there is no better example than Crosswinds, which serves the youth and the teenagers and runaways that come to our community. They have won the prestigious National Network for Youth Award, and we are very proud of them.

I was especially proud to be there as Boeing employees, who contributed huge amounts of their own dollars voluntarily opened the Boeing room at this fine facility. I was also proud to lead the Duck Race this year, where we raised money by floating some 10,000 ducks over the Intercoastal River. I will tell you that the fine people who lead this organization, including Jan Lokay, Jim Ross, Cynthia Handley and many, many others really care deeply about children.

Finally, I want to recognize the young children that are working hard to turn their lives around for a better future, Mr. Speaker. There is no better example of President Bush's call for American compassionate leadership than Crosswinds in Brevard County.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gracious majority leader and minority leader also for their resolution today.

Mr. Speaker, the Columbia's crew made remarkable use of their gift of life. To borrow thoughts from the late Christopher Lasch, these astronauts belonged to a band of people who achieve selflessness by dedicating themselves to a tremendous challenge, mastering arduous, risky pursuits, meeting impersonal standards, and struggling towards an ideal of perfection.

As you listen to the crew's family members and loved ones, you grasp that their strivings were not solitary. Each astronaut was surrounded by those who supported his or her calling. Many people have calls, but few are blessed to be so unconditionally loved and supported, especially when their pursuit involves danger, risk, and the unknown. During their all-too-brief lives, each member of Columbia's crew achieved greatness because somebody told them they should follow their hearts.

Columbia's crew pursued life with passion. But Saturday reminded us of that word's Greek roots. Passion means ``to suffer.'' And to follow one's passion requires the acceptance of suffering as well as the joy of living life with fullness and with purpose.

The space family is large and extended. Although Kennedy Space Center employees, many of my constituents, remain here on Earth, each mission carries their hopes and dreams into space. They are bonded to the astronauts as comrades. My family belongs to that space family. My wife, Ellen, has been an engineer at Kennedy Space Center for 18 years. Tommy, my 10-year-old, who is in fifth grade, attended space camp this summer. Hanging on Tommy's wall at home, next to a poster of Michael Jordan, is another Michael, Michael Anderson, the payload commander on Columbia, who autographed a picture for Tommy, which is inscribed, ``Tommy, always do your best.''

Michael Anderson and the other courageous astronauts and the entire NASA team always do their best. At an all-hands meeting of the KSC team last Saturday, actually this Monday, KSC Director Roy Bridges affirmed: ``You are the best team on the planet.'' So this large and talented team shares many triumphs.

Still, every generation of this Cape Canaveral family unexpectedly bears witness to manned space flight's inherit dangers. In 1967, the Apollo 1 crew was lost on Pad 34 in an accident known simply as ``The Fire.'' In 1986, the Challenger rose majestically from Pad 39B only to break up over the Atlantic on a beautiful winter day. On February 1, 2003, the landing crew waited at the Shuttle Landing Strip for voyagers who never returned home.

On each occasion, the people of NASA grieved terribly. They asked tough questions, and they learned from adversity. But then they rededicate themselves to their mission and ultimately achieve their striving. America landed on the Moon after ``The Fire.'' The shuttle returned to pursue scientific discovery and construct the International Space Station. And we will continue that legacy by returning men and women to space, completing the International Space Station and turning our dreams of new exploration towards the planet Mars and others.

Exploration, journey, and bravery define the American people and their history. Each of us comes from a heritage where someone with great courage took a passage to new beginnings, many times with difficult endings. But the living stubbornly persevered,

pushed back vast frontiers, and built a great and glorious Nation. Adversity, including Saturday's loss, can never extinguish America's spirit.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, as Ronald Reagan said in the aftermath of the Challenger disaster, ``The future belongs not the to fainthearted but to the brave. That defines us as a Nation.''