Providing for Consideration of H.R. 2786, Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Reauthorization Act of 2007

Floor Speech

PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 2786, NATIVE AMERICAN HOUSING ASSISTANCE AND SELF-DETERMINATION REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2007 -- (House of Representatives - September 06, 2007)

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SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for yielding his time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this unnecessarily restrictive rule and to parts of the potentially unconstitutional legislation that the Democrat majority is bringing to the floor today.

I would like to note at the outset of this debate that this legislation accomplishes a number of positive things, including making the Indian Housing Block Grant program more flexible and helping Native American tribes become less dependent on the Federal Government by giving them the tools that they need to exercise greater autonomy over their own affairs. I would like to commend my friend from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce) for his hard work on this legislation on behalf of his well-represented constituents and for Native American tribes across the United States.

However, this legislation does include language that places funding for Native Hawaiians at great risk because of its extremely suspect constitutionality. In 2000, the Supreme Court decided in Rice v. Cayetano that the current configuration of justices would likely strike down most Federal benefits flowing to Native Hawaiians as an unconstitutional racial set-aside, if given a chance.

I am already aware of this problem because these exact same constitutional concerns plagued H.R. 835, the Hawaiian Homeownership Opportunity Act of 2007, which the Democrat leadership allowed to fail under suspension of the rules earlier this year.

Title VIII of today's bill contains this same language and opens up today's legislation to all of the same concerns that were leveled against H.R. 835. I understand that my good friend from Georgia (Mr. Westmoreland) has submitted an amendment to correct this problem, and I look forward to hearing the debate on its passage later this afternoon.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I am concerned by the open-ended nature of this authorization. I understand that about $650 million has been appropriated annually for Native American housing over the last few years. Today's bill authorizes an unlimited amount of spending for the next 5 years for these programs.

While I understand very well the need for funding in a number of impoverished communities across this country, I believe that in the current fiscal climate, a climate in which Democrats have proposed an enormous $26 billion of additional new spending over last year, that authorizing an unlimited amount of money for the program is simply irresponsible.

Limits need to be set, Mr. Speaker, and it's the job of a majority to make tough decisions as to where spending is most needed and from which other programs it should be taken. By authorizing as much money as the appropriators care to spend, this legislation shirks its responsibility to provide guidance to an appropriate level of spending. As a fiscal conservative who is greatly concerned about runaway spending in this Democrat Congress, I believe this is simply wrong.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage all of my colleagues to oppose this restrictive rule that is not an open rule, despite Democrat claims to the contrary. I understand that they are in the majority and that the Democrat leadership has the ability to pressure their Members into supporting a resolution stating that Congress believes that two plus two equals five. However, that simply does not make it so and true.

In this same vein, despite their protests when they came to the floor and the claim that this modified open rule is open, that too is simply not so. It restricts Members who have ideas about how to improve this legislation during the debate from having their proposals heard, and there is simply no denying that fact.

I oppose this restrictive rule and the unconstitutional and irresponsible spending provisions included in the underlying legislation.

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

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