Providing For Consideration Of Conference Report On H.R. 2918, Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2010

Floor Speech

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 772 and ask for its immediate consideration.

The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

H. Res. 772

Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to consider the conference report to accompany the bill (H.R. 2918) making appropriations for the Legislative Branch for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010, and for other purposes. All points of order against consideration of the conference report are waived. The conference report shall be considered as read. All points of order against the conference report are waived. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the conference report to its adoption without intervening motion except: (1) one hour of debate; and (2) one motion to recommit if applicable.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Massachusetts is recognized for 1 hour.

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier). All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only.

GENERAL LEAVE

I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to insert extraneous materials into the Record.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Massachusetts?

There was no objection.

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, this rule provides for consideration of the conference report on H.R. 2918, the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act. I rise in strong support of the rule and of the underlying legislation. The bill before us today includes not only the fy 2010 Legislative Branch appropriations bill but, more importantly, a continuing resolution to keep the government operating for the next 6 weeks.

With a few important exceptions, the continuing resolution provides level funding. In other words, the bill maintains funding levels passed at the 2009 appropriations process levels.

One of those exceptions is in the vital area of veterans health care, which receives an increase in this bill. The VA estimates that it will treat more than 6.1 million patients in 2010, including more than 419,000 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. That number represents an increase of 56,000 more patients than in 2009.

To ensure that the VA can provide our veterans the care that they need and that they deserve, the bill increases the funding for VA health by $3.85 billion. I would encourage all Members on both sides of the aisle who wish to provide this needed increase in veterans health care to support the bill.

To address the right-wing talk radio target of the week, no funds in this bill may be provided to ACORN or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries or allied organizations.

In terms of process, Madam Speaker, none of us on either side of the aisle are happy with continuing resolutions. They have been used for years under Democratic and Republican majorities, but they are clearly not ideal.

Here in the House, we have completed our work of passing all of the appropriations bills, and I want to commend Chairman Obey and his colleagues on the Appropriations Committee for their efforts and all of their hard work.

Unfortunately, it seems that these days that you need 60 votes in the Senate to agree that the sun came up this morning. The Senate has not yet passed all of its bills, and this continuing resolution is necessary to ensure that vital programs continue to receive funding.

I urge my colleagues to support the rule and the underlying legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

First of all, I don't think we need any lectures by Members of the other side about process. If I recall, when they were in charge here, continuing resolutions were a regular part of the process. If I recall correctly, their last year in power they did a short-term CR. That means they got nothing done and dumped all of their appropriations work on the incoming Democratic Congress, which was a daunting task, to deal with 2 years of appropriations. They had their chance, and I think that they messed it up.

The fact is that the bill before us, the conference report before us, is the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill, which is an important appropriations bill. All appropriations bills are important. I don't think it does anybody any good to diminish the importance of this.

This is important and it needs to be passed. I fully expect that the other appropriations bills will be conferenced, and we will be dealing with more and more conference reports in the coming weeks.

But, look, what we need to do here, Madam Speaker, is not only pass a conference report for the Legislative Branch Appropriations, but we also need to pass a continuing resolution which includes an increase in veterans' health care.

We have thousands and thousands of young men and women who we have sent to Iraq and who we have sent to Afghanistan. They deserve a first-class health care system when they return. All veterans do. They have served our country with great distinction. They not only deserve the best health care, but they have earned it. There is an increase in this CR for veterans' health.

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Mr. McGOVERN. I reclaim my time.

I thank the gentleman for agreeing with me, and hopefully we will have a unanimous vote on this, because there should be no disagreement on that. Again, in this continuing resolution, I will repeat to my colleagues, there is an increase in funding for veterans' health.

I think we should move forward. Get this conference report done. There will be more conference reports down the road. This is not an easy process. I think I've come to learn that the House of Representatives does not control the United States Senate. I wish we did. We would get a lot more done. But that's not the way our system works.

At this time, Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler).

Mr. NADLER of New York. I thank the gentleman for yielding me time, Madam Speaker.

The Constitution prohibits Congress from passing a bill of attainder, a bill that, no matter what its form, punishes either a named individual or an easily ascertainable group of people.

Last week, to the great shame of this House, we passed a bill of attainder, a bill stating that no Federal funds shall go to a specifically named organization, ACORN.

Now, in this conference report, we are about to do it again. Why? Because of a desire to punish ACORN. And yet, as ACORN's lawyer wrote to us recently, this is, ``to my research, unprecedented in congressional history. Never before has one corporation or entity been the subject of such broad reaching punishment by congressional mandate.

``The punishment here did not follow some criminal or administrative process with basic due process protections. It flowed out of a Fox News network-led call for a pubic lynching. There was no statement of charges and no reference to a judicial or administrative finding of wrongdoing by ACORN. All that occurred was a Member of Congress making a motion supported with a speech full of negative and largely inaccurate observations about ACORN, followed by a vote.''

The fact is ACORN has never been convicted of anything. Lots of charges. So far, no proof in any court or any administrative proceeding. But some charges may be true. And they may or may not--I think not, but that's just a personal opinion--indicate substantial misfeasance. But that's why we have courts and administrative agencies and congressional investigating committees.

It may be that ACORN is guilty of various infractions, and, if so, it ought to be vetted or maybe sanctioned by the appropriate administrative agency or by the judiciary. But Congress must not be in the business of punishing individual organizations or people without trial, and that is what the provision in this conference report does. It prohibits any Federal funds from going to ACORN for any purpose, clearly as a punishment for alleged misdeeds. This is a classic bill of attainder, and as such, it is flatly prohibited by the Constitution.

We must not ignore the Constitution. Whatever one may think of the subject matter or the organization, the Constitution and the ban on bills of attainder are there for the protection of all our liberties. And we ignore the constitutional provisions at our peril.

This bill of attainder should not be in this conference report, and I will, therefore, vote against the conference report.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, so nobody is confused here--and I appreciate the opinion of the gentleman from New York, but so nobody is confused here--the bill before us, there are no funds in this bill that may be provided to ACORN or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, or allied organizations. None.

We can talk about this all we want, but the facts are the facts, and there's no money in this bill for ACORN.

The gentleman earlier talked about shutdowns of the process. What I recall is when the Republicans were in charge, they shut down the government in 1995. We all know the adverse impacts of that.

For the record, I want to make clear to people that the Legislative Branch appropriation bill does not include Members' salaries. So this notion that we're somehow padding our pockets here is a little bit off the mark. The fact of the matter is, included in the Legislative Branch appropriation bill are moneys to help fund CBO so that it will be easier for Members to obtain PAYGO analyses of their proposals. We're all talking about the need to be more conscious of our debt and our deficit. That's one way to do it.

The other thing is that in this bill is money to protect the people who come and visit the United States Capitol. In this conference report, there are moneys that ensure that the Capitol Complex is as secure and as safe as possible, providing a 7 percent increase in funding for the Capitol Police, covering all mandatory spending and maintaining FY09 force levels. The bottom line here is that the men and women who protect us in the Capitol Police deserve more gratitude than they're getting the way this Legislative Branch appropriation bill is being described.

This is an important bill. All appropriations bills are important. We're going to hopefully pass all of our appropriations bills and not do what my friends on the other side did when they were in power, and that is just pass it off to another year. I think that we should move forward on this.

Again, in the continuing resolution there is an increase in funding for veterans health care. I think that is important. We owe our veterans more, quite frankly, than we are giving them. I hope that all my colleagues will support not only the rule but the final passage of this conference report.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, the gentleman described this debate as fascinating. I would describe it as kind of bizarre. The Legislative Branch bill that President Clinton threatened to veto, if I remember correctly, the gentleman from California voted for. And I will stress again that there is no money in this bill for ACORN, none, or its affiliates or its subsidiaries. Huge majorities in both the House and the Senate are on record as opposing funding ACORN. This notion that somehow when the CR runs out that the money for ACORN is going to go up, I don't get that. There will either be another CR or we will have passed relevant appropriation bills that will continue the prohibition. So that is kind of a nutty debate, and it is not relevant to this bill because this bill bans Federal funding for ACORN.

The other thing that I will say is that all appropriations bills are important, and we are going to get to all of them. But I think it is wrong to diminish the Legislative Branch appropriation bill, and I think it's wrong to kind of brush aside the importance of funding for the Capitol Police. We have had members of the Capitol Police lose their lives in the line of duty, protecting not only us but protecting our constituents who come here. They deserve to be supported, and they deserve to be thanked. This bill does that.

Again, I will remind my colleagues that in the CR there is an increase in funding for veterans health. Now if you don't want to fund the Capitol Police and you don't want to increase funding for veterans health, then vote against the rule and vote against the final passage of the bill. But I think the vast majority of our constituents are saying, This is a no-brainer. Move this forward. Continue your business. Continue to work on the other appropriations bills, and get your work done. And we are going to do that.

Let me finally say again in support of Chairman Obey and the members of the Appropriations Committee, they did all of their work in this House. Every single one of the appropriation bills has been passed. It is now up to the Senate to pass their bills, and then we will conference them and bring them back here for a final vote.

Mr. Speaker, in a moment I will be offering an amendment to this rule, and I want to briefly explain the amendment. The amendment will provide for adoption of an enrollment resolution that corrects a technical error made by the Senate in the continuing resolution. After the Senate struck a section in the continuing resolution, internal cross-references in the conference report became incorrect. This mistake could block contracting authority for any surface transportation programs, a result that I am certain that no Member of this House, Republican or Democrat, would support. The enrollment resolution corrects the cross-references.

I hope all my colleagues will vote ``yes'' on the amendment, the rule and the previous question.

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