Liberal in the Land of Conservative

Congress Matters aims to bring the community-based political watch party that we've built at Daily Kos to the United States Congress.

By watching, learning, analyzing and discussing the daily activities of the Congress, we hope to improve our effectiveness as advocates and activists. We'll pull back the curtains on how Congress conducts its business, both public and "private" (i.e., within the party caucuses and conferences), explain floor procedure and rules, and even throw in a little gut feeling when appropriate to try to get a better picture of what's going on, and more importantly, what we can do about it.

Mr. Speaker, what else are these purveyors of confusion supposed to say?

They have had an opportunity to spread deregulation all over. They have declined the opportunity for many years to pass an antipredatory lending bill. They have promoted tax breaks for the wealthiest among us. And now that they have had the opportunity to have a House and a Senate in which their particular caucus was in the majority, they have had a full opportunity to manifest their economic ideas, and what those ideas have come to has been the largest foreclosure crisis since the Great Depression.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of long overdue legislation to crack down on predatory mortgage lending. This week the House will consider legislation to curb abusive and predatory lending, a major factor in the Nation's highest home foreclosure rate in 25 years and the precursor to the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression.

I have been on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure from the time it was the Committee on Public Works. I started my career in this House in January of 1963 as Clerk of the Subcommittee on Rivers and Harbors, the oldest committee of the House, the first committee of the House.

Our work has evolved over many years to encompass a wide range of issues related to investment in the Nation's well-being, but none more fundamental, more important, than water. All the water we ever had on this Earth, or ever will have, is with us today. We aren't going to create new water from any technological source. No comet is likely to come into our orbit and deposit new ice to form water. Our responsibility is to care for the water we have.

I represent the southern Minnesota district that includes the Mayo Clinic. I also represent a district that is a leader in wind production and biofuels, not just nationwide but internationally.

I also had a guest last night, Chuck Ehler, the superintendent of a small school, Rushford-Peterson, in my district. That community was devastated by flooding that had a Federal disaster in 2007. It's a 103-year-old building.

The people and the citizens who will fuel our economic recovery are those citizens trying to learn in a building that will not work. We must invest in the future. That's how we repair our economy.

As a member of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, I look to the American Legion for guidance on the priorities of our Nation's veterans. It is because, every day, the Legion is out there, working with our veterans. They understand what is needed.

Our committee's portion, the infrastructure recovery program is targeted. It will be transparent and recipients will be held accountable, and the investments are desperately needed. The construction sector is suffering the highest unemployment rate of any industrial sector, 15.3 percent, 1.4 million construction workers out of a job.

Fully implemented, as our committee proposes, we can have a million workers on a construction site in June of this year and generate $325 billion in total economic activity when fully implemented, jobs that cannot be outsourced to other countries, using materials that are made in America, not outsourced beyond our shores.

Transparency, we require reporting by every State DOT, every transit agency, every airport authority, every 30 days on the contract awarded, by contract, on the specific jobs, job description and payroll, which we will receive and make public through hearings that we will conduct 30 days after the funding is allocated to the States and every 60 days thereafter.

Accountability, an amendment which I expect or hope to offer tomorrow made in order by the Rules Committee, will have a requirement that funds be committed in 90 days, use it or lose it.

I rise today in support of Eric Holder to be the next Attorney General of the United States.

The next Attorney General will need to hit the ground running, from beefing up civil rights and antitrust enforcement to addressing white-collar crime and drug-related violence, to helping keep our country safe from terrorist attacks. As I told the Judiciary Committee last week when I voted in favor of his nomination, Eric Holder is the right man to do the job. He is the right man to lead the Department of Justice at this critical time. And most importantly, coming from a State that had our own share of problems with a political appointee put in place as U.S. Attorney, he is the right man to get the Department back on course, to put the law first, when it comes to the Department of Justice.

The President called on us to take immediate action. That is what this economic recovery plan is about--a bipartisan group of Senators--and, Mr. President, you and I were involved--who got together and said we need to get this done. I thank Senators Nelson and Collins for their hard work. It is not a perfect bill, and I don't agree with everything in it and with everything that came out, but literally we cannot afford to wait any longer to get something passed.

At the core of this bill is jobs. This bill is about jobs, jobs, jobs. It will put Americans to work by rebuilding our roads, highways, and bridges, which have been neglected far too long. The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that for every $1 billion of highway spending, it creates nearly 48,000 new jobs and generates more than $2 billion in economic activity.

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Another piece of the plan I want to highlight is the emphasis on energy jobs. I spent the last few months traveling around my State. I can tell you what I have seen. I have seen the little telephone company in Sebeca, MN, that needed a backup power structure because power was going out for their customers. They put together a packet with small wind and solar, and they sold it to the people in their area. They have been selling like hotcakes. The windmills in Pipestone, MN, became so popular that they opened up a bed and breakfast. You can go and stay overnight with your wife and wake up in the morning and look at the wind turbine. That is the package.

The point of this is that the people in our State see the value of these new energy jobs, whether it is a little solar panel factory in Starbuck, MN, or a big wind turbine manufacturing factory up in the Moorhead area. They see the value of new energy jobs. This energy technology revolution--or ET--is different than the information technology resolution--IT. When I saw the IT revolution, as big as it was, jobs tended to be segmented in certain areas such as the Silicon Valley, and they tended
to be for people with graduate degrees and PhDs. This energy technology revolution will spread jobs across the country, in manufacturing jobs, green helmet jobs, and many other jobs for the people of this country.

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Finally, this plan contains money, significant money for broadband and telecommunications infrastructure--$7 billion. When President Roosevelt said he was going to put rural electrification in place in 1935, we only had 12 percent of American farms with electricity. About 15 years later, 75 percent of the farms had electricity. That is what Government action can do.

Look at broadband. We have gone from fourth in the world to 15th. This is not the kind of progress that will keep our country moving and get us back on track. For broadband, there is $7 billion in this bill.

The amendment is very simple, and it simply states online publication of periodic reports. The Secretary shall make publicly available on the Internet each report made in accordance with paragraph one. That simply says, at least quarterly, they will put out how they are spending our money.

The fact is that this piece of legislation, carefully crafted and now working with an amenable and a cooperative administration, is in a much better position to meet the needs set forth in the original legislation, which is to help homeowners. The bill requires at least $40 billion, but no more than $100 billion, be used to help distressed homeowners.

It is a sad reality that--88 years after the 19th amendment gave women equal voting power, and 45 years after the passage of the Equal Pay Act--it still takes women 16 months to earn what men can earn in 12 months.

When I travel around my State and talk to the women in my State, I find these women are not simply looking for a handout or preferential treatment. All they are asking for is a fair and equal chance to make a fair and decent living. That is why it is so important the Senate take up the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act on the Senate floor this week.

This important legislation will reverse a 2007 Supreme Court ruling--Ledbetter v. Goodyear--that significantly limited the rights of individuals to sue for gender-based

discrimination. The facts that gave rise to Lilly Ledbetter's case have been told, but I think they should be told again. She was a hard worker. People can picture her right now. I have met her many times. She is a delightful person. She worked at Goodyear Tire as a manager for 20 years.

When she started, all the employees at the manager level started at the same pay. She knew she was getting the same pay as the men doing the same job. But early in her tenure as manager, the company went to a ``merit-based'' pay system.

Payment records were kept confidential, as they are in many companies, and Lilly did not think to ask what her male colleagues were making. She was happy to be a manager. She did not think to look at her pay raise and to ask if the men in the department were getting the same pay the day the paychecks came out. I do not think many people think about running around and asking their colleagues if they are getting the same amount of money for the same work.

As the years passed by, the pay differential between what she made and what the male managers were making just kept getting bigger. It was only after getting an anonymous note from a coworker telling her she was not paid as much as the male managers that she finally realized what was happening. Soon after getting that note, she filed a legal complaint. But that was many years after the discrimination began.

At trial, Lilly Ledbetter was easily able to prove discrimination. She could show what she did, she could show what the men did, and she could show the difference in pay. In fact, the jury found that sex discrimination accounted for a pay differential of as great as 25 percent between Lilly and her male counterparts. You can think about how that adds up over 20 years of working.

However, Goodyear appealed the jury's ruling, and the Supreme Court, in a 5-to-4 decision, decided that Lilly filed her case too late. Essentially, they ruled she would have had to have filed within 180 days of Goodyear making its first discriminatory act.

Now, you ask, how would she have known this unless she was nosey and going around trying to look at people's paychecks? But this, as absurd as it sounds, is what the Court said.

Although the Court's decision completely ignores the realities of the workplace--that employee records are confidential and there is no reasonable way to know when discrimination starts--we now have an opportunity to bring the realities to light.

We should pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and allow a claim to be filed as long as the paychecks reflecting discrimination continue to be issued. In doing so, we will restore the original intent of the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Pay Act.

Madam Speaker, I come to the floor today torn about this resolution. Though I welcome resolutions by the Congress to express support for the people of Israel and Gaza at this difficult time, this resolution does not do enough to move towards a stable and durable peace in the Middle East.

I feel that I cannot vote against the resolution, because I believe every country has a right to defend itself. I have been to Sderot, and I have seen firsthand both the physical and emotional destruction caused by the rockets.

Last fall I voted for a resolution specifically condemning the rocket attacks into Israel. However, I feel I cannot vote for this resolution either, because it does not sufficiently address the human suffering by Palestinians in Gaza. Over 750 people have been killed, 250 of them children, 50 of them women, with over 3,000 people injured.

Mosques have been bombed, schools as well. Even before the recent military operation, life for the people in Gaza has become increasingly unlivable under a crushing blockade. The Red Cross has been obstructed, 800,000 people without water, 1 million people without electricity.

That is why I intend to vote ``present'' today. Hopefully we can urge this Congress to not simply declare its support of its ally, but will actually move its ally and the rest of the region toward a more durable, sustainable, final solution to this conflict.

History has shown that ground troops and air strikes have not resolved conflict in the Middle East. If we try to resolve conflict with military might and nothing else, then we will be no safer than we were before. No one will be. Diplomacy is necessary to save lives and yield a lasting peace with security.

The United States must play a more active role in pursuing real peace in the Middle East.