macleginn/stanford_congress_record_longer_speeches huggingface dataset:
Date: 2007-10-03
Speaker: LORETTA SANCHEZ (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Madam Speaker. I do not think I have to further remind this Congress about how far off base the President is over the State Childrens Health Insurance Program. The health care system is failing our Nations children who are in need. Too many are without health insurance and do not receive the regular care they need. For this President. the supposed evil of two million children possibly switching health coverage to state sponsored healthcare is enough to block coverage for six million additional poor children. Seven hundred and fifty thousand children were added to the rolls of the uninsured last year and the number of employers that offer health benefits to the children of workers continues to shrink. Yet the President stands firm to a proposal for SCHIP that would not even be able to maintain existing coverage and would impose unconscionable hurdles on families whose children need health care. One must question the principles of this President. How. in good conscious. could he ask for an additional $190 billion for a war that twothirds of the American people oppose while calling $5 billion for one of our nations most successful programs reckless spending? The American people deserve better and our Nations children deserve the right to have health insurance.
Date: 2007-10-03
Speaker: TUBBS JONES (democrat)
Chamber: H

and I. we have to see the Federal budget when it comes through Ways and Means before it goes to the Budget Committee and we met with the Treasury Secretary just today talking about fiscal responsibility. I think the problem. Mr. RYAN and
Date: 2007-10-04
Speaker: LORETTA SANCHEZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Speaker.-the situation in the housing market is well documented. Unscrupulous practices by mortgage brokers in search of fees and the unrealistic belief that housing prices would continue their meteoric rise is resulting in the most perilous situation for the housing sector. and the economy as a whole since the Great Depression. The most urgent action for this Congress is to encourage actions that enable families to stay in their homes. Today we will consider H.R. 3648. the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act. This bill takes the crucial step to restore fundamental fairness for homeowners in financial distress by revising language in the tax code that includes discharged home mortgage debt as taxable income. Homeownership. especially among minorities. is at an all time high. It has contributed greatly to our economy and our social fabric. Foreclosed. empty homes only impose costs that everyone must bear. Now is the time to make sensible reforms to protect families and consumers who are on the verge of losing their home. I commend the Committee on Ways and Means and the House Leadership for bringing this important bill to the floor.
Date: 2007-10-04
Speaker: LINDA T. SANCHEZ (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. Mr. Speaker. tonight I rise to honor a colleague. ally and a dear friend. Rick Diegel. On October l of this year. the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. the union to which I proudly belong. said goodbye to longtime political legislative department director Rick Diegel. Rick Diegel. who has been one of the most influential labor voices on Capitol Hill. is a true champion for American workers. not just organized workers. but all workers and their families. I have known and relied on his good counsel for more than 10 years. Under Brother Diegel. the IBEW has become a respected leader on policies that affect American working men and women as they try to provide for their families. Brother Diegel represents the true spirit of public service. A Vietnam veteran. he served in the U.S. Air Force from 1964 to 1968. Before he came to Washington. Brother Diegel was active in politics in his native Texas. And for the record. I dont hold against him the fact that he is from Texas. In the 1970s. he served three terms as mayor protem of the City of Ingleside. As a member of Corpus Christie IBEW Local 278 in 1969. he worked for several contractors in Texas as a journeyman wireman and foreman. So. yes. he has worked with the tools. He was elected business manager in 1977. a post he held until his appointment in 1983 to COPE director at the international office here in D.C. He became director of IBEWs political legislative department in 1998. One of Brother Diegels greatest achievements has been his success in helping IBEW brothers and sisters get elected to. public office. where they work to advance policies that work for working families. And his success has been amazing. More IBEW members have been elected to office than any other organization. labor or otherwise. And he has worked to create an office within the AFLCIO to promote the election of workingclass brothers and sisters to local. State. and Federal office throughout the Nation. I hope that effort continues to bear fruit. The more that we can bring the issues of average working Americans to the forefront. the more we can take back the machinery of government from those who would use it to benefit the narrow interests of the wealthy few. It is through the leadership of Rick Diegel and the efforts of likeminded brothers and sisters across the Nation that we can ensure that the American Government is working for the people. all people. It is with great sadness that I say goodbye to Rick and his wife. Theresa. But I will remember Ricks kindness. his compassion. and his dedication and strive to live up to those ideals in my work on the Hill. Congratulations on your retirement. Rick. and good luck. And as the Mexican saying goes. may you have love. success and now the time to enjoy them.
Date: 2007-10-04
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Speaker. I thank you very much. and just really briefly. I want to thank you and congratulate my colleagues for holding down the fort for the last hour and standing up for our Nations children because its just absolutely preposterous that the President vetoed an opportunity to expand access to health care for millions of children. And we are going to continue to fight to our last breath in the Democratic Caucus and try to override this veto so we can make sure that we do the right thing by our children. We will be here regularly week after week to make sure we stand up for people who need the most help.
Date: 2007-10-04
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

I mean. what we have tried to do in the 30 Something Working Group is to highlight. particularly when it comes to the domestic agenda of this caucus. what the other side. our good friends on the other side of the aisles. decisions and the ramifications of those decisions and the impact that they will have. And we had. 45 Republicans do the right thing on this SCHIP vote on this childrens health insurance bill. and what we need them to do is cast the right decision again. vote to override the Presidents veto. and we need about 17 Republicans to come with us to realize that they made the wrong decision in voting against it so that we can make sure that we give access to children. not those _who are already covered by private health insurance. The President has tried to spread the misperception that this program and this expansion is about taking kids off of private health insurance and putting them on government health insurance. That is totally false.. What is actually happening is we are going to expand access to health insurance for children that dont currently have it. for children whose families fall in the gap between Medicaid and private health care. Thats what the childrens health insurance program has be6n all about. and we need to make sure that the members of this institution. of the United States House of Representatives. be the representative body that they were elected to be and do the right thing by our kids.
Date: 2007-10-04
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

under her great leadership. Youre continuing to fight on behalf of the people of America. and Im thankful to be considered 30 something.
Date: 2007-10-04
Speaker: GENE GREEN (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

introd a bill for the. relie Enrique Soriano and Areli Sort which was referred to the Commi on the Judiciary.
Date: 2007-10-10
Speaker: AL GREEN (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

I thank the chairman and the ranking member. but I also thank the subcommittee chairperson. MAXINE WATERS. for the fine. stellar job that she has done with this piece of historic legislation. Mr. Chairman. this is an historic occasion with historic opportunities. This historic occasion provides the historic opportunity to not only cast an historic vote but to also be on the right side of history. On July 2. 1964. this House made history when it passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which. among other things. outlawed discrimination in public accommodations and encouraged desegregation and education. 289 were on the right side of history. They voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. On August 3. 1965. this House again made history with the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. benefiting millions of minority voters. 328 were on the right side of history. They voted right when they voted to protect voting rights. On April 10. 1968. this House again made history when it passed the Fair Housing Act. prohibiting discrimination in housing. 250 were on the right side of history. They voted for equality of housing opportunities for all. Today. we must cast another historic vote. a vote for a National Affordable Housing Trust Fund. For the first time in history. in the history of the United States of America. we will have a fund dedicated to making the American Dream of a place to call home a reality. And. yes. there are other housing programs. some say 30. some say more than 30. Every one of them is needed. Every one of them. even under a Republicancontrolled House. Republicancontrolled Senate. Republicancontrolled administration. the programs were not eliminated. Every one of them is needed. There is a need for this affordable housing trust fund as well. and I say to my friends. whether we will make history today with our vote is not the question. The question is what side of history will we be on. Will we be on the side of those who need this affordable housing trust fund or will we be on the side of the rhetoric that is in opposition to a needed program?
Date: 2007-10-10
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. first let me thank Chairman FRANK and Subcommittee Chair WATERS for their work on this important. bipartisan bill. The National Affordable Housing Trust Fund will help provide funding for lowincome families who. absent this assistance. may not be able to afford their own home. There are many dedicated Govemment agencies. nonprofits. forprofits and community and faithbased organizations who will seek to participate in this .important program. To ensure that the most productive housing projects are fundedprojects dedicated to funding sustainable. successful programsI am proposing an amendment to introduce a measure of. longer term accountability to the trust fund application process. This bill establishes two levels of applicantcentered accountability: A trust fund applicant must describe the types of projects he intends to support and must establish performance goals. benchmarks and timetables to help measure the projects successlater. the applicant must produce a report describing the progress of those projects during that fiscal year. � Because the applicant is only required to report on his projects for that year. this process. despite its commonsense ambitionseffectively breaks the chain of accountability between the grantee and his projects at the end of the fiscal year. This amendment will maintain that chain of accountability by requiring that any previous grantee who seeks funding from the Affordable Housing Trust Fund provide as part of his application a progress report on the previous projects funded by his organization with funds from this trust fund. The Affordable Housing Trust Fund will produce billions of dollars worth of grants. HUD does not have the resources to monitor all the projects funded with these funds. The government will therefore have to rely on grantees to shoulder part of the burden. When grantees return for additional assistance each year. they will be required to update HUD on the success of their previous trustfunded projects. I encourage my colleagues to support my amendment and help ensure that the real beneficiaries of this important program are the lowincome families it was created to help.
Date: 2007-10-10
Speaker: EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Speaker. due to a family health emergency. I was unable to be present for rollcall votes 949958 on Tuesday. October 9. through Wednesday. October 10. 2007. Had I been present. I would have voted in the following manner: "yea" on rollcall votes 949. 950. 951. 952. 953. 954. 955. 958. 960. "nay" on rollcall votes 956. 957. 959.
Date: 2007-10-10
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. MURPHY. this process we are going through in trying to win over the 15 Republicans kind of reminds me of the lessons my parents taught me when I was a little kid. You would struggle. Madam Speaker. with what was really right from wrong and to understand the values that your parents were instilling. I know I did. I would ask my mom on tough questions: How am I going to know I did the right thing? What is the guidepost I should use? That is the kind of lessons parents teach their kids all the time. I remember so vividly my mom and dad telling me you have to be able to go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning and look at yourself in the mirror and like what you see staring back at you. You have to know that your conscience is not going to gnaw at you. There are plenty of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who will thump their chests and use a lot of bravado. false bravado. I would add. and say. I can live with myself. I am doing the right thing. But you know in your heart of hearts when you go to sleep at night and you are the only one in the room with yourself whether or not you have done the right thing. I am desperately hopeful they will listen to that inner voice. because you know your inner voice has to be telling you. if they truly have the values that they say they have as opposed to the ones that are reflected in many of their votes. that they will do the right thing. at least 15 of them. and vote to override the Presidents veto. We all remember the vivid picture that we had when history was made on January 4 this year when Speaker PELOSI was sworn in and handed the gavel with all of those children. the children of our colleagues and grandchildren. surrounding her at the roster. That was a very vivid picture. but that wasnt a photo op. That was a representation of what Speaker PELOSI has staked her speakership on. She dedicated her speakership to our Nations children. and we are making our entire agenda about improving.their lives and affecting and impacting their future. I mean at the end of the day. like I said a couple of minutes ago. and it bears repeating. this is a blackandwhite issue. You vote to override the Presidents veto. you are for expanding access to health care for 10 million children. If you vote no. you are against it. period. There is no other way to define it. This is one of those things. Mr. MEEK. the more they have to explain why they are doing what they are doing. the wprse it gets for them. Again. I go back to standing in front of your constituents at a town hall meeting. and sometimes you look out at the faces that we represent and you hope you are winning the audience over. But on this issue. those puzzled expressions dont go away the more words that come out of our colleagues mouths in explanation of why they cant support expanding access to health care for 10 million children.
Date: 2007-10-10
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

can tell you. my good friend from Florida. and Mr. MURPHY can tell you. that we pride ourselves. Madam Speaker. on making sure that we share accurate information with the Members and the American people. Thats just where it is. We dont talk about fiction. We just talk about facts. Now. earlier today we had H.R. 3056. What does that mean? Theres a lot of House bills that are around. but this .-bill was actually a very. very important bill to the U.S. taxpayer. It dealt with the Tax Collection Responsibility Act. We had tax collectors that the Republican majority put it in power to have the phone numbers of every American taxpayer. and they were socalled to ring in dollars of individuals that are not paying taxes.
Date: 2007-10-10
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

Im so glad that you brought this up. because as a member of the whip team. I was working this debt collection bill. that we passed on the House floor today. and I was just equally as shocked as you were about how many of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle voted against this because here are the facts. Those private debt collection companies were costing us $70 million. We paid them $70 million of government funds to collect $20 million.
Date: 2007-10-10
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

I will be glad to say it again. Its that shocking. We were paying private debt collection companies. instead of paying IRS employees a salary. to collect the debt that is owed in taxes from the people who have not been paying their taxes. $70 million to private debt collection companies to collect $20 million. and if we had spent the same $70 million. the statistics show that the track record of IRS employees paid the same amount of money would have collected $1.6 billion. $1.6 billion would have been collected by government employees working for the IRS who we have to presume are quite a bit more trustworthy with our constituents private. personal information in this time of stolen identities and stolen funds from our constituents. The thing that strikes me as the most disturbing about this is that the Republicans talk this good game about being fiscally responsible and being the ones that are the stewards of the publics tax dollars. and then lets go down the list of where our votes and our leadership has been as Democrats under Speaker PELOSI and where theirs have been. There was this bill today. Do you have the numbers on how many Republicans voted against this bill today? Voted to continue the practice of spending $70 million to collect $20 million. 232 Democrat "yes" votes and 173 Republican "no" votes. Only 22 Republicans voted "yes." I dont understand that. So maybe its an isolated incident. Maybe its isolated.
Date: 2007-10-10
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

Again. for some more examples. Mr. MURPHY. you came in the new freshman class or majoritymakers who were committed to this campaign to come here and help move this country in a new direction. The new direction we. have been talking about is eliminating the consistent examples of Republicans talking about being fiscally responsible but doing exactly the opposite. The next time we should bring the numbers of the votes to the floor on how many Republicans voted for the PAYGO rules and how many Democrats. voted for it. how many Republicans voted against the amendment that closed the tax loophole that allowed American companies to hide how much they were supposed to pay in taxes by headquartering them in a different country even if they were really American companies doing business here. In that energy bill. we put a provision in that energy bill to make sure we could close that loophole. I would like to see numbers here on how many Republicans voted against it. allowing companies to skirt their responsibility. This is not about increasing taxes. That vote was about collecting the taxes that are due. that these companies owe. So no on PAYGO. no on closing tax loopholes. no on debt collection responsibility and leaving $50 million on the table. Who is fiscally responsible and who is just kidding?
Date: 2007-10-10
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

In helping to close us out. I do want to direct people to the charts and the other information that we have talked about here tonight. Our Web site can be reached by going to www.speaker.gov. and you will find the 30something link right on that Web page. www.speaker.gov. I can only hope that the next time we meet. which will be the day before we cast that childrens health insurance vote. to decide who is for kids and who is not. to override the Presidents veto. that we will be able to report that we have picked up those 15 Republicans who have found their way and would be willing to do right by our Nations kids. It has been a pleasure to join you here this evening.
Date: 2007-10-15
Speaker: HERSETH SANDLIN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Madam Speaker. I rise in support of H.R. 2295. the ALS Registry Act. introduced by the gentleman from New York . I would like to thank my friend and colleague from Wisconsin
Date: 2007-10-15
Speaker: PATRICK J. MURPHY (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Pennsylvania

Madam Speaker. I rise today in support of H.R. 2295. to amend the Public Health Service Act to providefor the establishment of an Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Registry. ALS. more commonly known as Lou Gehrigs disease. is a particularly cruel disease and is always fatal. usually between two and five years after diagnosis. One of the very few trends researchers have been able to identify is that veterans are twice as likely to die from ALS as those who have not served in the military. However. Madam Speaker. it can strike at any time. regardless of age. race. gender or nationality. This fight is personal for me. as My good friend Shelbie Oppenheimer. and her husband Jeff have long been advocates for those with ALS. Shelbie was diagnosed when she was just 28 years old and has since spent countless. hours educating friends. family. community members and elected officials. Shelbie has been fortunatestill fighting after 10 years. The Oppenheimers have created a wonderful organization based in my district in Bucks County. Pennsylvania: Shelbie.org. Along with many community partners. they work tirelessly to provide opportunities for the children of ALS patients. Jeff and Shelbie. along with their daughter Isabel. are a constant inspiration to me and I join them in the fight to turn ALS from a disease to a memory. It is for Shelbie. Jeff. Isabel and countless others that I am proud to be a cosponsor of this bill. This legislation will create. through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. a single. nationwide ALS registry. This Registry is essential to advancing the search for treatments and the cure. Since we dont know the cause or the cure of ALS. research is the key. Enabling researchers. doctors and patients to understand the trends and history of the disease is vital to moving forward. The Registry will gather data on the environmental and occupational factors that may contribute to the disease. including the age. race and ethnicity of individuals with ALS. the patients family histories and other information that may be beneficial to advancing research and care. Madam Speaker. I urge all of my colleagues to join this fight and support the ALS Registry Act and vote yes on H.R. 2295.
Date: 2007-10-15
Speaker: HERSETH SANDLIN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Madam Speaker. I rise in support of H. Con. Res. 133. a bipartisan resolution supporting the goals and ideals of LongTerm Care Awareness Week during the week of November 4 through 10. 2007. I would like to thank Chairman DINGELL and committee staff for moving this resolution to the floor. and the gentlewoman from Wisconsin for yielding to me once again. I would like to urge my colleagues to support this commonsense. bipartisan resolution which I introduced with the gentleman from Louisiana . along with the gentleman from Maine and the gentleman from New Jersey . I am proud that this resolution has earned the support of AARP. Families USA. the Alzheimers Association. the National Council on Aging. the Amer-