Date: 2001-05-23
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Chairman. I rise in support of my motion. I do so to once again outline the accomplishments of this legislation. and to buy a bit of time for some of our Members who are currently in a meeting. Mr. Chairman. we are bringing to a close here the debate on H.R. 1. I want to begin by thanking certainly all of the Members that have participated in that debate on this floor. on both sides of the aisle. It has been a spirited debate from time to time. but that is because we have very stronglyheld views in this House about education. and we have different views about how that education should be carried out. and the Federal role and involvement -in education in this country. It is honorable and it is important that this House allow that kind of debate. and I appreciate the fact that the Committee on Rules did in fact make in order the amendments that they did. I wish they would have made in order more of the amendments from this side of the aisle so we could have debated school construction and class size reduction. but we were not able to do that. However. I think. as Members can see from the debate over the last 2 days. it is very clear that this subject matter captures the interest and the imagination of the Members of Congress. They all have very strong feelings on it. All of us have spent a great deal of time when we were back in our districts visiting schools. talking to schoolteachers. talking to parents. talking to children. going through the process over and over again at all different levels. It is clear that this is the foundation of our society. This legislation is tough. This legislation is comprehensive. This legislation is controversial. However. I think in fact that the work product that we have put together here is one that we can all be proud of. and I think as we bring about this first reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of this millenium. that we truly are setting out on a different course. We are setting out on a different course because the President wants to change the direction. and because Members of Congress on a bipartisan basis want to change the direction of the use of Federal dollars and the purposes for which they are used. This legislation has called together a coalition. again from both sides of the aisle. but even within our own caucus. Some of the suggestions made here. and some of. in fact. the key suggestions. were brought to us in our caucus by the New Democrats. who helped us reach agreement with the Republicans on flexibility. something we have talked about for many years. It has been very controversial. there has been great resistance to it. but in this legislation in fact we have worked it out. I want to thank those Members for that. I also want to make clear that I do not want to overlook. as we get to the end. the work that has been done by the staff. The members of the working group spent a lot of time talking about this legislation. but our staff spent much. much more time. as did the staff of all of the Members of the Committee. in bringing about this agreement. We worked on Tuesdays. Wednesdays. and Thursdays on this legislation. and the staff worked Tuesdays. Wednesdays. Thursdays. Fridays. Saturdays. and Sundays on this legislation. and very often late at night. I think the work product reflects that. This committee is very fortunate to have people with a great deal of institutional memory and with a great deal of skills and talent and knowledge about this subject matter. We have warred over some of these topics and we have agreed on some of these topics. but I think that is why in fact we again were able to produce this work product in this Congress this rapidly. and with this level of agreement. Mr. Chairman. I ask unanimous consent. to withdraw my motion.