Financial Services And General Government Appropriations Act, 2008

Floor Speech

FINANCIAL SERVICES AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008 -- (House of Representatives - June 27, 2007)

Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, this is a very simple amendment. I think it is a win-win. This amendment will reduce the appropriation to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel by $1 million, but it redirects those funds to a far more deserving entity, District of Columbia students who wish to attend college, the D.C. College Access Act.

I was the original author of this legislation in 1999. This legislation essentially allows students in the District of Columbia to attend out-of-state universities and pay in-state tuitions because the District of Columbia does not have a state university system,

Since that time, what had once been a pipe dream for D.C. students, because college was so unaffordable to them, paying for private colleges and out-of-state universities, has become a reality and is becoming part of the culture of the District. It has doubled the number of students in the District of Columbia that are now able to go to colleges. It has doubled that number. It is changing the culture. It is changing the aspirations of these students.

This amendment, the $1 million that is added here, will allow an additional 200 District of Columbia students to take advantage of this program and go on to higher education. There will be no waiting lists. There will be no backups. They won't have to wait to see if the money is there. It will be there for them.

If you want to change the culture of the city, we start with the education system. Mayor Fenty has started with a new system trying to revamp the public school system. But it doesn't do these students any good if they can't, at the same time, go on to higher education.

The other thing this has done is it has kept people in the District of Columbia. Instead of having to move to Virginia or Maryland to attend universities, they can now live in the District and afford to send their kids on to college. Aspiring students who come from, in many cases, single-parent or no-parent homes, can now work their way through colleges, community colleges and other state universities in the region, and be able to commute back and forth. This has been a win-win situation.

Now, we take this money from the Office of the Special Counsel. This office was increased by about $800,000 this year over last year's appropriations. We are bringing them basically to the level of appropriation they had last year.

It is a troubled office. In February, Tom Devine of the Government Accountability Project testified before our committee that the Office of Special Counsel has become a caricature and an object of contempt among the constituencies it supposedly services. It illegally gags its own employees, engages in ugly retaliation against its staff and is engaging in heavy-handed obstruction of justice tactics to intimidate its own employees from testifying in ongoing investigations of its activities.

In April, Melanie Sloan, Executive Director of Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, said, ``Having transformed OSC into a virtual black hole for legitimate complaints of retaliation, Bloch is decidedly not the right person to tackle issues of misconduct and illegality.''

More recently, we witnessed a Special Counsel who is trying to rehabilitate himself. But Beth Daley, the Director of the Project on Government Oversight, was quoted last month as saying, ``It is hard to believe the Office of Special Counsel will be able to conduct a thorough investigation into the White House while the Special Counsel is under investigation himself.''

So I think this office can go back to the basic appropriation it had last year. This money can be better spent invested in the students of the District of Columbia as they aspire for higher education.

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

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Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia. Let me just say, first of all, it is the President's requested number, but the District can use this money because of the students that are still waiting in line to make sure that they have a place and there is no waiting list.

Let me just add this. You are defending the Office of Special Counsel. The Special Counsel, just weeks after he came into office, removed any reference to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation from the OSC Web site. He then testified before the Senate that he did not believe current law protects Federal employees from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, an assertion that flies in the face of decades of precedent and defies an Executive Order by President Bush.

Today, the Special Counsel is under investigation by the President's Council For Integrity and Efficiency and the Office of Personnel Management for claims that he retaliated against employees who complained about office policies, issued an illegal gag order, abused his hiring authority, discriminated against homosexuals, allowed political bias to influence enforcement of the Hatch Act, and forced senior career staff to relocate from OSC's Washington headquarters to a new regional office in Detroit.

I would suggest that the gentleman go back and do his homework on this office. There are some sensitive issues they are dealing with. But I will tell you, this takes it back to last year's appropriation level, I think, or just about that level. More importantly, I think this money can be better spent on the students of the District of Columbia.

The Acting CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman has expired.

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Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, can I ask my friend, what are the sensitive investigations he is referring to?

Mr. SERRANO. The Special Counsel has been asked to look at various issues, including violations of the Hatch Act.

Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia. Are there any particular ones you are referring to at this point?

Mr. SERRANO. All of the above.

Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia. They have been looking at these investigations for years. This amendment still gives them $14 million to do that.

Mr. SERRANO. That is true.

Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia. Which is almost the number they had last year. In light of the record that has been compiled here, the investigation of GSA is complete. That has been forwarded to the President. That is no longer pending, so that is no longer an issue. I just wanted to make that clear on the record. This is not about that. This is about a number of other issues that have been concerns expressed from your side of the aisle as well.

Mr. SERRANO. If the gentleman will yield further, my point to the gentleman is he started his argument by saying he wanted to help the tuition program, but, in fact, he has a problem with the Special Counsel. I am suggesting hat for the good of this House, we should not be doing anything that appears like we are trying to chill.

Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia. We had to get the money from somewhere, and this seemed to me an appropriate place to take it.

I am no stranger to this program. I was the chief author of authorizing this legislation to begin with. So we are not taking it for some program. This is a program I had a lot to do with creating and feel strongly about it and feel it could use additional money. I think the District feels the same way. The fact the committee funded it at the President's level doesn't mean it couldn't use additional money and fund additional students.

Mr. SERRANO. If the gentleman will continue to yield, my point would be until at least one of those investigations has concluded, which has gotten quite a bit of publicity in this country and been discussed widely, we should not be cutting what is not a large budget.

Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia. The one the gentleman is referring to has been completed. It has been forwarded to the President, and they have no additional jurisdiction. For the record, we need to clear that up.

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