Reply #8: Mr. RANGEL on the floor [View All]

[seemslikeadream]

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel).

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill because it gives this great august body an opportunity for the first time to discuss whether or not the administration or the party in the majority intends to have a draft .

I suspect that one of the reasons that this has to be cleared up before the election, the evidence clearly indicates that everyone in the Pentagon, the Defense Department, has indicated that we need a robust military force in Iraq. All of the evidence indicates that we have exhausted our active troops; we are exhausting the Reserves; we are exhausting the National Guard.

We have a back-door draft , where we do not let people who enlisted and have finished their term get out. In addition to that, the Army is over there in combat. Where the normal term is 1 year, the Pentagon has indicated they are going to reduce it to 6 months, to go along with what the Marines do, because of fatigue.

It just seems to me as many times as the administration says that they are against a draft , all we hear on the Internet and around the country is that, after the election, they are going to have the draft .

If they are going to have the draft , I support this legislation, even though, quite frankly, I would have preferred that the bill be referred to the Committee on Armed Services, because I think it is important enough to have hearings on this matter and for the administration to really show why they really do not need to get people through an involuntary conscription.

But since they knew I had this bill and since they knew it was election time, I rise in support of the bill, even though I would gladly yield to the committees of jurisdiction, because it just seems to me that, if we abuse the system by continually taking legislation for the purpose of embarrassment and not in order to say that it is so noncontroversial that we should put it on the suspension calendar, then, no matter who is in the majority, we are violating every principle of the House, and that is the reason why the Parliamentarian and the Speaker have decided that I am in control of the time.

This system should be used only when there is no controversy. But I am not a Member of the House that runs away from controversy. Those who run away from it are those people who have the responsibility to discuss bills in the committee with hearings and bring the legislation so the American public can see what you do believe before an election.

But now you cannot even decide who is for the bill, who is for consideration, ``I want it up; I want it down.'' It is a political thing that you are using that determines the lives of people as to who fights in wars and who is exempt from wars and who should do national service.

It is a disgrace, what is going on here today, and you cannot find anyone to put the blame on. You are against your own bill. It came out of your Committee on Rules. You have the majority. But yet you need some way, some vehicle.

And just because justice does not cave in to people who are hypocritical in nature, we got the time to tell you why we support the bill and why we oppose the bill. But, unfortunately, we are doing this on the suspension calendar. The majority, I guess, will say that this is a noncontroversial issue, because if you do not admit that it is controversial, then you are saying that it should not have been on this calendar in the first place.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r108:4:./temp/~r108jD7R3Y:e3168: