I would like to call to your attention the importance of volunteerism to our Nation.

Furthermore, more than 200 low-income families will have an opportunity to participate in Prologue's citywide welfare-to-work initiative.

This community-based organization is improving the quality of life for thousands by helping to deliver a brighter future to those in need.

Prologue, Inc. has also established an intergenerational alternative education program, and has provided community-based educational, counseling, and referral services for low-income juvenile offenders.

Through its high school diploma program, Prologue, Inc. has assisted hundreds of out-of-school youths and older adults to receive their high school diplomas or their GED.

For the past twenty-five years, Prologue, Inc. has provided an invaluable service to thousands of Chicago residents.

This kind of personalized foreign assistance is vital to accelerating the development of free enterprise and democracy around the globe.

I rise before you today to commend two of my constituents from Springfield, Illinois, John and Virginia Gaffney, for their tireless work on a volunteer mission with the International Executive Service Corps in Egypt.

I am joining with Chairman Talent, Ranking Member Velazquez and the Small Business Committee in support of the Disaster Mitigation Coordination Act.

This outcome has, in fact, occurred three times in our history and resulted in the elections of John Quincy Adams (1824), Rutherford B. Hayes (1876), and Benjamin Harrison (1888).

I hope that the timing of this bill's introduction will only underscore the fact that the time has come to put an end to this archaic practice that we must endure every four years.

Today I am proud to reintroduce, along with Congressman Wise from West Virginia, a constitutional amendment that seeks to end the arcane and obsolete institution known as the Electoral College.

Our bill will replace the complicated electoral college system with the simple method of using the popular vote to decide the winner of a presidential election.

I am hopeful that our fellow members on both sides of the aisle will stand with us by cosponsoring this important piece of legislation.

The legislation I am reintroducing would simply strike mailings of this type from the code, thereby disallowing future use of the frank for these purposes.

Such an occurrence would clearly not be in the best interest of the people, for they would be denied the ability to directly elect those who serve in our highest offices.

last year I introduced H.R. 642, a bill that ends the most pervasive abuse of the frank--sending out unsolicited, self-promotional mass mailings.

The problem that needs to be addressed is the use of the frank as a campaign tool whose real 'informational' purpose is to make constituents aware of how deserving we are of reelection.