Maxine Waters: “before I start on my comments, I would like to thank Chairman Ney for his leadership on this legislation. Chairman Ney…”

“before I start on my comments, I would like to thank Chairman Ney for his leadership on this legislation. Chairman Ney first envisioned the possibility of this legislation, and despite all of the possible obstacles to getting it passed, he persisted in bringing people together, to dealing with all of those obstacles, and today we are on the floor because of his leadership. But it certainly could not have happened without my ranking member, Mr. Frank, who has the ability to see things in legislation that no one else sees and to bring it to our attention, and to fix what is wrong, and to give support to what is good and helpful when we are trying to pass a significant piece of legislation. {time} 1245 I would like to thank him, and certainly Chairman Oxley. As Mr. Frank said, he is retiring. He will be leaving us. But he has been a chairman who has been fair, he has provided opportunities for all of the members of our committee. He has worked with the subcommittee chairs and ranking members, and we are certainly going to miss him. I rise in strong support as an original sponsor of H.R. 5121, the Expanding American Homeownership Act of 2006, which represents a major achievement by the Committee on Financial Services and the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity. As I said, the leaders, Mr. Oxley, Mr. Frank, Mr. Ney, and all of the other members of the subcommittees who cooperated, deserve a lot of credit for this bill. But I have to mention the staff.…”