Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This is an amendment, a Davis-Bacon amendment, and it will be brought on each of the four segments of this appropriations bill that we are considering here in the House this evening and perhaps tomorrow morning, Mr. Chairman. Just to make it clear, the text of the amendment is very simple. It says, ``None of the funds made available by this act may be used to implement, administer, or enforce the prevailing wage requirements in subchapter IV of chapter 31 of title 40, United States Code,'' and this is commonly referred to as the Davis-Bacon Act. What the Davis-Bacon Act is, it is a statute that exists from about 1933, and its genesis is back during the Great Depression when there was, let's say, labor protectionism brought about by the unions in New York City. When a contractor from Alabama bid a Federal building contract--and there were not many of them in those days--that Alabama contractor was successful and he imported African-American labor out of Alabama to do the work in the trade zone of the construction unions in New York City. And so two Republicans, a Republican Senator and a Republican Member of the House, got together and wrote the Davis-Bacon Act, which is defined as prevailing wage. In my 42 years in the construction business, which we just concluded as of Labor Day, this past Labor Day, we have dealt with the Davis- Bacon Act quite a lot.…”