John Conyers: “I want to thank him for yielding to me because the position that we have adopted that we are being set back by the…”

“I want to thank him for yielding to me because the position that we have adopted that we are being set back by the manager's amendment is agreed to by the women against violence organizations, the civil rights organizations. And we have numerous letters, one from the chair of the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women, which plainly go into the details of the fact that in no way are we trying to establish quotas or favoritism to any one particular group whatsoever. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, it has been said that society's humanity is judged by the way it handles the problems and the protection of those who are least able to take care of themselves. And having watched television for the last few weeks about the issues around Katrina, one clearly understands that sometimes people on the bottom do not get handled very well. Somehow, the things do not happen that should happen for them. That gave us an ugly glimpse at that part of our society. And then as the country began to come out of that, the President walked out of the White House and said, we are not going to give prevailing wage to the people who work on the reconstruction of their own houses and their own countryside, that we were going to put them down at the minimum. We are going to take away the set-asides for minority and small business.…”