Melvin Watt: “I obviously object to the process that is being followed, but there is something that is behind that process that I…”

“I obviously object to the process that is being followed, but there is something that is behind that process that I object to that I want to call our attention to. We had a debate about it on this floor. This bill allows housing authorities to evict tenants for failure to perform community service. That is unprecedented. Think of it, we give veterans benefits. We give all kinds of benefits, even welfare benefits. We provide to people, we might require them to work but at least we pay them. This is a provision that says, we are going to evict you from public housing unless you perform free community service, no guidelines for it, no question about whether you are an employee. What happens if you get hurt out there doing this stuff? Nothing about guidelines under this provision. We debated this ad infinitum. Here it comes back again on an appropriations bill. Put it on an appropriations bill, maybe we can sneak it through and it will be all right. This is unprecedented. It should not be in an appropriations bill. There ought to be discussions about it back and forth between the committees of jurisdiction in the House and Senate, and we ought to refine it. We ought not just put a provision out there that has no guidelines about it. This is unforgivable. It is out of the process. We should not allow it to happen in this body. Processwise or contentwise, it is unforgivable. We should vote against this amendment.”