Congressman: 'Tom DeLay out, human dignity in'

RAW STORY
Published: Wednesday June 7, 2006

Lawmakers are hoping that the removal of two powerful figures from the hill may clear the way for long-blocked reforms aimed at protecting exploited women and closing immigration loopholes, RAW STORY has learned.

Members of Congress announced today they are re-introducing legislation to reform labor and immigration laws in a U.S. territory that they say Representative Tom DeLay (R-TX) and Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff protected from scrutiny for over a decade.

DeLay will leave Congress this Friday, under indictment for money laundering in Texas. Abramoff will enter jail on charges including conspiracy, wire fraud, mail fraud, and tax evasion later this month.

Representatives George Miller (D-CA), Hilda Solis (D-CA), and John Spratt (D-SC) are introducing “The United States-Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Human Dignity Act,” which they hope will apply basic labor protections and U.S. immigration laws to the Pacific territory.

Indentured servitude, sweatshops--even forced abortions--are well-documented practices in Marianas islands factories, which have thus far managed to avoid U.S. labor laws while still, as a U.S. territory, applying "Made in the U.S.A." labels to the finished product. DeLay extolled the Saipan garment industry as “a perfect petri dish of capitalism."

Miller sought support for the bill through a Dear Colleague letter sent to fellow legislators with the subject line, "Tom DeLay out, human dignity in."

"For more than ten years, my efforts, and the efforts of so many others, have been thwarted," Miller said, "by the corrupt partnership of two of Washington’s most powerful players: Representative Tom DeLay and lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and by their allies in Congress.

Abramoff worked on behalf of the Marianas to, among other things, block implementation of U.S. labor laws. He arranged for current Marianas governor Beningo Fitial, while he was still a member of the territory's house, to meet with President Bush and then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) and Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL).

“They were running a protection racket,” said Miller. “DeLay and Abramoff protected the Marianas garment industry from congressional scrutiny and were rewarded handsomely for it with trips, lucrative contracts, campaign money and more. The most exploited women in the world, and the American legislative process, paid the price.

“DeLay used his office to block Congress from considering our bipartisan reforms. He told key committee chairman not to hold hearings on these abuses. The bill we are introducing is a test of whether that protection racket continues today.”

The Washington Post recently described the lobby dealings as a “criminal enterprise being run out of DeLay's leadership offices.”

"Their partnership was so corrupt," Miller blasted, "it even resulted in the suppression of a stinging report prepared by the Justice Department in 2001 that warned about threats to American security from lax immigration laws in the Marianas. That report was never delivered to Congress."

"I am releasing that report today."