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Friday, November 19, 1999

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) has earned a reputation for promoting children's and women's issues. From her post on the Education and Workforce Committee, Woolsey pushed for breakfast programs for schoolchildren and fought the GOP welfare bill. She also led the group of nine women House members who went to a committee meeting held by Sen. Jesse Helms(R-N.C.) last month to push for hearings on a treaty promoting women's rights.

Woolsey (Courtesy Rep. Woolsey)

Woolsey, who represents Sonoma and Marin counties and the northern Bay area in California's 6th District, was live online on "Free Media" on Friday, Nov. 19. The transcript follows:

Free Media: Good afternoon, Rep. Woolsey, and welcome. Let's address the dust-up with Sen. Helms first. You and a group of other female House members attended a hearing of Sen. Helms's to encourage him to hold hearings on a treaty dealing with women's rights. Update us. What's the status of the treaty, and what do you think is likely to happen?

Rep. Lynn Woolsey: Since our visit to Sen. Helms's hearing, Sen. Barbarba Boxer introduced a Senate resolution asking the Senate to ratify CEDAW -- U.N. Convention to End Discrimination Against All Women -- by International Women's Day, which is March 8, 2000. All international treaties go through the Senate, but we've asked the president and Secretary Albright to encourage the Senate to go forward. I have reintroduced a similar resolution in the House, and it has 100 co-sponsors -- and growing.

Washington, D.C.: You represent the San Francisco and surrounding areas -- largely considered very liberal. Does that color how you deal with your conservative colleagues?

Rep. Lynn Woolsey: I don't represent San Francisco at all -- I'm across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco.

Of course [it colors the relationship]. Going back to visiting Sen. helms at his hearing, it never entered my mind that my district was not greatly behind my getting his attention and encouraging him to move forward on the treaty. Which gives me the privilege of workking on issues and legislation that fits very well with my district and perfectly with myself.

Chicago, Ill.: What's the likelihood that child support laws will be addressed in Congress during the next session or two? There is a rhetoric out there by religious conservatives that divorce and single-parent families are bad because it causes more children to grow up impoverished. It's an unfortunate statistic that lots of kids are poor because of divorce. But infuriates me that those who preach the morality of the situation ignore the larger morality, which is taking care of your kids. Don't you think that fewer kids would grow up in poverty if the non-custodial parent actually paid the child support owed? Is this issue likely to be addressed?

Rep. Lynn Woolsey: That's a great question. First of all, I relate to the question, because I was a single mom with 1-, 3- and 5-year-old kids. I was working but had to go on welfare to supplement my income because their dad never paid child support. That was 30 years ago, but things have not improved nationally on child support collection. I have legislation with Rep. Henry Hyde, which is a surprise because he and I are opposite in most philosophies, but we believe child support collection should be federalized. Because that is the only way the absent parent cannot run away from their responsibilities.

Washington, DC: As a hill staffer I must say how much I appreciate your fighting for the children of this country. What are the newest iniatives you are working on to help protect the most vulnerable citizens of this country?

Rep. Lynn Woolsey: First of all I have just recently been assigned chairmanship of the Democratic Caucus' Task Force on Children. We are looking at answering the question of who is taking care of our children. One of the areas we will be working on is paid leave for new parents and job security. And we'll be certainly addressing child care availability and quality. We'll be looking at safety for children and violence at schools. We'll be looking at supporting families. I have legislation in some of these areas. There are 65 democrats on the task force. We'll be putting together measurement criteria so that we will be able to know how federal legislation affects children.

It's very clear to me that with the way the changes are in families -- if you're lucky enough to have two parents, both probably work -- that children are being left behing. not just poor kids. We have to step up to what that means for our society, because children are 25 percent of our population, 100 percent of our future.

Madison, Wis.: How does the fight over agriculture in the budget debate affect California?

Rep. Lynn Woolsey: Wisconsin and California don't agree on their dairy issues, so Sen. Feingold and I and Rep. Obey and I come from different places on this. California would be satisfied with the status quo. I represent a dairy community -- we produce over 55 percent of the dairy products for the San Francisco Bay area. I have legislation to protect and support the dairies in my district -- it's a miracle that 45 miles from San Francisco that we have the dairies that we have.

Buffalo, New York: My question concerns the recent confrontation with Sen. Helms over the Woman's Rights Treaty. Was that pure political theatre on the part of the congresswomen, or did you all really think you could get someone like Jesse Helms to acquiesce by disrupting one of his hearings? It seems to me that if you all played politics with the senator, in the tried and true back-room, wheeler-dealer Washington style, you know, tit-for-tat, logrolling, whatever it's referred to these days, you'd gain his support. He's not the ideologue everyone -usually left of center- paints him to be. What do you think?

Rep. Lynn Woolsey: First of all, we didn't intend to disrupt his hearing. We were delivering a letter to his office, after trying for months to get an appointment with him so I could hear him and talk to him about CEDAW. But when he wouldn't see us -- in fact his staff denied knowing where he was, and we were told by someone else that he was chairing a hearing two doors down the hall -- we just walked in, and there was no place to sit. So it wasn't until he gavelled and started telling me to sit down and act like a lady that I spoke to him. And I told him we had the letter and we would like to talk to him about the process of ratification of CEDAW. iIt was then he said we should leave his hearing or we would be escorted out by the Capitol Police.

So did we accomplish anything? Yes. It was not just about CEDAW, it was about one man standing in the way of democracy. He played a huge role in defeating the nuclear test ban treaty. At the same time he was holding up the appointment of Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun as ambassador to New Zealand. And he was also holding up CEDAW. He gave the press the hooks -- there would have been no news if he hadn't done that -- we didn't go there to make news, we went there to deliver a letter. But the next week Sen. Moseley-Braun was appointed. I think the Republican leadership in the Senate asked him to step aside and let the process go forward. Now Sen. Boxer has introduced her resolution and now we'll go forward.

Austin, Tex.: Immigration complicates public education in California as it does here in Texas -- in terms of class size, language skills, etc. What do you think is the answer to reducing class sizes and helping kids do better in basic skills and testing? Why shouldn't successful schools be rewarded in voucher programs and underachieving schools be given a mandate to shape up?

Rep. Lynn Woolsey: We have just passed -- out of the House -- a budget supporting the president's initiatives to add 100,000 teachers so that class size is reduced. We have also added funding for teacher training. In the budget there's support for building schools -- knowing that smaller high schools are better -- we will have the funds to encourage smaller schools to be built. We have also supported national standards so that kids around the country get the same equal education.

Do I think poor schools should be punished? No. I think poor schools should be evaluated and assisted. Not every school has a homogenous population to deal with. Schools that are having the most trouble are dealing with the wider diverse communities. Therefore, they need support, not condemnation.

I believe that all public schools should be the best schools in the world -- therefore we should not need vouchers to give just a handful of kids a better education.

Free Media: That was our last question today for Rep. Lynn Woolsey. Thanks to Rep. Woolsey and to all who participated. Join us next week for discussions with "Hotline" and Freedom Channel founder Doug Bailey and columnist James Pinkerton on "Free Media."

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