and achievements. he was the first asian-american of san whose iowa. he loved it. the founder and first asian-american to serve in a presidential cabinet. yet for all those who knew him, it yet for all those who knew him, it was his character, his generosity and his tireless drive to speak out for the underrepresented that truly impacted everyone around him. we all know he was a gifted legislator and perceptive leader. he championed hundreds of pieces of legislation on everything, economic development, transportation, civil rights he transformed our transportation sector and adeptly led us through some of the toughest times.

he had a remarkable career, yet we all know his childhood was full of uncertainty. he was only 10 years old when norm was incarcerated alongside tens of thousands of fellow japanese americans. he was a boy scout. because of those painful memories, he became a fierce advocate for justice and civil rights. he became a champion of the japanese american community. together with my late husband, bob matsui, and their colleagues, senator dan inoueye and senator sparky matsuwana, they worked to pass the civil liberties act of 1988, fighting tirelessly to educate americans abterrible prejudices and injustices that led to the yap these american incarceration

during world war ii. people from the japanese american community were at first reluctant to come forward to tell their stories because they had gone through this and they had survived, and they're truly americans going back to their communities. but with the telling of the stories which were so encouraged, the healing began in the community which is so important. you know, all of us take what is in us, what we learned and we forge our own path. we don't know where the journey will take us but along the way, we find what is best in ourselves. norman mineta truly exemplified that. he broke barriers he excelled at every step of his

career. yet he was always driven by the need to improve the lives of those he served. he made sure our priorities stayed in line, that our ambitions for change and justice came directly from the people we serve. he saw our country in all its potential and fought tirelessly to give others the opportunity to succeed as he did. he wanted everyone to succeed. from every walk and place in life. you see, norm's story is an american story. it is a japanese american story but it is everyone's story. who was -- who is an american. he showed us that the american tappestry shines brightest when it includes all of us equally that. we can all lead with compassion and understanding.

that ethos is sewn into the fabric of his legacy. we can continue to honor his memory by following his beacon of light and learning from the courage he carried and promoted in others. all of us can follow the example of norman mineta. at this difficult time for all of us, my prayers are especially with all of norm's family and friends. i know they are hurting as we are. but we recall the wonderful person he was and we carry with us his legacy. we will all truly miss him. with that, i yield back. ms. chu: thank you for those wonderful words, congress member matsui. there are others that wanted to

be here but had conflicts and they wanted me to read their statements. from majority leader steny hoyer, he says, after i was elected to the house in 1981, norm and i quickly began becoming friends. he was a colleague one could turn to for sage advice, for a good laugh and for a reassuring word. i will always remember his genial nature, his intellect, and his wit. and i will never forget the love he had for his native california and for the people who put their trust in him again and again to be their representative in congress. norm believed in the power of our democratic institutions of government to safeguard our rights and make opportunities more readily available and accessible to americans. the most fitting tribute i can think of is for us to cherish the critical role of the congress as much as he did.

and we ought to keep making the best use of our time here as we can, as he did, to serve our constituents and govern responsibly for their benefit. and then there's a statement from representative barbara lee. she says, i rise today with a heavy heart to honor and mourn former secretary norman mineta. my thoughts and sympathies are with his wife, deny, his children, stewart, david, mark and bob, and his family and friends. he was a truly remarkable, trail blazing individual who became one of the most prominent asian american figures in our country. his legacy included many firsts and his life was a source of inspiration, a testament to the american spirit of fighting for justice and equality. i met norm when i was working for the late beloved congressman

ron delhams. norm was very kind to me, taught me a lot, listened to my ideas and was a close friend of ron's. in many ways he was a mentor to me. later, when i became a member of congress, he always sought me out to tell me how proud he was of me. such support coming from this giant of a man always humbled me. and i always told him how much he influenced my life and i was deeply grateful for his friendship. his success did not come without sacrifice. when secretary mineta was 10 years old our government forcibly removed him and his family from their home in san jose to a world war ii japanese american incarceration camp, the hart mountain camp in wyoming. decades later, he led the passage of the 1988 civil liberties act which granted reparations and a formal apology to japanese americans wrongfully incarcerated by our government solely on the basis of race due

to president franklin d. roosevelt's issuance of executive order 9066. having endured such blatant racism and discrimination against yap these americans, he understood the importance of fighting for people who never had a voice in our political process. throughout his career he was the first asian american mayor of san jose, the first japanese american member to have congress from the lower 48 states and the first asian american cabinet member serving as secretary of commerce for president clinton and secretary of transportation for president bush. in 2006, he received the presidential medal of freedom for his achievements. during his time in congress, secretary mineta co-founded the congressional asian pacific american caucus and its sister organization, the asian american pacific studies.

it is because of his actions that the asian american pacific islander community has a greater voice in this chamber. my prayers are with his family, friends, and the aapi community. we have all lost an icon. madam speaker, i urge the entire house to continue to honor secretary mineta's legacy through our commitment to justice and equality. for all. finally, we have a statement from our kpac, conditioningmen ted lieu he said former secretary mineta was a trail blaze for the our community he committed his life to public service, serving as mayor, a 10-term congressman, and cabinet secretary in two administrations. during his time in the house of representatives, he co-founded the congressional asian pacific american caucus and led efforts to secure an official apology

and compensation for japanese americans who were wrongfully interned during world war ii. as secretary of transportation he created the transportation security administration in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. incarcerated during world war ii just because of his race, secretary mineta knew what it was like to face injustice and discrimination firsthand and how important it was to defend the civil liberties of all americans. his commitment to public service and dedication to american ideals made him a true patriot. norman mineta showed us all what it meant to be a public service ant his legacy will continue to inspire future generations of aanhpi leaders. i'm grateful for the work he did in our communities and join my colleagues in mourning his passing. well, as this special order

comes to close, i want to thank my colleagues for joining me today in honoring norm mineta, a truly remarkable community leader, passionate advocate for asian american, native hawaiian and pacific islander communities and a genuine, kind man. his legacy of public service will certainly not be forgotten. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back.

under the speaker's announced policy of january 4, 2021, the chair recognizes the gentleman from wisconsin, mr. grothman, for 30 minutes. gr grot -- mr. grothman: thank you. tonight one of the first things i'd like to address is talk a little bit about one of the heroes of wisconsin's sixth congressional district, a woman by the name of margaret miller, who passed away late last year. one of the things we do in this job is we sometimes try to advise young people on what they should do with their lives. a lot of times those conversations revolve around occupations and that's perhaps as it should be. i recently attended an event at

a local high school where i talked about encouraging children to go into the stem related fields and go into an occupation there. margaret miller was a farmer's wife. when that farmer died, unfortunately, at a relatively young age, she, of course, wound up having to run the farm and ran the farm for a little under 40 years. of course being a farmer is one of the most important occupations because they provide us with food, but not only that, one of the most difficult occupations. not only did chef to be a businesswoman, she had to know how to handle all the chores you have to do on a dairy farm. that dairy farm was in wisconsin. she, as many people were, was a pillar of her church, st. gregory's, i knew her because she was a pillar of the

republican party and a delegate to the 2008 convention in minneapolis. but the reason i bring it up here tonight is, i always feel when people plan out their life, they should have certain goals and i wonder how many young people we have today will succeed in having such a huge impact that margaret miller had on two counties she had 11 children. six were still minors at the time her husband passed away. not only did she have 11 children, she left behind 33 grandchildren, 47 great grandchildren and nine great-great grandchildren if you add it up that's right on the button 100 living descendants. it occurred to me that while she tnt go to college that i know, her impact on her -- that her life had on the people of sheboygan and manitawa county

was greater than virtually every young child has on their community today. i look at all the names of all the grandchildren and great grandchildren and such in the obituary and i know there's so many of them because just as i get around my district again and again people come up and say, you know my mom, you know my grandma. and they're all great people. i asked what they were she had descendants of people you would be proud to have as your children. so, again, when i think of margaret miller and people like margaret miller, i think, very, very few young people today will have the impact on the society that she had of raising 100 descendants that are good,

hard-working citizens of this country and impart their values that margaret carried and what she instilled on her children. what a legacy. margaret, you are so missed. also while we were gone on break, there was leaked a potential opinion in the dobbs versus jackson women's health court case. and i think as politicians are supposed to weigh in on it. i have been in the last 25 years as a public official, somebody who has been active in the pro-life cause. you know, i don't remember reading about that cause growing up. and in 1973, i think a lot of

americans were caught off guard when abortion was ruled to be apparently air constitutional right by then what i would consider a very liberal court. at the time, i think the churches and the pro-life movements, which have not going get were surprised and caught off guard. nevertheless, it is important that right now we decide how america is going to deal with abortion, because decisions are going to be made in district attorney's' offices and attorney general offices and decision made by women and their partners about what is right and wrong. i feel this was a court decision and a properly decided court decision. i think it is somewhat horrific

that it took 49, over 49 years between roev. weighed and the decision that so many of us were waiting for. but that decision is only the first decision. like i said, there are going to be decisions made by state legislators and district attorneys' offices whether they are going to prosecute or not or are public statements and in wisconsin, ugh abortion will be made illegal. they are going to be decisions made by the individuals themselves and their partners. what determines how people make up their mind. it has been my plef as a pro-life legislator over the last 25 years, while there are pro-life organizations, which

are doing a good job of putting up billboards and pregnancy counseling centers that are doing a very good job, collectively the clearing have dropped the ball. this is a very important decision. the has 49 years, but for a lot of the those years there are close to a million abortions a year in the united states. it would seem to me as a clearingman, one of the problems, you think of 52 different speeches to give every year and it would be hard to cover 52 different topics, if you are a clearingman, that means you have to come up with over 250 interesting things to say. i think a lot of clearing would be looking -- clergy, i would

bet in an average year, even in churches that are pro-life manage to go all year without discussing this topic. it should be a topic to dust easier. for one thing, we have ultrasounds and in 1973, when abortions were ruled legal, we did not have ultrasounds. everyone listening out there have seen pictures. if a woman is going to have a baby, relatively normal, three months, four months to show everybody the ultrasound. you can longer pretend as you could in 1973 that it's a piece of tissue. and i have towered abortion clinics as part of my research when i was in the wisconsin

legislature and i offered a bill to have a 24-hour waiting period and the local abortion clinics let me go through that and the employees made a point of always describing the preborn baby as tissue. and i always thought that the employees probably were educated to use the word tissue because it made it sound like it wasn't an act that it was, that you weren't ending the life of a baby, it made it sound like something less than that. nobody would look at a baby three months after could be tray seption and call that tissue today. we all know because of an ultrasound we have a little baby there. and given that, it should be

easy for the clergy to alert or instill the appropriate values in their flock as to people who have to make a decision about abortion. nevertheless, i do believe that to this point, the american clergy have been been pretty wimpy and pretty out to lunch. not all of them but way too many of them and i think because of the lack of stepping up to the plate on this issue. polls do not show america as appalled with abortion as they should be. so the purpose of this speech is to ask any clergy who happens to be listening at home or in case you are a parishoner of a church and your clergy has never broached this topic, i would

think in the next seven or eight weeks because most of you had to come up with different speeches probably in the hundreds in the course of your career, that you find a way to address this topic. i should point out there are chumpts who are addressing this topic. churches like the u.c.c. church and saying abortion isn't that big of deal. i think the pro-life churches is where the problem rests. and i think if you go to a church out there, you should ask your clergyman, how are you going to address this topic or instill to the flock something without offending anybody and

therefore not address the issue? we will now have the opportunity to make a -- to take a -- to do something to reduce the hundreds of thousands of abortions in this state every year and comes down to what the american people think. the attorney generals that they vote for, going to call your district attorney if he refuses to do something, like i said -- i have been dissatisfied with the clergy, their response over the last 50 years but the ball is in their court, as to what they do to influence their flocks' view of abortion. and if they do their job, they -- there are going to be a lot less abortions in this country. and this new decision will have

no impact whatsoever. so sadly, many of us have been waiting for this day for decades, but the result of dobbs versus jackon is going to be largely determined of what the churches make of it. the next topic that i would like to bring up and i have talked about before in this microphone before, but i still feel has to be mentioned again because the public health professionals continue to drop the ball, is the effect that vitamin d can have on your health and whether or not you are going to get covid. there was a study done recently by a doctor in israel.

and you could see he shared more people in the study, but according to his study, people who had adequate levels of vitamin d or inadequate levels of vitamin d, you were nine times to be dying from covid. think about that, i have personal nine people who have died in the covid. and i have no idea how much they had. it is easy to increase vitamin d and relatively inexpensive. doctor used threshold of 20 nana dprams and should be average for the couple of vitamin d pills a

day and decrease your chances. for whatever motivation the public health accomplishment. i have lectured hospital administrators on this. it wol seem to me that if a person who is say 60 and up or anybody who has any other preexisting conditions ought to routinely get a vitamin d test when they go to see a doctor and get that test and came back at 16 or 17, they should be's larmd and i have heard a person involved in administration of hospitals saying you can't get patients to do it any way. that is terrible. people are scared enough that today -- i see right now, people

wearing masks despite the fact that there is some evidence they might not be feeling that good. if you take a patient and show them that their vitamin d levels are below, you would tell them they are 11 times to die from covid and i would think in all cases people would get that vitamin d and greatly reduce their chances of dying from covid. some people will say vitamin d may not be the thing that keeps healthy but a correlation there. but the same thing is true of things like diabetes or c omp pmp d and say we aren't going to talk about diabetes because you can't prove it caused the death

of covid. all you have shown is a correlation. this isn't the first study. there are studies mentioned by a professor at the university of chicago. i have talked with a professor at university ofcalifornia, vitamin dmp saves lives and those who have died from the covid and how many would be alive if the public health accomplishment and the doctors of this country were on board in trying to save these lives. one of the complaints of doctors is they feel they will not be reimbursed by the insurance companies or medicare adequately to cover the cost of the vitamin d test. if you get a test, it costs 40 bucks but let's face it, tons of money flows through the medical

will institution. these hospitals feel they need more money. that's pretty pathetic. i encourage anyone out there to google vitamin and learn more about it and if you are going spue a doctor and pay for it yourself, get a vitamin d test and make sure you have an adequate amount of vitamin d in your system. my final topic tonight is one more time the border. i was down on the border again about three weeks ago. things that americans should know. the number of people streaming across the border is very high. in march, it was 153,000 people let in here a lot of times i think when politician or commentators talk about what's going on at the

border, they misstate the statistics because they get the number of people who come here and the number of people who show up at the border and are turned away confused. but at march we were at 153,000 a year ago we were at 63,000. two years ago we were at 11,000. so a difference between 11,000 people coming in the country and 153,000 people coming in the country. president biden's appointees have said they inherited as me they did not inherit a mess. they inherited in march 11,000 people coming here, and now we're at 153,000. it's not rocket science what has to be done. we have to go back to the migrant protection protocol in which people are held in mexico pending a hearing and if they have to sit in mexico they won't show up here in the first place. right now we have a system in which we know that people who show up for it, not from central america or mexico, will be given

a court date and allowed in the country. with complete confidence that that's going to happen, they will come here. and the drug cartel which may be making more money bringing people here than drugs, will make sure that everybody around the world knows that now you can come in the united states. i mentioned first the migrant protection protocol because if you talk to the border patrol, even more than more money and they certainly need more money, they just need a change in attitude of the biden administration. i really feel that we are losing the country south of the border. we cannot continue to take over 150,000 new people a month who are not appropriately vetted. of those 153,000 about 60,000 are what they call got-aways, which means they haven't even met with the border patrol they could be criminals who are coming here they could have criminal backgrounds. they could be bringing in drugs. nobody seems to care. and something that's totally

appall, the biden administration doesn't seem to care. i'll also point out that over 90% of the fentanyl in the country comes across the southern border. we're right now at a point where 110,000 people are dying every year of fentanyl poisoning -- of illegal drugover doses in this country, the vast majority of which is fentanyl. i think the idea that the people of this body or the people in the white house do not seem to care a great deal is horrific. some people think it's a victimless crime to possess fentanyl or sell fentanyl or they think it's a violent crime, we have too many people many prison. it's not that important to check people coming across the border. by the way we should be getting more dogs at any time down there in the upcoming budget, the drug sniffing dog, they do a tremendous job at the border. in any event the american people have to speak up. the idea that we spent $40

billion or passed a bill for $40 billion yesterday and couldn't come up with a couple hundred million dollars for a border is a ka louseness toward the families of those people who are dying of drug overdoses, i cannot fathom. but i'm not in the majority. i don't determine what we vote on around here. but in any event i hope and pray that in the future, the people of this body and the people of the white house view the 110,000 people who die every year of drug overdoses as a tragedy that they put themselves in the position of the parents or siblings or the children of the people who die of the drug overdoses. and i'll point out, 110,000 is twice the number of people who died in a 12-year period in vietnam. think about that. i'm old enough to remember vietnam. it was a big deal. people protested so many people are dying. every year twice as many people die of illegal drug overdoses in

this country as died in 12 years in vietnam. so i hope people in this chamber decide to do a little more to deal with the problem. i hope our president does a little more to deal with the problem. thank you. the speaker pro tempore: does the gentleman yield back? mr. grothman: i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to section 11-b of house resolution 188, the house stands adjourned until 10:00 a.m. tomorrow for morning hour debate and noon for legislative business.