Reply #44: Just a reminder

[MrBenchley]

of who it is our trigger happy goons are pissing and moaning about.....

"Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney, a Democrat, represents the 14th district in New York City. Her district contains many of the city's most historic and well-known neighborhoods, including most of the East Side, Astoria and Long Island City, Queens. After serving for ten years on the New York City Council, Maloney defeated a 14-year incumbent in her first race for Congress in 1992. She was reelected in 2002 with 75% of the vote. She has never lost an election. Maloney serves on the House Financial Services Committee, the Government Reform Committee and the Joint Economic Committee.

In February 2003, Rep. Maloney was named the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade and Technology of the Financial Services Committee. This Subcommittee oversees Federal Reserve interest rate policy that directly affects all mortgage, car, and credit card interest rates. Since being elected to Congress, Maloney has worked to modernize financial services laws and regulations while strongly advocating for consumer protections that are up-to-date with the increasingly global economy. In the 106th Congress, Maloney served as a conferee on the historic Gramm-Leach-Bliley financial modernization bill, where she fought to redraft Depression-era separations between banking, securities, and insurance firms while at the same time providing new consumer privacy protections for personal financial information. Maloney was the lead Democrat on the Investor and Capital Markets Relief Act, legislation which allowed the SEC to increase salaries of its employees so it can recruit and retain the most qualified professionals to oversee the markets. She is also a member of the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit and the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

In the 107th Congress, Maloney remained steadfast to her commitment of modernizing financial service laws while strongly advocating for consumer protections and privacy. She passed legislation to cut fees on securities transactions by $14 billion over ten years. In April 2003, the House passed a bill introduced by Maloney and Sue Kelly (R-NY). H.R. 758, the Business Checking Freedom Act, allows banks to pay interest on business checking accounts.


In Congress, Maloney has been a leading advocate of campaign finance and government reform. The FY 1999 Treasury-Postal Appropriations bill contains additional funding for the Federal Elections Commission, thanks to a Maloney provision. The funding provision marked the first time the Federal Elections Commission was fully funded since the Republicans took control of the House. She also prevented a partisan attack on lead investigators at the agency, allowing them to continue their work as the only non-partisan entity charged with conducting campaign finance inquiries. In 1995, as a member of the Government Efficiency, Financial Management and Intergovernmental Relations subcommittee of Government Reform, Maloney authored the historic "Debt Collection Improvement Act;" this bill was enacted into law on April 26, 1996. The 1996 law requires government agencies who are holding debts that are more than 180 days old to turn them over to the Treasury Department for collection. It has been successful because of Maloney's efforts, during FY 2002, the federal government as a whole collected $84 billion in non-tax delinquent debt, which represented a 229 percent increase over FY 2001.

In early 1999, Maloney, who co-founded and co-chaired the Census Caucus, was appointed the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on the Census. She has been leading the fight to ensure that scientists, in spite of the objections of partisan politicians, will finally be able to release all 2000 Census data. The importance of accurate data cannot be minimized. Decennial census data is used to ensure fair representation and the fair distribution of federal funds. In 1990, the census undercounted the City of New York by 244,000, costing the city its fair share of federal funding. Maloney worked hard to ensure that the Census Bureau received adequate funding to continue with its plan to use modern statistical methods (statistical sampling). Unfortunately, the Bush Administration has refused to release the data generated using statistical sampling.


As the former co-chair of the Women's Caucus, Maloney is one of the leading advocates for women and family issues, with special emphasis on foster care reform, funding for women's health needs, and reproductive freedom. She was a member of the U.S. Delegations to the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing and to the International Conference on Population and Development fifth-year review and appraisal at The Hague (Cairo + 5). Maloney succeeded in increasing funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in the FY 2002 Foreign Operations Appropriation to $34 million, a $12.5 million increase from the previous fiscal year. Additionally, she introduced the Saving Women's Lives Act of 2002, to try to spur the Bush Administration to release the $34 million budgeted for the United Nations Population Fund. Her bill to offer annual mammograms for women on Medicare was included in the FY 1998 budget agreement. She has also introduced legislation ("Kiddie Mac") which would make day care more available and affordable by guaranteeing loans for day care facility construction and improvements. In November of 2002, Maloney was recognized for 'Carrying the Weight of the World' by United Nations Family Planning and received their Women's Leadership Award."

http://www.house.gov/maloney/bio.html