Representing the 7th U.S. Congressional District of Maryland
http://www.mail.house.gov/cummings
2235 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-4741 (tel.) (202) 225-3178 (fax)

March 9, 2005

Dear Constituent:

It is both a privilege and an honor to represent you in the United States Congress. While serving you, I will continue my outreach efforts to inform you of legislative action. I welcome your advice. Government “by the people” is the cornerstone of my legislative philosophy.

To better serve you closer to home, I invite you to visit or contact one of my district offices, listed on the following pages. In Howard County, my staff and I make regular outreach visits at various community centers. We look forward to hearing from you!

Sincerely,

Elijah E. Cummings
Member of Congress

I. Announcements

Saturday, March 19, 2005: Congressman Cummings will host a Town Hall Meeting to discuss the future of Social Security, and what effect President George W. Bush's proposed changes may have on the solvency of the system. The meeting will be held at 10 a.m. at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, located at 400 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, MD, 21201, in the auditorium. At the town hall, Congressman Cummings will be joined by an expert from the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

Tuesday, April 12, 2005: The House Government Reform Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources has rescheduled the field hearing on witness intimidation to Tuesday, April 12, 2005. (The hearing was originally set for Tuesday, March 1, but was postponed due to inclement weather). Congressman Cummings serves as the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee. The hearing will examine the role the federal government can play in stopping incidents of witness intimidation. It will also present testimony on what government officials and community representatives are doing to curb witness intimidation tactics. The hearing will be held from 10 a.m. to 12 noon at the University of Maryland School of Law, 500 West Baltimore Street, 1st Floor, Ceremonial Moot Courtroom (CMC), Baltimore, Maryland.

II. Representing Maryland's 7th Congressional District in Washington

On March 2, Congressman Cummings secured the approval of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for the inclusion of $45 million worth of transportation projects for Maryland's 7th Congressional District.

The projects will be included in the Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (TEA-LU), which would reauthorize Federal surface transportation programs through fiscal year 2009. Additional funding for the remaining portion of the Baltimore Light Rail Double-tracking project was also authorized, as was a continued study and development of the Red and Green transit lines.

The legislation that cleared the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on March 2 authorized the following projects in Congressman Cummings' district:

$5.5 million for the redevelopment of roads in the area of the new East Baltimore Biotechnology Park.

$5 million for the construction of a new Greyhound Intermodal Terminal in Baltimore City.

$5 million for the construction of the Central Maryland Transit Operations & Maintenance Facility in Howard County.

$5 million for the expansion of Route 29 in Howard County.

$3.2 million for roadway improvements along East North Avenue in Baltimore City.

$3 million for the widening of the I-695 Baltimore Beltway in Baltimore County.

$3 million for the reconstruction of roadways over five CSX bridges in Baltimore City.

$2.1 million for the construction of a pedestrian bridge and parking garage at Coppin State University.

$2 million for the expansion of Route 32 in Howard County.

$2 million for the implementation of projects contained in the Druid Hill Park Neighborhood Access Program

$1.8 million for projects in Auchentoroly Terrace that will support development of the Baltimore City Agricultural and Natural Resource Research Center and improve transit access to the Baltimore Zoo.

$1.7 million for the University of Maryland to improve the Poppleton area of Martin L. King Jr. Boulevard.

$1.5 million for the reconstruction of the Hanover Street Drawbridge in Baltimore City.

$1.5 million for the reconstruction of the Pennington Avenue Drawbridge in Baltimore City.

$1.3 million to upgrade the conduit system in the central business district in Baltimore City.

$900,000 for improvements to roadways and historic trails connecting to the Gwynns Falls Trail in West Baltimore.

$500,000 for the implementation of an intelligent transportation system in Baltimore City.

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Legislation Would Create a New Research Program on Hazardous Materials Transportation

Congressman Cummings has introduced a bill that would create a cooperative research program on hazardous materials transportation. This program will enable experts from the federal government, the private sector, and state and local governments to jointly research issues in the transportation of hazardous materials that are not adequately addressed by existing research programs. The bill is entitled “To provide for the establishment of a hazardous materials cooperative research program, (H.R. 909).”

Congressman Cummings said, “Recent incidents involving the release of hazardous materials - including a 2001 incident in my district in Baltimore that resulted in a fire, as well as incidents in South Carolina, Texas, and South Dakota that resulted in fatalities - dramatically highlight the need for improvements in our systems for regulating hazardous materials transportation. As a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, I am working with my colleagues to ensure that we exercise effective oversight and that we take concrete steps to improve the safety and security of hazardous materials transportation.”

The bill Congressman Cummings introduced responds to a need documented by a recent Transportation Research Board study, which found that perhaps ‘‘the most notable gap’’ in America’s system for ensuring hazardous materials safety and security is in the conduct of research that is cross-cutting and/or multi-modal in application.

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Following President Bush’s release of his Fiscal Year 2006 federal budget proposal, Congressman Cummings expressed deep concern that the Bush Administration has proposed cuts to crucial domestic federal programs while also asking for $82 billion in emergency war spending.

The budget cuts involve the elimination of 150 federal program that have helped promote the health, education and public safety of Americans.

Specific budget items that would shortchange residents of Maryland include:

A proposal to eliminate the Healthy Community Access program that helps pay the medical expenses of uninsured patients. Eliminating this program would affect 135,000 Marylanders.

The underfunding No Child Left Behind Act that would deny 39,722 Maryland children of promised help in reading and math and cut after-school programs for 23,491 children in the state.

A plan to reduce funding for the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) that has put 2,519 police officers on Maryland’s streets.

"These are essential programs providing critically- needed services to those in need,” Congressman Cummings said. “If the Administration gets its way, people in Maryland and throughout the United States will feel the pain.”

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Witness Protection Bill & Dawson Family Protection Act Seek to Protect Citizens Who Aid Law Enforcement

To protect citizens who aid law enforcement in criminal prosecution and/or trials, Congressman Cummings introduced the Witness Security and Protection Act of 2005 (H.R. 908) and Dawson Family Protection Act of 2005 (H.R. 812).

The Witness Security and Protection Act of 2005 would authorize $90 million in competitive grants per year for the next 3 years to establish a short-term witness protection program within the United States Marshals Service (USMS). The program would assist State and local district attorneys in protecting their witnesses in cases involving homicide, serious violent felonies, and serious drug offenses. Prosecutors could use the funding to provide their own witness protection or pay the cost of protecting their witnesses in the Short-Term Witness Protection Program within USMS.

“Witness intimidation is a growing national problem that is jeopardizing the criminal justice system’s ability to protect the public,” Congressman Cummings said. “This problem has become particularly pervasive in Baltimore City where reporting crimes or testifying in court cases involving drugs or violence could lead to deadly consequences.”

Addressing a related issue, Congressman Cummings was joined by his colleague Congressman Mark Souder (R-Indiana) in re-introducing the Dawson Family Protection Act of 2005, a bill that will protect ordinary citizens who aid law enforcement in disrupting drug trafficking in their neighborhoods.

A similar version of the bipartisan bill had passed the House in the 108th Congress, but is now being re-introduced because Congress adjourned before the legislation passed the Senate.

The Dawson Family Community Protection Act of 2005 would require the Director of National Drug Control Policy to devote at least $5 million annually to support High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program initiatives that protect communities suffering from severe levels of drug-related violence as a byproduct of intense interstate drug trafficking activity. This federal funding would support HIDTA initiatives aimed at increasing neighborhood safety and encouraging the voluntary sharing of information about illegal drug trafficking activities.

The Dawson bill is named in honor of the late Angela and Carnell Dawson and their five children, aged 9 to 14. The family was tragically killed on October 16, 2002, when a firebomb was placed in their home in an apparent retaliation for Mrs. Dawson’s repeated complaints to the police about drug distribution activity her East Baltimore neighborhood.

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III. Commentary By Congressman Cummings

The tragic fate of two American children poignantly illustrates that two fundamental freedoms are under attack in this country: the freedom from servitude and the freedom from fear.

Carnell Dawson, Jr., was only ten years old in 2002 when he was burned to death with his family in the flames of a drug-related firebombing of their Baltimore home. Two years later, and six hundred miles away, little Katie Collman was the same tender age when drug traffickers tied her small hands together and drowned her in a creek near Crothersville, Indiana (population 1500).

She was sentenced to die because she had stumbled upon a drug crime.

Carnell Dawson, Jr. -- and his killer -- were urban and Black. Katie Collman -- and those who willed her death -- were rural and White. Yet, both of these American children were filled with the same youthful joy, the same limitless promise of young lives.

These children died, it is important for all of us to realize, because their government failed to protect them against the "narco-terrorism" that now plagues our society.

Children are not alone in having good reason to be afraid. With increasing frequency, the drug traffickers are now targeting anyone who might interfere with their deadly trade.

At a recent Boston trial of two gang members accused of killing a 10-year-old girl, some spectators came to the courtroom wearing T-shirts that said "Stop Snitching." In suburban Baltimore County, Maryland, 17-year-old Rickey Prince (who had agreed to testify in a gang murder case) was shot in the back of the head only a few days after a prosecutor read his name aloud in a courtroom.

These terrorist tactics are having a profound effect upon our safety.

At least 25 percent of non-fatal shooting cases in Baltimore City are now being dismissed due to witness intimidation, the office of Baltimore City State's Attorney Patricia Jessamy estimates. One of her prosecutors, Wesley Adams, has declared that 23 of the 35 witnesses in the nine homicide trials that he prosecuted during 2003 either recanted or lied.

Daniel Conley, the District Attorney for Suffolk County, Massachusetts, agrees with this assessment of the threat. During the last two years, his prosecutors encountered witness intimidation in more than 90 percent of cases that involved guns, gangs or serious violence.

In America's cities, our suburban communities and our rural towns, the drug gangs' challenge to our government is clear. A government that cannot -- or will not -- protect its own people from attack is no government at all.

The "war on drugs" has become a real war -- but it is a war that can be won.

As Americans, we understand that addictive drugs are a kind of slavery that is incompatible with any democratic society and our way of life.

That does not mean, however, that the overwhelming majority of those who are addicted are our enemies. To the contrary, our first response to those who remain nonviolent must always be the treatment, training and other services that can restore them to their community as healthy functioning human beings.

Those few who do choose the course of violence, however, are our enemies. They deserve to lose their freedom for their crimes.

Protection of our families from the very real threat that these violent criminals pose requires effective policing -- which, in turn, will require substantially more resources than we have committed to date, as well as the active cooperation of the entire community.

It is this cooperation that the intimidating threats to "Stop Snitching" and the violence of the drug traffickers are designed to suppress. That is why "witness protection" is such an essential component of any effective anti-drug strategy.

Since the federal Witness Security Program was established in 1970 as part of the fight against organized crime, the United Stated Marshals Service has protected, relocated and given new identities to more than 7,500 federal witnesses and 9,500 members of their families. No program participant who has followed the US Marshals' security guidelines has ever been harmed while under their active protection.

The cost of protecting all of these witnesses has been substantial, but we have successfully broken the back of organized crime in this country. We can do the same in our fight against narcotics crimes.

The challenge arises from the fact that most narcotics prosecutions -- including those for drug-related violence -- have traditionally been the responsibility of local and state authorities. Today, only a handful of states have witness protection programs, and they tend to be underfunded and short-term in the protection that they provide.

With record State deficits, I am convinced that the federal government must take the lead.

That is why I have sponsored the Witness Security and Protection Act of 2005 (H.R. 908). Senator Charles Schumer of New York is expected to do the same in the United States Senate.

This legislation would establish a Short-Term State Witness Protection Program within the US Marshals Service tailored to meet the needs of witnesses testifying in State and local criminal trials involving homicide, a serious felony or a serious drug offense. Our legislation, if adopted, would also authorize $90 million in competitive federal grants to the States for this purpose, giving priority to those with the highest homicide rates.

Protecting our children from addiction and violence are worth whatever price we must pay, as I am certain the families of Carnell Dawson, Jr., and Katie Collman would agree. They have been forced to live with the alternative.

Baltimore Office
1010 Park Avenue, Suite 105
Baltimore, MD 21201
(410) 685-9199 and (410) 685-9399 fax

Catonsville Office
754 Frederick Road
Catonsville, Maryland 21228
(410) 719-8777 and (410) 455-0110 fax

First Monday of the Month:
Glenwood Library, 2350 Route 97
Cooksville, MD 21723
Hours: 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM or by appointment

Second Monday of the Month:
Howard County Central Library
10375 Little Patuxent Pkwy.
Columbia, MD 21044
Hours: 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM or by appointment

Second Wednesday of the Month:
Savage Library, 9525 Durness Lane
Laurel, MD 20723
Hours: 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM or by appointment

Third Monday of the Month:
Florence Bain Senior Center
5470 Ruth Keeton Way
Columbia, MD 21044
Hours: 9:00 AM - 11 AM or by appointment

Fourth Monday of the Month:
Miller Branch Library, 9421 Frederick Road
Ellicott City, MD 21042
Hours: 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM or by appointment
For more information, call (410) 685-9199