Opening Remarks

July 15, 2003
U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake

It's a pleasure to be here. I can tell you that I am just delighted to see so many people here, particularly those - can I have those of you stand up who came from Miami or South Florida? Look at this - what a great group. And that's what we need to see on Capitol Hill, and that's what the members and the leadership in the House and the Senate need to see, that a huge contingent from Miami is here and has done this before and it has helped immensely.

We are going right now into the appropriations season, the Treasury Postal Bill will be up in the House, we were told last week it would be up next week, then we were told September, then we were told next week, and now this morning we were told September again. But, whenever it comes up, we're in a good position, the right position, the position we need to be in. Last year, we passed the Flake amendment to lift the Travel Ban or prevent money from being spent to enforce the Travel Ban by a vote of two-hundred and sixty-two to one-hundred and eighty-seven. We hope to have at least that many votes this year. It's a substantial margin and it has grown every year, and it has largely because of the efforts of people like you.

Throughout the year, when people see people in particular coming up from Florida, to say hey, the conventional wisdom about the Cuban-American population in South Florida may not exactly be right, or it has changed, and that we want engagement. From my position, people often ask, what's a conservative, very conservative, Republican (Neanderthal some say) from Arizona - I mean at the Cuba Working Group we can all get the jokes as myself and Bill Delahunt lead a lot of the discussion, and I used to run the Goldwater Institute in Arizona and he worked on JFK's campaign, so we have from the right to the left represented, and that's the beauty of it here.

But, with the Cuba Working Group, we established it in the House two years ago and it's just been wonderful. It's been a great opportunity for us to get together, as we did again last week, to discuss the events ahead, to determine what approach we're going to take, to see what the opposition is going to throw up this time, and to see how to counteract it. And it's been a wonderful tool, and we're especially pleased this year to see that the Senate has done the same. Senator Enzi is here and will speak to you later, but they've just done fabulous work there, and to have a working group in the Senate as well is what we've been missing, and that really is going to help this year. What we hope is to have both versions, House and the Senate, with the exact same language, so it would be far more difficult in the conference to remove.

People often ask what's a conservative Republican from Arizona doing working on this issue, and I often tell them that I took a poll in my district of all the Cuban-Americans, about what I ought to do, and both Cuban-Americans said "move ahead." Just fine, but to me it's an issue of freedom, I don't have farming interests of particular note in my district, so it's not about the agriculture issues that have brought me to this. It's an issue of freedom. If our government is going to tell us where we can and cannot travel, they ought to have a pretty darn compelling reason. And in the case of Cuba, the compelling reason is to travel. And we're told that we're not only allowed to travel to China and to Vietnam and to North Korea and those other countries, we're encouraged to.

But in Cuba we're told not so fast. Somehow the laws of economics and everything else have been suspended there. Anybody who has traveled to Cuba realizes that the laws of economics have not been suspended, that they can use a lot more American influence. And values. And that's why the legislation we've introduced is the Export Freedom to Cuba Act. That's what I feel is needed.

A lot of people have talked about the recent crackdown in Cuba, and how it has prompted, or should prompt, a "get tough" policy with Cuba. I completely agree. I completely agree. It's time to get tough with Cuba. And there's no better way to get tough, then to have Americans export their freedom and values there. And you can only have that, if you don't have our own State Department, and our own government telling us that we can't travel there. If you look at the situation now, you have individuals, so bureaucrats basically, in government positions here, pouring over the applications of individuals and groups that have far more expertise and far more experience traveling to Cuba than they do. In most cases, these bureaucrats that renew these applications have never been to Cuba. They don't know the situation on the ground. They don't realize that the people of Cuba will be helped immensely if Americans were able to travel there.

Several things have changed over the last couple of years. I think more Americans have embraced the freedom argument. We've had several celebrated cases of I guess enforcement abuse, where grandmothers biking in Cuba have been fined. My favorite story is about a man from the state of Washington who went to scatter his parents' ashes in Cuba. He spent less than 24 hours and arrived home to a fine. That's simply wrong. That's simply un-American.

I have no doubt that if we lift the prohibition on travel, that the Cubans may respond in some way and further limit our ability to travel there. But that is more their problem than ours. We're a better country than that. That seems like that ought to be their response. Not ours, that's not what we're all about.

But several things have changed. We've also had, because of legislation several years ago, the ability to sell medicine and food to Cuba. That has changed debate considerably, in the House and the Senate. Since that time, there has been I think over two-hundred and fifty billion dollars of agricultural products on their way to Cuba. That has helped the debate immensely as well, that has opened up a lot of eyes to the possibilities that exist.

Then we have I think what has been the biggest change is the hard work of many of you here, in South Florida. To change the debate there. Polls suggest an ever-changing situation there, that the vast majority of Cuban-Americans, not just people from South Florida or Floridians as a whole, that the majority, good majority, of the Cuban-Americans want to change our policy. They believe in a policy of engagement. They believe that we ought to export freedom to Cuba. And for that I salute you.

I salute all of the sponsors of this group today. The Lexington Institute, I've had the opportunity to travel down to Cuba under their sponsorship, and also the Center for International Policy. Also, ATRIP, under the able leadership of Brent Gidalbo now, and USA Engage. All these groups, moving together. They can't be pigeonholed as a group from the right or the left, but a broad cross-section. I tell you, it is a broad cross-section.

Two years ago when I introduced the Flake amendment to the Postal Bill, I found myself in a very uncomfortable position. After I said it I just kind of shuttered. I stood at the podium and yielded my time to my good friend from New York, Charlie Rangle. (Laughs) If you'd told me that a couple of years ago I'd be saying that on any issue, I'd slap you probably. (Laughs) But that's the beauty of this - we have from all ends of spectrum and all in between. There were more than 90 Republicans last year that voted for this legislation. Now, we've now had a member with the Florida delegation to Congress actually travel to Cuba. We've had mayors from Florida, and others go as well. So the situation is changing dramatically. And it's time to push ahead.

So with that, I'm just so pleased to be here, and I can just tell you that we in Congress are as enthusiastic as you are, and I know that you are enthusiastic about this. And we just so much appreciate you coming here and to go to the offices and to lobby this, working hard, and to open peoples' eyes to the situation that exists there. Thank you again, and I look forward to being here and listening to some of the panel before I have to leave.

[End transcript]