Speaker pro tempore harris on tuesday december 16. The clerk h. R. 2591, h. R. 5859, senate 2338 senate 3008. The speaker pro tempore pursuant to clause 4 of rule 1 the following enrolled bills were signed by speaker pro tempore harris on wednesday, december 17, 2014. The clerk h. R. 1206, h. R. 1378, h. R. 2754, h. R. 3027 h. R. 3572, h. R. 3979, h. R. 4276, h. R. 4416 mr 4651 h. R. 5050, h. R. 5185, h. R. 5331 h. R. 5562, h. R. 5687, and h. R. 5816. The speaker pro tempore pursuant to clause 4 of rule 1, the following enrolled bills were signed by speaker pro tempore thornberry on thursday, december 18, 2014. The clerk h. R. 1068 h. R. 2901, h. R. 3608 h. R. 4030, h. R. 5771. The speaker pro tempore without objection h. R. 647 is laid on the table. Without objection in accordance with house concurrent resolution 125, the chair declares the second session of the is 113th congress adjourned sine die. Host could you tell the folks how one becomes the dean of the house . The first requirement is longevity. The dean of the house is the longest serving member in the house of representatives and he has the distinct honor on opening day on january 6 to swear in the incoming speaker of the house which is a constitutional office. So even though the present speaker of the house is going to be the same one, he will still have to be sworn in again. Thats where i come in. Host so for youll do that job today to swear the speaker in. Tell us a little bit about the longevity aspect of it. You come to this position taking over from representative dingell. Tell us a little bit about taking over for him and the fact that hes a fellow michigander as well. Guest not only a fell michigan, his father and my father were good friends, and he and i are good friends. He was once my congressman and i have been talking with him about this job. The important duty is of course on opening day where we swear in the incoming speaker of the house for the next session of congress. Looking forward to it. Host you have been talking to him about the job . What kind of advice has been given to you about it . Guest well, hes given me some good advice. Get your swearingin statement together so that you can have the incoming speaker raise his right hand with you and say that hell support the constitution of the United States and some other things. And well be all set. Host representative, you become the first africanamerican to assume this position. What does that mean to you . Guest well, i think its a high honor under any circumstances, but i think its even more significant that all the members in the congress i am now the longest serving and the first africanamerican to hold that rank. I value it, and im very, very proud of it. Host with your new platform as dean after you do the ceremonial aspects of it, do you use your platform to talk about race issues . Do you use your platform to talk about other issues near and dear to you . Guest absolutely. The dean of the house has a special recognition, it gives a little more added authority to the positions that i take, so i will be very carefully assessing what i say and what positions i advocate. Advocate as the new dean of the house. I follow a very distinguished member of congress, who was the dean for a long time himself, and hes stepping down and of course his wife is replacing him, debbie dingell, we are looking forward to working with her and the entire michigan delegation. Host representative as you become dean now do you get any privileges with that . Do you get Better Office space . Do you get your choice of committees . How does that work . Guest we have been looking to see if there are any perks laying around. Guess what . We havent found a one. Host you are the longest serving member now, and especially with this freshman class coming in, and because you hold the title of dean what advice would you give the freshmen class being the longest serving member . Guest well, i would advise them to be very careful and thoughtful about the votes that they cast. And that they will want to realize that every vote they cast becomes a part of our congressional history. And we dont want them to get into a mood or into a group in which they will be saying later on that they were sorry that they were running in a direction that they really didnt support. Host joining us, the longest serving member of congress the dean of the house of representatives, representative john conyers from michigan. Thank you, representative appreciate your time. Guest pleasure being with you. Have a good new year. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc. , in cooperation with the United States house of representatives. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] there will be 45 africanamericans in the house including two republicans, the first ever republican africanamerican woman to serve in the house. The senate will have two africanamericans, republican tim scott of south carolina, and democrat cory booker of new jersey. And when the 114th Congress Opens on tuesday, michigan congressman, john conyers, will be the new house dean, taking over the role from long serving member john dingell. The 11th Congress Gavels in tuesday at noon eastern. Well see the swearingin of members and the election for house speaker. Watch the house live right here on cspan. And the senate live on cspan2. And with the new congress, youll have the best access, the most extensive coverage anywhere right here. Track the g. O. P. As it leads on capitol hill and have your say as events unfold on tv, radio, and the web. Here are some of our featured programs youll find this Holiday Weekend on the cspan networks. Saturday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan, from the explorers club, apollo 16 astronaut charlie duke, the youngest man to walk on the moon. Sunday evening at 8 00 on c. Span as q a, the president and c. E. O. Of the National Council of la raza, the Largest National hispanic civil rights and Advocacy Group in the United States. On cspan2 stat night at 10 00 on book tvs afterwards, meet the press Host Chuck Todd on president obamas performance in office. And sunday at noon eastern on indepth, our threehour conversation with talk show host and author, tavis smiley, with your smalls, emails, and tweets. On American History tv on cspan3, saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, opening day remarks by former house speakers tip oneill, newt gingrich, dennis hastert, and nancy pelosi. On sunday night at 8 00 well hear from former senate jorlse, rob byrd howard baker, bob dole, and. Let us know what you think about the programs youre watching. Call us at 20 6263400. Email us at comments at cspan. Org. Or send us a tweet at cspan commnts. Join the cspan conversation, like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. In november, military veterans gathered at the u. S. Navy memorial for a conference about their service. Marine corps comma cant t. S. Kelly was one of the speakers at the conference. Come cant t. S. Kelly was one of the speakers at the conference. We thank the Navy Memorial for that film as you saw from their lone sailor award. I give to you general kelly. [applause] put that old cane away. Its tough getting old, let me tell you. But what happened was a few years back i had a really bad case of sciatica. So i went to the Naval Hospital and saw the doctor and he took an m. R. I. And said thats the worst good dam back i have ever seen in my life. What the hell have you been doing with yourself . I said, well i jumped out of an airplane a couple hundred times. Im not sure that happened. Then there were a few other things i did. I said im not asking you for that doctor. For god sakes, what can you do to fix it . He said im not sure we can. I said can we try . So i said ill cut a deal with you, he said whats that, general . I said i do not want to be down on the second deck with all of the admirals recuperating. I want to be up on the fifth deck with the young kids coming back from overseas in the orthopedic ward. Probably one of the best decisions i ever made. They worked me like a tiger, never having a four star general to work before, they pushed me down the halls, they pushed me up the streets. They did everything to make me better. But the one thing they did which i really appreciated was they made me a cane. This is a special cane. Theres only one like it in the world. And thats the one that the kids in the orthopedic ward at bethesda made for p. X. Kell lee kell lee. I treasure it. Lets get down to business. I understand we have some of the dwight d. Eisenhower people here today. Is that correct . Are they here . They were supposed to be. Let me get my all people like me have to have all notes so we know what the hell we are talking about. Let me get my notes out first and then i can sort of make some common sense. See if i can get them organized. Im not sure i can. Speak a little bit from the cuff. The day that i became commandant Ronald Wilson reagan officiated at the marine barracks, washington, d. C. And it was one of the most memorable days of my entire life. And as time went on, i became, believe it or not very close to the president. Very close in a number of ways. But that particular night i remember so well because as the baritone that we have, some of you have been there, the baritone sang god bless america, and i was sitting next to president reagan, he said to me, wow. He said, after that im not sure i can be i can make it. And i said, well, thank you, mr. President. I am the first speaker. And he said, well, well see about that. So then as the night progressed he gave me my first order. And i still have the memory of that order. Let me share it with you because it kind of brought out a lot of the things which later melded into the what i think very close reputation tshnot reputation but friendship that i had with Ronald Wilson reagan. Probably number one because he and i had a common love, and at that was common love of a horse. So believe it or not, at his suggestion the park police who you know have a mounted corps park police are here in washington, and i went through their 400hour equestrian course. One broken leg and one broken rib later i fully graduated. To brag for a moment, at the International Horse show if washington Ronald Reagan had me ride his favorite horse, jim crack. Jim crack was a big tall, 16. 3 thorough bread, black as the ace of spades, wonderful horse. So i got dold up in my dress blue, i took a literal license with the uniform, i had big tall black boots and spurs and all those goods things. But i have a picture to prove this by the way, but then i had i got a blue ribbon and i have a picture at home with that blue ribbon. It shows you the kind of relationship i had with our president. That first night he said, it was during that night he said kind of hard with the light coming back in your face. He gave my first order. And he said general, i want a message sent to our to every member of your corps. On behalf of all americans, i wanted them to message sent to the memory of the corps every member of your corps in dress blues camouflage uniforms, or greens, tell them we are proud. Tell them that we are grateful. Tell them we stand behind them. And tell them they are the greatest. And that was the last words first words that Ronald Reagan gave to me the night of my appointment. Let me start with some of the other things i want to talk about. It was probably mentioned not mentioned, my father was a an army major. He died in world war ii, and i have vivid memories, because i as a 1yearold boy, fits simmons General Hospital in denver colorado, i was given a watch, ring, a casket, and a set of orders to escort my mother, who was with us, and my two sisters, from his place of his death to a resting place in boston massachusetts. If there are any bostonians here, let me tell you that if you go out to the Stony Brook Reservation in boston, you will find a magnificent park. Its an Athletic Field with all of the facilities, and that was dedicated to my father. It was dedicated by the legislature of a Great American named thomas p. Tip oneill. Who dedicated that when i was a 14yearold boy. Ive got a lot of great memories. See the light back here is lousy. Well have to get talking about world war ii, a book i highly recommend for you is the one by brad shirley, i dont know if you heard of him world war ii, but he wrote a book on what happened on the first of november when we had the attack by the japanese at pearl harbor. In that book he has a forward by somebody who you do know now, and thats general p. X. Kelly. I highly recommend it of course. But not necessarily the forward but the book. But the forward is interesting because what he did, he asked me to first, his son worked with me, he asked me to give his give them my observations of a young 14yearold boy when he heard that the japanese had attacked pearl harbor. So what it is is the views of a boy, a small boy and what he thought of world war ii. And what he saw of the things that happened. I became, as an example an air raid warden, believe that or not, at 15 years old. I had to go around to all of the local houses in our area and have them pull down their shades at night so the japanese or the germans couldnt see the fuse during the evening. So these were the crises crazy, not crazy, but we tore down all of the metal fences practically in the city to build ships. Those things we had rationing of food, rationing of gasoline, rationing of all sorts of other commodities. So it was an all hands evolution. And a very, very tough period of time i might add. I fortunately had a wonderful, wonderful mother. I was in a very tough school in boston. I dont know if you ever heard of Public Latin School, but Public Latin School in poss Boston Boston is the Oldest Public High School in america. 1635 it was founded. Harvard university was founded in 1636 as a Continuation School from Public Latin School. That school i was in at the time because i was helping my mother and my two sisters, i had to leave because the demands of that school, learning latin, french, and greek all at the same time by the way, the demands of that school were so intense that i to help my mother and my sisters, i had to move over to english high school, which was fine with me. And thats where i graduated. As the bio said, i became a student at villanova. Villanova college. And i was on a scholarship. Let me tell you about that scholarship. It was kind of comical. My mother was the one who favored education. She had been a teacher. And she always insisted that her children go at least through college. Because of the war and all those things that happened, the chances of my going to college were very slim. First of all we didnt have the money. Second it was slim, the competition, the war was on. Then one time when the g. I. Bill was signed, it became apparent that you could go to college if you went and served in the military. And for equal time you got equal time in college. So my mother thought that was a good idea. I went down to the recruiting officer in washington, d. C. , and my friend and i, we both it was on a memorial day weekend, very important and and we didnt have computers, very important. It was on memorial day weekend. So on friday afternoon, Paul Xavier Kelley put his right hand up and he became a United States marine. To be picked up later and moved later. Went down to cape cod with my good friend, we had a little bit of a good weekend celebrating our new enlistment in the marine corps, then when i went home that next evening, my sister was waiting for me and she screamed at me. Where have you been and i said, none of your damn business. And she said, none of my business listen dummy, you have just been the recipient of a full fouryear scholarship tuition, boogs room and board, to any Catholic College in america. And i said oh, shit. I said i just signed up in the marine corps. Lets fast forward. Its now monday, and Paul Xavier Kelley is sitting on the doorstep of the recruiting office. And the recruiting officer said what do you want . Id like to talk to the recruiting officer. Whats your business . I tried to explain but he didnt listen to me. But the recruiting officer walked by, and said what do you want . I said, well, remember, i said no computers, so my record was still there. In the recruiting office. So i said, i explained my problem. And he sat me down and said, young man, im going to give you some advice. He said, go to college. He said, thats the best advice. But when you do, he said i have one favor. He said, i ask that you would please, please take a look at the marine Corps Procurement Office of procurement opportunities that might be there and see if one of them fits your desire. Fast forward. I did. The day i left i became commandant. The next day i sat in the commandants desk and i wrote a letter and i wrote a letter to that recruiting officer. And i said, you have no reason to remember me, but ive got a lot of reasons to remember you. And i told him the story about how he as one individual changed my entire life by making me a special case. I think thats then i invited him to be the guest of honor at a parade at th and i. He he came down. Let me tell you ladies and gentlemen, that was one of the proudest moments of my life. My message is simply this. That there are all sorts of opportunities, but there are all sorts of reasons, sometime when a young boy has a problem, listen to him. Listen to him. I had a theory in as a marine corps officer, that i wanted to talk, and i did, on most occasions, i wanted to talk to every two enlisted men at least once a day. And when i was walked by them in the streets, i would say how you doing . And wed sit and chat just to find out how they were doing. Back to business, it became quite obvious that for some reason the