mr. chairman , i yield myself such time as i may consume . 
mr. chairman , i claimed the time in opposition to the manager 's amendment because i am in opposition to a small part of the manager 's amendment , and , like many members , i have a dilemma . 
much of the manager 's amendment is what a manager 's amendment ought to be , the result of taking into account in some cases things that happened after the bill came out of committee like the hurricanes , some refinements . 
it is a very good amendment . 
there are two small changes i would like to make . 
first , the manager 's amendment says , unlike the bill that passed committee , that a nonprofit group may only ask for these funds and build housing with these funds if building housing is its primary purpose . 
understand that that unequivocally says no faith-based institution may apply unless we have a faith-based institution that worships housing . 
i am not aware of any , but i do not want to be narrow-minded . 
there may be one . 
but any other faith-based institution has as its primary purpose its faith , and this excludes organizations that have been doing work . 
the gentleman from louisiana correctly pointed out , well , if they have been already doing this , this does not stop them . 
it just means they can not get the new money . 
but we want this money to be used well . 
there is a wealth of experience in the catholic church , in the episcopal church , in the methodist church , in the jewish community housing for the elderly . 
in other groups , the local initiative support corporation , in other groups , the enterprise fund , nonprofit groups , some of which have housing as their primary purpose and some do not , why do we want to say to groups that have a very successful record of building affordable housing , including church groups , that they can not participate in this program ? 
but that is what it does . 
so one thing that i would change in the manager 's amendment is to say that they can do this if housing is one of their primary purposes , not their only primary purpose . 
it lets the faith-based groups back in . 
secondly , we agree that we should prohibit the groups , and , remember , we are not talking about using the money from the affordable housing fund for anything but housing . 
that is very clear . 
the members have said , well , and i kind of slipped into this , well , political activism , et cetera . 
not a penny of the affordable housing funds can be used for anything but housing ; and there are strict penalties if you get caught doing that . 
by the way , there may be some who think that if you participate in affordable housing that it will be so profitable that it will generate funds that you can use elsewhere . 
when i mentioned that point yesterday , people from the catholic conference and the episcopal group and all the other groups started to laugh . 
anyone who has done subsidized housing knows the organizations usually wind up further subsidizing with their own funds rather than end up making money . 
but we are talking about now only what you can do with your own money if you use affordable housing funds for affordable housing . 
we have agreed to a lot of restrictions . 
we have agreed that with your own money , if you agree to participate in this fund , you can not engage in any federal election activity as it is defined in the federal election campaign act . 
you can not make expenditure for any electioneering communication as defined in the federal campaign act . 
you can not make any lobbying expenditure except under the limits of 501 ( c ) 3 . 
all of those we have accepted . 
they are in the manager 's amendment as further restrictions , and we accept them . 
all we are saying is that nonpartisan voter registration and get-out-the-vote should be permitted uses , in other words , what the gentleman from ohio talked about . 
we had the gentleman from florida read the acorn plan . 
that plan by acorn would have made them ineligible to participate in this fund . 
it was partisan . 
people have every right to be partisan . 
we have made a concession here , that , yes , we will say that if you are engaged in partisan political activity you can not do this . 
here is what will be the parliamentary situation . 
if this manager 's amendment is defeated , i will offer as the recommittal motion 99.5 percent , textually , of the manager 's amendment . 
it is over there at the majority 's side . 
we will not touch it from what it now is . 
the only changes we will make is we will , instead of saying this has to be your primary purpose , which excludes faith-based groups , we will say it has to be one of your primary purposes . 
we will continue the restriction on electioneering and lobbying , et cetera , but we will say that electioneering and communications or partisanship are banned , but nonpartisan voter registration and nonpartisan get-out-the-vote are not banned . 
that is the question . 
should we say that if you do affordable housing , you can not also do voter registration , nonpartisan voter registration . 
if you are caught doing it in a partisan way , then you would lose the funds under here . 
you can not do get out the vote . 
again , voting and residence are very closely linked in america . 
you vote from your home . 
in some cases you might vote in your home , if you are in an elderly development . 
what about the people , and the gentleman from ohio raised this . 
the gentleman from ohio said , well , we are going to work on it . 
yes , it has to be worked on , because right now , thanks to the demands of the republican study committee , it is not there , the right to do that . 
if you have a housing development , you can not , under this manager 's amendment , help the old people in the development vote . 
you can not invite somebody in to do voter registration . 
they can come in on their own , but you can not cooperate . 
again , i want to emphasize and i would say to my republican friends , this is a bill that has a lot of bipartisan support . 
we have some partisan differences in other areas than housing , but this one got pretty bipartisan . 
what happened is this : there are people who do not like affordable housing . 
i have to say the gentleman from texas ( mr. hensarling ) xz4001750 is not here , but he said why do you not just do vouchers instead of this . 
he was being honest . 
he is not really for the affordable housing program at all . 
i did look up , on june 29th this year , the house by a majority adopted an amendment to increase section 8 vouchers . 
the gentleman from texas ( mr. hensarling ) xz4001750 voted against that . 
thirty republicans voted for it . 
he was not one of them . 
i think there are people who do not want the housing to go forward , and there are others who do not want to see an increased voter participation by people they do not think will be serious enough voters . 
if that is what the house wants to vote on , okay . 
but procedurally what you have is a bill comes out of committee ; it is held up for months because a part of the republican party does not want to put this to a fair vote . 
well , i regret that . 
we should have had a fair vote . 
i am just offering you the next best thing . 
it is not the same thing . 
it is not a clean vote , but here is the functional equivalent . 
members can have two choices : they can vote against the manager 's amendment and know that i will offer a recommittal motion , which will be everything in the manager 's amendment except the one provision that prevents faith-based groups from participating ; and the one that says no nonpartisan voter registration or the voter turnout . 
alternatively , if people vote for the manager 's amendment , maybe some people will be afraid : well , i do not want to look like i am not helping the people in the hurricane area , then i will offer a recommit . 
the recommit will make those three small specific changes in the manager 's amendment . 
in other words , members will have a chance to vote on everything in the manager 's amendment , all the restrictions on what these groups can do with their own money , all the restrictions of what they can do with affordable housing money , put our faith-based groups in and have the voter registration be allowed . 
that is what will be before us . 
mr. chairman , i reserve the balance of my time . 
