[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 43 (Tuesday, April 19, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: April 19, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
               A NEW WAY OF DOING BUSINESS IN WASHINGTON

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
February 11, 1994, the gentleman from New Hampshire [Mr. Swett] is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. SWETT. Mr. Speaker, I know is the hour is late, and I do not want 
to take too much more time this evening. I appreciate your staying to 
allow me this opportunity to speak.
  I first want to commend my colleagues who spoke so eloquently about 
the conflicts in the region of Bosnia-Hercegovina. Certainly the 
tragedies that are occurring there are of grave importance, and are at 
a much deeper level than what I am going to talk about tonight. But 
somehow we have got to find a way to build solutions to these 
conflicts, and I appreciate their bringing to the Nation's attention 
the concerns and the fears that we have regarding the horrendous 
atrocities that are occurring in those communities over in Eastern and 
Central Europe.
  Mr. Speaker, two months ago I gave a speech on the House floor in 
which I sought to begin a dialog about the need for a new way of doing 
business in Washington. My remarks tonight will be a continuation of 
that dialog.

  All too often debates in Washington do not focus on real problems or 
real solutions. We heard about some real problems just a few minutes 
ago. We have not heard what might be the real solutions over there, 
because they are so difficult.
  But here debates become battles between extremes, with each side 
employing hyperbole to score political points. Neither side bothers to 
really listen to the opposing point of view, and each side blasts at 
the other with sound bites, designed for partisan advantage and a spot 
on the evening news.
  This extremism is creating false impressions, false questions, false 
choices, and, ultimately, I believe, faulty public policy with which we 
are trying to govern this country. Because real problems and real 
solutions are not typically part of these false debates that take 
place.
  The time has come to devise a new way of doing business in Washington 
which focuses on reality. Not on all the rhetoric that we have heard 
here so often. That is what this series of speeches is about. It is 
designed to provide a forum for an emerging coalition in the House 
known as New Democrats, a small group of dedicated individuals who are 
dedicated to getting results and to building accountability into 
government programs. Now, this new coalition is building in strengths. 
New Democrats played a prominent role in the development of the Penny-
Kasich amendment of last October, which sought to cut government 
spending by $90 billion over and above the budget cuts proposed by 
President Clinton.
  New Democrats are also helping to propel a piece of legislation co-
authored by Representative Chris Shays and myself, the Congressional 
Accountability Act.
  The idea behind the Congressional Accountability Act is very simple: 
Congress should live by the same laws it sets for the rest of the 
country. Amazing. That Congress should live by the same laws that it 
sets for the rest of the country. This is amazing. But it seems that 
Congress does not understand the importance of this very clear and 
simple example that it should be setting for the rest of the country.
  Congress is currently exempt from the laws of the rest of the country 
that they must comply with, such as health and safety laws, equal 
employment laws, and labor laws. The Congressional Accountability Act 
will change all of that and require Congress to abide by those laws 
that Congress passes.

  New Democrats have joined together to demonstrate their support for 
increased accountability in government in all areas of government.
  Another area I have talked about is accountability in government-
funded research, an area I have become familiar with through my work in 
the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. But tonight, tonight I 
have come to talk about an issue that the House is considering this 
week, the issue of crime.
  It is an issue that affects all of us, and one that particularly 
calls for the new Democrat strategy of bringing different people 
together to work toward a common solution. In this, the 219th 
anniversary of the battle of legislation, when Americans stood up for 
freedom and fired the shot heard round the world, many in this Nation 
have lost that freedom. Not to any foreign tyrant or invader from 
overseas, but to fear, fear of crime. Fear of crime has many Americans 
hiding behind locked doors, afraid to go out into the night that is 
increasingly ruled by criminals.
  When I was growing up in a small town in New Hampshire, we did not 
lock our doors at night. We did not have an alarm in our house or in 
our car. We had never heard of The Club. We lived in a secure, peaceful 
community, and community is the solution to much of our crime problems 
today. We must all work together as legislators, as a community, and as 
Americans, to come up with real solutions to our tough problems.
  Now, rural communities continue to experience less crime than the 
inner cities, and I am not saying that because of my experience, having 
grown up in a rural community, that I do not understand what the 
problems are in the urban communities. But so much of the problem of 
crime has to do with the benefits that one can readily see in a rural 
community, but what becomes complicated and mixed up in the urban 
setting.
  You see, so much of how we need to control the problems with crime 
really come from an understanding of neighborhood scale. In urban 
communities, where the scale is huge and complicated and tight and 
dense, and where jobs are scarce and hope is low, and where people do 
not, for some reason, have an interest in knowing who their neighbors 
are, and looking out for them as well as observing their behavior to 
make sure that it conforms to the community, those are things that we 
have to bring into the more complicated and hopelessness in this 
country, where crime is very prevalent.
  Even in rural communities we are beginning to see a breakdown, where 
neighbors no longer police each other. And I say that very guardedly, 
because we do not want to be a society where Big Brother is watching 
us. But it is very true that in a small community the peer pressure of 
neighbors is very important, and it acts as one of the most important 
qualities that places boundaries on our conduct, that gives us a place 
of being and understanding, and ultimately helps that community address 
the needs of its Members and the giving of them of a place where they 
can belong.
  In this, we have to bring about some kind of balance, and this 
balance has to be incorporated into the approach that we take to 
solving this problem. And in President Clinton's words, we must be 
tough, and smart. We must give sure and swift punishment to those who 
break the law, but we must also prevent other misguided young people 
from taking the place of those that we have already removed from the 
streets.

                             {time}   2300

  To do this, we have to know the members of the community. We have to 
understand why they are motivated to break the law, why they are acting 
as they do against the norms of society. And we have really got to work 
with them to try and change society so that they begin to find once 
again a place where they can become productive members and not the 
destructive components that drive a society into the ground.
  The crime bill would provide grants to localities to put more police 
on the streets. Increasing the police presence in our neighborhoods is 
an important step toward reducing violent crime in our Nation's 
streets. The more visible law enforcement presence and improved 
community public and police relations, the result of having officers on 
regular neighborhood beats, will provide a valuable deterrent to crime. 
In this manner we can help cities and towns to help themselves. We can 
provide them with a tool that will help them address the ever 
blossoming crime in their neighborhoods.
  I support the addition of police officers provided for in the 
President's proposal. The tens of thousands of officers added to our 
streets will help to deter crime. This would be a 20 percent increase 
in the total number of law enforcement officers across the Nation. An 
innovative way of obtaining some of the additional personnel needed is 
through the police core program. This program, modeled after the 
successful ROTC program would accomplish two goals: increase access to 
higher education for promising youth and, two, to provide highly 
energetic candidates for law enforcement. By linking financial aid to 
service in law enforcement after college, we can support education for 
our youth, while fostering the values of responsibility and community. 
That is both smart and tough.
  But we are not just throwing more police officers out on the street 
and hope that by all those additional blue uniforms we are going to 
intimidate people from acting in a violent or criminal manner. As I 
said before, one of the most important components of these officers is 
to have an understanding of the neighborhoods in which they are being 
stationed. They are going to have to take on a responsibility of 
knowing the social habits and the people, the dreams, the desires and 
the daily habits of those folks that they are going to be working with 
as they are out on the beat and on the patrol in the neighborhoods 
around the country.
  One tough measure in the bill is the three strikes and you are out 
provision. By targeting the violent repeat offender, we can try to 
remove the truly incorrigible criminals from society and stop their 
recurring visits through the revolving door of the criminal justice 
system. We must not continue to release these felons again and again 
until they finally get caught for committing the most heinous of 
crimes. This is a responsibility any responsible society should take 
on. You cannot just let these kinds of activities take place over and 
over and over again. We have got to identify the repeat offense and 
make sure that after three times that felony has been committed, that 
that felon will no longer see the light of day for an appreciable 
amount of time. Hopefully this begins to instill in the felon or the 
criminal that they ought to change their behavior and, I hope, more 
importantly, send a message to those contemplating repeat offense that 
maybe it is time to stop.
  Again, this is not going to work if all we expect to do is to take 
the three strikes and you are out and put people behind bars. There are 
any number of other programs that have to be smart at the same time 
that we are being tough. Some may argue that this is too harsh, that 
the average felon's violent criminal activity drops off later in life, 
but we are talking about those who callously prey on our society. And 
as a Christian, I believe in the importance of forgiveness. But I also 
recognize that we must protect our families from those who will not 
change their ways.
  Although this provision will only apply to those convicted of a 
violent felony, and that is a Federal crime, and thus, does not affect 
the vast majority of criminals, it will take many hardened criminals 
off the street nonetheless.
  More importantly, this tough measure will serve as an example to our 
States who, in turn, will hopefully pass similar State laws. To help 
States lock up all the violent repeat offenders, as long as necessary, 
I support Federal grants for prison construction and maintenance. 
States have been on the front line of the crime war since the founding 
of this great republic. They do not need the Federal Government 
micromanaging their efforts.
  The best way the Federal Government can help the states is by 
directing Federal resources to areas where they need it and letting the 
states put their experience to work. That is being tough and smart.
  But in addition to putting away repeat offenders for life, we must 
give those who have committed lesser offenses and served their 
sentences the tools to be successful and to successfully integrate 
themselves back into society. To that end, I am pleased that the crime 
bill provides for drug treatment for Federal and state prisoners who 
need it. All too often drug addicts commit crimes while they are under 
the influence of that illicit drug or steal to support that habit. Drug 
rehabilitation in our prisons is a sound investment which can break the 
cycle of repeat offenses caused when drug-dependent prisoners are 
released untreated. If prisoners are set free with the same drug 
addiction that got them into jail, they will most likely return there 
all too soon. And this is a vicious cycle that we have got to stop.
  However, if we give them the help that they need to stay clean, when 
faced with the temptations of the street, they can become productive 
members of society once again and not burden the criminal justice 
system any further. That is being tough and smart.
  Alternative punishments are another area where Congress can help the 
states. For some young nonviolent first offenders, first time 
offenders, probation is not tough enough. But incarcerating them with 
career criminals so that they can become hardened, I do not think is 
very smart either. We can help the states provide creative alternative 
punishments, whether it is a boot camp, electronic monitoring or 
another method. We must stop giving young offenders the wrong message 
with probation for repeat offenses, a nonpunishment that lead them down 
the primrose path to a career of crime. Somehow we are going to have to 
give them a sense that they will be rewarded for taking more 
responsibility as an American citizen.
  When all is said and done, however, the key to crime prevention is 
really not so much the responsibility of the individual. It is the 
responsibility of the community in which that individual finds him or 
herself. Whether it is a working mother participating in an orange hat 
patrol in southeast Washington or someone in Nashua, New Hampshire 
taking the time to be a big brother or big sister, communities must 
come together to prevent crime.
  My distinguished colleague from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy, sponsored 
an amendment that was adopted en block last week that would establish 
the community-based justice grant program. It would provide money to 
coordinate the efforts of local prosecutors, school officials, police, 
probation officers and youth and social service professionals to 
identify and prosecute young violent offenders.

                              {time}  2310

  The old African proverb, and I quote, ``It takes an entire village to 
raise a child,'' holds true today in our own country as well. We as 
Americans must come together to find solutions to our common problems, 
and crime is certainly a common problem. Crime is no longer isolated in 
the inner city, but can strike anywhere: On the highway, in the 
driveways of an affluent Dallas suburb, and even in the town offices in 
small towns in rural New Hampshire.
  Crime is a symptom, a warning of even greater problems in our 
society. Crime is the by-product of our youth feeling isolated and 
desperate. Everyone needs to feel that they belong to a group, but too 
many of our youth no longer feel a part of our society. Therefore, they 
feel no need to abide by its rules.
  As in Africa, all members of our communities must work together to 
find those citizens who have been excluded and left out of society's 
circle. We must reach out to our young Americans and help them to make 
positive contributions to our country, and thus, find meaning in their 
lives.
  The crime bill provides real assistance to our communities. It is 
time to set aside partisan politics and finally, after years of 
inaction, to pass this important bill. The public, our law enforcement, 
have waited too long. Let us not disappoint them now.
  Let us pass the crime bill and begin to fix this most insidious and 
awful sickness.

                          ____________________