[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 63 (Thursday, May 19, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


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

 
         VIOLENT CRIME CONTROL AND LAW ENFORCEMENT ACT OF 1994

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.


                      Motion To Instruct Conferees

  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I send a motion to the desk and ask for its 
immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair would advise the Senator we have a 
motion pending. Unanimous consent is needed to set aside that motion.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending 
motion be set aside temporarily.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I send a motion to the desk and ask for its 
immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will state the motion.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows.

       The Senator from Texas [Mr. Gramm] moves that the conferees 
     of the Senate to the ``Violent Crime Control and Law 
     Enforcement Act of 1993'' be instructed to insist on:


                           funding mechanism

       (1) Subtitle E of Title XIII of the Senate amendment which 
     establishes a ``Violent Crime Reduction Trust Fund'' without 
     which H.R. 3355 would be a hollow anti-crime bill; provided, 
     that the amount transferred in Fiscal Years 1995 through 1998 
     from the general fund to the Violent Crime Reduction Trust 
     Fund shall be not less than $22,268,000,000 and


                   mandatory minimum prison sentences

       (2) A. Section 2404 of the Senate amendment which allows 
     suspension of a mandatory minimum sentence only in those 
     cases where the individual is truly a first time, non-violent 
     offender. The House provision would put thousands of 
     criminals with a prior conviction back on the street;
       B. Section 2407 of the Senate amendment which provides 
     mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment for adults who sell 
     illegal drugs to a minor or who use a minor in drug 
     trafficking;
       C. The mandatory minimum sentences in Section 2405 which 
     provide in the case of a first conviction not less than 10 
     years imprisonment for individuals who possess a firearm 
     during the commission of a crime of violence or drug 
     trafficking crime; not less than 20 years imprisonment for 
     discharge of the firearm; and life imprisonment or the 
     penalty of death if the firearm causes the death of another 
     person.

  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, for 6 years we have been trying to adopt a 
crime bill, and during that period we have passed some excellent bills 
in the Senate. We have passed some pretty good bills in the House. But 
what has happened to us every year is that when we have gotten to 
conference, when a few very senior Members of both Houses of Congress 
have sat down to work out the differences between the House bill and 
the Senate bill, what has happened is that we have ended up dropping 
the get-tough, grab-them-by-the-throat provisions, and we have often 
ended up with bills that look nothing like either the Senate bill or 
the House bill.
  I think probably the most stark example of this was the crime bill in 
the last Congress. In 1991 we passed a very strong crime bill in the 
Senate. They passed a fairly strong crime bill in the House. But, yet, 
when we went to conference to work out the difference between the two 
bills, systematically all of the tough provisions were dropped. For 
example, whereas we had changed the habeas corpus statute to make it 
easier to carry out the death penalty, that provision was dropped, and 
in its place 23 Supreme Court decisions which over the previous two 
decades had strengthened law enforcement, were overturned. And a bill 
was produced which the Association of State Attorneys General, an 
association made up of both Democrats and Republicans, called a ``pro-
criminal bill''.
  As a result, many Members of the Senate voted against the bill, many 
Members of the House voted against it, and, ultimately, President Bush 
vetoed it.
  We are now going back to conference with another crime bill. I do not 
support every provision of the Senate bill. There are some provisions 
of the Senate bill that I strongly oppose. But, overall, it is an 
excellent bill. The House has passed what I believe is a fairly good 
crime bill. They were not allowed to vote on many provisions of the 
Senate bill because of their restricted rules, and because the decision 
was made by the Democratic leadership to prevent those votes from 
occurring.
  But, basically, we have two versions of the crime bill now going to 
conference. There are some things that were different in 1992. In 1992, 
there were still Members of Congress who were willing to stand up and 
say that they opposed mandatory minimum sentencing. There were still 
Members of Congress in 1992 who were willing to stand up and say that 
putting people in prisons for long periods of time was not effective.
  What has happened since 1992 is that public opinion has coalesced, 
and as a result there are only a very few Members of Congress who are 
willing to stand up and say the things that they were willing to say 2 
years ago when we considered the crime bill.
  I am not convinced, however, Mr. President, that all of those people 
have changed their minds and hearts. I am very much concerned that when 
we go to conference with the House there will be real pressure and a 
real effort undertaken to gut the crime bill, to drop the funding 
mechanism so that we simply have a hollow authorization bill which 
makes a lot of promises, none of which we can fulfill. I am concerned 
that our minimum mandatory sentencing provisions will be dropped. As a 
result, I think it is important for Members to go on record now in 
instructing our conferees as to what we want to achieve in this 
conference.
  Basically, what I have done for the sake of saving the time of the 
Senate is, I have combined several items into a motion to instruct the 
conferees.
  Under the Senate rules, this motion to instruct can be divided. If 
any of my colleagues would like to see it divided, and see its elements 
voted on separately, I would be very happy to have the motion divided 
and to have them voted on separately. I would say to my colleagues that 
I have combined these provisions into one motion for the purpose of 
trying to save some time for some of our Senators, who I know are 
meeting with our Canadian colleagues in a very important meeting.
  What I have done is, I have taken several provisions and included 
them in one. But I wanted to let our colleagues know that if any Member 
of the Senate wants to divide the instructions and force a separate 
vote on them, that not only do they have the right to do it, but that I 
do not object to it.
  What have I tried to instruct the conferees to do? I have tried to 
focus on a series of issues. I am the cosponsor of other instructions 
that will be offered. The combination of all of these instructions 
produces a firm commitment to the Senate bill, to real funding based on 
a real procedure, to build prisons, to institute mandatory minimum 
sentencing, and basically is a commitment to get tough.
  Our bleeding Nation demands that we have action on crime. If this 
year, after all this debate, after all the public input, after all the 
statements by the President, if we do not produce a strong crime bill I 
think it is going to be an indictment of the democratic process itself.
  So I do not want that to happen. That is why I have offered this 
motion to instruct. But before going through this motion to instruct, I 
want to make several points clear.
  First of all, if we produce a bad crime bill, a crime bill that funds 
all these new social programs but does not make a commitment to put 
violent criminals in prison, I am going to strongly oppose it.
  Second, if we produce a mediocre crime bill that drops the get-tough 
provisions, it would be my intention to come right back and introduce 
those tough provisions again, and seek a vote in the Senate on the same 
day that we vote on the conference report.
  If anybody thinks that this Congress is going to adjourn without 
adopting new mandatory minimum sentencing, and truth in sentencing, I 
want them to know that I strongly disagree, and I believe the majority 
of the Members of Congress are going to disagree.
  So I am trying to make a simple statement, like the Fram oil filter 
ad: That one way or another, now or later, we are going to get this job 
done. I pray and hope that our conferees will get it done now.
  Now what does this motion to instruct do?
  First of all, it asks our conferees to stay with the funding 
mechanism that Senator Byrd offered. I was a cosponsor of it. It was a 
broadly supported, bipartisan effort that set in the law reductions in 
the size of the Federal bureaucracy and has an enforcement mechanism 
based on freezing the level of hiring in executive departments when we 
find that they are breaching the new limits on the total level of 
Federal employment. The net result is that by paring back the 
bureaucracy, we can save $22 billion that can go into our anti-crime 
trust fund.
  So the first part of this motion is to instruct our conferees to stay 
with our funding mechanism. There is no such mechanism in the House 
bill. The House bill spends far more money than we do, but it provides 
no way to pay for one nickel of that spending. As a result, it is all 
hollow promises which have no impact on the street, where violent crime 
is occurring.
  So the first thing I want our conferees to do is stay with our 
funding mechanism. It was endorsed earlier in the House and has been 
adopted three times in the Senate. Every time we have gotten down to 
the goal line, trying to make it the law of the land, it ended up being 
killed. I do not want it to die this time. Without it, there are no 
prisons, no additional police officers on the street, and no effective 
crime bill. We cannot put people in jails we do not have. I would like 
to stop building motels and calling them jails.
  The point is: Without a commitment to pay for these programs, we are 
simply making empty promises.
  The second part of the instruction has to do with minimum mandatory 
sentencing. There are three parts to it. I agreed, in the spirit of 
compromise, with the Clinton administration and with people 
representing their views here in the Senate, to grant a small amount of 
flexibility on mandatory minimum sentencing, but only in the cases 
where someone has no prior criminal record, where they were not 
carrying a gun, where they were not engaged in an act of violence, and 
where they were not financing drug sales. I am not for this provision, 
but in trying to work to come together on a crime bill that could be 
adopted on a bipartisan basis, I accepted this compromise. But it is 
very limited and it is very focused.
  What the House has done is adopt the President's original position, 
which would have repeat offenders, by the thousands, put back on the 
streets. The Senate provision is as far as I am willing to go. It is a 
compromise that we worked out on a bipartisan basis. The House 
provision is retroactive, and it allows people that already have had a 
criminal conviction to be exempt from mandatory minimum sentencing, and 
I think it flies in the face of what the American people want done.
  I am asking our conferees to stay with our provision with regard to 
exemptions for mandatory minimum sentencing.
  The next provision of mandatory minimum sentences has to do with 
selling drugs to a minor. We have adopted in our bill this year--and 
every time we voted on a crime bill for the last 6 years--an amendment 
that requires 10 years in prison, without parole, for adults who sell 
drugs to a minor, or who use a minor in drug trafficking. Really, the 
second item is of equal importance, because what is happening is that 
drug distributors know that minors are not being put in jail, so they 
are using minors to deliver drugs. They are putting minors in great 
danger. They are doing great damage to these young people by getting 
them involved in the drug industry at such an early age.
  I want these people to know that when we apprehend them--adults 
selling drugs to minors, or using minors in drug felonies--they are 
going to prison for 10 years, without parole, no matter how soft-
hearted the Federal judge may be, or no matter how they think society 
has done them wrong, or no matter who their daddy is. And a repeat 
offense is life imprisonment.
  The final provision in mandatory minimum sentencing that I have in 
this instruction to conferees is 10 years in prison, without parole, 
for individuals possessing a firearm during the commission of a drug 
felony or other crime; 20 years imprisonment for discharging the 
firearm; and life imprisonment, without parole, for killing somebody 
with a firearm during the commission of such a crime. Of course, we 
have the death penalty in aggravated cases.
  As I said in the beginning, these are the items that I believe we 
need to instruct conferees on. This motion is divisible. If someone 
wants a separate vote on one part of it, I will be happy to have the 
separate vote, simply as a courtesy to my colleagues. None of these 
items are controversial, in my opinion. My guess is that we have 75 
votes for any one of them, and rather than vote on them separately, I 
will be happy to vote on them together. But I have no objection 
whatsoever to having them separated out if someone wants a vote.
  So this is a straightforward motion to instruct. I hope it will be 
supported. I think it is important. I want a strong anti-crime bill. I 
do not want all of our effort to be derailed. I hope my colleagues--
especially those on the other side of the aisle--will know that my 
effort in this motion to instruct is to strengthen our conferees. I am 
worried that, with 62 conferees in the House from 11 different 
committees, we are in for a tough, prolonged conference.
  I think it is very important to be clear up front that we in the 
Senate are not going to put up with a mediocre crime bill.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. SIMON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois [Mr. Simon], is 
recognized.
  Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, this is wrong for two reasons, and I hope 
the motion by my friend from Texas will be defeated.
  It is wrong, first of all, because except for very rare instances, we 
should not instruct conferees. Conferees ought to be able to sit down 
and work out agreements, practical agreements. I have to say that my 
record is not pure on that. Occasionally, I have voted for instructing 
conferees, but rarely have I done it, because as a legislative 
procedure, it is wrong.
  Second, this is wrong in substance. He said we have to have a 
commitment to get tough on crime. You bet. We also have to have a 
commitment to get smart on crime. If we followed the philosophy of my 
friend from Texas, we would have the most crime-free society in the 
world today.
  In 1970, we had 134 people per 100,000 in our prisons, in jails. Now 
we have 510. What happened to the crime rate in that period? Every 
person in this gallery, every person in the Senate, every citizen of 
America knows what happened to the crime rate. It has escalated; 510 
per 100,000. Do you know who is second? South Africa, with 311; 
Venezuela is third, with 157; Canada has 109; the Netherlands has 41. 
If putting people in prison stopped crime, we would be a crime-free 
society, indeed. But we had better recognize that is not solving our 
problems.
  Who are the people going to prison? Well, 82 percent are high-school 
dropouts. What if, in the State of California--which is in the near 
future going to spend $10 billion on new prisons--they spent half that 
amount on prisons and spent half of it to improve the educational 
product? Would we be doing more to cut back on crime?
  I believe we would. I believe any rational study suggests that. It 
just does not make sense.
  Drugs and alcohol are involved in a huge amount of crime. And what do 
we do? Well, we have had a drug program that up until this 
administration came in was all for locking people up, and too often 
people learned how to use drugs in prisons, instead of spending money 
on treatment and education.
  The majority of people in our prisons today were unemployed when they 
were arrested. You show me an area of high unemployment, and I will 
show you an area of high crime. Let us do something about getting jobs 
in rural poor areas and inner-city areas, and you are going to do 
something about crime.
  I read the Los Angeles Times op-ed piece by a Catholic priest. I 
cannot remember his name just offhand. He looked at our crime bill. He 
is an assistant chaplain of the State prison in California. He asked a 
class of 40 people in that prison, experts on crime, if you will, what 
we ought to be doing to cut back on crime. They came up with hardly any 
of the answers that we have. Their No. 1 suggestion was get jobs for 
people. And one of their suggestions was reduce the amount of guns in 
our society. We are doing something about that.
  But what if instead of $22 billion for more prisons, and things like 
that, we had a real jobs program for people? What if we really did 
something about education in our society where we have poor schools? 
Sweden, which does not have the income disparities that we have, spent 
2 to 3 times as much in poor areas for those attending school as in the 
wealthier areas. We do just the opposite. Does it make sense? It does 
not make sense.
  Then the second thing that is part of the Gramm proposal is mandatory 
minimums. Let me say this to the credit of my friend from Texas, and I 
have observed this in the Judiciary Committee, when the Republicans 
were in power he saw to it that the nominees that came from him were 
much above average, and I give him credit for that. I voted for his 
nominees even when they were controversial. I voted for his nominees. 
But I think he ought to be listening to a fellow named Plato who wrote 
a long time ago. He said: Make sure you appoint good judges, and then 
leave the sentencing to the judges.
  My guess is, and I have not talked to any of those nominees of Phil 
Gramm, those judges would say that one of the worst things we have done 
is impose all these mandatory minimums. We cannot tell the kind of 
situations that you run into. Federal judges are just overwhelmingly 
opposed to mandatory minimums.
  Our present policies just do not make sense. We are compounding the 
problems where there are a lot of good things in this crime bill, but I 
confess I was one of four who voted against it because we are building 
on myths.
  My staff just this morning brought this to my attention, and I have 
to tell you I have not read it. The Cato Institute, which is not a 
liberal operation, has in their publication called Policy Analysis 
this, and the heading on the story is this: ``Prison Blues. How 
America's foolish sentencing policies endanger public safety.''
  The Gramm motion wants to build and compound the problems that we 
have with mandatory minimums.
  The House legislation does not do away with mandatory minimums. I 
would vote to do away with them tomorrow. Should people who are guilty 
of crimes of violence spend time in prison, and should we protect 
society? Absolutely. Sixty percent of those in Federal prisons today 
have not been involved in crimes of violence. We are wasting $20,000 a 
year to pay for each of them.
  I think we have to be more creative. I think we have to look at other 
countries. I think we have to do a better job.
  The Gramm motion just builds on our present folly, and compounds the 
present folly, and I think should be defeated.
  I yield the floor, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Texas.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, there is not any Member of the Senate that 
I have a higher regard for than the Senator from Illinois. This is a 
case where we differ really for two reasons, I think.
  First, I think we have a different assessment of the facts; and 
second, I think we basically have a different theory and conception of 
human behavior.
  What I would like to try to do is just respond to the points that the 
Senator raised and then at least for my part, unless some other point 
is raised, to conclude the debate.
  First of all, I would take some issue with the thesis that there is 
no established relationship between crime and punishment. In fact, if 
you look at the trend lines, I would argue that you can make a case 
that in the 1960's and the 1970's we dramatically reduced the amount of 
time that people were spending in prison for committing violent crimes. 
When you consider such factors as probability of apprehension, 
probability of indictment, the probability of conviction, and then how 
much time in prison you served if you actually were convicted, I would 
argue that the expected cost in prison time for committing crime in 
America fell dramatically in the 1960's and the 1970's, and in the 
early 1980's we started to reserve that. As we started to reserve that, 
the trend started to change.
  Second, I wish we knew the root causes of crime. There is no doubt 
about the fact that a welfare system that creates hopelessness and 
dependence, that is a fertile area for child abuse, is a clear breeder 
of this problem.
  We are spending $301 billion a year trying to deal with those kinds 
of problems, and I want to find root causes. I am not positive that we 
have truly identified them. I do not buy the thesis that the reason 
people are criminals is because they are poor or because they cannot 
read.
  When I was growing up, I had uncles who did not read, I had lots of 
kinfolk who were poor. As far as I know none of them ever robbed 
anybody or ever beat up anybody or ever committed a crime or ever went 
to jail.
  Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, will my colleague yield?
  Mr. GRAMM. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. SIMON. Having said that, I think the Senator has to admit that 
there is some relationship to the fact that 82 percent of the people in 
prison are high school dropouts. That is totally at variance with the 
general population. So there is some relationship between their 
education and their being in prison, that they have found fewer options 
out there.
  Mr. GRAMM. If I might respond, I am certainly in favor of reducing 
high school dropout rates. Whether people drop out of high school or 
whether they do not, they have to be held accountable for their 
actions. While I do not know how to solve every part of the crime 
problem, there is one part of it that is very much on my mind and in my 
heart and I know how to solve it. That is we do not have to get up 
every morning and open the newspaper and read about some violent 
predator criminal who had been convicted 5 or 6 times for terrible 
crimes and he or she is back out on the street and has killed someone's 
child. We do not have to live with that.
  What my provisions are trying to do is to assure that when people are 
convicted of these crimes, when they get these long sentences they 
actually serve the sentences.
  Our colleague from Florida, Senator Mack, presented the other day in 
the crime debate an example of where Florida had struggled with this 
problem. The case he pointed out was a professional criminal who had 
committed some 60 violent crimes who had been convicted of 7 major 
felonies, who was out of prison on an early release program, who went 
to a quiet neighborhood, broke into a home, beat up a pregnant woman, 
and stole her car. They apprehended him, thank God, and they put him in 
jail, and they gave him life imprisonment, but 6 months later he is up 
for parole. That makes the criminal justice system the laughing stock 
of the Nation.
  So my point is I do not know how to solve each part of the problem, 
but there is part of it I know how to solve. I know that when people 
are on the other side of the bars, that if you are on this side of the 
bars they cannot do you any harm. I want to be certain that when people 
commit these violent crimes and they are apprehended and sent to jail, 
that they stay in prison for a long period of time, and that society is 
protected. There are a lot of people in prison. The problem is that 
they are in and out of prison.
  I do not know how many people commit crimes because they do not 
believe they are going to do the time that they are sentenced to and 
how many might be deterred if they believed that they really were going 
to spend a long time in prison.
  My law enforcement officials tell me in Texas that when they 
apprehend somebody for a drug violation, say, and that criminal finds 
out--when they believe they are going to be sentenced in the State 
system, where they will serve a very small fraction of their sentence, 
they do not take the process very seriously. But when they find out 
that they have sold the drugs close to a school or that they violated 
some other Federal law and they are going to Federal prison where there 
is no parole, suddenly they take the process very, very seriously.
  So what I want to do is to be certain that if we say there ought to 
be 10 years in prison for selling drugs to a child, that people know, 
no matter what the circumstances are, that they are going to serve the 
10 years in prison. I believe that will mean fewer people in prison, 
not more people, because I think we will deter the crime.
  Finally, let me say in terms of judges--and I appreciate my 
colleague's kind comment. I think most Members of the Senate work hard 
in trying to appoint good judges. But as I have looked at data from the 
sentencing commission, what I have found is that when judges have 
discretion, the sentences that are being handed out are not 
substantially different from the minimums that are required.
  If someone has committed a drug felony and they had a gun, and I look 
at the sentencing commission data, I do not find that use of the gun 
results in more jail time for these people. I find, around the country, 
tremendous variability in sentences.
  So what I am trying to do in these provisions is to simply eliminate 
the uncertainty by saying that if you are convicted of these crimes--
for example, possessing a firearm during the commission of a violent 
crime or drug felony--that you know you are going to get 10 years in 
prison and you are going to serve every day of it. If you discharge the 
firearm, you are going to get 20 years. If you kill somebody, you are 
going to spend your life in prison or you are going to be put to death. 
That is something people could understand.
  Since I do not want people to carry firearms, I do not want them to 
discharge a firearm trying to shoot people, and I do not want them to 
kill people, I want them to know with certainty what the penalty is 
going to be. And the same with these other provisions.
  So I think this is a straightforward motion. It simply supports the 
bill that we adopted overwhelmingly. I hope my colleagues will accept 
it.
  Mr. BIDEN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I do not want to take a lot of the Senate's 
time, because we had an opportunity in November to debate. As my friend 
from Texas pointed out, we voted on a lot of this stuff a number of 
times. But I would like to make a few comments.
  As usual, I find myself somewhere between the Senator from Texas and 
the Senator from Illinois on these issues. I do think there is a 
relationship between punishment and crime. I do think there is a 
correlation. I do not think that poverty dictates criminal behavior. 
Although I will acknowledge that, statistically, there is a higher 
rate, that may be because they cannot afford good lawyers. And it may 
be as complicated as they are in a very different circumstance that 
caused them to do that.
  For example, it is true that 85 percent of the people in State prison 
systems are high school dropouts. But the truth also is that the vast 
majority of high school dropouts never commit a crime. So I do not want 
to get too overwrought by the statistics, except to make three or four 
basic points.
  First, all of the examples my friend from Texas has mentioned and 
others--Democrats and Republicans alike--about the person who commits a 
heinous crime after having been convicted and sentenced in a previous 
crime, having served only a small part of their time and having been 
let out, they are all State prisoners. They are not Federal prisoners.
  I am sure there is a Federal prisoner who has served his or her time 
and gotten out and committed a heinous crime. But I have yet to hear 
one example on the floor of the U.S. Senate since I authored, with one 
other person, a bill that became known as the sentencing commission.
  I am the guy who originally--with Senator McClellan and Senator 
Kennedy, way back then, and with others in the 1970's--wrote that bill. 
And it works.
  The irony is we have a Federal system that works pretty well. The 
Senator from Texas is right. You get convicted in a Federal court, you 
go to jail. And you go to jail based on the sentencing guidelines which 
drastically limits the discretion of a Federal judge. Because the 
Senator from Texas is right.
  You look around the country. What happens is, you get convicted of 
the same crime in, say, Delaware or Arkansas or California or New York, 
and you will find wildly varying sentencing, and wildly varying amounts 
of time that are actually served.
  So, first point: It does make a difference that you have certainty in 
the system. The Federal system has certainty and the Federal system 
works well.
  And, to quote a former President who was quoting someone else, I 
guess, but a phrase that was a favorite phrase of his, ``If it ain't 
fixed, don't''--``If it ain't broke, don't fix it.'' I always have 
trouble remembering everything Ronald Reagan said, and I had trouble 
with that, as well. He used to say, all kidding aside, ``If it ain't 
broke, don't fix it.''
  The Federal system is not broke. It can be improved, but it is not 
broke. We have prison space. Our folks are going in prisons when they 
are convicted. We are providing more money for more prison space. We 
can argue whether it is fast enough or ahead of the curve enough or 
not, but we have space.
  Also, when we put folks in the Federal prison, they stay in the 
Federal prison. When they get convicted in a Federal court, they go to 
prison.
  Now, the problem is, my friends from the Dakotas and Texas and 
Delaware and everywhere else are frustrated, and they are frustrated 
because their States do not do such a hot job--not very good, not as 
good as the Federal Government.
  That is a strange thing to hear said on this floor. But they are not 
as good. And so, what they do is, on average--and I will not take the 
time to go down every State, because I do not want someone suggesting 
to me that I am in any way violating the rules of the Senate by 
maligning the State; and I am not maligning anyone, because these are 
just facts.
  The average amount of time a person convicted in a State court in any 
State in America--not ``any''--most States in America, because some 
have truth-in-sentencing, but you get convicted of a crime and the 
statute book says you can get up to 10 years, and the judge stands 
there and says, ``I'm going to send you to jail for 5 years.'' So your 
sentence is 5 years. In all the States, on average, that person is only 
going to go to jail and actually serve time in jail of about 2 years, 
roughly, 43 percent of the time to which they have been sentenced after 
having been convicted without having received the maximum.
  This is not 42 percent of the time they could have been sentenced to. 
This is 42 or 43 percent of the time they were actually sentenced to by 
a judge. Say they are now sentenced to serve 5 years in the State 
penitentiary. They only get 43 percent of that time.
  If a Federal judge says, ``You are now sentenced to 5 years in the 
Federal prison,'' you serve that 5 years. You get good time off, which 
is minimal.
  And the other side of it, the Federal judge has the ability to 
increase or decrease your sentence 15 percent, either because of 
extenuating, mitigating, or aggravating circumstances. We left them a 
little discretion when we wrote that, but not much.
  Now, that is frustrating to everyone. So one of the provisions the 
Senator from Texas has--and I know the Senator from North Dakota also 
feels strongly about--is this truth in sentencing. It says, we, the 
Federal Government, are going to tell you, every State in America, that 
you have to adopt the way we do it federally or we are not going to 
give you any money for prison construction.
  As I have said before, I am for that. I think that is a good thing; 
if it will work if the States will actually go out and do what they 
have to do to qualify for this money.
  But let me tell you, let us assume that the Presiding Officer is the 
Governor of Connecticut or the Governor of Texas or the Governor of 
California. I walk up, and I am your administrative assistant, and I 
walk in and say, ``Good news, Gov, you know that prison population 
problem we have? The U.S. Senate and the U.S. House just passed a bill 
and they sent it to the President. There are $6--$ 8--probably closer 
to $8 or $10 billion--$6 or $8 billion in there for prison construction 
for the States.''

  And you go, ``Wow, boy, I dodged that bullet. I do not have to go to 
the legislature now to ask for a tax increase to build more prisons to 
solve our problems. The Federal Government is coming to our rescue.''
  ``Wait a minute. That's the good news. The bad news is, in order to 
even put in an application to get any of that prison construction money 
we have to prove to the Feds that we are keeping our prison population 
in jail for 85 percent of the time, like the Federal Government does--
85 percent of the time for which they have been convicted.''
  Even for a very slow Governor --and the Senator from Connecticut 
would be a very quick Governor--even for a very slow Governor it does 
not take long to calculate that in his mind or her mind. If they are 
only having their folks serve 43 percent of the time now, and they have 
to serve 85 percent of the time--unless they pass a law saying no more 
crime in Texas this year, we will have a moratorium on crime, unless 
that happens, if the crime rate continues roughly at the same rate, the 
Governor has to go down to the State legislature and say, ``Ladies and 
Gentlemen of the House and Senate of the State of Texas, Delaware, 
Connecticut, North Dakota--we have a chance to get money, Federal money 
to build prisons. But before we can get a penny we have to double our 
prison budget, build twice as many cells as we now have, so we can keep 
the people we now have in jail for 85 percent of the time, which is 
twice the time they are now serving. And you have to go to the 
taxpayers--of Connecticut or Delaware or New York or California--and 
tell them I am going to increase your taxes to do that before we can 
get any Federal money.''
  I think Governors should do that. I think they should be honest with 
you. I think they should be honest with the American people and say, 
``We have a problem here in the State of X. We have prison 
overcrowding. We are letting our folks out of jail early. It should 
stop and I am going to raise your taxes by $500 million, $1 billion''--
whatever the size of the State.
  I call that truth in legislating. We are doing that here. We are 
telling the American people exactly what everything is going to cost 
and exactly where we are going to get the money to pay for it. It was a 
long time in coming but we are doing it. That is what Governors should 
do.
  But my worry is here is what will happen. Maybe I am wrong. But I 
just want to get it on the Record. I am worried that if we attach the 
string requiring 85 percent of the time be served for those sentenced, 
one of two things is going to happen. Either the judges in the State 
are going to cut drastically back on the amount of time they sentence 
people to, people who deserve to be in jail a long time, or the State 
is not going to apply for the Federal money because in the Senate bill 
there is, for example, only $3 billion for State prison money--it is 
called regional prisons--Federal money that the States can use to put 
away their State prisoners. In order to qualify for that $3 billion 
over 5 years, the States collectively have to go out and first spend 
$60 billion--$60 billion. I am not making this number up. So the States 
would have to spend $60 billion to have the right to qualify to compete 
for $3.
  I think that is fine. If they do it. But I make a prediction to you, 
and I have been proven wrong before and occasionally been proven right. 
I will make you a bet. I will make you the following bet. I will bet 
you that if this provision requiring 85 percent of time served stays in 
the bill relating to any portion of the prison money, that the States 
will not build new prisons. That money will sit there and not be spent. 
Or, if it is spent, it will be spent in the following way. The county 
jails--and a lot of counties have the responsibility of taking care of 
the jail system --in wealthy counties will go out and they will spend 
the money and they will get the money. And the very place we need the 
increased prison space, in the high crime rate areas, will not have 
more prisons, and the very place we do not need it will get the prisons 
built if any are built at all.
  So, what I would rather see us do--and I just offer this as 
consideration for my friend from North Dakota and my friend from Texas 
and others, and keep in mind I am for certainty in the prison system. 
Again it used to sound almost heretical to suggest, but a Democrat 
wrote that bill--this guy--Biden. So I am all for it. My bona fides 
have been proven for 12 years on this subject.
  I am for certainty, and keeping you in jail to serve your time. But I 
would rather see us say something like the following, which I think we 
might be able to get agreement to on the House side: That a State, in 
order to qualify to get this money, would have to submit to the 
Attorney General a plan that would demonstrate and in fact require that 
over a period of time they would move to meeting the requirement of 
having people serve up to 85 percent of the time for which they are 
sentenced. Because I want prisons built now. I do not want them built 5 
years from now or 15 years from now.
  Last year 30,000 violent offenders, convicted in a court of law by a 
jury of their peers, for a violent offense--30,000 of all those 
convicted of violent crimes never served a day in jail; 30,000 never 
saw the inside of a jail after being sentenced or heard the clank of 
the bars behind them. These are not first time nonviolent offenders--
they may be a first-time violent offender, but they are not first time 
nonviolent offenders.
  I want those folks in jail. The Senator from Texas, I know he 
understood it, he could have cited the statistic which I have been 
citing for 10 years on this floor, that roughly 6 or 7 percent--
depending on which study you take--of the criminals in America commit 
somewhere between 65 and 80 percent of all the crimes. Did you hear 
what I just said? An infinitesimal--a very small percentage of the 
criminals commit most of the crimes.
  Those of you who are schoolteachers, those of you who live with 
school-teachers, those of you who know school teachers, ask them, with 
discipline problems in their school--different than crime now--if they 
could go into a school of 1,500 people, how many people, if they could 
arbitrarily remove the troublemakers in the school to change the nature 
of the way in which the school was run--how many kids would they have 
to kick out of a school of 1,500 to restore some semblance of order?
  I will lay you 8 to 5, go home and ask anybody who teaches, I bet you 
they tell you for a school that size, they will give you a number from 
30 to 75 kids max. That is human nature.
  It is the same way with criminals, the same principle. Almost 6 
million felonies were committed last year--crimes committed last year, 
and how many of these people commit them over and over and over again? 
Do you know how many crimes are committed on the average by an addict? 
A heroin addict? A cocaine addict? And most of them are polyabusers, 
they are heroin and cocaine and everything else.
  Do you know how many crimes a year they commit on average? One 
hundred fifty-four crimes a year. We have identified in the United 
States of America 2.7 million addicts; not users, addicts.
  Now figure it, you found those 2.7 million and assume that the number 
is off by 50 percent. Assume they commit 100 crimes apiece, and you can 
get them all off the street or all cured. Big impact.
  The point I am trying to make is this: We need more prison space. I 
think, although well intended, this is counterproductive to send me to 
a conference and tell me that I cannot bring back a bill that does not 
have a requirement of 85 percent of the time having been served. It 
seems to me you are sending me on a mission impossible, based on what 
the House has done. And even if I pull it off, and we have the votes to 
do it, you are being counterproductive.
  I want more prison money. I put in the Biden crime bill a total of $6 
billion. I like the House's provision even better. They have $13 
billion. We cannot afford that much, relative to the other, but they 
have no strings attached, basically. They allow the States to build 
these prisons now. Now. Not wait for regional prisons, not wait for any 
signoff. They allow them to start now.
  I see my friend from North Dakota is standing to speak; I will yield 
to him in a moment and then I will come back to the rest of the motion 
of the Senator from Texas. But I respectfully suggest we be somewhat 
more innovative.
  There is a guy named Henry Fulsom, who is a fine Republican elected 
official, the most honorable, decent man I have ever known, whom I 
served with on the county council in New Castle County, DE. Henry 
Fulsom was the first guy I heard say--which I have heard many times 
since and I am sure it was said several hundred years ago--he said 
politics is the art of the practical.
  I want a practical solution here. I want those 30,000 people last 
year who were convicted of a violent offense in the State prison system 
to go to jail. And to paraphrase my friend from Texas, although it 
would be best to keep them in jail 85 percent of their time, at least 
while they are in 45 percent of their sentence, they are not marauding 
my mother, my family, my constituents, my people. So it is better than 
nothing. I am afraid the alternative is nothing.
  I think we should use this as a wedge. It is not inappropriate like 
some of the other things in this amendment are totally inappropriate, 
in my view. It is not inappropriate to say to the States, ``Look, you 
want Federal money, here's the deal: You have to do it this way.''
  But I really think the 85 percent requirement makes it almost 
impossible for it to work, although I have no argument with the utility 
of that action if it were taken because, as I said--again, I do not say 
this to keep pointing out I wrote a bill, but I say it for my own bona 
fides. This is not someone who is up here who really is not for tough 
prison sentences, who is not for flat-time sentencing, who is not for 
keeping people in jail. I am not a liberal in conservative clothing on 
this thing. This is real, live stuff.
  I am the guy who wrote the bill with others. The Federal system works 
well. The States would do well to emulate the system. But it seems to 
me if you insist that they immediately go to 85 percent, the cost to 
them and their taxpayers is so gigantic in order to qualify for such a 
small piece of money, that they are not going to do it.
  I respectfully suggest that all my colleagues or their staff just 
pick up the phone, call your Governor back home--Democrat or 
Republican--and ask them what they think, whether they can go to the 
legislature now and ask for an additional tax increase to build a 
number of prisons immediately to demonstrate that they are keeping 
people in 85 percent of the time.
  I am delighted to yield to my friend. I thank him for his patience. 
My friend from North Dakota knows a great deal about this subject and 
feels strongly about it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I listened to the discussion by the 
Senator from Texas and the discussion by the Senator from Illinois. I 
had the same reaction as the chairman of the committee.
  The Senator from Illinois makes the point that if we do not do 
something about the causes of crime, then we are not going to resolve 
this problem. There are not enough bricks in the country to build 
enough prisons to respond to America's crime epidemic. Much of it is 
for reasons that we do not even begin to understand.
  Let me just describe, by reading you one piece from the Detroit News, 
about the death of a poor woman named Elizabeth Alvarez:

       It was with the wave of a hand from a 10-year-old boy that 
     brought Elizabeth Alvarez to her death on a humid afternoon 
     last August in Detroit. The boy, Jacob Gonzalez, 10 years 
     old, wheeled around a bank parking lot on the banana seat of 
     a pink bicycle he had stolen, and looked for a robbery 
     victim. His accomplice, Damien Doris, a 14-year-old drug 
     dealer, who owed the neighborhood kingpins $430, lay in wait 
     near the automated teller machine.
       Mrs. Alvarez, pregnant and the mother of three, was 
     hurrying to get cash for a birthday party. She passed by 
     little Jacob and smiled, ``Isn't it a good day?'' Jacob said 
     she asked. Jacob nodded in agreement and watched her walk 
     toward the machine. He signaled to Damien when their prey had 
     made her withdrawal. But Mrs. Alvarez refused to hand over 
     her $80, so Damien shot her in the head with a .22 caliber 
     pistol. Jacob looked at the woman. The boys backed away. The 
     boys thought the bullet might explode. They ran off to divide 
     the proceeds. Jacob's take was $20. He bought a chili dog and 
     some Batman toys. Both boys were arrested the next morning.

  These boys were 10 and 14 years old. We do not even begin to 
understand what is happening in this country. Would we have read this 
10, 20, or 40 years ago? Things have changed, and those who say things 
have not changed do not understand what is happening on the streets in 
this country.
  This system does not work in this country. Walk a block from this 
building and look at any residential building and you will find bars on 
the windows. A block from the Capitol a building cannot be sold without 
bars on the windows. Is it to keep those residents in the buildings? 
No, not hardly, although you wonder who the prisoners are. It is to 
keep out those who would threaten the people living on the residential 
streets just blocks from the U.S. Capitol.
  I suppose all of us come here with individual experiences that cause 
us to look at the criminal justice system in a different way. Etched in 
my memory forever is a late night phone call telling me my mother had 
been killed in a high-speed police chase by a man who was sentenced to 
10 years in prison, with 5 years suspended. And, of course, he was out 
in a fraction of the 5 years.
  I will probably never in my life overcome the anger I have at the 
criminal justice system. When you get involved in that system, 
especially if a loved one is affected, you understand that victims are 
not treated fairly. It is just a fact. They just are not treated 
fairly. There is a lot of anger all across this country because 
everyone now worries about becoming a victim to the increasing epidemic 
of violent crime.
  There is fear in this country that we did not have 10, 20 and 30 
years ago. Last year, 24,000 murders, 110,000 rapes, 670,000 robberies, 
1.1 million assaults. That is in a free country. We are the murder 
capital of the world. The question is, Why? The Senator from Illinois 
asked that question. I wish I knew the answer.
  If I or my colleagues knew the answer, I suspect we would spend all 
of our time constructing the kind of solutions that are necessary to 
respond and diminish the amount of violent crime in our country. But 
the fact is we do not know the answer. We know some of the causes, and 
we must begin to address some of those causes.
  But in the meantime, I support the instruction offered by Senator 
Conrad from North Dakota and Senator Mack from Florida. They propose to 
instruct the conferees that the crime legislation which comes back to 
us include the provision that if you are convicted of a violent crime, 
you serve 85 percent of your sentence.
  I come here to support that today, although it is not enough. It is 
the best we will get, but it is not enough. I this week introduced 
legislation which I expect to have considered over the next year or so, 
and I hope eventually will be passed, that does something much 
different than that. I want people convicted of violent crimes to be 
sentenced, and when they are sentenced they serve their entire 
sentence--no fractions, no percentages. If you commit a violent crime, 
when you are sentenced, you serve your sentence.
  Now, how do you get States to do that? I have offered a bill that 
some will say is very difficult to support. Not for me. Some who do not 
know much about the Constitution will say it is unconstitutional, but 
in my judgment clearly it is not, and there are court decisions that 
support my position.
  What I suggest is this: States should have in place a policy that 
says, if you are convicted of a violent crime, you will serve your 
entire sentence--no time off, no good time, no deciding that after 
watching cable television for several years we will let you out early. 
If you are sentenced for 7 years, you serve 7 years.
  If States elect not to have that policy in place and they decide for 
their own reasons--in order to save money, because of overcrowding, or 
other things--they decide they want to let people who have committed 
violent crimes out early, then I say make them responsible for the cost 
of that decision.
  We spend a lot of time talking about cost shifting in the health care 
system because some people are covered and some people are not; some 
people do not have the resources so somebody else has to pay for it.
  I tell you where there is shifting going on--in the criminal justice 
system. Somebody says we cannot afford to keep somebody in prison, so 
we let them out early even if they are a violent criminal. Do you think 
that is not a cost to society? What about the next victim in the next 
month? Is that next victim not a cost, not only in terms of human 
tragedy but in income and property? The fact is this is simply cost 
shifting. Violent criminals let out early go out and commit more and 
more and more crime.
  My legislation very simply would say, if a State makes the decision 
to let a violent criminal out early, and that criminal then goes out 
and commits another violent crime during the time when he or she would 
have been in prison, the victim has the right to sue the State that let 
them out early. I want the jurisdiction that decides to save money by 
letting violent criminals out of jail to be responsible for that 
violent criminal's next act. I want the victims to be able to sue the 
State for not keeping that violent criminal in jail.
  Tough? Sure. Radical? Maybe to some. Right? Absolutely.
  The fear about the epidemic of violent crime in America is clear. It 
does not take Dick Tracy to understand who is going to commit the next 
violent act. It is going to be the person that committed the last 
violent act. For example, Polly Klaas in California, the young girl who 
was abducted from her home in the early evening and killed. I have in 
my briefcase the rap sheet of the man who abducted her. It is over 3 
pages, single spaced, arrest after arrest, conviction and 
incarceration. And State incompetence after incompetence because the 
criminal justice system knew this criminal was dangerous and did not 
keep him locked up. And because that person was turned out on the 
streets, this young girl is now dead.
  Well, my point is we have to do things better and we have to do 
things smarter. I want to put as much pressure as we can on all those 
in charge of incarcerating people to get them to keep violent criminals 
in prison for their full sentence.
  I say to my friend from Delaware--and I compliment him enormously for 
this bill--we have to be a lot smarter about the way we incarcerate 
people. A criminal is not a criminal is not a criminal. We have over a 
million people in jail. Half of them are nonviolent. We do not need to 
build giant brick and mortar edifices to keep in prison offenders who 
are nonviolent.
  Mr. BIDEN. If the Senator will yield, he knows in the Biden crime 
bill there is $3 billion for just that, $3 billion for boot camps for 
nonviolent criminals.
  Mr. DORGAN. I was about to say that, and this is a demonstration of 
what I think we can do on a much larger scale. We can make room for 
100,000 violent offenders now by turning nonviolent people out of those 
cells, and putting them in incarceration facilities that cost one-fifth 
of what it costs to build these giant prisons. That is the point. We 
have to be much smarter.
  I am simply saying the energy you see in the Chamber from Senator 
Conrad and Senator Mack is an energy that comes directly from the 
American people. The American people have decided that we do not want 
to be victims of crimes committed by criminals who should have still 
been in prison but were let out because States decided they could not 
afford to keep them in prison. They could not afford it, but the victim 
is going to have to afford the costs of being a victim of crime.
  Let me just again compliment the Senator from Delaware on this bill. 
However, I intend to come back again and again and again to try to 
effect a change in which we not only address the root causes of the 
crime epidemic but we also try to keep those who we know are violent 
behind bars for their full sentence so that they are not out 
victimizing other Americans.
  Mr. BIDEN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. I thank the Senator from North Dakota. We have no 
disagreement on the answer. It is the means to accomplish the ends. Let 
me be a bit facetious and suggest the following. A better way to assure 
that North Dakota would do what the Senator wants, if it does not 
already, or California or Texas or any State would do what the Senator 
wants would be to say, ``You do not get any highway funds again unless 
you incarcerate people for 85 percent of the time,'' because they care 
about the highway funds. They do not have to raise more money in order 
to do that. They do not have to build anything. They are in a situation 
where that would have more impact.
  But to say now my theory is this: You get no money to keep people in 
prison unless you spend, if it is not twice the money, if it is 30 
percent of the money, unless you spend a lot more money than you are 
going to get--everyone would have to agree to that--unless you spend a 
lot more money than you are going to get, you do not get any money to 
build prisons, I predict to you it will have the exact opposite effect 
my friend from North Dakota wants. More of those people will be out of 
jail--not fewer, more.
  Before I ask unanimous consent here, I will conclude by suggesting to 
you we do not have a Federal problem. Running the risk of seeming like 
I am being a little too facetious, my friends who dare do this should 
go home and run for Governor. That is the place you should be. Run for 
Governor. And you be the one to go tell the people of your State you 
are going to raise their taxes. I hope you do. You should.
  But it gives Governors and State legislators a way out in order to 
ask for the money. They are going to have to go to the people in this 
antitax era and say, ``Let me raise your taxes.'' You know how they 
lecture on balanced budgets all the time. I love those gubernatorial 
lectures on balanced budgets. They say, ``Come down here.'' And they 
pass two amendments when the National Governors Conference meets. They 
have two resolutions to send to Congress. The first one is, ``Congress, 
balance your budget like we do.'' The second one is, ``And, by the way. 
Send us more money because we don't want to do our job and go to the 
people and tell them we need more money.''
  Ninety-six percent of all the crime committed in America is committed 
solely within the jurisdiction of a Governor, a mayor, a county 
executive, or a local person--96 percent. We should help. And we are 
going to help. We are going to provide billions of dollars of help. I 
do not mind telling the American people where we are going to get the 
money to pay for this. Here is how we are going to pay for it flat out. 
But let us at least raise the money so they will spend it on what we 
want them to.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, what drives the emotion of the 
distinguished Senator from Florida and his counterpart on the Democrat 
side of the floor is that people out there are tired of the average 
sentence time served in the States being 40 percent. And they are 
specifically tired of it when it comes to violent criminals. When a 
murderer gets a sentence of 15 years on the average, and serves less 
than 7, the average murderer in this country, it does not take many 
brains to realize that there has to be something done to keep these 
people off the street.
  When the average rapist gets sentenced to 8 years in prison and 
serves less than 2, a rapist--our daughters are at risk--it is not hard 
to understand why some of us would like to see those sentences, at 
least 85 percent, carried out. That is what the truth in sentencing is. 
Whether it should be triggered by the regional prison concept or some 
other concept, it is almost irrelevant to me. But we want to get the 
violent criminals, and lock them up and throw away the key for at least 
85 percent of that time that they are sentenced. If they use a gun, 
then they ought to get it doubled.
  That is the way to stop the unwise, the unlawful, and the dirty, 
rotten use of guns in this society, not some ridiculous, idiotic, 5-day 
waiting period that has caused almost everybody to go out and buy their 
guns now--the typical liberal solution to things. ``Let us have a 5-day 
waiting a period. That is going to solve all of our problems.'' All 
that has done is increased gun sales like 300 percent across this 
country because people could not wait to go out and get their guns now 
that they are going to have to wait 5 days.
  These liberal solutions have never worked. Of course, now they have 
Brady II. Brady I was supposed to do everything for us. It has not done 
a doggone thing. In fact, it is going to undermine law enforcement in 
this country.
  Now they want an assault weapon ban. They are going to ban 19 
weapons. But they have defined them in such a way that over 100 will be 
banned, but they are going to exclude, exempt, 650 that have basically 
the same firing mechanism as these so-called 19--to take away the 
rights of American citizens, as defined in the second amendment to keep 
and bear arms, which is certainly more than a militia right as defined 
by some today. That is the national guard right. That is not what the 
Founding Fathers meant. That is not what they meant when they wrote 
that amendment. The militia was every American citizen who felt 
inclined to support our country.
  So we can moan and groan about truth in sentencing all we want. But 
that is what the American people want. They want the violent criminals 
put away.
  I happen to agree with the distinguished Senator from North Dakota 
that we should not be spending all of our expensive jail time for those 
who are not violent people. I happen to agree with the Senator from 
Delaware that boot camps may be a solution for people like that. We 
should not make prison a very nice time for people. Unfortunately, our 
do-gooders on the liberal side of the equation want to make sure that 
everybody is treated beautifully in prison. Frankly, I think it is time 
to get tough on these people.
  I have another part of this I would like to spend a few minutes on.
  Mr. President, the two Houses of Congress are soon going to go to a 
conference on the crime bill. I regret to report that the crime bill 
passed by the other body contains several billion dollars in ill-
defined social programs--I might say ill-defined 1960's Great-Society-
style social spending programs in the guise of anticrime legislation.
  As such, these wasteful social spending boondoggles will rob the 
people of Utah and every other State of scarce resources which would be 
aimed at fighting crime, building prisons, hiring local, State, and 
Federal law enforcement officials and officers, and similar law 
enforcement measures.
  Take, for example, the Local Partnership Act contained in the House 
bill. This program will give local governments $2 billion for fiscal 
years 1995 and 1996 to use for four purposes: education to prevent 
crime, substance abuse treatment to prevent crime, coordination of 
Federal crime prevention programs and, job programs to prevent crime. 
There are no other standards in the House bill. That is it--those four 
broad-based standards. We just have these four general purposes.
  In plain English, this is just Federal money for local government 
social programs with the crime label put on them for cosmetic purposes. 
By slapping the phrase ``to prevent crime'' on these purpose clauses, 
this provides the cover to hijack $2 billion of precious crime fighting 
resources for anything at all that localities will label ``education to 
prevent crime,'' or for drug treatment, or for more Government jobs 
programs.
  The $2 billion would be much better spent in really fighting crime by 
spending it on prisons, law enforcement officers, and equipment.
  Let me take another example of wasteful social spending in the House 
bill, the Model Intensive Grant Program. This program allows the 
Attorney General virtually total discretion to spend $1.5 billion over 
5 years in grants for up to 15 chronic high-intensive crime areas to 
develop comprehensive crime prevention programs. This money apparently 
can be spent on anything that can arguably be said to attribute to 
reducing chronic violent crime.
  The House bill says this includes but is not limited to youth 
programs, ``deterioration or lack of public facilities, inadequate 
public services such as public transportation,'' substance abuse 
treatment facilities, employment services offices, and police services, 
equipment, or facilities.
  I believe in spending wisely on crime prevention, although most of 
that funding should not come from the crime bill, where we should focus 
very heavily on enforcement.
  But this open-ended Model Intensive Grant Program allows spending on 
just about anything that can be remotely described as crime prevention, 
however tenuously, including public transportation. We are supposed to 
be sending the President an anticrime bill. Let the Department of 
Transportation offer some of its existing funds for transportation 
services for preventive crime. Let us not take it out of our crime 
bill.
  Mr. President, you can bet that conferees from the other side of the 
aisle will propose inadequate funding for new prisons in the crime 
bill. We will undoubtedly need to spend more on prisons. We need to 
spend more on prisons for two interrelated reasons. We can talk about 
ensuring that children do not go astray, and we should be concerned 
about that. But we have many vicious criminals right now who are not 
serving enough of their sentences. And speaking of crime prevention, 
one of the best things we can do to prevent crime right now is to take 
violent criminals off the streets for long periods of time so that they 
cannot commit anymore crimes.
  Another social spending program in the House bill is $525 million for 
a Youth Employment and Skills Crime Prevention Program which funnels 
cash to State and local governments for job training and make-work 
programs.
  This is a duplication of the programs I have just mentioned, except 
this one is run by the Department of Labor. Despite the fact that there 
are already over 150 Federal job training programs at a cost of over 
$20 billion a year, the Attorney General announced this week that the 
administration supports this program and has asked that Congress 
increase the program to $1 billion.
  Frankly, the best crime prevention program is one that ensures swift 
apprehension and certain and lengthy incarceration for violent 
criminals. The more than $4 billion in these three boondoggle programs 
in the bill the other body sent belong in prison construction and other 
measures.
  These social spending programs are neither tough nor smart on the 
fight against crime. We can and must spend our moneys more wisely, and 
in the process we have to move to truth in sentencing.
  I want to point out a little bit about just how these programs work. 
This lists seven Federal departments who sponsor 266 programs which 
serve delinquent and at-risk youth--266. These are already existing 
programs. This is Federal departments on this side and the number of 
programs each department has.
  The Department of Education has 31 programs already in existence 
without the crime bill. The Department of Health and Human Services has 
92 programs already in existence. We are doing a lot in this area 
without the crime bill. The Department of Housing and Urban Development 
has 3 programs; Department of Interior, 9 programs; Department of 
Justice, 117 programs; Department of Labor has 8; Department of 
Transportation, 6, for a total of 266 Federal programs for at-risk 
youth.
  Yet, we would add $4 billion more. In other words, every time you try 
to do something about crime, those on the liberal side of the equation 
load the bill up with more social spending programs that are not 
working anyway, rather than do the things that have to be done against 
violent crime in our society.
  So I repeat this. The GAO recently reported to Senator Dodd, who 
heads our Family and Children Subcommittee on the Labor Committee, that 
there are 7 Federal departments fostering 266 prevention programs which 
currently serve delinquent or at-risk youth. Like I say, of these 266 
programs, 31 are run by the Department of Education, 92 by HHS, and 117 
by the Justice Department.
  GAO found that there already exists a massive Federal effort on 
behalf of troubled youth,'' which spends over $3 billion a year. GAO 
went on to report that:

       Taken together, the scope and number of multiagency 
     programs show that the Government is responsive to the needs 
     of these young people * * *. It is apparent from the Federal 
     activities and response that the needs of delinquent youth 
     are being taken quite seriously.

That is in the GAO report, Federal Agency Juvenile Delinquency 
Development Statements, August 1992.
  Despite the findings of the GAO, the House crime bill throws even 
more money at State and local government under the prevention label, 
while failing to acknowledge our ongoing efforts. Listening to the 
House bill supporters, one would assume the Federal Government has done 
nothing in the area of crime prevention.
  They load up the House bill with almost $10 billion of prevention. I 
believe there are some legitimate areas where we can do something about 
prevention, but I have to tell you right now that we are doing plenty 
without loading up this crime bill with more than we need. We need the 
prisons; we need the police; we need to get tough on crime; we need the 
mandatory minimum sentences; we need the beefing up of Quantico, of our 
DEA, of our FBI, of our Justice Department prosecutors, rather than 
cutting back on them. We need tough antirural crime initiatives, 
antigang initiatives, violence-against-women initiatives, the scams on 
the senior citizens, against telemarketing fraud. All of that in this 
bill would make a difference against crime in our society.
  Mr. President, I have to say that we have a lot of problems in going 
to conference on this crime bill, not the least of which is the gun ban 
and, of course, not the least of which is this racial justice act, 
which would virtually outlaw all implementations of all death penalties 
in our society today, and would cost the American taxpayers billions, 
if not trillions of unnecessary dollars, as the whole capital 
punishment system would come to a screeching halt and be embroiled in 
all kinds of litigation, all kinds of statistical analysis, all kinds 
of social welfare work, to the point that people will throw their hands 
up in the air and say we really cannot get tough on criminals, 
especially those who commit willful, violent, heinous murders against 
the public.
  Mr. President, I wanted to make a couple of these points during this 
debate today, because I have to go back to the truth-in-sentencing 
provisions. If we do not get tough on the violent criminals, we are not 
going to make headway in this society. All of the prevention programs 
in the world are not going to help us.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Utah. Look, Mr. 
President, we are debating old ground here. We have been through it a 
number of times. I have made my case as it relates to truth-in-
sentencing. I am willing to take a chance if my friends are. I want to 
be able to say--I should not say it this way--I told you so. I am going 
to wash my hands of this one.
  I want to make it clear that I want more prison space. I think the 
States need the help. I think to do this to the States and insist this 
is the only way they can do it, they will not build the prisons needed, 
they will not spend the money we are going to appropriate for the 
States. When it turns out that we pass this big bill with prison money 
in it, if truth-in-sentencing is in here the way it is, do not come 
back to me 2 years from now and say we have a prison shortage in 
America. I do not want to hear it.
  If it turns out the States do all this, then I will, as I have done 
at least on one other occasion on the floor, come to the floor and say, 
mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Forgive me, I was 
wrong. I would be delighted to stand here and say I was wrong.
  The States are going to spend $60 billion over 5 years, and we are 
going to spend somewhere around that area over the next several years. 
We are going to spend between $3 and $6 billion over the next several 
years, and we will build all these prisons and America will be safe. If 
that happens, the pages looking at me, who will be 5 years older, and 
will all be in college, I will remind them and everybody else, I will 
come to the floor and say I was wrong, mistaken.
  I am told this is cleared by my Republican friends.
  I ask unanimous consent that the vote on Senator Conrad's motion to 
instruct occur at 6:30 p.m.; that upon the disposition of that motion, 
the Senate vote on Senator Gramm's motion to instruct; that these votes 
occur without any intervening action or debate; that no amendments be 
in order to either motion, and that no other motion to instruct the 
conferees on H.R. 3355 be in order after 4 p.m. today.
  Mr. HATCH. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, and I do not 
believe I will object. We do have this other resolution we would like 
to get in on.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we vote----
  Mr. HATCH. We do not need a vote on it.
  Mr. BIDEN. I will accept it. Let me make sure I understand what I am 
accepting. I am accepting the motion to instruct that calls for a big 
room and the press present.
  Mr. HATCH. The last time--in the last conference--they called the 
conference on a Sunday in the middle of a Redskins game; they put it in 
a small room, or a relatively small hearing room, foreclosed anybody 
from the public from viewing what was going on, including the media. It 
turned out to be a fiasco.
  I really believe that it is in the best interest of the Senator from 
Delaware and all of us, to have this in the largest room we can find in 
the Senate--one of the three caucus rooms--or have it in open forum and 
allow anybody in the public to come, including the media, so they can 
see what we are doing about crime in this. It is not going to be a fun 
conference or a beautiful thing to behold. It is going to be a mess. I 
think it is time for the general public to see what it is like, the 
games that are played, sometimes maybe by both sides.

  So I think it will just be a thing that will benefit all of us. I am 
really cheered by the fact that our distinguished chairman on the 
Judiciary Committee is willing to accept that resolution. As soon as we 
get it typed up, we will bring it to the floor and get it passed.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, this is a little revisionist history here, 
but let me point out I do not think whether there is a Redskins game on 
or the Super Bowl we should not have a conference. I would like to 
point out I do not want to get in a big fight here that after months 
and months my Republican colleagues not allow me to go to conference.
  They did not want a crime bill because it had gun legislation in, 
number one.
  No. 2, we held the conference in the Judiciary Committee room which 
is almost as big as the Senate floor.
  No. 3, to the best of my knowledge the press was there. Under the 
sunshine law there is not an ability to tell the press they cannot come 
into the room. To the best of my knowledge, the press was there; the TV 
was there; people were there. As a matter of fact, there were a couple 
of interesting stories written, to put this in perspective, about how I 
ramrod the Republicans, and they watched it.
  Why did I do that, by the way? I did that because they filibustered a 
crime bill for 2 years, and I will do it again if they try to 
filibuster it for 2 more years. I want the public there to see it, too.
  I promise you the public will be there. I promise you I will agree to 
whatever room they want to have it in, if we have it on the this side 
or if we do not have it on this side. I am all for everybody watching 
it. If you want to add the possibility of putting it in RFK stadium, I 
will add RFK stadium if you want.
  Keep in mind, the Biden crime bill we were trying to pass for 4 
years. So I am anxious to pass it. I want everyone to be there. I want 
everyone to see it. I am ready to go. I will accept it even without it 
being written, even without seeing the language. I trust my colleague 
so much, I will accept his assertion that it be in a big room with 
television. I cannot, obviously, dictate to the Rules Committee which 
room they give us, but I promise you we will hold it on the lawn if we 
have to in order for everybody to be able to come and see it. And we 
will sell tickets if you want.
  So I will accept the motion, sight unseen.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Campbell). The Senator from Delaware is in 
the process of seeking a unanimous-consent request. Does he seek to 
revise that request?
  Mr. BIDEN. No. I withdraw the request.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, we will certainly agree with the request if 
we can.
  Just to straighten the Record out, though, the reason for the delay 
the last time is we were in a fight over the ratio of conferees. 
Finally, we got rolled on it. No question about it.
  The only reason I remember the Redskins game is because that was the 
only game I think I was permitted to go to in years, and my good friend 
from Wyoming was with me. It was not a very good game because they were 
losing. We did not mind coming to the conference, and we both left.
  The fact is it was a rollover of the other party conference that 
occurred behind closed doors, without the public having any idea about 
it and without anybody seeing what was going on, and with an attempt by 
maybe both sides trying to gain private advantage--frankly, we felt on 
one side, but nevertheless I am sure the other side probably felt, both 
sides, so I will even agree to that.
  The fact of the matter is at this time it should not be, and I think 
it plays in the distinguished chairman's best interest, and certainly 
it does in our best interest, to make sure that we sit down and do it 
in an open forum so that everyone can see what is going on. On this 
side this year, in a rather large room, one of the three caucus rooms, 
either S. 325 in the Russell Building, or the Hart 216, or 106 in the 
Dirksen Building, whatever the large caucus room is.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I doubt anybody would object to that. I 
have never yet found a Senator who was not willing to have television 
cameras in a room, particularly a big room, and particularly a big 
undertaking. I am happy to do that.
  I might add, somewhat facetiously, if the new rules we passed 
relative to the last week's debate are in place, no one will have to 
worry about a Redskins game interrupting anything. So we are going to 
be fine.
  Mr. President, I would renew my unanimous-consent request and 
acknowledge to the Senator I accept the motion.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I will 
not object, I do think that it is appropriate to say that Senator Biden 
and Senator Hatch have worked very closely together. Surely we have our 
disagreements. But they have been accommodating to those on Senator 
Biden's side and on our side of the aisle.
  This is a very difficult issue. It is about money. It is about 
partisanship. It is about police. It is about prevention. It is about 
punishment. But I think we can get it done, and I think it is very 
important. Senator Hatch has expressed it very clearly, that even 
though there was a filibuster--there were threats that there were--it 
was still a conference that took place in a shoe box, and they just 
kind of wadded people in on the sides.
  I was there. I was a conferee. It was not a pleasant thing, because 
it is never pleasant when you get rolled. But when you are in the 
minority you do get rolled. I understand. That is politics. That is 
fair. I have no whine about that.
  I think it will be good because I want the people--not to see how the 
Senate does its work, the Senate does its work, I think, in a very open 
way, at least these two managers have-- I want them to see how the 
House works, where they took two motions to instruct from the U.S. 
House of Representatives that passed by votes of 260 to whatever and 
just sat and smiled and rolled their own House.
  I remember that very well. It was with a great deal of high glee. And 
some of the people who were in there when the House instructed the 
conferees to stick with the provisions--I think there were at least two 
provisions by big votes, this group of conferees from the House just, 
as I say, in an arrogant way just closed the book.
  This is the House that gives us lectures on the filibuster and says 
that we over here are an evil group who do an ugly thing called 
filibuster. Yes, we do. It helps a minority within the minority, 
regardless of what party you are in.
  Over there they just run it with an iron fist and hang people out to 
dry, take their amendments, put someone else's stamp on them, and ship 
them down the road.
  I want the public to see that it is really something to see, to give 
them a whole new view. That is why I think the motion to instruct will 
be appropriate, and not to reveal any chicanery in the Senate, but to 
show how blatant are these House conferees. It is the same stacked 
deck. It is the same stacked House conference. Just take a look at it. 
And here we go. I know them. I like them. They were pleasant persons. 
But they play a version of hardball that makes us now look like we are 
wandering around with our hands and feet covered with Band-Aids.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further objection to the request of 
the Senator from Delaware?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Delaware.


                      Motion To Instruct Conferees

  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I send a motion to the desk and ask for its 
immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair will tell the Senator there was a 
motion currently pending.
  Does the Senator seek unanimous subsequent to set that motion aside?
  Mr. BIDEN. Yes. I unanimous consent to set aside, I believe it is the 
Gramm motion.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Gramm motion is set aside.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion will be stated.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Delaware [Mr. Biden] moves to instruct 
     conferees on the part of the Senate that the conferees on the 
     part of the Senate on the disagreeing votes of the two 
     Houses on the bill H.R. 3355 be instructed to insist that 
     the committee of conference report a committee substitute 
     that includes the following measures:
       (1) The Violent Crime Reduction Trust Fund to ensure that 
     funds are available to support the vital programs ranging 
     from prevention to punishment authorized in the crime bill.
       (2) Adequate funding to put 100,000 more police officers on 
     the streets of our neighborhoods and local communities in 
     community policy programs.
       (3) Significant funding for State and local crime 
     prevention programs, including prevention programs 
     specifically aimed at children most at risk of turning to 
     drugs and crime, as well as general drug treatment and 
     prevention programs.
       (4) Significant funding for the construction and/or 
     operation of--
       (A) secure prison facilities for violent offenders; and
       (B) boot camps, jails, and other low or medium security 
     State and local facilities to house nonviolent and less 
     serious offenders.
       (5) Tough penalties for violent criminals.
       (6) A comprehensive Violence Against Women Act, including 
     resources to improve law enforcement responses to domestic 
     violence, for victim services, for educational programs, and 
     including a civil rights cause of action for violent felonies 
     motivated by gender bias.
       (7) Funding for Federal law enforcement, including the 
     Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Agency, 
     the Justice Department, United States attorneys, and for 
     other Federal law enforcement agencies.

  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, a lot of the motions we have heard and will 
hear, although very important to individual Senators and maybe even 
important to some aspects of the bill, are not the heart and soul and 
guts of this legislation.
  The reason this is such important legislation is not merely that it 
spends a lot of money, we do that lots of times on things that are not 
important. But it is important because it is the first time, as I said, 
we struck a balance here on the floor, liberals and conservatives 
alike, with notable exceptions. I believe that we have to deal both 
with the violent criminals who are out there, those people who are 
already convicted of a crime, with tough sentencing and penalties, more 
police, et cetera, at the same time trying to prevent crime as well, 
people from getting into the crime stream.
  As I said, the motion to instruct, so far by and large, has been 
about fighting crimes in the margin. Only some 5 percent of the violent 
crimes, only 5 percent are prosecuted at a Federal level. And yet my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and some on my side, would 
have us believe that tough Federal penalties are critical parts of this 
bill.
  I am for the tough Federal penalties, but let me just assure you and 
anyone listening, if only 5 percent of all the violent crimes--5 
percent--are prosecuted at the Federal level, and we toughen that 5 
percent, does anybody believe that is going to affect crime in America?
  So it is kind of important we put this in focus.
  I agree that tougher penalties for violent offenders are important. 
That is why in the Biden bill that I introduced--the original bill 
here, now the Biden-Hatch bill that passed here--we included the 
largest ever expansion of the Federal death penalty to cover some 50 
crimes that included over 60 additional penalties, primarily covering 
drugs and drug traffic.
  But stiff Federal penalties will not be the dam that stops the river 
of crime from flowing through our country. Far more importantly, this 
crime bill will help the States do their job, which is to investigate, 
prosecute, try, and incarcerate the 95 percent of the criminals who are 
terrorizing our streets and neighborhoods within State jurisdictions. 
And that means, first and foremost, that we have to make sure both 
sides of the crime fighting equation add up.
  On the one hand, we have to provide the States with the resources to 
punish violent criminals. We must also reach out and prevent would-be 
criminals from coming down the path in the first place.
  As I have already said today, I do not want to waste any more time 
debating what I believe are the marginal options to instruct.
  So, without any further talk, I have sent to the desk a motion to 
instruct which directs the conferees to agree upon a balanced, 
comprehensive crime bill, which includes all the key building blocks 
that we passed in this Senate and that are truly effective crime-
fighting strategies.
  In my opinion, I believe we should direct the conferees to, one, 
include in the conference report the Violent Crime Reduction Trust 
Fund. We must guarantee to the American people we have the money and we 
are going to spend the money on crime. I think it is the single most 
serious domestic as well as foreign problem that faces this Nation. And 
we should set aside a trust fund to guarantee the American people, for 
the next 5 years we are going to meet the commitment that we say, that 
the money is available for vital programs, ranging from prevention to 
punishment, that is authorized in the Biden-Hatch crime bill.
  It directs the conferees to provide adequate funding to put 100,000 
cops on the street over the next 6 years; in our case, 5 years. But 
100,000 cops. The House bill only has 50,000 cops that we provide the 
money for at the local level.
  These police officers will be on the streets of our neighborhoods and 
local communities in community policing programs. For if we know one 
thing about crime, we know that there is less crime that occurs on a 
corner where a cop is standing at that moment. We do not know a whole 
lot more, but we know if a cop is on the corner, and if a cop is not on 
the other corner, there is going to be crime committed on the other 
corner more likely than where the cop is standing. We know that.
  This is a tough bill we passed out of the Senate to provide the 
States to hire 100,000 new cops. There are now only 544,000 cops in all 
of America. So we are almost increasing by 20 percent the number of 
local police officers in this bill.
  And we should instruct the conferees to hold fast on my 100,000 
number, not the 50,000 number the House has.
  My motion also directs the conferees to provide sufficient funding 
for secure prison facilities for violent offenders and tougher 
penalties to keep violent offenders where they belong--behind bars.
  We should be instructed that we go back and not come back here with a 
conference report that does not have sufficient money in it for prison 
construction.
  I also want to help the States build and operate boot camps, jails, 
and other low- and minimum-security facilities, in line with what my 
friend, Senator Dorgan from North Dakota, was talking about. These are 
for nonviolent, less serious offenders. The House does not have any 
money in there for boot camps. You can do it at about 40 percent of the 
cost. We should stick with the Senate position to have that $3 billion 
in there for boot camps.
  My motion also instructs the conferees to heed the other side of the 
ledger and provide sufficient funding for State and local government 
crime prevention programs, including prevention programs specifically 
aimed at children most at risk to drugs and crime.
  Under the leadership of people like Senator Dodd, Senator Domenici, 
Senator Danforth, and many others on our side of the aisle and on both 
sides, we have included such provisions in the crime bill. They are an 
important and balanced piece of this legislation.
  So, Mr. President, I hope there is no argument about what I have just 
suggested.
  This crime bill is made up of four major components. One, there is a 
trust fund. Two, there are real, live, hard dollars for States to build 
boot camps and prisons. Three, there is in this bill 100,000 cops--
100,000 cops. And, four, there is in this bill the Violence Against 
Women Act, which I also included and that my friend from Utah has 
cosponsored, that deals for the first time in a concentrated way with 
the abuse heaped upon women through violence in American society, and 
identifies it as not a unique but an identifiable and clearly able-to-
be-dealt-with problem.
  And the last part of this bill we passed out of here which we should 
have instructions on is to do what Senators Domenici and others have 
instructed on the Republican side, as well as my friends on my side, 
and that is to balance it off with general, serious prevention efforts 
that we know work, by giving States money to set up these programs 
which we know work, to prevent children from moving into the crime and 
drug stream in the first place.
  Mr. HATCH. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. BIDEN. Yes.
  Mr. HATCH. I think the Senator has a good motion here.
  I wonder if I may ask my dear colleague to consider adding three 
additional matters to it. He has agreed to these before, so I do not 
think they would be a problem, but I think it would strengthen the 
motion.
  One is, of course, the Senior Citizens Against Marketing Scams Act.
  Mr. BIDEN. I will agree, Mr. President.
  Mr. HATCH. Make that No. 8.
  Then, No. 9, title 14 of the Senate bill, which responds to rural 
crime, which all of us are concerned about.
  Mr. BIDEN. I will agree with that.
  Mr. HATCH. No. 10, section 1031 of the Senate bill, which improves 
the training of law enforcement and provides technical automation. It 
is basically the Quantico part of the bill.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I agree with that, as well.
  Mr. HATCH. Then I certainly am going to agree to this particular 
motion, and I compliment my good friend and colleague for having done 
so.


              Modification of Motion to Instruct Conferees

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Delaware seek to modify 
his motion to include those measures?
  Mr. BIDEN. I will seek to modify the motion to include the three 
additional measures mentioned by my friend, Senator Hatch. I agree with 
him. I seek to so modify.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has that right. The instructions 
will be so modified.
  The motion, as modified, is as follows:

       I move that the conferees on the part of the Senate on the 
     disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the bill H.R. 3355 be 
     instructed to insist that the committee of conference report 
     a committee substitute that includes the following measures:
       (1) The Violent Crime Reduction Trust Fund to ensure that 
     funds are available to support the vital programs ranging 
     from prevention to punishment authorized in the crime bill.
       (2) Adequate funding to put 100,000 more police officers on 
     the streets of our neighborhoods and local communities in 
     community policing programs.
       (3) Significant funding for State and local crime 
     prevention programs, including prevention programs 
     specifically aimed at children most at risk of turning to 
     drugs and crime, as well as general drug treatment and 
     prevention programs.
       (4) Significant funding for the construction and/or 
     operation of--
       (A) secure prison facilities for violent offenders; and
       (B) boot camps, jails, and other low or medium security 
     State and local facilities to house nonviolent and less 
     serious offenders.
       (5) Tough penalties for violent criminals.
       (6) A comprehensive Violence Against Woman Act, including 
     resources to improve law enforcement responses to domestic 
     violence, for victim services, for educational programs, and 
     including a civil rights cause of action for violent felonies 
     motivated by gender bias.
       (7) Funding for Federal law enforcement, including the 
     Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Agency, 
     the Justice Department, United States attorneys, and for 
     other Federal law enforcement agencies.
       (8) the ``Senior Citizens Against Marketing Scams Act'' as 
     passed by the Senate;
       (9) Title 14 of the Senate bill which responds to rural 
     crime; and
       (10) Section 1031 of the Senate bill which improves 
     training of law enforcement and provides technical 
     automation.

  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, let me make it clear. The only reason I did 
not include those--and they are very important--in the Biden crime bill 
was the rural provision--actually, they are all in that crime bill. I 
am for that.
  But the thing I do not want us to be the least focused on here are 
the big ticket items: 100,000 cops, billions of dollars for prisons and 
boot camps, prevention money that is real, that the States can use, and 
the trust funds.
  They are the great-big-ticket items that make this a bill with real 
teeth in it, real teeth. We can pass everything else in that bill, but 
if we do not pass those four things, this bill, although helpful, is 
not one-twentieth as valuable as legislation with those major 
provisions. And they are in disagreement with the House right now, so 
it is helpful to me.
  Again, I want the Record to show, so there is not any 
misrepresentation or mischaracterization when we come back with the 
conference report--and I thought it interesting, my friend from Utah 
said or my friend from Wyoming said, ``It's going to be a difficult 
conference.'' My instinct was to say, ``Tell me about it.''
  This is going to be a difficult conference. The Presiding Officer, 
who served with distinction in the House of Representatives before he 
came to the Senate, knows that in the House side they already have 
appointed 62 conferees, the core conferees for the bill. But the House 
is very, understandably, fastidious about jurisdictional breakdowns. So 
anything that affected the Labor Committee or the Ways and Means 
Committee, they have conferees assigned as well for that portion of the 
bill. It is like operating with a committee of the whole.
  Two conference bills before the last one, which was already 
filibustered to death, I remember sitting in a large room as the only 
Senator sitting there with waves of House Members coming in. I felt 
like I was in a tag-team wrestling match and I had no one to tag. For 
an hour I would sit down and debate with six or seven House Members who 
were on this subcommittee. Then they would leave and I would catch my 
breath and there would be five from another committee. Because they are 
very fastidious--I am not criticizing--they are very fastidious, as the 
Presiding Officer knows, about their jurisdiction.
  So this will not be easy, but I am confident it will be done. Because 
the American people will not stand in my view for any further delay. 
Anybody who dares filibuster a bill when it comes back, I think they 
are going to have heaven to pay from the voters when they in fact go 
home.
  I think that everyone has to understand now that these instructions 
equip me to make a case. Essentially, they are not binding. They are 
not binding. They cannot be binding because I cannot guarantee what the 
House will do or not do. So I will commit to go to the House with these 
in hand. But Lord only knows what we will be able to come back with.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote on the motion to 
instruct occur without intervening action or debate immediately upon 
the disposition of Senator Gramm's motion to instruct and that no 
amendments be in order to my motion, and that it be in order to have 
the order of the yeas and nays en bloc on my motion and the previous 
two motions to instruct.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, it is my hope that there are not any more 
motions to instruct. I do not know that there are. Essentially, what we 
are going to end up doing--I understand why--but everyone is going to 
instruct that we be for the Senate bill. I am for the Senate bill. I 
wrote it, the underlying bill, anyway. But I suspect people are going 
to come over. This is kind of an interesting thing. It must be 
interesting for people watching us. Essentially what is happening here, 
for the first time in my experience in 22 years here, is that there is 
a negotiation going on, on the floor of the U.S. Senate right now 
through these motions, to try to, in effect, renegotiate the position 
of the Senate before we get to sit down to negotiate with the House. I 
am willing to do that but I am not sure any of this means a whole lot. 
We already know where the Senate stands on these things.
  But I would ask Senators if they have any motions to be reminded that 
there is a unanimous consent that if they are not here by 4 o'clock to 
introduce that motion, the motions will not be in order.
  One of the things I think the Senate will find interesting, and maybe 
people watching will as well, is the Senator from Utah and I agree on 
this stuff. Probably we disagree on some things, like federalization of 
every handgun law.


                   Gramm Motion To Instruct Conferees

  Mr. President, I received a letter from the Chief Justice of the 
United States. Chief Justice Rehnquist said:

       I am writing in my capacity as Presiding Officer of the 
     Judicial Conference of the United States to convey the 
     opposition of the Judicial Conference--
  That is the judges. Not just the Supreme Court, the Federal courts--
     to proposed legislation that would provide for Federal 
     jurisdiction over offenses traditionally reserved for State 
     prosecution. I enclose a statement expressing the objection 
     and the reasons therefor * * *.

  Then I received a letter directly, from John F. Gerry, who is chief 
judge and chairman of the executive committee of the Judicial 
Conference of the United States. He sent me a letter which takes strong 
opposition to several provisions in the Senate bill which I also am 
opposed to. It says:

       Recent actions on a crime bill also reflected a natural 
     response to growing concerns about crime. Unfortunately, 
     proposed legislative response have expanded--unwisely in my 
     view--the role of the Federal courts in the administration of 
     criminal justice. The Federal courts undoubtedly have an 
     important part to play in the war against crime, but I urge 
     Congress to review carefully the impact on the Federal 
     courts, and on the traditional balance between State and 
     Federal jurisdiction, before adopting the more expansive 
     proposals in the crime bill.

  And then reading further it says:

       Federalization of State Prosecutions Position of the 
     Judicial Conference.

  I think we should listen to this. It says:

       The Judicial Conference of the United States opposes 
     legislation adopted by the Senate that would expand Federal 
     criminal law jurisdiction to encompass homicides and other 
     violent State felonies if firearms are involved. Such 
     expansion of Federal jurisdiction would be inconsistent with 
     long-accepted concepts of federalism, and would ignore the 
     boundaries between appropriate State and Federal action.
       The addition to Federal jurisdiction of virtually any crime 
     committed with a firearm that has crossed a State line will 
     swamp the Federal courts with routine cases that States are 
     better equipped to handle, and will weaken the ability of the 
     Federal courts effectively to deal with difficult criminal 
     cases that present uniquely Federal issues.

  I ask unanimous consent all three of these be printed in the Record 
at this point.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                Judical Conference


                                         of the United States,

                                     Washington, DC, May 19, 1994.
     Hon. Joseph R. Biden, Jr.,
     Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, 
         Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Chairman: I write as Chairman of the Executive 
     Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States. By 
     this letter, I wish to express the continuing opposition of 
     the Judicial Conference to proposed legislation that would 
     expand federal criminal law jurisdiction to encompass 
     homicides and other violent state felonies if firearms are 
     involved.
       The Chief Justice recently reiterated the concerns of the 
     Judiciary with specific reference to the Senate bill in his 
     1993 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary:
       ``Recent actions on a crime bill also reflected a natural 
     response to growing concerns about crime. Unfortunately, 
     proposed legislative responses have expanded--unwisely in my 
     view--the role of the federal courts in the administration of 
     criminal justice. The federal courts undoubtedly have an 
     important part to play in the war against crime, but I urge 
     Congress to review carefully the impact on the federal 
     courts, and on the traditional balance between state and 
     federal jurisdiction, before adopting the more expansive 
     proposals in the crime bill. Serious consideration should be 
     given to providing greater assistance to the state courts in 
     handling their traditional jurisdiction, rather than sweeping 
     many newly created crimes, such as those involving juveniles 
     and handgun murders, into a federal court system that is ill-
     equipped to deal with those problems and will increasingly 
     lack the resources in this era of austerity.''
       In short, providing Federal jurisdiction over offenses 
     traditionally reserved for state prosecution is not a wise 
     use of our scarce Federal resources.
       I have enclosed a copy of a letter previously transmitted 
     to Congress by the Chief Justice, expressing the opposition 
     of the Judicial Conference to similar legislation introduced 
     in the 102nd Congress. Attached to that letter is a statement 
     setting forth the Judicial Conference position on this 
     matter. It remains an accurate statement of the Judicial 
     Conference position on the proposed legislation.
       I appreciate your consideration of these issues.
           Sincerely,
                                                    John F. Gerry.
                                  ____

                                                     Supreme Court


                                         of the United States,

                               Washington, DC, September 19, 1991.
     Hon. Jack Brooks,
     Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary, House of 
         Representatives, Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Chairman: I am writing in my capacity as Presiding 
     Officer of the Judicial Conference of the United States to 
     convey the opposition of the Judicial Conference to proposed 
     legislation that would provide for federal jurisdiction over 
     offenses traditionally reserved for state prosecution. I 
     enclose a statement expressing the objection and the reasons 
     therefor in more detail. I appreciate your serious 
     consideration of these views.
           Sincerely,
                                             William H. Rehnquist.
       Enclosure.

     Federalization of State Prosecutions Position of the Judicial 
                    Conference of the United States

       The Judicial Conference of the United States opposes 
     legislation adopted by the Senate which would expand federal 
     criminal law jurisdiction to encompass homicides and other 
     violent state felonies if firearms are involved. Such 
     expansion of federal jurisdiction would be inconsistent with 
     long-accepted concepts of federalism, and would ignore the 
     boundaries between appropriate state and federal action.
       The addition to federal jurisdiction of virtually any crime 
     committed with a firearm that has crossed a state line will 
     swamp the federal courts with routine cases that states are 
     better equipped to handle, and will weaken the ability of the 
     federal courts effectively to deal with difficult criminal 
     cases that present uniquely federal issues.
       Not only will bona fide federal criminal prosecutions 
     suffer if the Senate's expansive firearms provisions are 
     adopted, but federal courts, overburdened by criminal cases, 
     will be unable to carry out their vital responsibilities to 
     provide timely forums for civil cases.

  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, the point the judges go on to make is the 
point which we have made a number of times. That is that one of the 
purposes of the Federal court system is not only to handle Federal 
crimes but to handle very complicated criminal actions, major stings, 
major drug cartels, major moves on the mob and so on. And one of the 
things everybody says, either directly or by implication here, is the 
Federal system is working pretty well. Nobody is in here worrying about 
the Federal system. Federal judges work, the judiciary works, the 
Federal prison system is by and large working. The Federal prosecutors 
are working. The Federal FBI, and DEA, and Federal agencies are doing 
their jobs.
  Now what the judges are saying is you come along and take the bulk of 
the crimes that are committed by street gangs and punks, serious 
crimes, and put them into the Federal courts which only have 5 percent 
of the resources to handle 95 percent of the crimes, you end up with 
real problems. For example, nationwide there were 544,309 State and 
local police officers in 1992. Federal police, DEA, FBI, U.S. Marshals 
and Border Patrol total 20,400; 20,400 versus 544,000. We are going to 
add 100,000; so versus 650,000 local cops.
  Why are we moving them into Federal jurisdictions? The way to deal 
with these crimes is to put more cops on the street. That is why we are 
going to spend $9 billion to put more cops on the street. Local cops. 
At the State and local level there are over 23,000 prosecutors trying 
criminal cases. At the Federal level there are 3,000.
  Do you realize that the district attorney's office in Philadelphia, 
PA, handled more criminal cases last year than the entire Federal 
system? One DA's office, than the entire Federal system.
  Federally, the judges, there are 9,600 State trial court judges to 
hear felony and serious misdemeanors. In the entire Federal system 
there are 629 district court judges to hear these cases: 629.
  Let me do two more statistics. In 1992, there were 48,366 criminal 
filings in the U.S. district court. That same year, there were 4 
million criminal filings in State courts of general jurisdiction. That 
means that felonies and serious misdemeanors, 82 times as many as in 
Federal or State court. Indeed, between 1955 and 1991, a total of 1.3 
million criminal cases were filed in the Federal court system, U.S. 
district courts.
  So in 36 years, there were only one-third of the number of cases 
filed in Federal court as there were in any 1 year in the State courts. 
And today, there are about 1.3 million prisoners in State jails, in 
county jails; 84,000 in Federal jails.
  Why did I tell you all these statistics? For a simple reason: If we 
go forward and bring back a crime bill that is enacted into law that 
federalizes all gun crimes where the gun crosses a State line--
according to the Justice Department, offenders armed with handguns at a 
State and local level committed over 900,000 violent crimes in 1992--if 
the provision in the bill that Senator Gramm wants to instruct us to 
keep prevails, that makes eligible 900,000 cases that are not now in 
Federal court to be eligible.
  Obviously, they will not all get caught. Obviously, they will not all 
be brought to Federal court. But 900,000 would be eligible. Keep in 
mind now, for the last 36 years, adding up every criminal case tried in 
the Federal courts, there are only 1.3 million. So in 1 year, we are 
making more cases eligible when States already have jurisdiction, and 
we are providing somewhere around $15 billion to $20 billion to the 
States in Federal money in this bill to deal with their local crime 
problem, and we are going to put these into Federal court?
  You know what will happen, Mr. President, whether it is in your 
State, whether it is in Denver or Boulder, wherever it is. Prosecutors 
are going to send them to the Federal level.
  Again, we have something that works. The Federal system works. You 
did not hear anybody on the floor of the Senate complaining about the 
Federal system. Go back to President Reagan. ``If it ain't broke, don't 
fix it.'' The place we should fix is the State system, and we provide 
money for them to do that.
  So on the Gramm instruction--Senator Phil Gramm, of Texas--I really 
think that for us to insist that there be concurrent jurisdiction, up 
to another 900,000 offenses, just because a gun was used, seems to me 
to make it very difficult for any Federal prosecutor to sit there and 
decide what case he or she is going to handle. They will be swamped 
with cases that now go before the court.
  Let me be a little cynical, if I may, and hopefully my cynicism is 
not well founded. In local communities where they are having serious 
budget problems and they have increases in crime, what do you think 
they are likely to do when, in fact, their case load is high? Do you 
think they are likely to go back to their mayor or their county 
executive or their Governor and say, ``We need more prosecutors,'' or 
``We need more judges, in addition to the billions of dollars the 
Federal Government has already sent us"? Or are they likely to say, 
``No, we're not going to move this. Let the Federal Government move 
it.''
  It seems to me the way to do it is the way we have done it, Mr. 
President; and that is, to send those localities who need help--and 
they do need help--send them the money to hire local officials, local 
prosecutors, build local prisons, hire local police, so they can get 
this done. Do not shift it all to the Federal level. I will not even 
take the time of the Senate because they have heard me too many times 
make this case, but I will not even get to the issue of the notion of 
federalism and the proper allocation of power within the Constitution 
envisioned by the founders. I will leave that for another day.
  But for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the National 
District Attorneys Association, a group that is quoted often on the 
floor--and I have great respect for them--who is opposed to the racial 
justice provision and other provisions, they also oppose this provision 
of the crime bill that I am being sought to instruct to keep in the 
bill.
  I see two of my colleagues are on the floor. They have to get their 
provisions in.
  I have one more thing before I yield, and I will not take the time to 
read this. Senator Hatch, in his comments, made reference to the impact 
of the Brady law. I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record a copy 
the Thursday Final Edition of the Washington Post, a story that reads:

       In the first month of the Brady operation * * * a national 
     5-day waiting period and background check has prevented 
     handgun purchases of at least 1,605 people, including 
     fugitives and felons convicted of armed robbery, murder, and 
     manslaughter, according to preliminary statistics from 15 
     States and cities.
       Forty-four fugitives or persons facing outstanding warrants 
     were denied guns, including one South Carolina man wanted for 
     sexual assault who was arrested in the gun store.

  I also ask unanimous consent that a USA Today article dated April 15, 
1994, ``Bonus: Background Check Turns Up Criminals,'' be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Mar. 31, 1994]

  Brady Law Appears To Cast Effective Net; Early Figures Show Handgun 
                   Sales Denied to Fugitives, Felons

                           (By Pierre Thomas)

       In its first month of operation, the Brady law, a national 
     five-day waiting period and background check, has prevented 
     handgun purchases by at least 1,605 people, including 
     fugitives and felons convicted of armed robbery, murder and 
     manslaughter, according to preliminary statistics from 15 
     states and cities.
       Forty-four fugitives or persons facing outstanding warrants 
     were denied guns, including one South Carolina man wanted for 
     sexual assault who was arrested in the gun store. Gun control 
     supporters lauded the early statistics as a definitive, but 
     conservative, indicator of the law's effectiveness.
       Opponents, meanwhile, called it a meaningless infringement 
     on the rights of law-abiding citizens. The National Rifle 
     Association is supporting lawsuits in Texas, Arizona, Montana 
     and Mississippi that argue the Brady law is 
     unconstitutionally vague and violates the 10th Amendment 
     because it encroaches on the authority of states.
       Gun control proponents said the early evidence clearly 
     shows criminals routinely walk into gun stores and attempt to 
     buy guns over the counter.
       ``Who says * * * criminals always get their guns on the 
     street?'' asked John W. Magaw, director of the Bureau of 
     Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. ``I must tell you the Brady 
     law is breathing hope into this battle against crime 
     involving firearms.''
       Magaw's comments came during a news conference on the 13th 
     anniversary of the assassination attempt on President Ronald 
     Reagan, which left Reagan's press secretary James S. Brady 
     nearly dead from a gunshot to the head. The event helped spur 
     a national gun control movement.
       ``Although today is an anniversary, on which I prefer not 
     to dwell, I must say it is certainly satisfying that today, 
     for the first time in 13 years, we don't have to call for the 
     most basic gun control laws in the country.'' Brady said 
     yesterday of the law named for him. ``For the first time on 
     this day, I don't have to remind lawmakers that we need the 
     Brady bill.''
       Under the new law, federally licensed gun dealers are 
     required to notify the chief law enforcement officer in the 
     potential buyer's community. That law enforcement official is 
     to make a ``reasonable effort'' to determine if the buyer is 
     a convicted felon, mentally unstable or otherwise prohibited 
     from buying a gun. The waiting period is to be dropped after 
     five years, when a national computerized instant-check system 
     is supposed to be operational.
       Twenty states and territories, including Maryland and 
     Virginia, had similar or more stringent measures in effect 
     before the national Brady law was passed. Counting queries 
     from these jurisdictions, 375, 853 inquiries about gun 
     purchasers have been made to the FBI's computerize criminal 
     information network. Of those, 23,610 have been identified as 
     possible felons, ATF officials said.
       At least 60 persons, primarily fugitives, are being 
     prosecuted for violations of federal firearms statutes, Magaw 
     said. The bureau has not started systematic arrests of 
     persons in probable violation of the law, he said, noting 
     available ATF resources were being used to assist local and 
     state departments in administering the law. After more study 
     there will be ``follow-ups,'' he said.
       ``The Brady law saves lives,'' said Rep. Charles E. Schumer 
     (D-N.Y.). ``The results of Brady are outstanding, but not 
     surprising.''
       NRA officials had a decidedly different view, staging a 
     counter-news conference just before the ATF media event.
       ``The numbers are misleading,'' said Rick Sellers, chairman 
     of the NRA's Criminals Cause Crime Coalition. ``The Brady law 
     doesn't focus on criminals. They are not going after 
     criminals. They are bothering citizens.''
       The NRA's tactics and lawsuits drew sharp words from Brady, 
     who called the organization and the gun lobby the ``Evil 
     Empire.'' The group ``is trying to win back in the courts 
     what they lost on Capital Hill,'' he said. ``This is more 
     than ridiculous, it is downright dangerous * * * . The NRA 
     should be ashamed.''
       No, said the NRA's Sellers. ``The Evil Empire is the 
     handgun control and criminal support lobby.''
                                  ____


                  [From the USA Today, Apr. 15, 1994]

               Bonus: Background Checks Turn Up Criminals

                          (By Debbie Howlett)

       Five days after the Brady handgun law went into effect, 
     Robert Delariva tried to reclaim his handgun at a Reno pawn 
     shop.
       He filled out a form and the clerk entered the information 
     on a computer for the background check as required by the new 
     law. The police showed up minutes later and busted him on a 
     felony warrant for writing bad checks.
       Delariva, 46, is among an estimated 38,000 felons who've 
     turned up in background checks of handgun purchasers in the 
     seven weeks since the Brady law took effect.
       Officials at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms 
     say they have no idea how many of the felons are arrested; 
     most state or local officials can't say how many arrests have 
     been made.
       Still, ATF officials are pleased--and a bit surprised--that 
     the ehecks are revealing so many criminals.
       ``We're nuking them until they glow at the pawn shops,'' 
     says Jack Killorin, ATF spokesman. ``I guess they don't 
     figure a pawn shop is a federally licensed firearms dealer. 
     It says something about the judgment of the American 
     criminal.''
       The FBI's computerized criminal information network has 
     handled about 90,000 background checks a week since Feb. 28. 
     About 16% of those are denied, though only one in three 
     denials actually turns out to be a felony matter.
       May of the ``hits'' turn out to be a case of mistaken 
     identity or a misdemeanor matter, such as an unpaid traffic 
     ticket.
       And many of the felons, such as Delariva, are minor-
     leaguers compared with murderers, rapists, and armed robbers.
       The National Rifle Association is a leading opponent of the 
     burden placed on local law enforcement officials.
       The NRA is financing five of six federal court challenges 
     to the Brady law brought by county sheriffs.
       On Wednesday, John Arnold of Fort Walton Beach, Fla., 
     became the first person convicted under a lesser-known 
     provision of the Brady law that makes it a federal crime to 
     steal a weapon from a licensed gun dealer, he faces up to 10 
     years in prison.

  Mr. BIDEN. I yield the floor.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
recognized in morning business to make a short statement and to 
introduce a joint resolution.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. STEVENS. I thank the Chair.
  (The remarks of Mr. Stevens pertaining to the introduction of S.J. 
Res. 194 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced 
Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. STEVENS. I thank the managers of the bill and the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?


                      Motion To Instruct Conferees

  Mr. D'AMATO addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York [Mr. D'Amato].
  Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, I rise to send a motion to the desk on 
behalf of myself and Senator Domenici to instruct the conferees to 
follow its contents.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the motion.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from New York [Mr. D'Amato], for himself and 
     Mr. Domenici, moves that the conferees on the part of the 
     Senate on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the 
     amendment of the Senate to the bill H.R. 3355 be 
     instructed to insist that the committee of conference 
     report a conference substitute that includes in its 
     entirety, Section 2405 of the Senate amendment entitled 
     ``Mandatory Prison Terms for the Use, Possession, or 
     Carrying of a Firearm or Destructive Device During a State 
     Crime of Violence or State Drug Trafficking Crime,'' and 
     section 2406, ``Murder Involving Firearm.''

  Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, before I address the motion that Senator 
Domenici and I have sent to the desk, the motion to instruct the 
conferees to accept very specific language, let me talk to one other 
issue which I am not going to ask the conferees to be instructed on 
because the Senate voted overwhelmingly last week, 58 to 41, that those 
provisions known as the racial justice provisions not be accepted by 
the Senate.
  I think it is quite clear what the sentiment of the Senate is, and I 
hope that those provisions will be dropped in their entirety because it 
is too important a matter to have conferees dabble with, then come back 
and possibly jeopardize the passage of this bill or certainly impede 
passage of the bill. That would be a mistake.
  If we are going to debate this, then let us debate it fully as to 
what should or should not be, to see that there is no discrimination, 
that the laws apply equally. There is not one Senator in this Chamber, 
Republican or Democrat, who would disagree that we want to see that the 
laws are applied fairly and equally as it relates to the imposition of 
all penalties, and certainly the death penalty.
  But to trivialize it in such a manner without full debate of this 
body and to have this body then have to accept that on the basis of 
there being no hearings--no hearings that were conducted on this issue, 
no debate but, rather, to take it because the House on a very close 
vote, 216 to 214, accepted it, that would be a mistake. That would be 
wrong.
  I hope the conferees understand that notwithstanding that this 
Senator is not going to ask for a motion to instruct that they delete 
all of those provisions, they not try to come back with some pablum and 
say, well, we have dropped out the retroactivity part of it. That is 
not going to be sufficient. This Senator will then be forced to oppose 
the adoption and move that we recommit it to conference. I do not think 
it would be helping the justice system to have us in a needless delay.
  Mr. President, the motion which I offer to instruct the conferees, 
sent to the desk on behalf of Senator Domenici and myself, is one that 
has been voted upon by the Senate and passed by a margin of 58 to 42.
  My colleagues have repeatedly commented that this is one of the 
toughest crime bills they have ever seen. I really want to keep it that 
way. I want to see to it that we are not just giving it lip service and 
rhetoric.
  The fact is, Madam President, there is very little in the way of new 
money to do what we are talking about. We talk about building regional 
prisons. There is no money to do that. There is very little money if 
any. And my distinguished colleague and ranking member of the Budget 
Committee will talk to that. But I do not know where the money is going 
to come from to hire the 100,000 police officers. And now we understand 
it is going to be somewhat less than 100,000.
  So this bill, for all of its good provisions, has a lot of rhetoric 
in it and it does not do very much.
  Now we get into the subject of licensing guns. We say that is 
important. Somehow that is going to stop crime or it is going to cut 
down on crime.
  Look, I would like to know why and how it is, the logic of having a 
bill that contains new provisions for the control of guns when the 
ultimate control we need is on the use of a gun. The thing that people 
are crying out for is safety. They are saying my kids are being 
savaged; we are being held hostage in our own homes; our neighborhoods 
are not safe. Forget about going to the parks. Forget about using mass 
transportation in the off-peak hours. We want some civility.
  So what do we do? We pass gun registration provisions. The only ones 
who are going to listen to the gun provisions are the law-abiding 
citizens; they are the ones who are going to go out and get 
fingerprinted and do so 7 days ahead of time. The crooks and criminals 
are not going to do this.
  What about the guns coming over State lines? Ninety percent of the 
guns used in violent crimes cross State lines. And I daresay that 99.9 
percent will never be registered. Do we forget about those? If we are 
going to say it is a crime if you do not register a gun, and the 
Federal Government mandates this, regardless of States rights, then why 
not protect the people of this country and why not say if you take a 
gun across State lines and use it to commit a holdup, kill somebody, 
that the Federal courts will have jurisdiction as well. Why not say if 
you are going to come over and rob somebody, shoot down a little 
merchant, whether it be here in Washington, DC, or in New York City or 
in the hamlets and byways of our great country, that it is a Federal 
responsibility to provide for the domestic tranquility and local 
governments and court systems are broken down, where they do not have 
room for these people, then why not say it? Why do we not have the 
courage to say if you use a gun, we think it is so important if you use 
a gun in the commission of a crime, 10 years in prison--10 years. Does 
it make sense? Sure.
  What we have is the judiciary saying, ``You are going to flood our 
courts.'' I could not give a darn. I could not give a darn. Tell that 
to the people who are dying out on the streets: ``Oh, that is a local 
matter,'' they say. What we are doing is trivializing this whole matter 
of crime.
  Oh, it is great political rhetoric. We take a poll. We find out 
people are serious. We have to do something. And what do we do? Pablum. 
Oh, we are tough. So we pass all these death penalty provisions. You 
are a chicken inspector and you get shot and they go to jail, or a 
postal inspector, or you commit some exotic crime, those are not the 
crimes that are savaging cities.
  (Mrs. MURRAY assumed the Chair.)
  Mr. D'AMATO. What about the guy who gets a gun, goes across the State 
line, comes in and holds up the mom and pop and shoots them? And then 
he plea bargains, plea bargains, because the courts over here do not 
have room, they do not have capacity, no prison space. Why should the 
prosecutors prosecute? Why should that not be a Federal crime? Why 
should we not do that?
  I tell you something. In New York they could certainly use that help. 
I would like to see the district attorney who would turn it down when 
he has an overcrowded calendar, overcrowded courts, overcrowded 
prisons. And that is why they have the average person in New York who 
commits a robbery with a gun getting a year and three months. That is 
all he serves. What do you think happens? He is back out on the street. 
He is doing the same thing.
  We can say all we want that it is a local responsibility, but you 
know what? They are copping out. They are not doing it. They do not 
have the money. They do not have the resources. They do not have the 
appropriations. That is a fact. That is a fact in New York.
  I think it is a fact that most of our major urban centers--we say, 
``If it ain't broke, don't fix it.'' I agree. But it is broken. Our 
local court systems are broken, and we are not going to give them the 
money to fix them. If we give them the money, the exigencies of 
politics being what they are, they will not direct it to the right 
areas. And we have to say, ``You commit a crime with a gun, 10 years. 
You shoot the gun, 20 years. You kill somebody, the death penalty.'' 
Now you are talking seriously. Then we will see whether we can get this 
great, august, group of the Congress to begin to put up the money to 
back up these actions.
  There are 200,000 gun cases. They are not going to take them all. But 
if you have a local Federal prosecutor who wants to help the local 
district attorney, he can. We are not trying to trivialize the Federal 
courts. They are important. I think they should be involved in the most 
important battle for civility in this country. We are losing that 
battle. We are losing that battle. I think it is worthwhile. I tell 
you, OMB has drafted some figures here. They say the courts only have 
to take 2,300 of those cases.
  Again, I think that this is something that the people are crying out 
and yearning for. It is for domestic tranquility, so they can live 
without fear that they or their families or their loved ones will be 
victimized by this violence. And you are never going to get this under 
control unless and until people understand that we are serious about 
using a gun to commit a crime. I do not give two hoots and a holler 
about whether you register it. But if you use it in the commission of a 
crime, by gosh, you ought to go to jail, and you ought to go for 10 
years.
  Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. D'AMATO. Certainly.
  Mr. BIDEN. I ask my friend from New York, the Senator on the one hand 
says--I think he is right--that the States and localities, for whatever 
reasons, have not met their responsibility. This is No. 1.
  No. 2 that if we send them the money to handle these additional 
cases, and also to hold people more accountable, keep them in jail, 
instead of the horrific statistic that I just heard--that violent crime 
with a gun, 1.3 years in New York City or New York State--that if we 
send them the money, I think his quote was the ``exigencies of 
politics'' will result in it not being spent to do that.
  So that leaves, it seems to me, only one choice. If we take on this 
responsibility at the Federal level, we have to meet the need. Is he 
willing, as I calculated, to join with me in a piece of legislation 
that will quadruple the number of Federal judges so that we have 2,800 
Federal judges instead of slightly over 700 Federal judges, and 
quadruple the number of Federal attorneys, prosecutors, and quadruple 
the budget of the FBI? Just leave those out. Just leave prosecutors and 
judges. Because, even if only 100,000 additional cases go to the 
Federal court system, even if only 30,000 additional cases result out 
of the 900,000 offenses committed with a gun, even if only 30,000 get 
sent to the Federal level, that will mean that criminal cases in the 
Federal courts will almost double in 1 year.
  Right now the entire criminal docket filings in the District courts, 
all of the District courts, in the Nation, Federal, is 48,366. Even if 
only one-sixth--it would be less than that--900,000 eligible, 30,000 go 
and get prosecuted, get filed in the Federal court, you are almost 
doubling the number of criminal cases. Federal courts have to try.
  As we all know--because the Senator knows the banking area better 
than I do, knows the security industry better than I do, knows the 
white-collar crime area better than I do in terms of what needs to be 
done--the lawyers in New York, Wilmington, Washington, Washington 
State, and the State of New Mexico are saying their civil cases are not 
getting heard because of the criminal docket. We are going to double at 
least the criminal docket, and we are not going to add any judges.
  So I would suggest that if we end up doing this--which I do not think 
is the way to go, based on the principle of federalism--I want 
everybody to know who votes for it that I am going to be back here 
asking the number of Federal judges to be increased to close to 3,000 
and the number of Federal prosecutors to be. Right now the total number 
of Federal prosecutors we have in the United States of America is 
3,000; total number in the entire United States of America. That is 
what we have.
  So if we just increase by 30,000 the number of criminal cases, as a 
consequence of this, and there are 900,000 cases eligible--we just 
increase by 30,000--right now that gives every one of these prosecutors 
out there a significant additional burden. So I would think we would 
have to move somewhere around 9,000 or 10,000 prosecutors.
  Mr. D'AMATO. I might suggest that those numbers are way out of 
proportion. We have a graph from OMB, and it indicates that possibly 
there would be something like 2,300 cases. Let us suppose we took on 
30,000 cases.
  Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator put that in the Record? I do not doubt 
the number. I just wonder how they got the number.
  Mr. D'AMATO. We will put this in the Record.
  But let us assume you took 30,000 violent cases, and you are going to 
take the important part of the cases that locals do not have the 
capacity, or want to share with the Federal Government. In many cases 
you are going to have local prosecutors who are designated as special 
prosecutors. That is done oftentimes.
  Second, the convictions in these cases, in most cases under the 
Federal rules, are much easier.
  Third, let me say as it relates to what the judges--whatever the 
increase in judges is necessary to keep our judicial system from 
breaking down, this Senator will vote for it. The same with the 
prosecutors, the same with prisons.
  Let us take some of the abandoned bases that we have and begin to 
convert them into regional prisons. It is going to cost money. My gosh, 
if we get these violent predators off the streets, we cannot invest 
money in a better way. Forget the rest of this nonsense; if we spend 
money on programs, that the people would gladly say, ``Cut them out, if 
you are going to make a safer place for me and my kids to live.''
  That is what this Senator is advocating.
  Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator yield for a unanimous consent request?
  Mr. D'AMATO. Yes.


                      Motion To Instruct Conferees

  Mr. BIDEN. I have a unanimous-consent agreement that has to be made 
before 4 o'clock. It will only take 30 seconds. It relates to an 
agreement I made with my Republican colleague on a motion to instruct 
that I agreed to accept. But I am told it was never sent to the desk. 
It must be done by 4 o'clock.
  I send a motion to instruct the conferees, a motion to instruct, 
submitted by Senators Hatch, Simpson, Dole, and Biden, and I ask for 
its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to setting aside the 
preceding motions?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The motion to instruct conferees is as follows:

       Mr. Hatch, Mr. Simpson, and Mr. Dole move that the 
     conferees on the part of the Senate on the disagreeing votes 
     of the two Houses on the bill H.R. 3355 be instructed to 
     insist that the committee of conference--
       (1) hold all meetings in one of the following rooms:
       (A) SR 325;
       (B) SH 216; or
       (C) SD 106;
       (2) ensure that all of the meetings of the committee are 
     open to the public and the print and electronic media; and
       (3) hold all meetings during reasonable hours at times when 
     the Senate is in session.

  Mr. BIDEN. Madam President, is the motion adopted? I urge the 
adoption of the motion. I ask unanimous consent that the motion be 
agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered. The motion is considered, and agreed to.
  Mr. BIDEN. I yield the floor.
  Mr. D'AMATO. I do not know if I have to ask for the yeas and nays. 
But before yielding to my distinguished colleague from Arizona, may I 
ask for the yeas and nays?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. Madam President, the Senator from New York raises 
really what I think is the crux of the problem, not so much in his 
resolution which I see no problem for voting for, because I voted for 
it before, and he knows how I feel about it. So I understand the 
resolution.
  But the point is we need some more money. Where do we get it? If we 
start to enhance the court system, as the Senator from Delaware points 
out--and I happen to agree with him that we are going to have to, maybe 
not quadruple, but double the judges in my estimation, and the 
prosecutors--where are we going to get the money?
  It is not just the salaries of the U.S. attorneys, the judges, and 
the U.S. marshals. But you have to have, as you said, the prisons, you 
have to have courthouses, you have to have transportation. We are 
talking about billions of dollars.
  The money is not there, and the problem is that we do not have the 
courage here to vote for the money. We cannot cut the space station. We 
cannot cut defense any more. We cannot cut whatever else somebody feels 
important here, Star Wars or what have you. We will not raise taxes, 
when it comes down to it, somewhere at some time.
  I will not be here next year when it all comes down. But you all will 
have to vote to raise some revenues. You will have to raise some 
revenues if you really want to, in my judgment--and I generally ask the 
Senator. Does he agree that we have to have some money, and it may mean 
some taxes, if in fact we cannot cut entitlements, we cannot cut the 
space station, or anything else? I do not see how else you protect the 
people of this country without spending some money, either from cuts, 
which, yes, we pay for or cannot do, or taxes. Otherwise, we are not 
going to do it. Would the Senator agree?
  Mr. D'AMATO. Let me answer, and then I will yield to my colleague 
from New Mexico for a question.
  You say there is no doubt that we are going to need additional 
resources--money. We say ``resources.'' We do not want to talk about 
money. We need more money. If you are going to successfully engage the 
battle against the career criminals, against the people who are 
ravaging our cities, our States, our communities, our neighborhoods, 
all the rest of this business, and even this crime bill, which has 
wonderful provisions, you do not have the money.
  So this Senator says let us create a situation where we are forced to 
allocate the resources. By gosh--and I want to tell you something. If 
it means we have to cut some good programs, you will see that the 
people will say, ``Yes, if you are going to put the money in and really 
make a safer community, and we are going to take the predators off the 
streets and keep them off the streets.'' You had better believe they 
will support that. I would support it if it means increasing revenues, 
taxes. If we are going to apply it to really going after criminals and 
locking them up and prosecuting them and seeing to it that the system 
works, I would vote for that. But I am not going to vote to increase 
taxes for more social programs. I will not do that, because the people 
will not want that.

  We have been kidding the people. We have abdicated our responsibility 
because we have seen the neglect, benign neglect, taking place in urban 
America, but it has happened. We have an obligation to do something.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I say to the Senator from Arizona, I 
suggest after the adoption of the D'Amato-Domenici amendment, now the 
subject matter again of this motion to instruct, the Senator from New 
Mexico, in this crime bill, put an amendment together recognizing that 
if this became law, there would be some additional money needed by the 
Federal judiciary and Federal district attorneys. We authorized an 
additional $1.25 billion over 5 years in this body; it was accepted. 
Let me tell you where the money will come from. First of all, the 
judiciary got $280 million; the Justice Department got $575 million 
over 4 years; the FBI got $230 million; the U.S. attorneys got $140 
million.
  Frankly, when we did this, before us was a trust fund. The trust fund 
was $22 billion. It was set aside for crime prevention under this bill. 
That is the way the language read. This bill is the subject matter of 
this motion to instruct. Frankly, I will tell you that I do not think 
you can get out of that $22 billion, with everybody's wish list--$1.2 
billion to enhance the capability of the Federal criminal judicial 
system--unless you can go before the subcommittee that puts the money 
up and say we have just built into the law of the land, finally, a 
really effective tool for the U.S. attorneys and U.S. judges and U.S. 
juries, to put some of those committing violent crimes with guns in 
jail.
  I believe if we pass that jurisdictional change, we would find this 
money within the $22 billion.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. DOMENICI. Can I make my case for this and then yield to the 
Senator?
  Well, I will yield now.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. Madam President, the Senator raises the point--and the 
only question I have is he believes, and I do not agree with him--that 
if we had this mandatory sentencing and the things he is talking about, 
we in that Appropriations Committee would come up with that $1.4 
billion out of the State, Justice, Commerce subcommittee on which you 
are the ranking member. I do not think we would do it, because we will 
not cut foreign aid to Russia; we cannot cut these aids anyplace else 
under foreign operations; you are not going to cut the State 
Department; you have not hired an FBI agent for 2 or 3 years.
  So my point is: Is the Senator not really saying that if we do not 
have the will to cut--which we do not--the only way to get revenue is 
from other sources? And that means, as the Senator from New York says, 
taxes. Is that not what we are talking about?
  We ought to go to the people and say: Folks, the reality is we cannot 
get the money from the cuts. We can talk about it and wish, but I think 
the Senator will agree that we are not going to get it from cutting 
down there--only if we are going to raise taxes and put that money in a 
trust fund that will go to pay for the judges and prosecutors.
  Does the Senator agree?
  Mr. DOMENICI. No; I do not, Madam President. I understand my good 
friend from Arizona was a prosecuting attorney--not at the Federal 
level--and he understands a lot about this. Let me suggest that if, in 
fact, the trust fund stays in the bill, and the chairman of the 
committee that is going to conference told the Senate before lunch that 
it would, I gather that the $22 billion, taken out of the capped 
amount--that is the way it reads: You take it out of the money 
available to all these committees, and essentially you cut them by $22 
billion over 5 years and put it over here in a trust fund just to be 
used for this. Frankly, is that going to happen, even if the trust fund 
is adopted?
  It looks like Chairman Byrd is following it for the first year. It 
looks like there is 2.4 in budget authority, and about $700 million in 
outlays you might attribute to the trust fund. I do not know, if the 
trust fund is in place, what we are going to do the second year. It is 
the law. It says the caps have been reduced and moneys taken out of all 
those discretionary accounts, taken out and put in this trust fund. So 
when you spread the money around, you have already cut effectively $22 
billion, and they will have to struggle as to what programs they cut.
  I want to make a point about what the American people have finally 
arrived at in their minds after discussions about a crime bill since 
last November. They have finally come to the conclusion that the United 
States Government, its courts, its juries, its U.S. attorneys, and its 
new laws, have very little, if anything, to do with the crime and 
violence going on in their streets, in their schools, in their 
subdivisions, in their shopping centers, on the mass transit systems, 
and in cars that drive up alongside each other. I read in the paper 
that a man barely had a grin on his face when he drove alongside 
another car, and the occupant of the other car did not like it, so he 
just shot him.
  Will they finally come to the conclusion that we have nothing 
whatsoever to do with any of that? That is why many of them are saying 
crime is the big issue. Is the Federal Government going to do anything 
about it? They are beginning to say, well, we do not know. It is not 
because they think we are not going to pass this bill. It is because 
there is nothing in this bill that says we are going to help with the 
crime that is occurring on the streets and in the manner that I have 
described, that you have described, and that the Senator from New York 
has described.
  So it seems to me that this amendment, adopted overwhelmingly in the 
Senate, if it comes back out of conference sends one final, good, 
positive signal to the people of this country. It says: Yes, we are 
going to build more prisons; yes, we are going to help our States if 
they want to join us in joint prison construction. But it also says the 
U.S. attorneys and Federal judges have the jurisdiction--that means 
authority--to go after the violent criminals who are using guns that 
have been transmitted in interstate commerce in the commission of a 
crime and mandate some sentences for them.
  Frankly, I think it is a slight ray of hope. It is a ray of hope that 
we are going to do something rather than leave it all up to the State 
attorneys, to the district attorneys, to the courts. I visited all of 
the justices of our district courts, and I saw all 18 in the city of 
Albuquerque. They are befuddled with the caseload. They are overwhelmed 
with the number of juries, overwhelmed because our State prison will 
not hold enough of them. And they are saying, ``What are you all going 
to do about it?''
  They want help, and I hope that in this bill, we help them. I think 
we ought to help them with this approach.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. DOMENICI. I am pleased to yield.
  Mr. KERREY assumed the chair.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. Mr. President, the Senator from New Mexico is talking 
to the choir here. The Senate already passed this by 58 or 60 votes.
  Mr. DOMENICI. The House has not.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. The House has not.
  To me, it is an insult to the conferees, in a way, and to the 
chairman--maybe he does not feel that way--that we are going to go in 
there and give this away. I anticipate to be a conferee. I am not going 
to give it away. I may be voted out; maybe I will be voted down.
  If there is someone here who thinks, as to the message sent by the 
Senator from New York, we want to say ditto, fine; let us not stand 
here and say we have not done anything. We might not be able to cure 
the crime problem in the neighborhoods and shopping centers, but I 
think the body went on record with a decent crime bill.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I did not imply we did not.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. I get the feeling here we are going to sell out over 
here, and in the conference we are going to sell out to everybody 
there. I hope we do not get a crime bill if, in fact, we sell out.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. DeCONCINI. I will.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I still have the floor.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. The Senator still has the floor.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Frankly, what I am saying is that the public has not 
been hearing very much about this issue as it is presented here on the 
floor. They have been hearing about more jails and prevention, and 
today we are trying to refocus attention on a provision in the Senate 
bill which the Senator from Arizona supported. He just indicated he is 
going to support it again. He supported tough measures like this for a 
long time, with additional task forces to go after certain kinds of 
criminals.
  I have been with him on those amendments. He has done a great job. 
But what has happened is we never made them law. It is nothing like 
this. We have never put anything like this in law other than illegal 
drugs. And believe you me, the druggies know if the Federal Government 
is involved in something, after that they are going to jail. This sort 
of says the same thing.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
  Mr. DOMENICI. Yes.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. This is in the bill, right?
  Mr. DOMENICI. It is in the bill.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. Yes.
  Mr. DOMENICI. We are asking the conferees and the Senate here tonight 
to once again confirm by overwhelming vote that we want to extend the 
jurisdiction of the Federal courts a little in behalf of the American 
people.
  I want to close by saying I do not just say this on the floor. I say 
to my friend from New York, I had two Supreme Court Justices in the 
Appropriations Committee, and I say this to the Senator from Arizona, 
they were there to seek their budgets and the budget of the circuit 
courts. They were Justice Kennedy and Justice Souter.
  They made the case that they did not want the Federal courts--these 
are Supreme Court Justices, entitled to great deference and respect--to 
be turned into police courts, I say to my friend, police courts.
  So I said: ``Mr. Justice, with the greatest respect, is trying 
someone who used a pistol to shoot six kids, and that pistol went 
across State lines in a robbery, a police court case? It was used to 
rob over there, and brought across. Now we are going to try them in one 
of our Federal courts with a Federal jury. Mr. Justice, is that a 
police court case?''
  Of course, you know, the Justice said what anyone would say: ``I did 
not mean that, Senator.''
  But some people speak about the Federal courts as if, if we asked 
them to do anything in this war on crime that they are not currently 
doing, that we are going to ruin them. Is that right?
  Mr. D'AMATO. Right.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I tell you, if civil dockets have to wait some more 
while we put 15,000 or 20,000 people away who are using guns, 
transmitting them across State lines, and shooting people, little kids, 
if we have to use them and put the civil docket off for a while, so be 
it.
  I think that is what the people like to hear anyway, and like to see 
happen. I will vote for more money for them so they will not have to do 
it.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, I make an observation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from New Mexico yield the 
floor?
  Mr. DOMENICI. I yield to the Senator from New York. I will yield the 
floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
  Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, let me say this, because I think it is 
important that we say this publicly. There has been no greater fighter 
and champion in the area of taking on the druggies, of involving this 
country on a national level and on an international level, and 
attempting to interdict, setting up a special task force in our housing 
projects in New York City, in particular, which made a great difference 
and brought civility to one project that I know of, in particular. When 
we talk about a project, we are talking about a large housing complex 
where thousands of people live and many of them were held before we 
sent in a strike force to open that place up and get rid of the guys 
with the guns, et cetera.
  My good friend and colleague from Arizona, Senator DeConcini, has 
done a great job. We worked together. I am privileged to have worked 
with him, as he championed so many of these things and made a 
difference.
  I am sorry, and I do not want to be partisan in this, that there are 
some in both administrations, the prior administration and this 
administration, who do not share the sense of urgency that my 
colleagues on the floor, Senator Domenici and Senator DeConcini, have 
demonstrated--not rhetoric--by making tough decisions and finding it 
and making a difference.
  I see a lot of the work that the Senator has undertaken that, quite 
candidly, is being paid little attention in some areas almost being 
dismantled. I think it is wrong, and I think we are going to come to 
regret that kind of activity.
  But again I say this was across the line. It happened in the previous 
administration and it happens in this one. So it is not partisan 
politics.
  My friend did raise a question about why the need to do this. I am 
very much concerned that the conferees, Republicans and Democrats, in 
an attempt to get the bill passed, will let this provision drop and 
will not fight for it. They do not really understand there are some of 
us who really do believe that this is maybe the kind of last hope we 
have before things get so bad that we then have the cries for the 
National Guard, et cetera. In certain communities, I hear Congressmen 
and the opposition in the party, the other party, calling for and 
suggesting that maybe the National Guard be brought into some 
communities.
  I do not think we should try to reach that point. I think where we 
have the code of civil judicial law in the Federal level, that can be 
indicated with our local people. That makes much more sense than that.
  I know a Congressman--I am not going to say who--in New York who has 
actually called on a number of occasions for the use of the National 
Guard in his community. Let me tell you, that is how bad things are. 
Are we really going to begin to think, if you think of the tragedy of 
having young men, 18, 19, 20, and 21-year-old Guardsmen out there, they 
are now going to become involved in trying to keep civil order? That is 
rampant with all kinds of horrible ramifications. We do not need that. 
We do not want that.
  By gosh, people have a right to have the Federal Government in this 
fight for civility, and I do not think some of our colleagues share it. 
They have not shared it with us in the past, and I said us. They have 
not shared with the Senator from New York the compassion to recognize 
now what is going on, and stand up and make a determined fight to make 
a difference. They have not.
  We have been there. We have been voted down. We voted to build 
prisons, and they voted us down. We voted for more people, and they 
voted us down.
  This is a ray of hope, and we have to say to our colleagues: We do 
not want you to give this up. We want you to say to the House: You put 
some stuff in there; we put this in there. We want this provision. We 
think that it will be a beginning. And, frankly, my colleague said it. 
He said it is a ray of hope. It is not going to change the whole thing. 
There will be some prosecutors on the local level with district 
attorneys, with Federal people, who use them and have some success, and 
maybe people will catch on.
  And maybe, as we had in New York--I remember when we had our mayor, 
who was a prosecutor. He had Drug Day one day, and he worked it out 
with the local jurisdictions. One day each week was designated as 
Federal Drug Day. So on those days, when drug arrests were made, guess 
where they were taken? They were taken to the Federal court.
  I have to tell you, when the druggies found out when Drug Day was, it 
started in the morning, and that afternoon, they stopped. They did not 
want to wind up in a Federal court, because it meant they went to 
prison. It did not mean they had a plea bargain and they were back out 
on the street.
  I am suggesting maybe there is a ray of hope. Maybe they will take 
the Federal guys seriously on gun crimes, robberies, et cetera, if they 
set a Federal jurisdiction, a Federal day, and give some hope.
  I do not say it will cure all. I guess I am coming down and making 
this plea again with my colleague, Senator Pete Domenici, because I 
think my colleague from Arizona may have hit the nub. Maybe we do not 
feel, notwithstanding the 58 or 60 of my colleagues in the past who 
fought for this, and the conferees indicated, I think they might care 
so much with the overall of politics of the crime bill that they lose 
the passion to say: By gosh, let us try to make a difference. I do not 
say that to my colleague. I know he has been there; he has done it. But 
for some of our colleagues, that is a question.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona is recognized.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. Mr. President, I thank the Senators, both from New 
Mexico and New York. We have worked on a number of things, and I thank 
the Senator for the compliments.
  But the Senator from New York, particularly up in his State, and 
serving on the Treasury-Postal Committee that deals with that area of 
customs and ATF, played a major role in that task force, as did the 
Senator from New Mexico, in getting those designated in the drug 
strategy.
  My talking here, I hope, is not interpreted by anybody, nor the 
Senator from New York, thinking I think he is not sincere. I know he is 
sincere. What bothers me is we are being in conference, and it really 
bothers me, and I have to tell my friend on the other side of the aisle 
that it troubles me, we are not over there now confronting those who 
may want us to pass a soft crime bill. The sooner we get there, the 
sooner we are going to know, and the sooner you are going to know, 
because Senator Hatch from Utah and others are going to be there and 
they are going to be arguing for a tough crime bill. And it is going to 
be part of the public pressure.
  That is what I think is there.
  My problem is, you know, I hope we do not spend too much time here, 
because I could offer an amendment. I could become a convert on the 
assault weapons ban. This body adopted it. I hope we do not give that 
away. The House does not have it in there. The Senator from New Mexico 
may hope that we do give it away.
  But there are a lot of strong feelings here that this is a tougher 
bill and we ought to move ahead with this bill and I hope we can do 
that today. Because I think we are losing time. I think signals are 
sent here. I think if we do not deliver the package, that is when we 
are going to be criticized by the public.
  I intend to do all I can, assuming I am a conferee on this bill, to 
stick with the Senate's position. I do not have to have a crime bill. 
The chairman may have to have a crime bill. I do not have to come back 
with a bill that to me does not have any community policing. I think 
that is good. It does not have the death penalty. I think that is good. 
It does not have the racial justice.
  On the other hand, I am not going to hold out for one single thing.
  This particular point I think is right. I am glad the Senator offered 
it on the bill. As he knows, I support it.
  Mr. President, this crime bill that we have before us is, I truly 
believe, the most comprehensive crime bill that has passed the Senate 
in my short term here of 17 years. It is not going to cure the problem. 
It is not going to make safe streets in Phoenix and Tucson and 
Flagstaff, AZ, by passing this bill and having the President sign it.
  The Senator from New Mexico raises the point, or perhaps the Senator 
from New York as well, are we going to pay for it? We set up a trust 
fund. There has been criticisms of trust funds before around here, as 
we all know. We use them some when we think it is convenient and then 
they are good and other times they are criticized.
  The point is, I think this is a valid trust fund. At least it sets 
aside the money.
  It is going to be up to the appropriators to come up with that money 
out of these caps without raising the caps. Now, that is not going to 
be easy. It is not going to be easy at all. I do not know where we are 
going to get the money. But, in the long-term, if we are going to have 
a trust fund of over $20 billion over 5 years, it seems to me we are 
going to have to raise some revenues or what is going to happen is we 
are not going to fund whatever we ultimately pass on the crime bill, 
whether it is 75,000 community police or 110,000 community police, 
because we are not going to do it.
  Another thing I am very pleased the chairman from Delaware has 
indicated to me. There is a sense-of-the-Senate provision in this bill 
that we will not, as a Congress, reduce overall law enforcement. 
Because the problem of adding community police and then reducing 
Federal police is really ludicrous. I think it is very vital here that 
we not let that happen. Because if that happens, we are subject to 
severe criticism that we in the Federal Government are augmenting the 
police.
  And the effort to bring order to the Federal system through the FBI, 
DEA, ATF, Customs, and what have you is not going to be easy to do. 
Because the administration, on one hand, wants 100,000 police and we 
have created a trust fund to try to fund it. On the other hand, under 
the trust fund that creates the over $20 billion, they are cutting 
35,000 police, Federal police. We cannot have it both ways in my 
judgment.
  I have already talked to the chairman. He feels very strongly that we 
have to resolve that in the conference.
  So, this is not going to be an easy conference. I do not think we 
should go to the House with anything but determination, not only on the 
amendment of the Senator from New York that he added to the bill, but 
on the assault weapons amendment. That is an important amendment. There 
is a majority in this body that supports that, and yet you do not see a 
resolution yet to instruct the conferees to stick to it.
  I think the reason is because those of us who want the assault 
weapons bill in, we want to get down to business. We want to sit down 
and start working and trying to grind out a bill.
  I think the chairman of this conference is one of the most able 
Members of the Senate. He is a good match for the House conferees. He 
is not one that gives in. He is not one that takes every amendment on 
the floor. You know how many of these we voted on during this crime 
bill.
  And we know stories here of other chairmen who just say, ``Come on. I 
will take your amendment,'' and then give it away.
  Not Senator Biden. Sometimes he even opposed a few of these. But I 
have seen him in the past go and fight with those conferees, stay up 
late at night, say ``no bill'' because he would not give in.
  And so I think it is only appropriate that we vote on this, get it 
done, get it to the House, get the conference started, and see if we 
cannot put together a bill. I believe we can.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington is recognized.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, among the provisions of the Senate bill 
are those contained in sections 841 through 844 of title 8 of the bill 
having to deal with sexual predators.
  During the course of the debate on this proposal last fall, I offered 
that amendment, paralleling the provisions of a statute of the State of 
Washington which deals with a peculiar shortcoming in the way in which 
our criminal justice system operates.
  Sexual predators are, fortunately, frequently apprehended and 
frequently convicted. They do not, generally speaking, get sentences of 
such time that will take them simply out of an age in which they are 
likely to engage in sexual predation.
  Very few of our criminal justice experts feel that many of them 
actually can be rehabilitated. And so, more often then not, they are 
released to the community and far more often than not they are 
recidivists. Often when they go to communities in which they are known, 
they strike fear into the hearts and the minds of many of the women and 
children of our society. And yet, more frequently than not, when they 
are released, there is no notice of that release and the first notice 
that it has taken place comes with the first offense in another series 
of sexually predatory activities.
  The legislature of the State of Washington relatively recently passed 
a very wide-reaching sexual predators law, one part of which actually 
allowed certain evaluations of these individuals and their retention in 
confinement if there was no assurance that they were not going to 
repeat their offenses. That was somewhat controversial in the State of 
Washington and was clearly controversial here on the floor of the 
Senate.
  The tracking provisions, however, were not. The tracking provisions 
caused, in the State of Washington, notice to be given to communities 
to whom sexual predators are released, whether it is a community in a 
State from which they originated or some other community in the State. 
It alerts local law enforcement officers to their presence in their 
community so a reasonable eye can be kept on them. And it alerts the 
neighborhood in which they are going to live, sometimes causing great 
apprehension, but at the very least causing people who might be their 
victims to be more careful.
  After a relatively brief debate, these sexual predator provisions 
were included in the Senate bill by a unanimous vote and with the 
enthusiastic support of the distinguished Senator from Delaware, the 
chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary.
  I have discussed this matter with him informally and he has assured 
me that he is in favor of those provisions and will do what he can to 
save them in conference with the House.
  The House simply did not take up the subject. It did not come up in 
the Judiciary Committee proceedings and it was not proposed as an 
amendment on the floor of the House. So we certainly do not have a 
record that Members of the House of Representatives were opposed. I am 
convinced they would have passed it as overwhelmingly had they had the 
opportunity, as did Members of the Senate.
  I can assure also that the distinguished senior Senator from Utah, 
[Mr. Hatch], is an enthusiastic backer of those proposals.
  I would ask the Senator from Delaware, when he returns to the floor, 
to respond to my query and my request, my sincere request, that he do 
the best he possibly can in retaining these extremely valuable sections 
in a final version of the crime bill.
  The protection of our children and the protection of our women from 
repeat sexual predators must be as high a priority as we can come up 
with. There are many, many victims of these activities. They are 
usually defenseless victims, and so frequently they are victims of 
people who already have criminal records and who have been released, 
unknown to the community, back into that community.
  What we would do by these provisions would be to take a statute and 
make it national in nature. We could cause release across State lines 
to be recorded on law enforcement computers. The FBI would keep a 
record of those in Federal custody. States would notify other States 
when predators had been released and had gone to a second State.
  It will take a good idea and make it a national idea. It will be a 
wonderful protection for both women and young children. I thank the 
Senator from Delaware for his private assurances of support, and I hope 
that, during the course of the rest of the afternoon, he will make 
those assurances public.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, while I was necessarily absent from the 
floor, my colleague from Washington State, Senator Gorton, took to the 
floor and asked a question of whether or not I, as the Chair of the 
conference on the Senate side, would stand by the Senate position in 
subtitle F, entitled ``Sexually Violent Predators,'' sections 841 and 
842.
  The short and direct answer is yes, I will. The House bill does not 
have such provision in it. I will do whatever I can to get the House to 
yield to the Senate position on subtitle F, sections 841, 842, 843, and 
844 of the Senate-passed crime bill. I will do my best to get the House 
to recede to the Senate position on that issue.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

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