[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 76 (Thursday, June 16, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: June 16, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
MOTION TO INSTRUCT CONFEREES ON H.R. 3355, VIOLENT CRIME CONTROL AND
LAW ENFORCEMENT ACT OF 1994
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, as I announced yesterday, I offer a
privileged motion to instruct conferees on the bill (H.R. 3355) to
amend the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 to allow
grants to increase police presence, to expand and improve cooperative
efforts between law enforcement agencies and members of the community
to address crime and disorder problems, and otherwise to enhance public
safety.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion.
The Clerk read as follows:
Mr. McCollum moves that the managers on the part of the
House at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two
Houses on the House amendment to the Senate amendment to the
bill H.R. 3355 be instructed not to agree to Title IX,
relating to racially discriminatory sentencing, of the House
amendment or to any similar provision.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum]
will be recognized for 30 minutes, and a Member opposed will be
recognized for 30 minutes.
Mr. EDWARDS of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the
motion.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from California [Mr. Edwards]
will be recognized for 30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum].
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, this is a motion to instruct conferees on the crime bill
regarding the so-called Racial Justice Act. It is to instruct them to
strike title IX, which is the Racial Justice Act in its entirety. This
is singularly the most contentious issue facing the conferees and
facing this Congress on the entire issue related to crime.
Mr. Speaker, what this so-called provision does that was in the House
bill, and is not in the Senate bill, and was adopted by this body when
we tried to strike it by a virtual tie vote--it came out of the
Committee on the Judiciary this way--what it does is it sets up a
scheme whereby an inference of racial discrimination arises in cases
involving capital punishment whenever there is a significant factor of
racial disparity, either in the sentencing for capital punishment or in
the recommendations of the prosecutors around the country in
jurisdictions that have the death penalty.
Mr. Speaker, the effective result of that process of using statistics
is going to be that virtually every jurisdiction in this country,
whether that is a State or a court jurisdiction, that has the death
penalty is going to be found to have racially discriminated in death
penalty cases because there will be a statistical disparity inherent in
this process.
The burden that then is placed upon a prosecutor to overcome this
particular inference that is placed in law every time he tries to seek
the death penalty in future cases, or tries to overcome the problems
raised by those sitting on death row right now when they raised this
point with him, that burden is so great that the prosecutors all tell
us they will never be able to overcome it.
They are not able to do things they would normally do, because the
legislative or proposed language that would go into the law under this
proposal is such that they cannot produce witnesses who say, ``We did
not discriminate,'' they cannot produce a jury, they cannot produce the
judge, they cannot produce anyone. They are going to have to use
statistics to rebut statistics, which is absolute nonsense.
Mr. Speaker, the bottom line is that this provision is a back doorway
to effectively end the death penalty in this country, and to abolish
it. I think a lot of us understood that, Mr. Speaker, when it came up
here, but many may not have when it came up on the House floor before.
It is tonight an opportunity for this body to send a signal to our
conferees that we have had time to think about this process, and that
we understand it, and that we are ready now to instruct them to strike
this provision and to not go forward with it in the conference with the
Senate, since there is no like provision in the Senate version of it.
Mr. Speaker, what I would suggest that we do in looking at this is to
look at the overall picture just for a second. Mr. Speaker, if we are
looking at race as a basis of sentencing in capital cases, we have to
understand first of all that over the past 10 years or so,
approximately 47 percent of all murder victims in this country were
black; only 12 percent of the population is black. Ninety-four percent
of those who murdered those 47 percent who were murder victims in the
country were themselves black.
If we start playing with statistics and basing the entire question of
whether there is discrimination in capital cases on the basis of
comparing the number of those who are in the minority, say blacks in
this case, who receive the death penalty, versus those in the general
population who are white versus those who are black, we wind up with a
disparity, no matter how we look at it, in that sense.
That, I venture to say, in most communities in this country that are
minority communities, let us say black communities, if we would ask
them, they would be more than happy to say, ``We want you to be tough.
We want the death penalty to be given to people who are murdering our
neighbors and our friends and our children.'' Almost all victims'
organizations concur in that, regardless of their race.
This is a bogeyman argument on the basis that there is some kind of
discrimination going out there in our court jurisdictions. I do not
think it exists personally, and to the degree it does exist, the way to
address it is not with this absolutely rigid formula that is designed
not to get at the problem of discrimination, but is designed to abolish
the death penalty in this country and make it impossible to ever have
it again.
Mr. Speaker, we offered here on the floor, when the time arose
earlier to do that and the bill was out, an alternative called the
Equal Justice Act.
{time} 1810
It would have gone step by step through the process of a court
consideration of a capital case and set forth procedures that would
assure there would be no discrimination in jury selection, in the
arguments by prosecutors to the jurors, in the process of handling the
case all the way through. But unfortunately that was not adopted, and
we are left here tonight with the opportunity only to reject what
actually is in the bill that left here and the words to conferees not
to proceed.
Mr. Speaker, 38 attorneys general of the various States have said
what I am saying tonight. They are saying if this becomes law, there
will not be a death penalty in this country again in any jurisdiction
where it exists today, and if there is ever going to be another one
tried in this country and prosecutors attempt to establish the death
penalty in some jurisdiction where there has not been a track record,
they are going to have to do it on the basis of quotas, racial quotas
for murderers. I find that to be abhorrent. I do not think most of the
body wants that. I am confident that they do not. That is the reason
why I am offering this motion to instruct this evening. I want there to
be no mistake about it. I understand the probability of success on this
motion may be limited, but anybody who is going back home to face their
voters this fall ought to know that they are going to be asked about
this. They are going to be asked about it by the prosecutors in their
jurisdictions in their home States, and they should be. They are going
to be asked about it by the voters who have heard by now and certainly
by then from their prosecutors and their attorneys general how terrible
this provision is and what it really means, and, that is, the end of
the death penalty.
Mr. Speaker, this is an opportunity for the House to correct a wrong
and do it ourselves and make sure the conferees have a clear message.
That is the reason for offering this motion to instruct.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. EDWARDS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I
may consume.
(Mr. EDWARDS of California asked and was given permission to revise
and extend his remarks.)
Mr. EDWARDS of California. Mr. Speaker, this is a totally unnecessary
motion by the gentleman from Florida. It needlessly makes it more
difficult for the conferees to operate. The conferees have already met,
we met this afternoon, and there are a lot of things going on,
agreements and disagreements and compromises being made insofar as this
racial justice portion of the bill. The bill that will come out of the
conference will be entirely different from the racial justice portion
of the bill that was approve by the House.
Mr. Speaker, I think it would be helpful if the gentleman would
withdraw his motion because we think it is unnecessary, it gets in the
way, and perhaps is just a maneuver to complicate the crime bill.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Wisconsin [Mr. Sensenbrenner].
(Mr. SENSENBRENNER asked and was given permission to revise and
extend his remarks.)
Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from California [Mr.
Edwards] is probably the most preeminent opponent of the death penalty
in the Congress. I respect him for that. He takes a very sincere and
intellectually consistent position. But I disagree with it. The Racial
Justice Act very clearly is a way to prevent anybody from being
executed in this county. The gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum] is
correct, and the fact that the gentleman from California [Mr. Edwards]
has chosen to lead the opposition to this motion to instruct, I think
lets the cat out of the bag.
Mr. Speaker, really what we ought to be doing in terms of the context
of the crime bill is making sure that justice is given with compassion
to the victims of crime. As the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum]
has stated, most often the victims of crimes committed by members of
minority groups are members of the same minority group. So we do not
have a quota system for victims being discussed here, but we are having
a quota system for criminals being discussed here.
When a criminal who is convicted by a jury of their peers commits a
crime on a victim of the same race or the same minority group, having
this type of a quota system, I think, completely ignores what the
rights of the victims are. Our criminal justice system has gotten off
the track because it has become too defendant-oriented and not enough
society-oriented and not enough victim-oriented. The Racial Justice Act
is another case of a defendant-oriented provision that might find its
way into law.
Mr. Speaker, contrary to my friend, the gentleman from California
[Mr. Edwards] striking out the Racial Justice Act will make a crime
bill a lot easier to pass through the Congress and to get on the
President's desk. I believe that the Racial Justice Act is one of the
principal impediments to getting a good crime bill through the
conference, and through the Senate, and through the House of
Representatives. That is why I think this motion to instruct is
essential. If we get the Racial Justice Act out of the way, I think it
will be much, much easier to get a crime bill through by the time of
the Fourth of July recess.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the gentleman from California
has any further speakers on his side. I have a number on mine.
Mr. EDWARDS of California. Mr. Speaker, I have reserved the balance
of my time.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from
New Mexico [Mr. Schiff], a member of the Committee on the Judiciary.
Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for
yielding me the time.
Mr. Speaker, I join in the motion made by the gentleman from Florida.
The fact of the matter is that the so-called Racial Justice Act means
that in all probability there will be little or no death penalty
actions in this county if it becomes law. That is not only true of the
new death penalties that have been so touted by the administration in
the crime bill that is pending before us, but it is also true of State
government death penalty actions that are pending. That is why the
National District Attorneys Association and the National Association of
Attorneys General have come out against this act.
The gentleman from California has suggested ``Well, it is already
being change.'' My response is it has not changed yet. Right now the
so-called Racial Justice Act is the act on the books. The reason that
the District Attorneys and Attorneys General oppose it is that it
provides an unlimited use of statistics to avoid the death penalty.
In the first place, the Racial Justice Act is not limited by race.
That is, there is no limitation of which persons of which race can
raise this as a defense in a death penalty action. It applies, in other
words, to everybody.
Second of all, it is not limited in terms of who the person in the
criminal case is for whom these statistics should apply. It could be
the defendant, but it could also be the victim.
Third, it is not limited to how the statistics are applied. The
argument could be made that whatever statistical analysis is presented
that the statistics between this defendant and defendants in comparable
cases are different. It could be argued that the cases between this
defendant and all persons arrested for murder are different. It could
be argued that the statistics between this defendant or this victim and
that person's racial numbers in the general population are different.
Putting all those together presents a combination that can be argued
virtually endlessly. For example, a Caucasian defendant in a death
penalty case could argue that he received the death penalty case could
argue that he received the death penalty because of racially motivated
reasons because his victim was Caucasian and the number of cases that
received the death penalty where Caucasians are victims exceeds the
percentage of Caucasians in the population generally. That is just one
example about how all of these statistics can be put together. If they
are put together, the next step is the burden goes to the prosecutor.
If there is a statistical showing in any one of these endless ways of
racial disparity, the prosecutor must then prove that the racial
disparity is not due to racial discrimination. This forces the
prosecutor to prove a negative which is an impossibility to begin with.
Mr. Speaker, I want to conclude by alluding to what I think was the
reference by the gentleman from California to propose changes in the
so-called Racial Justice Act presuming that we may, in fact, get there.
At least the press discussions are that the so-called compromise would
make the death penalty subject to employment type of pattern and
practice discrimination cases.
Mr. Speaker, that is still a problem and it is still an equal
problem. In the first place, the death penalty and murder cases are not
like employment. A number of jobs in an assembly line at a business may
be the same. I can say after a career as a criminal prosecutor, having
prosecuted personally many murder cases, having defended some murder
cases, that no two murder cases are ever the same. Further, the pattern
and practice approach to employment is argued when there is one
employer making a decision. In other words, the statistics are argued
that this employer hired this person and this person and did not hire
that person and another person. In the death penalty and in murder
cases, there is more than one decisionmaker. There is a prosecutor,
there is a judge, and there is a jury and they can be different in each
case. That is why I think the compromise that is supposedly coming will
not work, either.
{time} 1820
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Florida [Mr. Canady].
Mr. CANADY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this
time.
Mr. Speaker, I believe that if the Members of this House would be out
and talking to the American people, they would find that the last thing
the American people want is a new law giving death row inmates more
opportunities to challenge their death sentences, and that is exactly
what the so-called Racial Justice Act will give death row inmates.
It is undeniable that this new law would substantially impede the
application of death sentences in jurisdictions throughout this
country. That means that a vote against the motion to instruct
conferees is a clear vote against a workable death penalty in this
country. That in itself should be enough to settle the matter. But
there is more.
The Racial Justice Act flies in the face of the foundational
principles of the American system of justice. Under that system, the
administration of justice is individualized. Individuals charged with a
crime are tried and sentenced based on the unique facts of their case.
It is the circumstances of the particular crime which are at issue when
the case goes before the judge and jury. Individuals are sentenced to
death because their individual conduct merits the ultimate penalty.
The Racial Justice Act would destroy this structure of justice in
America. It would create an environment in which considerations of race
are central to death penalty cases. It would force prosecutors, judges,
and juries to focus on the issue of race in all murder cases. Is that
what this House really wants?
Nothing could be more out of step with the ideals and goals of our
system of justice. It would be a travesty for the House to allow this
attack on the fundamental principles of justice to go forward.
Individuals should be tried and sentenced based on the facts of their
individual case. Our system of trial by jury should not be subordinated
to studies concocted by sociologists. Justice is not about statistics.
Americans do not want punishment meted out by statisticians. They
certainly do not want racial quotas for the death penalty.
This House should adopt the motion to instruct conferees.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to our distinguished
minority whip, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Gingrich].
Mr. GINGRICH. Mr. Speaker, I want to first of all commend the
gentleman from Florida for bringing up this motion to instruct
conferees.
I think there are a number of reasons to vote for this motion to
instruct. As my colleagues know, the other body has voted down the idea
of establishing quotas for convicted murderers, and the other body will
not accept this particular provision. So if you want to pass a crime
bill in a reasonably prompt manner, we should take this out.
But there is a deeper principle at stake here. Most Americans believe
in an effective, believable death penalty. Most Americans know that the
long, drawn-out appeals process has undermined the death penalty.
As the attorney general of Georgia, Michael Bowers, pointed out
recently, we had a killer who was executed in Georgia 16 years after he
was convicted. Attorney General Bowers was a law student when this
killer was tried. He is now the attorney general of Georgia, and has
been reelected twice during the period that this particular murderer
was on death row appealing.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that there are 4,000 convicted
murderers on death row across America already trapped into an appeals
process that makes no sense, an appeals process that, for example, has
people like John Wayne Gacy, who was convicted of killing over a dozen
young men and has admitted to killing 33, who spent over a decade
sitting and waiting. In John Wayne Gacy's case, it was such a sickening
process, when he was finally executed, we had a week of television
coverage of the art work he had done while in prison. We did not have
coverage of the 33 families who lost a loved one because this man had
killed a member of their family.
So we have this process by which defense attorneys and liberals do
everything they can to destroy the death penalty by delay and by
avoidance, and now what happens; here is a provision which the
Philadelphia Inquirer estimated would apply to 4,000 already convicted
murderers. This would give them another automatic right of appeal. It
would in fact require the taxpayers to pay for the appeal. You would
have another year or 2 years or 3 years of additional appeals.
Attorney general of California Dan Lungren testified that in one case
the appeal cost the State of California over $1 million because this
type of argument required that the State prove a negative, that it
prove that it did not in any way under any circumstance have any
discrimination of any kind, rather than requiring the murderer to prove
a positive, namely, that there was discrimination. Now, at $1 million a
case, that means the people of America who want an effective,
believable death penalty are being asked to accept an additional 2 or 3
years of appeals at a potential cost of $4 billion for people who are
already convicted of murder and have already been sentenced to the
death penalty.
There is a deeper problem with this particular provision. It ceases
to deal with murderers as individuals. It ceases to deal with crimes as
individual acts, and it begins to group people together on a fairly
bizarre principle, the principle that who you kill racially matters, or
that your own race matters.
Let me just give you two examples: Imagine that a murderer is
convicted who is 50-percent Chinese and 50-percent Hispanic. Is the
prosecutor to look at that year's quota system to decide whether this
should count as an Asian or a Hispanic based on the number of people
who have been sentenced to death? Or imagine that you have five white
potential murderers, five Hispanic potential murderers, five Asian
potential murderers, five black potential murderers, all coming up in
New York City or Los Angeles, and the district attorney is sitting
there looking at the cases. Do you decide based on convictions attained
so far this year which ones you try for life and which ones you try for
the death penalty? And you weight them based on how many death
penalties you already have gotten this year by race?
It seems to me this is the most grotesque anti-American concept I
have heard of. It is profoundly wrong to start lumping Americans
together based on genetic code. Americans should be tried as
individuals for crimes they commit as individuals. They should be
sentenced as individuals. They should appeal as individuals.
Anyone who votes against this motion to instruct needs to understand
what you are doing. If you vote against this motion to instruct, you
are voting for more appeals. If you vote against this motion to
instruct, you are voting to ask the taxpayers to pay at least $4
billion, paying for defending against these appeals.
If you vote against this motion to instruct, you are voting to allow
murderers to sit even longer and be even further away from the act for
which they were sentenced to death.
If you vote against this motion to instruct, you are voting to count
people by racial blocks rather than as individuals, and you are voting
to create a quota system in the most grotesque way possible, a quota
for murderers on death row.
I beg my colleagues to look at this carefully and for the good of
this country to vote yes on this motion to instruct.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I would like to first of all inquire how
much time I have, and I ask the Chair if I have the right to close.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Wise). The gentleman from Florida [Mr.
McCollum] has the right to close, and the gentleman from Florida has 9
minutes remaining.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I have no other speakers but myself, and I
would be the closing speaker for our side, I say to the gentleman from
California [Mr. Edwards].
Mr. EDWARDS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of
my time.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I will close at this point by reiterating what it is we
are about today. We are about an opportunity to instruct the conferees
on the part of the House to strike in essence from the House provisions
the so-called Racial Justice Act. We are the only body in the
conference on the crime bill who have this provision.
I would like to do a couple of quotes for everybody here so we
understand what we are dealing with. First of all, the idea that there
is, indeed, a problem of racial discrimination in the whole area of
capital sentencing has been pretty well debunked.
I have here a newspaper article from a May issue of the Washington
Times, May 16, 1994, a very long article. It says, ``Research Debunks
Idea of Racial Bias in Death Sentences.'' In the very first section of
this long article, it says the study by the Rand Corp. in California
found that with controls for variables such as severity and number of
crimes committed, there is no disparity between those sentences to
death for killing whites and those on death row for killing blacks.
{time} 1830
And this is a real long statistical study in itself. I also would
like to point to the absurdity of this which has been written about by
a distinguished columnist, Mr. George Will, in his column of May 19,
1994, which was produced after this body had passed this particular
provision. He says, in part, and I quote,
About half of America's murder victims are white, about
half are black. But about 85 percent of the victims whose
killers have been executed were white. So juries place a
higher value on the deaths of whites, right? Not so fast.
Capital punishment is especially apt to be imposed on
killers of police officers. Eighty-five percent of murdered
police officers are white. Are juries placing high value on
the lives of white people or police officers?
Juries' sympathies may vary with the moral character of the
victim. A higher percentage of black murder victims than of
white victims are killed while involved in illegal drug
activities.
Prosecutors are more apt to seek capital punishment when a
murder is committed during the commission of another crime
such as robbery or rape. According to one broad survey, 20
percent of white murder victims and 12 percent of black
victims are killed by persons committing another crime.
Since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976, 232
persons (as of several weeks ago) have been executed. Of
those, 91--39 percent--were black, more than three times the
black percentage of the population. However, since 1976 the
annual percentages of blacks among those convicted of
homicide have ranged from 44 to 52. If those statistics prove
discrimination, does it favor or injure blacks?
The bottom line of all of this, I think, is pretty simple, given that
95 percent, I say it is 94 but I will not quibble over 1, but Mr. Will
says of murdered blacks are killed by blacks, the result might be more
executions of blacks if we harshly impose a rigid quota system. The
bottom line is a number of studies and distinguished commentators do
not believe we have a racially biased system in capital punishment, and
I do not. But even more telling is the fact that the attorneys general
and the District Attorneys Associations have said this is really going
to mess up the whole works and going to mean the end of capital
punishment.
I have a letter here dated June 16, 1994, to me, addressed by William
C. O'Malley, the president of the National District Attorneys
Association. And I read it:
It is the understanding of this Association that you will
introduce a motion instructing the members of the House at
the Conference on the Crime Bill not to agree to Title IX
(the ``Racial Justice Act''). The National District Attorneys
Association gives full support to this motion and urges the
members of the House to give full weight of consideration to
the voices of their district attorneys.
The 7000 members of this organization serve daily as the
``people prosecutors;'' we lead them in their fight against
crime in every city and county across America. We hear and
understand their frustration with a system of criminal law
that leads to endless delays and we do, despite the beliefs
of some members of Congress, understand the implications of
this Act.
We cannot support an Act that attacks the very foundation
of our system nor can we ignore the voices of the people we
serve. If the people of the United States are against
imposition of the death penalty, then let them attest to such
in their state legislatures; if they believe that an
individual should not be held accountable for his or her
acts, then let us make the decision in open debate.
If passed, the ``Racial Justice Act'' will lead to never-
ending litigation and a mounting frustration by the American
people that the system of law does not work. You, as the
members of Congress, and we, as the peoples prosecutors, will
ultimately be held accountable to our citizens for this
frustration and fear. The Crime Bill has many features to
recommend it, we urge you not to let the provisions
pertaining to racially discriminatory sentencing condemn it
to ignominy.
I would suggest, my colleagues, that we listen to the prosecutors of
this Nation who have stated it correctly, this is not the kind of
provision we want in a crime bill. We have again tonight the
opportunity to do something about it by passing this motion to instruct
conferees. One of the district attorneys wrote a letter, of which I
have a copy, to the Los Angeles Times. The letter is reproduced with a
caption that reads, ``Bill Seeks Racial Quotas on Death Row.'' I should
correct that; it was not the Times, it was the Los Angeles Daily News,
dated June 6, 1994. This is by Gil Garcetti, the Los Angeles district
attorney, who says, and I quote:
Rather than consider capital punishment on a case by case
basis, the act would bog down the criminal justice system
with impossible and inappropriate statistical comparisons
that would result in the elimination of the death penalty.
How more precise can you be than Mr. Garcetti, the prosecutor, chief
prosecutor of one of the largest counties, maybe the largest county in
our Nation? The attorney general of California has also written, making
the same kind of statement to us, Dan Lungren, who once served in this
body, a distinguished Member at the time and now the attorney general
of that great State. The bottom line is very simple for this body, we
have the opportunity tonight to instruct our conferees to strike this
ridiculous and harmful position and not go forward in conference with
it. We have an opportunity to say to our conferees on the crime bill,
``When you come up in the next couple of days and make your final
decisions, then drop this provision.'' I think if Members have
reflected, heard from their constituents, heard from their attorneys
general in the States where the death penalty is there and the
attorneys general of all the States, Democrat and Republican alike,
then the vote tonight will be clearly the right vote. That will be to
vote to instruct the conferees to strike title 9 as I have proposed. I
fear that indeed the circumstances will be otherwise. But again I wish
to admonish my colleagues that this is a very significant thing. There
is probably nothing more significant that we will vote on in terms of
crime legislation in this Congress or perhaps in many a Congress than
taking out and making sure that this provision never becomes law, that
will effectively end the death penalty in the Nation as we know it
today. And if we do not act tonight accordingly, if this motion goes
down, make no mistake, the voters of this Nation will speak in
November, they will remember how you voted on this legislation, and I
strongly in the strongest of words encourage you to do the responsible
thing, vote for the McCollum motion to instruct conferees to strike and
not go along with the title 9 Racial Justice Act in the crime bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Wise). Without objection, the previous
question is ordered on the motion to instruct.
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to instruct
conferees offered by the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum]
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the noes appeared to have it.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not
present.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 264,
nays 149, not voting 21, as follows:
[Roll No. 253]
YEAS--264
Allard
Applegate
Archer
Armey
Bacchus (FL)
Bachus (AL)
Baesler
Baker (CA)
Baker (LA)
Ballenger
Barca
Barcia
Barrett (NE)
Bartlett
Barton
Bateman
Beilenson
Bentley
Bevill
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bliley
Blute
Boehner
Bonilla
Borski
Boucher
Brewster
Browder
Bunning
Burton
Buyer
Byrne
Callahan
Calvert
Camp
Canady
Cantwell
Castle
Clement
Clinger
Coble
Collins (GA)
Combest
Condit
Cooper
Coppersmith
Costello
Cox
Cramer
Crane
Crapo
Cunningham
Danner
Darden
Deal
DeLauro
DeLay
Deutsch
Diaz-Balart
Dickey
Dicks
Dooley
Doolittle
Dornan
Dreier
Duncan
Dunn
Durbin
Edwards (TX)
Ehlers
Emerson
English
Everett
Ewing
Fawell
Fazio
Fields (TX)
Fingerhut
Fowler
Franks (CT)
Franks (NJ)
Gallegly
Gallo
Gekas
Geren
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gilman
Gingrich
Goodlatte
Goodling
Gordon
Goss
Greenwood
Gunderson
Hall (TX)
Hancock
Hansen
Harman
Hastert
Hayes
Hefley
Hefner
Herger
Hoagland
Hobson
Hoekstra
Hoke
Holden
Horn
Houghton
Hoyer
Huffington
Hughes
Hunter
Hutchinson
Hutto
Inglis
Inhofe
Inslee
Istook
Johnson (CT)
Johnson (GA)
Johnson (SD)
Johnson, Sam
Kanjorski
Kasich
Kim
King
Kingston
Kleczka
Klein
Klink
Klug
Knollenberg
Kolbe
Kreidler
Kyl
Lambert
Lancaster
LaRocco
Laughlin
Lazio
Leach
Lehman
Levy
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (FL)
Lewis (KY)
Lightfoot
Linder
Lipinski
Livingston
Lloyd
Lowey
Lucas
Machtley
Manzullo
Margolies-Mezvinsky
Mazzoli
McCandless
McCloskey
McCollum
McCrery
McDade
McHale
McHugh
McInnis
McKeon
McMillan
Meyers
Mica
Minge
Molinari
Montgomery
Moorhead
Moran
Murtha
Myers
Neal (NC)
Nussle
Orton
Oxley
Packard
Parker
Pastor
Paxon
Payne (VA)
Peterson (FL)
Peterson (MN)
Petri
Pickett
Pombo
Pomeroy
Porter
Portman
Poshard
Price (NC)
Pryce (OH)
Quillen
Ramstad
Ravenel
Regula
Roberts
Roemer
Rogers
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Roth
Roukema
Rowland
Royce
Sangmeister
Santorum
Sarpalius
Sawyer
Saxton
Schaefer
Schenk
Schiff
Schumer
Sensenbrenner
Shaw
Shepherd
Shuster
Sisisky
Skeen
Skelton
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (OR)
Smith (TX)
Snowe
Solomon
Spence
Spratt
Stearns
Stenholm
Strickland
Stump
Stupak
Sundquist
Talent
Tanner
Tauzin
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Thomas (CA)
Thomas (WY)
Thurman
Torkildsen
Traficant
Upton
Volkmer
Vucanovich
Walker
Weldon
Whitten
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
Zeliff
Zimmer
NAYS--149
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Andrews (ME)
Andrews (NJ)
Andrews (TX)
Barlow
Barrett (WI)
Becerra
Berman
Bishop
Blackwell
Boehlert
Bonior
Brown (CA)
Brown (FL)
Brown (OH)
Bryant
Cardin
Carr
Chapman
Clayton
Clyburn
Collins (MI)
Conyers
Coyne
de la Garza
DeFazio
Dellums
Derrick
Dingell
Dixon
Edwards (CA)
Engel
Eshoo
Evans
Farr
Fields (LA)
Filner
Flake
Foglietta
Ford (MI)
Ford (TN)
Frank (MA)
Frost
Furse
Gejdenson
Gephardt
Gibbons
Glickman
Gonzalez
Grandy
Green
Gutierrez
Hall (OH)
Hamburg
Hamilton
Hastings
Hinchey
Hochbrueckner
Jacobs
Jefferson
Johnson, E. B.
Johnston
Kaptur
Kennedy
Kennelly
Kildee
Kopetski
LaFalce
Lantos
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Long
Maloney
Mann
Manton
Markey
Martinez
Matsui
McDermott
McKinney
McNulty
Meehan
Meek
Menendez
Mfume
Miller (CA)
Mineta
Mink
Moakley
Mollohan
Morella
Nadler
Neal (MA)
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Owens
Pallone
Payne (NJ)
Pelosi
Penny
Pickle
Quinn
Rahall
Rangel
Reed
Richardson
Rose
Rostenkowski
Roybal-Allard
Sabo
Sanders
Scott
Serrano
Sharp
Shays
Skaggs
Slattery
Slaughter
Smith (IA)
Stark
Stokes
Studds
Swett
Swift
Synar
Tejeda
Thompson
Thornton
Torres
Torricelli
Towns
Unsoeld
Velazquez
Vento
Visclosky
Walsh
Waters
Watt
Waxman
Wheat
Williams
Wilson
Wise
Woolsey
Wyden
Wynn
NOT VOTING--21
Bereuter
Brooks
Clay
Coleman
Collins (IL)
Fish
Grams
Hilliard
Hyde
McCurdy
Michel
Miller (FL)
Murphy
Reynolds
Ridge
Rush
Schroeder
Tucker
Valentine
Washington
Yates
{time} 1858
Mr. de la GARZA, Ms. FURSE, and Mrs. MALONEY changed their vote from
``yea'' to ``nay.''
Messrs. KLECZKA, PETERSON of Florida, DURBIN, PARKER, GORDON, STUPAK,
FAZIO, PASTOR, and ROEMER, Ms. ENGLISH of Arizona, and Ms. LAMBERT
changed their vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
So the motion to instruct conferees was agreed to.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________