[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 110 (Wednesday, August 10, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 10, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                      DO NOT SOCIALIZE HEALTH CARE


                the conference report on the crime bill

  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the distinguished gentleman from 
New York [Mr. Solomon], the ranking member of the Committee on Rules.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me a 
little time to perhaps explain that one of the reports that was just 
presented by the chairman of the Committee on Rules, my distinguished 
friend from Boston, MA, was a report that will bring the rule for the 
crime conference report to the floor as early as the second item on the 
agenda before the House tomorrow morning.
  This rule, I am sorry to say, waives all points of order against 
everything that is in the bill including scope, which means many of the 
Members are very much concerned about what still remains in the bill or 
what has been added to the bill since it left this House and went to 
conference.
  According to press reports from many newspapers, there have been many 
items added to the bill which Members are not aware of. It is a 972-
page bill, and the bill Members are going to be forced to vote on--that 
crime conference report--by probably about noontime tomorrow, since we 
are limited to just 1 hour of debate on this conference report.
  I am very much concerned about it. I am told that the bill as it is 
being presented to us tomorrow will repeal minimum mandatory sentences 
for people who have committed crimes with guns, yet in the same bill, 
it will take away the guns of law-abiding citizens. If that is the 
case, we need to know what is in the bill.
  Mr. HUNTER. The gentleman has mentioned something that is a very 
critical aspect of this conference bill, that the American people, when 
they see it, become enraged about. During the drug wars, and the 
gentleman was one of the leaders fighting to get tough on drugs a 
couple of years ago, as was the gentleman from California [Mr. Dreier], 
the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Walker], and we enacted what are 
known as mandatory minimum sentences on drug traffickers. That means 
when people came across international borders with backpacks full of 
cocaine for our children, we got tough on them, and we gave mandatory 
minimum sentences. That means you did not see these guys getting out in 
2 years when they were given 10 by the judge or when there was a severe 
crime with respect to drugs, you did not give them 5 months or 6 
months. You gave them a real sentence.
  What we are doing now is repealing mandatory minimum sentences for 
these drug carriers, and when the President signs this thing, my 
estimate is 10,000 to 16,000 drug criminals are going to be released on 
the street.
  I yield to the gentleman from California [Mr. Dreier].
  Mr. DREIER. I think my friend from San Diego for yielding.
  I would like to respond to an argument that was made upstairs in the 
Committee on Rules, and we will continue to hear tomorrow. We have 
heard it, frankly, since the President first started talking about it. 
He said we are going to get 100,000 police officers onto the street 
with this crime bill. That sounds fantastic, sounds wonderful.
  Well, one of the staff members from the Committee on the Judiciary 
told me, and the source for this was a survey that was done nationwide 
in metropolitan areas throughout the country, that the average cost per 
police officer is $65,000 a year. Now, that is for everything that is 
involved, not just salary. And yet this bill provides, if the funding 
is actually there, $14,700, and based on those figures, less than a 
quarter of the number that has been promised of this great 100,000 out 
there that police chiefs and mayors around the country have been 
promised will actually be provided.
  It seems to me that if we look at how shallow these figures are that 
have been given to us, just on that one case, that we will hear time 
and time again tomorrow, 100,000 police officers out there, I think it 
is important for us to actually look at these figures.
  It is a very unfortunate thing, and, as the gentleman from New York 
[Mr. Solomon], was saying, this rule waives all points of order.
  Now, when we had asked the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary 
when he testified before us on this conference report, which we just 
got about 2 hours ago provided to us, and he had not even seen it at 
that point, because it just recently had been printed, we asked him 
what kinds of points of order are being waived, and he said that he did 
not know, and even if he did know, he would not tell us.
  Now, that seems to be a real slap in the face at our Committee on 
Rules, and I believe a very unfortunate precedent as we try to deal 
with responsible legislation.
  I know my friend from East Petersburg, PA, has a sneaking suspicion 
of what just one of those points of order that are waived in this rule 
for the conference report to come up, and I think I might like him to 
enlighten our colleagues on that.
  Mr. HUNTER. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Walker].
  Mr. WALKER. Mr. Speaker, I was disturbed. I sat through a fairly 
contentious Committee on Rules meeting listening to all of this and was 
disturbed to hear that at the hearing held by the committee the 
chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary refused to detail what the 
points of order are that we are going to be waiving in tomorrow's bill, 
and so we have absolutely no idea what these points of order are that 
are being waived. One of them is going to be on the question of scope, 
and one of the things we know is out of scope is a $10 million pork-
barrel project going into the District of the chairman of the Committee 
on the Judiciary.
  We do not know what else may be down in there. I can understand why 
the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary would not want to tell 
us some of the items that are out of scope when, in fact, one of the 
items is a major $10 million pork-barrel project going into his 
district.
  If this is what this bill has been larded up with, the fact is the 
American people ought to have a better idea that we are going to have 
by tomorrow just what is in it.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding. I think it is important we begin 
the discussion tonight about just how bad what we are going to have on 
the floor tomorrow may really be.
  Mr. SOLOMON. If the gentleman will yield further, my good friend, the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Dreier], mentioned this bill will create 
some new police officer jobs, and they are needed.
  The fact of the matter is they are temporary, and they are going to 
be unfunded after a period of a couple of years, and then the local 
municipalities are going to have to pick up the costs for those police 
officers.
  But the point I was trying to make was that, you know, for every new 
police officer temporary job this bill creates, it creates two social 
workers. It creates a spate of new CETA program, and if all of you 
recall back in the 1970's how we had all of these government-run 
Federal programs that were a total disaster and were thrown out because 
they were such a disaster, you know, we do not want to go back to that.
  I mentioned upstairs, why are liberals who always vote against tough 
crime bills for this bill, and why are conservatives who always vote 
for tough crime bills, why are they opposed to this bill? It is because 
it is a bad bill that is soft on crime and is filled with pork-barrel 
largesse. That is why we need to defeat this rule and bring back our 
bill that is really tough on crime.

  I really thank the gentleman for giving us a few minutes of his time.
  Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentleman.
  I know we have Border Patrol men in this bill on an amendment I 
offered along with the gentleman from California [Mr. Moorhead] and the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Dreier] and the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Cunningham], and we got a large number of Border Patrol 
men in the bill. That is important to us, but I will say to my friends 
I do not think that I can look my constituents in the eye and tell them 
I voted for a bill that is going to release 10,000 to 16,000 drug 
dealers back on the street with this retroactive repeal of mandatory 
minimum sentences.
  I know we have just a second here. I want to yield to my friend 
again, the gentleman from California [Mr. Dreier].
  Mr. DREIER. I think that is a very important point. We all want to 
deal with the problem of those who are violating crimes, crossing the 
border, and those coming into this country illegally. The fact of the 
matter is they made an attempt to engage in a political grab bag to try 
and get the support from virtually everyone. It is a bill that they are 
trying to make as all things to all people, and I know that we are not 
going to support it on this side, and the rule itself is a crime.

                              {time}  2150

  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California [Mr. 
Dreier], and I am going to conclude my special order and simply hold up 
the list of some 50 new Government agencies that are going to be 
developed under this so-called free enterprise health care plan that 
the majority leader in the Senate will be offering, the Mitchell-
Gephardt bill. We will talk more about that tomorrow.

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