[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 111 (Thursday, August 11, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 11, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                             THE CRIME BILL

  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I should like to remark informally on the 
responsible action of the House of Representatives today in rejecting, 
at least temporarily, the passage unchanged of a crime bill.
  This Congress has spent the better part of 2 years in attempting to 
come up with a series of proposals that do something positive for the 
American people in restraining, and not sanctioning crime, and 
especially crimes of violence.
  This Senator voted with considerable enthusiasm for the bill as it 
passed the Senate, even though there were a number of elements in that 
bill to which this Senator was opposed.
  The House bill, and perhaps even to a greater extent the conference 
committee, added on, and added on, irrelevant cargo to this particular 
ship to the point at which it is about to sink, to the point today at 
least the House of Representatives caused it to sink, moving from a 
bill primarily concerning itself with law enforcement to one primarily 
concerning itself with various porkbarrel social projects, duplicative 
of, but independent of, others of a similar nature almost, a number of 
which could have passed either House of Congress alone or without being 
subsumed under the title of a crime bill.
  Now, leaders in both Houses must go back and determine whether or not 
there are some things they can do to revive the good portions--and 
there are good portions of this bill on crime.
  I would strongly suggest to the leadership in both Houses and to the 
conference committee that exactly that be done; that half--let us just 
say half of the porkbarrel social programs be stripped from the bill so 
it is something that can actually be enforced; that the law enforcement 
provisions of the bill, the aid to local law enforcement, be enhanced 
to a certain degree; and that some of the very important substantive 
provisions, like those requiring truth in sentencing on the part of 
State courts, like those sponsored by this Senator to track sexual 
predators after they have been released from jail to notify their 
communities that they are present, be restored to this proposal.
  I think it is particularly ironic and particularly tragic that that 
sexual-predator-tracking provision, those notification provisions to 
families and communities, were removed from the conference committee 
report on the very day that Megan Kanka, a 7-year-old girl, was 
murdered by a sexual predator unknown to her and to her family, who had 
moved in across the street from her in a town in New Jersey.
  As a consequence, an independent bill on the subject now has, I 
believe, the unanimous support of the New Jersey delegation in both 
Houses of Congress.
  It can be revived, however, and made a part of this crime bill if 
there is enough resolution and enough leadership in the House of 
Representatives to do so.
  That, truth in sentencing, and a slimming down of the immense pork 
fat in the bill will turn something which now spends far more money 
that we do not have than it is worth into something which can be a 
positive factor in the war against violent crime in the United States.
  We have been given a second chance. Let us take that second chance 
and run with it.

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