[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 116 (Wednesday, August 17, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 17, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                  THE TASK FORCE ON THE RADICAL RIGHT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hastings). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, there was formed by the majority party a 
task force called the Task Force on the Radical Right. They met for the 
first time last Thursday. They selected a chairwoman, the distinguished 
gentlewoman from New York, Louise Slaughter who is on the floor at this 
very moment. It was formed by the gentleman from California, Vic Fazio, 
who has been my friend of almost 20 years, but he wears two hats.
  The gentleman from California is the director or chairman of the 
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, whose principal job is to 
raise money to defend incumbents. He is responsible also to try and win 
all open seats and to try to defeat every Republican in the House. He 
also wears the hat of codirector, with the gentleman from Maryland, 
Steny Hoyer, of the Democratic Caucus, which is the caucus of all the 
Democrats in the House. He is a very important man. So he forms this 
task force on the radical right immediately on the heels of a rather 
offensive speech given at the National Press Club in which he talked 
about fire-breathing Christians.
  Then the gentleman from California [Mr. Fazio], my friend, says he 
was not really talking about Christians, just the radical right. 
However, at this task force meeting on government ground, funded by 
taxpayers, taxpayers paying for the lighting, the air conditioning, 
said room, HC-7 downstairs, they had their meeting and they used up the 
time and taxpayers money of eight Capitol Hill police. Maybe that was 
to convey the impression that maybe some Operation Rescue unit was 
going to try and infiltrate the Capitol and make noise outside the 
hearing room.
  Mr. Speaker, when they came out, one of the nine Members of Congress 
who showed up for this task force meeting said the following:

       We think that religion should not be involved in politics. 
     We are trying to figure out how we can dissuade churches from 
     getting involved in partisan politics. Issues that ought not 
     to have something to do with religion are being targeted by 
     religious coalitions for partisan purposes.

  Mr. Speaker, that was said by a gentleman seeking his third term, the 
gentleman from Virginia, Jim Moran, of across the river. I drive 
through his district every night to get to the district of the 
gentlewoman from Virginia, Leslie Byrne, where I live when the House is 
in session.
  Mr. Speaker, There was a Mormon at that meeting, a good friend of 
mine. We had three fellow Catholics, albeit they are Catholics who are 
in disagreement with the Magisterium of the church. They must certainly 
be in disagreement with Mother Teresa, on pro-life issues, and with 
Cardinal Connor, Cardinal Law, Cardinal Hickey, and all other Cardinals 
in the Nation, on special rights for homosexuals. But they are 
nevertheless proud to put ``Catholic'' after their biographies in the 
book.
  Then there was a good Baptist from North Carolina, along with three 
Esipcopalians representing some pretty big churches.
  Just last week, it just so happens that I passed by a poster shop in 
Alexandria, in Old Town. I saw in the window this poster that I 
remember from my youth, painted by Norman Rockwell, to inspire all of 
his fellow Americans during the Second World War, so that we had a 
clear focus on what we were fighting for. We were fighting the warlords 
of Tojo, the fascism of Benito Mussolini, and even Nazi jackboots of 
Adolf Hitler. We were fighting for freedom of worship, freedom of 
speech, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

  Mr. Speaker, I remember collecting as a 10- or 11-year-old each one 
of the covers of the Saturday Evening Post as these paintings came out. 
Here it is, the most important one of all, freedom of worship. I am 
sorry it is curling, but this cost me a couple of C-notes, because it 
is an original, printed during the war, on canvas-type paper. Look at 
that beautiful picture.
  Let me help my colleagues, there. I know the gentlewoman from 
Georgia, Cynthia McKinney, is on the floor now. She was at that task 
force on the radical right. There it is, the Normal Rockwell, one of 
the originals: ``Save freedom of worship, each according to the 
dictates of his own conscience.'' Then there is a little pitch at the 
bottom about buying War Bonds. I wish I had this mounted on an easel.
  Mr. Speaker, when I showed it to the gentleman from California, Vic 
Fazio, this afternoon, being a good-natured fellow, Vic said, ``There I 
am in the back row.'' No, it does not look like Vic at all. One woman 
in the front has her rosary through her fingers. It reminds me a lot of 
the nuns and the people I have seen on the front row of some of the 
Operation Rescue units in front of those mass-killing abortuaries.
  Mr. Speaker, here is my problem. They all had this meeting. Not 70 
hours later, Bill Clinton, at taxpayer expense, in either a limousine 
or Marine helicopter, comes down from Camp David, deep in Maryland, 
where there are plenty of nice churches. He goes to one of the most 
beautiful churches in this town. The title is a mouthful, but it is fun 
to say, because it covers the Christian waterfront: The Full Gospel 
African Methodist Episcopalian Zionist Church. It is a big, beautiful 
church, and it has a choir as good as any in the entire United States, 
and there is Clinton in front of that choir, Mr. Speaker, saying that 
God wants us to vote for this soft on crime, hug-a-thug bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask you to take a deposition down at the White House 
from the First Family and ask why they used that beautiful church 
Sunday.
  Mr. Speaker pro tem, since you were at that infamous meeting, I add 
this article to my remarks:

               [From the Washington Times, Aug. 12, 1994]

       House `Radical Right' Summit Has Conservatives Crying Foul

                (By Cheryl Wetzstein and Laurie Kellman)

       The ``Radical Right Task Force,'' a closed-door summit of 
     House Democrats, yesterday evoked calls of religious bigotry 
     and misuse of public funds from Republicans and conservative 
     groups barred from the meeting at the Capitol.
       ``This is a pathetic action of the Democratic leadership of 
     Congress to continue their assault on people of faith and 
     people who want to change Congress,'' said Rep. Bill Paxon of 
     New York, chairman of the National Republican Congressional 
     Committee.
       ``Why are they meeting on the taxpayer's dime to develop 
     strategies against people of faith being involved in the 
     political process?'' asked Marshall Wittmann, director of 
     legislative affairs for the Christian coalition. ``I'm sure 
     there's plenty of rooms at the DNC [Democratic National 
     Committee].''
       The meeting was arranged by Rep. Vic Fazio of California, 
     vice chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.
       ``Given Fazio's well-publicized anti-Christian sentiment, 
     these meetings smack of religious bigotry,'' said Andrea 
     Sheldon, director of government affairs for the Traditional 
     Values Coalition.
       But Rep. James P. Moran, Virginia Democrat, who attended 
     the 40-minute meeting, said it was ``to discuss the issues 
     that the radical right has focused on and how it will affect 
     the legislative agenda for the rest of the year.''
       ``We think that religion should not be involved in 
     politics,'' said Mr. Moran, who is running for a third term. 
     ``We're trying to figure out how we can dissuade other 
     churches from getting involved in partisan politics.
       ``Issues that ought not have something to do with religion 
     are being targeted by these religious coalitions for partisan 
     purposes,'' he said, adding that the ``radical right'' is 
     partly responsible for yesterday's scuttling of President 
     Clinton's anti-crime bill.
       ``They have a responsibility to define who is the `radical 
     right,''' Mr. Paxon said, adding that the task force's agenda 
     and goals should be likewise clarified.
       On Tuesday, Mr. Fazio sent a memo inviting ``Democratic 
     colleagues'' to the meeting, which was to include ``a general 
     update and discussion on recent Radical Right activity.''
       The meeting was held in a House conference room in the 
     Capitol and was attended by Democratic Reps. Louise M. 
     Slaughter of New York, Mike Synar of Oklahoma, Richard J. 
     Durbin of Illinois, Dick Swett of New Hampshire, Cynthia 
     McKinney of Georgia, David Price of North Carolina and Sam 
     Farr of California, among others.
       Democratic House staffers guarded the door to the ``members 
     only'' meeting, and, by special request, Capitol Hill police 
     patrolled the halls and checked identification badges.
       Members of the Traditional Values Coalition and the 
     Christian Coalition waited outside the meeting door.
       A spokesman for Mr. Farr, who won a special election for 
     the seat vacated by White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, 
     said ``the main thrust of the meeting'' was ``non-profit 
     groups vs. advocacy groups'' and ``When do [non-profits] 
     cross the line and become advocacy groups?''
       Nonprofits receive tax exemptions under the law, whereas 
     advocacy groups do not.
       According to House ethics rules, use of ``official 
     resources'' for campaign purposes is prohibited and use of 
     meeting rooms is restricted to ``congressionally related 
     purposes.''
       In recent months, many Democratic leaders--including Mr. 
     Clinton, Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, outgoing DNC 
     Chairman David Wilhelm and Mr. Fazio--have denounced 
     broadcasters and groups of the ``radical right.''

  And, Mr. Speaker, to clarify Mr. Clinton's hypocrisy, I include the 
Washington Times editorial:

              [From the Washington Times, August 16, 1994]

                         God and the Crime Bill

       So God wants the crime bill passed, does He? President 
     Clinton didn't say where he had gotten the Word, but in an 
     appearance at the Full Gospel A.M.E. Zion Church in Temple 
     Hills Sunday he demanded that Congress ``do the will of God'' 
     and pass the crime bill. Not a version stripped of the more 
     controversial and wasteful provisions that led to its defeat 
     last week, mind you. No, God, like Mr. Clinton, apparently 
     wants the whole thing.
       One can just imagine the outrage that would have resulted 
     if, say, Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition had headed for 
     the pulpit to announce that his legislative agenda had the 
     Almighty's imprimatur. Obviously, there's a certain amount of 
     hypocrisy involved here. But this holier-than-thou approach 
     to politics, so typical of the First Family, is also another 
     unpleasant reminder that the Clintons simply do not believe 
     there is room for reasonable people to disagree with them. 
     Anyone who does is profane--meaning set apart from God.
       For the more secular-minded out there, Mr. Clinton claims 
     that critics have set themselves apart from police. ``Now the 
     Republicans say, well, there's too much money for prevention 
     in this bill,'' he said in his weekly radio address. ``They 
     call it pork. Well, all I know is, all the police officers in 
     this country know we need to give kids something to say `yes' 
     to.''
       Well, what do God and the police think of the bill's $10 
     million handout for a new National Criminal Justice Center in 
     the district of Democrat Jack Brooks? It's an important 
     question because the handout won't end there. As a press 
     release from Lamar University, recipient of the $10 million, 
     put it, ``In 1986, Brooks and then-Senator Lloyd Bentsen had 
     written into the Superfund Bill language that authorized $5 
     million to create the Gulf Coast Hazardous Substance Research 
     Center. Since that time, the research center has received 
     more than $16 million in federal funding.''
       Then there is the $20 million ``Hope in Youth'' program 
     mentioned in this space previously. Actually the word 
     ``youth'' appears exactly twice in the entire section, 
     including the title. ``Hope in Left-wing Activists'' is more 
     accurate, since it would fund ``advisory organizations'' to 
     provide, among other things, a ``multi-issue forum for public 
     policy discussion.'' This is walking-around money for liberal 
     activists to lobby for still more money.
       And what about the $125 million for Juvenile Drug 
     Trafficking and Gang Prevention Grants? The grants are 
     supposed to ``reduce juvenile involvement in organized 
     crime.'' But aside from a few references to sports activities 
     and ``artistic enrichment,'' it's not clear how the $125 
     million is supposed to do that.
       To Washington Post reporter Kenneth Cooper, complaints 
     about pork-barrel spending in the crime bill are just cover 
     for the real objections of the Republicans and 58 Democrats 
     who voted against the crime bill last week. Their real 
     problem is the crime bill's gun-control provisions, he 
     ``reported.''
       No doubt it's true that many lawmakers doubt that taking 
     guns from law-abiding citizens will do anything to reduce 
     crime. But complaints about pork are not new. Wisconsin 
     Republican James Sensenbrenner Jr. wrote an April 6 column in 
     the Commentary pages of this newspaper noting that the 
     ``House crime bill has several defects, but perhaps the worst 
     defect is the $8 billion going to social-welfare programs. . 
     . . I say they are a waste of money.'' Apparently a lot of 
     Republicans agreed because more than 100 voted against the 
     bill that month even though it included no assault-weapons 
     ban.
       The respective Senate and House crime bills cost $22 
     billion and $28 billion. Conferees ``compromised'' and 
     settled on a total of $33.2 billion. So if anything there was 
     even more pork than before.
       If Mr. Clinton wants to turn his moral minority into a 
     majority, he ought to strip out the pork and the gun control 
     measures and give lawmakers a chance to vote on a measure 
     that could really do something about crime. Editors here 
     can't claim a higher authority for such a bill, but one 
     suspects voters would say, ``Amen.''

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