[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 116 (Wednesday, August 17, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
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 CRIME BILL CONFERENCE REPORT

  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I realize that I have been on the floor in 
the midst of this health care debate speaking about the crime issue 
more than once, and with the indulgence with my colleagues--at least on 
this side--I will continue to do that for a few more days.
  Mr. President, my friend from New Hampshire said that in relation to 
the health care bill, it is important to go section by section to look 
at the bill and see what it means and debate the meaning of the bill. I 
wish my Republican friends would go section by section on the crime 
bill, because if they were going section by section in the crime bill, 
they would understand that what they are saying--unintentionally, I am 
sure--is inaccurate.
  The distinguished Republican leader spoke on the floor this morning, 
and I assume a copy of the speech I have before me was the one that was 
delivered or placed in the Record. If, in fact, I am incorrect in that 
assumption, I apologize, but I am told by staff, and by the Republican 
staff, I believe, through the Democratic staff, that this is what the 
Republican leader delivered this morning. I think that today I am going 
to be speaking to what the Republican leader said. Tomorrow I would 
like to speak about what the hired actor for the NRA on television is 
saying, which is even more inaccurate.
  Let me take Senator Dole's statement as written here and respond to 
pieces of the statement, or all of it, if I may.
  Mr. President, on page 2 of the statement--and I do not know where 
that will appear in the Record--the Senator says:

       I hope we have signaled and that President Clinton now 
     finally understands that last Thursday's vote was not a 
     procedural trick or a politically inspired attempt to hurt 
     his Presidency, but rather a vote to improve the crime bill.

  Mr. President, if that is true--and I am sure the Republican leader 
believes that--I ask my friends why 65 Republicans in the House voted 
for the House-passed crime bill that had approximately a half billion 
more dollars in spending for programs they now call pork and social 
programs than the conference report that I negotiated and sent back to 
the House and they voted against?
  Said another way: How could we go from 65 Republicans voting for a 
bill that had more than a half billion dollars more in exactly the 
programs they now say are the reason for voting against the bill. 
Sixty-five of them voted for that. Only 11 voted for the bill that I 
negotiated with the chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the House, 
which had more than a half billion dollars less of what they say they 
do not want.
  The Republicans over there are saying that this is not about guns or 
about assault weapons. I do not want somebody back home to think I want 
you to manufacture all these Uzis and street sweepers. It is not that. 
It is that there is this awful social spending in there. Well, I cut 
the social spending they voted for by half a billion dollars, and then 
they decided they were still against the legislation.
  So I respectfully suggest that the Republican leader on the Senate 
side should ask the 54 Republicans who voted for more pork, as they 
characterize it, and now are saying they voted against the conference 
report because it has too much pork, what happened if it was not 
politically inspired? Maybe there is another reason. Maybe they did not 
know how to read the first bill. Maybe they did not know. Maybe they 
did not understand the House bill they voted for the first time. That 
is possible--regrettable but possible. But just maybe I am right when I 
say it was politically inspired. Just maybe.
  The Republican leader says that they want a no-nonsense crime-
fighting plan for America.
  I am quoting from his statement:

       And here are some of the improvements he should support * * 
     *.

  Meaning the President, I assume.

       Number one, increased prison funding to the House level of 
     $13.5 billion and tighten the language so the prison funds 
     will definitely be used to build prison cells rather than 
     halfway houses, or other prison alternatives, and require 
     truth in sentencing for first-time violent offenders.

  Again, maybe I have an incredible disadvantage. I have been 
responsible for managing this legislation for 6 years. But one of the 
advantages is that I have the requirement of having to know the bill 
inside and out. I do not know the health care bill inside out, or any 
other bill. So I can understand how Senators may not know every 
provision, and if a staff person tells them something is in it, they 
may think it is in it or not in it.
  To set the record straight, the bill that the distinguished 
Republican leader and almost all of his Republican colleagues voted for 
that we passed in the Senate--the Senate crime bill--which Senator 
Hatch stood up on the floor and referred to, if I am not mistaken, as 
the Biden-Hatch crime bill, which I was delighted to hear. For one, I 
was delighted to have it be called the Biden-Hatch crime bill. I think 
the Republican leader voted for that bill.
  That bill that we passed out of here that went to conference had $6.5 
billion in it. That bill did not have $13.2 billion, nor did anyone 
ever suggest, to the best of my knowledge, nor did any Republican ever 
suggest, that there was a need for more money for prisons than $6.5 
billion. As a matter of fact, the distinguished Senator from Texas 
[Senator Gramm], if I am not mistaken, negotiated the number with me.
  All of a sudden, this thing that they all voted for is now flawed 
because it has something in it they never asked for, never wanted, 
never spoke to. So we went to conference, and what did we do? We added 
$2 billion more; to be precise, we added $1.8 billion more than any 
Republican ever asked for on the floor of the Senate.
  So now the total is $8.3 billion for prison construction, $6.5 
billion of which will provide 105,000 new hard prison cells, paid for, 
given to the States to build and maintain. I find it fascinating that 
one of the things that would prove we have a real tough crime bill is 
that we need $13.5 billion. Were they weak in November?
  Did these Republicans all of a sudden see God and say,''Oh, my God, 
this is not tough enough; we were mistaken,'' as we say in my church, 
``mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa?'' Is that what happened to 
them? Or did the little political bird fly into their window and say, 
``Hey, the Democrats are going to pass a bill''?
  I will let you all be the judge of which it is.
  Now, the Senator also says that he wants tougher language, truth in 
sentencing. Let me remind everybody what truth in sentencing was.
  Right now, there is no parole in the Federal system. If you get 
nailed in the Federal court, you go to jail. Why do you go to jail? 
Because Senator Kennedy, myself, and others, including Republicans 
passed a law a decade ago saying no parole federally.
  We want the States to do that, too. They should. But guess what the 
States do? The States only keep their violent criminals in prison about 
42 percent of the time to which they are sentenced. In the State of X 
or Y, when you get sentenced to 10 years in jail in a State prison, you 
serve on average 4.2 years. In the Federal system you serve a minimum 
of 8\1/2\ years.
  So the Republicans said, ``We want a tough bill--truth in 
sentencing.'' I made it a commitment on this floor, and I never break a 
commitment. I said it is a crazy idea to force the States to do this, 
because they will never spend the money because they will have to 
double the number of prison cells they have out of their own pocket 
before they get to seek Federal money. If that is what you want, I 
promise I will do it. Then, not that they did not trust me, to 
reinforce it, we had an instruction, as we say on the floor of the 
Senate. We had a vote. My Republican colleagues instructed me as the 
leader of the conference on the Senate side to insist on that language 
staying in.
  So guess what? We went to conference. We got to this issue. We raised 
the spending by almost $2 billion, and I insisted and asked for a vote 
on truth in sentencing.
  That is what the Senator from Kansas says he wants. He says he wants 
more truth in sentencing. OK, great. I insisted on it.
  Guess what happened, Mr. President? The Republicans in the conference 
voted against it. I offered it, and Senators Hatch, Thurmond, Grassley, 
and Simpson voted against it. On the House side, the House Republicans 
voted against it. They did not even get to vote, quite frankly. We 
rejected it. I supported it; the Republicans knocked it down.
  Now, out of the blue, I am told go back to conference and put in 
truth in sentencing because that will make a tough crime bill.
  If we do go back to conference, pray the Lord that they instruct the 
Republicans, the conservative Republicans to be for it now. They were 
against it, not me, not the Democrats. They voted it down. With good 
reason, by the way. Republican Governors throughout the country says 
this is crazy. So apparently they listened to the Republican Governors 
instead of the Republican national chairman.
  So we have this straight now. One of the first conditions is for a 
tougher crime bill, want more money spent, and want truth in 
sentencing.
  I put in another $2 billion beyond what we had. We got more money 
than anybody voted for here, and the Republicans rejected truth in 
sentencing.
  What is the second point to make this a stronger crime bill according 
to Republican leadership? Well, cut at least half of the spending on 
social programs. And they cite some, they call, social programs. They, 
first of all, start off with the Model Intensive Grant Program. The 
Model Intensive Grant Program is the same program as the Drug Emergency 
Areas Act that Senators D'Amato and Gorton, and other Republicans, have 
cosponsored in the past.
  I wish they would make up their mind. It is not the same exact thing, 
not called the same thing. I think what makes them angry, and I am 
surmising here, is that the Model Intensive Grant Program is the name 
given to the program by Mr. Schumer, a Democrat, and we do not have the 
name Drug Emergency Areas Act, which we have had in every crime bill I 
have introduced. There are some marginal differences, but we are 
talking roughly the same money and for the same purposes.
  What happened here? What happened between the time it left here that 
it was a good idea and the Republicans asked me to put this in the 
bill? I supported it. By the way, I still do, and now it has to be out.
  We also have midnight basketball. Gosh, we are going back to midnight 
basketball. I hope everybody saw CNN last night. They went out to a 
place in suburban Washington, DC, in Maryland, and guess what? It 
works. Let me quote. I am quoting. This was stated in 1991.

       The last thing midnight basketball is about is basketball. 
     It is about providing opportunity for young adults to escape 
     drugs and the streets and get on with their lives. It is not 
     coincidental that the crime rate is down 60 percent since the 
     program began.

  You might ask yourself who said that, who made this outrageous claim 
that where they had this midnight basketball program the crime rate 
dropped among youth by 60 percent? I never made that claim when I put 
it in this the legislation. I just said it will get better. Who made 
this claim, which I think is probably accurate? Let me tell you who 
made the claim. His name was George Herbert Walker Bush. It was his 
124th point of light. Remember those points of light. Well, every once 
in a while even he was right. He was right a lot of times. So I took 
his point of light and I put it in the bill.
  [Disturbance in the visitors' galleries.]
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, may we have order in the gallery.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Mathews). The Senator is correct. The 
Sergeant at Arms will see that there is order in the gallery.
  The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I put this point of light in the bill, the 
Republican point of light.
  Now, I understand it sheds darkness and doom. It is a terrible thing, 
$40 million to have basketball leagues where kids not only play 
basketball, and they must stay in school, and some programs even 
require they keep a C average, and they must be off the street. There 
are other programs to keep the high schools open, so you use the 
gymnasiums--a Republican idea, not a Democratic idea.
  Senator Dole goes on to say, and I quote: ``But now 9 months later, 
the conference report authorizes a staggering $33 billion, a 50 percent 
increase,'' over the Senate bill, ``a 50 percent increase'' that is 
over the Senate bill, he means. ``Obviously, somewhere along the way 
the crime bill was hijacked by the big dollar social spenders.''
  Boy, they love this language. Let me tell you what the big dollar 
social spenders did. We went in, and we added $1.8 billion for prisons. 
Remember now. His first point he wants more money for prisons. So we 
added $1.8 billion more for prisons. What did we do next? We added 
another billion dollars for the Byrne grants. Remember what the 
Republicans did when the President said he was going to cut the Byrne 
grants? They came to the floor. They said it was outrageous, that the 
best thing that happened at home was the Byrne grants. They are great, 
by the way.
  What did we do? We put in these big social spending Byrne grants. Do 
you know where the Byrne grants are? They are where the Federal drug 
enforcement agents work with local law enforcement agents and nail drug 
dealers. That is a big spending social program.
  Now, we are up to $2.8 billion, we added.
  What else did we do? We added to the Treasury Department for 
enforcement, $380 million for new T-men. Folks, men and women, with 
guns, who go out and get bad guys, counterfeiters, bad guys, $380 
million. We added $1 billion for the INS to go and nab illegal aliens. 
It is a big social program, is it not? Tell that to the illegal aliens. 
They think it is a great social program.
  In total for Federal law enforcement we added $815 million.
  Then we added another $100 million for drug courts.
  Do you know how the drug courts work?
  And my friend from New York--and I am not being solicitous --knows 
more about this issue than any person that I know. I might add, by the 
way, when we all stood and watched New York and other cities burn, 
figuratively speaking, he said nearly 10 years ago, ``The crack 
epidemic is coming. We better do something about it.'' And nobody did 
anything about it. They did not listen to him.
  So what happened? It used to be for every four men that used drugs, 
there was only one woman. Along came crack and, to use that Virginia 
Slims ad, ``Women have come a long way, baby,'' because crack now has 
made it about 1 to 1. It is about 1.4 to 1.
  Guess what. Now we have more homeless children. Now we have more 
AIDS. Now we have more prostitution. Because these women cannot afford 
this, what do they do? They go to a pimp. He gives them crack, they do 
his dealing, they get drugs. AIDS spreads.
  No one listened to the Senator from New York.
  We added money in here for drug courts. Now drug courts do not deal 
with the crack dealers. It deals with another aspect of the problem. 
There are 600,000 young people, adults, who last year were drug 
addicted offenders, convicted for a nonviolent offense, who never saw a 
day of prison, a day of counseling, a day of anything. There were a 
total of 1.4 million arrested and convicted; 800,000 got something, 
probation, or random drug tests or something, 600,000 because there are 
no counselors, there are no probation officers, there is no prison 
space, got nothing.
  So we put in money for drug courts. Big social program.
  Do you know how that works, Mr. President? The way it works is that 
if you get arrested and convicted in a drug court--you are a first-
time, nonviolent offender, you are a young person, you are an adult, 
but your in your twenties. What happens is, you must either demonstrate 
that you are in school, in a job, be subject to random testing, and 
employment counseling. If you do not do any one of those things--you 
either drop out of school, you lose your job, or you flunk the test--
you go to jail. Now, I have never heard that of a social program.
  But so we are talking about billions of dollars added.
  Let me tell my friend that more than $7 out of every $10 in this bill 
are for cops, prisons and Federal and State law enforcement.
  So I think someone should tell him that did not get hijacked by big 
dollar social spenders. It got hijacked by the FBI, as it should. It 
got hijacked by the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Agency. It got hijacked 
by drug courts. It got hijacked by police SWAT teams in cities and 
counties and rural areas, working with State people. It got hijacked by 
$1.8 billion for more prisons.
  I guess you did not know that, but that is where the hijacking came 
in.
  Now, the third point that is necessary, I am told, for us to have a 
tougher crime fighting bill is:

       Third, plug the so-called safety valve provision which 
     could result in the early release of 10,000 convicted drug 
     offenders. A get-out-of-jail-free card, brought do you by the 
     United States Congress.

  Let me tell you what that is.
  First of all, the so-called safety valve was insisted upon by the 
Republicans in the conference. I did not have it in the bill. When it 
passed the Senate, it was not in the bill. But, Mr. Hyde and Mr. 
McCollum, both fine men--and substantively they are right on the issue, 
by the way--insisted that this be in the bill.
  Now let me tell you what it does.
  No one gets out of jail under this narrowly drawn safety valve, which 
applies only to nonviolent drug offenders and permits them to ask that 
their sentence be reconsidered under the guidelines.
  As the Senator from New York knows, the guidelines are now tougher 
than the minimum sentences in most of the cases.
  And do you know what the Bureau of Prisons says about who will 
qualify for this, this get-out-of-jail-free card as my Republican 
friends call it? As my Republican friends tell me 10,000 convicted drug 
people?
  Do you know what they say, the Bureau of Prisons? Minimum, 100; 
maximum, 400 people will be eligible for release.
  Do you hear what I just said? Minimum, 100; maximum, 400. Ten-
thousand? Kind of interesting.
  And, by the way, those who get out will all be nonviolent, no crime 
involving a minor--and this is all listed in the bill, but in the 
interest of time I am not going to take the time now to go through it--
no use of a weapon, no threat of force, no threat of deadly force or 
any force. On average, they will have served 4 to 5 years already. And 
all they get to do is ask to ``reconsider my sentence'' under this 
mandatory requirement that was built in. And the Bureau of Prisons 
says, first batch out of the box, the only people that qualify now, 100 
to 400 people.
  Now, I am told then the fourth thing that makes this bill tough--I am 
reading now from the leader's statement, the minority leader.

       Fourth, no cuts for the FBI or drug enforcement agency.

  I am quoting now.

       No crime bill should cut staffing at our Nation's top law 
     enforcement agencies.

  Guess what? We agree with him. That is why it is in the bill.
  Now, I am a strong supporter of the FBI and the DEA. I want to 
increase it. But let me give credit where credit is due. Senator 
Domenici insisted that this be in the Senate bill, and I insisted that 
it be in the conference report.
  So, the crime conference report specifically provides money to the 
FBI and the DEA for additional agents; $250 million for the FBI will 
buy approximately 500 additional agents and $150 million for the DEA 
will buy approximately 300 agents.
  In addition, the conference report, in section 320915, specifically 
states that we should exempt Federal law enforcement personnel from the 
Federal work force reduction fund that supports the crime reduction 
trust fund.
  So the way we are funding this bill is cutting bureaucrats. We 
explicitly say in the law we are asking them to pass, ``When you cut, 
do not cut the FBI or the DEA.'' And then we add $400 million to hire 
800 new agents. So I am sure the Republican leader will be happy to 
know that we have also met point four that he insists upon.
  Now, No. 5. ``Restore some of the tough provisions adopted last April 
by the House, including'' --and then they go on to say, ``Megan Kanka's 
law.''
  Now, there was a God awful thing that happened in the neighbor State 
of New Jersey, my neighboring State and the neighboring State of the 
distinguished chairman from New York.
  This young woman, because sexual offenders--I will call them 
predators--who had already served their time were released into the 
community and were in a house across the street, living across the 
street from young Megan. Everybody thought they were regular old people 
who moved in the neighborhood.
  One of them, allegedly--the trial has not been held yet--allegedly 
brutally murdered young Megan. There was an uproar. The distinguished 
Governor from New Jersey is insisting that there be a registry--as she 
should.
  Well, let me remind everybody. This is something--I guess people just 
have not had time to read this bill.
  In the conference report, the thing that the House would not let get 
voted on because all but 11 Republicans and 48 progun Democrats and 10 
members of the Black Caucus, adding up to enough to defeat the bill--
there is a provision we put in the bill, tougher than either the House 
or Senate passed. It says anybody who is convicted of a sex offense 
against anybody any age--not just a child--must, when they are released 
from prison, appear on a State registry. The States are required to set 
up statewide registries. If they do not, they lose Byrne grant money. 
It costs them millions of dollars. That is the incentive, the only one 
we have available to us, federally. And we say, ``Set up a registry.''
  Then, when John Doe is released, the sex offender--he does not have 
to be a violent predator, just flat out having been convicted of any 
sex crime, he goes on a registry. Then what happens? As we wrote the 
law that is in the bill the Republicans killed, they are required to 
then notify the local police agency. And they are required wherever 
they move to wear the scarlet A. And every time they move, they are 
required to notify the registry. And, we made sure that when the police 
tell the community--as they are allowed to do--they would not be 
subject to prosecution. This is something incredibly unusual. We gave 
immunity to the police department.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. I have 4 additional minutes.
  Mr. BIDEN. Could I ask for 1 additional minute?
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. You may have 4.
  Mr. BIDEN. I thank my colleague. Anyway, it is in the bill. It is in 
the bill.
  No. 6, the leader says restore some of the tough provisions, minimum 
mandatory for those gun laws. He should read title XVIII. There is 
already minimum mandatory. Do you realize if you commit a crime that is 
under the Federal jurisdiction, and you have a gun, whatever crime you 
committed if it has 10 years, you automatically get 5 more? Minimum 
mandatory, no probation, no parole, no discussion.
  Now he also says we have to have mandatory restitution for crime 
victims. It is in the crime bill that the Republicans voted down. There 
is a provision allowing, for the first time, victims to show up at the 
sentencing procedure to say, ``Judge, by the way, when you are 
sentencing that guy I want to remind you what he did to me''--giving 
some empowerment back to the victims. There is mandatory restitution, 
where the person who committed the crime committed the crime of 
violence against a woman or against a child.
  And then he says, ``And we have to restore Simpson's provision 
requiring swift deportation of criminal aliens.''
  We do.
  The conference report includes the summary deportation provision from 
the Senate bill--with slightly modified language. This provision would 
speed deportation by eliminating the requirement that a hearing be held 
and by eliminating layers of appeals.
  The conference report also includes $160 million for the Immigration 
and Naturalization Service to hold deportation hearings in prisons--so 
criminal illegal aliens will be ready to be deported as soon as they 
have finished their sentences.
  Last, he says we need flexibility and quotes Chief Fred Thomas of 
Washington, DC, saying there is not enough flexibility for the cop 
money coming into the cities. I called the chief. It surprised me. Let 
me quote the chief. He said, ``I support the bill a thousand percent. 
Senator Dole must have misunderstood me.''
  So I hope I have set the record straight for my friends and made it 
very clear that now that they know that all they wanted is in the bill, 
they can be for it. They can be for it. Let us find out. Let us find 
out whether this is politics or whether it is not.
  Let me tell you, had they not delayed for 6 years, had we passed the 
registry law, which is in that bill, maybe, just maybe, young Megan 
would be alive today. Had the registry existed--she got killed the day 
after the House finished the conference. In fairness, she would not be 
alive because we could not get it done in time. But let me tell my 
colleagues something. If we delay, there are going to be more Megans, 
there are going to be more people in that situation because the bill 
now has those provisions.
  I sincerely thank my friend. I know I keep intruding into this 
debate, but I want to tell him something, it is frustrating. If it is 
this frustrating on the crime bill, getting the facts out, I cannot 
fathom the difficulty my friend from New York as chairman of the 
Finance Committee is going through.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Keep intruding.
  Mr. BIDEN. I yield the floor and thank my colleagues.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. Mr. President, 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.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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