[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 119 (Saturday, August 20, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 20, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]


                              {time}  1210
 
             FINDING 218 VOTES DOES NOT FIX THE CRIME BILL

  (Mr. THOMAS of Wyoming asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute.)
  Mr. THOMAS of Wyoming. Mr. Speaker, the House's handling of this 
crime bill is the worst example of public policy development that I 
have ever seen. The President and the Democrat leadership have us all 
hunkered down here as if everyone was breathlessly waiting for 
something to happen. The fact is most people would feel we would be 
better off if we would go home and come back in September with a little 
better view of what we indeed should do.
  The President is now demanding any action to fulfill his birthday 
wish and the pollsters' advice on the strength of the Presidency. As a 
result, Mr. Speaker, we have a bad crime bill; most everybody agrees 
with that. But the efforts that are being made are not to fix the crime 
bill, not to make it a good crime bill, rather to find 218 votes. That 
is what is going on, not fixing the crime bill. We are not talking 
about whether or not crime ought to be federalized, we are not talking 
about the fact that only 5 percent of crime is Federal crime, and we 
say we are going to fix it with this. We are not talking about the fact 
that what we are being asked to do is take the example of Washington 
and New York in fighting crime and putting it all over the whole 
country with the same kind of results, I suppose.
  Mr. Speaker, we need to go home, and come back, and make it a good 
law, a good bill when it is over.

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