[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 121 (Monday, August 22, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 22, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
   VIOLENT CRIME CONTROL AND LAW ENFORCEMENT ACT OF 1994--CONFERENCE 
                                 REPORT

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the conference report.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, my remarks will not be long.
  I want to commend the Senator from Illinois. I have come to know her 
as I work with her on the Judiciary Committee. She is a very fine 
contributing member to the Senate Judiciary Committee. I very much 
enjoy my activities and work with her and enjoy her person and admire 
her ability to bring controversial issues to the floor and to deal with 
them in a way which usually obtains a productive result.
  I remember her work on the crime bill and especially a very 
controversial provision about handguns and youth. She had the courage 
to go forward with that. We tried to save that in the conference. I was 
a member of the conference committee of the Senate, and we all backed 
that here, but that was one of the several things that fell off the 
table.
  But I do thank the Senator from Illinois, and I want to comment on 
midnight basketball. I have always been one who said I thought that was 
a very good provision. Perhaps it was simply because you can see with 
my elongated, emaciated form, it was a great part of my life, 
basketball. I came from a very close-knit, loving family. But I was in 
plenty of trouble and basketball helped me, too, playing it at night in 
vacant lots. When we built our own home, we put a light on the 
basketball court, and it was used into the early morning hours by most 
of the kids in Cody, WY. So I know what that is. It is a very important 
thing. I commend you. It is not a privileged thing in any way.
  I think it is good that in the Block Grant Program now if local 
governments wish to use those funds in that manner, they can. If it 
does not fit in other communities, they cannot. But I think you are to 
be commended for your persistence on that, and it will be a good thing.
  Mr. President, I will take just a few moments. I just want to say I 
worked on this bill, I was on the conference. There has been sufficient 
improvement but, in my mind, it is not yet a good tough crime bill. It 
is still a spending bill. The American people have been demanding a 
crime bill. They have been looking to Congress to ``do something'' that 
will have an immediate and recognizable impact on violent crime and 
want to see that impact now and not later. This bill will not 
accomplish that result.
  When we passed the Senate bill, it was a $22.8 billion crime bill. 
That bill, I think, had every potential of becoming a good, tough crime 
bill after conference committee action and that, in my view, is exactly 
why it passed the Senate by a vote of 95-4. I supported it at the time. 
However, I think it is also safe to say that so many of our colleagues 
voted for that did so in the honest expectation that it would be 
improved in conference and that the levels of spending for social 
programs would be substantially reduced, and that did not occur.
  In fact, Mr. President, the opposite happened. In fact, the absurdly 
opposite happened. From a bill of $22.8 billion in the Senate, it went 
to the House and passed with a cost base in it of about $26 billion 
plus, and we went to conference and came out with $33.5 billion, which 
was far above a target of either the House or the Senate. So it was 
loaded up. Funding levels for the various programs were increased by 
the conference.
  The legislation which the Senate is now considering is only a 10 
percent reduction in the $33 billion spending programs provided by the 
original conference committee bill. It is important to note, of course, 
that the 10-percent reduction also extended to prisons and police 
programs, too.
  So despite what the President said and many of his loyal party 
members have said, this is not about guns. This is about enacting tough 
crime legislation which has a focus and establish its priorities. We 
Republicans want to focus the spending on those priorities in a 
meaningful manner.
  The first priority should be police. We have always said that. A 
second priority should be prisons. We need more facilities, and we need 
them now. That is far more important in the eyes of many of us than 
additional ``outreach'' or sensitivity programs. Yes, those types of 
programs when and if they work are very important. But they are a lower 
priority than the immediate need for more police and more prisons. We 
should stick to those priorities, Mr. President, and not dilute them 
with passionate rhetoric or big buck grant programs.
  I have been hearing a lot about this legislation from concerned 
Wyomingites. Most I heard from do not want this bill. Working members 
of the Wyoming law enforcement community tell me they see no benefit to 
``police programs'' that require States to spend money they do not have 
just to get some short-term conditioned Federal assistance. They see 
too many Federal strings attached to all those Federal dollars which, 
of course, is the eternal truth and often unlearned here. I have a 
hunch many other State law enforcement officers will feel the same way 
once they scrutinize these programs and see what the Feds will be 
demanding from them.
  So, unfortunately, this is not good, tough, smart crime legislation. 
There is still plenty of fat that ought to be cut from this bill. We 
should substantially pare this bill down, and we should continue to 
work toward a better product.
  In only 10 days, $3 billion of unnecessary and ineffective spending 
was cut from this bill. If we had another 10 days, we could find 
another $3- to $10 billion to cut or at least redirect to proven 
programs which will make our streets safer immediately.

  If we could enact legislation that would have an immediate impact on 
crime, Congress could then revisit these potential programs and their 
effectiveness and costs of the ``prevention'' programs. However, 
``prevention'' should be our priority only after we have added more 
police, prisons and prosecutors to the front lines of the war on crime. 
I will be voting against the conference report.
  I have one other comment with regard to that, and then I shall 
conclude. I think it is very important to remember, in this process in 
the House, the Republican Party was of great assistance to the 
President of the United States. It is a curious thing to watch the 
conference committee operate, especially in the House. The Senate 
conferees had a convivial relationship where we presented our 
amendments and voted them up or down without blatant partisanship. 
Whenever the minority Republicans would present an amendment to the 
House conferees, there was simply a dismissive attitude, an out-the-
door-with-you, Charlie, we-are-through-here attitude.
  That is not good, and that is what is slowly causing and has caused a 
tremendous disruption in the House of Representatives. I think that is 
noticeable to any American.
  It is a curious thing that the House consists of a majority of people 
from both parties who talk continually about protecting minorities--
minorities of every single kind, every variety, every legal, every 
justifiable, every moral issue of the rights of the minority. They come 
to the aid and comfort of all types of minorities, of any, any, any 
definition except one, and that is the Republican minority in the House 
of Representatives. How curious.
  So a concerned group of Republicans saved the President's bacon after 
he railed and ranted about the Republican Party and the NRA after the 
defeat of the rule many days ago. Those are abusive tactics against the 
minority Republicans. Fortunately, they do not work in the Senate. Our 
rules prevent it. And that is a good thing. But I think the President 
certainly has indicated in more moderate remarks recently that, indeed, 
he owed a thank you to the Republican Party. Indeed, that is true. We 
have not been here acting out of gridlock. We have assisted him with 
many of his legislative endeavors--NAFTA, aid to Russia, many other 
things--and we will continue to do that. It certainly lessens him in 
the eyes of the American people when simply it becomes a defensive 
reaction without credibility or without truth to lash out against the 
Republican Party. I think that comes perhaps from being a chief 
executive of a State where the Republican Party was apparently just 
kind of a wandering band out in the wilderness, but that is not the way 
it is here in this city.
  I just want to say the conference report did delete several sections 
and substantially altered the expedited deportation process for 
criminal aliens. We here in the Senate thought that was a good move, 
that was a good bipartisan provision. They deleted a provision which 
expanded the list of crimes which trigger expedited deportation 
procedures. Without this expansion, aliens convicted of some serious 
crimes will not be subject to these expedited deportation procedures.
  Another provision deleted was judicial deportation which allowed only 
Federal trial courts to issue an order of deportation during the 
sentencing phase of the trial of an alien convicted of an aggravated 
felony. The section streamlined the deportation process by allowing the 
court to order the deportation at the time of criminal sentencing 
instead of requiring entirely new deportation procedures after the 
alien had served his or her sentence.
  A portion of one provision is deleted which results in allowing a 
criminal alien who has already been deported to challenge the 
deportation order.
  These criminal aliens have already had the opportunity to use the 
Federal court appellate process to challenge the original order of 
deportation. The expedited criminal aliens provision was substantially 
weakened in the conference report.
  First, the conference report deleted the language requiring the alien 
aggravated felon to be detained until they were deported. Second, they 
made it more difficult for the Government to prove an alien convicted 
of aggravated felony is deportable. And thirdly, the conference report 
allowed an alien aggravated felon full judicial review of the 
deportation order. By allowing court challenges by these criminal 
aliens, the ``expeditious'' nature of the process is a mockery and is 
undermined.
  So what we have again is one of those provisions where we give more 
due process to an illegal, deportable alien than we do to an American 
citizen. That is because of the work of the ``groups'' in America, and 
they are very good at that. I always say to them, ``Button your shirt. 
Your heart fell out.'' Nevertheless, that message has not been conveyed 
to them.
  Finally, the conference report eliminated the special procedures for 
the removal of alien terrorists. I do not know how, yet I was there. 
But they took it out. We will get it back in because I know that 
occupant of the chair and myself and others will be working to do some 
sensible things with legal and illegal immigration in the United 
States, and what we are going to do to remove from our midst people who 
do not deserve to be here and who are here illegally, and do that 
especially with terrorists.
  This provision would provide the United States with a new tool to 
fight international terrorism perpetrated by aliens present in our 
country.
  This special procedure could be used where an alien poses an 
immediate threat of death or serious bodily harm to either a 
substantial number of persons, or an individual of political 
significance.
  The conference report deleted a provision which would remove 
restrictions on Federal, State or local government entities in 
communicating with the INS regarding the immigration status, legal or 
illegal, of aliens from the Senate--no. [Laughter.]
  That is a Freudian slip of all time. Certainly I was accused of being 
a space alien--along with 11 of my colleagues. And that bore strict 
scrutiny. But without that Freudian slip--
  The Senate passed the similar provision 93 to 6 and State and local 
governments too often contribute to their own immigration problems.
  Several major cities have adopted these practices of noncooperation 
with the INS, and what has happened? It happened during the sanctuary 
movement where they said we are not going to cooperate with the INS. We 
will not tell you who is in our community. I think it was never a 
rational thing. But it came up through the sanctuary movement. It has 
no bearing now whatsoever, especially when we have our colleagues from 
border States and heavily affected States saying help us. The Federal 
Government should pay for this. We are being overrun.
  There is one way you guarantee to get overrun. You pass an ordinance 
that says you cannot communicate to the municipal authorities or the 
State authorities or with authorities from the INS to tell people about 
people who are illegal in the community. It is absolutely absurd.
  You will note that as we deal with this issue in the future that each 
and every occasion when some State is asking for support from the 
Federal Government I will be adding an amendment which has already 
passed on each and every occasion which says then, if you do that, you 
will communicate with the INS. You cannot have it both ways.
  None of those provisions survived the conference, even though they 
are important tools to remove criminal aliens, alien tariffs, and 
illegal aliens.
  For those and various other reasons, I will not support the 
conference report.
  I thank the Chair, and realize the lateness of the hour. I appreciate 
the accommodation.

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