[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 123 (Wednesday, August 24, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 24, 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 PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the order, the Senate will now 
resume consideration of the conference report accompanying the bill, 
H.R. 3355, which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 3355) to amend the Omnibus Crime Control and 
     Safe Streets Act of 1968 to allow grants to increase police 
     presence, to expand and improve cooperative efforts between 
     law enforcement agencies and members of the community to 
     address crime and disorder problems, and otherwise to enhance 
     public safety.

  The Senate resumed consideration of the conference report.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. 
Kennedy] is recognized.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, on Monday, I spoke generally of my 
support for the crime bill conference report. Today I would like to 
focus on two of the most important aspects of the bill: the assault 
weapons ban and community policing.
  We must ban the military-style assault weapons that are killing men, 
women, and children on the streets of this country. Weapons like the 
AK-47, the TEC-9, the M-11, and the SKS assault rifle have no 
legitimate sporting purpose, and they should no longer be manufactured 
or sold in any community in America.
  Had the assault weapons ban been in effect in December 1992, a 
deranged teenager could not have gone into a sporting goods store 
outside of Great Barrington, MA, and purchased a Chinese-made SKS 
assault rifle for $130. He took that weapon to Simon's Rock College and 
shot six people, killing two and leaving four others seriously injured. 
The assault weapons ban in this legislation could have prevented that 
tragedy, and it should have been enacted long ago. Every day we delay, 
another deranged person has another opportunity to purchase one of 
these battlefield weapons and use it to wreak murder and mayhem in this 
country. It is time to stop that slaughter, and this bill will do it.
  Earlier this year I encouraged President Clinton to ban the 
importation of assault weapons that have poured into the United States 
by the millions every year from China and former Soviet-bloc nations. 
The President banned imports of the Chinese weapons in May, but it is 
only a partial victory. Remaining stocks of those Chinese weapons in 
this country can still be sold. In addition, domestic assault weapons 
are as lethal as foreign assault weapons, and they should be banned 
too.
  There are about 2 million assault weapons that were imported, 
primarily from China, as well as from the Eastern European countries. 
The action that was taken by the President in May put a halt to the 
weapons that were being imported from China. Much of the commerce in 
Chinese weapons was carried out by the Chinese military, so these 
profits were funneled back to the repressive regime in China.
  According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, although 
assault weapons comprise only 1 percent of privately owned guns in the 
United States, they account for 8 percent of all firearms traced to 
crime. Assault weapons are eight times more likely to be traced to 
crime than conventional firearms. Some estimates are even higher than 
that.
  This legislation bans many of the weapons of choice of violent 
criminals--the Uzi, TEC-9, M-11, and others. But this ban will also 
protect the public from other assault weapons that are easily concealed 
or equipped with military enhancements. There is no legitimate purpose 
for an assault weapon with a folding stock--which makes it easy to 
conceal. And no sport requires an assault weapon with a threaded 
muzzle--which allows it to accept a silencer or grenade launcher. These 
characteristics are designed for the battlefield.
  We know the ban on assault weapons will save lives. The Senate knew 
that when it passed the ban as part of the crime bill last November. 
The House knew that when it passed the ban as a separate bill in May. 
We know the ban works, and we must pass it in this crime bill.
  Another important public safety initiative in this bill is the 
firearms dealer provision sponsored by Senator Simon and cosponsored by 
Senator Bennett.
  Today there are approximately 280,000 gun dealers in this country. 
There are more gun dealers in America than there are gas stations or 
even McDonald's. In 1991, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms 
issued 270 licenses a day for gun dealers--a total of 91,000 new and 
renewed licenses that year. Only 37 of the 34,000 requests for new 
licenses that year were denied.
  BATF estimates that only 20 percent of all federally licensed dealers 
are actually local stores. The rest of the dealers operate out of 
homes, and garages--and even out of cars and hotel rooms.
  BATF also estimates that a majority of these kitchen table dealers 
acquire a Federal license for the purpose of buying guns in bulk at 
wholesale prices and in order to avoid State and local laws, such as 
waiting periods and other restrictions.
  For example, a gun dealer would not have to undergo a Brady 
background check or waiting period, nor would a Virginia kitchen table 
dealer have to comply with Virginia's one-gun-a-month purchase law.
  This legislation requires applicants for gun dealer licenses to be in 
compliance with State and local laws before a Federal license is 
issued. It requires BATF to distribute a list of Federal licensees to 
the appropriate State or local law enforcement agency. And it allows 
BATF 60 days, rather than the current 45 days, to act on an application 
for a Federal firearms license in order to ensure that licenses are 
only issued to qualified applicants.
  In this area, we are going to be respectful of the laws and 
regulations passed by States and local governments. Rather than 
preempting those laws, we are requiring that federally licensed firearm 
dealers comply with those laws.
  Some people claim that criminals do not buy guns through legitimate 
dealers. But the facts demonstrate that criminals get guns both legally 
and illegally. In 1991, the Department of Justice conducted a survey of 
State prison inmates. They found that more than 27 percent of the 
inmates had purchased their crime guns from a retail gun dealer.
  Extraordinary. Twenty-seven percent of the inmates had purchased 
their crime guns from a retail gun dealer.
  We need to close the loopholes in the law and provide BATF with the 
capability to enforce the law and reduce the number of guns readily 
available to criminals.
  This bill will also strengthen existing Federal law by prohibiting 
the possession of handguns by persons under the age of 18. I want to 
commend our good friend, Senator Kohl, for his leadership in this area. 
The rates of homicides committed by teenagers increased by over 130 
percent between 1985 and 1991. Many of the victims in these cases are 
themselves teenagers. Gunshot wounds are now the second leading cause 
of death for this age group.
  The causes of violence are complex, but one factor is clear. Handguns 
are far too accessible to minors. It is a national disgrace that so 
many children have guns, and we must deal with this problem as the 
emergency that it is. Fewer children will kill children if they do not 
have easy access to guns.
  I also support the prohibition of possession of a gun by anyone 
subject to a restraining order or convicted of spousal abuse. That 
prohibition is included in this bill.
  Last year, Kristin Lardner was shot and killed in Boston by a former 
boyfriend against whom a permanent restraining order had been issued 2 
weeks earlier. Such tragedies are not isolated occurrences. In May of 
this year Donna Bianchi of Revere, MA, was shot and killed by her 
husband, despite the restraining order she had against him. These 
individuals even with restraining orders, went out and purchased these 
weapons and then went back and committed the heinous crimes of murder. 
This provision will help put an end to tragedies like these.
  The final firearm provision included in this bill will expand the 
definition of armor-piercing ammunition in the 1986 Law Enforcement 
Officers Protection Act. This provision expands the definition of 
armor-piercing ammunition to ban certain new varieties of bullets 
designed to pierce bullet-proof vests widely used by police officers.
  I see my friend and colleague, the Senator from Ohio, and he 
remembers the long battle we had in the Judiciary Committee getting 
support for the prohibition and banning of this armor-piercing 
ammunition that could go through bullet-proof vests worn by police 
officers in this country.
  To my best recollection, it took us 4 or 5 years before we were able 
to gain sufficient support in the Senate to be able to pass this 
important measure. This conference report continues to upgrade that 
legislation and takes into consideration the advancement in new 
technology in armor-piercing ammunition.
  This provision is strongly supported by the Federal Law Enforcement 
Officers Association and the Fraternal Order of Police. Police officers 
risk their lives every day to protect the public. This provision will 
help to protect law enforcement personnel from the deadly bullets 
designed to kill them.
  In many other ways in this legislation, the U.S. Senate has an 
opportunity to demonstrate its unwavering commitment to police officers 
in every community in the country.
  Police chiefs across the country have put out the call for 
assistance. With unprecedented rates of violent crime, local police 
departments are saying they need more police on the streets to reclaim 
neighborhoods and make the streets safer. Their call was answered when 
President Clinton pledged to put 100,000 community police officers on 
the streets of America over the next 6 years.
  The community policing grants are the backbone of this crime bill. 
Community policing means more than just putting 100,000 more police 
officers on the beat. It means police who have a stake in the 
neighborhoods they patrol, who have the training to recognize the 
conditions that breed crime, and to deal with these conditions 
effectively, in order to prevent the crimes that are plaguing those 
communities.
  I took time on Monday to spell out an extraordinary program in 
Dorchester, MA, that is having a profound impact on the issue of 
violence and lawlessness in that community. It is an enormously 
creative program. We take some pride in the fact that the Governor of 
Massachusetts has indicated the State will be prepared to make the 
matching grants to local communities that are able to win these 
community policing grants on the basis of merit. This would ease the 
burden placed on communities that might be particularly hard pressed. I 
expect that there would be similar kinds of efforts made in other 
States as well. There will be competition for these community policing 
grants, just as there was competition for the supplemental policing 
grants awarded earlier this year. Eight communities in Massachusetts 
received community policing grants this year, but many more applied and 
need more police officers. This bill contains the support for more 
police officers these communities asked for and need.
  Obviously, there should be particular help and assistance in areas of 
high violence. To provide additional police for those communities is 
something that I hope the Senate will support by passing this crime 
bill. We need these officers not only to make our communities safe but 
to act as positive role models for young men and women.
  Community policing has already had a substantial effect in reducing 
crime in many American cities. Lee Brown, our current drug czar, used 
it with great success in Atlanta, Houston, and New York.
  We all agree on the need to hire 100,000 new community police 
officers. Both the House and Senate have passed bills supporting this 
commitment.
  Now it is time for Congress to deliver on its promise to the American 
people. We have heard the call. We cannot afford to turn our backs on 
the police and the people of this Nation who are counting on us to do 
what is right.
  Many of the communities in my own State are counting on this 
community policing program. We have built flexibility into the 
legislation in the conference report so that these community police 
officers will be available at the earliest possible time. I think that 
was one of the creative aspects of the conference report.
  The public deserves tough, smart action on crime. The Congress owes 
them no less. We have been negotiating this crime bill for 6 years. The 
current version represents a bipartisan effort to combat violent crime 
in communities throughout the United States. The time for delay is 
over.
  We must pass this bill for the police struggling to protect our 
neighborhoods. We must pass the bill for the victims of violence, so 
that their tragedies are not in vain. We must pass this bill to keep 
the faith with 200 million Americans who are counting on us to take 
strong action against crime.
  This bill does the job. It deserves to be passed by the Senate and 
signed into law by the President as soon as possible--not buried under 
a phony point of order that is nothing more than a Trojan horse for the 
National Rifle Association.
  Mr. President, I see my good friend from Ohio here. For years, he and 
I have joined others here in an effort to curtail the proliferation of 
these weapons of violence. I can remember going back to the 1986 act. 
In the 1986 act, there were six former Secretaries of Defense, three 
Republican and three Democrat, who made a special plea to the Members 
of this body at that time to support a position that many of us have 
taken, to deregulate long guns. At that time assault weapons did not 
pose the kind of threat that they do today. We would deregulate long 
guns but control the manufacture and production of small, concealable 
weapons, the Saturday night specials, the weapons of choice for those 
who are committing violence in our communities. These handguns have no 
hunting purpose whatsoever.
  But we were unable to gain support for that position. Except for some 
of these military assault weapons like the AK-47, the utilization of 
long guns in homicides are less than 5 percent. They do not pose the 
kind of threat to the security of our communities as either the assault 
weapons or the small concealable weapons.
  But the National Rifle Association would not have any part of it. We 
could have made a deal at that time to protect the rights of hunters 
all over this country and ease the regulation of long guns that are 
legitimately used for hunting.
  But, some Members of the Senate, acting on the behalf of the National 
Rifle Association, said absolutely not. Those Members thwarted that 
effort and chose the financial support of the National Rifle 
Association over the people whose interests they claim to represent.
  Mr. President, not only is this a matter of importance for our own 
country, but it is important to other countries around the world. The 
Drug Enforcement Agency and the Treasury Department estimate that 40 to 
50 percent of all the assault weapons used in the Medellin cartel and 
by the drug lords in Colombia and in South and Central America are 
manufactured here in the United States of America. We are exporting 
these assault weapons at an unprecedented rate.
  We say that we care about what is happening with the growth of 
violence in these countries--the killings of members of the courts and 
judicial officers, outstanding and courageous journalists, members of 
political parties that have taken on the crime cartels.
  The weapons that are being used to mow those people down and commit 
those crimes are manufactured, sold, and exported by the United States 
to those countries and to those drug cartels.
  I think all of us recognize that we have to deal with the problems of 
the manufacture and export of these weapons that ravage young and old 
people in this society and abroad. We can do much more to prevent these 
weapons, that are readily available to criminals and drug cartels, from 
being used on countless innocent victims. We also can do much more to 
stop the export of a great deal of the chemicals which are used in 
processing much of the drugs that are eventually shipped back to the 
United States from South America and other parts of the globe.
  In the previous administration there was a significant reduction in 
personnel used in the inspection and oversight of the export of various 
kinds of chemicals that eventually find their way into Colombia and 
other countries that are producing these products.
  More can be done, Mr. President, particularly in the area of reducing 
violence. The U.S. Senate must act on this crime bill.
  I hope that we have the opportunity to vote on this very important 
piece of legislation which had bipartisan support in the House of 
Representatives and in the Senate when it passed in November of last 
year. I must commend the President for a willingness to take on a tough 
and a difficult lobby, the National Rifle Association, on these assault 
weapons and for standing by his guns.
  I commend our Republican colleagues, 46 of whom, in the House of 
Representatives were willing to deal with this issue and overcome 
partisanship to pass a strong crime bill for the American people. I had 
hoped that we would have bipartisan support in the Senate for this 
bill. I think we will at the time the roll is called. This is a matter 
of enormous importance. I hope the Senate will take action today to 
pass this tough, smart, crime bill and bring it to the President's 
desk.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Ohio, [Mr. Metzenbaum].
  Mr. METZENBAUM. Mr. President, I rise to commend my friend from 
Massachusetts for once again taking a leadership role in the whole 
question of controlling crime in this country. No one has been more 
active in the effort to bring about a diminution of the number of 
weapons on the streets of America than the Senator from Massachusetts.
  What we are engaged in at the moment is a filibuster. The Senator 
from Massachusetts referred to how we passed the bill having to do with 
cop killer bullets. I remember that very, very well because it was 
Senator Moynihan's bill and it had come to the floor. It was on the 
floor for about 8 months. We could not move it until one day the 
Senator from Idaho, who is no longer here, had a bill having to do with 
wheat in Idaho. At that point, I indicated I was going to put the cop-
killer bullet bill on as an amendment to that bill. The Senator from 
Idaho came over and was very much concerned about that because he was 
strongly opposed to my amendment and very much in favor of his bill. We 
worked out an agreement. We got an agreement that we have individual, 
independent votes on each of those issues and the cop-killer bill 
having to do with cop-killer bullets. We passed it I think 99 to 1.

  I say that just as a preparatory statement to the fact that we are 
engaged in a filibuster here by the Members of the other side of the 
aisle, prompted, pushed, and supported by the National Rifle 
Association. You can call it anything you want. But I know a filibuster 
when I see one. I think that I probably have been involved in 
conducting as many filibusters as any Member of this body. Some I have 
been successful with and some not so successful. But I see a 
filibuster. I know a filibuster. This is a filibuster. And this is a 
filibuster against the crime bill prompted, supported, and urged upon 
the Members of that side of the aisle by the National Rifle 
Association.
  It is shameful. It is absolutely shameful that after 48 or 60--I am 
not sure how many--Republicans in the House of Representatives joined 
to bring about the passage of the bill that the President of the United 
States had fought so hard to bring about and bring to the floor of the 
House for passage; it is shameful that my colleagues on the other side 
of the aisle see fit to use a dilatory tactic.
  There is no secret about what is happening. This is not a new issue. 
This is the very same issue that was on the floor when the bill passed, 
and with respect to which Senators Dole, Gramm, and Domenici said it 
was a great procedure in order to fund the crime bill. The whole 
concept was brought about by reason of the lead the President pro 
tempore of the Senate, Senator Byrd, who conceptualized the whole idea 
of the trust fund. They all thought it was a brilliant idea, commended 
him for it, and now they are on the floor raising a point of order in 
connection with its usage.
  Mr. President, the American people want Congress to pass this crime 
bill not tomorrow, not next week, not a month from now, not next year. 
They want it now.
  They have made it clear that meaningful gun reform legislation is 
long overdue. They have made it clear that the Government must provide 
adequate numbers of police and prisons. They are sick and tired of what 
is happening on the streets of America. They have made it clear that 
the programs addressing the root causes of crime are not a matter of 
coddling but a matter of common sense.
  Some of my Republican colleagues are quite determined to bring down 
this crime bill that the American people so clearly support. It is not 
enough that Democrats and Republicans came together and worked out 
compromises in conference, not just once but twice. Those Democrats and 
Republicans, under the leadership of Senator Biden, chairman of the 
Judiciary Committee, worked all through the night Friday night, and 
then worked all day Saturday and then worked on Sunday, as well, in 
order to bring about the compromises that made it possible for the 
House to pass the bill.
  The bill that is before the Senate at this point had bipartisan 
support in the House or it would not be here before us today. It is not 
enough because the goal of some is not to pass a compromise crime bill, 
a comprehensive crime bill. The goal is to promote the special 
interests of the antigun control lobby and to defeat the will of the 
American people.
  This is incredible. This is politics at its cheapest. This is 
politics at its worst. This is shameful politics. It is gamesmanship, 
gamesmanship maybe to win a political point. I am not sure what that 
political point is, because the American people want a crime bill--the 
clearly expressed desire of the vast majority of Americans--to ban 
semiautomatic assault weapons, weapons that have no other purpose than 
to kill a greater number of people at a faster pace should not be held 
hostage to a single-minded special interest, the National Rifle 
Association, by this ill-conceived and ill-timed filibuster.
  Seventy-seven percent of the American people want a ban on 
semiautomatic assault weapons. But a minority of the Senate--because 
they do not need a majority, just a minority; they only need 41 votes--
are determined to keep the Senate from even voting on the measure. What 
an absurd idea. The leader of the other side comes forward and says, 
well, we will have 13 amendments we would like to take up, and then 
after the 13 amendments are taken up, then we may raise this point of 
order, the very point of order that they are talking about raising at 
this point. I hope they do not.
  I hope more levelheaded Members on the other side will conclude that 
that is an inappropriate act and the American people do not want it.
  Let me be clear. There are plenty of provisions in this bill that I 
object to; in fact, that I absolutely despise. I am also very 
disheartened that this bill does not include the Racial Justice Act and 
habeas corpus reform. These and other provisions I supported did not 
prevail on the floor or in the conference. But I do not stand here 
today as an obstructionist, hiding behind some procedural rule, because 
I lost.
  I never thought I would stand on the floor of the Senate and support 
a bill that provides for 60 new capital punishment offenses because I 
do not believe in capital punishment. I do not believe that is the 
answer. But I am saying that I am supporting this bill because I think 
the total package is right for America. It is what the American people 
want. It is what I want for my children and my grandchildren.
  I hope that we are about the business of solving and not creating 
problems. I hope we can pass this bill. It is no secret the main reason 
I support this bill is because it will ban semiautomatic assault 
weapons. A ban on assault weapons is one of the most obvious and 
effective anticrime measures that we can take.
  Assault weapons are about 17 times more likely to be used in crimes 
than conventional firearms. The more than 1 million assault weapons 
that are on the streets of America today, which are manufactured and 
sold freely and wind up in the hands of felons, drug traffickers, and 
youth gangs, are literally wreaking havoc and death across this Nation. 
A crime bill that ignored that reality would not be worthy of the name.
  It has been 5\1/2\ years since I first introduced a Senate bill to 
ban semiautomatic assault weapons. It has been a long, hard struggle. 
And finally, a couple of years ago, we were successful in working with 
Senator Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, and we worked out a procedure 
where I offered a bill. Then he offered a more mild bill to move in on 
the banning of semiautomatic assault weapons. We got it through the 
Senate. That was not enough. We could not conclude its action in the 
House.
  Then Senator Feinstein joined our group and worked zealously and hard 
in order to make some modifications of that bill, which became a part 
of the package that was sent over to the House and that is before us at 
this point in time. I introduced that original bill after 5 children 
were murdered and 29 others wounded in a hail of bullets in a crowded 
school yard in Stockton, CA.
  I want to say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who are 
parents and grandparents, think for a moment if one of those five in 
that schoolroom had been one of your loved ones. Think if one of your 
children or grandchildren had been in that swimming pool when loony 
came along with a semiautomatic assault weapon and started mowing down 
the children in the pool.
  It has been a long and lonely road for us to get to this point. But 
the fact is that it is time for us to take those guns out of the hands 
of the crazies, out of the hands of the criminals, out of the hands of 
those who have no regard or respect for life.
  Law enforcement officials have consistently been on our side. All 
along, they have been telling us that they are being outgunned by the 
criminals. They do not carry semiautomatic assault weapons. 
Organizations like the Children's Defense Fund have been warning us 
about the growing impact on our children, and labor, medical, 
religious, civic groups, and business groups have all told us something 
had to be done. But 41 Members on that side of the aisle say: Oh, no, 
we want to use a technicality, because the NRA wants us to use the 
technicality, to keep this bill from being voted on.
  It is not until recently that the American people raised their 
outraged voices demanding that Congress ban assault weapons. My 
colleagues on the other side aisle, do you not hear those people in 
America? Are your ears deaf to their pleas to ban semiautomatic assault 
weapons in this country? This groundswell of anger resulted from the 
cumulative effect of a long history of bloody massacres that finally 
took its toll on the collective patience of America.
  The American people have made their message to Congress plain: Enough 
is enough. They are saying that to my colleagues on the opposite side 
of the aisle--enough is enough; do not try to keep this bill from being 
voted upon by a minority of the Senate. There simply can be no serious 
attempt to fight violent crime in this country without doing something 
to stop easy access to these military-style weapons of war.
  Mr. President, all of us who have worked on this bill have been 
greatly impressed by the knowledge, the commitment, and the leadership 
of our chairman, Chairman Biden. I especially want to thank him for 
holding a tough line on assault weapons during both conferences and 
preventing any efforts aimed at weakening this much-needed provision. 
He knew how strongly I felt, and he knows how strongly I feel. Without 
the semiautomatic assault weapons provision, I would not be able to 
support this crime package.
  (Mrs. BOXER assumed the chair.)
  Mr. METZENBAUM. There are many good points in it, and there are some 
I am not that happy with. To me, it is sine qua non--that without which 
there is nothing--the ban on semi assault weapons. Although a few 
technical changes were made to the assault weapons ban in the new 
conference report, none of the changes affects the substance or in any 
way undermines the legislation. Those changes were intended merely to 
make explicit that the ban on large-capacity magazines--that is, those 
capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition--applies 
prospectively only, to magazines manufactured after the effective date 
of the law. In addition, in order to provide those who lawfully possess 
exempt magazines more protection against prosecution, it was clarified 
that the Government has the burden of proof that a person possesses a 
banned magazine that was manufactured after the effective date.
  In addition to the ban on assault weapons, this bill contains other 
vital measures to combat gun violence which I fully support. One 
measure will toughen the regulation of federally licensed gun dealers 
to weed out those selling to drug traffickers and gun runners and to 
improve efforts to trace guns used in crime. Other provisions will help 
to keep handguns out of the hands of juveniles, spouses, and child 
abusers.
  The virtual explosion of domestic violence in our society makes it 
critical that we not only keep guns out of the hands of abusers, but 
also fight this problem on all fronts. With this purpose in mind, the 
crime bill encourages local authorities to more actively pursue 
domestic violence arrests and prosecutions where warranted and to 
establish shelters that protect and counsel battered women and their 
families. The bill also creates Federal penalties for spousal abuse and 
interstate stalking.
  Unlike crime bills of the past, this bill contains several provisions 
that address the root causes of crime. It includes educational and 
recreational programs to prevent children from becoming involved in the 
criminal justice system, boot camps for first-time nonviolent 
offenders, and substance abuse prevention and treatment programs. Some 
of the opponents of this bill have trivialized the importance of 
prevention programs such as midnight basketball leagues. But the fact 
of the matter is that these programs are cheap, simple to execute and, 
fortunately, they work. Getting kids off the street playing basketball 
is a lot cheaper than having them on the streets involved in petty 
crime and major crime as well. Crime fighting does not always have to 
be complicated, original, or expensive. We all know that constructive 
physical activity is an effective way to channel all kinds of negative 
tensions. They can laugh all they want about midnight basketball. But 
the blood, sweat, and tears from playing a ball game can help avoid the 
blood, carnage, and tears from criminal activity.
  Although the crime bill contains many provisions that will 
effectively fight crime; unfortunately, it also includes 60 death 
penalty provisions that will do precious little to make our streets 
safe again. I never thought I would vote for a bill adding that many 
capital punishment items--or any capital punishment items. The death 
penalty, in my opinion, is not an effective deterrent to violent crime. 
Evidence shows, and former Supreme Court Justices Blackmun and Powell, 
who in the past upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty, both 
now state publicly that the death penalty is applied in a arbitrary and 
racist manner. Justice Powell now concedes that he was wrong to cast 
the fifth and deciding vote to uphold a death sentence in a case where 
the defendant sought to offer statistical evidence of racial bias. The 
Racial Justice Act would have helped to remove the stain of racial 
prejudice from the death penalty in America. Our failure to adopt this 
measure morally taints any and all of our crime fighting efforts.
  A broader imposition of the death penalty also means that more 
innocent people will be executed. A writ of habeas corpus is often the 
only way a defendant can prevent his execution for a crime he did not 
commit. Incredibly, meaningful habeas corpus relief has been placed in 
jeopardy by several recent Supreme Court decisions. I had hoped that 
the crime bill before us would include habeas corpus reform. We must 
not abandon our efforts to protect this most basic important right. It 
is a constitutional right that I believe should not be abandoned.
  Crime bills of the past have not made a dent in the crime rate in 
this country. Our battle against crime is doomed if our only goals are 
to weaken constitutional protections, build more prisons, put more 
people to death, and impose mandatory minimum sentences that ignore 
individual circumstances and keep people in jail to ripe old ages. I am 
proud and grateful to be part of a crime bill that finally breaks with 
the failed policies of the past. Gun control, prevention and treatment, 
police, and fair punishment must be a part of the future if we have any 
hope of a future at all.
  But I come back to the original point of this discussion and these 
comments, and that is I say to my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle: You are being unfair to your own constituency. You are being 
unfair to your own families. You are so wrong about filibustering this 
crime bill that you ought to stand low and be ashamed of yourself. It 
is shameful, literally shameful to get 41 Members of the Senate to 
stand up and block passage of a bill to fight crime in America.
  Have you no pride? Have you no character? What kind of sense of 
responsibility do you have that you want to play this political game? 
You are going to deny the President of the United States a political 
victory, but you do not care what happens on the streets of America.
  You all voted for the same bill in the past when the same point of 
order could have been raised and not one of you raised it. You all said 
it was a great way to proceed, and now you are using a technicality. 
Shame on you. Shame on you.
  A filibuster is not the way to defeat a crime bill. If 51 Members of 
the Senate do not want to pass this bill, so be it.
  But the fact is we have a majority prepared to pass this bill, but 
you are trying to use the technicality to keep the bill from being 
voted on. You are trying to use a budget point of order. What an 
absurdity. What an impropriety.
  How can you go home and face your own family under the circumstances? 
How can you go home and face your constituents? You are wrong. You are 
as wrong as you could possibly be.
  I urge you to reconsider. I urge you to let this bill come to a vote. 
Let it be voted on up or down. If you do not like it, the NRA does not 
like it and you want to vote with them, vote ``no.'' But do not use a 
technicality to defeat the crime bill. The American people want it. Let 
us have a chance to vote on it on an up-or-down vote.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, would the Presiding Officer state the 
business before this body?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The conference report to accompany, H.R. 3355 
is the order of business.
  Mr. REID. I thank you very much.
  Madam President, I rise in support of moving to consideration of the 
passage of the conference report on the crime bill.
  Much of the debate we have heard from opponents of this measure stems 
from the belief that too much is being done to prevent crime and not 
enough is being done to punish crime.
  Madam President, the State of Nevada has a few more Democrats than 
Republicans but not many. It is fairly evenly divided. I want the 
people of the State of Nevada to know that this is a bill that is not a 
bill that is a Democrat bill or a Republican bill. This is a bipartisan 
bill. This bill passed almost unanimously just a few short weeks ago, 
and now because of political gamesmanship, political partisans are 
trying to take down this bill. There are people who believe that it 
would be good for the Republican Party to take down this bill. Well, it 
may be good for some Republicans, but it is not good for the 
Republicans of the State of Nevada, and I am here on the Senate floor 
today to tell the Senate that for the Republicans of the State of 
Nevada and the Democrats of the State of Nevada we need to pass this 
bill.
  Why? Madam President, about 7 percent of the criminals commit almost 
80 percent of the violent crime in this country. About 7 percent of the 
criminals commit about 80 percent of the violent crime in this country.
  The reason we need to pass this bill is this will assist not only 
Federal authorities but State authorities to put away violent 
criminals. There are numerous other reasons that have been explained on 
this floor why we need to pass this bill.
  Madam President, I have been a police officer. I have worn the 
uniform. I have worn a badge. I have carried a gun. I have been a 
prosecutor. After I went to law school, my first job was as a 
prosecutor. I spent a large number of years of my adult life defending 
people charged with crime. So I have a little bit of background about 
criminal activities both from a police standpoint, a prosecutorial 
standpoint, and defending those charged with crimes.
  I want to spend a little time today talking about a buzzword that has 
been used to say how bad this crime bill is. It is used to deride a 
crime prevention program that opponents of the crime bill have become 
obsessed with, the so-called midnight basketball program. Time and time 
again opponents of this legislation, even though they voted for it 
previously, are saying this is pork, that the midnight basketball 
program is pork and, for this reason and a few others, bring it down; 
we do not need a crime bill.
  In fact, the Republican whip in the House has said he thinks the 
Federal Government ought to be encouraging kids to stay in school and 
study and not go out and play basketball at midnight. I say to the 
Republican whip, who I served with in that body, that the midnight 
basketball does just that. It encourages children to stay in school. It 
is about mentoring. It is about teaching responsibility. It is about 
working as a team. It is about working with high-risk youth to assure 
they stay in school and sometimes go on to college. It is about 
spending a little more money on our youth today so we do not have to 
spend a lot more money on them as adults in the future.
  How do I know about this program? I know about this program because 
one of the first programs in the history of our country that dealt with 
nighttime basketball was a program that started in Las Vegas, NV. It is 
a great program. It is still in existence, and it is evidence that it 
is both cost effective and crime preventive.
  These leagues were started almost 5 years ago by a man in Las Vegas 
who worked for the recreation department, a man by the name of Thomas 
Gholson. He was an energetic leader. He wanted to do something 
different. He wanted to do something more to justify his paycheck than 
just go to work every day. He came up with a program. There were kids 
on the street. You could drive down the streets and see them. They had 
no place to go and very little parental control.
  Thomas Gholson, who understood troubled youth, said: ``We are going 
to start a basketball program. We are going to get as many young people 
as we can come off the street. We have the gyms we built. We paid 
millions of dollars for them. Why not use them at nighttime?''
  This program in southern Nevada in Las Vegas has kept hundreds and 
hundreds of young people in school. The organizers serve as important 
mentors to the many kids who play in this program. They are looked up 
to. They are respected. And in some instances, in fact more instances 
than I would like to admit, they are the only role model positive in 
nature that these young people have.
  The person who runs my southern Nevada office is a man by the name of 
Eric Jordan. He wears on his finger a Super Bowl ring. He played for 
the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl.
  Eric Jordan was raised in southern Nevada. He had good parents. He 
was able to go to elementary school, high school and college. I have 
spoken to Eric, and there are not many people who wear a Super Bowl 
ring. Why? Because it is difficult to make it through high school, 
college, and certainly through professional football.
  But this is the program Eric Jordan said has kept people off the 
streets. He should know. He was raised in the community.
  I would ask opponents of this bill to ask themselves the following 
questions: Is it wrong for the Federal Government to provide money to 
programs that teach at-risk youth about the importance of responsible 
parenting? The obvious answer is no.
  Is it wrong for the Federal Government to reach out to at-risk youths 
and attempt to impart in them the importance of continuing their 
education? Is it wrong for the Federal Government to spend $5,000 to 
organize a basketball league for at-risk youths? It takes as much as 
$50,000 a year to keep a young person in a reformatory, a youth in 
prison, as much as $50,000 a year. And we are talking about organizing 
a basketball league for a lot less.
  Is it wrong to spend a few dollars to provide alternative activities 
for youths who are now aimlessly wandering the streets and engaging in 
random criminal activity?
  We read all the time about random criminal activity; people hurt 
other people for no other reason other than they do not have anything 
else to do.
  Is it wrong for the Federal Government to attempt to make our streets 
safer to walk at night and now even in the daytime? Is it wrong for the 
Federal Government to encourage team play and civic behavior? Is it 
wrong for the Federal Government to make a modest investment in today's 
at-risk youth in the hopes that by so doing we will prevent future 
crimes? I say no. If it is, Madam President, vote against this bill, 
but do not play these games that this is pork as if somebody who is in 
favor of this is getting some benefit for themselves.
  I get as much benefit from this as the rest of the people of the 
State of Nevada do; that is, if this bill passes, I will get a little 
more peace of mind. It is not going to eradicate criminal activity in 
the State of Nevada, but it will give the Federal authorities and the 
State and local authorities more tools to deal with criminal activity. 
That is what we need.
  Criticisms of this measure, I think, are disingenuous, especially, 
Madam President, when you consider they voted for it before. And, as 
the majority leader explained on the floor today, they cannot talk 
about the numbers. They lose that game, because the only numbers they 
complained about originally were that it did not give State and local 
authorities a long enough time to get assistance. So we extended that 
time. That is where the added dollars come from.
  If you look at the findings summary, you find that the trust fund 
dollars have been set up in this bill. Law enforcement, together with 
prisons, made up 77 percent of the bill. In the bill now, after the 
conference report, law enforcement and prisons make up 77 percent of 
the bill. It did not change a percentage point. It changed it around a 
little as to how much went to prisons and law enforcement, but they are 
the same numbers. With prevention and drug courts, it originally 
started out at 23 percent; after the conference report, 23 percent. It 
has not changed a percentage point.
  I say that we should be able to vote on the bill. The people of the 
State of Nevada--Democrats, Republicans, and Independents--recognize 
that these random crimes, these random killings, these random acts of 
violence are not directed at Democrats, they are not directed at 
Republicans or Independents, they are directed at people who, by 
chance, may be Republicans, Democrats or Independents.
  This is not a time to be partisan. By being partisan, they stand the 
chance of bringing down this crime bill. And I say those that are 
facing election this year or next year or the year after in the Senate 
should face the voters for bringing down this crime bill because that 
is what they will do.
  This is what the American people really want--crime prevention.
  Let us get rid of this program, they say, this midnight basketball 
program. If the kids are roaming the streets at midnight and engaging 
in criminal activity, lock them up; arrest them. This will prevent 
crime and will keep our streets safe.
  This is simply not realistic, Madam President. We need to have strong 
law enforcement. We need to do better with our prisons. We cannot have 
the rotating prison system that we have. We have to make sure that we 
have certainty of punishment. Our criminal justice system is breaking 
down, not because of a lack of severity, but because of lack of 
certainty of punishment. Punishment is good because it is certain, not 
because it is severe, and we do not have certainty of punishment. This 
legislation will help bring about certainty of punishment and maintain 
the severity when necessary.
  So, doing away with the midnight basketball program, as they want to 
do is wrong. It is a partisan smokescreen, and the American people can 
see right through it.
  Solutions to today's crime problems are not going to be found solely 
in the construction of more prisons to house America's youth and Nevada 
youth.
  George Allen, whose son is now a conservative Republican Governor in 
Virginia, George Allen, the famous late football coach of the 
Washington Redskins, considered a conservative both on the field and 
off, put it best when he said that the best offense is a good defense. 
I agree with that philosophy, whether it is liberal or conservative.
  Midnight basketball leagues offer effective defensive schemes that we 
can employ in our fight against crime.
  Do Government-run basketball programs prevent crime and provide at-
risk youth with greater opportunities to succeed? Yes.
  Madam President, I will ask unanimous consent to have printed in the 
Record an article from the largest newspaper in the State of Nevada. 
The newspaper is now, in circulation, approaching a quarter of a 
million. It is entitled ``On-Court Lessons Prove Valuable.''
  I know that the pictures that appear on this cannot go into the 
Congressional Record, but I ask unanimous consent that the article be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                  [From the Las Vegas Review-Journal]

                    On-Court Lessons Prove Valuable


  players find enjoyment and encouragement in a basketball league for 
                          young men and women

                           (By Marlan Green)

       To get along with people. To never give up.
       Those are two of many lessons 16-year-old Pharin Wheaton 
     says he's learned through playing basketball in the Late 
     Night Hoops program targeting at-risk youths and young adults 
     in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods.
       ``Before I was playing basketball, I didn't really want to 
     live because I didn't think I was nothing,'' Wheaton said, as 
     he watched a game from the bleachers at North Las Vegas 
     Recreation Center.
       Then, last year, he joined Late Night Hoops.
       ``It was like a chance to show I was better,'' said the 
     soon-to-be Clark High School junior. ``I started listening 
     and paying attention. Basketball is like teaching. You won't 
     learn if you don't listen.''
       Now in its third year, the summer basketball league offers 
     participants age 16 to 25 something to do in the late hours 
     of the night to keep them out of trouble. It also provides 
     the opportunity to interact with professionals--including 
     firefighters, deputy district attorneys, a public defender 
     and a housing authority deputy director--who serve as 
     coaches.
       The league, which plays at Doolittle Community Center, 
     North Las Vegas Recreation Center and the Chuck Minker Sports 
     Complex, is sponsored by the Las Vegas and North Las Vegas 
     housing authorities; parks departments from the two cities 
     and Clark County; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and 
     the county public defender's office and Juvenile Court 
     Services offices.
       ``This stuff has kept a lot of kids off the streets,'' said 
     referee Larry Cross. ``Basketball brings a lot out of a 
     kid.''
       Las Vegas Housing Authority Deputy Director Tom Gholson 
     initiated the program, along with Ray and Ross Transport 
     owner Sammie Armstrong, after learning of a similar league in 
     Washington, D.C.
       ``I've gotten close to a lot of the young men and have been 
     able to try to guide them in a positive direction and have 
     learned that they want the same things as anybody else--an 
     opportunity,'' said Gholson, who coaches one of the teams.
       Often, players decide to get their high school equivalency 
     degrees, go on to college or find jobs, including positions 
     with the housing authority's apprenticeship program, which 
     pays $8.50 an hour while teaching participants a skill, he 
     said.
       This year, the program has been expanded to include eight 
     women's teams as well as 16 men's teams.
       Diana Cranford, for one, is grateful. ``There's nothing 
     else to do around the neighborhood,'' said the 15-year-old 
     resident of the Marble Manor housing project in West Las 
     Vegas.
       Without Night Hoops, she probably would be home watching 
     television, said Cranford, who will be a freshman at 
     Cimarron-Memorial High School this year.
       Coaches also detect they're making a difference.
       ``You see a definite change as far as attitude, as far as 
     they want to do something other than hang out,'' said Wayne 
     Carrington, Jr., assistant coach of the Aggies.
       What Wheaton has learned from Night Hoops has carried over 
     into his school life.
       He made the junior varsity basketball team and plans to 
     play on the varsity team next year. His schoolwork has 
     improved, too, Wheaton said, noting he upped his grade-point 
     average last year to 3.0
       Wheaton's now setting his sights on college and a sports 
     administration career.
       The camaraderie of the teams has meant a lot to Wheaton.
       ``The guys on the team, they try to like be a dad to you if 
     they see you have no guidance,'' said Wheaton, who lives with 
     his mother in West Las Vegas and says he is not close to his 
     father.
       Program coordinator Will Reed is one person Wheaton said he 
     turns to for guidance.
       ``You're not going to reach them all, but for the ones that 
     you do reach, it's worth it,'' said Reed, 26, a former 
     professional football player who grew up in predominantly 
     black West Las Vegas.
       Basketball turns out to be a good vehicle because of the 
     relationships players develop with their coaches, said Reed, 
     who played on a Night Hoops team before landing his current 
     job.
       ``They find out that somebody does care about them. Then 
     they start to think, `If somebody else can care about me, 
     then I can care,''' he said.

  Mr. REID. I do this, Madam President, because this article says it 
all. And I might add that this newspaper is a very conservative 
newspaper, editorially. But this is a feature article in that newspaper 
and it says, as a subheadline, ``Players find enjoyment and 
encouragement in a basketball league for young men and young women.''
  We in Nevada believe that at-risk youth are more than just young men. 
We know that there are gangs that consist only of women. We know that 
some of the gang membership is also made up of women. So the program 
affects young men and young women.
  Let me read just a little bit, Madam President, from what the writer 
of this article, Marlin Green, wrote.

       To get along with people. To never give up.
       These are two of the many lessons 16-year-old Pharin 
     Wheaton says he's learned through playing basketball in the 
     Late Night Hoops program targeting at-risk youth and young 
     adults in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods.

  This has been branded, Madam President, as a midnight basketball 
program. Some of the games go as late as midnight, but also they end 
earlier than that. It is a night basketball program, popularly known as 
the Late Night Hoops Program.
  Anyway, on with the article.

       ``Before I was playing basketball, I really didn't want to 
     live because I didn't think I was nothing,'' Wheaton said, as 
     he watched a game from the bleachers at North Las Vegas 
     Recreation Center.
       Then, last year, he joined Late Night Hoops.
       ``It was like a chance to show I was better,'' said the 
     soon-to-be Clark High School junior.

  I had two children that graduated from Clark High School.

       ``I started listening and paying attention. Basketball is 
     like teaching. You won't learn if you don't listen.''

  Among other things, the article says:

       It also provides the opportunity to interact with 
     professionals--including firefighters, deputy district 
     attorneys, a public defender, a housing authority deputy 
     director--who serve as coaches.
       The league, which plays at Doolittle Community Center, 
     North Las Vegas Recreation Center and the Chuck Minker Sports 
     Complex, is sponsored by the Las Vegas and North Las Vegas 
     Housing authorities; parks departments from the two cities 
     and Clark County; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and 
     the county public defender's Office and the Juvenile Court 
     Services offices.

  Do you think the FBI and the Clark County Juvenile Services and the 
public defender's office and the DA's office are involved in this 
because they want to make more delinquents? I think they are involved 
in this program because they are curing delinquency. That is what this 
program is all about.

       ``This stuff has kept a lot of kids off the street,'' said 
     referee Larry Cross. ``Basketball brings a lot out of a 
     kid.''

  Las Vegas Housing Authority Deputy Director, Tom Gholson--who I spoke 
about a little earlier--initiated the program, along with Sam 
Armstrong--a good personal friend of mine--after learning of a summer 
program in Washington, DC.

       ``I've gotten close to a lot of the young men and have been 
     able to try to guide them in a positive direction and have 
     learned they want the same things as anybody else--an 
     opportunity,'' said Gholson, who coaches one of the teams.

  Madam President, I have had the pleasure of watching these young 
men--I did not see any of the young women--watching the young men. They 
were so proud of being able to be on a team and being part of 
something. For most of these young men it was the first time they had 
ever been part of anything--part of a team--that was constructive in 
nature.
  The article goes on to say:

       Often, players decide to get their high school equivalency 
     degrees, go on to college or find jobs, including positions 
     with the housing authority's apprenticeship program, which 
     pays $8.50 an hour while teaching participants a skill, he 
     said.
       This year, the program has been expanded to include eight 
     women's teams as well as 16 men's teams.
       Diana Cranford, for one, is grateful. ``There's nothing 
     else to do around the neighborhood,'' said the 15-year-old 
     resident of the Marble Manor housing project in West Las 
     Vegas.

  Well, she would have ``something to do,'' paraphrasing, but it would 
probably not be what we want her to be doing.

       ``You see a definite change as far as attitude, as far as 
     they want to do something other than hang out,'' said Wayne 
     Carrington Jr., assistant coach of the Aggies.

  This is a great program. I could not let the time go by with the 
bashing that the so-called midnight program has taken without defending 
something that has been good for my community. It is wrong they are 
trying to bring down the bill for pork. This is pork? If this is pork 
we need more of it.
  I have given the local flavor that I understand very well. Last night 
at home, as I was resting, trying to doze off, I picked up this week's 
Time magazine, and sure enough, in Time magazine there is a commentary 
written by Margaret Carlson. This is the August 29 issue of Time 
magazine. The article is entitled ``Order on the Court.''
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that this article as well as 
the Levy article be printed in its entirety in the Record at the 
conclusion of my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. REID. Margaret Carlson says:

       ``Stop the shooter!'' shouts the man with the blue bandanna 
     around his head. There's a cop nearby, but he makes no move 
     on the 6-ft. 3-in. teenager who is taking aim. That's because 
     the patrolman is one of about 75 spectators who have dropped 
     by for an Under the Stars basketball game--and the shooter 
     simply wants to sink a basket.

  I am not going to read all the article, but I want to read part of it 
because it makes the point as to the charade going on here in the U.S. 
Senate about the pork. That is only a subterfuge to kill the bill. The 
article continues, next paragraph.

       Somehow, though, midnight basketball has become the laugh 
     line of the crime bill. It has come to stand for all that is 
     wrong with liberals and their woolly talk about ``root 
     causes.''

  Madam President, the Senator from Nevada has been called a lot of 
things in these Senate Chambers but never a liberal, and I support this 
bill.

       What the ridicule of midnight basketball shows is how 
     mindlessly partisan Congress has become. For the most part 
     Republicans were in favor of the crime bill--including 
     Subtitle F, called Midnight Sports. That was before they 
     realized that they could recapture the law-and-order issue 
     for themselves by stalling the bill. Suddenly the G.O.P. and 
     conservative think tanks--even Charlton Heston, speaking for 
     the National Rifle Association--were all over it. Instead of 
     putting 100,000 police officers on the street, they said, the 
     crime bill would find only 20,000; it would create more 
     social workers than cops; it would also release 10,000 drug 
     dealers.

  This is Time magazine, not Harry Reid, even though I certainly 
underscore and support what they say. The next sentence is: ``All those 
allegations are untrue.''
  All those allegations are untrue. They are a cover to defeat this 
crime bill. I repeat, the people of the State of Nevada, Democrats and 
Republicans, when a violent crime hits them or their family or their 
friends no asks if they are Democrat or Republican. When the ambulance 
comes, when the police show up, they do not say are you Democrat or 
Republican or did you register independent? That is not the question. 
The people of the State of Nevada want something done about crime. This 
is not a cure-all, but it certainly will go a long way in allowing 
local police to do more than what they have been able to do.
  She goes on to say: ``Before civility and politics completely broke 
down, George Bush''--in case we have forgotten, he was our President, 
and I might add, a very fine man. I like George Bush a great deal. I 
prize three letters, handwritten letters, he wrote to me on things I 
did to support my Republican President. He was grateful and sent me 
handwritten letters saying that he was grateful. I like George Bush 
very much.

       Before civility in politics completely broke down, George 
     Bush gave midnight basketball the Republican imprimatur. In 
     1991 he visited the first such league, in Glenarden, 
     Maryland.

  That is right out here not far from where I am speaking.

       ``The last thing midnight basketball is about is 
     basketball,'' President Bush said at the time. ``It's about 
     providing opportunity for young adults to escape drugs and 
     the streets and get on with their lives. It's not 
     coincidental that the crime rate is down 60% since this 
     program began.''
       The program has grown to serve about 10,000 kids in 50 
     cities. Says David Mitchell, police chief of Prince George's 
     County in Maryland; ``You hook them with basketball with all 
     the trappings--in a gym with referees and uniforms and a 
     tournament--and they you teach them lots of other things as 
     well.'' However, expanding this proven crime stopper to the 
     many thousands of kids who want to join will take more than a 
     patchwork of volunteer coaches, country recreation programs 
     and local businesses to pay for the referees, bus drivers, 
     utilities uniforms and equipment. The money in the bill--$5 
     million in 1996, rising to $10 million in 2000--sounds like a 
     lot. But in remember: it cost at least $20,000 to lock up one 
     person in prison for a single year.

   So I believe if we are going to be bashing on pork we should find 
another victim and not midnight basketball.
  If you take five at-risk youths and organize a forum where they can 
learn of alternatives to criminal activity and the importance of 
responsible behavior, we are talking about a taxpayer saving, if we can 
keep five young people out of prison, of a quarter of a million 
dollars.
  If the issue is whether we ought to be spending money on these kinds 
of programs, we must also ask questions like this: How can we pay 
taxpayers' dollars to farmers to ensure they do not harvest wheat or 
some other crop, that they do not plant, but insist no Federal dollars 
should be spent to keep our youth out of trouble and on the right 
track? Maybe we should do away with price support programs and programs 
dealing with farm subsidies.
  I personally think there are some programs we could cut down there. 
But these programs were developed for real good reasons--to increase 
farm production, to allow farmers to maintain a price that they could 
sell their crops.
  Prisons, reformatories, are not cheap to run. The costs simply do not 
stem from incarceration. Prisoners file frivolous appeals once they get 
in prison. In the State of Nevada, the Federal court system, about 40 
percent of the cases filed in our Federal court system are by 
prisoners. Opponents of this bill bemoan us spending money on 
prevention but have no problem spending billions to lock people up and 
allow them to drain away our judicial resources.
  There are billions of dollars in this bill for crime prevention, for 
locking people up, for law enforcement, for drug courts--and I am glad 
it is there. But do not beat up on the nighttime basketball programs. 
Call it like it is. You want to defeat this bill because it is a bad 
bill? You want to defeat this bill so President Clinton may be 
embarrassed because the bill just passed the House? But do it on that 
basis, be up front, vote against the bill. Do not do it on this 
technicality, because the American people will see through this. The 
people of the State of Nevada--consisting of Democrats and Republicans 
and some independents--they know a partisan harangue when they hear 
one.
  It is outrageous to accuse those who support this kind of program as 
being soft on crime. It is a red herring, and those who make this 
charge know it is a red herring.
  I think most people who have gotten to the U.S. Senate have a pretty 
good record as far as fighting crime, but that is up to their own 
constituency to determine. But for me, as an example, I support the 
death penalty. I support cracking down on sexual predators and child 
molesters. The issue I believe is not whether this is a tough crime 
bill, but whether it should be killed on a technicality.
  The State of Nevada benefits from this crime bill. In dollars and 
cents, we benefit from this crime bill.
  The State of Nevada is going to get more than 500 police officers. 
That might sound like a lot. The Presiding Officer, I see, and also her 
colleague from the State of California, have 30 million people in the 
State of California, and I know 500 police officers does not sound like 
much. We have about 1.4 million people living in the State of Nevada, 
and 500 police officers scattered around the State of Nevada will make 
a significant impact.
  Given Nevada's share of the population and the additional $6.5 
billion in discretionary dollars, Nevada should expect a total of about 
$75 million over the next 6 years. Of that total, up to 85 percent can 
be used to hire police officers and about $11 million can be used to 
help pay for the training over time, administrative costs, and 
community policing in Nevada. These are real things that help the State 
of Nevada. Boot camps--we hope to get some in Nevada.
  Byrne enforcement grants--we will get part of those moneys if this 
bill passes. Madam President, I have not heard anyone on this floor 
complain about Byrne grants. They are in this bill. They do not 
complain about them because they work. They help in doing something 
about illegal drug trafficking.
  Rural law enforcement grants--Nevada is going to get money for law 
enforcement in rural Nevada for drug and crime enforcement. We need 
that help. About 85 percent of the people of Nevada are in Reno and Las 
Vegas, maybe a little more. But we have huge, vast areas where tourists 
use the highways coming to Nevada. These small communities throughout 
Nevada need help, and we want to give them help. The only way that I 
can see that they can get the help they need is through this 
legislation.
  There are many other things that we look to for help. Drug court 
programs--we have a very successful program in Nevada. It started in 
southern Nevada, championed by a judge by the name of Jack Lehman, a 
man I practiced law with in the same community for a number of years. I 
am personally grateful to him that he gave up a lucrative law practice 
to become a State court judge. He is doing a wonderful job. These drug 
court programs, which he pioneered in Nevada, will receive money in the 
State of Nevada, an estimated $4.8 million over the next 6 years for 
the State of Nevada.
  Criminal record systems, we can get some help with. For example, 
enforcing the Brady law. Judges, prosecutors, public defenders, about 
$1 million to the State of Nevada.
  Madam President, the State of Nevada stands to gain significantly 
from this legislation. I think it would be a real shame if this 
legislation did not pass.
  Those who oppose these programs, I think, should reexamine their 
consciences. They are the naysayers who do not believe the Federal 
Government could and ought to reach out to our Nation's at-risk youth 
and steer them away from a life of crime and toward responsible civic 
behavior. They are using nighttime basketball, night hoops, as a ploy 
to defeat this whole bill. I think it is wrong. Do not tell me this 
prevention does not work. Preach it to someone else, but not to the 
people of Nevada. We know that it works.
  Arguably, criminal activity has been prevented. Kids were provided 
with alternatives to hanging out and getting in trouble. And, hundreds 
of thousands, if not millions, of taxpayers' dollars have already been 
saved because we are not incarcerating young men and women, but 
teaching them through mentoring and being part of a team.
  So, Madam President, in the State of Nevada, if we can keep 10 kids 
out of the reformatory in Caliente or in Elko, we can save hundreds of 
thousands of dollars just in the first year.
  I do not really like everything in this bill. There are parts of it I 
do not like, Madam President. But there is such an overriding goodness 
in this bill that I am going to support this bill. If this bill were 
given a fair shot, people on both sides of the aisle would vote 
overwhelmingly for it. I think it is a shame on a technicality that we 
may not have that ability.
  I ask the people of this country to make sure that we have the 
ability and the opportunity to vote on this bill.

                               Exhibit 1

                           Order on the Court

                         (By Margaret Carlson)

       Stop the shooter!'' shouts the man with the blue bandanna 
     around his head. There's a cop nearby, but he makes no move 
     on the 6-ft. 3-in. teenager who is taking aim. That's because 
     the patrolman is one of about 75 spectators who have dropped 
     by for an Under the Stars basketball game--and the shooter 
     simply wants to sink a basket. Every Tuesday and Thursday 
     night inside Dunbar High School gym--12 blocks from the 
     Capitol and five from one of Washington's most notorious drug 
     markets--the only shots the police have to worry about are 
     lay-ups and free throws.
       Somehow, though, midnight basketball has become the laugh 
     line of the crime bill. It has come to stand for all that is 
     wrong with liberals and their woolly talk about ``root 
     causes.'' The criteria set out to define communities eligible 
     for funds--those with a high incidence of joblessness, 
     illegitimacy, AIDS and crime--have been parodied as requiring 
     teams to be made up of HIV-positive, drug-taking pregnant 
     dropouts. And the very name doesn't help. At midnight all the 
     good kids are supposed to be in bed, and anyone who isn't 
     should not be coddled with giveaways. More curfews will do 
     the job and they cost nothing, the critics say. What the 
     ridicule of midnight basketball shows is how mindlessly 
     partisan Congress has become. For the most part Republicans 
     were in favor of the crime bill--including Subtitle F, called 
     Midnight Sports. That was before they realized that they 
     could recapture the law-and-order issue for themselves by 
     stalling the bill. Suddenly the G.O.P. and conservative think 
     thanks--even Charlton Heston, speaking for the National Rifle 
     Association--were all over it. Instead of putting 100,000 
     police officers on the street, they said, the crime bill 
     would fund only 20,000; it would create more social workers 
     than cops; it would also release 10,000 drug dealers.
       All those allegations are untrue. The bill funds 75% of 
     salary and benefits for 50,000 new police officers by the 
     year 2000, with local funds providing the remaining 25%. 
     Moreover, $7 of every $10 in the bill goes toward law 
     enforcement and prison construction. As for the release of 
     drug dealers, judges would be required to review the 
     mandatory minimum sentences and free less egregious 
     criminals--probably 400 at most--to make room for truly 
     violent offenders.
       Before civility in politics completely broke down, George 
     Bush gave midnight basketball the Republican imprimatur. In 
     1991 he visited the first such league, in Glenarden, 
     Maryland. ``The last thing midnight basketball is about is 
     basketball,'' President Bush said at the time. ``It's about 
     providing opportunity for young adults to escape drugs and 
     the streets and get on with their lives. It's not 
     coincidental that the crime rate is down 60% since this 
     program began.''
       The program has grown to serve about 10,000 kids in 50 
     cities. Says David Mitchell, police chief of Prince George's 
     County in Maryland: ``You hook them with basketball with all 
     the trappings--in a gym with referees and uniforms and a 
     tournament--and then you teach them lots of other things as 
     well.'' However, expanding this proven crime stopper to the 
     many thousands of kids who want to join will take more than a 
     patchwork of volunteer coaches, county recreation programs 
     and local businesses to pay for the referees, bus drivers, 
     utilities, uniforms and equipment. The money in the bill--$5 
     million in 1996, rising to $10 million in 2000--sounds like a 
     lot. But remember: it costs at least $20,000 to lock up one 
     person in prison for a single year.

  Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, we have been listening for days to 
arguments on the floor. I would like to bring it to a close, and I 
would like to be able to resolve these matters. I think we have 
provided a means to the majority leader where we might be able to do 
that.
  I have been listening to the distinguished Senator from Nevada, and 
he is a dear friend of mine. He acts as if this money is going to be 
there. I can tell you what the people in America think. They know it is 
not going to be there, and I am telling them it is not going to be 
there.
  Who here in this country today believes that this administration is 
going to cut back on 250,000 Federal employees in order to create this 
money which, by the way, other committees have already spent, anyway? 
You have committees that have tapped into this so-called trust fund, 
assuming that it is going to be there; 250,000 employees under Gore 
Reinventing Government have to be thrown out--not thrown out, but 
gradually done away with. When was the last time you saw that happen, 
in order to get this money?
  So we talk about how our States are going to benefit from this money. 
I would like to know where it is. This country is awash in debt, and 
here we are talking $30 billion more. Maybe that miracle will occur. I 
believe in miracles. I have been raised to believe in miracles. I have 
seen some miracles in my lifetime. But I really lack a certain amount 
of faith that this Federal Government and this administration is going 
to somehow find $30 billion over the next 6 years to spend on this 
bill.
  Mr. LOTT addressed the Chair.
  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, if I can make one last sentence. In fact, 
even if--even if--we somehow get rid of those 250,000 Federal employees 
to fund this trust fund because the Congress, at least the House, has 
been so profligate, and the conference committee, to go to $33 billion 
and then back to $30 billion, according to the budget people, we are 
still going to have a $13 billion deficit. At best, that is what we are 
going to have.
  I do not know about you, but I think the American people are sick 
with it. They are fed up with it. And now, for us to act like this is 
all going to happen because of a crime bill, they are just sick of it.
  Mr. LOTT. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. HATCH. I will be happy to.
  Mr. LOTT. Madam President, the Senator's point is, the truth of the 
matter is, there will not be funding for a number of these programs. 
For instance, there will not be 100,000 law enforcement officers put on 
the streets across this country. And, as a matter of fact, in addition 
to that, there is at least probably $13 billion, maybe more, that will 
not be paid for. If it were spent, it would just be added to the 
deficit.
  My question to you on that point, though, is, is it not that one of 
the things you want to try to address with amendments, that you would 
like to be able to offer, is to reduce the overall spending level in 
this bill that went from $5 billion or $7 billion when originally 
introduced all the way up to $30 billion now? It seems to me we could 
at least cut back some of the spending in this bill which would just be 
added to the deficit, if we do not. Is that one of the amendments or 
series of amendments you will have?
  Mr. HATCH. The Senator makes a wonderful point. It is one of the 
amendments we would have. I just saw on CBS nationwide news this 
morning a liberal Democratic mayor from Kansas get on and say, ``We 
don't want the money for the police.'' Why would he say that? Everybody 
is saying, ``We don't have enough police,'' and that is what we are 
trying to do with this bill, is it not? He said, ``We don't want the 
money.''
  You know why, because people do not understand out there--maybe it is 
time we tell them--that the State has to put up 25 percent of the money 
in the first year for these new police, but in the second year, they 
have to put up 50 percent, and in the third year, 75 percent of the 
money.
  They are saying if we had 20--this is what the mayor said, or at 
least one of the policemen said it and then the mayor confirmed it. If 
we had 25 percent of the money now, we would be hiring policemen now, 
and we would be putting them to work. But we do not have the money.
  How are they going to have 50 percent the next year and 75 percent 
the next year? There is not anybody who looks at this who does not 
realize that we are putting a little more than $1 billion to hiring new 
police in this country from this bill a year, and that it is not going 
to a hire 100,000 police even at best. And let us say if you get 20,000 
you would be lucky. And then the States are going to wind up footing 
the bill in the end and policemen are saying, rookie cops are not going 
to help that much under these circumstances when we are going to pay 
the bill.
  Mr. LOTT. Madam President, I would like to ask the Senator to yield 
again for one more question before moving on to another subject.
  Mr. HATCH. Sure.
  Mr. LOTT. I had hoped to make a statement on a whole number of areas, 
but I think since the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee is here 
it best I be able to ask him two or three specific questions.
  Mr. HATCH. Sure.
  Mr. LOTT. A question has been raised, what is pork? Is there pork in 
this legislation? There are billions of dollars of programs that 
certainly could be described in that way. As a matter of fact, I have a 
list here of a number of the programs that are still in this conference 
report, some of which certainly were not in the bill when it passed the 
Senate originally, and there are hundreds of millions and billions of 
dollars. The Model Intensive Grant Programs, which is $625 million, 
that will go to 15 cities, hand-picked by the administration; the Local 
Partnership Act, $1.6 billion which takes the form of revenue-sharing 
grants to be distributed by the Department of Housing and Urban 
Development for three general purposes. One of particular interest, the 
National Community Economic Partnerships, the Department of Health and 
Human Services--not the Justice Department, HHS--would provide $270 
million in grants to community development corporations to ``improve 
the quality of life.'' No pretense of tying the use of these funds to 
any sort of crime control is made.
  Now, let me ask the Senator, the distinguished Senator from Utah, are 
these some of the projects that could be knocked out by the amendments 
he would have, some of the programs that clearly do not affect fighting 
crime in these communities?
  Does the Senator have others that he could cite that we could 
possibly knock out and save money or move that money over into 
legitimate crime fighting?
  Mr. HATCH. Clearly, the conference report still contains billions of 
dollars of pork barrel projects, or what we would call wasteful social 
spending programs--wasteful because many of them are duplicative of 
dozens, if not hundreds, of other programs already in existence. And 
one of the things the House did this last weekend was knock out the job 
training part of it. It was almost $1 billion. They knocked it out 
because we already have 154 job training programs in this country at a 
cost of almost $25 billion.
  I might say the bottom line is these programs are not about crime 
prevention, as President Clinton likes to claim, but about placating 
the most liberal wing of the Democratic Party with pure social 
spending, more of the same.
  The Senator mentioned the Model Intensive Grant Programs. That is a 
program of $625 million of pure pork. Under this program, as the 
Senator said, 15 cities hand-picked by the administration--my goodness, 
why would not the Justice Department do that? I guess they do, do they 
not? They are the administration, are they not? Fifteen cities are 
going to be the wonderful beneficiaries of this well-intentioned grant 
program and they are given complete discretion on how to spend this 
money, and it may be spent on any purpose loosely tied in in the grant 
application to crime reduction. Goody-goody.
  The problem with that is there will not be any money there to do it 
anyway, or if the money is there to do that, you can guarantee it will 
not be there for prisons or police or apprehension, prosecution, 
conviction, incarceration, and punishment of criminals, which is what 
we really started out to do.
  Take the Local Partnership Act. That is $1.6 billion in pure pork, 
which takes the form of revenue-sharing grants to be distributed by the 
Department of Housing and Urban Development--the Department of Housing 
and Urban Development. What made them experts on crime? They are hardly 
experts on housing and urban development. As I understand it, they have 
already overspent their budget--for three general purposes: Education 
to prevent crime, drug abuse treatment to prevent crime, and job 
programs to prevent crime.
  Keep in mind, there are 154 Federal programs, Federal job training 
programs now paid for by you, the taxpayers, almost 25 billion bucks 
and they want to give them more for these duplicative programs.
  Look, if they want to do these social engineering programs, I might 
even vote for them if they would do them straight up and not hide them 
in the crime bill.
  Mr. REID. Will the Senator from Utah yield?
  Mr. HATCH. I will not yield now because we did not get a chance to 
talk last night. I waited for 3 hours just for 15 minutes and finally 
had to leave in despair.
  Mr. REID. I only interrupt because the Senator mentioned my name, and 
I would be happy to respond.
  Mr. HATCH. I would be happy to yield for that.
  Mr. REID. I appreciate that very much. I will take time responding 
later.
  The Senator said he doubts the trust fund will be funded as a result 
of cutting back Federal programs.
  Mr. HATCH. I not only doubt it. I know those funds are not going to 
be there and so does the Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. The Senator is aware that, for example, in the legislative 
branch, which is part of the overall cut, we have met our 
responsibility by cutting personnel by 4 percent, overall 
administrative accounts by 14 percent. The Federal Government has 3.4 
million employees, and this trust fund called for cutting approximately 
250,000 people----
  Mr. HATCH. Yes, 250,000.
  Mr. REID. Out of the 3.4 million employees. I think we can do that 
easily. We are already well toward that. And I would just say to my 
friend that it seems very clear we can do that, and the people on that 
side of the aisle believed that when this bill passed the first time by 
an overwhelming majority.
  Mr. HATCH. We helped.
  Mr. REID. To say it would take a miracle is not true.
  I would also say to my friend from Utah regarding his concerns about 
why HUD should be involved in this? We have all read the paper. That is 
where much of the crime in this country is bred, in the housing 
developments. The midnight basketball program in Las Vegas started as a 
result of a person who worked in housing.
  Mr. HATCH. If I could take back my time, let me just answer some of 
that. I commend the Senator if he has been able to reduce spending in 
the Federal Government on that one small, solitary Appropriations 
Subcommittee. I believe the Senator has worked hard, but I am talking 
about $5 trillion of debt now.
  Wait just a second. Let me just say what I am going to say. I am 
talking about $5 trillion of debt, and if I am going to spend crime 
money, I do not want HUD spending it. I want the Justice Department or 
somebody who knows something about crime spending it, some department 
that really deals with criminal problems. And I do not want to have it 
spent on pure pork social programs when we have got violent criminals 
running all over this country berserk. Frankly, when you can show me 
when we have made a real dent in getting those 250,000 employees gone, 
I might believe this. But even then you are $13 billion in deficit 
under this $30 billion bill.
  Let me just finish the answer to the question.
  Mr. REID. I appreciate the Senator yielding. I would ask unanimous 
consent that a statement regarding the deficit, the trust fund does not 
add to the deficit--I would not take the Senator's time, but I would 
ask the remarks be made part of the Record.
  Mr. HATCH. That would be fine.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                   Trust Fund Does Not Add to Deficit

       This point rests on little more than an accounting rule--
     the Republicans point out (correctly) that in fiscal year 
     1999 and fiscal year 2000 there are no discretionary budget 
     caps, so there is no budget total agreed to by a 
     congressional budget resolution, so--the argument goes--we 
     cannot guarantee that the crime bill will not add to the 
     deficit in fiscal years 1999 and 2000.
       This is a ``Red Herring.'' The trust fund language in the 
     crime bill specifies that the $13 billion in reductions to 
     fill the trust fund in 1999 and 2000 will be made from 
     ``comparable amounts for budgetary purposes''--in other 
     words, none of us know how many discretionary dollars the 
     Federal Government will have to spend in 1999 and 2000, but 
     whatever the total it will be reduced by $6.5 billion in 1999 
     and $6.5 billion in 2000.
       In plainer English, none of us know exactly how much money 
     is going to be in the Federal Government's discretionary 
     ``check book.'' But, whatever the amount, the trust fund 
     tells us to put aside $6.5 billion of our total in a special 
     checking account--kind of like a ``Christmas Club''--that we 
     will only use to pay for the police, prisons and prevention 
     in the crime bill.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah has the time and has the 
floor.
  Mr. HATCH. I thank the Chair. Let me continue to answer the question 
of my friend from Mississippi.
  He said, what are some of these programs? We just named $625 million 
in the Model Intensive Grants Program, pure pork; Local Partnership 
Act, $1.6 billion--that is with a ``B''--pure pork, with the most 
generalized, generalized description.
  Let me give you the National Community Economic Partnership. Now, let 
us see what this has to do with crime. This is what my Democrat 
counterparts think we should be doing for crime when we are awash in 
violent criminals, that is, other than their constant harping on the 
fact that the whole battle here is over guns.
  Give me a break. My side is not fighting guns at all right now. We 
hate that provision, some of us, but the fact is we lost. What we are 
fighting is pork. And we are fighting the fact that they took 30-plus 
anticrime, tough amendments that we passed here by almost unanimous 
votes in the Senate out of the crime bill in the House.
  Mr. LOTT. Will the Senator yield at that point, and I will stop 
asking questions?
  Mr. HATCH. Sure.
  Mr. LOTT. I had one other point I wanted to make, and it fits in 
right there.
  Will the Senator explain to me on that point why the strong language 
that we had in the Senate-passed bill that increased the penalty on 
criminals that commit crimes while using a handgun was deleted?
  I have, for the life of me, tried to figure out why they say they 
want to get gun control and yet when we try to get tougher on criminals 
who use handguns, they take that out.
  What possible explanation could exist for that?
  Mr. HATCH. Does the Senator not realize that there are those on the 
conference committee--of course, all very liberal--who believe that 
these people really did not commit the crimes, that they are a product 
of their environment, and that the environment is so bad that it 
produces these criminals and they should not be held responsible for 
it? Why should we be hammering them with tough mandatory minimum 
sentences when they use a gun because that is what they learn in these 
tough areas? Unfortunately, there may be a modicum of truth to that. 
But I think people still have to be held responsible for their actions, 
but they do not feel the same way. It is apparent.
  But back to the Senator's other point. I thought it was a real good 
question. Look at the National Community Economic Partnerships. The 
Department of Health and Human Services--get this again. The Department 
of Health and Human Services--not Justice, not any law enforcement 
agency, not the FBI, not the DEA, or anything else--they are going to 
provide $270 million in grants to community development corporations 
``to improve the quality of life.'' I think that is wonderful. I just 
cannot believe how serious about crime some of our colleagues really 
are.
  There is no pretense of tying the use of these funds to any sort of 
crime control. No. They are hiding it in the crime bill because they 
think the American people want a crime bill to do something about crime 
and it is a good opportunity to spend more. That is why it is a $30 
billion bill. It can go on and on. I think the point is made. We could 
go on through 30 programs like this. Some of them are good.
  I saw the distinguished Senator from Nevada talk about how midnight 
basketball works in Nevada. I am for that. I think it is a great. It 
has been working without Federal Government funding or strings. It has 
been working on a voluntary basis, and he made the point. I do not care 
if the HUD employees helps with them. The fact of the matter is it has 
been working voluntarily. It was one of President Bush's points of 
light. It was supposed to be a voluntary program. I believe in it. I 
think midnight basketball is a terrific idea. But the problem is, if 
you read this bill, you find that there are Federal strings attached to 
it.
  I would like to just point out a few of them, if I can read this fine 
print. It is very fine print. This is a big bill, as Senator Biden 
said. There is all kinds of nice language like this in here. Let me 
read this.

       Midnight sports league programs that shall require each 
     player in the league to attend employment counseling, job 
     training, and other educational classes provided under the 
     program, which shall be held in conjunction with the league's 
     sports games at or near the site of the game.

  This is the Federal Government running midnight basketball. You have 
family outreach in this particular program. I could go on and on. You 
have them running midnight basketball that has been working well on a 
voluntary basis without the Federal Government's interference or 
strings attached, dictating what we have to do in midnight basketball. 
I am sure we will have a nice set of regulations telling us how to play 
basketball.
  Mr. GRAMM. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. HATCH. Yes.
  Mr. GRAMM. I was wondering, as the Senator was going through that, if 
they would have the NBA rules and the college rules and the high school 
rules?
  Mr. HATCH. No. These are inner city rules. They will have Federal 
rules. The Federal Government knows more about basketball than you and 
I. They know more about what to do. They will tell us how to hire our 
policemen and what they should act like. We are going to give them 
sensitivity training as a matter of fact under this bill. It is 
unbelievable the strings attached in this bill.
  Mr. GRAMM. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. HATCH. Yes.
  Mr. GRAMM. I see the Senator is caught up in his passion with this 
bill. And I think there are plenty of reasons to be caught up. If my 
phone calls and mail are an example of how the American people feel, 
they are caught up in it, too. But I did want to have one tiny little 
bit of time.
  Under the Local Partnership Act, we are going to give $1.6 billion 
that will be passed out on the basis of the tax rate in cities so that 
big taxing cities will get a lot of money and low taxing cities will 
not get much.
  Mr. HATCH. That will encourage lower taxes, will it not?
  Mr. GRAMM. But I think the prize of this whole bill is that the mayor 
of Providence, RI, has said that with $3 million he gets under the 
Local Partnership Act he has what I believe is the most innovative idea 
of the whole crime bill. And the mayor of Providence, RI, has proposed 
this innovative program where you would take people who were convicted 
of graffiti violations who wrote nasty words on public buildings--we 
have all seen their work--he would like to take $3 million under the 
Local Partnership Act, money provided by this bill, and train these 
graffiti violators to be real artists. The Senator has to admit that 
this is a man who can have a future in the Federal city.
  [Laughter in the galleries.]
  There is a man who would have the capacity with powerful ideas----
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Dorgan). The Chair would ask the galleries 
to refrain from demonstrations.
  Mr. HATCH. Will the Senator yield for a second? The only problem with 
this is that they have not asked the National Endowment for the Arts to 
supervise the program of graffiti training.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair requests that Senators seeking to 
ask a question of the person who has the floor to actually ask the 
question of that person.
  Mr. LOTT. I would like to ask one final question. I ask unanimous 
consent to have printed in the Record an article from the Washington 
Times by William Bennett and our colleague, Senator Cochran, from my 
home State of Mississippi, entitled ``Where the Pending Crime Bills 
Fall Short.''
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Times, July 11, 1994]

                Where the Pending Crime Bill Falls Short

                 (By William Bennett and Thad Cochran)

       By now the figures are all too familiar. Over the past 
     three decades, violent crime in America has increased by more 
     than 500 percent. Yet, nearly 3 out of every 4 convicted 
     criminals are not incarcerated, and fewer than 1 in 10 
     serious crimes results in imprisonment.
       The American public will not accept widespread lawlessness 
     indefinitely. If the rate of violent crime continues to rise, 
     people at some point will look for a police state to restore 
     order. This makes it all the more urgent that we gain control 
     of our streets.
       Unfortunately, members of Congress are using the crime 
     issue as a pretext for doing what they do best: increasing 
     federal spending on social programs, while reducing the 
     independence and authority of state and local officials.
       The major effect of the crime bills currently making their 
     way through Congress will be to federalize street crime.
       Virtually all violent street crime now falls under the 
     jurisdiction of state and local governments. Yet the Senate 
     version of the crime bill detracts from local authority by 
     adding more crimes to the federal code.
       The House version would add 66 felonies to the list of 
     crimes eligible for the death penalty, but it would all but 
     do away with the death penalty by enabling a person convicted 
     of a capital crime to argue that his execution would 
     reinforce a pattern of racial discrimination.
       Because the burden would be on the state to prove 
     discrimination was not involved, the so-called Racial Justice 
     Act would make it virtually impossible to implement the death 
     penalty. But the worst feature of this provision is the 
     message it sends: that race, not the crime itself, is the 
     most important factor in imposing a death sentence.
       Both the White House and Capitol Hill are committed to 
     increasing the number of police. However, even though 
     individual merit is nowhere more important than in the hiring 
     of a police officer, the House bill calls for state and local 
     authorities to adopt racial, ethnic, and gender guidelines in 
     hiring.
       Since more than 88 percent of the funding would be 
     controlled by the Executive Branch, these ``guidelines'' 
     could quickly turn into quotas.
       Besides burdening state and local authorities with even 
     more federal rules and regulations, these bills would make 
     states and localities increasingly dependent on Washington's 
     largess. Included in the House version is roughly $9.2 
     billion in '60's-style social programs to prevent crime. This 
     tax money would fund everything from midnight basketball 
     leagues--with federal rules detailing even the composition of 
     neighborhood teams--to self-esteem classes, arts and crafts, 
     dance classes, physical training programs and conflict 
     resolution training.
       If Congress is as serious as its rhetoric about fighting 
     violent crime, it should help provide states and localities 
     with the resources they need to apprehend and lock up felons 
     for their full sentences, and thus put an end to revolving 
     door justice.
       For example, it should establish an anti-crime trust fund. 
     Under a proposal by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, Wisconsin 
     Republican, Congress would rebate an amount equal to 2 
     percent of federal income tax revenues to the states to spend 
     on crime fighting. This would put between $45 billion to $55 
     billion into the hands of the people on the front lines in 
     the war on crime during the next five years.
       Because of crowded conditions in many state prison systems, 
     judges are imposing prison caps, which result in early 
     release of criminals. This must stop.
       Congress should reform federal rules, such as those 
     surrounding habeas corpus, to prevent convicted felons from 
     tying up the court systems with endless appeals. It should 
     also establish a good faith exception to the exclusionary 
     rule to prevent criminals from beating the rap because 
     otherwise solid evidence was taken in technically imperfect 
     search and seizure operations.
       These are just a few of the measures that could have a real 
     impact on violent crime.
       Until members of Congress adopt a crime package oriented 
     toward empowering state and local governments, they should 
     refrain from talking tough on crime.
       Passage of the policies now being considered would only 
     further erode Congress' already damaged credibility. Congress 
     should salvage the few sound policy options left in the crime 
     bills--such as truth in sentencing provisions--and make a 
     fresh start on a tough problem.

  Mr. LOTT. The question is this: The operative sentences in this 
article are these.

       Congress should reform Federal rules to prevent convicted 
     felons from tying up the court systems with endless appeals. 
     It should also establish a good faith exception to the 
     exclusionary rule to prevent criminals from beating the rap 
     because otherwise solid evidence was taken in technically 
     imperfect search and seizure operations.

  In other words, the American people are really looking for a strong 
crime bill with limits on endless appeals and a good faith rule so that 
the policemen, law enforcement people, doing their job in good faith 
will not have the criminals and the evidence thrown out on 
technicalities.
  Here is my question. Are either of those in this bill?
  Mr. HATCH. Neither of them are in the bill.
  Mr. LOTT. Through all this exercise over the past year, the two most 
critical points probably in most people's minds are not even in here.
  Mr. HATCH. That is right. I have to state why. The reason is because 
we passed a tough habeas corpus reform bill in the Senate, and the 
House passed a soft one. When we got to conference, of course, the 
liberal conference committee dominated all by Democrats just chose the 
soft provision. Of course, that is one of the reasons why the last 
crime bill died. It was not the gun. It was for reasons like this that 
we killed it. The reason the exclusionary rule did not pass is because 
the House passed a good exclusionary rule and we passed a weak one. 
When we got to conference the liberal conferees took the weak one, just 
like they took the weak habeas corpus reform. And, of course, that is 
another reason that last crime bill died. It was not the gun thing that 
caused it. It was this.
  So it was a conscious decision this time, that since the same 
Congress exists there was not much we could do about it, leave it to 
another death of a crime bill that, you know, we did not even bring it 
up. And I have to say that certainly is a mistake, because you cannot 
have a tough crime bill without habeas corpus reform and the ending of 
these endless appeals. So the Senator makes a very good point.

  Let me just talk about a couple more of these pork barrel programs. 
What is pork barrel to the Nation out here may not be pork barrel to 
some of our more liberal colleagues in the Congress. So I have to at 
least admit that. I think we have been making a pretty good case of why 
should HHS and why should other agencies that really do not work daily 
with the actual problems of crime, except indirectly, be handling these 
funds? Why should just 15 cities get the bulk of some of these funds?
  Let me mention a few more. Community-based justice grants. This is 
$50 million in grants that would require social workers' involvement in 
the prosecution of criminal cases. Participating prosecutors would be 
required to ``focus on the offender, not simply the specific offense, 
and impose individualized sanctions such as conflict resolution, 
treatment, counseling and recreation programs.'' The program defines 
young violent offenders as individuals up to 22 years of age ``who have 
committed crimes of violence, weapons offenses, drug distributions, 
hate crimes, civil rights violations, and offenses against personal 
property.'' Grants are discretionary with the Attorney General this 
time.
  Police recruitment; $24 million is given to the Attorney General to 
make discretionary grants to community organizations to ``recruit and 
retain applicants for police departments.'' Do you not think police 
departments can do their own recruiting without community organizations 
doing it?
  Ounce of prevention. This is a $91 million program. This program is 
established to coordinate all of the wasteful spending programs 
established by this bill. Believe it or not, the council is given $91 
million of its own grant money to hand out on a discretionary basis for 
mentoring, tutoring, and other programs involving participation by 
adult role models such as programs assisting with employability. We 
have dozens of those in existence. GAO has said what we are doing for 
our young people is more than adequate under the current program. So we 
are going to add money in here because it is a good vehicle, it is 
going to go through. We may as well hide it in the crime bill and beat 
our breasts and say how great and compassionate we are in spending all 
this taxpayer money to help people. It is to be for prevention and 
treatment programs to reduce substance abuse, child abuse, and abortion 
counseling as well.
  That is what this bill does. There is a lot more to be said. I would 
feel badly if I did not answer that question a little bit better that 
my colleague asked.
  My colleague from Delaware refers to the Dole-Hatch gangs program, 
which sounds like a pretty softheaded program. But he wrote that 
program; he wrote that legislation. Senator Dole and I offered a tough 
gang amendment which enhanced penalties for gang offenses. When we 
offered our amendment, we incorporated the Biden gang grants provision. 
We did so to build bipartisan support to demonstrate our own good-faith 
efforts in this area. That was written by Senator Biden. We put it in 
our bill.
  Senator Biden has spoken eloquently about his opposition to the Dole-
Hatch-Molinari prior crimes amendment. We decided that there should be 
an admissibility or at least a presumption in favor of the 
admissibility of evidence of prior acts by rapists and child molesters. 
We think the game is up, it is time to get tough on those people. I 
have to say that Senator Biden did speak eloquently about his 
opposition to that. But in conference he offered this provision as part 
of the Senate Democrats' offer to the House. He did this early Sunday 
morning, and I was there. We stood here and accused Senator Biden of 
authorizing this particular provision? Of course not. He does not like 
it. He does not like the Molinari-Dole-Hatch provision. We do, but he 
does not. But we are not accusing him of writing it or even supporting 
it.
  To suggest that the gang grants in the Senate bill was written by 
Senator Dole is pure bunk. Unfortunately, we have seen a lot of that 
around here.
  I have some more to say, but I notice that the distinguished Senator 
from California is ready to speak. So I will be happy to relinquish the 
floor in just 1 minute.
  I will say this: The gun issue is no longer an issue and anybody who 
says it is just plain is not informed or does not realize the 
negotiations involved. Our side wants basic amendments to do away with 
pork barrel spending in this bill and to strengthen and toughen the 
bill again with Senate amendments that were overwhelmingly passed here. 
That is what we want. We want that opportunity to get our Senate 
language back in and, as a matter of pride, we Senators ought to do 
that.
  The gun issue, as far as I am concerned--and I believe as far as this 
side is concerned--is one that we have lost. We feel badly about it. We 
do not feel good about it. We think it is wrong, and we can give plenty 
of reasons why it is wrong. But it has been lost.
  The real issues are two: Pork, which this bill is filled with, and I 
have just been making some of those cases. And the tough-on-crime 
provisions that were stripped out by the liberal House conferees and, I 
might add, Senate conferees as well, that were in the Senate bill, the 
Biden-Hatch bill, which was a considerably different bill than this 
one. I would have fought for it, and did fight for it, all the way 
through. But it was gone just like that once the liberal conferees 
decided they were not going to do the really tough things about crime, 
but they were going to still play this game that they are doing 
something about crime with your money that is not here, will not be 
here--not 30 billion dollars' worth--at least $13 billion in deficit, 
even if you can get all that trust fund money. And I challenge anybody 
to stand here on the floor and say they know we will get it, especially 
when we are not doing very much about other deficit problems.
  I yield the floor.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California [Mrs. Feinstein] 
is recognized.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I have been listening to these 
remarks, and I must say my heart is breaking, because I see a bill that 
is important to the American people being taken hostage by a minority 
of this body. Hostage-taking is a Federal crime, and it will be a crime 
if we do not send the President a crime bill today.
  Mr. President, I have just heard the remarks from the distinguished 
ranking member of the Judiciary Committee that ``This is not about 
guns. We have lost that battle.'' Mr. President, I saw the list of 13 
amendments the Republicans want, and number 12 is--and I quote--
``strike the assault weapons ban.'' It is to strike the assault weapons 
ban.
  Why do people not tell the truth on the floor of this Senate? Why do 
they not tell the truth so we can deal with it? Why come forward when 
the Republicans are passing around a piece of paper with 13 amendments, 
and the 12th amendment says ``strike the assault weapons ban,'' and 
then say--as the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee just said, 
``We have lost that battle. We are not going to raise that issue. We 
admit that the votes are there for the assault weapons legislation.''
  If that is true, then I make a proposal. There can be a unanimous 
consent agreement, and we can bring the assault weapons up. The 
Republican minority can say: we will not make you file for cloture, and 
we will have an up or down vote on assault weapons, and the bill can go 
directly to the President for signature, if passed again--as I fully 
expect that it would be. I challenge them. I challenge them to do that.

  I have heard so many arguments that are disingenuous. Let me begin to 
take them on one by one.
  Let us talk for a moment about the funding mechanism of this bill. I 
wish I were doing campaign commercials: flip-flop, flip-flop. That is 
what the minority is doing on the issue of the crime bill trust fund. 
This has been said on the floor again, but still Senators come back and 
contradict themselves. Let me quote Senator Hatch, November 4, 1993 on 
the floor of this Senate:

       He, Senator Byrd, was the one who came up with the funding 
     mechanism. I just want to personally compliment him for it, 
     plus the ability to put this together the way we are putting 
     it together.

  Now today he is critical.
  Second item: Senator Dole, the minority leader, November 19, 1993:

       From day one, Republicans have insisted that any anti-crime 
     bill we pass must be fully paid for. Security has a price, 
     and it is a price we at least attempt to pay for by 
     establishing a violent crime reduction trust fund. In the 
     months ahead we will see whether we live up to the trust fund 
     commitment.

  Senator Gramm, senior Senator from Texas, May 19, 1994:

       First of all, it [Motion to Instruct] asks our conferees to 
     stay with the funding mechanism that Senator Byrd offered. I 
     was a cosponsor of it. It was a broadly supported bipartisan 
     effort. So the first thing I want our conferees to do is stay 
     with our funding mechanism.

  The senior Senator from Texas was referring to the trust fund, and I 
quote him again:

       Every time we have gotten down to the goal line trying to 
     make it the law of the land, it ended up being killed. I do 
     not want it to die this time. Without it, there are no 
     prisons, no additional police officers on the streets, and no 
     effective crime bill.

  Now, suddenly, this very funding mechanism that everybody voted for 
95 to 4, that these three distinguished Senators testified on behalf 
of, is being met by cries of ``throw it out, throw it out.'' Now when 
the bill is almost passed: ``Throw it out. We do not like it. Why do we 
not like it? Well, we do not like it because we do not think the money 
will be there.''
  Let us talk for the moment about whether the money is going to be 
there or not. The work force reduction of 252,000 Federal personnel has 
begun. It is already mandated by Federal law.
  As a matter of fact, in a crime trust fund analysis just produced by 
our very own Budget Committee, it is clear that the revenues will be 
there. After just 5 fiscal years of work force reduction savings, the 
crime bill will capture in the trust fund more than enough money--over 
$33 billion--to pay for all 6 years of the programs authorized by this 
much maligned, and much needed, bill. I also note that those are net 
savings, which take into account all benefits that will be paid to 
retiring or terminated workers.
  This is not my estimate, this is the Budget Committee's estimate. It 
is not based on wishful thinking. It is based on a mandatory law which 
is in place and which is already reducing the Federal payroll.
  What is especially interesting about this is the crime bill will cost 
$30.2 billion over 6 years, but the trust fund will accrue more than 
$33 billion in just 5 years. Clearly, suggestions to the contrary 
notwithstanding, the money will be there to pay the bills.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this document entitled 
``Crime Trust Fund Comparison'' be printed in the Record at this point.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                               CRIME TRUST FUND COMPARISON                                                              
                                                                [In billions of dollars]                                                                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     1994         1995         1996         1997         1998         1999         2000         Total   
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VCRTF (Senate):                                                                                                                                         
    Budget authority............................        0.720        2.423        4.267        6.313        8.545  ...........  ...........       22.268
    Outlays.....................................        0.209        1.027        2.493        4.330        6.373  ...........  ...........       14.432
CCF (President):                                                                                                                                        
    Budget authority............................  ...........        2.423        4.287        5.000        5.500        6.500  ...........       23.710
    Outlays.....................................  ...........        0.703        2.334        3.936        4.904        5.639  ...........       17.515
Conference proposal:                                                                                                                                    
    Budget authority............................  ...........        2.423        4.287        5.000        5.500        6.500        6.500       30.210
    Outlays.....................................  ...........        0.703        2.334        3.936        4.904        5.639        6.225       23.740
Savings:                                                                                                                                                
    Budget authority............................  ...........        3.113        4.287        6.327        8.394       11.027           NA       33.148
    Outlays.....................................  ...........        3.007        4.233        6.234        8.491       10.917           NA       32.882
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VCRTF: Violent Crime Reduction Trust Fund in the Senate-passed Crime Bill with CBO estimated outlays.                                                   
CCF: CBO Estimate of Crime Control Fund in the President's Budget.                                                                                      
Savings: Savings from the Federal Workforce Reduction Act of 1994 (CBO Estimates).                                                                      

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I thank you very much.
  Before putting this issue aside let me just note for the record that 
the Republican crime bill would cost $28 billion. So what the 
Republicans would propose is $28 billion. What we are talking about is 
$30.2 billion. Is that a difference worth killing this crime bill over.
  A bill that has been through the Judiciary Committee of this Senate, 
has been subject to amendment for days on end on the Senate floor, was 
approved in the Senate 95 to 4. A bill that was further honed in not 
one, but two, bipartisan House-Senate conference committees and 
ultimately approved by the House with a 40-vote margin provided by 
Republicans. I think and hope not, Mr. President.
  Let me turn now to another of the truly disingenuous claims being 
made about this bill and the process that produced it. Namely, say the 
minority, ``We were not sufficiently involved in the crime bill 
conference report.'' I say to that, nonsense.
  At the marathon conference my staff attended around the clock, there 
were Republican senior staff present. There were Democratic senior 
staff present. There were Republican legislators present. There were 
Democratic legislators present. Everybody with a role in the process, 
and the minority does have a legitimate role in that process, was 
present. We all saw, if we watched C-SPAN over the weekend, how House 
Members came forward one after the other with 1-minute speeches to say 
why they could support the conference report or why they could not 
support it. So let us be very clear: everybody with a claim to be at 
the table had a seat and a role in hammering out this crime bill.
  The third utterly political and disingenuous argument made against 
this bill, let us get down to it, is the pork argument. Let me ask 
another question. Last night I listened for 2 hours as the chairman of 
the Judiciary Committee, the very distinguished Senator from Delaware, 
gave what in my view was the best speech I have ever heard on the floor 
of the U.S. Senate. He spoke with passion, commitment, and knowledge of 
the law about what was truth and what was fiction in this bill.
  One of the questions he properly asked, and I thought about it when I 
went home and I turned on C-SPAN and I saw him once again, was ``Why 
would the National Rifle Association--the No. 1 gun lobby in this 
Nation, that has a stranglehold over many Members of both bodies--run a 
spot with Charlton Heston that talks about pork when we know what they 
are interested in is the assault weapons ban, when we know what they 
are interested in allowing weapons like this, an AK-47, to be sold on 
the streets of our cities?
  This is a gun, Mr. President, which comes standard with a 30-shot 
magazine, but can accept magazines--including 100-round clips--that was 
originally designed and made for troops of the Soviet Union. It is the 
most widely used semiautomatic rifle in the world. Up to 50 million of 
them exist. Now, however, it is wielded not just by soldiers, but by 
gang warriors. It is used by kids. It is used by drive-by shooters. 
And, as no Californian will ever forget, it was used by a drifter named 
Patrick Purdy on a Stockton schoolyard to kill 5 children and wound 29 
others.
  Some of us want to take AK-47's off the streets, and some of us--a 
majority of the House and Senate, I might add--think that they ought to 
be banned. Why will the NRA not address the question directly? Why are 
they spending thousands and thousands of dollars on TV ads to talk 
about pork?
  I will tell you why. Because the American people want the assault 
weapons ban. Mothers all across this Nation do not want to have to 
worry about their kids going to school and catching a bullet in the 
brain as standing in their schoolyards. I am not being dramatic, Mr. 
President, this happens with regularity across this country. People do 
not want to be mowed down at work, like the workers in a printing plant 
in Kentucky where a deranged and disgruntled employee came in with one 
of these weapons and with 100 rounds in a magazine.
  This is not an academic concern. Violence is now the No. 1 killer of 
workers on the job in my State of California, Mr. President.
  Here is another reason for the NRA's sudden interest in quality 
prevention programs. Because, Mr. President, we want to stop future 
production of the AR-15. Let me tell you about this weapon. It is a cop 
killer. Its bullets go through a bulletproof vest. They go through a 
wall. They go through a car door. They just killed a police officer in 
Los Angeles that way. Her father was a cop. She raised her kids, went 
back to the Police Academy and graduated as ``Most Inspirational New 
Officer.'' Four days later she was dead. That is why we want the free 
flow of AR-15's to the streets stopped.
  The NRA also is involved with this bill on behalf of this weapon and 
the people who sell it--an M-10 semiautomatic assault pistol. It is a 
copy of a MAC-10 machine pistol. It is sold with a 32-round magazine, 
threaded barrel for flash suppressor, and is among the 10 firearms most 
often traced by Federal agents each year. A version of this gun was 
used in a 1992 bank robbery in Maryland in which four tellers were 
taken hostage and two died. Eleven people in Atlanta were convicted of 
gun trafficking after shipping nearly 1,000 of these guns to New York 
over 2 years.
  Let me tell you about a sergeant in the Houston Police Department, 
George Rodriguez, who also knows this gun all too well. He made a 
routine traffic stop and walked up behind the car. The driver of the 
car had one of these weapons. He cracked open the door and, without 
even turning around or aiming, he pointed the weapon like this and, 
because it has a 32-round magazine and an easy trigger, he just began 
to fire it very rapidly.
  He hit this Sergeant Rodriguez, a 32-year veteran of the Houston 
Police Department, the first Hispanic-American ever in that police 
department. He hit him. He went down. He lay close to death for 2 
months. He then picked himself up with two bullets in his body and 
insisted that he was well enough to come to Washington last week to 
deliver a very simple message. He said that the time has come to end 
this nonsense and to ban these weapons of war.
  That is why the NRA is interested in this bill. That is why they are 
interested suddenly in pork. Does anybody believe the National Rifle 
Association cares about anything other than the ban on assault weapons 
that Congress has effectively approved four times, but must get through 
the Senate one last time before the President can--and this President 
will--sign it into law? I do not believe that anybody really thinks so.
  The NRA knows that these guns are cop killers, that every major 
police organization in the Nation has pushed hard to get it into law 
for years. That is why they need another rallying cry. That is why they 
transparently talk pork, because they have nothing honest to say.
  You cannot go up against one of these weapons with a .38 revolver. 
You cannot. You cannot go up to it with a magnum. You cannot meet this 
weapon unless you have another assault weapon. That is what is going on 
here.
  And, I must say, the minority is disingenuous. It says that it is not 
now trying to block passage of the assault weapons legislation. The 
minority knows, like the NRA, Mr. President, that it too has to pretend 
publicly even as, in private, it circulates an amendment list that 
seeks to strip the assault weapons section from the crime bill 
conference report. There is reason why the truth is not spoken by them 
either.
  There is a new CNN poll, conducted on the 17th of this month, just a 
week ago. Let us take a look.
  Do people want the crime bill? Yes, 46 percent of them favor it; and 
only 29 percent of them oppose it.
  Now, what do they favor in the crime bill? Assault weapons ban: 71 
percent of the people of America favor it; 26 percent oppose it. 
Community notification of sex offenders--89 percent favor it; just 8 
percent oppose it. ``Three strikes and you're out,'' on the ballot in 
California, is in this bill: 74 percent of the people favor it; 21 
percent oppose it. Providing dollars to hire more police: 79 percent 
support it; 18 percent oppose it.
  The most maligned program of all, midnight basketball: 65 percent of 
the people support it; 31 percent oppose it.
  These provisions are supported. These provisions are supported. The 
American people want this bill, and yet this bill is being held hostage 
by a Republican minority in the most disingenuous way.
  Mrs. BOXER. Will my colleague yield for a question?
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Of course; I am delighted to yield.
  Mrs. BOXER. I am so proud of the senior Senator from California for 
the work that she has put into this bill and for her tenacity in 
working against all odds to make sure that weapons of war are no longer 
going to be on the streets of our cities and counties throughout 
America if--if--we can get a vote on this bill.
  But the question I had for my colleague: She and I were here, and I 
was sitting in the Chair, when the distinguished Senator from Utah [Mr. 
Hatch], who is the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, attacked 
the trust fund. I have not seen him get so upset in a while. He said 
this is terrible; the money is not going to be there; this is awful.
  I remember, when this bill was initially debated and the idea of a 
trust fund came up, I recall that Senator Hatch was very supportive of 
it. So I asked for the Record. I would like to ask my colleague if she 
remembers this.
  The Senator from Utah, who now wants to launch a point of order 
against this bill because of the trust fund, that same Senator said in 
November:

       I have to say we now have a trust fund, at least in the 
     Senate bill, that I am going to fight with every fiber in my 
     being to keep.

  So the Senator from Utah, who now wants to bring down this bill 
because of the trust fund, which he says now is not a good idea, said 
he would fight with every fiber in his being to keep it.
  And further, he says, ``If we can hold on to it,''--meaning the trust 
fund--``and we intend to, we are going to have a bill that will make a 
tremendous dent in crime in this society, and it could not without the 
funding mechanism of the distinguished Senator from West Virginia,'' 
meaning Senator Byrd, who thought of the idea of the trust fund.
  So I say to my colleague--she used the word disingenuous--is this not 
outrageous that the very people who praised this trust fund, indeed 
said they would fight with every fiber of their being to save it, are 
now going to launch a point of order against the bill because we have a 
trust fund?
  I ask that question of my friend.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I say to the Senator, she is absolutely right.
  And, even more than that, she was not on the floor--and I am very 
pleased she is here now--but her very own committee, the Budget 
Committee, has just done an analysis. As you well know, the mandatory 
personnel reductions in the Federal work force are now taking place. A 
law has been passed. They must take place. What the Budget Committee 
found is, including paying departing employees benefits, that in 5 
years, this will produce $33 billion in 5 years, which is $3 billion 
more than the crime bill requires over 6 years. So the money will be 
there at the end of 5 years, according to the Budget Committee's 
analysis.
  Mrs. BOXER. If I might, Mr. President, just say to my friend, I 
appreciate her bringing fiscal responsibility to the floor of this 
Senate.
  All of these arguments we are hearing are a subterfuge. They are make 
believe; make believe. The real reasons the Republicans do not want 
this bill--I think there are two--they want to hurt this President. A 
couple of them are already practically announced for President. I hope 
the people of America will call those Senators--the minority leader and 
the Senator from Texas, Mr. Gramm--on the phone and leave word: ``Don't 
block this bill for your own political ambition.'' That is not what we 
are supposed to be about.
  I ask unanimous consent that the words of Senator Hatch from November 
18--and I have this page of the Record--be printed in the Record at 
this time so that the American people can see, when our colleagues get 
up and blast this trust fund, that a few short months ago they praised 
it like it was the new solution to the problems of the world.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the Senator very much for that helpful 
addition.
  Now, let me dispel another myth promulgated by the minority: That 
this crime bill is soft on crime. Not so. Not so. Here is the truth. 
Not my impressions of the bill, or ``spin,'' but a list of what is, in 
fact, in it:
  Death penalties--and many Members of this body are opposed to the 
death penalty. I happen to favor it, but many Members are opposed. 
There are presently two Federal death penalty crimes. This bill would 
take it up to 60 death penalty crimes.
  In addition to that, this bill would strengthen sentences on over 70 
crimes. I am going to go through those crimes because it is important 
that people understand.
  Semiautomatic weapons, section 401, enhances penalties for using or 
carrying weapons during Federal crimes of violence or drug trafficking 
crimes.
  Second offense for using or carrying explosives; enhances penalty for 
second conviction for using or carrying an explosive to commit any 
Federal felony.
  Regarding guns, the list of increased penalties goes on: Smuggling 
firearms, sentence is up; theft of guns and explosives, sentence is up; 
revocation of supervised release, mandates revocation of a supervised 
release and institution of a prison term for a defendant who possesses 
drugs or firearms in violation of condition of supervised release. So 
we have toughened provisions after release from a Federal penitentiary.
  Revocation of probation mandates revocation of probation for 
possession of drugs and firearms. Lying on a gun application increases 
the penalty for lying from 5 to 10 years. Felons possessing explosives, 
prohibits felons and drug addicts from possessing explosives; 
explosives destruction, prohibition against transactions involving 
stolen firearms or stolen guns, up 10 years.
  It goes on with these: Using firearms in commission of a felony, up; 
firearm possession by a violent felon, up; receipt of firearms by 
nonresidents, up; firearms or explosive conspiracies, up; stealing guns 
or explosives, up; disposing of explosives to prohibited person, up; 
interstate gun trafficking, up; drive-by shooting--something that 
concerns every resident of every big city in this Nation--up to 25 
years for shooting into a group of two or more to further an escape 
from a major Federal drug offense.
  Adult prosecution of juvenile offenders--very interesting. Many 
people are concerned about juvenile crime, understandably so. As you 
know, we have worked on legislation together, Mr. President, with 
respect to guns in schools. Many people are very concerned that young 
people, 16 years old, who go out and kill and rape and maim, be treated 
as adults. This bill makes possible the prosecution of certain hardcore 
juvenile offenders as adults.
  Let me talk about some drug penalties. We have heard this bill is 
soft on drugs. Using kids to sell drugs, up to a threefold penalty 
increase for using youngsters to sell drugs in drug-free zones; drug 
dealing in public housing, up; drug dealing in drug-free zones, up; 
drug use in Federal prisons, up; smuggling drugs into prison, up; drug 
trafficking in prisons, up; selling drugs at a truck stop, up.
  Let me go into some other penalties.
  Three strikes and you're out--three convictions of serious violent 
felony or serious drug abuse in this bill and you go to prison for 
life.
  Criminal street gangs, an additional 10-year penalty for a gang 
member who commits a Federal drug crime or crime of violence and has a 
previous conviction. Again, using kids to commit crimes enhances 
penalties for all crimes where defendant used a juvenile or encouraged 
a juvenile to commit a crime.
  Repeat sexual assault offenders, doubles the maximum penalty for 
repeat sexual assault offenders. The first offense can be Federal or 
State. That is a major, major change.
  Aggravated sexual abuse, Federal penalties; direct sentencing 
commission to review and recommend enhanced penalties for aggravated 
sexual abuse; interstate travel to commit spousal abuse, a new Federal 
offense is created. Sex offenses against victims under the age of 16, 
broadens the definition of a sex offense as the intentional touching 
through clothing with intent to abuse, humiliate or harass. It makes it 
much stronger. Assaults against children, increases the penalty for 
simple assaults against a youth under 16, creates a new penalty for 
assaults against youth under 16 resulting in substantial bodily injury.
  Hate crimes, something I put in the bill in the Senate. If you commit 
a felony against another and prosecutors can show beyond a reasonable 
doubt that the victim of the felony was chosen because of their race, 
religion, disability, gender, or sexual orientation, the Federal 
sentencing guidelines are upped by one-third in this bill.
  The bill also includes Federal prosecution of 13-year-olds as adults 
in some instances. Assault--it increases the penalties for assault of a 
Federal officer, of a foreign official, of U.S. maritime and, within 
territorial jurisdictions, Congress, Cabinet, Supreme Court, et cetera. 
Manslaughter, increases the penalty for involuntary manslaughter on 
Federal territory from 3 to 6 years--doubles it.
  Conspiracy to commit murder for hire. It broadens the murder-for-hire 
statute to include conspiracy to travel interstate to commit murder for 
hire. Remember, this is a Federal bill so it is those things in the 
Federal domain.
  Then a whole series of civil rights penalty enhancements are 
included: Conspiracy against rights, deprivation of rights, federally 
protected activities, religious property, free exercise of religion 
protected, fair housing broadened, arson--something I know well, in an 
arson-subject city--increasing the penalties for damage or destruction 
of property by fire or explosives.
  Crimes against the elderly. There is no excuse to steal an elderly 
person's purse, smash her head against the concrete and crack open her 
skull--an actual case of which I am aware. No excuse, nothing, 
justifies that kind of behavior. This directs the sentencing commission 
to ensure increasingly severe punishment for physical harm imposed on 
elderly victims. It requires enhanced penalties for the second offense.
  Terrorism penalties, a whole series of increased terrorism penalties. 
I will not go into them in detail, but they are in the bill.
  Alien smuggling, counterfeiting, weapons of mass destruction, airport 
violence, document forgery, maritime violence, white collar penalties, 
mail fraud, extortion, kidnaping, receiving proceeds of a postal 
robbery, credit card fraud, insurance fraud, computer crimes, theft of 
major artworks, scams, et cetera--all strengthened.
  Drunk driving with kids--strengthened. It enhances the penalties 
imposed by a State--by a State, this is interesting--for drunk driving 
on Federal lands if a child is in the vehicle up to 1 extra year; up to 
5 extra years if the minor is seriously injured; up to 10 extra years 
if the child is killed.
  International child pornography, provides up to 10 years in prison 
for engaging or conspiring to engage in sexually explicit conduct with 
minors outside the United States.
  It changes the good time, the time accorded to a prisoner who serves 
time without a disciplinary offense and it strengthens the provision 
and limits it.
  Trafficking in counterfeit goods--and so on.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent this entire list be printed in 
the Record at the appropriate place, as a demonstration of how this 
crime bill actually strengthens Federal penalties.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, what is important about this--because 
this is not State law--is that it ways implicitly to the States, here 
are tougher penalties that are producing in the Federal Government 
which you might use as a model for increasing them in State law. The 
conference report also: Has 60 death penalties; allows juvenile killers 
and rapists to be tried and sentenced as adults; funds 120,000 prison 
cells; includes a 3-strikes-and-you're-out provision; funds 100,000 
cops everywhere in America; ups penalties for more than 70 violent 
crimes; and puts a quarter billion dollars into new prosecutors, and 
U.S. attorneys.
  Is that soft? Are those prison cells upholstered? Will those cops 
have cap pistols instead of real sidearms? Is the death penalty for 
carjacking, which I added to the bill, too lenient?
  So, Mr. President, I say to my Republican colleagues, the conference 
report before the Senate is not soft on crime, as they insinuate.
  Finally, Mr. President, I want to go to another subject and that is 
the substance--such as it is--of the so-called pork point raised by the 
minority.
  Forty Republicans say that this bill is full of pork. Well, that's 
baloney. What the bill has in appropriate proportion is tough law 
enforcement, prison and prevention--not pork programs. Programs that 
work:
  The conference report before the Senate today spends 45 percent--
$13.45 billion--of the money in the bill--all of it real, by the way--
on State and local law enforcement assistance;
  The report before the Senate today puts 32 percent--$9.7 billion--
into prison construction. Half of that money is tied to the requirement 
that, over the next few years, State prisons assure that criminals 
serve at least 85 percent of their sentences--the Federal average;
  The report before the Senate today puts the balance, just 23 
percent--$7.054 billion--into prevention programs that work. In fact, 
many of the programs were sponsored and supported by my Republican 
colleagues who know--but may have forgotten--that prevention and pork 
are two different matters.
  Is the Violence Against Women Act pork? It accounts for 23 percent of 
all the prevention money in this conference report.
  Are drug courts that will assure testing and supervision of first-
time, nonviolent drug users to unclog our courts and jail violators who 
would otherwise walk pork? The $1 billion in the bill for those courts 
accounts for another 14 percent of all prevention money in this bill.
  Is the Local Partnership Act, which will give mayors and county 
supervisors and other local officials the ability to target money to 
programs that work in their communities--proven programs--pork? I know 
from my days as mayor of San Francisco that it is not and the Local 
Partnership Act funding here accounts for another 23 percent of all 
prevention money in this report.
  Taken together, just these three line items in the report account for 
60 percent of all prevention money in the bill. In addition to citing 
these important statistics, let me relate this discussion of prevention 
to my own personal experience.

  I was mayor of San Francisco for 9 years, was a county supervisor for 
9 years, that is 18 years in local government. I will never forget one 
day as mayor walking through the western addition and a woman rushed to 
me and said, ``Mayor, would you please put on a curfew?''
  And I said, ``Why do you want a curfew?''
  And she said, ``Because I cannot get my child to come home at 
night.''
  And I said, ``How old is that child?''
  And then she just stunned me, she said, ``Ten years old.''
  And I thought, my goodness, if somebody cannot control their 10 year 
old, what will happen when that child is 15? 16? 17? 18?
  And then I tried as mayor to start my own program with youngsters who 
either had worse than a 60-percent truancy rate from school or were 
suspended or expelled for disciplinary reasons, to get the toughest 
kids I possibly could and work with them. For several years, I tried to 
work with them. I was a mentor to one of them. That youngster had two 
family members shot in drug-related disputes and lived in the projects. 
I traveled regularly through streets inundated with drugs. I saw kids 
hanging out on the corners with nothing to do.
  I learned some things in those 18 years. I found that prevention does 
work. I found that most police want prevention programs. That is why in 
my city there is a police fishing program and police take kids fishing, 
talk to them, get to know them, try to straighten them out. That is why 
we have what is called a PAL, a Police Athletic League, where police 
themselves get children together and play games.
  I went out myself and read stories to youngsters who had never heard 
a fairy tale, youngsters who lived in San Francisco who never saw the 
Golden Gate Bridge, who never saw a tree, who did not know different 
colors of green, youngsters who did not have a bed or a home in which 
to sleep. This is all true, Mr. President.
  I worked with girls: pregnant, 14 years old. One million of our 14-
year-olds become pregnant every year in this country and give birth to 
single mothers--a child begets a child that she cannot take care of. 
That is why prevention is important.
  That is why working with children is important. That is why mentoring 
is important. And I respectfully submit to you that is why Republicans, 
as well as Democrats, propose crime prevention programs. Why is it, 
though, that when a Democrat proposes a crime prevention program it is 
pork, and when a Republican proposes a crime prevention program, well, 
it is real crime prevention?
  Project safe works; neighborhood watch works. They develop a sense of 
one neighbor looking out for another neighbor. They develop a sense of 
community, and they develop a coordinated sense of goals among members 
of that community to protect each other. I have seen it work. I know it 
reduces crime, just as I know cops on the beat, community policing, 
work. And that is why this bill is so important.
  Some of these kids that I worked with I could not change. Others have 
gotten out of the projects, gotten through school, they are able to 
work, they have gotten a job because there was a lifeline, somebody who 
cared, a program that cared in a life where all they eat is fast food, 
have no adult supervision, they have no bed, many of them, at night, 
and are shuttled from place to place. They can go someplace where 
somebody cares, is willing to help them turn around their lives. That 
is what prevention is all about.
  I have been a mayor. I have used Federal moneys. I remember revenue 
sharing, block grants. I used them. I put $5 million in the police 
department, put $5 million in the fire department. Yes, it helped me 
balance a budget. It made our city safer. It hired new police officers.
  Two small additional points. First, I have heard on the floor earlier 
today that, ``Well, this does not fully fund 100,000 police officers.'' 
As mayor of San Francisco, I was under court order to develop a new 
wastewater system for the city which cost about a $1.5 billion and was 
not 100 percent funded by the Federal Government either. If I wanted 
that money, I had to produce local money to match it. That is not 
unheard of, not unreasonable.
  Second, the suggestion has been made that local jurisdictions will 
not be interested in matching funds. Well, that certainly was not the 
Justice Department's experience this year with $150 million in police 
supplemental hiring grants awarded. These grants, which were awarded 
according to the same matching requirements as the community policing 
money in the conference report before us, were amazingly popular. Fact: 
There were 10 times the number of applications for supplemental police 
grants by local communities for last year than there were dollars to 
make available.
  Everywhere I go in California, mayors and chiefs of police have said 
to me, ``I wish I could have gotten some of those moneys, we would have 
found our local match for those funds.''
  I respectfully submit to those who are holding this bill hostage that 
local jurisdictions will use these dollars; that they will fund these 
police officers; that it will increase response time to those ``A-
priority'' calls where it makes a difference sometimes between life and 
death, often between conviction and acquittal.
  Mr. President, youngsters are dying across this Nation. People are 
dying in their workplace. They are dying when they go to the automatic 
teller to deposit a check. They are walking down the streets of some of 
our proudest cities looking over their shoulder at who is behind them.
  Do you do it, Mr. President? I do it on occasion. I do it. I do it 
when I do not see a police car or a police officer and I know I am in a 
troubled area. I will walk down the center of that sidewalk and I am 
alert. I know who is behind me and who is to the side of me all of the 
time. We should not have to live this way in the freest Nation on 
Earth.
  This is the largest crime bill in the history of our Nation. It has 
been discussed and rediscussed. I must say to the minority, please, the 
time has come, let us pass this bill. And if, in fact, the unwritten 
agenda is not really your 12th point to strike the ban on assault 
weapons, agree to a unanimous consent resolution. Let us vote--50 votes 
or more--on assault weapons. Let us send it to the President, let us 
get it signed, and let us take it out of this picture. Otherwise, I 
must believe that part of the minority's agenda is to stop the United 
States of America from banning assault weapons.
  Mr. President, I believe very deeply that the time for passage of 
this bill has come, the most important piece of legislation of this 
session. If we can just vote on it, it will pass overwhelmingly. I ask 
for that up-or-down vote. Thank you.
  I yield the floor.

                               Exhibit 1

                Non-Death Penalties in Conference Report


                             gun penalties

       Semiautomatic Weapons (Sec. 401) Enhances penalties for 
     using, carrying semiautomatic weapon during federal crime of 
     violence or drug trafficking crime.
       Second Offense for Using or Carrying Explosives (Sec. 402) 
     Enhances penalties for second conviction for using or 
     carrying an explosive to commit any federal felony (current 
     enhancement--10 years).
       Smuggling Firearms (Sec. 403) Increases penalty for 
     smuggling a firearm into U.S. to violate a federal or state 
     drug trafficking law or to commit a crime of violence--up to 
     10 years.
       Theft of Guns and Explosives (Sec. 404) Provides up to 10 
     year penalty for stealing a firearm or explosive which has 
     moved in interstate commerce.
       Revocation of Supervised Release (Sec. 405) Mandates 
     revocation of supervised release and institution of prison 
     term for defendant who possesses drugs or firearm in 
     violation of condition of supervised release.
       Revocation of Probation (Sec. 406) Mandates revocation of 
     probation for possession of drugs, firearms.
       Lying on a Gun Application (Sec. 407) Increases penalty for 
     lying on a gun application from 5 to 10 years.
       Felons Possessing Explosives (Sec. 408) Prohibits felons, 
     drug addicts from possessing explosives.
       Explosives Destruction (Sec. 409) Authorizes the summary 
     destruction of explosives subject to forfeiture where the 
     explosives cannot be safely removed and stored.
       Prohibition Against Transactions Involving Stolen Firearms 
     or Stolen Guns (Sec. 411) Prohibits possession, receipt, sale 
     of stolen firearm, ammunition that has moved in interstate 
     commerce--up to 10 years.
       Using Firearm in Commission of Forgery (Sec. 412) Enhances 
     penalties for using or carrying a firearm in commission of 
     felony counterfeiting or forgery.
       Firearms Possession by a Violent Felon (Sec. 413) Enhances 
     penalties (depending on number of prior convictions) for gun 
     possession by defendant previously convicted of a violent 
     federal felony or serious drug offense.
       Receipt of Firearms by Nonresidents (Sec. 414) Prohibits 
     non-license from receiving firearm if not a resident of any 
     state unless for lawful sporting purposes.
       Firearms or Explosives Conspiracy (Sec. 415) Enhances 
     penalties for conspiracies to violate federal firearms, 
     explosive laws.
       Stealing Guns or Explosives from a Licensee (Sec. 417) 
     Provides up to 10 years for theft of firearm or explosive 
     from a licensee or permittee.
       Disposing of Explosives to Prohibited Person (Sec. 418) 
     Prohibits any person from transferring explosives to felon or 
     other prohibited person (current law forbids transfer by 
     licensees)--up to 10 years.
       Interstate Gun Trafficking (Sec. 420) Increases penalty for 
     interstate gun trafficking--up to 10 years.
       Drive by Shooting (Sec. 208) Up to 25 years for shooting 
     into group of 2 or more to further or escape from major 
     federal drug offense.
       Adult Prosecution of Juvenile Offenders (Sec. 614) Expand 
     category of federal offenses for which juveniles may be 
     prosecuted as adults to include receiving a gun with the 
     intent to commit a felony; traveling interstate to get a gun 
     with intent to commit violence, drug trafficking crime; 
     transferring a gun knowing that it will be used in a 
     crime.\1\ Directs court to consider extent to which juvenile 
     played leadership role in an organization, or otherwise 
     influenced others to take part in criminal activities in 
     deciding whether to transfer to adult status.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \1\Senate bill also included drug possession as transferable 
     crime--mark deletes.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


                             drug penalties

       Using Kids to Sell Drugs (Sec. 615) Up to three-fold 
     penalty increase for using kids to sell drugs in ``drug 
     free'' zones.
       Drug Dealing in Public Housing (Sec. 616, Sec. 1503) 
     Increases penalties for dealing drugs near public housing.
       Drug Dealing in Drug-Free Zones (Sec. 1505) Enhances 
     penalties for dealing drugs in a drug-free zone.
       Drug Use in Federal Prison (Sec. 1506) Enhances penalty for 
     simple drug possession in federal prison or detention 
     facility.
       Smuggling Drugs into Prison (Sec. 1506) Enhances penalty 
     for smuggling drugs into federal prison or detention 
     facility.
       Drug Trafficking in Prisons (Sec. 1501) Mandates that 
     sentence imposed for providing or possessing drugs in prison 
     be served consecutively to any other drug sentence imposed.
       Selling Drugs at a Truck Stop (Sec. 1411) Enhances 
     penalties for drug-dealing near truck stops and rest areas.
       Cocaine Penalty Study (Sec. 3092) Requires Sentencing 
     Commission to submit a report on sentencing disparities 
     regarding crack and cocaine. (House)


                 Other penalties for violent offenders

       Three time Loser (Sec. 501) Life imprisonment for 3 
     convictions of serious violent felony or serious drug 
     offense. (House)
       Criminal Street Gangs Additional 10 year penalty for gang 
     member who commits federal drug crime or crime of violence 
     who has previous conviction (state or federal).
       Using Kids to Commit Crimes (Sec. 5130) Enhances penalties 
     for all crimes where defendant used a juvenile or encouraged 
     a juvenile to commit a crime.
       Repeat Sexual Assault Offenders (Sec. 3211) Doubles maximum 
     penalty for repeat sexual assault offenders (first offense 
     can be federal or state). (VAWA)
       Aggravated Sexual Abuse: Federal Penalties (Sec. 3212) 
     Directs Sentencing Commission to review and recommend 
     enhanced penalties for aggravated sexual abuse. (VAWA)
       Interstate Travel to Commit Spousal Abuse (Sec. 3321) 
     Creates new federal offense to travel interstate or to cause 
     someone else to travel interstate to intimate, harass, or 
     injure. (VAWA)
       Sex Offenses Against Victims Under Age of 16 (Sec. 3702) 
     Broadens definition of sex offense as the intentional 
     touching through clothing with intent to abuse, humiliate, 
     harass.
       Assaults Against Children (Sec. 301) Increases penalty for 
     simple assaults against a youth under 16; creates new penalty 
     for assaults against youth under 16 resulting in substantial 
     bodily injury. (House)
       Hate Crimes (Sec. 2409) Directs Sentencing Commission to 
     enhance sentences at least 3 levels for persons convicted of 
     hate crimes.
       Travel Act (Sec. 2906) (also see Sec. 617) Increases 
     penalty for interstate travel to commit violent crime in 
     furtherance of drug trafficking from 5 to 20 years.
       Federal Prosecution of 13-Year Olds as Adults (Sec. 1101) 
     Discretionary transfer for 13-year olds who commit assault 
     (with intent to commit murder or felony, with dangerous 
     weapon) murder, attempted murder and with gun: robbery, bank 
     robbery, aggravated sexual abuse, sexual abuse. (House)
       Assault (Sec. 2901) Increase penalties for assault of: 
     federal officer, foreign officials, official guests, within 
     U.S. maritime and territorial jurisdiction, Congress, Cabinet 
     or Supreme Court, and President and President's staff.
       Manslaughter (Sec. 2902) Increases penalty for involuntary 
     manslaughter on federal territory from 3 to 6 years.
       Conspiracy to Commit Murder for Hire (Sec. 2905) Broadens 
     the murder-for-hire statute to include conspiracy to travel 
     interstate to commit murder-for-hire.
       Addition of ``Attempt'' Offenses to Federal Robbery, 
     Burglary, Kidnapping, Smuggling, and Malicious Mischief 
     Statutes (Sec. 2969)
       Civil Rights Violations (Sec. 2903):
       Conspiracy against rights. Broadens criminal civil rights 
     conspiracy statute to punish kidnapping, aggravated sexual 
     abuse and attempted murder in connection with civil rights 
     deprivation--up to 10 years.
       Official deprivation of rights. Broadens criminal civil 
     rights statute to punish use or attempted use of dangerous 
     weapon, explosives or fire in official rights deprivation--up 
     to 10 years.
       Federally protected activities. Broadens criminal civil 
     rights statute to punish use or attempted use of dangerous 
     weapon, explosives or fire in deprivation of federally 
     protected activities, such as voting, serving as juror, or 
     joining labor organization--up to 10 years.
       Religious property/free exercise. Broadens statute to 
     punish use or threatened use of dangerous weapon in defacing 
     religious property or obstructing free exercise of religious 
     beliefs--up to 10 years.
       Fair Housing. Broadens Fair Housing Act to punish use or 
     threatened use of dangerous weapons or explosives or fire.
       Arson (Sec. 2907) Increases penalties for damage or 
     destruction of property by fire or explosives.
       Extension of Civil Rights Statute (Sec. 2911) Extends 
     protection of civil rights statutes to include all persons 
     (now limited to state ``inhabitants'').
       Crimes Against Elderly (Sec. 2002) Directs Sentencing 
     Commission to ensure increasingly severe punishment for 
     physical harm imposed on elderly victim; requires enhanced 
     penalties for violent second offenders.


                          terrorism penalties

       Failure to Depart (Sec. 5005) Increases penalties for 
     failing to depart or reentering the U.S. after an order to 
     deportation, to a maximum of 20 years.
       Alein Smuggling (Sec. 215) Increases penalties for alien 
     smuggling for profit.
       Counterfeiting U.S. Currency Abroad (Sec. 721) Extends 
     counterfeiting laws to acts committed overseas.
       Terrorist Felonies (Sec. 724) Enhances penalties for any 
     felony involving international terrorism.
       Weapons of Mass Destruction (Sec. 711) Outlaws use of 
     weapons of mass destruction against U.S., Americans 
     overseas--up to life; death penalty if death results.
       International Airport Violence (Sec. 719) Increases 
     penalties for acts of violence or destruction at 
     international airports--up to 20 years.
       Document Forgery (Sec. 712, Sec. 5124) Enhances penalties 
     for various offenses involving false documents for 
     immigration purposes to 10 years; 15 years if used for drug 
     trafficking; 20 years if used for international terrorism.
       Maritime Violence (Sec. 701) Up to 20 years for violent 
     acts against maritime navigation (e.g. forcible seizure, 
     property destruction, injury to person).
       Violence against Fixed Platforms (Sec. 701) Up to 20 years 
     for violent acts against fixed maritime platforms.


                         white collar penalties

       Mail Fraud (Sec. 2103) Broadens the mail fraud statute to 
     include use of private interstate carriers to commit fraud.
       Receiving Proceeds of Extortion or Kidnapping (Sec. 2941) 
     Provides up to 3 years for the knowing receipt of extortion 
     proceeds; up to 10 years for the transport or receipt of 
     ransom.
       Receiving Proceeds of Postal Robbery (Sec. 2942) Provides 
     up to 10 years for the knowing receipt of postal robbery 
     proceeds.
       Credit Card Fraud (Sec. 2102) Makes it an offense to: use 
     with intent to defraud another person's credit card; solicit 
     a person to offer credit card or sell information regarding 
     the same; show without permission a person's transaction 
     records.
       Insurance Fraud (Sec. 2101) Creates a new offense of 
     insurance fraud, including false statements, embezzlement, 
     and obstruction, with maximum penalty of 15 years.
       Computer Crime (Sec. 2601) Strengthens federal laws in 
     relation to hackers; prohibits transmission of programs to 
     cause damage to, or to deny the use of, a computer or system; 
     provides a civil remedy.
       Theft of Major Art Work (Sec. 2966) Prohibits and penalizes 
     the theft or procurement by fraud of any object of cultural 
     heritage held in a museum.
       Scams (Sec. 3901) Enhances penalties for telemarketing and 
     other fraud targeted at senior citizens.
       Animal Pests (Sec. 5105) Makes it a federal offense to mail 
     non-indigenous species.
       Interstate Wagering (Sec. 5109) Makes it a federal 
     violation to transmit in interstate commerce information for 
     the purpose of procuring a lottery ticket.


                        miscellaneous penalties

       Drunk Driving with Kids (Sec. 1602) Enhances penalties 
     imposed by state for drunk driving on federal lands if child 
     is in vehicle--up to 1 extra year; up to 5 extra years if 
     minor is seriously injured; up to 10 extra years if child is 
     killed.
       International Child Pornography (Sec. 824) Provides up to 
     10 years in prison for engaging or conspiring to engage in 
     sexually explicit conduct with minors outside the U.S.
       Crediting of Good Time (Sec. 5101) Amends 18 USC Sec. 3624 
     regarding release of prisoners to change the requirements for 
     violent criminals (serving sentences of more than one year 
     and less than life) to receive good time credit. Such 
     offenders may receive credit of up to 54 days for each year 
     served after the first year of the prisoner's sentence if the 
     Bureau of Prisons determines that the prisoner has displayed 
     exemplary compliance with disciplinary regulations.
       Trafficking in Counterfeit Goods (Sec. 2904) Increases 
     penalty for trafficking in counterfeit goods or services from 
     5 to 10 years; increases penalty for second offenders from 15 
     years to 20 years.
       Military Medals and Decorations (Sec. 3056) Amends 18 USC 
     Sec. 704 to provide a maximum punishment of one year for the 
     unauthorized wearing, manufacturing or selling of a 
     Congressional Medal of Honor (current punishment is up to 6 
     months); broadens the meaning of the term ``sells'' as 
     applied to Congressional Medals of Honor to include trades, 
     barters, or exchanges for value. (House)

  Mr. DODD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Moseley-Braun). The Chair recognizes the 
Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. DODD. Madam President, first of all, before she leaves the floor, 
let me commend our colleague from California for the eloquence of her 
remarks. More than anyone in this Congress, the distinguished Senator 
from California [Mrs. Feinstein], has been the leader on the assault 
weapons issue.
  Over the years, others have tried valiantly to deal with the issue of 
guns. As a child growing up, I recall in 1959 when my father was a 
freshman Member of this body offering the first gun control 
legislation. I think he got three votes. In those days, he was trying 
to ban the mail order of weapons.
  Some who are old enough may remember that in the back of Argosy Field 
and Stream magazine you could literally send away in the mail and get 
bazookas and rocket launchers and all sorts of surplus weaponry 
delivered to you.
  In fact, the weapon that was used by Lee Harvey Oswald in the tragic 
assassination of President Kennedy, the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, was 
acquired from a mail order house in Chicago.
  By 1968, after the tragic assassinations of President Kennedy, Martin 
Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy, my father's legislation became 
law and we were able to ban the mail order of weapons in this country. 
We then had legislation dealing with the Safe Streets Act, but it was a 
laborious fight.
  My father has been deceased now for almost 25 years, but were he 
alive today he would be very, very proud of the Senator from 
California.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the Senator.
  Mr. DODD. I might point out, Madam President, Connecticut is the 
single largest gun-producing State in the United States. So the issue 
of guns in Connecticut has not just been an issue of law and order. It 
has been a jobs issue. Colt Manufacturing goes back as a historic 
supplier of weapons for this country's military and we are very proud 
of that tradition as well as those of other manufacturers in our State.
  So when my father took on the issue of guns more than 30 years ago it 
was a lonely battle to try and inject some sanity into a process where 
literally children could apply or send away for a weapon in the mail 
and receive it.
  And I wanted just to express my gratitude to the Senator from 
California for her untiring determination that we try and deal with the 
assault weapons issue. All this really does is try and take off the 
streets weapons that have no value or purpose for a hunter or a 
sportsman.
  A collector can make a case, I understand that, but the argument that 
somehow these weapons have value for those who engage in the legitimate 
sport of hunting just has no place, nor do I think anyone accepts or 
even buys the notion that they have value in that regard.
  So I commend her for her efforts, and I am very hopeful, as is she, 
that before very long, hopefully in the next several days, we will have 
an opportunity to vote on this issue and that we will be able to pass 
this crime bill, including the ban on these assault weapons. When that 
occurs, the American public, and particularly the people of California, 
will owe a deep debt of gratitude to their Senator.
  So I commend the Senator for her efforts.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the Senator.
  Mr. DODD. Madam President, I want to take a couple minutes, if I may, 
in this debate just to try to maybe lower the temperature a bit here. I 
am very hopeful we are going to get to a vote on this issue. But I 
would just observe, Madam President, that the shrillness of this debate 
is not helping anyone in this body. I do not think that the impression 
of this body is necessarily being advanced by the finger pointing that 
is going on. I do not think people really care or understand the 
minutia of some of these debates on points of order and procedures and 
details, motions of one kind or another.
  They would like us to do the right thing. I think they believe that 
there is a legitimate problem in the streets of our country, not just 
in urban America but in suburban and rural America, that there is a 
significant problem with crime. They have identified that for us. I 
think regardless of where one lives or what State one represents that 
message comes through loud and clear.
  I am hopeful that in the next day or so we can vote on this package 
that has been the subject of debate now for almost the entire 2 years 
of this Congress. A lot of work has gone into this bill. It is not 
merely the product of people who sit on this particular side of the 
Chamber who have the label of Democrat associated with their name. Much 
of what is in this bill, much of what is good that is in this bill, 
sprang from the ideas and thoughts of our colleagues on the other side 
of the aisle, those who wear the label Republican.
  I do not believe we are necessarily endearing ourselves to our 
constituents who do not think of themselves first and foremost as 
Democrats or Republicans or independents or whatever other political 
party or association with which they may identify. They think of 
themselves first and foremost as Americans, and they see this as a 
problem they would like to have us do something about.
  I think the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Biden, 
Senator Hatch, and many others who have been involved have put together 
a good bill. It has its flaws. It has its shortcomings.
  But in my 14 years as a Member of this body, Madam President, I have 
yet to see a bill that satisfied everyone or that was perfect in every 
regard or that did not include some extraneous material from time to 
time. One can make a case that we ought not to have any such matter in 
any bill that comes before us, but each and every one of us at one time 
or another has been guilty of including extraneous matter in a bill 
that we have asked our colleagues to support. And so I do not think we 
collectively advance or enhance our own reputations by engaging in a 
debate that has little or nothing to do with how most people feel in 
this country which is that we should try to get something done.
  So my hope is in these next few days we can come to a vote on this 
issue. We have had a lot of debates and compromises and conferences, 
and I think we probably glaze over the eyes of most of our constituents 
when we engage in that kind of rhetoric.
  Again, I would say to my Republican colleagues--and I see the 
distinguished minority leader has come to the floor--that some of the 
best aspects of this crime bill originated on the other side of the 
aisle, and I think those colleagues take great pride in the authorship 
of these ideas.
  My experience is, Madam President, you do not get anything done in 
this Chamber, in this body, unless it is done in a bipartisan way. I do 
know from time to time we would like it to be otherwise, but in every 
piece of major legislation that I have been associated with I have had 
a major Republican cosponsor.
  When it was child care, my major cosponsor was Senator Hatch of Utah, 
and I never would have passed that bill without his involvement and his 
participation. On family and medical leave, had it not been for Kit 
Bond of Missouri and Dan Coats of Indiana and people like John Chafee 
and others, we never ever would have passed family and medical leave 
legislation. I think it is probably true, if people were to go back and 
look at some of the major issues before this Congress, particularly 
before this body, the Senate, that in order to get something done you 
have to work together. That is how it happens around here. The rules in 
effect almost require it because of how we are organized and how we are 
set up to function.
  So again I just want to take a moment, Madam President, to try to 
bring us back to a sense of getting something done. Now, points of 
order will be raised, whatever. I think we probably should have them 
raised, let people express their views on various issues--as has 
happened over the past couple days--and then move on. I think the bill 
would pass if we had an up-or-down vote.
  The bill is changed, no question about it. The conference report 
added money. Again, change in conference is not a unique experience 
around here. If it were an unprecedented action, I could understand the 
concern. But my experience is that this is the nature of a conference 
and what happens when the House and the Senate meet to resolve 
differences. Someone once said if the Congress did not exist, we would 
have fist fights in its place. Hopefully, Congress is a place where you 
can resolve some of the natural conflicts that our constituents feel 
and move forward.
  So I hope today that we will move forward on this bill with an up or 
down vote. Also, I would just honestly say that if I could write a 
crime bill, I might just have a one-page bill that made a block grant 
and sent the money back to our municipalities and States and let them 
figure out what they would do with it. I have heard people lecture here 
day in and day out what ought to be done. I honestly believe most of 
our police departments do not need to be lectured by their Senators and 
Congressmen. They go out every day and do a pretty good job under tough 
circumstances to defend our lives and our property.
  To listen to some here from time to time, you would think that the 
localities did not know what they were doing and needed to be told by 
their elected representatives how they ought to be doing their 
business. Obviously, my proposal is not going to happen. Nonetheless, I 
believe we might have a considerable amount of success in reducing 
crime if we would just give our communities the resources they need to 
get out and get the job done.
  Second, I would point out--I realize this may be a minority view here 
in the Senate--I do not think the problem is quite as bad as some have 
suggested. In fact, the statistics show that crime rates overall are 
coming down. The problem is that we are seeing an explosion among young 
people in criminal activity. That is serious. It is almost impossible 
to turn on the nightly news anywhere in America and not have as the 
lead story some act of violence that has occurred in our communities. 
So whether it is a typical event or not, it is indelibly burned in our 
minds that this is something going on everywhere, all the time, in 
growing numbers.
  In fact, statistics show that overall crime rates are coming down in 
certain areas. But with certain types of crime there is an increase. We 
ought to pay attention to the latter. We ought to try to deal with the 
real problems.
  I happen to believe that our police departments and our communities 
are doing a lot of good things. But as all of us know, the media does 
not report about planes that fly, they only report about the ones that 
do not. The fact is that there are people out there doing a good job 
every day in mentoring programs for young people: Boys Clubs, Girls 
Clubs, Police Athletic Leagues, and the like are making a difference. 
We do not hear much about them because they are working. We hear only 
about the stories that do not work, examples of violence.
  The headline in the New York Times this morning about the tragic 
shooting in the subway of that city yesterday captured our attention. I 
am trying to keep this in perspective, and have some sense of 
proportionality about it that is important.
  I again emphasize that I hope we do the right thing, and pass this 
bill. I think our instincts were pretty good several months ago when 
this body, by an overwhelming vote of 94 to 5, I believe it was, passed 
the Senate version of the crime bill. It went to conference. Some 
changes have been made. I think improvements have been made in the 
bill, that are without any question not to the satisfaction of 
everyone. I would like more prevention, I suppose, in the bill, than 
others would have supported. But I am satisfied that the conferees have 
done a pretty good job.
  I have confidence in my colleagues that they do the best they can 
under the circumstances. They do not always get what they want. But 
that is the nature of our business. If we all insisted upon getting 
exactly what we wanted, we would never get anything done. Politics is 
the art of compromise. Most of the people who serve in this Chamber, 
regardless of label or political party, understand that and are darned 
good at compromise, are good citizens, and are strong patriots.
  My hope is we will remind ourselves of that particular part of our 
business, to engage in the art of compromise--that is what I think must 
be done here--and move on with this bill and try to address some of the 
other pressing problems that we face in our country.
  So my hope is we will have a vote on this, that we will not spend 
hours and hours pointing fingers at each other, screaming and yelling 
back and forth as to who cares more or less. I think all of us care 
about this issue. We all would like to help our constituents back home. 
We have gotten the product now that has been delivered to us, a product 
in which many, many people--Republicans and Democrats--have had more 
than ample opportunity to express their views and ideas. I think now is 
the time to act, and we should do so.
  My hope is the rhetoric will come down and that we will lower the 
temperature here a bit and get about the business of casting our votes 
and allowing--as the majority leader said this morning--the Senate to 
express its will either to support or to defeat this conference report 
on the crime bill. That is what our constituents want us to do. They do 
not want us to engage interminably in a debate that just loses them 
when we start talking about the arcane procedures of this institution. 
Act either positively or negatively, but please act and decide. That is 
what we were sent here to do. I think we ought to do it sooner rather 
than later.


                           ORDER OF PROCEDURE

  Mr. DODD. Madam President, I see the distinguished Republican leader. 
I want to take a few minutes on another subject, if I may. I will sit 
down if the Republican leader has some pressing issue to talk about. I 
will just take 5 minutes, and ask unanimous consent to speak as if in 
morning business. I apologize to my colleagues for breaking the flow of 
the debate. I want to take a few moments to address the issue of Cuba.

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