[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 141 (Monday, October 3, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION AMENDMENTS OF 1994--CONFERENCE 
                                 REPORT

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senate will now resume 
consideration of the conference report accompanying H.R. 6, which the 
clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       Conference report accompanying H.R. 6, an act to extend for 
     6 years the authorizations of appropriations for the programs 
     under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, and 
     for other purposes.

  The Senate resumed consideration of the conference report.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the majority 
leader.


                           Order of Procedure

  Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, the measure now before the Senate is the 
conference report on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. It has 
passed both the Senate and House in its original form and then the 
conference agreement between the two bodies has been passed in the 
House. The measure is now back before the Senate for the final action 
necessary before it goes to the President for his signature to become 
law.
  At a meeting I had with the distinguished Republican leader earlier 
today, I inquired of the Republican leader whether the Senate would be 
permitted to proceed to consideration of that matter and a vote on that 
matter or whether our Republican colleagues would filibuster so as to 
prevent a vote from occurring and so as to require the filing of a 
motion to invoke cloture and end the filibuster.
  If that is to occur, I notified the distinguished Republican leader 
that my intention would be to file such a cloture motion today so that 
a vote on that motion, that is to say, a vote to end the filibuster, 
would occur under the Senate rules on Wednesday morning.
  I was advised by the Republican leader that a response to my question 
would be made shortly after the Senate convened on that and one other 
matter, which I will take up for discussion after this.
  I note the presence of the distinguished Senator from North Carolina 
in the Chamber, I assume acting on behalf of the distinguished 
Republican leader, and I therefore inquire through the Chair of the 
distinguished Senator from North Carolina whether it will be possible 
for us to proceed and have a vote on the Education Act or whether it 
will be necessary to file cloture as I have previously requested.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from North Carolina is 
recognized.
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, it will be necessary for the Senator to 
file the cloture motion.
  Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for his response. I 
regret the response very much. But I appreciate at least knowing the 
situation.
  Mr. President, a similar conversation occurred between myself and the 
distinguished Republican leader at the same meeting on the bill S. 349, 
the Lobbying Disclosure Act and gift reform legislation.
  As with respect to the education bill, this measure passed both the 
House and Senate in original form, then went to a conference of the two 
bodies. The conference reached agreement. That conference agreement has 
now been passed by the House and is to come before the Senate for final 
action prior to going to the President for his signature and enactment 
into law.
  I inquired of the distinguished Republican leader at our meeting a 
short time ago whether our Republican colleagues would permit us to 
proceed to that measure and to vote on it or whether that, too, would 
be the subject of a Republican filibuster, which seeks to prevent the 
Senate from voting on the measure and which, therefore, would require 
us to file a motion to invoke cloture and end the filibuster.
  I note the presence in the Chamber of the distinguished Senator from 
Georgia. I assume he is here acting on behalf of the Republican leader. 
Therefore, through the Chair, I inquire of the distinguished Senator 
from Georgia whether our Republican colleagues will permit us to 
proceed to vote on the Lobbying Disclosure and Gift Reform Act or 
whether there will be a filibuster, which will require us to file 
cloture?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Georgia [Mr. 
Coverdell], is recognized.
  Mr. COVERDELL. My response to the majority leader is that from 
colleagues on our side of the aisle, in reference to the changes that 
were made in conference, it will be necessary for the majority leader 
to file the cloture motion.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
  Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, I thank my colleague. I regret that 
answer as well, but I appreciate receiving it.
  I just say to the Members of the Senate we now have pending a 
Republican filibuster on a nomination to head the Federal Deposit 
Insurance Corporation. We have pending a Republican filibuster on the 
nomination of a judge to serve on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
  We now have pending before us a Republican filibuster on the 
California Desert Protection Act. We now have before us a Republican 
filibuster on the Education Act, and a Republican filibuster on the 
Lobbying Disclosure and Gift Reform Act.
  I have been here 15 years, and I cannot recall a time when we have 
had five measures and five different matters, one nomination to an 
executive position, one nomination to a Federal court, one 
environmental measure like the Desert Protection Act, one education 
bill, and one Lobbying and Gift Reform Act, all of which are subject to 
filibusters at the same time. I regret these actions. But I will simply 
say to the Senator that we hope very much to complete this session of 
the Congress as soon as possible. But we are not going to leave until 
we get action on these measures. One way or the other the measures will 
have to be disposed of, whatever time it takes in that regard.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. HELMS addressed the Chair.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the Senator 
from North Carolina, [Mr. Helms].
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I listened with fascination and admiration 
to the comments of the Senator from Maine because he always attempts to 
put his side in the best light. He does not disclose the other side of 
what he is talking about. I have been here 22 years. He has been here 
less than that, and he is amazed by the number of filibusters.
  What I am amazed about is the reckless way in which the conferees 
have destroyed the effect of bill after bill after bill that have 
passed the Senate. In the case of the Education Act, if the conferees 
to the Goals 2000 Act had not destroyed a Senate provision approved by 
an overwhelming vote with reference to school prayer I would not be 
here today.
  But in House and Senate conferences conducted today, little slick 
deals are made to a degree I have never seen before in my 22 years in 
the Senate, and, of course, those of us unfairly victimized by those 
deals are going to object to them.
  If the distinguished majority leader wants to rush this bill through, 
I will make a proposition to him. Let us put in the prayer amendment 
approved 75-22 by the Senate last February 3 and send it back to the 
conferees. And when they have done that, the bill can pass, I am sure. 
But I do not want to hear a whole lot about a filibuster on this and a 
filibuster on that because a lot of high jinks have gone on that have 
precipitated the filibusters, as he calls them. I call it extended 
debate, and that is one of the fundamental underpinnings of the U.S. 
Senate.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. MITCHELL addressed the Chair.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, just so there can be no misunderstanding 
by any member of the American public, the Constitution requires any 
bill before becoming law to pass both the House and the Senate in 
identical form. It is a commonplace event. Indeed, it happens on almost 
every bill that the House and Senate pass a bill not in identical form. 
Some provisions in the Senate are included that are not in the House 
bill and vice versa.
  So the mechanism which is set up to reconcile them and meet the 
requirements of the Constitution is to have a conference between the 
House and Senate in which the differences are resolved and a single 
bill is agreed upon.
  I have been in the Senate 15 years, and for 6 of those years the 
Republicans were in control. It was a regular event then that a bill 
would pass the Senate, and then it went to conference and the 
conference report came back in a form different from the Senate bill. 
Indeed, common sense tells you that if both Houses insisted that a bill 
never be changed after once being adopted in that body, then no 
legislation would ever be enacted.
  So my colleague used the phrase high jinks to suggest some 
impropriety or something underhanded about the fact that a conference 
report coming back to the Senate for final action is not identical to 
the bill which passed the Senate. But as he well knows, as we all well 
know, that happens with respect to almost every bill, and I daresay it 
happened on many, many bills which were passed when Republicans were in 
control of the Senate, and, if we check the record close enough, 
probably some bills that the Senator from North Carolina introduced.
  Obviously, every Senator has a right to insist that his or her 
provision be included in the bill, and, if it is not, vote against the 
bill, speak against the bill, and do what is possible to defeat the 
bill. And the Senator from North Carolina is exercising that right.
  But no one should be under the illusion or the misimpression that 
there is something unusual about that or different about that or 
underhanded about that. That is the common procedure. The two bodies 
pass bills, and almost always they are not identical. They go to a 
conference. Each side makes compromises. That is the only way you are 
ever going to get agreement. And the bill comes back from conference in 
a form usually different from that which passed either House, which is 
in the nature of a compromise.
  So what we have here is an education bill. Some Senators. Do not like 
some provisions in it. They have a perfect right to oppose it. And if 
they want to filibuster, they have a perfect right to do that. That is 
what is happening. We have been told that this bill is not going to get 
to a vote in the Senate unless we can get 60 votes to end the 
filibuster, and we will find out on Wednesday morning whether or not 
there are 60 votes to end the filibuster.
  But I just want to make it clear before we get to the other 
filibuster that is now pending before us that no one should think there 
is anything happening here that is unusual. A provision which one 
Senator wants and another Senator does not want may or may not be. That 
is the normal practice.
  Mr. HELMS addressed the Chair.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from North Carolina 
[Mr. Helms].
  Mr. HELMS. Nor should anyone be under the illusion that there is no 
high jinks going on. We will debate this thing fully in the hours and 
days to come. But I am sure the majority leader may remember that this 
prayer amendment dispute occurred early this year, and it culminated on 
March 25, just after midnight March 25, when the majority leader in 
collaboration and in coordination with the Senator from Massachusetts 
dropped a prayer amendment that had been overwhelmingly approved by the 
Senate, and which had also been overwhelmingly approved by the House. 
However, despite the 75-22 vote in the Senate and the 367-45 vote in 
the House, the conferees wrote entirely new language--not voted on by 
either body--and put it in the Goals 2000 conference report.
  That is the argument, and I reject the majority leader's suggestion 
that I do not know anything about the rules and this is all commonplace 
and happens all the time. When I first came to the Senate, conferees 
did not ignore the will of overwhelming majorities in both Houses very 
often. It is now commonplace. I will say again that if the majority 
leader is willing to put the prayer amendment as adopted by the U.S. 
Senate back in, and send it back to the House, which has already voted 
for it overwhelmingly--not once, but twice--he has a deal. But I do not 
want to be lectured by the majority leader in terms of what the Senate 
has done and what the Senate should do. Senators have a perfect right. 
But we have more than that. We have an obligation to stand up for what 
we think is the proper way to legislate.
  Mr. MITCHELL addressed the Chair.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
  Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, I do not think we need prolong this 
discussion any further. But I surely did not state or suggest that the 
Senator from North Carolina does not know anything about the rules. In 
fact, I believe just the opposite. He knows the rules very well, and 
has used them very skillfully to delay and obstruct legislation over a 
long period of time. [Laughter.]
  Mr. HELMS. There he goes again.
  Mr. MITCHELL. So I certainly do not believe that.
  Finally, just so the record is clear and the fact is not omitted from 
this discussion, as the Senator in North Carolina knows, the provision 
that was passed in the House was not passed as part of this legislation 
as the Senator well knows.
  One could infer from his comments--and I know, of course, he would 
not intend to say anything that would create that impression--that both 
parties acted on the same measure in the same legislation. My 
understanding is that that was not the case. It was acted on separately 
in the House and included as part of the legislation in the Senate, and 
the conferees agreed to something different. He has a right to 
filibuster, as he is doing. We will have the vote, and if 60 or more 
Senators think we ought to pass education, we will; if 41 or more think 
we ought not to pass it, then we will not.
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I am perfectly willing to let the majority 
leader have the last word, but we will have the last word Wednesday, 
one way or the other.
  Mr. SIMON addressed the Chair.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Illinois is 
recognized.
  Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, If I can make a couple of comments in 
connection with the dialog. First, it should be pointed out that the 
prayer amendment offered by my friend from North Carolina--and he is my 
friend--was defeated in this body 53 to 47, so that there is no 
misunderstanding on that. That is what my staff advises me, and I see 
the Senator from North Carolina shaking his head.
  Mr. HELMS. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. SIMON. I am pleased to yield.
  Mr. HELMS. The House never approved the Kassebaum language, did they?
  Mr. SIMON. To my knowledge, the House did not.
  Mr. HELMS. That is correct. They did not, and that is the point.
  Mr. SIMON. We are not in disagreement as to what has happened. 
Second, I say to my colleagues in the Senate that any right and 
privilege that is abused is eventually going to be lost. And we are, in 
my opinion, abusing the right of the filibuster.
  The filibuster ought to be used rarely, in extreme cases, and then we 
ought to stand up and fight. I reserve the right to use that on some 
occasion. I have been here now since 1985, and I have never used it. 
But I reserve the right to use it. But real candidly, if we faced a 
vote right now that you only need 55 votes to stop debate instead of 
60, I believe I would support it, because I have seen so much abuse of 
the filibuster.
  The filibuster should be an occasional tool that is used to protect 
the public when sometimes, in a rush of judgment--this body and the 
other body moved to impose an answer on the railroad strike, like Harry 
Truman once wanted us to do, and Robert Taft, to his great credit, 
stood up and said you should not do this, and he started a filibuster. 
It should be rarely used.
  I think we are headed, with overuse of the filibuster, of eventually 
losing this particular privilege in the U.S. Senate.
  Mr. HELMS addressed the Chair.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from North Carolina is 
recognized.
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, let me reiterate that I was referring to 
the Senate-passed prayer language to the Goals 2000 Act when I made the 
remark I did, which Senator Kennedy, the distinguished Senator from 
Massachusetts, arranged to have dropped prior to Easter. That is the 
reason we stayed in until midnight on the evening of March 25. That 
language was passed by the Senate by a 75-to-22 vote. The House passed 
a motion to instruct their conferees to the Goals 2000 bill to accept 
the Senate prayer amendment by a vote of 367 to 45. But Senator 
Kennedy, with a wink and a nod, arranged to have it dropped in 
conference.
  School prayer, I would remind the Chair, and anybody else who may be 
listening, is approved of by 75 to 80 percent of the American people, 
by every poll that I have seen. So I agree with my friend from Illinois 
that we ought to protect the interest of the people. That is precisely 
what I am doing here. School prayer should be a matter of law right now 
but for the act of one Senator, the Senator from Massachusetts.
  Again, the Senate voted 75 to 22 for the amendment offered by the 
distinguished Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Lott], and the Senator from 
North Carolina. The House vote on the motion to instruct the House 
conferees to accept the Helms-Lott language on the Goals 2000 bill was 
367 to 45. The House then followed up by voting 345 to 64 to attach the 
same amendment to this bill. And the conferees on this bill dropped it 
again.
  I do not want to hear any more about a minority tying up the Senate 
or the House. Speak to the conferees and speak to Senator Kennedy, who 
is the one who obstructed a piece of legislation--not once, but twice--
that ought to be in this bill. Had he not acted as he did, it would be 
in the bill and the bill would already be passed.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. RIEGLE addressed the Chair.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Michigan is 
recognized.
  Mr. RIEGLE. Mr. President, we are facing a cloture vote at 6 o'clock 
tonight on the Tigert nomination to the FDIC. I rise now to put that 
issue before the Senate and make an opening statement. I know Senator 
Murray wishes to speak on our side, and I hope we can be recognized in 
an alternating manner once I have completed.
  I know the Senator from Alabama needs a moment or two because he has 
had a former colleague pass away. So I will yield for the purpose of 
his statement, without losing my right to the floor.
  Before I do that, I yield to the Senator from New York.
  Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, if I might make a suggestion to the 
manager, if we could, after the completion of my good friend's 
statement, agree that we would divide equally the time between now and 
6 o'clock and, therefore, have that vote at 6 o'clock. I ask unanimous 
consent that we agree to that format.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Mr. RIEGLE. That sounds reasonable to me. I ask the floor staff to 
check with the majority leader to see if there is any reason that it is 
not acceptable. There has been no time used yet.
  I do not object. I think it is a worthwhile suggestion. I ask that 
the clock start the minute the Senator from Alabama has had the chance 
to make his comment.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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