[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 5 (Tuesday, January 10, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S707-S727]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONGRESSIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY ACT
The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.
vote on amendment no. 8 to amendment no. 4
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now
vote on amendment No. 8 offered by Mr. McConnell of Kentucky to
amendment No. 4 offered by Mr. Ford of Kentucky.
On this question, the yeas and nays have been ordered, and the clerk
will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia [Mr.
Rockefeller] is necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
who desire to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 55, nays 44, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 6 Leg.]
YEAS--55
Abraham
Ashcroft
Bennett
Bond
Brown
Burns
Campbell
Chafee
Coats
Cochran
Cohen
Coverdell
Craig
D'Amato
DeWine
Dole
Domenici
Faircloth
Frist
Gorton
Gramm
Grams
Grassley
Gregg
Hatch
Hatfield
Helms
Hutchison
Inhofe
Jeffords
Kassebaum
Kempthorne
Kyl
Lieberman
Lott
Lugar
Mack
McCain
McConnell
Murkowski
Nickles
Packwood
Pressler
Roth
Santorum
Shelby
Simpson
Smith
Snowe
Specter
Stevens
Thomas
Thompson
Thurmond
Warner
NAYS--44
Akaka
Baucus
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Bradley
Breaux
Bryan
Bumpers
Byrd
Conrad
Daschle
Dodd
Dorgan
Exon
Feingold
Feinstein
Ford
Glenn
Graham
Harkin
Heflin
Hollings
Inouye
Johnston
Kennedy
Kerrey
Kerry
Kohl
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Mikulski
Moseley-Braun
Moynihan
Murray
Nunn
Pell
Pryor
Reid
Robb
Sarbanes
Simon
Wellstone
NOT VOTING--1
Rockefeller
So the amendment (No. 8) was agreed to.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which
the amendment was agreed to.
Mr. LEAHY. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the situation is that we are now on the
Ford amendment, as amended by the McConnell amendment. Then we have, I
believe, four other amendments that can be voted on immediately, if the
authors of those amendments are done with their discussion, and I hope
the authors of those amendments are done with discussion.
I would like to ask the Democratic manager if we can move forward
then on the Ford amendment for adoption of the amendment by voice vote.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the Ford amendment,
and I would ask that we go to the Wellstone amendment.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, the pending business is the Wellstone
amendment?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The pending question is the Ford amendment.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we lay aside
the Ford amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
[[Page S708]]
AMENDMENT NO. 9
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, now the pending amendment is the Wellstone
amendment?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I do not want to get into a quarrel with my
good friend from Minnesota.
I indicated on the Senate floor that there will be gift ban
legislation, as well as lobbying reform legislation. I do not know
precisely the date. I would hope that the majority leader, in effect,
gives his word to our colleagues; or the minority leader gives his word
to our colleagues on this side of the aisle, and that they would accept
that in good faith.
I just think that this sense-of-the-Senate amendment does not add
anything. We believe there should be gift ban legislation. We may want
to make some changes. We are in the process of looking at lobbying
reform, gift ban. I would hope that my colleague from Minnesota would
not press the amendment. If he insists, I would have no alternative but
to move to table the amendment. I indicated last week, and I think the
Senator from Kentucky, Senator McConnell, indicated we will be doing
perhaps not precisely what the Senator from Minnesota may wish, but if
not, he can amend it when it comes to the floor. I wish he would at
least express enough confidence in us in the first week that we do keep
our word.
If I fail to do that, I certainly would not quarrel with coming back
again with another amendment. I do not see any real purpose in pursuing
this. In the interest of time, if the Senator persists in the
amendment, I move to table and I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I wonder whether I could just respond
for a brief moment to the majority leader.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator withhold his request?
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I withhold my request.
Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the majority leader.
Mr. President, first of all, I very much appreciate what the majority
leader said. This morning I did make it clear that I knew the majority
leader had made a commitment to bringing this up and talked about May
31 being the original date that we wanted this to be effective.
I take the majority leader's word very seriously. I think he is a
leader of his word. Second of all, I know that the majority leader had
said last week that there would be some additional work that might be
done. This does not spell out the specifics of what the comprehensive
gift ban legislation would be, but it says we should consider it no
later than May 31.
I want to make it clear that I have no quarrel with the majority
leader whatever. This amendment is not about that. What this amendment
is, is an amendment to put the Senate on record. Since I have been
working on this for several years I just thought it would be important
for the Senate to be on record essentially confirming what the majority
leader has said. That way I know as a Senator that we will all be
behind what the majority leader has already proposed.
I would like to have in that spirit, not in a personal quarrel
whatever, a vote on this, and I would hope that the majority leader
would support me. I think we are all in agreement. It just puts the
Senate on record behind what the majority leader has already
recommended.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Minnesota.
Again, it is our intent to try to move as quickly as we can. I am not
certain about any date. I am not certain it will be May 31. It could be
before, maybe after May 31. It does seem to me that we should be given
that opportunity. If we do not produce something around May 31,
obviously, the Senator from Minnesota and a number of others, some on
this side, would be offering maybe the same amendment.
In view of the fact that we have not had any hearings on it this
year, we have new Members of the Senate, I think they will all support
a gift ban.
I might add, I would rather be given some latitude in setting the
agenda and setting when we might schedule this for debate.
Therefore, I move to table the amendment and I ask for the yeas and
nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion to
lay on the table the amendment of the Senator from Minnesota.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia
[Rockefeller] is necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Abraham). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 55, nays 44, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 7 Leg.]
YEAS--55
Ashcroft
Bennett
Bond
Brown
Burns
Chafee
Coats
Cochran
Cohen
Coverdell
Craig
D'Amato
DeWine
Dole
Domenici
Dorgan
Faircloth
Frist
Gorton
Gramm
Grams
Grassley
Gregg
Hatch
Hatfield
Heflin
Helms
Hutchison
Inhofe
Jeffords
Kassebaum
Kempthorne
Kyl
Lieberman
Lott
Lugar
Mack
McCain
McConnell
Murkowski
Nickles
Packwood
Pressler
Roth
Santorum
Shelby
Simpson
Smith
Snowe
Specter
Stevens
Thomas
Thompson
Thurmond
Warner
NAYS--44
Abraham
Akaka
Baucus
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Bradley
Breaux
Bryan
Bumpers
Byrd
Campbell
Conrad
Daschle
Dodd
Exon
Feingold
Feinstein
Ford
Glenn
Graham
Harkin
Hollings
Inouye
Johnston
Kennedy
Kerrey
Kerry
Kohl
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Mikulski
Moseley-Braun
Moynihan
Murray
Nunn
Pell
Pryor
Reid
Robb
Sarbanes
Simon
Wellstone
NOT VOTING--1
Rockefeller
So the motion to lay on the table the amendment (No. 9) was agreed
to.
Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, may we have order. I cannot hear, and I am
in the front row.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will come to order.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. GLENN. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to lay aside the
Ford amendment and then move to consideration of the Leahy amendment
and hopefully to vote on it immediately.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, could we have order.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will please come to order.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there any objection to the request?
Mr. LEAHY. What was the request? I did not hear the request, Mr.
President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. LEAHY. I have no objection.
Mr. GRASSLEY. I yield the floor.
Mr. LEAHY addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I will make this very brief. I think most
Members are in the Chamber, and I know they want to get to a vote. In
20 years here, I can count on how they might vote.
I would really urge Senators to think carefully about voting to
table. This is basically saying that we are not going to allow
ourselves to set up the kind of political litmus test that nobody in
private business would be allowed to do. This does not stop any Senator
from saying I do not want to hire somebody because I do not feel
ideologically compatible with him or her.
But what it is saying is when you go and just put your people into a
general overall pool of available staff members you do not have to go
down through the kind of things that asks you to rate everything from
the American Civil Liberties Union and Common Cause to the National
Rifle Association and
[[Page S709]]
United Nations, rate everybody from Al Gore to Bob Dole as the study
committee's grading was. Can you imagine if somebody at IBM was saying
before we even consider your application where do you stand with the
Sierra Club or the National Rifle Association, or where do you stand
with Planned Parenthood or with Right to Life? There would be a hue and
cry.
We should not do the same thing here. It is an outrageous mistake.
But if we are going to apply the same laws to ourselves as is applied
to everybody else, they should be so applied.
I told my good friend from Iowa I would be brief. I yield the floor.
Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Ford
amendment be set aside to provide time for this vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is
so ordered.
Mr. DOLE addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Abraham). The majority leader.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, it may be that the Leahy amendment has a
great deal of merit. Let me say again that the House passed this bill
after 20 minutes of debate by a vote of 429 to zero. This is our fourth
day on this same bill to cover Congress as we cover every other
business in America. And I do not quarrel with that we have not raised
any objection to any amendments or taken too much time. No cloture has
been filed or anything of that kind. It may be that sometime later this
year when we get around to congressional reform there would be an
appropriate amendment.
But I hope that my colleagues will join me in tabling the amendment
at this point so we can finish this bill without amendments. This may
be a good amendment. I am not going to pass judgment on it because I
have great respect for the Senator from Vermont. But since I do not
fully understand it and I am not certain how many others do, since we
will have congressional reform legislation before us, I move to table
the amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion of
the Senator from Kansas to lay on the table the amendment of the
Senator from Vermont.
On this question, the yeas and nays have been ordered, and the clerk
will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia [Mr.
Rockefeller] is necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Abraham). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber who desire to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 79, nays 20, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 8 Leg.]
YEAS--79
Abraham
Ashcroft
Baucus
Bennett
Biden
Bingaman
Bond
Bradley
Breaux
Brown
Bumpers
Burns
Byrd
Chafee
Coats
Cochran
Cohen
Coverdell
Craig
D'Amato
DeWine
Dodd
Dole
Domenici
Dorgan
Exon
Faircloth
Feinstein
Frist
Gorton
Graham
Gramm
Grams
Grassley
Gregg
Hatch
Hatfield
Heflin
Helms
Hollings
Hutchison
Inhofe
Jeffords
Kassebaum
Kempthorne
Kerrey
Kerry
Kyl
Lautenberg
Lieberman
Lott
Lugar
Mack
McCain
McConnell
Mikulski
Moseley-Braun
Moynihan
Murkowski
Nickles
Nunn
Packwood
Pressler
Pryor
Reid
Robb
Roth
Santorum
Shelby
Simon
Simpson
Smith
Snowe
Specter
Stevens
Thomas
Thompson
Thurmond
Warner
NAYS--20
Akaka
Boxer
Bryan
Campbell
Conrad
Daschle
Feingold
Ford
Glenn
Harkin
Inouye
Johnston
Kennedy
Kohl
Leahy
Levin
Murray
Pell
Sarbanes
Wellstone
NOT VOTING--1
Rockefeller
So the motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which
the motion was agreed to.
Mr. GLENN. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Amendment No. 10
Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Ford
amendment be once again set aside and that we proceed to vote on the
Kerry amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I will be moving to table the Kerry
amendment. Before I do so, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized for
1 minute.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is
so ordered.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I discussed with Senator Kerry my support
for his amendment. I expressed earlier my support for Senator Kerry's
amendment. It is exactly similar to legislation that I proposed last
year. It is legislation and very important reform that must be
addressed by this body and addressed this year, in my view. I believe
that the amendment will be tabled. If it is not brought up in a
reasonable length of time, I will join in cosponsoring this legislation
in the future with Senator Kerry.
Accordingly, Mr. President, I move to table the Kerry amendment, and
I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a
sufficient second
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion of
the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain) to table the amendment of the
Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry). The yeas and nays have been
ordered and the clerk will call the roll
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia [Mr.
Rockefeller] is necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. (Mr. Santorum). Are there any other Senators
in the Chamber who desire to vote?
The result was anounced--yeas 64, nays 35, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 9 Leg.]
YEAS--64
Abraham
Ashcroft
Bennett
Bond
Breaux
Brown
Burns
Chafee
Coats
Cochran
Cohen
Conrad
Coverdell
Craig
D'Amato
DeWine
Dole
Domenici
Dorgan
Exon
Faircloth
Frist
Gorton
Gramm
Grams
Grassley
Gregg
Hatch
Hatfield
Helms
Hollings
Hutchison
Inhofe
Jeffords
Johnston
Kassebaum
Kempthorne
Kerrey
Kyl
Leahy
Lieberman
Lott
Lugar
Mack
McCain
McConnell
Moynihan
Murkowski
Nickles
Nunn
Packwood
Pressler
Roth
Santorum
Shelby
Simon
Simpson
Smith
Snowe
Stevens
Thomas
Thompson
Thurmond
Warner
NAYS--35
Akaka
Baucus
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Bradley
Bryan
Bumpers
Byrd
Campbell
Daschle
Dodd
Feingold
Feinstein
Ford
Glenn
Graham
Harkin
Heflin
Inouye
Kennedy
Kerry
Kohl
Lautenberg
Levin
Mikulski
Moseley-Braun
Murray
Pell
Pryor
Reid
Robb
Sarbanes
Specter
Wellstone
NOT VOTING--1
Rockefeller
So the motion to table the amendment (No. 10) was agreed to.
Mr. GRASSLEY. I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. GLENN. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, is the Ford amendment the pending business
now?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. It is.
Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be
temporarily set aside to permit Senator Bingaman to bring forth his
amendment, which I believe is going to be agreed to.
Mr. GRASSLEY. And the amendment is taking the place of the Levin
amendment. Bingaman for Levin.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
[[Page S710]]
Amendment No. 12
(Purpose: To express the sense of the Senate regarding adoption of
simplified and streamlined acquisition procedures for Senate offices
consistent with the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994)
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask
for its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from New Mexico [Mr. Bingaman], for himself and
Mr. Levin, proposes an amendment numbered 12.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of
the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
At the end of title V add the following:
SEC. 508. SENSE OF SENATE REGARDING ADOPTION OF SIMPLIFIED
AND STREAMLINED ACQUISITION PROCEDURES FOR
SENATE ACQUISITIONS.
It is the sense of the Senate that the Committee on Rules
and Administration of the Senate should review the rules
applicable to purchases by Senate offices to determine
whether they are consistent with the acquisition
simplification and streamlining laws enacted in the Federal
Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994 (Public Law 104-355).
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise to offer an amendment for myself
and Senator Levin that I believe is acceptable to both sides. I thank
the distinguished managers of the bill, Senator Grassley and Senator
Glenn, and the distinguished chairman and ranking member of the Senate
Rules Committee, Senator Stevens and Senator Ford, for this assistance
with this amendment.
Last year, Congress enacted a bipartisan bill to put an end to
antiquated and expensive procurement rules that governed the way
Federal agencies buy goods and services. The Federal Acquisition
Streamlining Act of 1994, spearheaded by the distinguished Senator from
Ohio, Senator Glenn and the distinguished Senator from Delaware,
Senator Roth, repealed or modified more than 225 outdated laws. The
goal of the legislation was simplification, and much to the credit of
Senators Roth and Glenn, it is being realized today.
Already, dozens of Federal agencies are changing the way they do
business. They are functioning like cost-conscious private businesses,
getting rid of old rules that, more often than not, led to ``spending
millions to save thousands and thousands to save hundreds.''
In the Senate, our offices may not spend millions to save thousands,
but I would bet that we often spend ``hundreds to save tens'' and
``tens to save pennies.'' Take my office in Santa Fe, NM, for example.
When my staff runs out of staples, how do they purchase refills? The
logical, economical course of action would be to run over to
Woolworths, only two blocks way. But under our interpretation of
current Senate regulations, they cannot do that. Senate rules prohibit
it. Instead, my New Mexico staff must call my office here in
Washington; a member of my staff here must make a purchase from the
Senate; then he or she must ship the staples to Santa Fe. The cost of a
$1.50 box of staples just rose to at least $10.
The same antiquated and expensive rules apply to purchases of paper,
envelopes, pens, clocks, computers, and teleconferencing equipment--
virtually everything a small office needs to function day-to-day. I
believe it is time to put an end this costly practice.
S. 2, which is before us today, provides the ideal opportunity.
Today, while we are taking action to make other laws applicable to the
legislative branch, we should do the responsible, economical thing and
make the cost-saving goal of the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act
applicable to the U.S. Senate.
My amendment would help us accomplish this task in a short and
straightforward manner. The amendment simply expresses the sense of the
Senate that the Senate Rules Committee should review rules applicable
to purchases by Senate offices to determine whether they are consistent
with the acquisition simplification and streamlining laws enacted in
the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994.
I believe this amendment will help bring simplified, cost-effective
purchasing procedures to all Senate offices. In the end, everyone from
Senate staff to America's working families will benefit from the cost-
savings we can achieve. Again, I thank the distinguished managers of
the bill, and the distinguished chairman and ranking member of the
Senate Rules Committee for their assistance with this amendment.
Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. GRASSLEY. I compliment the Senator from New Mexico for his
amendment. It is an amendment that is acceptable to us both from the
standpoint of its substance and it will not jeopardize our bill as far
as avoiding conference and all the other things we have been trying to
do by not amending this bill with nongermane amendments.
Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I compliment the Senator from New Mexico. I
know he has worked on the 800 panel as part of the Senate Armed
Services Committee, the work we did on that procurement bill. It was
about 3 years in the making. I think that should be applied here. I
think the procurement bill was an excellent bill, and its provisions
can well be applied here. I am glad to accept it on our side.
Mr. FORD addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I, too, compliment the distinguished Senator
from New Mexico for his amendment. As ranking member of the Rules
Committee, I pledge to him that we will move forward to try to give him
the kind of answers I think he wants and I support. So I pledge to him
we will attempt to get this out to the Senator in a reasonable length
of time.
Mr. BINGAMAN. I thank the Senator.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. If there is no further debate, the question is
on agreeing to the Bingaman amendment.
So the amendment (No. 12) was agreed to.
Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. GRASSLEY. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, what is the pending business?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question occurs on the Ford amendment.
Amendment No. 13 to Amendment No. 4
(Purpose: To apply to the legislative branch the requirements regarding
use of frequent flier awards for official travel that are established
in the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994)
Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment in the
second degree to the Ford amendment and ask for its immediate
consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Ohio [Mr. Glenn] proposes an amendment
numbered 13 to Ford amendment No. 4.
Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the
amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
At the end of the amendment add the following:
(d) Applicability to Legislative Branch.--
(1) The requirements of section 6008 of the Federal
Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994 (5 U.S.C. 5702 note)
shall apply to the Legislative branch, except that the
responsibilties of the Administrator of General Services
under such section shall be exercised as prescribed in
paragraph (2).
(2) The responsibilities of the Administrator of General
Services under section 6008(a) of the Federal Acquisition
Streamlining Act of 1994 shall be exercised, with respect to
the Senate, by the Committee on Rules and Administration,
with respect to the House of Representatives, by the
Committee on House Oversight, and, with respect to each
instrumentality of the Legislative branch other than the
Senate and the House of Representatives, by the head of such
instrumentality. The responsibilities of the Administrator of
General Services under section 6008(c) of such Act shall be
exercised, with respect to each instrumentality of the
Legislative branch other than the Senate and the House of
Representatives, by the head of such instrumentality.
(e) Exercise of Rulemaking Powers.--The provisions of this
section that apply to the House of Representatives and the
Senate are enacted--
(1) as an exercise of the rulemaking power of the House of
Representatives and the Senate, respectively, and as such
they shall be
[[Page S711]]
considered as part of the rules of such House, respectively,
and such rules shall supersede other rules only to the extent
that they are inconsistent therewith; and
(2) with full recognition of the constitutional right of
either House to change such rules (so far as relating to such
House) at any time, in the same manner, and to the same
extent as in the case of any other rule of each House.
Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, my amendment would apply to the legislative
branch the same principles on frequent flier programs that Congress
adopted last year in section 6008 of the Federal Acquisition
Streamlining Act of 1994.
That procurement act was worked on for about 3 years here, as I
mentioned just a few moments ago in referring to Senator Bingaman from
New Mexico. Part of that bill provided that frequent flier miles would
not accrue to the benefit of the individual in the executive branch but
would come back to the Government for the Government's use. In other
words, you could not have taxpayer-supported travel and then have a
rebate apply for that individual.
So the purpose of my amendment, like the purpose of the underlying
Ford amendment, is to save taxpayer money.
Now, the use of frequent traveler programs is to reduce the cost of
official travel, not to accrue to the personal benefit of somebody.
Last year's legislation on this subject contained three key
provisions. First, guidelines must be issued to ensure that Federal
agencies promote and facilitate the use of frequent traveler programs
for the purpose of realizing cost savings for official travel.
Under my amendment, such guidelines would be issued for the Senate by
the Senate Rules Committee, for the House of Representatives by the
Committee on House Oversight, and for each congressional
instrumentality by the head of the instrumentality.
Second, last year's law states that frequent traveler awards accrued
through official travel shall be used only for official travel, not
personal travel. My amendment would clarify that this principle applies
not only to the executive branch but also to the legislative branch of
Government.
Third, like last year's law, my amendment would require the head of
each congressional instrumentality to report to Congress on efforts to
promote the use of frequent traveler programs.
The bill before the Senate, Mr. President, S. 2 is called the
Congressional Accountability Act. Nothing could be a more critical part
of congressional accountability than this amendment. It would require
us to abide by the same principles that we have enacted last year in
the act to ensure that Members and staff will not convert our frequent
flier awards to personal use and will instead use these awards to
reduce the costs to the taxpayer.
So I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent to enter into the Record
at the end of my statement the provision in the procurement act of last
year which I send to the desk. Section 6008 of the procurement bill of
last year, entitled ``Cost Savings for Official Travel'' is a short
section. It describes exactly how the administration, the executive
branch will ``issue guidelines to ensure that agencies promote,
encourage, and facilitate the use of frequent traveler practice
programs offered by airlines, hotels, and car rental vendors by Federal
employees who engage in official air travel, for the purpose of
realizing to the maximum extent practicable cost savings for official
travel.''
It is difficult for me how to see anyone can oppose that, but
opposition we have had all during the consideration here in the
Chamber. I am sorry to see that because I think this is something that
needs to be done to restore confidence, particularly in the House of
Representatives where they do not follow the same rules that we do in
the Senate. I send that to the desk and ask that it be printed at the
end of my statement.
There being no objection, the material ordered to be printed in the
Record, as follows:
SEC. 6008. COST SAVINGS FOR OFFICIAL TRAVEL.
(a) Guidelines.--The Administrator of the General Services
Administration shall issue guidelines to ensure that agencies
promote, encourage, and facilitate the use of frequent
traveler programs offered by airlines, hotels, and car rental
vendors by Federal employees who engage in official air
travel, for the purpose of realizing to the maximum extent
practicable cost savings for official travel.
(b) Requirement.--Any awards granted under such a frequent
traveler program accrued through official travel shall be
used only for official travel.
(c) Report.--Not later than one year after the date of the
enactment of this Act, the Administrator shall report to
Congress on efforts to promote the use of frequent traveler
programs by Federal employees.
SEC. 6009. PROMPT RESOLUTION OF AUDIT RECOMMENDATIONS.
Federal agencies shall resolve or take corrective action on
all Office of Inspector General audit report findings within
a maximum of six months after their issuance, or, in the case
of audits performed by non-Federal auditors, six months after
receipt of the report by the Federal Government.
Mr. GLENN. I yield the floor.
Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the first vote that we had today, and it
was the first vote this afternoon, we voted 55 to 44 for the McConnell
second-degree amendment to the Ford amendment.
I suppose there are several reasons we voted that way, but the
argument that was used very successfully in debate yesterday by Senator
McConnell of Kentucky was comity between the House and Senate whereas
through this legislation and this amendment we should not be as a body
of the Senate making rules for the House of Representatives. They have
the constitutional right and power to adopt their own rules. They
generally do not attempt to tell the Senate how we should fulfill our
constitutional responsibility in setting up the rules of the Senate. I
do not find any fault with the goal that either Senator Ford or Senator
Glenn are trying to accomplish through their respective amendments. The
McConnell amendment has modified the Ford amendment so it just applies
to the Senate.
Even though there is a different approach by Senator Glenn, the end
result is exactly the same; that if the Glenn amendment is adopted,
even though it does not mention the House of Representatives, the
practical impact is, for the Senate to tell the House of
Representatives what they can do in their rulemaking on the subject of
frequent flier miles.
As I indicated, as a body, we decided earlier this afternoon, 55 to
44, not to do that. I hope we will stand by the same decision we made
earlier this afternoon and that we will defeat Senator Glenn's
amendment. I think that for the benefit of the public the House of
Representatives has made a determined effort to assure the public that
they are going to make a decision on their frequent flier miles
situation later on this year. We should defer to their judgment, as we
would hope they would defer to our judgment and not tell us how to run
the U.S. Senate.
So I hope that as people come to vote on this amendment in a short
period of time, they realize that this is a rerun of the McConnell
substitute to the Ford Amendment and, likewise, this substitute should
be defeated.
Mr. FORD addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I understand the reasoning--I do not accept
it--for defeating this amendment. We are not talking about a House rule
or a Senate rule. We are talking about law. We will have in the law a
restriction of the Senate and no restriction of the House.
The Senate, some years ago, decided that when the taxpayers were
paying your air fare and you were a frequent flier--and most of us
are--and you accumulated those frequent flier miles, and that belonged
to your office. As the rules say, it is Government money, but it
applies to your office, so you could use those frequent flier miles to
reduce the cost to your office and therefore reduce the cost to the
taxpayer.
In the House, they have allowed the Congressmen to use the frequent
flier mileage for personal use. So they were receiving a personal perk
at the expense of the taxpayer dollar. All we are saying here is that
we ought to be treated alike, and that the House should not, by rule,
as my distinguished colleague from Iowa has said, change. But it is not
a matter of law, unless they put it into a piece of legislation. It
will be statutory. So if you make a rule, you change a rule.
[[Page S712]]
So what I think we need to do is to listen to Senator Glenn. As he
says, let us see if we cannot, by the very fact of reducing the cost of
our tickets to our district or to our State, because we would not
receive the so-called frequent flier mileage--and then our tickets
would be reduced and it would be the same. He is not asking that we do
it. As I understand it, he is asking that we have a study and make a
recommendation, and then the Rules Committee will make the rule that
will apply, which would be statutory.
And so, Mr. President, it is all right if you use the theory that the
House does not tell us how to run our business and we should not tell
them how to run theirs. But the House has told us how to run our
business on more than one occasion. We are just coming out of the way
we keep our books, because it was imposed upon us by the House. It was
not done by the Senate, it was done by the House.
If we are going to let this one slide and all those on the other side
are going to be opposed to restricting the use of taxpayer dollars for
personal perks, then I think the more things change around here, the
more they stay the same. If those new Senators that come into this body
after they ran their campaign on trying to say we are going to
straighten the place out and we are going to try to take the
Congressmen and Senators' hands out of your pocket, regulations off
your back, and our hands out of your pocket, here is one glowing way
you can say, ``I am keeping my campaign pledge'' or, ``No, I am not, I
am going to let them go ahead and take this perk off the taxpayers.''
So the streets of hell are paved with good intentions. What if they
put it into a bill, a rules change, or make it statutory, and it is a
bill that does not pass the Senate. They keep on building up these
frequent flier miles and can use them personally. There are a lot of
things.
As the majority leader said--and I take him at his word--if this bill
passes the Senate as it is--and apparently all the amendments to it are
going to be tabled or defeated--then the House will accept this
legislation without a conference, pass it, and send it to the President
for signature. So we have missed a grand and glorious chance of doing
what is right.
If the House, as they say, is going to do it anyhow, why should they
object? Why should they object to putting it in this bill that they are
going to pass and send on to the President? I do not think it is very
good cover saying that we want the House to make their own decision and
the Senate to make their own, when over the years we have both made
decisions that applied to each body. Some were far more significant
than this, but has no more imagery, no more moral underpinning than
this one amendment.
So we are going to apply it to the Senate statutorily, and the House
eventually will get around to a rules change, or maybe put it into a
piece of legislation. So I have to say to you that my dad always told
me, ``Son, never underestimate the insignificant.'' Never underestimate
the insignificant. This is an insignificant, little amendment. But it
says a volume. It says a volume. Are we going to stop the use of
taxpayer money for personal use? No. We will for ourselves, but nobody
else. And so if the House is going to do it, why not do it here?
Mr. President, it is hard for me to understand. Just this week, or
last week, we voted that we did not want to have lobbyist reform or
gift ban proposals here. And those that were vehemently for lobbyist
reform and gift bans came out and said, ``We do not want Democrats
setting the agenda for us. We want to put in our own bill.'' If that is
cover not to vote for lobbyist reform or gift ban, that is still a weak
reed. So that is No. 2 this week. That is No. 2 that we have had to
vote on. You have looked back, and never underestimate the
insignificant. Pretty soon, the insignificant is going to be three, and
it is going to be four, and it is going to be five. And we have just
started. We are not 10 days old and already that pledge out there and
beating of the chest and coming back here and saying what you are going
to do--working all night on the House side--is going to be for naught.
I am for this. I think it is the right thing to do. I was for it a
long time ago. Unfunded mandates I offered to you 6 years ago at $50
million, the same figures. Did I get any takers? No. Five years ago,
did I get any takers? No. Now it is one of the big deals. Unfunded
mandates. I have been a Governor, and I understand how this egg is
never going to be put back together once we scramble it and give the
States unfunded mandates. It goes on and on, and it is going to eat us
all up, and we are going to be back here trying to reconsider that,
because I have had to endure under what Congress does. We pass a bill
here and the bureaucrats do not speak. They then legislate it.
We are going to have a balanced budget amendment. That is going to
pass, but then we, after it passes, will pass legislation to implement
it. What is going to be an emergency? I think we are moving too fast
and there ought to be some thought given to the fabric that we are
weaving here that is going to be a tremendous problem down the pike.
So we have had two votes, and there may be a third one before the day
is over. There may be a fourth one. But let me remind my friends, never
underestimate the insignificant. This is insignificant, and you are
going to have to pay for it one of these days when you do not want to
do what is right. I hope my colleagues will reconsider this. This is
the right thing to do. It is not the wrong thing to do. The only excuse
is that we want the House to set their own rules. And this is not a
rule; this is statutory. When you put it into the statutes, then you
have to take it out. A rule is a lot easier to change.
Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to reconsider their position and
look at what Senator Glenn offered here. It makes a great deal of
sense.
I yield the floor.
Mr. GLENN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I do not accept it that this is all just a
House matter for this reason: I, as a U.S. Senator from Ohio, have to
vote on appropriations for the House. Every Senator here has to do
that. I vote those appropriations now, knowing full well that part of
their cost of transportation back and forth comes back in the form of
frequent flier miles, and that does not come back to the Government; it
does not inure to the Government or accrue to the Government's benefit,
as in the Senate and in the executive branch. It comes back to the
individuals. So we appropriate more money here to let the House have
their freebies to take families on vacations, fly wherever on their use
of frequent flier miles, bought and paid for with taxpayer dollars.
I think we ought to remember around here, when all else fails, that a
vote on just plain what is right or wrong is in order. The way they are
doing it over there now is wrong. This is a smokescreen that it does
not make a difference to the Senate. It does, because we have to
appropriate the dollars to help them have their freebies. If I rose
here and said I am putting in an amendment here that says I want
freebies for everybody, not just the House, let us expand it and put
the Senate back on the freebies, and the executive branch, and run
several million dollars of additional expense through appropriations to
accommodate all this so we can take our families everywhere the House
is able to take theirs. People would think I was nuts, and they would
be right.
But yet we try to do the opposite and say we are trying to save
taxpayers' money, and we get ridiculed and voted down repeatedly. So I
do not mind bringing this up for another vote.
We see rebates not only on the airlines with frequent flier miles, we
see these things once in a while that if you stay 5 days or 4 days in a
certain hotel, I saw advertised in New York, you get a free weekend--
Friday, Saturday--with you and your wife and family, whatever. So we
have those rebates.
We have some of the rental car companies where, if you rent so many
days in a row, you get a freebie or two. Why should that not come back
in cash? If we are getting back frequent flier miles and using them
ourselves, why should we not say if Hertz gives a Government discount,
why do I not pay the full fare and we want a kickback in cash? That
would be a kickback we would never condone, and we should not.
[[Page S713]]
So I think, when it comes down to it, it is just a matter to me of
what is right and what is wrong. And the way the House is doing their
business on this right now is just flatout wrong.
Mr. President, I do not know whether anyone else wishes to speak, but
I ask for the yeas and nays on this amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to
be a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, might I inquire of the Senator from
Iowa and the Senator from Ohio whether or not they intend to take a
vote on this amendment right now. If not, I would like to go ahead with
an amendment. I have been waiting on the floor for a number of hours.
If so, I wonder if I could ask unanimous consent that after the vote,
my amendment be then up on the floor.
Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I might respond to my distinguished
colleague from Minnesota that I am ready to vote right now. I do not
think anybody else is prepared to speak. I am prepared to vote right
now.
Mr. BINGAMAN. May I just ask the Senator from Ohio a question when
the Senator from Minnesota has completed his question?
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, if it is OK with my colleagues--as the
Senator from Iowa knows, I have been trying to move things along--I ask
unanimous consent that, after the vote, I be able to then offer an
amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request? Hearing no
objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, if I may just ask the Senator from Ohio,
as to this whole issue of frequent flier miles and all, I have
difficulty understanding the disagreement that exists. As I understand
it, you are talking about a public property here, which is these so-
called frequent flier miles that have been accumulated with taxpayers'
dollars being converted to personal use. I always thought that was
against the law to take public property and convert it to personal use.
I do not understand why we are having to pass laws on this issue. I
did not realize that it was just a question of which rule you wanted to
adopt. I always thought it was against the law to take public property
and convert it to private use.
Am I missing something?
Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I do not think the Senator is missing
anything. We are trying to correct that loophole in the law with this
amendment and with the underlying amendment by the Senator from
Kentucky [Mr. Ford]. This would close that loophole so the House could
not misuse what I view, just as the Senator from New Mexico says, as
public property.
Mr. BINGAMAN. I thank the Senator.
Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I move to table the amendment of the
Senator from Ohio.
Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to
be a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion of
the Senator from Iowa [Mr. Grassley] to table the amendment of the
Senator from Ohio [Mr. Glenn]. The yeas and nays have been ordered and
the clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia [Mr.
Rockefeller] is necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
who desire to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 54, nays 45, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 10 Leg.]
YEAS--54
Abraham
Ashcroft
Bennett
Bond
Brown
Burns
Chafee
Coats
Cochran
Cohen
Coverdell
Craig
D'Amato
DeWine
Dole
Domenici
Faircloth
Frist
Gorton
Gramm
Grams
Grassley
Gregg
Hatch
Hatfield
Helms
Hutchison
Inhofe
Jeffords
Kassebaum
Kempthorne
Kyl
Lieberman
Lott
Lugar
Mack
McCain
McConnell
Murkowski
Nickles
Packwood
Pressler
Roth
Santorum
Shelby
Simpson
Smith
Snowe
Specter
Stevens
Thomas
Thompson
Thurmond
Warner
NAYS--45
Akaka
Baucus
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Bradley
Breaux
Bryan
Bumpers
Byrd
Campbell
Conrad
Daschle
Dodd
Dorgan
Exon
Feingold
Feinstein
Ford
Glenn
Graham
Harkin
Heflin
Hollings
Inouye
Johnston
Kennedy
Kerrey
Kerry
Kohl
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Mikulski
Moseley-Braun
Moynihan
Murray
Nunn
Pell
Pryor
Reid
Robb
Sarbanes
Simon
Wellstone
NOT VOTING--1
Rockefeller
So the motion to lay on the table the amendment (No. 13) was agreed
to.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which
the motion was agreed to.
Mr. FORD. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I understand that the unanimous-consent
agreement was given to the Senator from Minnesota and that his
amendment would be brought up right after this particular vote.
It is my understanding now it will not be necessary to have a
recorded vote on my amendment. The Senator from Minnesota is willing to
allow us to proceed, provided he will be the next one up. If that is
agreeable to the leadership, we will proceed in that manner.
Mr. DOLE. If the Senator will yield.
Mr. FORD. I will be glad to.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I indicated to the Senator from Minnesota
that we have no desire to quickly move to table the amendment. We would
like to do the nomination of Robert Rubin, if we could, this evening.
We would like to accommodate both the Senator from Minnesota and the
Secretary-to-be Rubin. So hopefully we can work it out and still be out
of here by 7 o'clock.
Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment
of Senator Wellstone be set aside and that the Ford amendment be
considered by a voice vote or by unanimous consent, and at the end of
that then we go back and recognize the Senator from Minnesota.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is
so ordered.
Amendment No. 4, as amended
The PRESIDING OFFICER. If there is no further debate, the question is
on agreeing to amendment No. 4, the Ford amendment, as amended.
The amendment (No. 4), as amended, was agreed to.
Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the
amendment was agreed to.
Mr. GRASSLEY. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. GLENN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order of the Senate, the
Senator from Minnesota is recognized.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I will be pleased to yield to the
Senator from Ohio.
Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, just to clarify and help people in
scheduling, I believe there are two amendments left that might require
votes--those of Senator Wellstone and Senator Lautenberg. I do not know
how long it will take. Those are the only amendments left, just for the
guidance of Members.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, before I offer the amendment, could I
ask for order in the Chamber?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will please come to order. The
Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, first of all, let me thank the majority
leader for his willingness to work closely with us on the floor. I say
to the majority leader that there are some other Senators who would
like to speak that are with me, and I would like to get to those
Senators right
[[Page S714]]
away. We will try to not take up many hours, but we consider this to be
an important amendment, and we will try to do it within whatever
timeframe the majority leader talked about.
Mr. President, let me for my colleagues just briefly describe this
amendment. Then there are several Senators that are with me, certainly
the Senator from Connecticut, Senator Dodd, who is going to have to
leave, and I would like him to open up with some of our remarks.
This amendment is twofold. First of all, it reads:
It is the sense of Congress that Congress should not enact
or adopt any legislation that will increase the number of
children who are hungry or homeless.
I would like to repeat that, if I may, for the Chair and for my
colleagues. The amendment reads as follows:
It is the sense of Congress that Congress should not enact
or adopt any legislation that will increase the number of
children who are hungry or homeless.
Mr. President, the second part of this amendment has to do with the
duties of congressional committees. What this amendment says is that
each committee, as it considers any bill that affects children, will
have an accompanying report which will deal with the impact of that
legislation on children.
This is very consistent with some of the direction in which we are
going in the U.S. Senate. If we are going to talk about the impact that
legislation has on State governments or on county governments or on
corporations or businesses, then surely, Mr. President, we can also
talk about the impact that this legislation has on children within our
country.
I want to just give a few examples. Today, in Minnesota, there were
about 150 people, many of them children, many of them Head Start
mothers, I say to the Senator from Connecticut, a number of different
organizations, and the Children's Defense Fund, looking to the year
2002 and understanding what might very well happen in this country--
that is to say, that the cuts we make go the path of least resistance--
which spelled out what they are worried about.
As they looked at some of the projected cuts, they talked about
Minnesota 2002: 29,150 babies, preschoolers, and pregnant women would
lose infant formula and other WIC nutrition supplements; 31,350
children would lose food stamps; 154,600 children would lose free or
subsidized school lunch programs; 93,000 children would lose Medicaid
coverage.
Mr. President, I can go on, but the point I simply want to make
before yielding the floor to Senator Dodd is I come from a State that
has had a number of great Senators. I hope that if I work hard, I can
maybe just be a little bit as good as Hubert Humphrey. Seventeen years
ago, Hubert Humphrey said the test of a Government and the test of a
society is the way we treat people in the dawn of life--children--the
way we treat people in the twilight of their life--the elderly--and the
way we treat people in the shadow of their lives--those that are
struggling with an illness, those that are struggling with a
disability, and those that are poor or those that are needy.
I believe that this Contract With America takes us precisely in the
opposite direction. Surely there is a way that we can continue with
deficit reduction and not ride roughshod over children. Surely, we can
go on record in the U.S. Senate today, making it clear that it is the
sense of the Congress that we will not enact any legislation that will
increase the number of children who are hungry or homeless. And surely
today in this amendment, we can make it clear that we will do child
impact of our legislation to make sure that whatever we do does not
make more children homeless, does not make more children hungry; that
whatever we do supports our future, which is to support children in
this country.
I have much more to say about this amendment. I hope that the U.S.
Senate will go on record and support this amendment. But I would like
to yield the floor to Senator Dodd from Connecticut, who has been such
a leader in the U.S. Senate on children's issues.
Mr. DODD addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. DODD. I thank the Chair.
Mr. President, first let me commend our colleague from Minnesota,
with whom I have the pleasure and honor of serving with on the Labor
and Human Resources Committee, and who has been a tireless advocate on
behalf of children as a member of that committee. Let me again point
out and restate what the Senator from Minnesota is attempting to do
here.
This is an amendment that merely says that for those who are arguably
the most vulnerable in our society, those on whom we depend for the
success and future of this Nation, that as we consider all of the
financial implications of budgets and tax proposals, that we be ever so
mindful of these children. They have no other choices and no other
alternatives for their own success and survival than our willingness to
appreciate how vulnerable they are and our willingness to be supportive
of them.
There are a staggering number of statistics that indicate the
problems that younger Americans face in our society today. The child
poverty rate fell throughout the 1960's, falling from approximately 26
percent in 1960 to 13.8 percent in 1969. It is worthy to note that the
rate began rising again, to more than 20 percent, where it is today.
The trend lines are pointing in all the wrong directions. We are told
that if the current trends continue, almost 28 percent of children in
the United States will be living in poverty by the year 2010.
Now, you do not need to be a Ph.D. in sociology to appreciate what
the implications of that are for the generation coming along that have
to be the best-educated, best-prepared generation this Nation has ever
produced. We are going to be living in the most competitive global
environment that the world has ever seen, and we need to do everything
we possibly can to see to it that those younger Americans at least have
the opportunity to be well prepared.
Anyone will tell you as they look at these issues that a child who
lacks the proper nutrition in the earliest years of their development,
that is not getting the kind of care and start they need as they begin
those lives, then the likelihood they are going to be productive
citizens, good parents, independent people capable of taking care of
themselves and contributing to our society diminishes dramatically.
This amendment is not a Draconian amendment. It says that we should
at least consider these matters. I am tremendously sympathetic and a
supporter, I might add, of the unfunded mandate proposal. I think there
is a lot of value in that, looking at the implications in our
communities and in our States of the decisions we make.
In fact, in this very Chamber a year ago I offered an amendment which
required that we meet at least 30 percent of the obligation we promised
20 years ago for special education needs in this country. We only do it
to the tune of 7 percent today. And yet we made the commitment back in
the 1970's we meet at least 40 percent of that obligation. It is a
tremendous burden for our communities.
That amendment failed. Well, there is some hope with the unfunded
mandate approach, if we handle it properly, that we will be able to
step in and make a contribution to lessen the burden at the local and
State level. Can we not also say, at least for this one constituency,
for the children of our country, that we are going to examine the
implications of our decisions when it comes to basic things like
education, like nutrition, like child support?
It seems to me that is not a great deal to ask. If we are going to
examine the implications on a business from a regulatory scheme that we
adopt here, I think that is an appropriate and proper question to ask.
It should not take a great deal to at least come up with some rough
determination of what the implications are in a business. Is it too
much to ask, with the children of this country, the children of this
society, that we are going to consider as well what the implications
are for you?
I realize there is a wave afoot here and that we are all sort of in
lockstep in terms of how people are approaching amendments. This does
not mandate in a draconian or violent way at all. It just says that
Republicans and Democrats in this Chamber as we begin this new Congress
regardless of our ideology, regardless of our political persuasion,
understand the price we will pay as a Nation in this society if we do
not take into account what happens to the most vulnerable in our
society.
[[Page S715]]
So, Mr. President, I commend the Senator from Minnesota for proposing
this idea. I hope that people at least look at it and consider it. I
think it shows balance here, as we look at all these other issues, to
certainly take into consideration what happens to America's children.
Someday we are going to be held accountable as a generation as to what
we did, not in the face of ignorance but in the face of awareness and
knowledge of what was happening to a staggering number of our young
people.
The issue will be raised and the question asked: Well, you knew that.
What did you do? Did you at least try to take into account their needs
on the basic issues, on the basic issues of food and education, decent
housing, decent support for these young families and these young
children?
I hope, with the adoption of this kind of an amendment we can say at
least we tried to take that into account. There is no guarantee you are
going to do it. It does not say you have to. It just says that you are
going to be aware of it and you are going to listen to what the
implications are for these younger people.
So, Mr. President, I urge the adoption of the Wellstone amendment. I
think it would speak well for this body in the opening days of January
that for these children, particularly the children of these working
families out there that are struggling every day to make ends meet, we
are going to take into account their needs as well as in looking at the
implications on governmental bodies and on businesses, children also,
particularly the most vulnerable, will be considered as well.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. WELLSTONE. I wish to yield the floor in a moment to the Senator
from Arkansas.
First of all, let me thank the Senator from Connecticut.
As we speak about this amendment, I wish to try to talk some about
the state of children within our country because I think that is part
of the context of this amendment. Later on, I also want to talk about
this budget debate and what has been taken off the table and why it is
that so many people around the country are so frightened that in fact
what we are about to do is really cut children, the most vulnerable
citizens.
But please understand, I say to my colleagues, that every 5 seconds
in the United States of America a child drops out of school; every 30
seconds a child is born into poverty; every 2 minutes a child is born
to a woman who had no prenatal care; every 2 minutes a child is born
severely underweight; every 4 minutes a child is arrested in an
alcohol-related arrest; I think every 6 minutes a child is arrested in
a drug-related arrest; every 2 hours a child is murdered in our
country, and every 4 hours--this is devastating to me as a grandfather
and father--a child takes his or her life.
Mr. President, we cannot abandon children, and as a matter of fact I
think the ultimate indictment is when we do so. Either we invest in
children when they are young or we pay the price later.
I will have some very specific figures on hunger of children in the
United States of America a little later on as we go forward with this
debate, and I will also have some statistics on the fastest growing
homeless population, which are children. But I say to my colleagues the
arithmetic of what we could very well be doing with this contract on
America is very harsh; it is very mean spirited. We know what has been
taken off the table. Military contractors are not asked to make cuts.
Oil companies are not asked to make cuts. Coal companies are not asked
to make cuts. A whole lot of other corporations are not asked to
sacrifice at all. But we are going to cut nutrition programs for
children. We are going to cut programs that provide children with some
assistance so that they can have an opportunity.
Now, some of my colleagues say, no, we are not going to do that. This
is just simply trying to get people to panic. Senator Wellstone or
Senator Bumpers or Senator Moseley-Braun or Senator Dodd are just
exaggerating.
Mr. President, we can put all of that concern to rest, and we can go
on record tonight in the Senate that it is the sense of the Congress we
should not enact or adopt any legislation that will increase the number
of children who are hungry or homeless. We should be able to vote
``yes'' for that.
Mr. President, we can also adopt an amendment that says if we are
going to call for impact statements on legislation that affects
corporations and State governments and county governments, surely as we
move forward we can call for company reports that issue impact
statements as to how this affects children.
Mr. President, I yield the floor. I see the Senator from Arkansas.
Mr. BUMPERS addressed the chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, first of all, I commend the author of
this amendment, my good friend, Senator Wellstone, for the
thoughtfulness of his amendment. It may not be perfectly worded.
Oftentimes, we understand the thrust of amendments that come up in the
Chamber at times like this, even though they are not worded quite
precisely. What we ought to do now is to vote for this amendment
because we know what the intention is and what the thrust is. We can
worry about the precise language in conference.
Mr. President, shortly we are going to be taking up the unfunded
mandates bill. I have very serious reservations about that bill. I do
not want to debate it. I think the thrust of that bill is probably
good. But I think it needs a lot of work.
We have been voting today largely along party lines. Virtually every
vote has been a motion to table voted for by the Republicans and, for
the most part, voted against by Democrats. That is understandable. But
if there is one amendment on this bill that Republicans and Democrats
ought to join hands on it is this one.
The Senator from Minnesota proposes that if we are going to pay the
cities and the counties and the States for any obligation we put on
them, surely we must also agree not to enact legislation, the effect of
which is going to increase the number of homeless and poor children in
this country. Surely, we can all agree nobody in this body wants that.
Mr. President, everybody in this Chamber has his own view as to what
happened on November 8--not a happy day for the people on this side of
the aisle. Not to offend my colleagues on the other side, I could give
a half dozen reasons that I think are very legitimate on why people
voted against Democrats, not for Republicans.
I do not believe there is a person in America who believes Government
is too big, too unwieldy, and too expensive, due to food stamps for
hungry people. I take the position that food stamps, aid for dependent
children, maternal and child health, Medicaid, medical leave are
valuable programs. Some people would have you believe that these
programs were enacted by the Congress willy-nilly. They were not. They
were debated. Committees considered those proposals thoughtfully.
The Chamber of Commerce and Rotary Club back home did not want me to
vote for a medical leave bill. But I happen to have spent 6 weeks with
my daughter in Boston Children's Hospital, 2,000 miles from my home.
Betty and I talk about it a lot. We were not wealthy, but what if we
had been poor? We would not have been in Boston. I do not know. I might
have robbed a bank to get my daughter there. We were so fortunate
because all I had to do was go back home and open my law office, a one-
man, solo practice in a town of 1,500 people and start practicing law
again. If I had been out on the assembly line, I would not have had a
job to go home to. I daresay that while an awful lot of people in this
country took strong exception to the family and medical leave bill,
there are not 10 people in this Chamber who would undo this law right
now.
This country decided years ago we did not want a single one of our
children to go hungry, and that is the reason we have food stamps. We
decided we did not want a poor child to suffer for lack of medical
attention. That is why we have Medicaid. We decided we did not want
poor women having premature or disabled babies who require costly
treatment and frequently do not
[[Page S716]]
survive. That is why we provide prenatal care. And we provide school
lunches for children from poor families. Who here would undo that?
I was president of the school board in my city for 12 years. That was
the only thing I was ever elected to before I was elected Governor of
my State. I must say, I ran for Governor to get off the school board.
That is the worst job I ever had. I know how important school lunches
are. The school board struggled with that and tried to raise a little
money to improve the nutritional quality of those lunches.
The American people have every right to be mad, upset, disenchanted,
and to distrust Congress. It is trendy to do so. But I am telling you
that the people of this country do not want us to undo the programs
I've described. They do not want us giving the States block grants if
the effect is to increase hunger among our children.
In 1950, 27 percent of the people of this Nation over 65 years of age
lived below the poverty line. Since then we have reduced the poverty
rate among senior citizens to below 12 percent. We can pat ourselves on
the back and say Social Security and Medicare did it. Today, you talk
about Social Security and you talk about the third rail of politics.
Nobody would dare suggest cutting Social Security and Medicare. Why?
Because there are 40 million votes out there. You do not have to be a
rocket scientist to figure that one out either.
So how about our children? In 1950, the poverty rate among children
was 14 percent. At the same time we were reducing poverty among our
older citizens, the rate for children was growing dramatically to its
current level of 23 percent. Senator Dodd says it will be 28 percent by
the year 2010. Are we going to stand idly by and allow that figure to
come true? If we do not adopt an amendment like this, we could very
well see it. Everybody favors welfare reform. But when you get down to
the specifics of it, it gets very tenuous indeed.
Mr. President, I do not believe people want welfare reform in order
to make cuts that would devastate the most vulnerable among us, namely
our children. Here is a good opportunity for Republicans and Democrats
to show the American people that when it gets to some basic values, we
can indeed join hands and agree on something.
I yield the floor.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry. I never yielded
the floor. Do I retain the floor?
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ashcroft). The Senator cannot hold the
floor after having yielded to the Senator from Arkansas.
Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair. I wonder whether the Senator will
grant me a moment to thank the Senator from Arkansas. I just say to my
colleague from Arkansas that I deeply appreciate his remarks, and I
think, one more time, that this amendment is really an amendment that
will attract and should attract bipartisan support. This is an
extremely important message that we can convey today on the floor of
the Senate. I thank the Chair.
Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois is recognized.
Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, I want to
begin by congratulating and commending the Senator from Minnesota for
this initiative. I think that it is a classical initiative, one that is
certainly in keeping with the tradition of this body because really,
stripped to its essentials, this sense-of-the-Senate amendment simply
says that we in the Senate will do no harm. That is really, I think,
our fundamental mandate and fundamental charge as Members of this great
body.
As we discuss the change--the revolution, some have called it--the
reform that has come to the hill, I think we have to also be mindful,
as we speculate about the political ramifications, of why it happened
and what all is going on and what all this means. I think we have to be
mindful of the realities. We must never lose sight of the realities--
what is going on, putting aside the slogans and the politicization of
these issues, the reality. The fact is, as the Senator from Minnesota
pointed out, the most vulnerable Americans are really at this point the
most frightened, because the rhetoric seems to suggest that their
realities will be ignored in this debate, and that they will not be
factored in the decisionmaking as we rush headlong to begin to get some
fiscal discipline to balance the budget and as we address issues having
to do with the unfunded mandates, and the like.
The statistics cited by the Senator from Minnesota paint a grim, but
a very viable reality, and one that I think we must not lose sight of,
and one certainly that underscores the need for his sense-of-the-Senate
resolution. His back stop, the back stop this resolution suggests is
that we will do no harm to children, the most vulnerable people in our
society.
Mr. President, I am a supporter of the balanced budget amendment. In
fact, my senior Senator from Illinois, Senator Simon proposed a
balanced budget amendment--and I add parenthetically, since we have
talked about politics, that a Democrat suggested the balanced budget
amendment. When I campaigned for this office, I supported the balanced
budget amendment. I am also a supporter, with Senators Glenn and
Kempthorne, of the initiative having to do with unfunded mandates,
coming out of State and local government. I, frankly, resist the notion
that fiscal responsibility and responsibility in these areas is mean
spirited or has to be mean spirited, or that it will put at risk the
neediest people in our society and especially our children. I think we
can have fiscal responsibility, and I think we can and must achieve a
balanced budget. We must begin to address the whole issue of unfunded
mandates and the burden that puts on State and local governments, but
that we can do that in a way that elevates and does not diminish the
status of children in our society. That is the bottom line of the
resolution of the Senator from Minnesota.
So I support fiscal responsibility, and I suppose these initiatives
for the balanced budget and for the unfunded mandates proposition. I
also am a strong supporter of this amendment. I believe they are
logically consistent and that they are mutually compatible. I believe
we can do both.
I want to share with you for a moment--and I will not be much longer,
Senator Simon. I kind of jotted down a few notes I wanted to share with
my colleagues. I first ran for the Senate--and my colleagues on the
entitlement commission have heard this story, but it is significant to
me and to this debate. My decision to run for this office came in large
part based on a conversation I had with my son who was then 15 years
old. Matthew, after we discussed the great issues of our time, said to
me, ``You know, Mom, your generation has left this world and country
worse off than you found it.'' Well, that was like a dagger to the
heart, the notion that my generation had not kept faith and done what
we were supposed to do in our stewardship of the affairs of this
country. So it was for that reason that I have supported efforts to get
on an even keel, to put our fiscal House in order, to be responsible in
terms of the allocation of responsibilities between State and local
government.
I believe that this issue is so important, and so important a
statement for us to make who are supportive of fiscal responsibility,
precisely because we are talking about what really comes down, and if
you look at the numbers and the realities again as opposed to the
emotional hot button, they tell us that we are talking about less than
1 percent of our budget.
We really are not talking about an awful lot of money, if you will,
in the grand scheme of things. If we are talking about entitlement
spending, discretionary spending, really, over all, the amount that is
allocated and devoted to children and children's needs is not all that
great.
And so the question comes: Why can we not make a strong statement
that we believe we are going to not only protect our children's future,
but we are also going to protect our children's present; that the
children now will not have to worry about what is going to happen as a
result of our move to make all of these changes, all of these reforms,
and all of the different initiatives that are pending before this new
Congress.
Mr. President, I want to close by saying that it is my concern for
children that actually got me to stand up here
[[Page S717]]
and make a speech without notes and on behalf of the initiative of the
Senator from Minnesota, because I believe it is absolutely imperative
that we underscore our efforts for fiscal responsibility, underscore
our efforts with regard to the pending legislation with the statement
that we will do no harm to the neediest in our community, we will do no
harm to our children, and that we are concerned about the realities
that all the children of this great country face, and that we have the
capacity and the ability and the foresight to state at this point that
we will be mindful of their needs as we go forward with these different
legislative initiatives.
So I want to thank and commend the Senator from Minnesota for taking
this initiative, for taking this step. I congratulate him for it. I
certainly rise in strong support of his sense-of-the-Senate resolution.
Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I will take 30 seconds, because I know
my colleague, the senior Senator from Illinois, is anxious to speak.
I wish to thank the Senator from Illinois, Senator Moseley-Braun, for
her remarks. I do not think she really needed to go with prepared
remarks, because I think the Senator knows the issues so well and has
such a commitment to them. I wanted to just simply thank the Senator
for being here out on the floor.
I wanted to emphasize one point, which is that we might want to call
this amendment, if we had to title it, the ``Children's Right to Have
Their Congress Know,'' because part of this amendment, again, says it
is the sense of the Congress that Congress should not enact or adopt
any legislation that will increase the number of children who are
hungry or homeless. Surely, we can go on record on that.
But the other part, I say to the Senator from Illinois, really is an
important impact that we require, which we really should do in this
rush to pass this agenda--and I want to talk more about the economics
of this a little later on. We owe it to the children of this country--
do we not always want to have photo opportunities next to children?--we
owe it to the children of this country that we do an analysis of the
impact of the legislation that we pass out of committee. We should do
that. That is the right thing to do. It is the policy thing to do, it
is the justice thing to do, and it is certainly the right thing to do
for the children in this country.
So this is an amendment that is meant to be part of the law of the
Nation. I thank the Senator from Illinois.
I thank the senior Senator for his patience.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Illinois.
Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Illinois also for
her comments. And since she mentioned her son Matthew, let me just add,
he is a young man who is going to serve his community and country well
in the future and Carol Moseley-Braun ought to be a very proud mother
of that son.
I think what Senator Wellstone has proposed here is important. Let me
just give you one simple fact. Twenty-three percent of the children of
this Nation live in poverty. No other industrial nation has anything
like that figure; no 23 percent in Great Britain or Canada or France or
Germany or Italy or Japan or Norway or Denmark or Sweden or the other
countries you could mention. Why, why do 23 percent of the children in
this country life in poverty?
This is not an act of God. There is no divine intervention that says
the children in Iowa and the children in Missouri and the children in
Illinois ought to be living in poverty more than children in other
countries. It is not the result of a divine intervention; it is not an
act of God. It is a result of flawed policies.
It starts in this room, my friends, in this Hall where we meet.
Will the Wellstone amendment, if it is passed, result in changed
policy? No one can know for sure. Even the distinguished Senator from
Minnesota, for whom I have such a high regard, cannot know for sure
whether this will have any significant result in moving us in the right
direction. But it might.
At least when we are talking about welfare reform, we are going to be
looking at things. And I hear everybody wants welfare reform, including
the people on welfare. But I think there are a lot of people who think
we can do welfare reform on the cheap. There can be no real welfare
reform without a jobs program. And you are going to hear me saying this
over and over again.
And I am pleased my colleague from Illinois mentioned the balanced
budget amendment. It is very interesting. This year, we will now spend
10 times as much on interest as we will on education. We will spend
almost twice as much on interest as all the poverty programs put
together.
I ask the Presiding Officer, who is a distinguished former governor
of Missouri, if the people of Missouri had a choice of spending less
money on interest and more to help poor people, which would they
prefer? You know the answer and I know the answer.
But we have just kind of backed into this without thinking. The
amendment of the Senator from Minnesota says: Let us think about it.
Let us pay attention. Let us at least look at what we are doing to our
children.
Again, I simply ask you: Why is the United States alone among the
Western industrial nations in having 23 percent of its children in
poverty? It grows out of this room, and in this room we can change that
policy and give a brighter future to our children.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. HARKIN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I was not on the floor for most of the
comments by the Senator from Minnesota regarding his proposed
amendment. I have just read it. It would provide that it is the sense
of the Congress that we should not enact legislation to increase the
number of children who are hungry or homeless. And then, if I might
direct a question to the Senator from Minnesota, the amendment also
states that any bill or joint resolution coming before the Senate or
the House should contain an analysis of the probable impact of the bill
or resolution on children, including the impact on the number of
children who are hungry or homeless.
Let me just be sure I understand this amendment. What the Senator is
saying in his amendment is, prior to any bill coming here, that there
ought to be a report filed with it detailing, or outlining, I should
say, its probable impact regarding whether it would increase the number
of children who are either hungry or homeless or both.
Mr. WELLSTONE. The Senator is correct.
Mr. HARKIN. You know, a lot of times, we mandate reports concerning
bills here as to their impact on the budget. We have that requirement.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Will the Senator yield for a moment?
Mr. HARKIN. Yes.
Mr. WELLSTONE. The accompanying report that would come out of
committee would actually deal with the impact on children, not just on
hunger or just on homelessness, but its impact on children, more
broadly defined.
Mr. HARKIN. In other words, if the bill enhanced the well-being of
children, that report would point that out, too?
Mr. WELLSTONE. The Senator is correct.
Mr. HARKIN. So it is not just an amendment dealing with measures that
could be detrimental to children. It is also saying, how might a bill
help them? So if a bill came up, and the question arose: How can we
help children, make sure they have an adequate breakfast or a school
lunch? That report could also detail that, too.
I just wanted to make sure that was the case.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Iowa for
making, I think, an important point, which is actually that this
accompanying report is a valuable tool for us as we try to make the
best possible policy, for two reasons. In the negative, if you will, it
tells us if we are about to pass a piece of legislation that will in
fact be harmful to children in America. But it also tells us in the
positive, when we pass legislation, this is in fact the contribution of
this legislation to the lives of children in America. That is the
purpose.
[[Page S718]]
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, if I may reclaim my time on the floor, I
thank the Senator and I compliment him for this amendment. I think it
is appropriate that we have this amendment at the beginning of the
year; that before we rush to judgment on a lot of bills and measures
that will be coming before us that may sound nice, we ought to stop and
think about what their impact will be on children in this country.
Mr. President, I have here a study that was done by the Food Research
and Action Center, [FRAC]. They talked about the Personal
Responsibility Act, which is the legislation developed to implement the
House Republican Contract With America. The report goes on to show this
act contains a proposal to block grant current Federal nutrition
programs, to remove their entitlement status and reduce their funding
levels.
FRAC's analysis shows that the Personal Responsibility Act's
nutrition block grant program would result in a reduction of funding
for food assistance of over $30 billion, about 14 percent, by fiscal
year 2000, with a funding loss of $5 billion, 12.7 percent, in fiscal
year 1996 alone. Further, under the Personal Responsibility Act's
nutrition block grant, all but nine States would experience reductions
in funding for food assistance in fiscal year 1996. Fifteen States,
including Texas, Ohio, Georgia, Kentucky, and Michigan, would lose 20
percent or more of their funding in fiscal year 1996. Five States--
Texas, Louisiana, Washington, Delaware, and Maryland--and the District
of Columbia would lose 30 percent or more of their food assistance
funding in fiscal year 1996 if the so-called Personal Responsibility
Act is passed. The FRAC analysis finds that if the so-called Personal
Responsibility Act is passed, the nutrition block grants will have a
devastating impact on individual programs such as the Food Stamp
Program. In order to achieve savings in this program, States will have
to reduce the number of participants by more than 6 million people, or
cut benefits by 14 percent in the first year alone. Estimates indicate
that if States choose to cut participation levels, over half of all
States would have to cut their caseloads by 20 percent or more to meet
the lower funding levels. Further, over a quarter of the States would
have to reduce case loads by 30 percent or more, and 10 States would
have to reduce food stamp case loads by more than 40 percent just to
meet the cuts made in the block grant program.
So, Mr. President, this is a pretty drastic approach. For those of us
who make a decent income and eat in the Senate dining room every day,
or have lobbyists take us to one of these really nice restaurants
around the Hill for lunch, it may come as a surprise to know that there
are hungry kids in America. There are a lot of children out there who
do not get a good breakfast. They may get a good lunch, and it may be
their only good meal of the day, because of the free and reduced price
lunch program. And they go home and have an inadequate dinner that
evening.
There have been a number of studies that have shown in the recent
past that we have a lot of hungry kids in America. Take the school
breakfast program, one that I have been a strong proponent and advocate
of for many years now.
At the outset, let me just say to my friend from Minnesota that he
comes from a strong heritage of advocates of a strong and sound
nutrition program for our kids in America. I refer to his predecessor,
Senator Hubert Humphrey. Also to former Senator Mondale, who fought
long and hard for these nutrition programs, and was successful in
getting them implemented.
The School Lunch Program was enacted in 1946. It has probably done
more to increase the productivity of America than any other single
program we have adopted except perhaps the GI bill of rights. We sent
our GI's to college. The school lunch program provided for millions of
American kids then, as it does today, the only nutritionally sound and
adequate meal that they have during the day.
But then studies began to show that kids come to school in the
morning and they have not had a breakfast, and they become disruptive
and unruly. They cannot study, they cannot focus. So we started the
School Breakfast Program. The school breakfast program right now is
only available, I think, in fewer than half the Nation's schools that
offer the lunch program. So it is not accessible to many children who
need it. Many of the schools do not offer it.
Studies have shown that children who participated in the school
breakfast program were found to have significantly higher standardized
achievement test scores than eligible nonparticipants. Children getting
school breakfast also had significantly reduced absence and tardiness
rates.
Now, we know that from a number of studies. We also know from a
number of studies that children who have adequate nutrition, who have a
breakfast and a lunch program, who have the benefit of prenatal and
early childhood nutrition, have higher IQ levels. Now, we have seen
recent arguments that perhaps IQ levels are linked to ethnic
background, or racial background, and all those kind of claims. That is
being argued. But there is one thing that is clear.
Mr. DOLE. Will the Senator yield for a procedural question? I do not
want to interrupt the Senator's train of thought.
We would like to see if we could set a time for a vote on a motion to
table. I understand the Senator from Minnesota needs about 20 minutes.
I do not know how much time the Senator from Iowa needs.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, 10 minutes. I am on a roll. I just want to
go through a couple of items here.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask that I might have at least 2 or 3
minutes before I move to table because it is something I am very
interested in.
I have been on the nutrition committees. I have gotten awards from
FRAC, and I do not think this amendment belongs here. I want to make a
brief record.
So, maybe we could agree to vote at 6:10. That gives the Senator from
Minnesota 20 minutes and the Senator from Iowa 10 minutes.
Mr. HARKIN. I just have a few more points.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, we can vote at 6:10.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Knowing the Senator from Iowa well, I wonder if we
could plan on 6:15.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent at 6:15 we vote on
the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. DOLE. I would just like to have 2 or 3 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished majority leader.
The Senator has been a strong supporter of nutrition programs, and I
can attest to that personally. I wish he would support this amendment.
I am sure he will have something to say about that.
Mr. President, as I was saying, one thing that is unassailable and
incontrovertible is that kids who do not have an adequate diet do
suffer lower IQ. A study reported in the Washington Post found that
children suffering persistent poverty in their first 5 years of life
have IQs 9 points lower at age 5 than children who did not experience
poverty. And we all know that poverty is closely tied to inadequate
diet, and inadequate food for kids in their early years.
We know, for example, from a study done by GAO, the cost
effectiveness of our WIC programs. Every dollar invested in WIC
prenatal assistance saves anywhere from $1.92 to $4.21 in Medicaid
costs. These are studies that have been done, and which document the
value of sound nutrition for children.
In another study, GAO estimated the initial investment of $296
million in WIC prenatal assistance in 1990 would save over $1 billion
in health and education expenditures over 18 years compared to the
costs for children who did not get this assistance. So we know children
in poverty, children who do not get an adequate diet, who do not get
the school breakfast program, they have lower IQ's, they have lower
attendance records at school, they are more disruptive, and they do not
learn properly.
We are going in the opposite direction with this so-called Personal
Responsibility Act in terms of putting the nutrition programs into a
block grant
[[Page S719]]
and then cutting it. If 5 States, Texas, Louisiana, Washington,
Delaware, and Maryland, plus the District of Columbia, lose 30 percent
of their food assistance next year, how will they make it up? Who will
they cut? Well, they will cut the school breakfast program and other
basic nutrition programs for children. We are already hearing about
cutting the school lunch program and making kids pay more and that kind
of thing. I will have more to say about that as the year progresses.
Talk about a noncost-effective approach. I say this is a so-called
Personal Responsibility Act because it is our responsibility here in
Congress to make sure that kids are not denied adequate nutrition in
our country. It has been a responsibility of the Federal Government
since 1946 when we enacted the school lunch program and subsequently
enacted school breakfast programs, WIC programs, and other nutrition
programs, because we recognize a child who is poor and malnourished in
Tennessee is not just a responsibility of that State. That child who
grows up ill-educated with a lower IQ will not just be a burden on
Tennessee but that child could move to Iowa or Illinois, Minnesota or
California. And in any event, the loss of that child's potential is a
loss for our entire Nation. So the nutrition of our children is really
a problem for all of us as a Nation. We have looked upon it that way
since the school lunch program was enacted in 1946.
Personal responsibility? Yes, we have a responsibility in this
Congress to make sure that all children have a good start in life. That
means a good, solid WIC Program, prenatal programs, that we have a good
breakfast program for our kids in school, and a school lunch program,
and a food stamp program--which is in fact a major child nutrition
program.
Now, are there ways of streamlining and of cutting out waste, fraud
and abuse? Sure there are. I think it has been about 17 years ago, as a
Member of the other body, that this Senator advocated that we issue
food stamp recipients an ID card along with food stamps so that they
could not just go out and barter and sell food stamps on the streets
for drugs or whatever else. I advocated that in 1977. I was told there
was a problem with that idea and we could not do it then. We can do it
today. If there are ways of streamlining the program, making people
more accountable, making the programs more cost-effective, that is
fine.
Just to say that we will lump it all in a block grant, send it to the
States and then cut it, I think is the height of foolishness. I think
that would be more properly called the Personal Irresponsibility Act,
if that is what we are about.
So I congratulate the Senator from Minnesota. He is right on target.
As I said, I know the majority leader has been a strong supporter of
nutrition programs in the past. I would hope that he would not move to
table this amendment. I wish we had accepted it in the spirit it was
offered, that is to make sure that we do no harm to these children who
need this kind of help and assistance.
Really, it is not just the children we are talking about. I think it
is in our own best interest to ensure that our children have adequate
nutrition. We can look at it selfishly. We want a more productive
America. We want to be able to compete in the world markets. We want to
have a better-educated populace. Then we certainly want to make sure
our kids have an adequate diet early on in life.
I believe that is what the Senator from Minnesota is saying in his
amendment. Let us take care in the legislation that comes before us
that it does not impact adversely upon these kids. If we take away
these feeding programs for our poor kids in America today, it is like
eating our seed corn.
I cannot think of a better analogy than that. These kids are our
future, and we better have the personal responsibility to understand
that the Federal Government has a role to play here and not abdicate
that responsibility.
So, again, I thank the Senator from Minnesota for his amendment. I
support it, and I certainly hope it will be adopted because I think it
is in the best interest of this country.
I thank the Senator. I yield the floor.
Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Amendment No. 14
(Purpose: To improve legislative accountability for the impact of
legislation on children)
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, let me thank the Senator from Iowa.
There is no Senator who knows these issues better. There is no Senator
who is a stronger advocate for children. It is my honor to have him out
on the floor speaking in behalf of this amendment.
Mr. President, first of all, let me now send the amendment to the
desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Minnesota [Mr. Wellstone] proposes an
amendment numbered 14.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
At the appropriate place, add the following new title:
TITLE --IMPACT OF LEGISLATION ON CHILDREN
SEC. 1. SENSE OF CONGRESS.
It is the sense of Congress that Congress should not enact
or adopt any legislation that will increase the number of
children who are hungry or homeless.
SEC. 2. LEGISLATIVE ACCOUNTABILITY FOR IMPACT ON CHILDREN.
(a) Duties of Congressional Committees.--The report
accompanying each bill or joint resolution of a public
character reported by any committee of the Senate or of the
House of Representatives shall contain a detailed analysis of
the probable impact of the bill or resolution on children,
including the impact on the number of children who are hungry
or homeless.
(b) Enforcement.--
(1) Senate.--It shall not be in order for the Senate to
consider any bill or joint resolution described in subsection
(a) that is reported by any committee of the Senate if the
report of the committee on the bill or resolution does not
comply with the provisions of subsection (a) on the objection
of any Senator.
(2) House of representatives.--It shall not be in order for
the House of Representatives to consider a rule or order that
waives the application of subsection (a) to a bill or joint
resolution described in subsection (a) that is reported by
any committee of the House of Representatives.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, will the Senator just yield for about 2
minutes without losing his right to the floor?
I want to make one other point. There is so often the assertion some
of these programs designed to attack poverty and hunger actually make
the problems worse. For the record, I am looking here at figures
showing that in 1960, the percent of American children below the age of
18 living in poverty was 26.9 percent. By 1969, after the enactment of
a number of the programs addressing child poverty, that percentage went
down to 14 percent. It stayed down in the teens until 1983 when it went
back up to 22.3 percent. The percentage stayed in the twenties and, at
least as of the last year cited in this report, 1991, it was still at
21.8 percent. These figures are all contained in a report titled Two
Americas: Alternative Futures for Child Poverty in the United States,
published by the Center on Hunger, Poverty, and Nutrition Policy at
Tufts University, and I ask unanimous consent that appendix 1 of that
report be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the appendix was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
APPENDIX 1.--NUMBER AND PERCENT OF AMERICAN CHILDREN IN POVERTY ALL
CHILDREN BELOW AGE 18: 1960-1991
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Year (1000's) Percent
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1960.......................................... 17,634 26.9
1961.......................................... 16,909 25.6
1962.......................................... 16,963 25.0
1963.......................................... 16,003 23.1
1964.......................................... 16,051 23.0
1965.......................................... 14,676 21.0
1966.......................................... 12,389 17.6
1967.......................................... 11,656 16.6
1968.......................................... 10,954 15.6
1969.......................................... 9,691 14.0
1970.......................................... 10,440 15.1
1971.......................................... 10,551 15.3
1972.......................................... 10,284 15.1
1973.......................................... 9,642 14.4
1974.......................................... 10,156 15.4
1975.......................................... 11,104 17.1
1976.......................................... 10,273 16.0
1977.......................................... 10,288 16.3
1978.......................................... 9,931 15.9
1979.......................................... 10,377 16.4
1980.......................................... 11,543 18.3
1981.......................................... 12,505 20.0
1982.......................................... 13,647 21.9
1983.......................................... 13,911 22.3
1984.......................................... 13,420 21.5
[[Page S720]]
1985.......................................... 13,010 20.7
1986.......................................... 12,876 20.5
1987.......................................... 12,843 20.3
1988.......................................... 12,455 19.5
1989.......................................... 12,590 19.6
1990.......................................... 13,431 20.6
1991.......................................... 14,341 21.8
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Statistical Abstracts of the U.S.:1989; Table No. 738, p. 454.
U.S. Bureau of the Census, ``Current Population Reports,'' series P-
60, No. 161, and earlier reports. Data for 1988 and 1989 are from
``Current Population Reports,'' Series P-60, No. 170-RD, and No. 169-
RD, respectively. Data for 1991 are from ``current Population
Reports,'' Series P-60, No. 181.
Mr. HARKIN. So do not tell me these programs to help children do not
have an effect. They have an effect and have a good effect of helping
move kids out of poverty. I just wanted to make that point for the
Record. I thank the Senator for yielding.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the names
of the following organizations that support this amendment be printed
in the Record: The NAACP, Children's Defense Fund, Leadership
Conference on Civil Rights, Food Research and Action Center, the
National Council of Churches, and the Religious Action Center of Reform
Judaism. I ask that their names and the statements of these different
organizations be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the statements were ordered to be printed
in the Record, as follows:
Statement of Rabbi David Saperstein, Director, Religious Action Center
of Reform Judiasm
The ultimate judgment of a nation--of its values, its
honor, its basic decency--rests upon how it treats its
children, for those children are its future. A nation that
neglects its children, that allows children to go hungry or
homeless, that fails adequately to educate its children, is a
nation that short-changes its future. For this reason, the
Union of American Hebrew Congregations, representing 850
synagogues and 1.5 million Reform Jews, strongly supports the
proposed Sense of the Congress Resolution that Congress not
approve any legislation that will increase the number of
children who are homeless and hungry, and that requires a
child impact statement before Congress passes new
legislation.
In the zeal to reform government and to change the way
Congress works, members of Congress must not forget how many
of the actions they are now considering--how many of the
bills they work to pass, budgets they wish to cut, programs
they seek to eliminate--affect American children, and, thus,
our future. America already has too many homeless children
huddled and shivering against winter's chill without adequate
shelter, too many children whose young stomachs know too well
the empty pain of hunger, too many inadequately educated
children whose bright minds daily grow dull. Those who would
cut budgets in ways that harm children will cite the
financial benefits of their cuts, will claim that by reducing
the national deficit they are securing our future. But by
reducing that deficit by penalizing children--by making the
weakest and the least among us bear the burden of reform--
they only bleaken that future.
However much we may all disagree over the best solutions to
the problems America confronts, on this, at least, let us
find common ground: that our children--more than all our
industries combined, more than all our raw materials, more
than all our science and ingenuity--our children are our most
valuable and precious resource, and we must treat them
accordingly. We must protect our children from an
indiscriminate budget ax as resolutely as we would protect
them from violence. We must scrutinize cuts in programs for
children as carefully as we scrutinize cuts in defense
spending, for even the mightiest military will be useless if
our nation's children have no hope. Our children are meant to
walk with us the road to peace and freedom and prosperity; we
dare not walk that road to a better tomorrow while leaving
them trapped in a bleak, a cruel, today.
Each child's today is thousands of our tomorrows; nurture
these todays and you build those tomorrows; darken these
todays and you destroy those tomorrows.
So we urge all senators, regardless of political leanings,
to support this amendment and to abide by its principles; to
keep the children of America always in their minds; and to
recognize that short-changing children for short term
financial gain is to make a faustian bargain that will cost
this nation dearly down the road.
Our children reposit our dreams; we must not allow their
lives to be nightmares.
The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism is the
Washington office of the Union of American Hebrew
Congregations and represents 1.5 million Reform Jews in 850
congregations throughout the United States and Canada.
____
Statement of Mary Anderson Cooper, Associate Director, Washington
Office, National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
We are pleased to support the efforts of the Senators who
have introduced legislation to require that Congress not
approve any legislation which will increase the number of
children who are hungry or homeless. This commitment to the
well-being of the nation's children is consistent with the
belief of the churches in our constituency that all people
have a right to food and shelter, and that we cannot relax
our vigilance when there is the prospect that children will
be allowed to go hungry and unprotected.
We are grateful for the initiative being undertaken today,
and we urge the Congress to enact this measure assuring that
no action undertaken by the House or Senate will increase the
number of hungry and homeless children in this nation.
____
Statement of Robert J. Fersh, President, Food Research & Action Center
I am pleased to support the resolution that Senator
Wellstone will introduce today to protect children from
hunger and homelessness. This resolution is timely because
there now are serious proposals before Congress that could
add dramatically to the numbers of children who experience
hunger and homelessness in this country.
FRAC is considered the leading national organization
advocating for more effective public policies to end hunger
in this country. Our analysis of H.R. 4, the Personal
Responsibility Act introduced in the House of
Representatives, leads us to believe that millions of
American children could lose essential school lunch, school
breakfast, WIC and food stamp benefits if the bill is
enacted.
The most fundamental threat to our children's well-being is
the proposal to replace the highly effective and successful
nutrition programs we have today with a block grant at
sharply reduced funding. This will lead not only to immediate
pain and suffering, but virtually guarantees that the
responsiveness to hunger and undernutrition will diminish in
years ahead.
We need a continuing Federal commitment to nutrition
programs that assures adequate funding and benefit levels. We
need programs that provide predictable funding levels and
assure that no matter where one lives in the United States,
there will be a safety net to prevent hunger.
We cannot have a situation where school administrators
never know how much support they will receive and opt out of
school feeding programs because of inconsistent funding. We
cannot have a situation where needy people in a State cannot
get help when they lose their jobs because their State has
too many people in need and too little money to serve them.
There are reforms and improvements that can be made to
improve the delivery of food assistance to vulnerable
citizens and to preserve the integrity of the programs.
But a drive to save Federal dollars and reinvent government
roles should not have as a consequence more hungry and
homeless children. Before this rush to chaos is approved,
Congress should take a careful look at our Nation's nutrition
programs. They have a highly successful track record of
improving the nutritional status of our most vulnerable
citizens. Failure to preserve these programs will exact a
high monetary and social cost from our society.
I offer our thanks to Senator Wellstone for introducing
this measure to assure that Congress has made a careful study
of the potential impact of its decisions on our most
vulnerable children.
____
Children's Defense Fund,
January 10, 1995.
Hon. Paul Wellstone,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC
Dear Senator Wellstone: I applaud your efforts to make sure
that the members of Congress are informed about the probable
consequences to children of legislation they are considering.
Like you, I am very concerned that some of the actions the
Congress will be considering in the days ahead will, instead
of helping children, actually result in more children being
left behind--more hungry, more homeless, more without health
insurance, more who are poor. I believe that members of
Congress, if informed that an action they are contemplating
will actually hurt children, will not take such an action.
Your amendment ensures that members of Congress have the
official information upon which to base that determination.
This is, effectively, ``a children's right to have their
Congresspeople know'' amendment. Too often, the needs of
children, who don't vote or speak for themselves, are
invisible in the legislative process. At the very least,
children should be able to expect that Senators and
Representatives know the impact of their decisions upon
children before they act.
This is an amendment which every member of the Congress
should support. Thank you again for your leadership on this
very important issue for children.
Sincerely yours,
Marian Wright Edelman.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent that a
statement of Women Academics Concerned About Welfare be printed in the
Record.
There being no objection, the statement was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[[Page S721]]
Statement of Women Academics Concerned About Welfare
(This statement was written and signed in response to the
Administration welfare ``reform'' bill introduced in the
summer of 1994, Spurred by this proposal Republicans are now
championing much worse barbarisms. We should not let
ourselves be driven into supporting the bad in the hopes of
fending off the worse. We stand against policies which
deprive poor children and scapegoat poor mothers. A politics
of blaming the poor fosters a downward cycle of
impoverishment, stigmatization, and despair.--Linda Gordon,
Frances Fox Piven, Louise Trubek, January 1995)
As women scholars who have studied welfare programs in the
United States and other democracies, and who share a concern
for poor women and children, we feel a responsibility to
speak out in opposition to the Clinton administration welfare
reform proposal.
The most publicized feature of the proposal is a two-year
lifetime limit on cash assistance from AFDC. The limit shreds
precisely that portion of our social safety net on which poor
women and children rely. Yet the evidence shows that the
majority of recipients do not stay on ``welfare'' very long
at one time, but turn to AFDC when they are forced to by work
of family emergencies. Many women also turn to welfare to
escape from domestic violence. A two-year limit would destroy
that lifeline.
The Bush administration began freely granting waivers
allowing the states to ``experiment with ``reforms,'' and the
Clinton administration is continuing this practice. Few of
these waivers concern true experiments or reforms. Instead,
reminiscent of the 19th century when welfare was a system of
disciplinary tutelage, they usually cut welfare grants which
are already everywhere below the poverty level. Some states
are reducing family benefits if a child is truant or if an
additional child is born. From the beginning of AFDC in 1935,
the federal government provided some protection against the
arbitrary ill-treatment of recipients by states and counties.
That protection should not be forfeited.
The effort to present a ``revenue-neutral'' welfare reform
has resulted in the ludicrous prospect of severe cutbacks in
programs that serve some of the poor in order to pay for
programs that will ostensibly help others of the poor.
Clearly this makes little moral or programmatic sense.
Just as troublesome as these programmatic initiatives is
the vilification of welfare recipients for lacking the values
of work and responsibility which has characterized the
Administration's talk about reform. This rhetoric undermines
respect for the hard and vital work that all women do as
parents. It is particularly egregious when direct against
poor single mothers who confront the triple burdens of
heading households, parenting, and eking out a livelihood.
Given the popular misimpression that welfare recipients are
overwhelmingly minority women, this pillorying of poor women
also contributes to racist stereotypes.
While women have always been consigned to low wage jobs,
the situation of working women trying to support children has
worsened dramatically in the last two decades as wage levels
plummeted. The Administration proposal is silent about that
problem.
Real welfare reform should be directed to ending poverty,
not welfare. We should strive for widely available day care,
medical insurance, and education, and for improvements in
working conditions and wages. At the same time we should
preserve the programs of social support--variously called
social security or welfare--that have been vital to the
safety, health and morale of millions of women, men, and
children in the U.S.
WOMEN ACADEMICS CONCERNED ABOUT WELFARE REFORM
Emily K. Abel, UCLA; Mimi Abramovitz, CUNY; Martha
Ackelsberg, Smith; Mona Acker, U Regina; Julia Adams, U Mich;
Randy Albelda, U Mass Boston; Nedda C. Allbray, CUNY; Rebecca
Alpert, Temple; Christa Altenstetter, CUNY; Ann Rosegrant
Alvarez, Wayne State; Nancy Amidei, U Wash; Teresa Amott,
Bucknell U; Susan Amussen, Union Institute; Margaret
Anderson, U Delaware; Elizabeth S. Anderson, U. Mich; Karen
Anderson, U Arizona; Karin J. Anderson, New School; Melissa
Anderson; Molly Andrews, Temple; Fran Ansley, U Tenn.
Rita Arditti, Union Institute; Clarissa Atkinson, Harvard;
Nina Auerbach, U of Penn; Dr. Harriet Baber, U San Diego;
Regina Bannan, Temple; Lois W. Banner, USC; Carol Barash,
Rutgers; Lucy Barber, Brown; Nancy Barnes, New School; Dana
Barron, U of Penn; Pauline B. Bart, U Illinois, Chicago;
Rosalyn Fraad Baxandall, SUNY; Gail Bederman, Notre Dame;
Leslie Bender, Syracuse; Trude Bennett, U North Carolina;
Betty Ann Bergland, U Wisconsin, River Falls; Barbara R.
Bergmann, American U; Sharon Berlin, U Chicago; Sally A.
Bermanzohn, CUNY; Elaine Bernard, Harvard; Beth Berne, Woods
Hole; Kim Blankenship, Yale.
Marcia Bok, U Conn; Janet K. Boles, Marquette; Annette
Borchorst, Wellesley; Eileen Boris, Howard; Marti Bombyk,
Fordham; Judith R. Botwin, Woods Hole; Cynthia Bowman,
Northwestern; Ruth A. Brandwein, SUNY; Rachel Bratt; Winifred
Breines, Northeastern; Vicki Breitbart, Columbia U; Johanna
Brenner, Portland State; Stephanie Bressler, King's College;
Mary Bricker-Jenkins, Western Kentucky; Eleanor Brilliant,
Rutgers; Frances L. Brisbane, SUNY; Sherri Broder, U Mass,
Medford; Evelyn A. Brodkin, U Chicago; Mary Ann Bromley,
Rhode Island College; Elsa Barkley Brown, U Mich; Susan
Taylor Brown, Syracuse; Irene Browne, Emory U; Lisa D. Brush,
U Pittsburgh; Darcy Buerkle, Claremont U.
Sandy Butler, U Maine; Joan Callahan, U Kentucky; Ann
Nichols-Casebolt, Virginia Commonwealth U; Susan Kerr
Chandler, U Nevada; Alta Charo, U Wisconsin; Wendy Chavkin,
Columbia; Roslyn H. Chernesky, Fordham; Norma Chinchilla, U
Cal, Long Beach; Nancy Churchill, U Conn; Mary Ann Clawson,
Wesleyan; Jewel P. Cobb, Cal State Fullerton; Dorothy Sue
Cobble, Rutgers; Lizabeth Ann Cohen, NYU; Miriam J. Cohen,
Vassar; Patty A. Coleman, U Maine; Blanche Wiesen Cook, CUNY;
Kimberly J. Cook, Miss State U; Mary Coombs, U Miami; Lynn B.
Cooper, Cal State Sacramento; Rhonda Copelon, CUNY; Nancy
Cott, Yale.
Lois K. Cox, U Iowa; Kate Crehan, New School; Elizabeth
Crispo, CUNY; Faye Crosby, Smith; Barbara R. Cruikshank, U
Mass; Paisley Currah, CUNY; Deborah D'Amico, Consortium for
Worker Ed; Jo Darlington, U Colorado; Margery Davies, Tufts;
Jane Sherron De Hart, U Cal, Santa Barbara; Vasilikie Demos,
U Minn, Morris; Tracey Dewart, CUNY; Irene Diamond, U Oregon;
Bonnie Thornton Dill, U Maryland; Estelle Disch, U Mass,
Boston; Christine DiStefano, U Wash.
Elizabeth Douvan, U Mich; Nancy E. Dowd, U Florida; Daine
M. Dujon, U Mass, Boston; Joan Levin Ecklein, U Mass, Boston;
Susan Eckstein, Boston U; Kathryn Edin, Rutgers; Rebecca
Edwards; Hester Eisenstein, SUNY; Margaret S. Elbow, Texas
Tech U; Leslie C. Eliason, U Wash; Irene Elkin, U Chicago;
Cynthia H. Enloe, MIT; Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, CUNY; Julia A.
Ericksen, Temple; Rebecca Faery, Harvard; Kathleen Coulborn
Faller, U Mich; Amy Farrell, Dickinson; Elizabeth Faue, Wayne
State U; Constance Faulkner, Western Wash U; Elizabeth
Fee, U Wisconsin; Susan Feiner; Shelley Feldman, Cornell;
Ruth Feldstein, Brown.
Deb Figart, Eastern Mich U; Judith I Fiene, U Tenn;
Michelle Fine, CUNY; Deborah K. Fitzgerald, MIT; Maureen
Fitzgerald, U Arizona; Maureen A. Flanagan, Mich State;
Cornelia Butler Flora, Iowa State; Nancy Folbre, U Mass,
Amherst; Joyce Clark Follet, U Wisconsin; Alice Fothergill, U
Colorado; Ruth Frager, McMaster U; Nancy Fraser,
Northwestern; Sharon Freedberg, CUNY; Estelle Freedman,
Stanford; Sandra French, Indiana U SE; Judith Friedlander,
New School; Andrea Friedman, U Cal, Santa Cruz; Debra
Friedman, U Wash; Jennifer Frost, U Wisconsin; Fran Froelich,
U Mass, Boston; Ann Rubio Froines, U Mass, Boston.
Rachel G. Fuchs, Arizona State; Marsha Garrison, Brooklyn
Law; Sarah Gehlert, U Chicago; Joyce Gelb, CUNY; Jane
Gerhard, Brown; Jill Gerson, CUNY; Judith Gerson, Rutgers;
Kathleen Gerson, NYU; Nancy Gewirtz, Rhode Island College;
Melissa R. Gilbert, Georgia State; Glenda E. Gilmore, Yale;
Lori Ginzberg, Penn State; Marilyn Gittell, CUNY; Naomi
Gitterman, Mercy; Gertrude S. Goldberg, Adelphi; Joanne
Goodwin, U Nevada, Las Vegas; Linda Gordon, U Wisconsin;
Deborah Gorham, Carleton; Janet Gornick, CUNY; Naomi
Gottlieb, U Wash; Peggotty Graham, Open U, UK; Margaret
Groarke, CUNY; Elna Green, Sweet Briar; Julie Greene, U
Colorado; Maxine Greene, Columbia; Rosalind Greenstein; Carol
Groneman, CUNY; Emma R. Gross, U Utah; Atina Grossman,
Columbia; Angela Gugliotta, Notre Dame; Lorraine Gutierrez, U
Wash; Madelyn Gutwirth, U Penn; Jacquelyn Hall, U Wisconsin;
Margaret Hallock, U Oregon.
Evelynn M. Hammonds, MIT; Linda Shafer Hanbcock, U Oregon;
Julia E. Hanigsberg, Columbia; Donna Hardina, Cal State
Fresno; Ann Hartman, Smith/Fordham; Susan M. Hartmann, Ohio
State; Nancy Hartsock, U Wash; Sally Haslanger, U Mich;
Victoria Hattam, New School; Rosemary Haughton; Mary
Hawkesworth, U Louisville; Pam Hayden, La Salle; Sue Headlee,
American U; Alice Hearst, Smith; Lisa Heldke, Gustavus
Adolphus; Julia Henly, U Colorado; Barbara Herman, UCLA;
Helga Hernes, Oslo; Mary Jo Hetzel, Springfield College;
Nancy A. Hewitt, Duke; Barbara Heyns, NYU; Elizabeth
Higginbotham, U Memphis; Marianne Hirsch, Dartmouth; Joan
Hoffman, CUNY; Emily P. Hoffman, Western Michigan U; June
Hopkins; Nancy R. Hooyman, U Wash; Ruth Hubbard, Harvard;
Nancy A. Humphreys, U Conn; Irene Hurst, U Cal; Cheryl Hyde,
Boston U; Sandy Ingraham, U Oklahoma; Katherine Irwin, U
Colorado.
Joan Iversen, SUNY; Jean E. Jackson, MIT; Lynn Jacobsson,
Cal State Fresno; Leanne Jaffe, New School; Dolores
Janiewski, Victoria U; Toby Jayaratne, U Mich; Marty Jessup,
U Cal San Francisco; Carole Joffe, U Cal Davis; Harriette
Johnson, U Conn; Katherine D. Johnson; Jacqueline Jones,
Brandeis; Jill B. Jones, U Tenn Knoxville; Catheleen Jordan,
U Texas, Arlington; June Jordan, U Cal Berkeley; Barbara H.
R. Joseph, SUNY; Peggy Kahn, U Mich, Flint; Hilda Kahne,
Brandeis; Nancy Kaiser, U Wisconsin; Sheila B. Kamerman,
Columbia; Carol Kaplan, Fordham; Temma Kaplan, SUNY; Kathie
Friedman Kasaba, U Wash, Tacoma.
Barbara Kasper, SUNY; Joyce Rothchild, Virginia Tec;
Barbara Katz Rothman, CUNY; Lily Kay, MIT; Alice B. Kehoe,
Marquette; Evelyn Fox Keller, MIT; Karol Kelley, Texas Tech;
Mary Kelley, Dartmouth; Susan M. Kellogg, U Houston; Marie
Kennedy, U Mass, Boston; Linda K. Kerber, U Iowa; Alice
[[Page S722]]
Kessler-Harris, Rutgers; Cynthia Harrison; Mary C. King,
Portland State; Eva Kittay, SUNY; Janet E. Kodras, Florida
State; Rosa Perez-Koenig, Fordham; Judy Kopp, U Wash;
Felicia Kornbluh, Princeton; Sherrie A. Kossoudji, U Mich;
Minna J. Kotkin, Brooklyn Law; Nancy J. Krieger, Kaiser
Foundation Research Inst; Joan Irene Krohn, New Mexico
Highlands U; Sarah Kuhn, U Mass, Lowell; Charlotte Kunkel,
U Colorado; Regina G. Kunzel, Williams College; Demie
Kurz, U Penn; Angel Kwolek-Folland, U Kansas; Marie
Laberge, U Wisconsin; Molly Ladd-Taylor, York.
Joan Laird, Smith; Susan Lambert, Chicago; Gaynol Langs;
Jane Elizabeth Larsen, Northwestern; Magali Sarfatti Larson,
Temple; Rebecca Lash, Woods Hole; Barbara Laslett, U Minn;
Marcie Lazzari, Colorado State; Suzanne Leahy, U Colorado;
Judith W. Leavitt, U Wisconsin; Judith Lee, U Conn; Mary P.
Lefkarites, CUNY; Gerda Lerner, U Wisconsin; Margaret Anne
Levi, U Wash; Rhonda F. Levine, Colgate; Ellen Lewin,
Stanford; Edith A. Lewis, U Mich; Jinguay Liao, New School;
Eloise Limger, New School; Shirley Lindenbaum, CUNY; Karen T.
Litfin, U Wash; Margaret Little, U Manitoba; Sharon Long,
Urban Institute; Judith Lorber, CUNY; Shirley A. Lord,
Buffalo State College; Tracy Luff, Viterbo College; Melani
McAlister, Brown; Megan McClintock, U Wash.
Martha McCluskey, Columbia; Elizabeth McCulloch; Eileen
McDonogh, Northeastern; Katie McDonough, New Mexico Highlands
U; Brenda McGowan, Columbia; Alisa McKay, Glasgow Caledonian
U; Vonnie McLoyd, U Mich; Sharon McQuaide, Fordham; Barbara
Machtinger, Bloomfield College; Colleen Mack-Canty, U Oregon;
Esther I. Madriz, CUNY; Betty Reid Mandell, Bridgewater
State; Jeanne Marecek, Swarthmore; Jane Mauldon, UC Berkeley;
Lynne Marks, U Victoria; Sylvia Marotta, George Wash U; Julie
Matthaei, Wellesley; Elaine Tyler May, U Minn; Margit Mayer,
Free U Berlin; Anne Mayhew, U Tenn, Knoxville; Paula Hooper
Mayhew, Marymount Manhattan; Mary Jo Maynes, U Minn; Margaret
L. Mead, Tufts; Carol H. Meyer, Columbia; Marcia K. Meyers,
Syracuse; Sonya A. Michel, U Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Ruth
Milkman, UCLA.
Dorothy C. Miller, Wichita State; Susan Miller, U Cal
Davis; Leslie Miller-Bernal, Wells College; Linda G. Mills,
UCLA; Jenny Minier, U Wisconsin; Gwendolyn Mink, U Cal Santa
Cruz; Lorraine C. Minnite, CUNY; Beth Mintz, U Vermont; Joya
Misra, U Georgia; Renee Monson, U Wisconsin; Suzanne Morton,
McGill; Wynne Moskop, Saint Louis U; Elizabeth Mueller, New
School; Ann Marie Mumm, Rhode Island School of Social Work;
Robyn Muncy, U Maryland; Victoria Munoz, Wells College; June
Nash, CUNY; Nancy Naples, U Cal Irvine; Marysa Navarro,
Dartmouth; Anne Nelson, Woods Hole; Barbette Jo Neuberger, U
Illinois, Chicago; Esther Newton, SUNY; Mae Ngai, Consortium
for Worker Ed.
Sue Nissman, MIT; Jill Norgren, CUNY; Catherine O'Leary,
New School; Clara Oleson, U Iowa; Stacey J. Oliker, U
Wisconsin, Milwaukee; Paulette Olson, Wright State; Laura
Oren, U Houston; Ann Orloff, U Wisconsin; Sherry Ortner, U
Mich; Susan Ostrander, Tufts; Martha Ozawa, Wash U, St.
Louis; Gul Ozyegin, Temple; Nell Painter, Princeton; Mary
Brown Parlee, MIT; Eve Passerini, U Colorado; Carole Pateman,
UCLA; Lisa Peattie, MIT; Rosa Maria Pegueros, U Rhode
Island; Donna Penn, Brown; Ruth Perry, MIT; Rosalind
Petchesky, CUNY; Jean Peterman, U Illinois, Chicago;
Barbara Pine, U Conn; Frances Fox Piven, CUNY; Uta Poiger,
Brown; Janet E. Poppendieck, CUNY; Christina Pratt,
Dominican College; Arline Prigoff, Cal State Sacramento;
Laura M. Purdy, Wells College.
Lara E. Putnam, U Mich; Karen Pyke, USC; Mary Ann Quaranta,
Fordham; Rayna Rapp, New School; Sarah Raskin, Trinity;
Leslie J. Reagan, U Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Sherrill
Redmon, Smith College; Ellen Reese, UCLA; Pat Reeve, U Mass,
Boston; RoseAnn Renteria, U Colorado; Margery Resnick, MIT;
Catherine K. Riessman, Boston U; Alice Robbin, CUNY; Betty D.
Robinson, U Southern Maine; Jeanne B. Robinson, U Chicago;
Pamela A. Roby, U Cal Santa Cruz; Anna Rockhill, U Mich; Ruth
Roemer, UCLA; Beth Rose, Vanderbilt.
Nancy E. Rose, Cal State San Bernardino; Sonya O. Rose, U
Mich; Ruth Rosen, U Cal Davis; Beth Spenciner Rosenthal,
CUNY; Joyce Rothschild, Virginia Polytechnic Institute;
Hiasaura Rubenstein, U Tenn; Sara L. Ruddick, New School;
Lois Rudnick, U Mass, Boston; Leila J. Rupp, The Ohio State;
Mary P. Ryan, UC Berkeley; St. Ann Convent, East Harlem;
Barbara J. Sabol; Susan Sandman, Wells College; Rosemary C.
Sarri, U Mich; Wendy Sarvasy, UC Berkeley; Saskia Sassen,
Columbia; Gwen Sayler, Wartburg Theological Seminary; Jane
Sharp, Kings College, London; Eunice Shatz, U Tenn,
Knoxville; Marilyn M. Schaub, Duquesne.
Elizabeth M. Schneider, Brooklyn Law; Brooke G. Schoepf,
Woods Hole; Juliet Schor, Harvard; Barbara Schulman, Clark;
Leslie Schwalm, U Iowa; Dorie Seavey, Wellesley; Gay Seidman,
U Wisconsin; Carole Shammas, U Cal Riverside; Karen Sharma,
New School; Kristin A. Sheradin, U Rochester; Mary T.
Sheerin, Union Institute; Jessica Shubon, Brown; Barbara
Sicherman, Trinity; Ruth Sidel, CUNY; Deborah Siegel, Rhode
Island College; Helene Silverberg, U Cal Santa Barbara;
Louise Simmons, U Conn; Barbara Levy Simon, Columbia; Andrea
Y. Simpson, U Wash; Beverly R. Singer, Columbia; Louise
Skolnick, Adelphi; Carol Smith CUNY; Judith E. Smith, U Mass,
Boston; Susan L. Smith, U Alberta; Ann Snitow, New School;
Sue Sohng, U Wash; Renee Solomon, Columbia; Rickie Solinger;
Roberta Spalter-Roth, American U; Jane M. Spinak, Columbia;
Judith Stacey, U Cal Davis; Barbara Stark, U Tenn, Knoxville;
Rose Starr, CUNY.
Anne A. Statham, U Wisconsin, Parkside; Catherine A.
Steele, Syracuse; Judith Stein, CUNY; Ronnie Steinberg,
Temple; Vicky Steinitz, U Mass, Boston; Susan Sterett, U
Denver; Joyce West Stevens, Boston U; Mary H. Stevenson, U
Mass, Boston; Landon R.Y. Storrs, U Wisconsin; Diana L.
Strassmann, Rice; Philippa Strum, CUNY; Jennifer Stucker,
Eastern Wash U; Amy Swerdlow, Sarah Lawrence; Meredith Tax,
PEN; Shelly Tenenbaum, Clark; Nancy M. Theriot, U Louisville;
Margaret Susan Thompson, Syracuse; Sharon M. Thompson; Barrie
Thorne, USC; Carolyn Tice, Ohio U; Kip Tierman, U Mass,
Boston; Roberta Till-Retz, U Iowa; Shirley Tillotson,
Dalhousie U; Louise A. Tilly, New School; Susan Traverso, U
Wisconsin; Joan Tronto, CUNY; Louise Trubek, U Wisconsin;
Sandra G. Turner, Fordham; Adrienne Valdez, U Hawaii, Manoa;
Deborah M. Valenze, Barnard.
Dorothy Van Soest, Cahtolic U; Heidi Vickery, New School;
Kamala Visweswaran, New School; Lise Vogel, Denison; Nancy R.
Vosler, Wash U. St. Louis; Maureen Waller, Princeton;
Elaine M. Walsh, CUNY; Joanna K. Weinberg, U Cal San
Francisco; Helen Weingarten, U Mich; Marsha Weinraub,
Temple; Nancy Weiss, Syracuse; Beth Weitzman, NYU; Dorothy
E. Weitzman, Boston College; Carolyn Crosby Wells,
Marquette; Janice Wood Wetzel, Adelphi; Marianne H.
Whatley, U Wisconsin; Lora Wildenthal, Pitzer; Lucy A.
Williams, Northeastern; Rhonda M. Williams, U Maryland;
Ann Withorn, U Mass, Boston; Eleanor Wittrup, U Mass,
Lowell; L. Mun Wong, CUNY; Nancy A. Worcester, U
Wisconsin; Susan M. Yohn, Hofstra; Marilyn Young, NYU;
June Zaccone, Hofstra; Mary K. Zimmerman, U Kansas; Paz
Mendez-Bonita Zorita, Arizona State; Yvonne Zylan, NYU
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, one day in the life of American
children, three children die from child abuse--this is the Children's
Defense Fund report last year--nine murdered.
One day in the life of American children, 13 children die from guns;
27 children--a classroomful--die from poverty; 30 children are wounded
by guns.
One day in the life of American children, 63 babies die before they
are 1 month old.
One day in the life of American children, 101 babies die before their
first birthday; 145 babies are born at very low birth weight; 202
children are arrested for drug offenses; 307 children are arrested for
crimes of violence; 340 children are arrested for drinking or drunken
driving; 636 babies are born to women who had late or no prenatal care.
One day in the life of American children, 801 babies are born at low
birth weight; 1,234 children run away from home.
One day in the life of American children, 2,868 children are born
into poverty.
One day in the life of American children, 7,945 children are reported
abused or neglected.
One day in the life of American children, 100,000 children are
homeless.
Mr. President, we had a rather amazing statement made by one of our
colleagues in the House of Representatives that the reason there would
be no precise figures on precise cuts before a balanced budget
amendment is that Representatives and Senators, therefore, would not
vote for that amendment. There is a reason for that.
By the most conservative Congressional Budget Office estimate, if you
put Social Security in parentheses, if you do not cut the Pentagon, and
if you have to pay the interest on the debt in order to get to where we
are supposed to get to by the year 2002, we have to cut $1.2 trillion.
I say conservative estimate, because we are now in a bidding war to
raise the military budget, the Pentagon budget, to the tune of maybe
$50 billion over the next 5 years, and we are in a bidding war for more
and more tax cuts. That is revenue lost. That just leaves certain areas
of the budget where we can make the cuts. The arithmetic of this is
very clear and it is very compelling.
I do not present today on the floor of the Senate a sophisticated
econometric model. There are all sorts of different variables to
consider. But I will tell you this: On present course--and we must
change that course--when you look at outlays 2002, in terms of where we
are heading, and then you subtract Social Security, which will not be
cut, you subtract the Pentagon budget with
[[Page S723]]
a given percentage of the overall budget, and you subtract interest on
the debt and you look at a projected $319 billion deficit reduction
target, that $319 billion is about one-third of what you have left to
cut from.
So, Mr. President, we could be talking about, roughly speaking, 32-
percent cuts. Maybe we will not have a 32-percent cut in veterans
programs. Maybe we will not have a 32-percent cut in Medicare. In
Minnesota, that would mean a cut of $1 billion just in my State alone
in Medicare. Maybe it will be more in child nutrition programs. Maybe
it will be more in other children's programs.
I know that in Minnesota alone, by 2002 on present course, we can see
$145 million taken out of the following essential food assistance
programs. This is not precise, but this is the direction we are going
in: Food stamps, aid to women, infants, and children, and nutrition
programs for the elderly, and the School Lunch Program.
I said it before and I am going to say it again. A Food Research and
Action Council 1991 report, 5.5 million children under 12 years of age
are hungry in the United States of America. U.S. Council of Mayors'
status report on Hunger and Homelessness in American Cities 1994
estimates 26 percent that were homeless. The increase of the
population, 26 percent, I believe, of the homeless population were
children. National Academy of Sciences, 100,000 children are homeless
each day in our country.
Mr. President, if we continue on the present course and say we are
not going to cut the military contractors; no, we do not want to do
that; they have a lot of power. Heaven forbid that we do anything about
oil company subsidies or coal or gas or all sorts of other subsidies.
Heaven forbid that as we think about how to contain health care costs,
insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies are part of the
sacrifice. All that is off the table.
Willie Sutton was asked, Why did you go rob the banks? He said,
That's where the money was. In this Contract With America, we are going
to make cuts that affect the most vulnerable among the citizens in our
country, and they are children because they do not make the large
contributions, they do not lobby every day, and they do not have the
political power of some of these other interests.
Mr. President, again, today in Minnesota, 100 to 150 citizens, many
of them children, at a press conference, a number of the organizations,
Children's Defense Fund and others that have worked with children and
have such credibility for their work, were making predictions on where
we are going to be in 2002 with this Contract With America as it is
implemented: 29,150 babies, preschoolers and pregnant women would lose
infant formula and other WIC nutrition supplements; 31,000--actually, I
think it is 51,500--children would lose food stamps; 154,600 children
would lose free or subsidized school lunch programs.
Mr. President, I suggest that every Senator take a look at his or her
State and ask the question: What exactly is going to happen here? If we
are going to cut these programs that affect children in the country,
either it becomes a shell game and our States then have to pick up the
cost through a sales tax or a property tax, or the food shelves go
bare, we see a rise in hunger, we see a rise in homelessness, and we
see a rise in poverty among children in this country.
I said it once and I am going to say it again tonight before this
vote: I come from a State, as the Senator from Iowa, Senator Harkin
said, with a rich tradition of care and commitment for and to children.
Senator Hubert Humphrey personified that better than any other Senator
could.
Senator Humphrey said the test of government and society is how we
treat people in the dawn of life, and he meant the children; and in the
twilight of life, and he meant the elderly; and in the shadow of their
life, and he meant people struggling with an illness or struggling with
a disability or those that were poor.
Unfortunately, Mr. President, one out of every four children in
America are poor; one out of every two children of color are born into
poverty today.
Mr. President, I heard the majority leader say two things, one with
which I agree and one with which I am in profound disagreement. The
first thing he said was that he has a history of concern and a history
of commitment when it comes to nutritional programs and children in
America, and he is absolutely correct. For that I pay him my greatest
respect.
But, Mr. President, the second point that the majority leader made
was that somehow the timing is not right, this is not the right time.
Now, I am not today going to do an analysis of the number of
amendments that have been brought to the floor on different bills which
may or may not have been a part of those bills by some sort of test of
germaneness or relevancy. Believe me you, there have been many brought
to this floor, and certainly by now the current majority party.
That is not my point. My point is that Senators bring amendments to
the floor, just so that people who are watching this debate are clear,
because of timing. If you think an amendment is important and you think
that the timing of it is critical, that is when you do it.
Now, before we rush headlong into legislation that is going to hurt
children in this country, why is the time not right for the Senate to
go on record that it is the sense of the Congress that Congress should
not enact or adopt any legislation that will increase the number of
children who are hungry or homeless? Why is not the time right for the
Senate to go on record that with our committees, when we report bills
out, there will be reports accompanying those bills which will spell
out the impact of that legislation on children in America?
Tomorrow and the next day the timing is not right, the majority
leader says. Tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and I am not
sure how many days afterwards we are going to be talking about unfunded
mandates and we are going to be talking about precisely this; that when
legislation comes out of committee there will be a cost-benefit
analysis, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Mr. President, if we can say that we ought to do an impact analysis
of legislation on State governments and county governments and city
governments and corporations or small businesses, can we not today at
the beginning of the session before we get into this agenda and start
passing legislation, especially legislation that is going to hurt
children, pass a piece of legislation in the form of this amendment
that says no, we are not going to do anything, we are not going to do
anything that will increase the number of children who are hungry or
homeless?
Has it come to the point that the Senate is unwilling to go on record
saying that? Is it not timely for us to say that today? I say to my
colleagues in a nice way, I am sure that you listen to all your
constituents. And since I am sure you do, you must realize that there
are many people in this country who believe that we are about to go
through some cuts that are going to hurt those citizens who are the
most vulnerable in this country.
Now, I have had colleagues disagree with me, and they have said you
are sounding an alarm but not based upon any serious problem. Mr.
President, all you have to do, for those who have said no, we are not
going to do that, I would say why then do you not support this
amendment?
Mr. President, I have to say to the majority leader and my
colleagues, I cannot believe that you are trying to make the argument
that the timing is not right for this. Why is it not time for the
Senate to make it clear we are not going to enact or adopt any
legislation that will increase the number of children who are hungry or
homeless? Why is it not time for us to make a commitment to children
and make it clear that we will have a child impact statement which goes
with legislation reported out of committee as to how that legislation
will affect children?
I say to my colleagues that if you vote against this today, you
certainly are sending a message loud and clear. And what you are saying
to people around this country is, yes, you all have reason to be
fearful and you have reason to worry and you have reason for some
indignation that we are about to make some cuts that are going to hurt
the most vulnerable citizens in the United States of America, children,
because we are unwilling to go on record otherwise.
What do you mean the timing is not right today? When is the timing
going
[[Page S724]]
to be right? When is the timing going to be right? And I say to my
colleagues, yes--I say this to the Senator from Iowa, because I so
appreciate his grassroots approach to politics--populism is alive in
America. People are in an anti-status-quo mood, and people voted for
change.
But, Mr. President and my colleagues, there is a tremendous amount of
goodness in the United States of America. People did not vote to cut
nutrition programs for children. People did not vote for legislation
that could increase the number of children who are hungry or the number
of children who are homeless.
I say to my colleagues, if you do not think there is some compassion
in this Nation, and you do not think there is some sense of fairness in
this Nation, and you do not think there is some sense of justice in
this Nation, then you are profoundly wrong.
I hope the majority leader does not come out here and move to table
this amendment, which is all about congressional accountability. I want
the Senate to go on record and be accountable that we will not enact or
adopt any legislation that will increase the number of children who are
hungry or homeless. But if the majority leader should come out and move
to table, and we have a straight party-line vote, I sort of wonder when
some of my colleagues--I know I have in the past not necessarily voted
with leadership--are going to sort of vote exactly what they believe. I
cannot believe there is not anybody on the majority side of the aisle
who does not support this amendment on its merits.
But if it is voted down, then, Mr. President, I wish to say to my
colleagues tonight I will bring this amendment up in the Senate over
and over again. It will be up on the unfunded mandates bill and it will
be up on every piece of legislation, because I am going to hold my
colleagues accountable on this.
Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition? The minority manager of
the bill.
Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise to support the amendment of the
distinguished Senator from Minnesota. I compliment him for bringing
this up.
If people just look at the wording in this bill, it is not some wild-
eyed thing. It is not something that requires us to do a great deal
more work than we are otherwise going to have to do.
Let me read what the sense of the Congress is.
It is the sense of the Congress that Congress should not
enact or adopt any legislation that will increase the number
of children who are hungry or homeless.
Now, I cannot conceivably think that any Senator would take just the
opposite view and say that it is the sense of the Congress that we
should adopt legislation that would increase the number of children who
are hungry or homeless, and it would be ludicrous to think anybody
would do that. So why something of this nature could not be supported I
do not know. We would not even consider the opposite and say we will
adopt legislation that will increase the hungry or homeless. All this
says is that Congress has to be careful and not do something
inadvertently that will increase the number of children who are hungry
or homeless.
Now, the second part of it:
Section 2. Accountability. Duties of Congressional
committees.
Pretty simple really.
A report accompanying each bill or joint resolution of a
public character reported by any committee of the Senate or
of the House of Representatives shall contain a detailed
analysis of the probable impact of the bill or resolution on
children, including the impact on the number of children who
are hungry or homeless.
Now, I would say that with probably 90 percent or more of the
legislation that goes through here, that requirement will mean
practically no work at all for the committee. If you are on the Energy
Committee or whatever other committee, it is going to be pretty simple
to say no, there is no direct impact on hungry or homeless children.
But if, for those committees that deal with things where there is an
impact, then at that time it would seem to me that we had better be
looking at it, because we certainly do not want to add to the problems
we already have with the number of children who are hungry or homeless.
The rest is simple. It says that you cannot consider a bill, the same
thing for the House, and so on, and the rest is very simple.
I think it would be difficult to vote against something that just
says we will not adopt legislation that will increase the number of
children who are hungry or homeless. I do not see this as adding a big
burden to our committee activity around here at all. There will be very
few committees. Where some legislation is passed, it would definitely
have a negative impact on the number of children who are hungry or
homeless.
So I urge my colleagues to support the Senator from Minnesota, and I
am glad to support him on this.
Mr. DOLE addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I do not know quite what this amendment
does. Well, it does not do anything; that is what it does. I have been
a member of the Nutrition Committee for years. I worked with Senator
McGovern from South Dakota. We repealed the requirements of the food
stamp law that require people to put up money, and things of that kind.
It may have been a mistake. We thought we were doing the right thing.
We worked a lot on the nutrition and school lunch programs and WIC
programs. I do not know that we can pass laws here that say--I do not
know who will count these people every day, or every week, or every
month. We do not know, if the law is passed, what the economy is going
to be. This all ought to be discussed when we have the budget before
us.
We are talking about dollars here, because there is no way we are
going to be able to tell, if the law passes, whether somebody would be
hungry in America or one more might be hungry. That is the import of
this, even though it is a sense-of-the-Senate resolution. It is not
binding.
We are trying to cover Congress here with all the laws we inflict on
everybody else in America. We have had a dozen amendments that have
nothing to do with that at all. The American people want us to be an
example, not part of the problem. We will be an example if we cover
ourselves with laws that we inflict on small businessmen and women in
Minnesota, Iowa, Ohio, Kansas, Vermont, Pennsylvania, or wherever it
may be.
The House did this in 20 minutes, as I said. This is our 4th day on
this bill because of all of these extraneous amendments. I understand
that this is an opportunity to offer a lot of amendments and make the
Republicans look heartless and cold, and all this. This is not going to
work. The American people want us to cover ourselves. Every day we wait
is another day it is not going to happen. I will be just, I hope, as
diligent as the Senator from Minnesota when it comes to children's
programs or nutrition programs. For that reason, I will move to table
the amendment.
We want to finish this bill quickly. We have agreed that at 6:15, we
could either vote up or down or on a motion in relation to the
amendment.
Mr. President, I move to table the amendment, and I ask for the yeas
and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays are ordered, and the clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia [Mr.
Rockefeller] is necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 56, nays 43, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 11 Leg.]
YEAS--56
Abraham
Ashcroft
Bennett
Bond
Brown
Burns
Chafee
Coats
Cochran
Cohen
Coverdell
Craig
D'Amato
DeWine
Dole
Domenici
Faircloth
Frist
Gorton
Gramm
Grams
Grassley
Gregg
Hatch
Hatfield
Helms
Hollings
Hutchison
Inhofe
Jeffords
Kassebaum
Kempthorne
Kerrey
Kyl
Lieberman
Lott
Lugar
Mack
McCain
McConnell
Murkowski
Nickles
Packwood
Pressler
Roth
Santorum
Shelby
Simpson
Smith
Snowe
[[Page S725]]
Specter
Stevens
Thomas
Thompson
Thurmond
Warner
NAYS--43
Akaka
Baucus
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Bradley
Breaux
Bryan
Bumpers
Byrd
Campbell
Conrad
Daschle
Dodd
Dorgan
Exon
Feingold
Feinstein
Ford
Glenn
Graham
Harkin
Heflin
Inouye
Johnston
Kennedy
Kerry
Kohl
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Mikulski
Moseley-Braun
Moynihan
Murray
Nunn
Pell
Pryor
Reid
Robb
Sarbanes
Simon
Wellstone
NOT VOTING--1
Rockefeller
So the motion to lay on the table the amendment (No. 14) was agreed
to.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the
motion was agreed to.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. KEMPTHORNE. Mr. President, I rise today to express my strong
support for the Congressional Accountability Act. This legislation is
very much needed and I would like to commend Senator Grassley and the
many others who have played a role in developing S. 2, for all the work
they have done in assembling this bipartisan measure. I believe the
support this bill has from both sides of the aisle is a testament to
their work and to the desire of the American people to have the
Congress live by the laws it creates.
I have long stated my belief that a government which governs best is
closest to the people. Conversely, a government which begins to drift,
and separate itself from those for whom it works is likely to forget
the needs and wants of its citizens. For far too long we have seen the
Congress drift in such a direction. S. 2 will help correct this
situation and put us back on course.
Last spring, I joined several of my colleagues in Russia where we met
with our legislative counterparts in the fledgling democracy. Do you
know what two of the most prized documents in Russia are today? It is
copies of the Constitution of the United States and the Federalist
Papers.
In Federalist 57, James Madison--the father of our Constitution--
warned that if the American people ``tolerate a law not obligatory on
the legislature as well as on the people, the people will be prepared
to tolerate anything but liberty.'' In essence, he was saying if the
time comes when the people accept a legislature which does not live by
the laws it passes, the people will have lost their freedom. The idea
that the government shall not have rules which distinguishes it from
the people, is the critical connection between the rulers and the
ruled, and establishes a communion of understanding and sympathy.
Well, Mr. President, is it any wonder why public opinion ratings of
Congress are significantly low? The general public doesn't feel
Congress is in touch with the issues which impact their daily lives. In
living outside the limits of the same workplace laws it imposes on
others, the Congress has lost touch.
Whenever I visit with Idaho business owners and operators, their
frustrations with Federal workplace regulations quickly enter into the
conversation. In fact, one of my first acts as a Member of this body
was to help a small company in Boise which had been fined due to the
overzealous and misguided application of Occupational Safety and Health
Administration regulations. I saw first-hand the problems small
businesses face in trying to meet the demands of the Federal
bureaucracy. I also came to better understand the frustration these
same businessmen and women feel when they find Congress has
conveniently exempted itself from those same rules.
The Congressional Accountability Act will correct this. By providing
congressional employees--approximately 39,000 of whom will be impacted
by the legislation--with the same protections which exist in the
private sector, Congress no longer will be allowed to set the rules for
others without setting them for themselves as well. This will place us
squarely on track to follow the form of government intended by the
Founding Fathers and which later generations fought so hard to
preserve. This is the first step toward once again giving us a
government which is ``of the people, by the people, and for the
people'' rather than one which is over the people, at the people, and
in spite of the people.
Some would argue that the estimated annual cost of the bill of
between $4 and $5 million is reason enough to oppose this legislation.
Yes, the additional cost of complying with the laws included in S. 2 is
something we should keep in mind, but it is also something which should
have been kept in mind when these laws were originally passed for the
private sector. Either the expense of a law is too high for the public
or private sector to justify enactment or it is not. We cannot, in good
conscience, claim workplace laws are too expensive for the Congress
while at the same time claiming they are sufficiently affordable for
the Nation's business owners and entrepreneurs. It is my hope enactment
of S. 2 will serve as an impetus for Members of Congress, in their own
self-interest, to thoroughly examine the ramifications of any
legislation we consider prior to passing it. In so doing, we will also
gain a better understanding of what we are asking of others.
Mr. President, we have before us an opportunity to show the people we
serve just how serious we are about reforming Congress. In passing the
Congressional Accountability Act we will take solid action to show the
American people that we are a part of the Nation, not a separate entity
which is above the law. We can, in one easy step, take a significant
stride toward restoring public confidence in the legislative branch,
opening the door to a more responsive and attentive government in the
future.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, this past year, I created a Small
Business Advocacy Council in New Mexico. Its purpose was to advise me
about the problems of small businesses and how, together, we might be
able to resolve some of their critical concerns.
This council held seven meetings in six locations throughout the
State of New Mexico, with more than 400 small businesses participating.
They vented their concerns, and most of their issues centered on what
appeared to them to be: First, an adversarial relationship between the
Federal Government and business; and second, the lack of accountability
of regulatory agencies and their work with business.
Underlying these two categories of problems, however, is the basic
issue that we, in Congress, simply do not understand what is passed on
to them in the way of laws and regulations.
To the people in my State of New Mexico, it appears that Congress--no
matter how well-intentioned--simply passes the laws and exempts itself
from their application. The public certainly has had a right to ask us:
Why? If these laws are important, if they provide protections for an
employee, if they provide benefits for an employee, why doesn't
Congress think they are equally important and applicable to itself and
to its employees?
Like any unfunded mandate, Congress passes along to others the
responsibility of implementing the law; and, if the law is ignored or
disobeyed, to pay the penalty.
These rules, regulations, and laws are good enough for everyone else,
but it appears that Congress, itself, is too good for them.
The businesses in my State complain about the inefficiency, the loss
of productivity, and the loss of revenue when they must implement
hundreds of laws and regulations. They rightfully argue that if we
subjected ourselves to the same requirements, we might understand more
fully the implications of these mandates.
They are correct. When we pass a law to extend family and medical
leave, for example, it is not just about an employee's absence and
redistributing the workload, it is also about creation of a specific
and precise set of office bookkeeping programs and procedures.
This does not mean that a sick leave policy is a superfluous one.
However, few of us recognize the underlying management issues that must
be instituted--that it takes people to manage these systems and that it
takes funds to do so. We never think about it because we do not have to
worry about implementing the laws or paying a penalty if we fail to
act.
Now, with passage of this bill, we are going to have an opportunity
to assess the secondary effects of these laws. We,
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too, will be subject to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the
Federal Labor Management Relations Act, the Worker Adjustment and
Retraining Notification Act, and many others.
We will now better understand what many of our constituents have been
complaining about--not the basic social good of these laws--but,
rather, what it takes to carry them out and the resulting impacts on
productivity, time, and costs. I suggest we may find that we have been
imposing laws that are often inconvenient, impractical, and costly.
Most important, we will recognize that the ability to carry on our work
with creativity and flexibility will be sorely tested, if not severely
inhibited.
We are going to be able to determine for ourselves if there are ways
to bring about equitable conditions in the workplace while ensuring we
do not impose unrealistic reporting responsibilities or inefficient
methods of management. We will find out that we have been very
fortunate, indeed, to occasionally sweep problems under the rug because
we know there will be no enforcement of any penalty to pay for
noncompliance. And, we will now understand the complaint that ``form
over substance'' often becomes a priority for getting the job done.
Like many other conditions in life, we have to first look at our own
house before we make demands on others. This bill will now make that
oversight much more understandable, and, frankly, more equitable. I
believe that we will have more empathy for those who have extended
their legitimate complaints to us. And, I believe that we will now have
the opportunity to reassess whether we can make reasonable changes that
serve the interests of the workplace and its employees while lessening
the costs and day-to-day burdens on the employer.
This measure is an important one. For many years the American public
has asked us to ``do unto ourselves what we do unto others.'' Its time
has come, and I am pleased to support this bill wholeheartedly.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I rise to express my strong support for
the Congressional Accountability Act, which I am proud to cosponsor.
This bill is about a simple principle: What is good enough for the
American people ought to be good enough for Congress. There should be
no double standard for elected officials in Washington.
The Congressional Accountability Act will begin to bring Congress
under the jurisdiction of the laws it passes. Some of my colleagues who
support this bill say that living under the laws we pass will
discourage us from passing more laws because we will see how horrible
they really are. I disagree with that view 100 percent.
I support the Congressional Accountability Act because I want my
employees to enjoy the full protection of the laws of the United States
of America. Among other laws, this bill will make Congress subject to
the Fair Labor Standards Act, which sets minimum wages and work
standards for our employees. This bill brings Congress under the
jurisdiction of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which
guarantees that our employees will not labor in unsafe conditions. It
brings Congress under the jurisdiction of the Civil Rights Acts, so our
employees will have protection from job discrimination on the basis of
race, religion, and sex, and it will give them legal protection from
sexual harassment.
This bill brings Congress under these laws and several others,
including the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Americans with
Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and the
Rehabilitation Act.
Mr. President, congressional employees deserve better than to take
their complaints of sexual harassment to congressionally-established
bureaucracies. They deserve the right to press their complaints to the
district court. This bill will give them that right.
Mr. President, the laws covered in this bill are good laws and I am
glad that my employees will enjoy their full protection. When we pass
this bill, Congress will no longer be the last plantation. We will no
longer live by a different set of rules than the rest of the country.
While I support this bill strongly and will vote for its passage, I
wish to take this opportunity to state my disappointment that several
important reform measures were tabled by the Republican majority. In
the past week, initiatives to restrict gifts to Members of Congress and
to limit lobbyists' contributions to Federal candidates were defeated
largely along party-line votes. Amendments to limit the personal use of
campaign funds and to end the McCarthy-esque practice of subjecting
congressional employees to political litmus tests also were defeated by
our friends across the aisle. Each of these amendments would have
strengthened this bill, and I am very disappointed they were dismissed
so easily.
Despite this reservation, I am pleased that we are finally acting on
congressional accountability legislation. Last year, when this bill was
stalled by endless debate, I said:
The American people are demanding that Congress change the
way it does business. They want reform now--not next session
or next year. So let's move this bill forward and vote on it
before the end of the year.
In my view, Mr. President, we are a few months late in acting on this
important legislation, but there remains an urgent need to pass it. I
urge my colleagues to respond to the American people's demands for
change by passing this important bill.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, today I rise to voice my support for
legislation that takes one more small step in reforming Congress. While
words such as ``accountability,'' ``responsibility,'' and
``restoration'' are used to describe almost every legislative proposal,
S. 2 offers us the real opportunity to restore accountability.
As you know, Mr. President, S. 2 will apply labor, civil rights, and
workplace laws to Congress. I strongly believe that Congress should
follow the laws it writes. Congressional coverage is a necessity.
Congress is not above the laws that it passes for the rest of the
Nation.
Mr. President, this is not the first time congressional coverage
legislation has been proposed. In the 103d Congress, I supported S.
2071, which was sponsored by Senators Lieberman and Grassley.
Unfortunately, the bill was blocked from floor consideration. In fact I
have voted for similar congressional coverage on other occasions as
well. In 1990 and 1992, during consideration of civil rights
legislation, I supported extending many of these laws to Congress.
I am deeply disappointed, however, that the amendment regarding gifts
to Members of Congress was defeated in a partisan vote. The gift
amendment was designed to treat Congress like the executive branch of
government; to remove any suspicion that Members of Congress are
receiving special favors for legislative activities. That reform
amendment would have truly made Congress more accountable to the
public. Many say that the November election was about a revolution and
that the public has demanded that Congress change the way it does
business. We had an opportunity to make such an important change, and I
believe we let the public down. I hope we will revisit this issue again
this year, and that we will find the courage to adopt real gift reform
legislation.
I urge my colleagues to support S. 2, and any amendments that will
strengthen S. 2 to make it even more true to the concept of
accountability. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise in support of S. 2, the Congressional
Accountability Act, which will require Congress to live by the same
laws and regulations under which it requires businesses and individuals
in the private sector to operate.
S. 2 is the first in a series of bills the Republican-led 104th
Congress will take up to respond to the mandate the citizens of this
country sent to Congress last November. That mandate calls for Congress
to take action to make this institution more accountable to the people
and to produce a smaller, less intrusive, and more efficient
government.
Step one of this important mandate is S. 2, a bill to apply all the
major labor, safety, and antidiscrimination laws to Congress. Making
Congress live under the same laws it imposes on private sector
businesses is simply a matter of fairness. Congress has exempted itself
from these laws for over 50 years, but today, under new congressional
leadership, this institution will no
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longer apply one very different standard to itself and one to business
and individuals.
Congressional employees will now have the same legal protections as
employees in the private sector. Currently, congressional employees
cannot bring suit in Federal district court. But, with passage of the
Congressional Accountability Act congressional workers for the first
time may bring a private action in Federal district court against
Congress. Currently, House staff members have no rights of judicial
review and Senate staffers can, after a lengthy internal process, take
to the Federal circuit court of appeals complaints about decisions made
by the Chamber's internal Office of Fair Employment Practices.
As I traveled the State over the past year, from Yuma to Flagstaff to
Cottonwood, the subject of congressional accountability evoked strong
reactions from the citizens of Arizona. Their message was clear:
Congress currently operates above the very laws it imposes on the
people and that must change. Arizonans want their congressional
Representatives and Senators accountable. They not only want, they
demand passage of the Congressional Accountability Act.
Grassroots support for congressional accountability certainly
evolved, to some degree, out of a desire for fair treatment of the over
23,000 workers on the congressional payroll. But, by and large, what I
have heard from small business owners and, yes, workers across Arizona
is that Congress passes well-intentioned safety, labor, et cetera laws
but they are often unrealistic and irrational. Business owners and
workers believe Congress should feel the burden of these laws and
regulations just as businesses across America feel the burden.
It is these regulations and laws that get in the way of business
owners and workers carrying out their respective purposes and earning
an honest living. For example, Occupational Safety and Health
Administration [OSHA] regulations require businesses to post employee
injuries. A company faces a fine if a list is not posted, even if there
have been no injuries. Businesses are also often required to fill out
safety data sheets, which show how a company will handle various
hazardous materials, for such simple substances as dishwashing liquid
or even chalk. It is for violating these regulations that small
businesses often face hefty fines from OSHA. Since Congress passed
these laws and regulations, however, it should be subject to their
implementation--to, for example, random OSHA site inspections that
often result in unnecessary fines and burdensome paperwork. The
Congressional Accountability Act will force Congress to adhere to the
same regulations and pay the same fines, however unwise, as every other
private business in America. Again, that is what is fair. And, that is
what will give Members and Senators a better practical understanding of
the laws and regulations it passes--in the end, I believe, it is this
forced compliance and practical understanding of our Nation's civil
rights, labor and safety laws that will result in the repeal or
modification of the ones that are burdensome, ill-drafted, or
unnecessary to ensuring the safety and labor rights of our Nation's
workers.
As John Motley of the National Federation of Independent Businesses
stated so well in a recent letter to me
When Congress exempts itself from burdensome laws, it sets
itself above the people it governs. A small business owner
who fails to comply with these laws must face the full weight
of the Federal Government. Congress will only understand the
effect of the laws they impose on America's entrepreneurs and
job creators if they are required to live under the very same
laws.
Under S. 2, the 11 major safety and labor laws that are either
completely or partially inapplicable now will apply to Congress. Those
11 laws are the Federal Labor Standards Act of 1964, and VII of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans With Disabilities Act, the
Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, OSHA, the Federal Service Labor
Management Relations Act, the Employee Protection Act, the Worker
Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act and the Veterans
Reemployment Act.
Congressional coverage will not be limited to those 11 laws. Under S.
2, all future legislation must include a report to describe how it
applies to Congress or to describe why it does not. Consideration of a
bill on the House or Senate floor would not be permitted if the bill
report lacked such a statement. When the Congress knows that it must
adhere to the provisions of whatever future legislation it passes, it
will more likely pass legislation respecting the rights of individuals
and businesses.
Mr. President, the Congressional Accountability Act will not only
make the U.S. Congress a better employer, it will show the American
people that we understand the unfairness of existing congressional
exemptions. The old saying, ``Do as I say, not as I do,'' will no
longer apply to this institution because Congress will be living
according to the same laws as others.
Passage of this bill completes an important first step up the ladder
of change the American people have demanded. I am pleased to be a part
of a national commitment to fundamentally changing the way business is
conducted here in Washington, DC, and I urge my colleagues, without
delay, to pass S. 2.
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