[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 20 (Wednesday, February 1, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H1038-H1045]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PROGRESS ON THE CONTRACT WITH AMERICA
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 4, 1995, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hoke] is recognized for
60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. HOKE. Mr. Speaker, I am looking forward to this special order
that I have asked some of my colleagues to participate in, the
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Portman], the gentleman from North Carolina
[Mr. Jones], the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston], and what we
want to do this evening is review some of the things we have already
done in this Congress, review some of the things that have happened
immediately preceding and some of the things that we expect to be
doing.
I want to point out first of all that today we took a very important
step on the road to recovering the confidence of the American people
that began with the election last November. That is because what we did
today is
[[Page H1039]] we passed a bill that will examine unfunded mandates to
the States, and the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Portman] is going to
discuss that in detail a little bit later. But we have been following
this road map that was laid out in the Contract With America for
getting more done, more quickly than even we could have imagined, and
best of all this is the work that the people of America want us to do.
Let me give a fact on that, because a poll was released this past
Monday by the Washington Post and ABC News which contains extremely
good news for this House and good news for the American people. In only
3 months public confidence in Congress has actually doubled. That is
the largest increase of its kind since the 20-year history of the poll
that has been taken.
The majority of Americans now say that Congress can deal with the big
issues facing our country, and we are dealing with the big issues just
like we promised. Anyway, why has this happened? Why is there this
rising confidence in what the American people can expect from Congress,
and why is this cynicism starting to drop away?
Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield. Just to repeat those
numbers again, Congress went from about a 20-to-40-something-percent
approval rating because for the first time in recent memory Congress is
following through on campaign promises.
Mr. HOKE. Elected Members are actually keeping the promises that they
made to the people, and the impact that that has on confidence in our
institution is really immeasurable. But it is wonderful to see in this
kind of polling result that actually people are able to express that
yes, they have more confidence in the U.S. Congress' ability to solve
the problems, the major problems that are facing our country.
Look at what we have done; and why is it we have done this? And in
less than 30 days we have cut the fat out of Congress, we have reduced
staff and committees and we have passed reforms that will make it the
most open and fair public legislative assembly in the entire world.
Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, if I might add
to that, what we did was we campaigned on the word ``trust.'' We said
to the voters, for many years you have not been able to put your trust
in the Congress. We are giving you a written agenda, a contract, and we
intend to stand by this contract.
To the gentleman from Ohio I would say I am pleased that when I go
back to my State of North Carolina I am stopped in the grocery stores,
I am stopped on the street, people that I really do not
even remember their names because it has been so long since I have
seen them telling me, ``Keep on working, keep the focus. We are proud
of what you are doing in Washington, D.C. You are rebuilding the trust
level that has been lost for so many years.''
Mr. HOKE. I think one of the most remarkable things about this
Contract With America is that it has created a road map for us that
even we did not realize it was going to be so important to us in terms
of keeping us focused on exactly what the American people wanted, what
they expected and what we promised to deliver to them. And that is
exactly how it has worked for us.
Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield, I got a letter recently,
and I assume I was one of 435 Members of Congress who got such a
letter. It was not a constituent, it came from Ohio, or some other
exotic spot that we had to study about in seventh grade geography, but
it had the letters DWUSUWGTD. It says to a Member of Congress: I want
you to put it on your desk and look at it every day. On the back of the
letter it stands for: Do what you said you were going to do. And my
staff sees the sign every day, and I think that is in somewhat of a
nutshell what the Contract With America is about. That is why it was in
writing, that is why we signed it, and that is why we keep referring
back to it.
Mr. HOKE. Let us tick off exactly what we have done so far. Cut the
fat out of Congress, reduced committee staff by a third, cut the budget
of Congress. We have made Congress subject to the same laws that
everybody else in this country is subject to, and we passed last
Thursday, I am extremely proud to say, a balanced budget amendment to
the Constitution of the United States. And today, thanks to the very
able stewardship of Congressmen Clinger, Davis, and Portman we passed
the unfunded mandates bill ending the Government practice of spending
States' money to finance our own mandates to them.
Mr. PORTMAN. If the gentleman will yield, we had an exciting day
today. It was truly a landmark piece of legislation. It was a historic
day for the House, the first time we have ever, ever, as a Congress
done anything to stop these unfunded Federal mandates.
And it was bipartisan. The gentleman mentioned a few of the major
sponsors of the bill. Another one is Gary Condit of California, a
Democrat.
Mr. HOKE. Who gave an extraordinary speech on this floor a couple of
days ago to rousing bipartisan applause.
Mr. PORTMAN. We had a vote today of 306 to 74 on this legislation. We
worked on it for 2 weeks on the floor of the House, over 30 hours of
debate. That means we got about 130 Democrats to support the bill
today. This is despite again a lot of disagreement on the other side.
We had health debate and we worked hard on this bill. None of this
stuff is easy to do. You have to roll up your sleeves and really work
at it.
But we got to the point of final passage after accepting a lot of
amendments and perfecting the bill where a large bipartisans group of
the members of this House decided yes, it is time to step up to the
plate and start being accountable for what we do for the States and
localities.
Mr. HOKE. Maybe that is one of the reasons why in this same poll the
majority of the American people say that ``Republicans are breaking
down legislative gridlock.'' As you can see, this clearly was a
bipartisan effort.
What was the vote count again?
Mr. PORTMAN. The vote was 360 to 74. And I have to be honest, the
first few days one wonder whether
we were getting back into gridlock because we committed to have an
open rule on this. This meant any Member of Congress could come to the
floor of this House and file an amendment, and we had 174 of them
filed, and then have a debate on that amendment, with no time
limitation because everyone can speak for 5 minutes, and that can be
expanded.
So it was a challenge and I have to tell you we spent 3 or 4 days on
a very small part of the legislation that was even preliminary to the
real meat of the bill, and I was concerned that we were getting into a
mode that might be viewed as filibuster or too much dilatory tactics.
But finally, after staying to midnight one night we broke through that
and got into serious discussion of some of the outstanding issues.
Again if you roll up your sleeves and work at it you come up with a
bill that makes sense. This bill is in the Contract With America, but
on the House floor we improved it. It is even a better bill than it
was.
Mr. HOKE. I thought the comity at the end of debate today and
especially the kind words for the chairman by the gentlewoman from
California, they were both well taken and they went an awfully long way
toward building an even better spirit of working, although we were not
working together in that case, but clearly working on something that
was of importance to your constituents in a way that reflected well on
this body as opposed to reflecting poorly.
{time} 2010
I think the American people want to see us get the job done. The
gentlewoman you are talking about did not vote for the bill. She did
not agree with the premise of the bill. But as you say, in the end, in
a spirit of comity, she talked about how the chairman had been fair,
how we had an open process on the floor. That is what the American
people want to see. They want to see an honest debate on the issues. If
we have differences, they want to see us air those differences. But
they want to get on with the business of managing this country.
Mr. HOKE. Could I ask you a question? I think there is a lot of
misunderstanding about this bill. I think people think and there is a
general understanding in the public somehow we will no longer be able
to legislate anything
[[Page H1040]] that would cost the States money. Is that what the bill
does?
Mr. PORTMAN. No. That is not what the bill does. The whole premise of
the bill is if something is important enough for us to mandate at the
Federal level, to tell the States and localities you have got to do it
our way, we ought to be able to step up to the plate and provide
funding for it. This bill says
there has to be, for the first time ever, first time ever, we have
never had this in Congress before, a cost analysis of what the
legislation is going to cost.
How many times have you come up to the House floor and never had any
idea what the cost is to State and local government of something you
are going to vote on? Frankly, we have not had that information. That
forces us to get that information.
Mr. KINGSTON. I heard a statistic this morning I thought that was
interesting. There are 39,000 municipalities in this great country of
ours. Eighty percent of them are populations below 10,000, and 48
percent have populations below 1,000. We sit up here in our inside-the-
beltway ivory tower mandating all these ridiculous programs on them.
They do not have the money to pay for them. They do not have the
personnel. Inevitably they have to turn around and raise the taxes on
all the constituents back home.
Mr. PORTMAN. They have two choices at the local level, and it is
pretty obvious, if you think about it. One is to raise taxes at the
local level, and that tends to be property taxes. Talk about regressive
taxes. And the second is to cut services, the very services our
constituents are saying they want more of, fire, police protection,
personal security. That is what they do. These are the communities the
gentleman is talking about that are going to have to go with one or two
fewer police officers during a particular timeframe. That is not what
we want to be doing to the people we represent and who are also
represented by State and local officials who are having to live under
these mandates increasingly.
Mr. HOKE. So you are saying it is going to require a cost analysis?
Does anything else happen then?
Mr. PORTMAN. It requires a cost analysis so we will know what we are
voting on. Then on the floor of the House, any Member of this House can
stand up and raise what is called a point of order, which means it can
stop the whole process if a new mandate is not funded. So you know what
the cost is, and if some committee sends a bill to this floor that is
not funded, in other words, it has a new requirement that is not
funded, then any one of us or any other Member can stand up and say,
``Point of order; this legislation needs to stop,'' and it stops right
there, and you have a debate on the floor of the House about the
unfunded mandate in that legislation.
Let us take an example, the motor-voter bill, the first bill that I
had the privilege to consider here in the Congress when I walked in my
first day. I had to vote up or down on motor voter. I kind of looked at
it. Everybody wants to have more voter registration. But I did not
think it made sense, because Ohio, as the gentleman from Ohio knows,
has a good voter registration program. It is run at the State level, as
all programs were until we passed this national bill. I was told by
some members of the Governor's office here in Washington this was going
to cost the State of Ohio several million dollars a year. Nobody was
sure, because there was not a good cost estimate. There was no Federal
money to pay for it.
I voted against the bill on that basis. Now we are finding out many
of these States, including California, are suing the Federal Government
for precisely that reason. It is costing them a lot of money for voter
registration.
Mr. HOKE. What is Ohio estimating it is going to cost them just to
run the Motor-Voter Act?
Mr. PORTMAN. Twenty-nine million dollars is what the Governor is
saying annually.
Mr. KINGSTON. It is $3 million in Georgia. It is interesting the
party in power in Georgia was even against it, the same party as the
White House and those who were pushing it here, so it is really not a
partisan issue.
Mr. PORTMAN. It is not. That is an excellent point. Let me just for a
moment, we talked about, you know, it takes a lot of hard work to get
to this point. You have got to have a bipartisan group here in Congress
to support and get behind it. This is not a partisan issue outside of
this room really, and outside the Beltway.
One of the concerns I had with the debate on the House floor over the
first few days is it appeared to be sadly a partisan debate. If you go
out into the real world, if you talk to township trustees, you talk to
county commissioners, mayors of these small towns the gentleman talks
about, it is not a partisan issue; whether you are a Democrat,
Republican, or independent, you are getting sick and tired of the
Federal Government having a one-size-fits-all Federal requirement
coming down on you with no money to pay for it.
Mr. HOKE. You know, I listened to the debate today. It sounded to me
like some of the things coming from the other side that this bill, this
unfunded-mandates bill, would repeal all of the legislation we passed,
you know, since 1789. Is that the case?
Mr. PORTMAN. No. It is not. What this bill does is it looks
prospectively. It looks to the future.
Mr. HOKE. So it has nothing to do with anything we passed in the
past?
Mr. PORTMAN. No. It does not affect the Clean Air Act. It does not
affect the Clean Water Act. Now, if those bills come up for
reauthorization or there are new mandates attached to them, absolutely,
it applies to that. The whole idea is we have got a critically,
critically ill patient on our hands. There is a crisis out there. The
first thing we do in an emergency room is stop the hemorrhaging, and
that is what we are doing here, we are trying to stop the practice, to
get Washington to get serious about this, and for the first time ever
today we passed a bill to force Washington to do that. It was a
historic day. It was part of our contract. It is us keeping our
promise. It involved a lot of hard work. We have got to work with the
Senate to come up with a compromise between the House and the Senate
version, and we will be able to do that as we work with the Senate on
this bill.
Mr. HOKE. If I can interrupt and ask you a question, because I agree
with the gentleman that it is absolutely a critically important first
step.
As you said, what you can raise with this is a point of order that
stops all of the business on the floor with respect to a new mandate on
the State, and debate then takes place as to whether or not that
mandate should, well, as to how much it costs. We have to have a cost
analysis of it, and then, at that point, does that mean that bill will
no longer obtain or what happens?
Mr. PORTMAN. No. It does not. What happens then, if Congress chooses,
Congress may, by a majority vote, waive that point of order. But it
forces us to face the issue.
Mr. HOKE. Creates accountability?
Mr. PORTMAN. Exactly. You know, it is again, an up-or-down vote on
this House floor because of our rules has historically been very
difficult. Motor
voter, again, a good example, there was never a debate on this floor
as to whether there was an unfunded mandate. There was never any cost
information to have an informed debate, and then there was no up-or-
down vote on whether to impose the unfunded mandate.
What this bill does again for the first time is it says let us be
accountable. If we are going to do this, let us step up to the plate
and do it in the full view of the American people, the press, and so
on.
That is why the Governors, the other State and local officials,
mayors, county commissioners, and so on, supported this bill and worked
with us to draft a bill that makes sense for them, and why even today
they were here congratulating us on passing this bill. It was the No. 1
item for the National Conference of Mayors, No. 1 item for the National
Governors' Association, and so on.
Mr. HOKE. Are there more Democrats or Republicans in the National
Conference of Mayors?
Mr. PORTMAN. It has typically been the case that there are more
Democrats. It is not a partisan issue again. We happen to have more
Republic Governors than Democrats right now, but I can tell you that
some of the Democrat Governors have been leading advocates on this
issue to get Congress to get its requirements under control, and it is
part of a much bigger picture, I have got to say to the gentleman from
Ohio,
[[Page H1041]] and that is the whole issue of federalism: What is the
role of the Federal Government?
We are finally getting to the point in this Congress where we are
beginning to debate that issue in a serious way. It is going to come up
with welfare reform, it is going to come up with health care reform if
we get into that again later in the year: What should the role be of
the Federal Government? Should we be dictating everything here from
Washington, or should we be giving the States and localities more
flexibility, more say in how they go about solving the problems of this
great country?
Mr. KINGSTON. We are at this point 2 out of 10 on the contract?
Mr. HOKE. Actually, no. We are about 3 out of 10. We have
congressional accountability, we have knocked down unfunded mandates,
and we passed the balanced budget amendment.
Mr. KINGSTON. Does that bring us to crime on our discussion?
Mr. HOKE. Yes. I want to thank the gentleman from Ohio for spending
the time. If I could ask the gentleman from Ohio one more question,
because the gentleman has had and has been instrumental in pushing this
unfunded-mandates bill through. If this is the first critical step, do
you have anything to share with us as to what the next step is in this
process?
Mr. PORTMAN. Well, I do. The next step in the process is there will
be a year-long study of all existing mandates which would include the
Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and so on. There will be a report
to the Congress a year from now, assuming this legislation is signed by
the President and goes into law, and that report will go through all
the existing mandates in a comprehensive way, and in a logical way,
because you want to look at all the different pieces, and it will make
recommendations that are very specific as to what we as a Congress
should do legislatively to change existing statutes and existing
mandates.
This is one reason again these State and local officials supported
this legislation so strongly, because it gives us the ability to figure
out what makes sense to be mandated from Washington and what does not.
Mr. HOKE. Find out how much it costs, not to eliminate it, not to
repeal it, but to find out what it really costs, because certainly
there are some programs that cost much more than they are worth, but we
will never know that if we do not have a bona fide critical analysis of
it.
Mr. PORTMAN. Absolutely.
Mr. HOKE. I thank you very much for spending your time with us.
It is a good way to segue into another area of extreme importance in
the Contract With America that we are going to be getting to, and that
has to do with crime and welfare as well. Maybe the gentleman from
Georgia [Mr. Kingston] would like to talk a little bit about where we
are going with this.
{time} 2020
Mr. KINGSTON. It is interesting you put crime and welfare right on
top of each other because there is no question they are very related.
The situation that we are in as a society is, we are not free if we
cannot walk down the streets of America without having to look over our
shoulder, without having the security guards, without discussing
whether or not you can carry a gun to protect yourself. We are not free
as long as there is the criminal, slime element on our streets.
The Clinton program basically was a Hug-a-Thug program. Their idea of
getting tough on the criminal was having him foul out in midnight
basketball. Our criminals need arraignment, not entertainment. They
need to be in the big institution or pay restitution. I mean, that is
just the bottom line. We need to have the truth in sentencing law that
says ``All right, if you are sentenced for 10 years you are not going
to serve 3\1/2\ years, which is the 35 percent normal sentence; you are
going to serve the full 10 years,'' or at least 9 years or 8 years. But
currently it is just the revolving door, we bring them in, they have
basketball, they have libraries, they have TV's. You cannot even make
them work. Then we say: Why isn't it working? Why aren't our streets
safe? We should say that we are going to put you in jail and you are
going to stay there, and we will make you work while you are there.
Mr. HOKE. May I ask the gentleman a question? Could the gentleman run
down again a couple of those things once more, those that rhyme,
particularly?
Mr. KINGSTON. Well, you will have to buy the record.
Mr. HOKE. No hugs for thugs?
Mr. KINGSTON. No hugs for thugs. They need to be in an institution,
which we call the big house back home, or pay restitution. I do not
know what they call it on Ohio, but you need to have people in jail.
They have broken the law. We have decided in society that certain
people need to be insulated from others and they need to be in jail.
They need to be in an institution or they need to be out on the streets
paying restitution, if they have stolen money they need to pay back to
the victims.
You know, we always forget the victims.
I had a constituent call me. The woman was at home bathing her 3-
year-old and some slime kicked down
the door and raped her, and the son-of-a-gun was caught--fortunately
not because of that, but because of another crime, and incidentally he
had raped three or four people--he was getting out of jail 5 years
later. Now, how would you like to be that husband, that sister, that
brother, knowing that creep was back out on the streets in your
hometown? It is not right. That is what we have got to change. That is
what the Contract with America tries to do.
Mr. JONES. I would like to add to the gentleman from Georgia's
response to the gentleman from Ohio's inquiry.
During our campaign, the polling we did before we entered the race
for Congress and during the race for Congress showed that crime and
punishment was always among the top issues with the people. They
believed that the Clinton crime package, if you will, that you made
reference to, was too soft, that it did not do what needed to be done
to protect the citizens.
Quite frankly, I think that is why our Contract with America, when we
get on this issue, you will see the response from the American people
will be just as strong today as it was when they elected the Republican
majority. Because they want to see, they want to be protected; they
have felt for so long, as the gentleman said, they have a locked-in
mentality while those who should be locked in are out on the streets.
So I just wanted to add to the gentleman's comments that this part of
our contract is extremely important. That is why we have been given
this opportunity, because the majority of the past, which is now the
minority party, did not do the job to protect the citizens of this
country.
Mr. HOKE. Well, does the gentleman think that it has to do with the
pendulum swing? If the pendulum has swung so far over to favoring
criminals, favoring thugs, favoring those people that are abusing our
society, that are abusing other people, and are simply antisocial that
we have to move it back to the center? Is that not what is happening?
Mr. JONES. If I may just touch on what happened. It just so happened
that yesterday the Governor of North Carolina, Jim Hunt, a Democrat,
had a luncheon for all the Members of the Congress here in Washington,
DC. He had sent us a letter 2 days before about a person in North
Carolina who spent 13 years on death row. The individual had kidnapped
three cheerleaders at a small college in North Carolina, three girls,
put them in the trunk, took one out, raped her, and then killed her. He
spent 13 years on death row through all these endless appeals.
That is why people are sick and tired of it. The Governor of North
Carolina in his letter to us and also at the luncheon yesterday said
that we need to end these endless appeals.
I think in our contract we are talking about a 2-year limit.
Mr. HOKE. Let me give both of the gentlemen some good news. I happen
to have the honor of sitting on the Judiciary Committee, where today we
marked up and passed out and reported out the reform of habeas corpus,
which is the Latin phrase referring to the endless rounds of appeals
that can go to the State court, to the Federal court, back to the State
court, to the
[[Page H1042]] Federal court. We have limited and compressed that
timeframe dramatically now so that you will not be able to go into
endless round of appeals.
Mr. KINGSTON. Well, that is part of the process. The gentleman has
alluded to it. That is the frustration that common, decent Americans
have with the penal system when people are not serving their full
sentence, who get endless appeals, they get to tie up courts. It
really, in this country, has become a matter where they can tie them up
forever and get away with whatever crime they committed.
You know there is another aspect of our crime reform bill that I
think is very important: 22 percent of the prisoners in the Federal
penitentiaries are illegal aliens, who are not American citizens, 22
percent. Again, they are getting all the amenities that you or I would
only be able to get if we went to a good hotel room. Yet we cannot even
deport them.
This changes that. We want to deport them. I believe that any kind of
fooling with the trade bill, foreign aid bill, immigration; I would say
``Look, you folks are welcome to our country legally any time you
want.'' They come here illegally, then they are going home on a one-way
ticket and ``Don't send them back, we are going to bill you the costs
back,'' through negotiation.
I think it is time that we start tightening up; we cannot afford to
pay the bill for 22 percent of the non-Americans----
Mr. HOKE. It also goes a step further with respect to legal aliens.
That is people in this
country legally, but who commit violent felonies, criminals, they get
convicted and do time. That then becomes an issue upon which they can
be deported upon having done their time in jail. And this is a change
in the law--if they are sentenced regardless of whether or not they
actually do the time, if they are sentenced for 5 years or more for a
felony, they can be deported for that and they also lose the privilege
of ever becoming an American citizen.
These are important things because citizenship in this country is a
privilege, and we should not be extending it to violent felons.
Another thing I wanted to ask the gentleman about with respect to the
crime bill and the changes we are going to make: I believe there are
three things that are absolutely necessary. I call them the three C's.
For the criminal justice system to work as a deterrent, you have to
catch, convict, and confine. And you have to do all of that in a
compressed period of time. When you do that, then somebody who is
contemplating criminal activity knows that when they commit a crime
they are going to be caught and when they are convicted they are
actually going to do time.
They are going to have to go to the big house, as the gentleman said.
When that all happens in a compressed time period, then you will find
the justice system works as a deterrent to stop people from committing
crimes, because they know they are going to go to jail. We have done
things in this contract that specifically go each area there.
First of all, we increased the number of police on the streets as a
result of it. This is in a block grant way directly to the communities.
Mr. KINGSTON. And let the municipalities under this bill spend the
money as they see fit. They may not need policemen, but they may need
police cars. So this gives them that type of flexibility.
Mr. HOKE. The gentleman is exactly right.
Mr. KINGSTON. It is not the big brother telling them what to do.
Mr. HOKE. Exactly right, the gentleman is absolutely right.
Now, No. 2 is that with respect to conviction we have given the
courts the ability to use evidence that may have previously been not
allowed because of the exclusionary rule.
Mr. KINGSTON. So as I understand that, if you find the gun but for
some reason the investigating officer did not have the warrant
perfected, maybe some little technical wording problem, you cannot use
the gun as evidence, which is ridiculous. This says if it is a good
faith mistake you still can use this as evidence, the gun, hatchet, or
whatever it is.
Mr. HOKE. That is exactly right. It is the good faith exclusion. What
it says is that we are going to discipline the police officer, teach
that person how to do it right. But if it was done in good faith and it
did not impair the criminal's rights, then we are going to allow that
evidence to be admitted. That is an important thing because that swings
the pendulum back to punish criminals and to be on the side of victims.
{time} 2030
Mr. JONES. May I ask the gentleman from Ohio a question?
During your debate on this bill, during the campaign, I heard
numerous times people say, ``I'm so tired of reading in the paper where
a person incarcerated, serving time for a crime, is given the
opportunity to file suit over some usually frivolous type issue, and
we, the taxpayers, are paying for this.''
Mr. HOKE. You mean prisoners who are----
Mr. JONES. Absolutely, those that are incarcerated.
Mr. HOKE. That is exactly right.
Well, we dealt with that today in the Committee on the Judiciary, as
a matter of fact, specifically, and in fact there is an element of the
bar that makes a full-time living in contacting prisoners and then
using shotgun approach lawsuits to file for all kinds of ridiculous and
frivolous things like, for example, the food is not good enough, we
want better food, we want different kinds of silverware, we want towels
that are not so scratchy. I am not making these things up, and the
reason they do this is because the bar, the attorneys, can actually be
reimbursed their fees, all of them, by the Federal Government when they
bring these lawsuits, civil lawsuits, on behalf of prisoners.
What we have done is we have said that you can bring the lawsuits. We
are not impairing a prisoner's right to bring lawsuits. But you can
only be paid if you win, and you can only be paid on the part that you
do win on.
Now it is a little bit technical; I understand that, but typically
what happens is an attorney will file a lawsuit with 50, 60, 70
different complaints and hope that he or she is going to hit on one of
them, and then they get paid for the entire lawsuit, all of the time
that they supposedly put in. This changes that dramatically.
Mr. KINGSTON. That is another aspect. You mentioned it just briefly
with your action in the Judiciary Committee today.
I am sick and tired, as I know my colleagues are, because of the
police officers actually being treated like criminals by the lawyers
when they get in these courtrooms. The police officers are the men and
women who are out there on the line risking their lives, and remember
they are not arresting people for the second or third time. They are
arresting people under the current system for the eighth, ninth, or
tenth time, and I ask, ``How would you like to be a plainclothesman
working the street in a dangerous neighborhood not knowing if the last
guy you sent up the river is going to be bumping into you at the
convenience store?'' But that is the situation we are in now.
As my colleagues know, there is another aspect, and I know we need to
move on to welfare reform. I wanted to mention this bill also
authorizes $10 billion for new prison construction, and I would say,
just like Tom Bodett, ``We're going to leave the light on for them.''
Mr. HOKE. Well, it is catch, convict, and confine. Catch extra
police. Convict habeas corpus, or exclusionary rule reform. Confine $10
billion in prisons. And with that, a requirement that a prisoner must
do 85 percent of his sentence time.
Mr. KINGSTON. As my colleagues know now, one of the root causes of
the crime problem, the explosion of crime particularly in the inner
city, is the breakdown of the family. The previous speaker mentioned
that there were 15 million children being raised in single parent
homes. Actually there is 15 million being raised in homes generally
without fathers.
Now of the children on AFDC or basically on welfare, 92 percent live
in a home where they do not have fathers, and that is homes really
where small children are being raised by teenagers. We are talking 17-
year-old mamas raising kids and often on top of going to
[[Page H1043]] high school, and sometimes a 17-year-old is raising two
children. There was a study that said one of the biggest co-
relationships between crime in the neighborhood is an education. It is
not poverty. It is just having fathers at home, and one of the key
elements of the Contract With America's reform plan is to reunite that
family saying that if you are under 18 years old, you have got to
identify the father, and I will mention that a little bit more later,
but also you got to stay at home with your own parent in order to get
that welfare check, and I think that will help strengthen the family
unit which has been broken down really because of Government policy.
Mr. HOKE. Well, I could not agree more, and I look forward to a very
spirited debate on this because, as the gentleman knows, there is a
great deal
of feeling, certainly among my constituents, that we are a big part of
the problem, having created this problem, that we have created
financial incentives, or if ``incentive'' is too strong a word, at
least we create the financial viability of the single parent family in
this country, and there was no financial viability under the Great
Society, until we abused a program that was devised for widows to be
able to have--be able to provide for their own children in a widowed
situation. We have taken that, and it has grown into this extraordinary
bureaucracy that has brought much, much grief and much, and little
happiness to our country.
Mr. KINGSTON. Here we are, 30 years later, $3 trillion later, and
here is a definition of a trillion: ``If you spent a hundred thousand
dollars a minute 24 hours a day, it would take 19 years to get to one
trillion.''
We have spent $3 trillion starting with the Great Society under
Lyndon Government-Can-Solve-Anything Johnson, and during that period of
time the poverty level in 1965 was 14 percent. Today it is 14 percent.
So, Mr. Speaker, we have accomplished absolutely nothing except for
the absolute destruction of inner city families.
Mr. HOKE. Well, as my colleague knows, the thing the people want,
they never want to agree there are any correlations here, that they are
causal things going on, but the fact is today two-thirds of all
minority births are illegitimate. Twenty-five percent of all
nonminority births are illegitimate.
Those are shocking, shocking number when you consider that----
Mr. KINGSTON. The national combined average is 30.1 percent.
Mr. HOKE. Thirty point one percent, and when you consider that in
1960 we were at less than a third of that.
Mr. KINGSTON. Twenty-nine out of 1,000 15- to 17-year-old girls will
have a child illegitimately, and when we talk about that 30 percent
level, we are not talking 30-year-old Murphy Browns who have a career,
and income coming in. We are talking 18-year-olds. We are talking 14-
year-olds who cannot care for themselves, much less the awesome burden
of being a parent.
Mr. JONES. If I can just add briefly to this?
What we have had is a system; the Speaker has spoken of this so many
times. We have had a system that has perpetuated this type of behavior.
We have had a system that has through payments encouraged people to
have children out of wedlock, and, as the Speaker has said so many
times, we want to help people get off welfare. We want to help people
become productive citizens. Welfare should not be a hammock.
Welfare should be a springboard.
Mr. HOKE. I heard Phil Gramm say it very well the other day. He said,
``The problem with welfare is it's no longer a safety net. It's become
a hammock.''
The gentleman is absolutely right.
Mr. KINGSTON. The other thing about this, and there is a work
requirement, too, but before we leave this single parent thing, what
our society has said, what our Government welfare program has said, is,
``You're a young girl, 17 or 18 years old, and you get pregnant. That's
your baby, you're responsibility, and you're responsible to raise the
baby, the child. You're on the hook for the next 21 years.''
Now for the 17-year-old boy who is the father, ``Don't worry about
it.''
Mr. HOKE. No accountability, no responsibility, no requirement that
paternity be established. Are we changing that in the contract?
Mr. KINGSTON. We are changing it. You have to establish paternity.
What we are saying to these alley-cat dads is, ``Come on home. We are
fixing to get serious. We are going to domesticate the alley cat.''
That is what we need to do.
Mr. HOKE. And we have got some very strong, across-state-line laws
that we are looking at to go after deadbeat dads as well.
Mr. KINGSTON. Absolutely, and there is a barrage of other laws that
will go after deadbeat dads if the Republican Contract With America
welfare plan gets passed because there are other laws that are
contingent on this that will further make life hard on deadbeat dads
and could include revoking drivers licenses and so forth. We are going
to get the money from the dad, and we are going to bring him back in
the formula.
Mr. HOKE. As my colleague knows, as I thought about welfare in the
United States generally over the past couple of years, it strikes me
that what we say to a young woman, a 16-, 17-, 18-year-old woman, is,
``Look, we're going to make a deal with you. If you want to have a
child, you can do that, and we are going to help you out with that
child. We are going to help you with housing, we are going to help you
with food, we are going to help you with day care if you want that, we
are going to help you even with job training, and we're going to give
you money as well so that you can provide for that child.''
{time} 2040
There are two conditions for this good deal we are going to give you,
OK? No 1 is you have to promise us that you will not get married. That
is No. 1. Just promise you will not get married. No. 2, you have to
promise us you are not going to get a job. Do not get a job, and in the
meantime we will provide you also with health care in addition to all
those things. But as long as you fulfill those two promises, then we
are going to take care of you. You just cannot get married and cannot
get a job.
Now, what is it we are saying to people? We are saying if they are in
a single-parent family, they have much less of a chance of giving that
child an even break in terms of being raised. Statistics do not lie on
this. It is absolutely crystal clear in terms of outcomes that kids
coming out of single-parent families have a tougher time, graduating,
finishing school in time, not needing psychological counseling, et
cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
What is the other thing that we are doing? We are robbing that person
of the fundamental dignity of having a job, of having work, of having
self-reliance. It is a bad deal.
Mr. KINGSTON. What is also good about this program is there is a work
requirement that they do try to get involved in some sort of work
training, and dads again must participate in it. There is also another
part of it which I would say is internal, and that is combining so many
of these government bureaucracies, which simply duplicate what the
other one is doing. What they want to do is not make people
independent, but keep them dependent. They create a clientele. So they
are all fighting for it. But if you suggest why do not we combine it
and cut out some of the bureaucrats' jobs so we can get more food to
the child in the classroom that is hungry so they can learn math better
or science better and so forth, so they can break the cycle, then you
have this resistance from the bureaucrats. But the contract goes after
these programs and combines them.
Mr. HOKE. One of the things I am looking forward to with respect to
our welfare reform is block granting this money to the States. There
must be a State in this Union that will have the courage to actually
eliminate welfare and require that its citizens reach out to help those
people that need that help, require its citizens to go out and one-on-
one adopt, be a part of, become completely bonded and a part of the
needs of its community.
It seems to me that that will take tremendous courage on the part of
a State. But when we do that, we will see a very real, a very different
attitude, and a complete change in the way that that State deals with
the problem of indigency, the problem of illegitimacy. And that will be
the beginning of the
[[Page H1044]] restoration of a much more sane commonsense approach to
dealing with these problems in a way that is deeply compassionate, that
truly connects people with people, and that does not alienate us from
each other as neighbors in our communities, and does not alienate us
from our institutions as well.
Mr. JONES. If I can just add one situation that happened months and
months ago before I even became a candidate for Congress, in my
business I was calling on a manufacturing firm, and I will never forget
the story the gentleman was telling me about a lady that lived in the
housing project in this small county and small town. And one of the
best workers that he had, every time he give her a raise, her rent went
up. So she got to a point that she came back to him and said, ``Why
work? I am working harder, but I can't achieve because the government
continues to raise my rent.''
There has got to be some way to work out a system so that an
individual that is trying to do better for themselves through work is
somehow given an opportunity, for example, using this as an example,
hold the rent down for a couple of years, and make that individual put
money in a savings account and let that be monitored by local agencies.
But any time somebody tries to do better for themselves, many times
through this archaic system that we have, they are being penalized.
There are many people that want to get off welfare, but the system
keeps holding them down. And that is what we are talking about in this
contract. That is what you have been talking. We can change it, and we
are going to change it.
Mr. KINGSTON. Gentleman, I need to leave you, and I know you are
going to go on and talk about term limits and so many of the other good
elements of the contract. I appreciate your time and leadership both of
you all have shown on these issues. Let us do it again sometime.
Mr. HOKE. I thank the gentleman from Georgia for
participating and for being a part of this.
I want to just close with the idea of this block granting with one
final thought, and that is that I think that what we will find out is
there is a tremendous amount of creativity in the States. There will be
States that will try all kinds of different solutions to the welfare
problem, and they will come up with many, many different programs and
ways of dealing with it, and some States that may, as I have suggested,
even eliminate certain programs, certain welfare programs, to others
that will try a very different approach. And that is what we need.
We do not need a one-size-fits-all type of approach. We need to
unleash the creativity, allow that creativity to erupt and to try
different things that will truly work. We do not know what will work,
we do not know what will not work, but we do know what is not working.
By giving the States that kind of flexibility, we are going to get a
heck of a lot more of an idea of a better direction to go in to solve
that particular problem that is so very, very difficult.
I wonder if I could ask, Mr. Jones, if you could talk to me a little
bit about the work that you have been involved in with term limits and
where you expect that to go and how that fits into our Contract With
America?
Mr. JONES. I thank the gentleman for this opportunity. It has been a
great experience for a freshman. I have been here 4 weeks, and this has
been an exciting day in many ways, passing an unfunded mandate, and a
balanced budget amendment last week, and participating with you tonight
and with the other two gentlemen.
In the area of reform, there is probably not anything more important
than giving the people of America the opportunity to vote on term
limits. Quite frankly, I was in the general assembly in North Carolina
for 10 years. I have worked hard in the area of campaign finance
reform, ethics, rewriting the lobbying laws for the lobbyists in the
State of North Carolina, and I have got some background, so to speak,
in this area. And I started years ago talking about the need for term
limits.
If I can just for a moment cite a story. My father served in the U.S.
Congress for 26 years. About 3 years ago, 4 years ago, I was talking to
him in our hometown of Farmville, and I was telling him how I believe
very strongly in term limits. Again, he served 26 years. And he said,
``I did not do a very good job of raising you, if you feel that good
about term limits.''
Mr. HOKE. If I could ask you, was your father a Democrat or a
Republican?
Mr. JONES. My father was a Democrat.
Mr. HOKE. Are you a Democrat or a Republican?
Mr. JONES. I am a Republican.
Mr. HOKE. So not only are you not a Democrat like your father, but
you are also telling him you want to have terms limits. Were you a
Democrat in the North Carolina House?
Mr. JONES. Right. I was. I developed the reputation of being the
foremost advocate of reform in the North Carolina General Assembly,
which I am very proud that I earned that reputation.
But I will tell you this, since you asked me about my father. He did
know, and we talked about it before he became ill and he eventually
died, that I would be changing my party affiliation. He stated he
supported that decision and would state that publicly, but obviously he
did not live long enough.
I listened to the people, and in our contract we listened to the
people. Every issue we have talked about tonight, every issue, came
from the fact that when we developed this contract, we listened to the
people of America. These 10 bills in this contract is what the people
of America want to see pass in the U.S. House of Representatives, and
hopefully the U.S. Senate.
But I will tell you in the area of term limits, this is one of the
utmost issues that the American people, every poll that I have seen, a
minimum of 65 percent of the people in America say they want term
limits, and quite frankly, as high as 75 percent say they want term
limits.
We look at Tom Foley, the former Speaker of the House, and his people
in his State wanted term limits. And he took his people to court, and I
am glad he did, because we have a fine representative from Washington
there.
But my point is so many States already, 22 I believe on their own,
have passed term limits. The people of America want this Congress to
give them the privilege to act on term limits. We know and you know
that we need 290 votes on this House floor. Right now the best that we
can figure that we have is 228. So if there are any citizens throughout
America watching this tonight, I hope they will call their Congress
person if they feel strong that they, the people, would like to have
the vote on term limits.
{time} 2050
Quite frankly, we have three bills, two that have been filed, one is
three terms, that is 2 years times three, 6 years, a 6-year term. The
other is a 12-year term. That has been introduced, I believe, by the
gentleman from Florida, [Mr. McCollum]. He believes that it should
parallel with the Senate, that would have two terms, 6 years each, 12
years. Then I believe that the gentlewoman from Florida, [Mrs. Fowler]
will be offering an amendment on the floor that will speak to 8 years,
four terms, four times two.
So we are going to have a choice. I just hope that we will give the
people of the United States the same choice that we have here on the
floor. And I hope, again, we think we have 228 people that have signed
on or signed the pledge on the Republican side and the Democratic side.
I hope we can get the 290 and get some form of term limits to the
people.
Mr. HOKE. As a strong proponent and supporter and agitator for term
limits for a long time, I think you are right on the money when you
suggest that people ought to call their Representatives and lobby and
make known their feelings about this issue. Because I am absolutely
convinced that term limits, the combination of term limits, which will
truly reform this institution, as well as the balanced budget
amendment, which will reform the way that we spend money, that those
two things form the cornerstones of making our Government completely
and truly representative once more, of the American people.
[[Page H1045]] Mr. JONES. Absolutely. If I could add this, because I
think it is of interest, according to Stephen Moore of the Cato
Institute, if term limits had been in effect in recent years, the
balanced budget amendment would have passed in 1990. The Clinton and
Bush tax increases would have failed. The Penny-Kasich spending cuts
would have passed and the congressional pay raise of 1989 and 1992
would have been defeated. What happens is that we have a system that
continues to perpetuate itself, perpetuate itself because it is based
on seniority. And we both know that obviously an incumbent has an
advantage, particularly when it comes to raising money. And I, quite
frankly, think that if we give the people the opportunity to vote on
term limits, we will have a better system that will be the system that
the people of America want.
Obviously, if we give them the opportunity to vote and they do not
pass in enough States to change the Constitution, then obviously the
people have had the chance to speak on this issue. I think that is what
the people want.
Mr. HOKE. I think you are absolutely right. I would actually urge
people not to lose sight on this, especially people who generally are
very happy with what is happening with the Contract With America, who
feel really good about the direction that the Congress is going in.
Some of those people who have moved this polling that says that
Republicans are breaking down legislative gridlock and that the
Republicans are bringing integrity and honor and confidence back to
this institution, for Heaven's sake, it strikes me, do not get fooled
into thinking that, therefore, we should not have term limits. It is
essential to the viability of this institution and to the vitality of
it going on.
I will tell you, I have got another bill that I have been very
excited about with respect to term limits that actually changes the
length of the term from 2 years to 4 years and then limits it to three
4-year terms. I believe strongly, as I have for a long time, that the
2-year term, while clearly was introduced for specific reasons by our
Founding Fathers, is outmoded in the 20th century and that,
unfortunately, what it means is that we are only working 50 percent of
the time, because essentially we are legislating for a year and then
become more and more distracted with campaigns in the second year.
And that distraction is not just because the legislator wants it to
be and is motivated to do that, but, in fact, that is when the sniping
begins and when all of the negative stuff starts with respect to
somebody trying to take your seat, and it really becomes a tremendous
distraction.
Mr. JONES. May I ask when the gentleman filed the bill? I just heard
about it today, and I thought it was a very exciting idea.
Mr. HOKE. The other thing is, if you look at the other legislatures
around the world, the shortest one is 4 years in Western Europe. I
think New Zealand might have 3 years, but most are 4- and 5-year terms.
I think I like the idea of the symmetry with the Senate, and I think
that it is very important toward moving toward becoming a citizen
legislature.
Mr. JONES. If I might add to this, because I think the people that
might be watching tonight need to know that probably the term limit
issue will be debated in the committees probably in March, sometime in
March. And they really, as you said yourself, people need to really let
their elected Congress person know exactly how they feel on this issue.
Mr. HOKE. And in Ohio where we passed a law that would limit Members
of Congress to four 2-year terms that I supported and I campaigned for
and I voted for, I will have the opportunity to vote on the amendment
of the gentlewoman From Florida [Mrs. Fowler] with the four 2-year
terms.
I think that you are right on the money when you say that people
ought to really work hard on this, because it is critical to the
citizen legislature that we all envision.
I would say one other thing, and that is that we often, we hear the
phrase that power corrupts. And there is no question about it. Power
does corrupt. But what I would suggest to you is that power corrupts
relatively slowly and that the problem that we had with the fact that
one party was in control for 40 years did not come about, we did not
have a problem in the first 10 years or the first even 15 years
necessarily, but the arrogance and the occupation that became endemic
to this institution really began in the 1980's and continued through.
And it seems to me that we cannot get lulled into thinking that anybody
has--that there is some sort of a corner that one party has on purity
or righteousness. The problem is when one party is in control for far
too long.
Now, do not misunderstand me. There are philosophical differences
that are very, very fundamental and basic to the way that the Democrats
view the world and the way that Republicans do. And I think it is fair
to say that Democrats have a great deal of confidence in the
Government's ability to fix things, and Republicans have little
confidence in that and a great deal of confidence in the ability of
individuals and families and private institutions to fix things.
But I think it is also fair to say that I, for one, do not believe
for a minute that any group that has power for 40 years straight is
going to stay lily white. And I think that that is a problem that we
have to address.
Was there anything you wanted to add to that?
Mr. JONES. Just one other point. Did we, in our reform package as it
related to the rules, did we put a number of terms that a person could
as chairman? I think it is important to remind the people that we have
done this, 6 years, and also the Speaker, four terms, 8 years; is that
correct?
Mr. HOKE. That is correct, yes. We have done that. We have limited
the terms of committee chairs and of the speaker, and we did that
because we could do that in our own rules package. We actually did that
in terms of ranking Members in 1992 at, frankly, the insistence of my
class, which I feel very proud of.
Mr. JONES. Congratulations to your class.
Mr. HOKE. I really thank the gentleman from North Carolina, and I
thank the gentlemen from Ohio and from Georgia for participating.
It has been a pleasure doing this with you. I think it has been very
helpful to me to have your input. I really appreciate it. So I just
want to say that.
I want to close by saying this, let us review the bidding on what we
have done and where we are at with this Contract. On the first day of
Congress--I want to review the bidding with respect to the notion that
somehow this is the Republican Contract With America, because the truth
is that this is not. This is an American Contract, and every single
thing that we have done on this floor has gotten bipartisan support.
Let us review, on the very first day of the Congress, every single
vote to reform the rules of the House received Democrat support,
sometimes by as many as 203 Democrats, practically their entire caucus.
{time} 2100
When we passed the congressional accountability law, a total of 171
Democrats supported our bill, 171 out of about 200 Democrats supported
the bill. When we passed the Balanced Budget Amendment, 72 Democrats
broke with their leadership to do the right thing. When we passed the
unfunded mandates bill, another 130 Democrats sided with Republicans to
give the American people what they wanted.
Given the degree of bipartisan support that our Contract has
received, the American people may well wonder why it has taken so many
years to get these badly needed reforms passed, and the answer is very
simple. For years the way too liberal, way too powerful, way out of
touch leadership of this Congress, of the Democrat party, throttled
these bills and kept them from the floor, from even being considered.
In their power and in their arrogance, the Democrat leaders not only
ignored the wishes of their own party, but more importantly, they
forgot about the needs of the American people. We have not, and we are
not going to. This is a Contract With America, it is a Contract For
America, and it has finally given America the government that it wants
and it needs.
Mr. Speaker, this Contract is right on target. This Contract is right
on track.
____________________