[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 25 (Wednesday, February 8, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H1380-H1390]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                  EXCLUSIONARY RULE REFORM ACT OF 1995

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 61 and rule 
XXIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House 
on the State of the Union for the further consideration of the bill, 
H.R. 666.

                              {time}  1156


                     in the committee of the whole

  Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the 
Whole House on the State of the Union for the further consideration of 
the bill (H.R. 666) to control crime by exclusionary rule reform, with 
Mr. Riggs in the chair.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The CHAIRMAN. When the Committee of the Whole rose on Tuesday, 
February 7, 1995, the amendment offered by the gentleman from North 
Carolina [Mr. Watt] had been disposed of and the bill was open for 
amendment at any point.
  Are there further amendments to the bill?
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I do not rise at this time to offer an amendment. I 
rise to comment on apparently a news broadcast that occurred last night 
with respect to the bill, H.R. 666. I cannot tell my fellow Members 
where this news report took place. I did not see it. But I received 
some calls this morning which indicated that there was some rendition 
of what we were doing on the House floor yesterday and today with 
respect to this good faith exception to the exclusionary rule.
  I think, Mr. Chairman, that it is just important to make a point 
here, and that is, we are proposing to make and broaden an exception to 
the exclusionary rule which already exists in law. Apparently, the 
reports were that we are trying to repeal legislatively the entire 
exclusionary rule, as it was enunciated by the U.S. Supreme Court, 
first in Federal cases in 1914 and, second, as applied to the States in 
1961.
  I certainly acknowledge, Mr. Chairman, that, and anyone could tell it 
from some of the remarks that were made, that there are Members on our 
side who feel that the entire exclusionary rule should be repealed. 
There may even be, though we have not heard from them, I would not be 
surprised if there are Members on the other side who believe that, too.
  There is always the argument that no matter how evidence was seized 
that, if it points to guilt, it should be used. I do not personally 
share the view of repealing entirely the exclusionary rule. I think the 
point that the Supreme Court made in the Mapp versus Ohio opinion of 
1961 was also important.
  In that case of a total disregard of constitutional protections based 
upon search and seizure, the Supreme Court said, we have tried 
everything else, now we will try to suppress evidence as a means of 
encouraging law enforcement officers to comply with the fourth 
amendment, which we do place on them through the fourteenth amendment.


                         parliamentary inquiry

  Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry.
  The CHAIRMAN. Will the gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Schiff] yield 
for a parliamentary inquiry?
  Mr. SCHIFF. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
  My inquiry, Mr. Chairman, is to get an understanding of what place we 
are in the procedure before the committee. Is it correct that any of us 
could now rise and seek recognition in order to speak on the overall 
issue of the exclusionary rule or the fourth amendment or the bill, 
H.R. 666, without dealing with an amendment? In other words, any of us 
could now rise and speak on the issue?
  The CHAIRMAN. That is correct. The bill is open to amendment at any 
point under the 5-minute rule.
  Mr. COLEMAN. But this is not an amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Schiff] was 
recognized and was proceeding for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COLEMAN. But not on an amendment, am I correct?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from New Mexico has offered a pro forma 
amendment.
  Mr. COLEMAN. I thank the Chair.

                              {time}  1200

  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, as indicated, I am not offering an 
amendment at this time. I have just sought recognition on the 5-minute 
rule, and I will conclude in a moment here.
  Mr. Chairman, I just want to point out exactly where we are. I 
understand that there are Members who may still, because they so 
indicated, oppose this particular bill, H.R. 666. I just wanted to 
emphasize what this bill does and what this bill does not do.
  This bill does not repeal legislatively the entire exclusionary rule, 
or anything even that comes close to it. Speaking for myself, I would 
not support a bill that would entirely repeal the exclusionary rule.
  I think the Supreme Court had a logic in saying that there was a 
reason to exclude evidence in certain cases that they enunciated, I 
thought very well, in the Mapp versus Ohio decision of 1961. Rather, we 
are taking an exception to the exclusionary rule which already exists. 
It has already been stated by the Supreme Court in the Leon case.
  In that case the Supreme Court said that where police officers make 
an honest error, a good-faith error, that in that particular case it 
made no sense under the theory of the exclusionary rule, under the 
theory of trying to motivate law enforcement logic, to suppress that 
evidence.
  We take that a little bit further. In the area of searches without a 
search warrant, and there are legal searches without a search warrant, 
a search warrant is not required under constitutional law for every 
search, any more than it is required for every arrest. There can be 
arrests without a warrant.
  My point is that we are making an extension of an exception that 
already exists, and I just want to conclude by saying that we are not 
repealing the entire exclusionary rule, and further, we are not 
broadening the exception that much.
  I understand that Members, when we get to final passage, will vote 
yes or no as they see fit, but I just wanted to explain exactly what we 
were doing.


                    amendment offered by mr. conyers

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Chair would ask the gentleman, is this an amendment 
that has been printed in the Record?
  Mr. CONYERS. This amendment has not been printed in the Record, Mr. 
Chairman.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will report the amendment.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. Conyers: Page 3, line 14, strike 
     the close quotation mark and the period which follows:
       Page 3, after line 14, insert the following:
       ``(d) Limitation.--This section shall not apply with 
     respect to a search or seizure carried out by, or under the 
     authority of, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and 
     Firearms.''.

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is offered by myself, the 
gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer], and the gentleman from Michigan 
[Mr. Dingell].
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, I wish to take this time to thank 
wholeheartedly the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers] for offering 
this amendment on my behalf.

[[Page H1381]]

  I will not take a lot of time because I will let the gentleman from 
Michigan go back, and then we will take a couple hours, three hours to 
debate this. I would just like to have plenty of time.
  Mr. Chairman, I would like to point out that the gentleman from 
Michigan [Mr. Conyers] has offered this amendment on my behalf because 
of what I heard on the Republican side earlier today, this morning, 
that one of their Members on the Committee on the Judiciary may, may 
supplant my opportunity to offer this amendment by offering it 
themselves, or offering a similar amendment or something that has 
changed.
  As a result of that, and not knowing what was going on on the 
Republican side, and whether they were going to do it or not do it, as 
a result, in order to preempt them, I asked the gentleman from Michigan 
[Mr. Conyers] to join with me in this amendment, which he has been 
willing to do so that we at least have the opportunity on this side to 
offer our amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I hate to see, I really do, this type of activity, 
because I do not believe this type of activity is very conducive to 
comity in this House and the running of this House.
  In my 18 years, Mr. Chairman, in my 18 years I have never known of 
anybody in our party after an amendment has been noticed, an amendment 
had been notified and people have all been notified, that Members of 
the other party, this party, when the minority party has done that, no 
Member, no Member ever in 18 years has ever said We may offer an 
amendment ourselves to preempt you the right to offer that amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, what is going on? I thought just yesterday we started 
out and we had good comity. The gentleman from Texas [Mr. Armey], their 
leader, had been able to work with our leader and people and work out 
the time frames on these crime bills. Then they come up with some 
little dig like this.
  Mr. Chairman, I think it is really beneath anybody as a Member of 
this House to come up with such a strategy. It is childish, immature, 
and I cannot understand their leadership and whoever came up with that 
strategy at all. I am really disappointed that some people on that side 
would even think of doing such an insidious tactic.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I want to say, although it is certainly true that the 
gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer] has worked on this amendment for 
quite some time, I want to say that the accusations of some kind of 
insidious kind of motivations I think go past where the situation calls 
for.
  The fact of the matter is that we are proceeding under an open rule. 
This, of course, among other things, means that unlimited amendments 
can be offered. Those of us who are presently monitoring this bill on 
the majority side, speaking especially of myself at this moment, have a 
grave reservation about the gentleman's amendment, despite the fact 
that a great deal of information has come out that is very 
questionable, I am sorry to say, about the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco 
and Firearms, which I hope will be explored even further through the 
committees of this House.
  I want to say that I have a reservation about excepting an entire 
police agency in this bill over certain incidents. It is a matter of 
fact that there are still, even though I have this reservation, there 
are members of my party who are more strongly agreed with the 
gentleman's amendment, and they wanted their opportunity to present a 
similar view.
  Therefore, I do not think that is the same as some plot here to keep 
the gentleman from Missouri from being acknowledged for his role in 
this amendment.
  Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, the basic legislation before us is bad legislation. It 
would cause a raid by the BATF or any other agency of Government, to be 
presumptively valid if there was any property which was seized pursuant 
to the warrant.
  That means any firearms owner, owner of a shotgun, sporting 
ammunition, sporting weapons of any kind, or target weapons in this 
country is subject to being raided without the slightest semblance of a 
defense as to the illegality of the search or seizure, whether the law 
enforcement authority has a warrant or not.
  Mr. Chairman, let me read some words from William Pitt which I think 
we should keep in mind as we consider the fourth amendment, which is at 
least as precious as the first and the second.
  Here is what William Pitt had to say, a great British 
parliamentarian:

       The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the 
     force of the Crown. It may be frail, its roof may shake; the 
     wind may blow through it: the storms may enter, the rain may 
     enter, but the King of England cannot enter; all his forces 
     dare not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement!

  What I am saying, Mr. Chairman, is that in this country, until this 
legislation, under interpretations of the Constitution by conservative 
courts, not by a congregation of radicals, the ordinary citizen was 
able to assume that he was protected in his home against improper raids 
and against improper procedures under warrants, or lacking warrants, by 
law enforcement persons entering his home. Under this legislation that 
will no longer be so.

                              {time}  1210

  A man had a right to assume that he was secure in his person, in his 
property, in his home, and he had the right to know that he was 
protected by the courts.
  H.R. 666 would do away with those protections, and particularly so in 
the case of owners of firearms and sportsmen in this country who use 
their firearms solely for law-abiding purposes, legitimate sporting and 
hunting and self-defense purposes.
  Now, having said those things, let us look a little bit at what it is 
that BATF has done over their history. I want my colleagues to go back 
with me to the raid that was performed on the home of a law-abiding 
citizen by the name of Kenyon Ballew. BATF first entered an apartment 
upstairs where they held a shotgun at the head of some 8-year-old 
children. When they found they had raided the wrong place, they then 
went downstairs, and they broke through a back door in the man's home 
which was never used. It was essentially a back door. They seized the 
man's wife and threw her into the hall in only her underpants. Mr. 
Ballew was coming out of the shower with a cap and ball revolver 
seeking to defend his home and his wife against a noisy band of 
intruders who bore no indicia of their service as law enforcement 
officers.
  Indeed, the event was classed as a training exercise. Mr. Ballew was 
shot in the head, and he is today, if not dead, still a cripple and 
still partially paralyzed, incapable of speech.
  This whole unfortunate matter was covered up under the aegis of Mr. 
Connelly, the then-Secretary of the Treasury. My colleagues on the 
majority side of the aisle will remember Mr. Connelly.
  I want to tell you about what they did after the raid was concluded. 
They went outside, still dressed as hippies with beards and in scruffy 
clothes, and at which time they first put on their BATF armbands to 
show that they were law enforcement officers engaged in proper exercise 
of their legal authority, and that they had given proper warning to the 
individual of their authority which, in fact, they had not.
  I want to tell you a couple of other things about the BATF. BATF ran 
a citizen of the State of New Jersey off the road while he was driving 
down the road in New Jersey with his wife and kids. They beat him up. 
Then they found that they had attacked the wrong citizen, and then they 
said, ``If you report this to anyone, we will be back and give you some 
more.''
  Now, I want to tell you about an innocent collector, whose home they 
raided. They seized all of his valuable firearms, all legal, took them, 
put them in barrels, damaged them, that is the firearms. The citizen 
then had to sue to recover the firearms which were his lawful property, 
and whose proper ownership was never contested by the BATF or anybody 
else. But the law-abiding citizen had to go to court to sue, to recover 
property improperly taken from him.
  The records of BATF are rich with this sort of abuse of the rights of 
citizens.
  [[Page H1382]] The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Michigan 
[Mr. Dingell] has expired.
  (By unanimous consent, Mr. Dingell was allowed to proceed for 4 
additional minutes.)
  Mr. DINGELL. The consequences of the behavior of the BATF in these 
kinds of cases is that they are not trusted. They are detested, and I 
have described them properly as jackbooted American fascists. They have 
shown no concern over the rights of ordinary citizens or their 
property. They intrude without the slightest regard or concern.
  Now, if you want a more recent event, take a look at what they did in 
Waco, TX. Is that a defensible event? Scores of Americans were killed 
because of ineptitude by BATF acting under legal process, as they said, 
and that whole matter is going to be suppressed after scores of 
Americans have been killed because of the ineptitude and crass 
misbehavior of the BATF.
  Now, let us take a look at what this legislation does. H.R. 666 says 
that there is no defense in the courts against that kind of behavior by 
BATF or anyone else. The amendment offered by the gentleman from 
Missouri says that BATF is not included within that rubric. They are 
not protected in their misbehavior and they must defend their cases on 
the basis of the propriety of their behavior as now defined under law.
  Remember, all that the law now says is that before you raid a man in 
his home you have to do it incident to a valid arrest or you have to do 
it with a arrest or search warrant. I do not think that is excessive in 
a free society, in one where we expect the ordinary citizen to be 
secure and protected in his home.
  Now, what is a citizen to do if he is improperly raided under H.R. 
666? There is nothing, literally nothing, that the ordinary citizen can 
do. The only defense which a citizen has under this kind of improper 
raid by BATF or by any other agency, State or Federal, was to have the 
information and the evidence improperly seized suppressed. H.R. 666 
sanctifies misbehavior, and it makes such yard, and such seizure of 
property presumptively valid. It eliminates any question of propriety 
by the authorities.
  Now, it is fair to say that with regard to criminal misbehavior, that 
law enforcement agencies are able to and have consistently watched 
wrongdoers over a long period of time. They built their cases with 
care. Having built their cases with care, they then go to court and get 
a proper warrant. Then they would proceed to execute the warrant.
  H.R. 666, if enacted, will be applied to the ordinary citizen, not to 
the hardened criminal, but rather to the law-abiding citizen who has a 
rifle or shotgun in his closet or hanging over his mantlepiece or under 
his bed, and he is going to be the victim of this kind of legislation. 
His protection of home, property and personal security will be ended.
  This is bad legislation. It has been said today it does not affect 
the fourth amendment. In point of fact, it blows a huge hole in the 
fourth amendment. What it says is that a raid conducted improperly 
without proper warrant, or without warrant at all, is presumptively 
valid, and the burden then shifts on to the defendant who has been 
wronged by his Government, by the agencies of his Government, acting 
under either no process or improper process to defend himself. The 
wronged citizen is compelled to retain a lawyer. He is compelled to go 
through a long and costly court procedure, and he cannot, under H.R. 
666, get protection afforded him by the requirements for a proper 
search. He cannot have property seized under an imperfect search 
warrant, or no search warrant excluded from the trial. That is 
literally the only defense that a citizen has against improper behavior 
in terms of search and seizure by law enforcement personnel.
  The attack on H.R. 666 is not an attack on law-abiding citizens. It 
is an attack on wrongdoers. It is a bad piece of legislation.
  I urge the legislation be rejected, and I urge the amendment offered 
by the gentleman be adopted.
  Mr. HYDE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
  I must say I was pleased to hear the gentleman from Michigan quote 
William Pitts. We were thinking of Billy Pitts on our side whom we all 
miss, and I am glad, but I guess it was an earlier William Pitts to 
whom he referred.
  Waco suppressed: Gee, I remember sitting through an exciting 1-day 
hearing under the aegis of the former chairman of the House Commitee on 
the Judiciary where we heard all and sundry witnesses on the Waco 
situation. I do not think it was suppressed, at least insofar as that 
1-day hearing was concerned.
  But I will just point out that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and 
Firearms is an executive agency. It is part of the Treasury. Former 
Senator Bentsen, who was the Secretary of the Treasury, was its 
commander in chief. The present Secretary of the Treasury is the 
commander in chief, for want of a better title, of the Bureau of 
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
  And so this attack on an executive agency is interesting. I would 
suggest if it is so horrible, let us get rid of it. I would suggest the 
gentleman introduce legislation to dissolve the Bureau of Alcohol, 
Tobacco and Firearms.
  Instead, you want to make an exception to a general rule which we are 
trying to adopt, modifying the exclusionary rule so guilty people who 
possess evidence, contraband, when they are arrested, that it gets 
admitted into evidence. To make an exception for a single agency of 
Government is really foolish.
  It would seem to me, if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms 
is so oppressive, we ought to get rid of it. Let us attack it head on. 
Let us hold hearings. I want to tell the gentlemen on the other side, 
we are going to hold hearings. We are going to hold hearings on the 
excessive use of force as alleged in Idaho, as alleged in Waco and 
other places.

                              {time}  1220

  We are going to look at that, absolutely. We are not going to sit 
passively by or have 1-day hearings but to carve out an exception to 
the exclusionary rule for one agency of Government which is an 
executive agency of Government makes no sense.
  Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HYDE. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.
  Mr. DINGELL. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Chairman, I express great affection and respect for my friend.
  Mr. HYDE. And it is mutual.
  Mr. DINGELL. I am just curious. The gentleman is chairman of the 
Committee on the Judiciary. I am curious why he is in such a rush to 
get this bill on the floor before he has looked at the kind of 
misbehavior that I have described or the kind of misbehavior that the 
gentleman is now describing.
  Mr. HYDE. Well, all I can say is I do not recall the gentleman 
introducing legislation to dissolve, to dissolve the Bureau of Alcohol, 
Tobacco and Firearms. I would think that would be the way to go if what 
the gentleman is half true.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HYDE. I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico.
  Mr. SCHIFF. I thank the chairman for yielding to me.
  Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment also, and I do so because, as I 
understand the arguments that are being made, they come down to this: 
The argument is that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is 
riding roughshod over the rights of innocent law-abiding people, and I 
want to point out that this was the testimony at our hearing on the 
exclusionary rule that the exclusionary rule does not protect honest 
citizens from a law enforcement agency or law enforcement officers who 
are bent on ignoring constitutional rights. And the reason for that is 
law-abiding citizens are not going to have any evidence of crime in 
their possession which can be suppressed under any version of the 
exclusionary rule.
  That is why this amendment is misdirected to this bill. But the 
chairman's suggestion to look more closely at the Bureau of Alcohol, 
Tobacco and Firearms for other action is quite appropriate.

[[Page H1383]]

  Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment that is being 
offered here this afternoon, for a number of reasons. I think that the 
amendment is probably motivated by legitimate questions and concerns 
about ATF's involvement in a couple of incidents.
  But as Treasury, Postal Service's chairman and former ranking member, 
we have had an opportunity to review these incidents and work with ATF 
and a number of other people. Not being the boot-jacked Gestapo, as 
they were described earlier, they are good, hard-working Federal 
employees who have families, men and women with children, who are 
trying to make a living and do what they think is right.
  Earlier reference was made to the situation at Waco, TX, and I would 
suggest to my colleague from Missouri and others who are so incensed 
about the Waco issue that rather than respond to all the editorial 
vitriol that we have read, which much of it is based in untruths and 
innuendoes and hearsay, that they take an actual look at the case.
  If you look at the Waco situation, the warrant that was used 
initially was a valid warrant. Eleven people were charged. Eight of 
those people have been convicted and are now in jail.
  There were fully automatic weapons in the Davidians' compound, fully 
in violation of the 1938--1934--law, which prohibits use of ownership 
of fully automatic weapons in this country. It was a valid warrant.
  I also suggest to the gentleman there were other law enforcement 
agencies involved in the Waco situation, as was there was in Idaho. In 
fact, the fire was not the result of the ATF, it was a result of the 
FBI. Attorney General Reno, if you will remember, stood up and said, 
``I take the heat for this. It was my decision.''
  ATF is not a part of the Justice Department; they are under the 
Treasury Department. It was two separate law enforcement agencies.
  In the situation in Idaho, the ATF had made a clean arrest. But when 
it got into the fire fight, it was the U.S. Marshall Service involved 
in that incident.
  So I would just suggest, as the chairman of our subcommittee, we have 
hearings that are coming up and if the gentleman would like to withdraw 
the amendment, we certainly would make available for him the 
opportunity, or anyone else who would like to be there, to talk to ATF 
to bring this thing down.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. LIGHTFOOT. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.
  Mr. VOLKMER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Chairman, I am not about to come and testify and talk to the 
gentleman's subcommittee because it appears to me, from just listening 
to the gentleman's statement, that the gentleman is completely in 
agreement with whatever Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has 
done in the past, including keeping law-abiding citizens' guns from 
them after they have executed a search warrant, no charges ever filed. 
They have kept those guns and still, even after filing suit, spent all 
kinds of money to get them back. The gentleman is saying that is good 
stuff.
  Mr. LIGHTFOOT. Reclaiming my time, I say to the gentleman from 
Missouri I have stood shoulder to shoulder with him fighting for second 
amendment rights. I own guns. I used to be a gun dealer. I am a hunter. 
I will go to the wall protecting the second amendment rights to own a 
firearm. I think it is important. It is part of the Constitution. I 
think we should do that.
  ATF has been charged with the responsibility of enforcing our Federal 
gun laws. It is not a popular thing to do. I would suggest, from 
comments the gentleman from Michigan, [Mr. Dingell] made, there is 
probably not a law enforcement agency in this country that you cannot 
go into and find one of these anecdotal stories where someone was 
mistreated. Unfortunately, that is the nature of the business because a 
lot of decisions have to be made under pressure, and sometimes those 
decisions are not correct, and we will admit they are not correct.
  I only say, to single one agency out, as we are doing here, is poorly 
misdirected. If the gentleman persists with his amendment, I am 
considering offering an amendment to the amendment which would include 
in this exclusion the FBI and U.S. Marshals Office. Let's include them 
all. The gentleman is totally off base. The whole purpose of the 
exclusionary bill that we are offering anyway does not allow anyone to 
go in on a raid without just cause. You still have to have a warrant, 
you still have to do it right. It only addresses the fact that if, 
during the process of executing that maneuver, you can obtain evidence 
which later is valuable, it was obtained in good faith, then it would 
be allowed to be admissible in courts. It does not exempt anyone's 
rights or cause anyone to be under undue pressure from law enforcement 
people. If you talk with law enforcement people, every day those people 
work very hard. A lot of times they do things that are very much done 
in good faith, but it gets kicked out in the courtroom, some criminal 
goes free, and we really do not solve the problem.
  I really think we have a bit of a witchhunt here.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the 
requisite number of words.
  Mr. Chairman, I just want to share my sense of happiness that my 
Republican colleagues have succeeded so soon in improving American 
Government. We have just heard virtually every one on the Republican 
side rise to speak in praise of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and 
Firearms, to defend the actions in Waco, to defend the actions in 
Idaho.
  Now, it had not previously been my experience that Republicans were 
as supportive of the law enforcement efforts of the Clinton 
administration. And I guess Republicans said that once they got into 
the majority, things would get better. Well, they have apparently 
gotten better more quickly than I had thought, because we have been 
hearing from our Republican colleagues today words of praise and 
support for the law enforcement Federal agencies that I had not 
previously heard. I appreciate this.
  The simple act of the Republicans switching from minority status when 
they got to offer amendments and be critical, to majority status where 
they are now really responsible has apparently had the wondrous 
byproduct of improving the quality of the executive branch.
  Republicans, who on the whole when they were in the minority were 
quite critical of virtually all the actions of the administration, now 
they are in the majority, with the responsibility for running this 
operation, find virtues heretofore unchronicled in various of the 
Clinton administration entities.
  I want to say that I am pleased to welcome this spirit of 
constructiveness. There is a higher degree of support coming forward 
than I have heard before. I am glad they have found on a second look 
that there is a lot more to be supported.
  I have myself not been critical of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and 
Firearms. I had not previously recollected such Republican support. I 
hope it will be noted the extent to which the Republican leadership 
finds that the Federal law enforcement people at Waco and Idaho should 
be praised.
  I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.
  Mr. CONYERS. I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for yielding to 
me.
  Mr. Chairman, in the interest of comity, I ask unanimous consent to 
withdraw the amendment and that the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. 
Volkmer] be recognized immediately to offer the amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Michigan?
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I object.
  The CHAIRMAN. Objection is heard.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I will reclaim my time to 
say that I am sorry that the people on the other side continue to want 
to deny Mr. Volkmer the credit to which he is entitled for bringing 
this amendment forward.
  But I do think that it is clear enough to say that this was the idea 
of the gentleman from Missouri. Apparently, 
[[Page H1384]] respect for law and order does not extend far enough to 
not try to steal credit from the gentleman from Missouri.

                              {time}  1230

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, could I ask the gentleman from New Mexico 
[Mr. Schiff], my friend, what the basis of his objection is? We have 
already worked in comity during this bill and during the committee. I 
am puzzled about this. This is a very small technicality, and would the 
gentleman just tell us what is on his mind?
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I am not sure how parliamentary it is to 
ask for a reason for objection to unanimous consents. I do not recall 
their side ever having to explain, but I will be happy to.
  The gentleman from Michigan stood up to offer the amendment. I guess 
their side thought we did not know what amendment it was they were 
going to offer. The gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer] did not offer 
the amendment; the gentleman from Michigan offered the amendment.
  I say to the gentleman, ``It is your amendment, and it should stay 
your amendment. We did not determine the order in which your side stood 
up to offer this amendment.''
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I would 
just ask my friend, ``This unwillingness to let the gentleman from 
Missouri take credit for his amendment; was it something he said?''
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.
  Mr. CONYERS. May I point out to my friend, still my friend, that the 
gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer] is one of the cosponsors of the 
amendment with the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Dingell]. We are not 
adding anything, and it may not come as news to my colleague that he 
had worked on this amendment, not only now, but for quite a while.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I will yield to the 
gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer] in the first place, but I 
suggest, to economize, maybe the gentleman from Michigan can ask 
unanimous consent to change his name to Volkmer.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to point out to the 
gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Schiff] that we have 2 years in which to 
operate in less than a little over a month, is what we have to operate 
under. If the gentleman persists in making such what I call minuscule 
objections, objections for minuscule reasons, I would say to him, ``You 
can rest assured, gentleman, that this gentleman knows how to make 
objections to unanimous-consent requests also.''
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent once more to 
withdraw the amendment, and that the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. 
Volkmer] be recognized immediately to offer the same amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Michigan?
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I object.
  The CHAIRMAN. Objection is heard.
  Mr. BARR. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I have some remarks that go to the substance of the 
amendment which every person on the other side is the author of it.
  I have listened very carefully to the learned remarks, to the 
gentleman from Illinois, the distinguished chairman of this committee, 
and I think they are very well spoken and very appropriate.
  As the distinguished chairman noted, all of us who care about 
effective law enforcement, who care about the abuses that all of us 
have seen in law enforcement over the years, including in recent years, 
are very concerned and are committed to addressing those problems. Mr. 
Chairman, there are, however, effective and appropriate ways to address 
them, and then there are ineffective and inappropriate ways, such as 
this amendment, Mr. Chairman, which do not really get to the heart of 
the matter and, in fact, may provide window dressing and refuge for 
those who really do not want to address the problems.
  In addition, Mr. Chairman, with regard to the amendment itself, as a 
former U.S. attorney and somebody very familiar, I think, with the 
sorts of joint law enforcement efforts that are extremely important, 
particularly, but not exclusively, in the area of attacking organized 
crime and drug trafficking in our country, it is frequent that we in 
law enforcement, or those who are still in law enforcement, find 
ourselves involved in trying to orchestrate very complex types of law 
enforcement activities, and sometimes infrequently those involve the 
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the FBI, DEA, IRS, State and 
local agencies; and if in fact, as it is, the intent of those of us who 
support H.R. 666 to strengthen the role of law enforcement in 
legitimately carrying out those specific and important types of 
criminal/anticriminal activities and to ensure that evidence that 
should be admitted into court is in fact admitted into court under 
appropriate safeguards which are included in our system of justice, 
even under H.R. 666, when in fact there may have been a technical 
violation, but again everything has to satisfy the standard of 
reasonableness; then I can foresee very clearly and reasonably 
situations in which the rights of victims and the rights of society in 
general are going to be harmed if this amendment passes.
  For example, Mr. Chairman, if we do have a joint operation involving 
BATF as well as other agencies, State and/or local and/or Federal, and 
there is a question that arises as to whether or not evidence should be 
admitted under the terms of H.R. 666, the fact that ATF may have had 
some role, whether it is minor or major in that operation, could 
provide an exception through which a Mack truck could be driven, and we 
would have in effect defeated the intent of H.R. 666.
  So, while I share the gentleman from Missouri's very eloquent 
statements on this issue, as well as the gentleman from Michigan's very 
eloquent statements on this issue, I think it does not address the 
underlying issue that the gentleman from Missouri raised both today and 
yesterday with regard to the second amendment which I, despite his 
intimation yesterday, cherish, and know about, and cherish as well as 
any amendment to the Constitution, but this is not the appropriate 
vehicle with which to address those very fundamental concerns, and I 
agree they ought to be addressed, and I do think that this amendment, 
if it were to go forward, would have the effect of defeating in some 
instances, but perhaps in very important instances involving major drug 
trafficking cases, that our Government may choose to bring on behalf of 
the citizens. This amendment could have the effect of having evidence 
that really ought to be admitted not admitted, and it could have, 
therefore, Mr. Chairman, an adverse impact and one that I do not think 
the gentlemen on the other side of the aisle who are proposing really 
intend for it to have.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise in the strongest possible opposition to this 
amendment. Its premise is slanderous to 2,700 of our fine law 
enforcement officers. It is a bigoted statement I say to my friends who 
have been the subject of bigotry. An NRA letter says that soemhow ATF 
agents, unlike all the other agents, cannot be trusted. There is no 
evidence of that. Two hundred sixty-six of those agents since 1920 have 
lost their lives. Do my friends on this side of the aisle want those 
agents to believe that somehow they are less trustworthy than other law 
enforcement agents in this country? I think not. The chairman of the 
Committee on the Judiciary is correct. If that is our premise, then let 
us abolish ATF.
  My friends in this House, we are talking about crime bills. We are 
talking about safe streets, and safe schools, and safe communities, and 
safe neighborhoods. They are threatened today by some of the most 
violent, vicious 
[[Page H1385]] people in America who traffic in guns that will kill 
people very fast, and a lot of them, not to hunt, not to shot at 
targets, and they traffic in explosives. We just had a plea by somebody 
in New York who wanted to blow up the United Nations, undermine the 
security of the international community. Who investigated and found 
that conviction? An ATF agent.
  Now I think this bill can be argued one way or the other on its 
merits as to whether you want to extend the exclusionary rule good-
faith to warrantless searches or not. I think that is a legitimate 
debate, but I say to my friend on this side of the aisle: Let us not 
slander some very good people who daily we ask to go up against some of 
the most dangerous, deranged criminals in this land who threaten the 
stability of this Nation.
  There is no evidence to support the contentions of the NRA that, 
unlike all others, and I presume that they would like to see this 
exclusionary rule applied to the Los Angeles Police Department, or the 
New York Police Department, or the Dallas or Miami Police Department; 
they would like that.

                              {time}  1240

  Their premise presumably is that they are perhaps not as well-trained 
or as carefully or as closely supervised as the agents of ATF, and they 
are wrong--dead wrong. I say to my friend, the chairman of the 
committee, for whom I have great respect and with whom I am probably 
going to vote at the conclusion of the consideration of this bill, do 
not besmirch these officers, do not single them out. There is no 
evidence on which to say that they are less competent or less concerned 
with constitutional protections.
  They protect our country. We have asked them to do so. We have asked 
them to do one of the most difficult jobs of law enforcement in this 
country--dealing with those who traffic in illegal guns and explosives 
that can kill a lot of people very quickly.
  Do not pretend that the debate on this floor is simply in a vacuum to 
make political points against our friends on that side of the aisle, 
that we will embarrass them for voting against the NRA this time, and 
that those 2,700 agents and all their predecessors and that 
organization will somehow be oblivious to the debate on this floor that 
intimates that they are less worthy of being extended this authority 
than some other law enforcement agents charged by the Government of the 
United States to protect the welfare of this Nation.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HOYER. I am glad to yield to my very good friend, the gentleman 
from Missouri.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, I am just curious. Did the gentleman vote 
against the amendment offered by the gentleman from Michigan yesterday?
  Mr. HOYER. No, I voted for it.
  Mr. VOLKMER. What did that do? It did the same thing for all law 
enforcement as what this does for BATF.
  Mr. HOYER. I understand that. That was on the merits.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Yesterday the gentleman said it was OK, and today he 
said it is not.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer] has 
expired.
  (By unanimous consent, Mr. Hoyer was allowed to proceed for 2 
additional minutes.)
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chairman, to respond to my friend, the gentleman from 
Missouri [Mr. Volkmer], as I said at the beginning, that is on the 
merits of this issue. I think this is a serious issue. There are a lot 
of Members on this floor who are very concerned about the fourth 
amendment, which is an amendment that sets us apart from much of the 
world. It was an amendment that the forefathers thought was critically 
important so that the King Georges to come in future generations could 
not simply say, ``I'm going to come into your house; I'm going to come 
into your private spaces to investigate'' absent probable cause and a 
magistrate supposedly and in most instances objectively making a 
determination that there is probable cause.
  That is, I say to my friend, the gentleman from Missouri, the 
objective issue. This amendment does not deal with a substantive issue. 
It deals with politics, and in the process of politics and posturing it 
deals with trying to embarrass the other side. I understand that. But 
my concern with it is that in the process of doing that it slanders a 
group of people that we ask to do one of the most dangerous jobs in 
America.
  Mr. Chairman, I ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to 
reject this amendment and then vote on the policies raised by the 
substantive bill itself.
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite 
number of words.
  At this point, Mr. Chairman, I would join in the remarks and ask to 
be associated with the remarks of the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. 
Volkmer] as pertains to his regard for the BATF, the Bureau of Alcohol, 
Tobacco and Firearms.
  As a former U.S. attorney, like the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. 
Barr], I had experience dealing with the ATF on a daily basis and found 
that they feel very strongly about their mission, and, No. 2, they 
support by and large as individuals, as I do, the second amendment 
right to bear arms. I do not think there is anyone any stronger than I 
am in that regard, as are the Members standing up and talking at this 
point. And that is not the issue here. The real issue is, what do we do 
with fighting those criminals who carry guns and use those weapons in 
the commission of crime?
  During my tenure as U.S. attorney there was a project called Project 
Trigger Lock that focused on aggressive prosecution of those criminals 
who used guns in the commission of those crimes. It was the prosecution 
of existing Federal laws, not new laws but laws already on the books, 
prosecuting felons in possession of weapons. And that program was 
primarily the result of the work of the ATF.
  In our area we had one of the most outstanding Trigger Lock programs 
throughout the country, one which formed a coalition between ATF and 
local authorities, including sheriffs, deputies, and police chiefs, in 
ferreting out again those violent people, those criminals who use guns 
in the commission of crime. This is what everyone says we ought to do, 
and that is lock up the people who commit the crimes using the guns, 
but protect the rights of those innocent law abiding citizens who own 
and possess these weapons.
  My experience with the ATF was that they worked hand in hand with 
other agencies very well. And as the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Barr] 
said earlier, to amend this proposal, this bill, would weak havoc on 
the law enforcement activities of the ATF as well as all the other 
agencies they work with.
  We had task forces, as I described earlier, that involved local law 
enforcement authorities in joint operations. Just as a practical 
matter, to hamstring the ATF with this type of amendment, it would be 
an impossible task for them to be functional. But I think, more 
importantly, as the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer] pointed out, to 
label one agency with perhaps mistakes made by some and those yet to be 
decided--and I am sure they will be fully aired as we progress into our 
Judiciary Committee--but to label one group and to focus on them and 
exempt them from this bill, I think, is unfair to the many outstanding 
agents of the ATF.
  My experience has been that they were a well-trained, professional 
organization, trained on a par with other Federal agencies, the FBI, 
the DEA, Postal, Customs, INS, the whole works. Without exception, I 
found they were excellent officers. I think such an exemption from this 
bill is unwarranted and ill-conceived.
  I think if we are going to do anything, if there is a problem with 
ATF, then let us look at it and see if the agency should even exist. 
But again to hamstring them with this type of amendment is not a good 
idea, and I would strongly oppose it.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I just want to say briefly that we have 
heard some impassioned opinions about the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco 
and Firearms, both in their favor and in their opposition. I want to 
point out, however that I do not think this is going to be an amendment 
that will be decided 
[[Page H1386]] on whether we approve of how the Bureau of Alcohol, 
Tobacco and Firearms by itself operates.
  The issue is, will this amendment, if it passes, affect those issues 
that the sponsors and proponents have offered? And the fact of the 
matter is, if in fact any officer or group of officers--and I say, 
``if''--have made a conscious decision to deliberately violate the 
constitutional rights of any of our citizens, the fact of the matter is 
that the exclusionary rule of evidence does not protect honest citizens 
anyway in that circumstances because honest citizens will not have the 
evidence of crimes which can be suppressed and not used against them at 
the time of trial. There will never be any kind of criminal conduct, 
and that is why in my judgment this amendment is misapplied, and if 
there are problems with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, as 
suggested, I think other remedies could be brought to bear by this 
Congress.
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the 
requisite number of words.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from 
Michigan.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the 
amendment, and that the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer] be 
recognized immediately to offer the same amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Michigan?
  There was no objection.
  The amendment has been withdrawn, and the gentleman from Missouri 
[Mr. Volkmer] is recognized.


                    amendment offered by mr. volkmer

  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. Volkmer: Page 3, line 14, strike 
     the close quotation mark and the period which follows.
       Page 3, after line 14, insert the following:
       ``(d) Limitation.--This section shall not apply with 
     respect to a search or seizure carried out by, or under the 
     authority of, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.''.

  Mr. VOLKMER (during the reading). Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous 
consent that the amendment be considered as read and printed in the 
Record.
  Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Missouri?
  There was no objection.
  The CHAIRMAN. Since this is a new amendment, the Chair is inclined to 
recognize the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer] for the purposes of 
explaining his amendment.

                              {time}  1250

  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman 
from North Carolina [Mr. Watt] be allowed to continue and address the 
committee for 5 minutes.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore (Mr. Burton of Indiana). Is there objection 
to the request of the gentleman from Missouri?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I hope my colleagues and 
the American people have been listening to this debate on the 
underlying bill. I do not want to deal with the amendment itself. I 
want to talk about the bill that has been offered, because what this 
bill forces us to do is exactly what we have seen happen on the Floor 
of this House for the last 2 days. It forces us to try to decide who is 
good and who is bad.
  If I hear one more time during the course of this debate that this is 
not about innocent people, that this is about guilty people, I think I 
will throw up. This is about the American people and the Constitution 
of the United States. It is about innocent people who own guns, who 
might have them in a closet somewhere and have their door kicked in, 
which is why this amendment was offered. It is about innocent people 
like the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Rush], who might have bird seed 
in their closet, and have their doors kicked in because some police 
officer thought he had some cause to do it and could not go down to the 
courthouse and get a warrant.
  It is about innocent people like the gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. 
Schroeder], who had a button, a campaign button in her house, and had 
her whole being violated by the FBI, who came in, in violation of her 
rights.
  It is about innocent people who own homes, who have the right to be 
secure in those homes. And we cannot afford as America to turn the 
questions about who is good and who is bad in our society over to a 
police officer on the street, whether that police officer is from the 
ATF, the FBI, the CIA, the Atlanta police, the Raleigh police, the New 
York police. We cannot make those choices, and the Constitution of the 
United States put us in a position where we did not have to make those 
choices.
  This debate points up exactly what point I am making, because here we 
are now talking about whether the ATF is good or whether the FBI is 
good, or whether this police department is good or that police 
department is good. But that misses the whole point. It misses the 
point that every citizen in this country is presumed to be good, 
presumed to be innocent, until they have had their day in court, and 
that we ought not allow a police officer in the heat of the moment to 
kick somebody's door in and make that decision on the spot.
  The first amendment, as I indicated yesterday, is not about people 
who engage in mainstream speech. It is about protecting the rights of 
the people to say what they want when we do not like what they are 
saying.
  The fourth amendment is not about protecting the guilty or the 
innocent. This is not about whether we like criminals or not. Nobody in 
this House likes criminals. I do not want the police officers out there 
on the street to decide on the spot whose door they are going to kick 
in and whose rights they are going to violate, even if they are 99 
percent right and there is just that 1 percentage point of people out 
there whose rights they violated. Because that 1 percent, that 1.3 
percent we have heard talked about here on this floor, is what the 
fourth amendment was designed to protect.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. 
Watt] has expired.
  (By unanimous consent, Mr. Watt of North Carolina was allowed to 
proceed for 1 additional minute.)
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, this bill puts us in a 
position of sitting here on this floor and getting into these kinds of 
irrelevant debates. I agree with my friend, the gentleman from Maryland 
[Mr. Hoyer]. We ought not exempt this one agency without exempting 
other agencies. We ought to exempt the entire American people from the 
effects of this bill. That is what the amendment ought to say. If we 
believe in the Constitution this demon bill, 666, ought to be withdrawn 
and go back where it came from and never see the light of day again.
  Give me the Constitution, drawn by the Founding Fathers, not some 
version of rights thought up by the Republican Contract for America. I 
will take the Constitution any day.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of my amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The gentleman from Missouri is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  (Mr. VOLKMER asked and was given permission to revise and extend is 
remarks.)
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, I have been listening to the debate here, 
and what I hear concerns me greatly. Because what I hear is that we 
have nothing but praise almost by the speakers, especially the 
gentleman from Illinois, the gentleman from Iowa, the gentleman from 
New Mexico, the gentleman from Georgia, about one of the most Rambo-
rogue-law enforcement agencies in the United States.
  I say that this amendment is not political, Mr. Chairman. This is 
something that Harold Volkmer has been working on because I believe 
strongly not only in the fourth amendment, but every amendment to the 
Constitution, including the second amendment. And if there has ever 
been a violation by any agency of this government of the second 
amendment right of the people and gun owners and hunters and sportsmen 
of this country, it is by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
  I as a member of the board of the Firearms Civil Rights Legal Defense 
Fund can tell you that this is not something that just happened at 
Waco, folks. It is not something that just happened in Idaho, folks. 
Those are the 
[[Page H1387]] big ones that got the news. The little ones that we are 
working on right now, this day, and been working on continuously since 
I came to this
 Congress off and on, it depends on who is running the BATF, we have 
got them going on right now, violations of individuals' rights to own 
guns.

  Well, how would you like it if you had a gun collection and you were 
a part-time law enforcement officer and you did something that the BATF 
agent just didn't like, and he did not like you, and he went and got a 
search warrant and he went in and took all of your guns, every one of 
them out of your house, about 55 of them, and to the gentleman from 
Ohio, I say, it happened in Ohio, and they took them away. Never an 
indictment, never a complaint. Three years ago. And guess what, folks? 
He still has not got his guns back. He has a lawsuit over it, and we 
are helping him on it.
  Mr. Chairman, I can tell you more. How about places getting broken in 
by BATF, and, ``I am sorry, folks, after we have torn up the place, we 
did not find anything.'' ``I am sorry, folks, wrong address.''
  What is going on with this Rambo outfit? This is not something that 
just started this year. When I first came to this Congress I was a 
member of the Committee on the Judiciary. I heard about instances of 
BATF and how they were trying to put gun dealers out of business. And 
that is going on right now, and I can tell you another instance about 
that right now.

                              {time}  1300

  They are trying to put dealers out of business so they cannot sell 
the guns that our people should have. That was going on because they 
said there were too many dealers that we have got to get rid of them, 
and we have got to get rid of the little ones because we cannot 
investigate them all. That was their excuse for their attitudes.
  As a result of that, starting in 1978, in my freshman year, I started 
working on what became known in Missouri as the Volkmer-McClure bill. 
In Idaho, it is known as the McClure-Volkmer bill. That bill corrected 
at that time many of those abuses that were taking place. And for a 
while it was awful quiet and they behaved themselves. But right now 
they are right at it again.
  It is not much different when I first came here; in fact, it is 
sometimes worse.
  This bill, without this amendment, the gentleman from New Mexico, 
when we were discussing it yesterday, said, well, all it means is, if 
the difference is that if they do not find anything, it does not make 
any difference; if they do not find anything illegal, it does not make 
any difference if you have a warrant or you do not have a warrant.
  Gentlemen, we all know that. That is silly. What this bill does to 
the BATF is give them a green light. They do not have to go to the 
magistrate and get a warrant for anything. They just go right in there 
and bust those doors down.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore (Mr. Burton of Indiana). The time of the 
gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer] has expired.
  (By unanimous consent, Mr. Volkmer was allowed to proceed for 5 
additional minutes.)
  Mr. VOLKMER. Just bust the doors down and go in and take the guns and 
if they find something illegal, they say ``Hey, we gotcha.'' And if 
they do not find anything illegal, they say sorry. Sometimes they do 
not even say that, folks.
  Right now they have guns in their possession and some of them, by the 
way, when they have been forced to return them, forced by court orders 
to return them, they are not worth a darn anymore. They are damaged. 
They are rusted. They make sure that our gun owners do not have any 
guns. There is not any other Federal agency or local agency anywhere in 
this country that is about this business, but this agency is.
  Now, they may do some good things down the road, but they also do 
some terrible things. I do not believe that the civil rights, and I 
call them civil rights, under the Constitution of my gun owners, my 
hunters and my sportsmen, should be put in jeopardy by this bill giving 
those very same agents the right to go in and take them away. And what 
I am amazed at, there has not been one Member from that side of the 
aisle to stand up in favor of sportsmen, hunters, and gun owners.
  Who has stood up? I will tell my colleagues who has stood up. Not 
just Members on this side, the National Rifle Association of America. 
What does it say?
  Just yesterday, ``The National Rifle Association of America would 
like to express our strong support for your amendment exempting the 
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms from a relaxation of the new 
exclusionary rule standard as embodied by H.R. 666. The slipshod regard 
and generally low esteem that ATF has traditionally shown for the 
constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans indicates that the term 
`good faith' has little meaning for them in the context in which they 
conduct their investigations. We would be remiss in our responsibility 
to our members and to the rights of all law-abiding Americans were we 
to allow a further relaxation of the fourth amendment standards to 
which ATF already gives short shrift to go unremarked and unopposed. We 
urge all Members of the House to vote in support of your amendment.''
  Also I would like to read from the Gun Owners of America. They, too, 
today delivered a letter to me.
  ``I urge you to support the Volkmer amendment to H.R. 666. This 
amendment simply states that the bill will not apply to any searches 
and seizures carried out by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and 
Firearms. BATF has developed a torrid history when it comes to 
violating people's gun rights. And thus, Gun Owners of America will 
score the Volkmer amendment as a gun vote. That is, a vote for the 
Volkmer amendment will be scored as a pro-gun vote.''
  I just want to let all of my colleagues know that what I have heard 
today on this amendment really bothers me, because I know what BATF is 
doing out there to our people. And yet I am not going to have any 
avenue in this Congress to do anything about it except through this 
amendment. Because it is very apparent to me that the chairman of the 
Committee on the Judiciary, the majority members of that Committee on 
the Judiciary think that BATF is a wonderful agency. And they are going 
to go out and protect that agency. So when I ask for hearings to look 
into these abuses by BATF, they are going to tell me, forget it, 
because we are going to protect them. We are not going to do anything 
to hurt that agency. That is a wonderful agency. That is what I hear 
from that side.
  I was prepared, we are watching some right now, I was waiting just 
for the opportune time to come to them and say, we need to have some 
hearings. We need to look into what this agency is doing. Now I am not 
going to have that avenue.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. VOLKMER. I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico.
  Mr. SCHIFF. I thank the gentleman from Missouri for yielding.
  I do not know if the gentleman recalls, but to the best of my 
recollection, on each of the firearms-related bills that have been 
introduced on the House floor, I believe the gentleman and I have been 
on the same side of the argument each and every time. That is my best 
recollection.
  Second of all, I will join the gentleman in seeking hearings on the 
issues that have been raised concerning the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco 
and Firearms on this floor.
  My opposition to the gentleman's amendment very simply is his 
amendment and this bill have nothing to do with what the gentleman is 
talking about. I would like to explain it two ways.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer] 
has again expired.
  (By unanimous consent, Mr. Volkmer was allowed to proceed for 3 
additional minutes.)
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, we 
have the exclusionary rule intact now, and it has not prevented any of 
the incidents that the gentleman has described. And it will not protect 
anyone in a situation where, if as alleged by the gentleman from 
Missouri, an agency or even an officer, one officer, have become, to 
use the gentleman's words, a rouge officer, a rogue institution. Those 
individuals who choose to abuse their law enforcement power and do so 
[[Page H1388]] for the purpose of harassing law-abiding citizens are 
not going to be deterred by the exclusionary rule because they are not 
looking for evidence to use in a criminal case in the first place.
  To turn it further the other way, this offers a good faith exception. 
If ATF or any other agency breaks down a door without a search warrant 
to someone's house, in a situation where they needed a search warrant, 
it is not good faith, even if they happen to find something that is 
illegal. It would not be allowed under this bill. So with the utmost 
respect, again, I suggest that the gentleman's amendment, which he 
obviously feels so very passionate about because of his view of this 
agency, is not applied correctly toward this bill.
  I thank the gentleman from Missouri for yielding to me.
  Mr. VOLKMER. I quite disagree with the gentleman from New Mexico that 
what I said before, it does not change maybe what BATF is doing at the 
present. But I still say, because they can go on reasonable belief that 
what they are doing is right without a warrant, which they cannot do 
today. They have to get the warrant today. If they are going to go in 
and take somebody's guns away from that house, they better get a 
warrant.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, 
again, there must be an objectively reasonable belief that a search 
without a warrant was in fact constitutional at that time. If it is not 
supported when that matter is reviewed by a magistrate, the evidence 
would still be suppressed and it does not protect innocent citizens no 
matter what kind of exclusionary rule standard we have.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Let us talk about that just for a minute. We have a 
little case not far from right out here in Virginia. We talk about all 
these things
 that these magistrates are going to do and everything. How about when 
a magistrate does not even know what the law is and the agent does not 
know what the law is. And he goes in and asks for a search warrant to 
go into somebody's business and take away the guns because he says that 
these guns are illegal, the magistrate does not know that they are not 
illegal, that they are legal, and he issues the search warrant and they 
go get it.

  Now, what happens is that he gets sued, and he is going to get sued, 
that agent is. Now, the thing is that under this, he would not have to 
go to that magistrate.

                              {time}  1310

  That agent based that on erroneous information that an informant had 
supposedly told him, and the magistrate issued a warrant on that basis.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer] 
has expired.
  (At the request of Mr. Schiff and by unanimous consent, Mr. Volkmer 
was allowed to proceed for 3 additional minutes.)
  Mr. VOLKMER. Under this bill, Mr. Chairman, after that informant had 
told that agent that information, he could have gone down there and 
took guns without a search warrant. For that reason, I say if you want 
to protect your gun owners from these rogue people, I would say Members 
had better vote for this. This will be the last chance, the only chance 
Members as gun owners, people protecting gun owners, will have the 
right to do that.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. VOLKMER. I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Schiff].
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman one more time for his 
courtesy.
  Mr. Chairman, I want to point our that the gentleman's premise is 
what I believe is incorrect in this debate. There is nothing in this 
bill that changes the law as to when a search warrant is needed or is 
not needed. It deals only with those situations where, when a search is 
made without a warrant, if there was a good-faith error, then the 
evidence can be considered. It expands an exception that already exists 
in the law for search warrants.
  In all of the examples the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer] has 
given, he has described anything but good faith. Therefore, there is 
not protection to honest citizens by the gentleman's amendment. Honest 
citizens, in fact, are not even protected by the exclusionary rule. If 
a law enforcement officer wants to go through that door, with the power 
of his immediate armament, and seize something, he or she is going to 
do it. If so, the exclusionary rule is not going to stop them, because 
that is an after-the-fact determination when someone is believed to be 
guilty.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, I disagree with the gentleman.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I think there are a couple of points that need to be 
made to put all of this in perspective.
  First of all, as chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime of the 
Committee on the Judiciary, I want to make sure everyone is aware that 
it is our intention to hold hearings in the next couple of months on 
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and on firearms issues 
generally, and on some of these alleged rights violations, which may be 
very real or maybe are not, but we are going to explore that.
  There will be opportunities, I would present, not only there but 
probably through legislation that will come out here on firearms in May 
or June that will give the Members the opportunity to debate all kinds 
of issues related to this.
  Second, what we are doing today, it needs to be stated what it is 
not, rather than what it is, sometimes. What it is not, it is not a 
relaxation of the fourth amendment protections against unlawful search 
and seizures.
  We are doing absolutely nothing in the underlying bill today that 
would in any way affect a person's right to be protected from unlawful 
search and seizure by police, BATF, or anybody else.
  Second, Mr. Chairman, what we are not doing is destroying the 
exclusionary rule. I heard one of the major networks this morning on 
one of its morning shows state that this bill would abolish the 
exclusionary rule of evidence which the Supreme Court established in 
1914.
  The legislation that we are presenting here today does nothing of the 
sort. It does not abolish that rule. What we do today, what we are 
about to do if we pass this bill is to make it very clear that where 
the Supreme Court itself has carved out what it calls the good faith 
exception to its own rule of evidence that was designed to deter police 
from doing things that might violate the Constitution by saying ``If 
you do it, naughty boys, we are not going to let your evidence in that 
you get there,'' where it has modified itself and says, ``Look, the 
police really would have done this anyway.''
  There would not be any deterrent there because they had a reasonably 
objective belief that what they were doing was right in the cases of 
the warrants which have been presented to them; where there was a 
search warrant, the court said ``We are not going to let this rule 
apply. We are going to have a good faith exception, let the evidence 
in, let the conviction, if the court can get a conviction, stand 
against the bad guys.''
  The court has never faced the situation of a warrantless search, 
though there are many of them that are perfectly constitutional, with 
the question of the exception we are proposing today.
  However, there have been two Federal circuit courts that have, in the 
fifth and eleventh. They have embraced what is in this bill. That is 
what we are doing today. We are saying ``Let us make this nationwide, 
so we do not have any loopholes involving this question and letting 
more criminals off the hooks than already have gotten off the hooks in 
the past.''
  If we look at the Arizona case I cited out here in debate yesterday, 
I think it is illustrative to put to rest the concerns that the 
gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer] has with respect to BATF or any 
other law enforcement agency.
  The type of example we have a concrete example of is an Arizona case 
in which there was an arrest warrant, not a search warrant, which had 
been issued on somebody who was stopped by the police out there.
  It turns out that 17 days before they stopped this fellow that 
warrant, that arrest warrant, had been quashed. It had been done away 
with. It was not any good anymore, but their computers did not show it.
  The police, because the computers had not had this input put in 
this, 
[[Page H1389]] stopped this fellow. They searched him and they found 
evidence of additional crime, marijuana, and I don't know what else.
  The courts, because of the rule that the Supreme Court has no 
exception for cases that do not involve search warrants, threw out this 
evidence and said this was an unconstitutional search because there was 
no arrest warrant, and they had no right to make this search, but the 
police legitimately thought they were.
  There was absolutely no deterrent effect on their behavior or would 
not be any by throwing out the evidence and losing a potential 
conviction of a bad guy.
  The same thing would be true in a case involving weapons, whether it 
is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, or the FBI or local law 
enforcement.
 There is no change in it at all. The illustrations the gentleman from 
Missouri has given out here today would not be appropriate, in my 
judgment, to what this legislation we have today affects.

  We are affecting a very small situation, but sometimes a critical 
one, where the police honestly believe that they are doing the right 
thing when they do it, whatever police agency it is, and I do not think 
that the amendment is appropriate to give an exception to any police 
agency and say what we are doing does not apply.
  It should apply to all of them. We should address the abuse that any 
agency has outside of the context of this in some other forum, and we 
will do that in the future, but not in this bill, because there is no 
way that excepting BATF from this particular bill, we are going to 
correct any problems that they may have had in the past or may have in 
the future.
  The BATF, if they are abusing the law and the constitutional rights 
and doing something illegal or improper, are going to do it just as 
much in the future after this bill because law as they have done in the 
past, because what we are passing out here would have no impact 
whatsoever with respect to what they do or do not do, since it requires 
what we are requiring for any exception for evidence to come in, a 
judge finding a reasonably objective basis on the part of whatever 
police officer it is, including BATF, that what they are doing, they 
did in the believe that they were acting----
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Florida, [Mr. McCollum] 
has expired.
  (By unanimous consent, Mr. McCollum was allowed to proceed for 1 
additional minute.)
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, that is because the police, the BATF, or 
whoever it is, is going to be acting in order for evidence to be 
allowed, whatever it is, in this bill, in order to get convictions, 
they are going to have to be acting in the reasonably objective belief 
that they were correct, that there was no problem, as in the arrest 
warrant case I just gave as a real illustration in a real case in 
Arizona that has gone before the Supreme Court.
  So I do not see any harm, Mr. Chairman, in what we are doing at all. 
We have two Federal circuits that already have permitted this for all 
Federal agencies, be that BATF, FBI, or anybody else, and no ill will 
has come from this, no bad results, and I do not think there should be 
any exceptions to this, as I say, including the gentleman's effort.
  Many of us who may agree with him on other matters relating to 
firearms simply cannot support this amendment today, even though we 
understand he is trying to make a protest vote out here on BATF. 
Unfortunately, it undermines the very basic law we have.
  There may be many cases where BATF, FBI, et cetera, work in concert, 
and you can just mess up the whole evidentiary train if you affect one 
agency.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise today in reluctant opposition to the Volkmer 
amendment to H.R. 666, the Exclusionary Rule Reform Act.
  I am a strong supporter of second amendment rights. Like the 
gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer], I have serious concerns about 
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. On numerous occasions it 
is my belief, and certainly the headlines have reflected, that the BATF 
has overstepped its jurisdictional boundaries and trampled on the 
rights of law-abiding citizens.
  Clearly, we must seriously examine the reckless actions of this 
agency and work to eliminate the BATF by consolidating its legitimate 
functions with other agencies. Congress needs to thoroughly review 
every aspect of the agency's operation and its inefficiencies.
  In the interim, strong congressional oversight and congressional 
control over BATF's budget is the best way to influence BATF management 
and decisionmaking and safeguard the rights of America's gun owners.
  Passage of this amendment, Mr. Chairman, is not a solution to the 
problems with the BATF.

                              {time}  1320

  Congress has a responsibility to maintain strict oversight of this 
agency. Creating an exemption for the BATF from the reform of this 
exclusionary rule will not stop the BATF from committing unreasonable 
searches. It will make it easier for hardened criminals to walk on a 
technicality.
  I urge my colleagues to defeat this amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer].
  The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the noes 
appeared to have it.


                             Recorded Vote

  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 228, 
noes 198, answered ``present'' 3, not voting 5, as follows:
                             [Roll No. 101]

                               AYES--228

     Ackerman
     Allard
     Baldacci
     Barcia
     Barrett (WI)
     Bartlett
     Bass
     Becerra
     Bevill
     Bilirakis
     Bishop
     Bliley
     Bonior
     Borski
     Boucher
     Brewster
     Browder
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (OH)
     Bryant (TX)
     Bunn
     Burton
     Callahan
     Camp
     Chapman
     Chenoweth
     Chrysler
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Coburn
     Coleman
     Collins (MI)
     Combest
     Condit
     Conyers
     Cooley
     Costello
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crapo
     Cremeans
     Cubin
     Danner
     de la Garza
     DeFazio
     Dellums
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dooley
     Doolittle
     Doyle
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Durbin
     Edwards
     Emerson
     Engel
     Ensign
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Fazio
     Fields (LA)
     Fields (TX)
     Filner
     Foglietta
     Foley
     Forbes
     Franks (CT)
     Frisa
     Funderburk
     Furse
     Gejdenson
     Gephardt
     Geren
     Gilman
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Graham
     Green
     Gutierrez
     Gutknecht
     Hall (OH)
     Hall (TX)
     Hamilton
     Hancock
     Harman
     Hastings (FL)
     Hayes
     Hefner
     Herger
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Holden
     Hunter
     Istook
     Jackson-Lee
     Jacobs
     Jefferson
     Johnson, E.B.
     Johnson, Sam
     Kanjorski
     Kelly
     Kennedy (MA)
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kildee
     Klink
     Klug
     LaHood
     Laughlin
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lincoln
     Lipinski
     Lofgren
     Martinez
     Mascara
     Matsui
     McCarthy
     McDermott
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntosh
     McKinney
     Meehan
     Meek
     Menendez
     Metcalf
     Miller (CA)
     Mineta
     Minge
     Mink
     Moakley
     Mollohan
     Montgomery
     Moorhead
     Murtha
     Myers
     Nadler
     Ney
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Orton
     Parker
     Pastor
     Payne (NJ)
     Payne (VA)
     Pelosi
     Peterson (FL)
     Peterson (MN)
     Petri
     Pickett
     Pombo
     Pomeroy
     Poshard
     Quillen
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reed
     Richardson
     Riggs
     Roberts
     Roemer
     Rogers
     Rose
     Roth
     Roybal-Allard
     Sabo
     Salmon
     Sanders
     Scarborough
     Schaefer
     Schroeder
     Scott
     Seastrand
     Serrano
     Shuster
     Sisisky
     Skaggs
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Souder
     Spence
     Spratt
     Stark
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Stockman
     Stokes
     Studds
     Stump
     Stupak
     Tanner
     Tate
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Tejeda
     Thompson
     Thornberry
     Thornton
     Thurman
     Tiahrt
     Torres
     Towns
     Traficant
     Tucker
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Visclosky
     Volkmer
     Vucanovich
     Walsh
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Williams
     Wilson
     Wise
     Woolsey
     Wynn
     Young (AK)

                               NOES--198

     Abercrombie
     Andrews
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baesler
     Baker (CA)
     Baker (LA)
     Ballenger
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Barton
     Bateman
     Beilenson
     Bentsen
     Bereuter
     Berman
     Bilbray
     Blute
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Brownback
     [[Page H1390]] Bryant (TN)
     Bunning
     Burr
     Buyer
     Calvert
     Canady
     Cardin
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Christensen
     Clinger
     Coble
     Collins (GA)
     Cox
     Coyne
     Cunningham
     Davis
     Deal
     DeLauro
     DeLay
     Deutsch
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Dornan
     Dreier
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     English
     Eshoo
     Everett
     Ewing
     Fawell
     Flanagan
     Ford
     Fowler
     Fox
     Frank (MA)
     Franks (NJ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Goss
     Greenwood
     Gunderson
     Hansen
     Hastert
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Heineman
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Hoke
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hoyer
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Inglis
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson (SD)
     Johnston
     Jones
     Kaptur
     Kasich
     Kennelly
     Kim
     King
     Kingston
     Kleczka
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaFalce
     Lantos
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Lightfoot
     Linder
     Livingston
     LoBiondo
     Longley
     Lowey
     Lucas
     Luther
     Maloney
     Manton
     Manzullo
     Markey
     Martini
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McDade
     McHale
     McKeon
     McNulty
     Meyers
     Mfume
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Molinari
     Moran
     Morella
     Myrick
     Neal
     Nethercutt
     Neumann
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Owens
     Oxley
     Packard
     Pallone
     Paxon
     Porter
     Portman
     Pryce
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Rivers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roukema
     Royce
     Sanford
     Sawyer
     Saxton
     Schiff
     Schumer
     Sensenbrenner
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Skeen
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Talent
     Taylor (NC)
     Thomas
     Torkildsen
     Torricelli
     Upton
     Waldholtz
     Walker
     Wamp
     Ward
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     White
     Wolf
     Wyden
     Yates
     Young (FL)
     Zeliff
     Zimmer

                        ANSWERED ``PRESENT''--3

     Collins (IL)
     Reynolds
     Rush

                             NOT VOTING--5

     Brown (FL)
     Flake
     Frost
     Hastings (WA)
     Solomon

                              {time}  1340

  Mr. MARKEY, Ms. RIVERS, and Messrs. PALLONE, MANZULLO, and FRANK of 
Massachusetts changed their vote from ``aye'' to ``no.''
  Ms. McKINNEY, Mr. FRANKS of Connecticut, Mr. DURBIN, Ms. HARMAN, Mr. 
GONZALEZ, Ms. McCARTHY, Ms. DUNN of Washington, and Mr. OLVER changed 
their vote from ``no'' to ``aye.''
  Mr. REYNOLDS changed his vote from ``aye'' to ``present.''
  So the amendment was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  

                          ____________________