[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 25 (Wednesday, February 8, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H1440-H1447]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       REVIEW OF LEGISLATION ALREADY PASSED IN THE 104TH CONGRESS

  Mr. HOKE. Mr. Speaker, tonight I have asked some of my good friends 
in the House to join me in a special order where what we are going to 
do is review some of the legislation that has already been passed in 
the 104th Congress, and then we are going to continue to talk about 
some of the things that have not been passed yet but that we are 
working on. It is all part of the program that we call our Contract 
With America.
  I have asked the gentlewoman from Washington [Mrs. Smith] the 
gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston], and the gentleman from Tennessee 
[Mr. Byrant] to join me in this, and what I wanted to do first is I 
have got a nice chart here that is courtesy of the gentleman from 
Georgia [Mr. Kingston], and I want to use this red pen to talk about 
some of the things that we have done already.
  What we have done is on the very first day of Congress we had 
promised that a Republican House would, first of all, require Congress 
to live under the same laws as every other American. We have done that.
  We also said that we are going to cut one out of every three 
congressional committee staffs. We have done that.
  And we said that we would cut the congressional budget. We did that 
as well.
  In addition, Mr. Speaker, we promised the American people that we are 
going to pass a balanced budget amendment and a line-item veto, and we 
said that we would give relief to our States, counties and local cities 
on unfunded mandates, and we have done that as well.
  Now I think one of the things that I want to point out this evening 
about everything that we have done is because there is so much 
partisanship that happens on this floor that we see every single day, 
one would think that there was an open battle going on between the 
minority and the majority, the Democrats and the Republicans, on a 
daily basis. Let us review the bidding for just a moment because I 
think that maybe, Mr. Speaker, you will find these numbers rather 
surprising:
  First of all, the Congressional Accountability Act requiring that 
every single law of the land also require, be applied, to Congress. Two 
hundred Democrats joined every single Republican in voting for that.
                              {time}  2120

  It was completely unanimous. When it came to the unfunded mandates 
bill that we passed last Thursday, 130 Democrats joined us to pass that 
bill. The line-item veto, 71 Democrats joined us. The balanced budget 
amendment, 72 Democrats joined us. We passed just yesterday and today, 
three 
[[Page H1441]] important crime bills that Mr. Bryant is going to tell 
us about, habeas corpus reform, the exclusionary rule reform, and 
Victims' Restitution Act. We had 71, 71, and 133 Members of the 
minority join us in that.
  What does that prove? Clearly, it proves that this is a bipartisan 
effort. If you say to yourself as you listen to this, you say, ``If 
that many Democrats were voting for them, why on Earth did you not 
bring these things to the floor and pass them previously. What is going 
on?''
  Well, what it does show you is two things: First, there is absolutely 
bipartisan support, in some cases overwhelming bipartisan support, for 
all of these bills. The other thing it tells you is that some of these 
bills were never allowed to come to the floor of Congress because the 
previous leadership refused to allow them to see the light of day to 
ever get a vote.
  We made the pledges that we would bring these things to the floor. We 
made pledges that we would have votes on them. And we have in fact 
passed them all. I am not saying we are going to pass everything that 
comes up under the Contract With America, but we are going to try to.
  It has proven to be a remarkable road map for Republicans and for 
this Congress to stay very focused on the agenda that America wants. 
And it has also proven, I think, very importantly to be a way for us to 
reinstill confidence of the American people in what we are doing as a 
Congress, and their confidence in their ability to elect officials that 
will actually deliver what they promise.
  One of the ways that you can see that is that in the Washington Post 
survey or poll that was taken last week, we find that confidence in the 
Congress has doubled, doubled, just since January 4 when we were sworn 
in. And that is the first time in the 15 years that that particular 
polling question, how do you feel about Congress, favorable, 
unfavorable, that has doubled, it is the first time it has ever 
happened since they have been doing that kind of polling.
  Luckily, we have with us two freshmen Members, Mr. Bryant and Mr. 
Smith, who are part of the revolution, and they are going to be talking 
to us about the crime bill.
  Mr. Bryant of Tennessee. I appreciate the very fine introduction of 
what this Congress is about from the gentleman from Ohio. I just wanted 
to add a remark or two to what you are saying about the popularity 
increase on the part of the Congress.
  I tell you, we are all having trouble getting back to our districts 
because of the hectic pace that we are involved in. I heard today that 
we have already voted more than 100 votes in this month of January and 
the early part of February, and I think last year we reached that mark 
of 100 votes somewhere in May. So that is some indication to the 
viewers of the pace at which we are moving.
  Mr. HOKE. The gentleman is completely correct. In fact, we are on 
track for doing more in the first 100 days of this Congress than has 
ever been achieved in the history of our Congress if we keep up at this 
rate. We had through the end of January been in session 115 hours. The 
average for the previous 10 Januarys was 28. We had had 79 votes on the 
floor up until then. The average had been 9.
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield, I think, though, what is 
really important is as we talk to our two freshmen that are with us, is 
that this spirit of change really was affected by your election. It 
would not have happened. We would be continuing at the status quo of 
year after year everybody signs the balanced budget amendment, year 
after year everybody signs the line item veto, and a couple of these 
other hero bills, and you go back home and tell your Rotary Club, ``I 
sponsored a bill, but doggone it, those rascals in Washington will not 
get it to the floor.'' The time for that kind of talk is over with, 
because of the huge new freshman class, and a freshman class who as 
candidates went out on a limb, most I think signed the Contract, but 
they said, ``This is my agenda. If you elect me, this is what I am 
going to go for.'' And instead of throwing away that brochure on a 
election night, they are coming back day after day and reminding the 
voters what they said, instead of waiting for the voters to invite 
them.
  With that, I think we owe them a lot of this credit, just to get the 
chance to vote. You may want to comment on, you know, what it is like. 
Because Mr. Hoke and I served under a previous regime, and it was not 
as fun and certainly it was not as vigorous as what we are doing now.
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. If the gentleman will yield, I think what 
we have turned the American people into is C-SPAN junkies. I am having 
friends that didn't even have TV's who are getting up each morning so 
they can see what we did today. They got rid of the idea of Congress as 
a slow moving process, and they are saying, ``We want to see what they 
did today.'' I think the freshmen came with the belief that we would do 
something everyday, but we did not realize when we got here that people 
would say, ``Do you realize this is fast?'' And when you look at what 
they used to do, we would not have barely got started. My understanding 
is it took way into February before we would actually even gear up very 
much.
  Mr. HOKE. Generally speaking, we did not even come to Washington 
until the last week of January previously.
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. I was trying to do a summary of what we had 
done thus far, and I could not do a newsletter with enough in it, it 
would have had
 to have been so big. I said, you know, that is really something. I 
said I was never coming to Congress. My polls were very high for the 
last 6 years, nearly 90 percent, I said I am not going because those 
guys are not doing anything. I am pretty glad to say not only are we 
doing something, but I am actually not sleeping more than 4 or 5 hours 
a night. It is pretty exciting. We came to a whole bunch of people 
ready to do action. We might be the steam, the freshmen, but there 
certainly was a train on its way. We are just pushing it along a 
little.

  Mr. HOKE. We gave a great American a wonderful birthday present on 
Monday. Mr. Kingston, I wonder if I might ask you to talk a little bit 
about what that birthday present was, how it came about, and what it 
does for the American people.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Of course, the great American you are speaking of is 
Ronald Reagan, and he was a man even before he was elected President 
who talked about the concept of the line-item veto. And the analogy 
that I have given my voters is just imagine if you are in a grocery 
store and you are buying your meat and potatoes, your fruit and your 
vegetables, and you are in the checkout line and the cashier says buy 
some caviar for me. You say I don't owe you any caviar. I don't eat 
caviar, it is too expensive. He says if you want your meat and 
potatoes, you have got to buy my caviar.
  That sounds bizarre, but that is how the Congress has treated the 
American people, and the American presidents, for all these years. That 
anytime the President would go into an area like a flood disaster or 
something like that, we would always go in there and tack on our latest 
social program, our new little warm and fuzzy midnight basketball of 
the month or whatever it was. We say OK, we know you want to take care 
of the California earthquake victims, but in addition to this I want a 
little research money for the university back my way.
  This gives the President the actual ability to take a pen and line 
item that out, that pork out of there, and say we do not need it 
anymore.
  Mr. HOKE. Is that something that Governors have in most States or 
many States?
  Mr. KINGSTON. Forty-three Governors have it. We have it in our State 
of Georgia. It has worked effectively. The Governor does not overuse 
it. But what it does is it puts him back in the process.
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. That is something that amazed me when I got 
here. I was in the State Senate and the House and we always had a 
balanced budget amendment, and we had line-item veto. In fact, we not 
only had line-item veto for the budget, we had it for every bill, and 
the Governor could go in and take out pork and things that did not 
work. Now, sometimes we were a little irritated at the Governor, but 
the reality was it brought a great balance to some of us that might 
want to kick in a little pork for our district. 
[[Page H1442]] We had to think about a check and balance of the 
Governor. So I think that most States have something like this. For the 
Federal Government not to have it, seems a little ridiculous.
  Mr. HOKE. Maybe one of the greatest reflections for the need for this 
is we seem to have an absolute inability to balance our budget. This is 
one more tool to try to get specifically to that. And Mr. Kingston, 
maybe you could illuminate this a little bit. It seems to me when we 
saw the people opposing it, were these the fiscal conservatives, the 
deficit hawks, the tightwads, or the big spenders in Congress?
  Mr. KINGSTON. The people who opposed it generally used this 
philosophical argument that it tipped the balance of power. But what 
they were really saying is I want my pork. And I think we saw, for 
example, getting back to the earthquake, on the earthquake we sneaked 
into the budget or had sneaked in $1.3 million for the Hawaiian sugar 
cane mills.
                              {time}  2130

  We have $1.5 million to convert a nuclear power commercial ship into 
a museum, or $10 million for a new train station in New York.
  Mr. HOKE. Why is that not appropriate as a Federal expenditure?
  Mr. KINGSTON. Well, there is certainly a philosophical question that 
these should probably not be things that the Federal Government is 
involved in. But more importantly than that, we have got people who 
have health care emergencies because of the earthquake, business 
emergencies, lives literally at stake. We need to get the money out to 
help the earthquake victims. We do not need to be sending it for train 
stations. The list goes on and on. But remember, it is every single 
appropriation bill has this little Christmas tree, what is in it for 
me, and if you want something in Ohio, then you are going to take care 
of me in Georgia. That is one reason why we have a national debt 
approaching $5 trillion right now.
  Mr. HOKE. And it got nearly 75 percent of the votes in this Congress. 
It had never previously been allowed to even come to the floor. Yet we 
got 301 votes.
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. One of the things that we, a couple of 
things that we campaigned on heavily during our election process, were 
the line-item veto and the balanced budget amendment. And I used to 
say, after I had signed this Contract With America, one of the hidden 
pearls in this contract, not necessarily each and every item might be 
passed, but that we are calling forth from everyone that is in Congress 
a vote. We are making them vote up or down on each one of these issues. 
And if an item did not pass, then the people back in the district would 
understand that and how their Congressman voted. And they would have 
the opportunity next election to decide if they wanted to retain that 
Congressman.
  But everywhere I went, the people back in west Tennessee felt that 
these two items, the line-item veto and the balanced budget amendment, 
were required because of the forced discipline. I have heard that term 
used an awful lot up here, but I am convinced that not only at the 
State level but at the Federal level, we need to force discipline by 
law. But we have to balance the budget.
  The Chief Executive, the President, whoever, the
   Governor has a right to the line-item veto. And I think we have 
taken the correct steps. And once we got those bills out of the 
committee, up on the House floor for the first time probably, at least 
the line-item veto, I think maybe the balanced budget amendment was up 
a couple times, but we were forced, the Members, to vote and to show 
our cards. And I think that is why you saw the large amount of votes in 
support of each of these.

  Mr. KINGSTON. One of the many votes on this was rejection of what 
I would call the light-item veto, l-i-g-h-t.
  Mr. HOKE. Line-item veto light.
  Mr. KINGSTON. That says that when the President does this, then it 
comes back to the Congress and we sit on it. And what he actually 
vetoed out does not take place, but we do not ever have to vote on it 
again. It is just the same old----
  Mr. HOKE. That is pretty much the rescission package that we have got 
now.
  Mr. KINGSTON. We rejected that. This package, what is so different 
about it, he sends it back to us. We have 20 days to say yes or no or 
to modify it or pass part of it or not, but if we do not take action, 
it is automatically in effect. So the ball is in our court.
  It is not this, oh, well, we just kind of look the other way and 
pretend it does not count. The clock starts and we have got 20 days.
  Mr. HOKE. I know it is a little technical, but I wonder if you could 
just share with me how the process works. We pass a bill. The Senate 
passes a bill, comes out of conference, goes to the President for a 
signature. What happens next?
  Mr. KINGSTON. Let us just say it is an education bill, health care, 
welfare reform, and we stick in there, as are actual cases in years 
past, $58 million for the American Shipbuilding Co. in Tampa, FL, $11 
million for a powerplant modernization for a naval shipyard that is 
about to be closed in Philadelphia. And we stick in another $1 million 
for plant stress studies in Texas.
  The President gets the health care bill. He says, wait, these three 
items, I do not like them. And so he circles them so to speak sends 
them back to Congress. He has got to do that within 10 days. He cannot 
just sit on it.
  Mr. HOKE. He has 10 days to make those line
   items, to veto those particular lines.

  Mr. KINGSTON. That is right. He sends it back, submits it to us. And 
incidentally, he can say, look, I do like the New York Yankees, and I 
am going to give them a little bit of sweetener for the shipyard down 
in Florida, and there is a relationship. So instead of giving them $50 
million, he decides to give them $25 million. He does not even have to 
zap it out. He can just reduce it.
  Then we get it back within 10 days. We have 20 days to vote on it. If 
we decide not to vote on it, it is law.
  One other thing that is important to know, this is on spending, but 
if we pass a sweetheart tax deal and it only benefits less than 100 
people or 100 or less specific corporations, just a clear conflict, 
because some powerful committee chairman says, look, I want you to take 
care of my little buddies over here, the President can also veto those 
out. People complain all the time about tax loopholes. This gives the 
President and, in this case, the Democrat President the chance to stand 
up to those.
  Mr. HOKE. So let us say, for example, that some of our Democrat 
friends would put together a loophole to sweeten the pie for some of 
their fat-cat contributors with a tax loophole. If it is fewer than 100 
people, the President can X that out and veto it. The thing that we do 
joke about Democrats, but you know, we did get into this situation from 
Democrats and Republicans. And the beauty of this that I like is that 
we have got a bipartisan Congress with Republican control passing a 
bill for a Democrat President. So we are giving him a very powerful 
tool to turn around and use, if he chooses to do so. I hope he will not 
be partisan about it and will be responsible.
  I wanted to get a little bit to the balanced budget amendment, but I 
see we are running out of time here. I wanted to ask the gentleman from 
Tennessee [Mr. Bryant], who is the former U.S. attorney from the 
western district of Tennessee, and, therefore has, I would say, a fair 
amount of expertise with respect to crime, to talk about the crime 
bill.
  We passed two things today. One was habeas corpus reform and the 
other was exclusionary reform. I have to tell you that to most 
Americans who are not lawyers, of course, you and I are both on the 
Committee on the Judiciary. We are very much involved
 with all of this, but to most Americans who are not lawyers, the words 
``habeas corpus reform'' mean absolutely nothing. Exclusionary rule 
reform means absolutely nothing.

  What is going on here? Can you bring it down to earth for us?
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. Let me try to give a primer on this. As far 
as the exclusionary rule, that is a judicial court creation. It appears 
nowhere in the Constitution. We have heard that 
[[Page H1443]] bantered about in our arguments, that it violated the 
Constitution, what our forefathers wrote, those kinds of things. 
Actually, it is a rule that was crafted by the courts to in effect 
punish police officers for unlawful conduct. And over the years, there 
has been a constant balancing act between the rights of society as 
opposed to the rights of the criminal.
  And over the past number of years, many of us feel that that pendulum 
has swung too far over in favor of the rights of the criminal and, in 
some cases, has actually resulted in the exclusionary rule being 
applied in trials that guilty people have gone free or, even before 
that, you recognized you have got a bad case because of this. You would 
have to plea bargain out or even dismiss a case.
  Mr. HOKE. Where does this name ``exclusionary rule'' come from? What 
are we excluding?
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. Actually, it is excluding evidence from the 
trial. That is the remedy that the Court has foisted upon us. If it was 
deemed illegal evidence, then it is actually kept away from the jury.
  A classic example is the ongoing trial in California and the issue of 
the glove that the police officer found at the home of Mr. Simpson. 
That was the subject of a lengthy suppression hearing to exclude that 
glove. And in that case, the judge did allow it into evidence.
  But there is a great deal of confusion over the law in all these 
situations involving search warrants and even the warrantless searches. 
And I used to marvel, as a prosecutor, how, as in the case of Mr. 
Simpson in California and in other cases where you could spend hours 
and days, even longer periods of time, with law-school-trained 
prosecutors and defense counsel and judges arguing over the merits of 
this issue in a sanitized situation, a courtroom, with law clerks 
writing briefs and so forth for you.
                              {time}  2140

  Yet, on the other hand, we asked police officers, law enforcement 
officers who were in a tough situation out in the field, in less than 
sanitary conditions, often life-threatening situations, to make those 
kinds of decisions on the spot: ``Do I seize this evidence or do I not 
seize this evidence?'' Again, the lawyers and judges argue over these 
things for hours and days and cannot reach a conclusion.
  Mr. Speaker, for too long I think we have not allowed for a 
reasonable mistake. Nobody expects perfection from our law enforcement, 
or from anything in our lives. I mentioned earlier to someone that Ken 
Griffey hits the ball safely 3 times out of 10 and he is a superstar in 
baseball.
  Mr. HOKE. We certainly hope he will be hitting the ball 3 times out 
of 10 this summer.
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. We hope, soon.
  Mr. HOKE. What is it exactly we are talking about reforming here in 
this exclusionary rule?
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. In this body we are talking about following 
what the courts are already beginning to do as the pendulum swings back 
toward a fair balance in protecting not only, again, not only the 
criminals' rights, but the victims' rights.
  Mr. HOKE. We are talking about the Supreme Court, now?
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. The Supreme Court. We are just expanding 
what they are doing to allow for this reasonable mistake on the part of 
the police officer in gathering evidence. If he makes a reasonable 
mistake in good faith, that is subject to the same exclusionary rule 
possibility, but a third party, a judge, provides an objective standard 
and decides whether that comes in or not. But again, it allows for a 
reasonable mistake and does not punish society by excluding or keeping 
away that evidence from the jury.
  Mr. HOKE. Who has asked that this rule, that this change that has 
been made by the Supreme Court, actually be codified into Federal law? 
Who has been supporting this?
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. Of course, there has been a number of 
prosecutors, people involved in the legal system, but I would suspect 
both Jack and Linda have seen demands from their constituents, as I 
did, that we ought to make some changes here in our judicial system and 
swing that balance back more toward society.
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. I yield to the gentlewoman from Washington.
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. I just reverted into being a mom and a 
grandma, but I was a senator, too, and I think it seems worse to me 
than ridiculous rules, letting a rapist off, or letting someone that 
violently hurt someone off.
  I think what we have done in this is common sense. That is the part 
about the Contract that I liked the most when I saw it, when I was 
first drafted as a write-in candidate in September. I saw this and I 
thought why would anybody not support this? It is common sense. That is 
one of those things that just came up as common sense to me.
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield, I think one of the 
problems is that the American people just get so frustrated when we 
cannot get control of everything, and it seems that time after time, we 
are forgetting the victim, we are forgetting what is in the best 
interests of society, and we are going to the extreme to protect or 
defend some thug, and we are beating the law in his favor. As a result, 
we are not getting the convictions we need. These people are getting 
out. It is all a case of who can find the best technicality, and it 
does not really change the fact that this person may have committed 
murder, may have raped somebody, may have kicked the door in and beat 
some people up.
  That seems to be secondary to finding the technicality to getting 
them off. I am glad we are correcting this.
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman well knows, on 
the Committee on the Judiciary we are not doing away with the 
exclusionary rule completely. There are still certain protections out 
there. The law enforcement, although they do not do this anymore, they 
may have done this back in 1914 when this was necessary to formulate 
this rule, but people do not beat folks in back rooms with rubber hoses 
to extract confessions anymore. However, if they did, certainly the 
exclusionary rule would still be available.
  Mr. Speaker, what we are simply saying is that folks make mistakes. 
As long as they act in good faith, and a judge has to make that 
determination from an objective third party standpoint, that evidence 
ought to come in and not punish society because of a mistake. There are 
other avenues that that can be addressed in.
  However, we did, once we came to the House floor, we had a good, 
healthy debate, but we had truly bipartisan support on this, and the 
bill passed, as I recall, overwhelmingly.
  Mr. HOKE. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is absolutely correct. We had, I 
think, 300 votes or 298 votes, again 75 percent or 70 percent of the 
House voting in favor of it. Clearly, what we are seeing here is the 
pendulum swinging back, so that we can take back our streets, so that 
victims will have the rights that they need and that society will not 
become the victim of the criminal. If Members will look at the figures 
on this, fewer than 4 out of 100 crimes at this time, and I'm talking 
violent felonies, result in incarceration. Now, if the criminal justice 
system is going to act as a deterrent, then you have to do the time if 
you commit a crime. Otherwise it simply does not work as a deterrent. 
That is not the only purpose of the criminal justice system, but that 
certainly is an important one. For somebody contemplating criminal 
activity, they have to know that they are going to get caught, that 
when they are caught they are going to be convicted, and when they are 
convicted they are going to be incarcerated. They are going to be 
confined.
  Mr. Speaker, let me move, if I could, from the exclusionary rule 
issue to this thing called habeas corpus. Now, habeas corpus, what on 
Earth does it mean? What are we doing? What is going on?
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. Literally, ``habeas corpus'' means ``you 
have the body.'' It started out in the 1800s, as I remember reading, 
where people who were wrongfully convicted, or even perhaps kept in 
jail without a trial, used that as a mechanism to have a hearing to get 
out of jail.
  What has developed over the years, though, has been a system of, I 
believe, 
[[Page H1444]] abuse by people in the jail who filed habeas corpus 
petition after petition over a period of years, with the net effect of 
being able to, particularly in death penalty cases, to delay the 
implementation of their death sentence effectively.
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield? I am 
confused. Does that mean they just appeal over and over again, based on 
what statute? How do they do that? ``You have got the body.'' You have 
me confused. Try that again.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Tom, she does not mean you have the body.
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. Remember, we are not all attorneys. I 
didn't quite understand that.
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. There are at least three avenues that people 
sentenced to the death penalty can travel. Of course, they have their 
natural State appeals. Then there is a habeas corpus procedure within 
the State, and then the Federal habeas corpus procedure.
  People that are on death row and their attorneys are experts at 
maximizing these appeals, and in many cases, going back, and not 
necessarily appealing the same issues, but raising new issues each time 
to delay, as we all know, and we heard so often on the campaign trail 
from our constituents, delaying it 15, 20 years or more. That was 
probably, again, one of the major complaints that I heard.
  As I look there on the Contract that you are checking off, on Number 
2, we are getting very close, because today not only did we work on the 
exclusionary rule, and yesterday on victims' compensation, but we did 
pass this fairly severe modification, changes to the habeas corpus 
proceedings.
  The two things I talked about were limiting the numbers of these 
appeals and the timeliness of them, and we did exactly that today.
  Mr. HOKE. Can you flesh that out a little for us, Ed? How much time 
does somebody have now, after they have been convicted of a capital 
crime, and I mean convicted through the entire appellate process, so I 
think people should understand that we are not talking about--habeas 
corpus does not begin upon conviction at trial.
  You are convicted at the trial level, and then typically there is an 
appeal to the first appellate level, and then there is another appeal 
to the second appellate level, which would probably be the State 
Supreme Court. Am I correct on that?
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. As there should be.
  Mr. HOKE. As there should be, absolutely.
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. Like any trial, they are entitled to fair 
appeal decisions.
  Mr. HOKE. Then there is a final order of the highest court in that 
particular State?
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. That is correct. Then they usually begin the 
habeas corpus process.
  Mr. HOKE. At that point they have already had two appeals process. 
This is not from the trial court, this is already after a final 
adjudication from the highest court in that particular State?
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. That is right. Generally under the law that 
we passed today, if it is a State appeal, a State conviction they are 
appealing from, they have 1 year in which to file their habeas corpus 
petition. If it is a Federal appeal in which they are applying for 
habeas corpus, then they have 2 years.
  It is on a faster track now, and I think as this bill works its way 
over, up the process, I think you are going to see some improvement.
  Mr. HOKE. Right, it is on a faster track, but just so we get a real 
idea, a faster track, for a U.S. attorney to say that, it may seem like 
a faster track to you, but I don't know if it seems like a very fast 
track to the public.
  If you are talking about the trial, the trial could take 3 to 6 to 12 
months, even, but let's say it just takes 6 months, and then how long 
would the first appellate procedure usually take?
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. Of course, that depends on the States. But I 
think you are looking, as opposed to the 10 to 15 years that are 
probably average today, you are looking at a much shorter period of 
time. If you could keep it under 5 years and work down from that, I 
think that is a fairly fast track for this type of case.
  Mr. HOKE. Who is paying for the attorney's fees for the capital 
inmates at this point?
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. Probably 100 percent of them are being paid 
by taxpayers at either State expense, or certainly at Federal expense.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman from Tennessee 
[Mr. Bryant], how much are we paying for these guys to stay in jail? I 
have noticed on my tours, they all have air conditioning, they all have 
television, they all have weight-lifting rooms and gymnasiums, and they 
are not required to work, so they get to watch TV. What does that cost?
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. You all know, literally it costs millions 
and millions of dollars.
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. In our State, over $30,000 a year.
  Mr. KINGSTON. $30,000 to $50,000 per year per prisoner.
                              {time}  2150

  While some wealthy law firm is going around with endless appeals, not 
worrying about the victim, not worrying about the detriment to society 
and just having a good time at it.
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. They are usually specific lawyer capital 
resources centers that are publicly funded that are the experts from 
the defense standpoint and are able to use the system of appeal that we 
have just talked about in an effort to get a new trial, but also, 
concurrent with that, to delay the execution of cases.
  So again, it is a hot button item. I think what we did do today, I 
want to commend our leadership, and all of those people who voted for 
this bill. It is a major step toward alleviating this type of problem 
and complaint.
  Mr. HOKE. The gentleman from Tennessee has worked as a U.S. attorney. 
That is a big responsibility. I assume the gentleman has prosecuted 
capital cases.
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. I have not, but I have certainly been around 
those who have.
  Mr. HOKE. Are we effectively tightening up the habeas corpus process 
in a way that will shorten the time frame? Are we doing anything in 
this process to in any way undermine the rights of defendants in this 
process? Do they still have the ability to make these appeals in a 
timely and effective way?
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. That is a concern. It is probably not a 
popular one to talk about on the campaign trail, but you have to look 
at it from the standpoint too of the person who is charged. And of 
course, by this point they have been convicted, they have had due 
process of law, they have had a full, good attorney, full-blown trials 
and they have had appeals. But they still have certain rights, 
especially when we are talking about the ultimate penalty, the death 
penalty.
  But as we talked before, this bill that we passed today I think 
brings the pendulum back, the balance back into the system, 
particularly in capital cases, particularly in the time and economics 
of it and the actual deterrence of it. That is something that is very 
frequently talked about, that really the death penalty is not a 
deterrent. I do believe it is a deterrent, but to be an even better 
deterrent it has to be done like any punishment, swiftly. Those are the 
two things, it has to be certain punishment and swift punishment to be 
an effective deterrent. We have lost that in our society, particularly 
with the death penalty, and I think once we get this process going and 
up to speed, as it should be, while protecting the rights of the 
defendant, which I think it does, I think we will have an effective 
deterrent.
  Mr. HOKE. I think that is important to emphasize, that defendants' 
rights are clearly being protected, but at the same time society's 
rights to have a timely resolution, a final resolution, an execution of 
its will, of society's will, the carrying out of its will, that that 
will be possible now with this habeas reform.
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. We are not talking about everybody that is 
convicted of a crime that has to do this, but you know I always talked 
about on the campaign trail that we had I believe about 300 people on 
death row in Tennessee. And I told everybody if they could go back and 
look at each 
[[Page H1445]] one of those individual cases and the underlying facts 
of the case, you know, each one of those is a death penalty case and 
when you read about it in the newspaper, it just hits you in the 
stomach, what an atrocious, horrible, heinous crime it is. These are 
the types of cases we are talking about, not just everything that comes 
along.
  Mr. HOKE. We are talking about the tremendous frustration that 
society feels as a whole, that the community feels and that victims' 
families feel with the inability of our justice system to actually come 
to final resolution in these things, and the anger that is the result 
of that. So that this thing continues to turn and turn and turn and go 
on and on. I am glad the gentleman clarified that. I very much 
appreciate it.
  I learned something tonight about the gentlewoman from Washington. I 
did not know that she only decided to get involved in a race for the 
U.S. Congress in September, literally 2 months before the election, or 
it must have been an even shorter time, 6 weeks. How long?
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. Nine weeks.
  Mr. HOKE. The gentlewoman is not exactly a newcomer to politics.
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. Do I understand that the gentlewoman won by 
a write-in?
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. I went away for a weekend and came back 
after Labor Day, and there was a write-in going on, and 2 weeks later I 
was the person on the ballot with the most votes. But they were write-
in votes.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I would like to register a protest. That is a little 
unfair. The rest of us started 2 years, and the gentlewoman just 2 
months. I am sure she blitzed it.
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. You know, it is women, they are just more 
efficient.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I will yield the floor then.
  Mr. HOKE. The gentlewoman is not exactly a newcomer to politics. But 
to jump into this with 9 weeks, I wish I had only 9 weeks. That is 
fantastic.
  What was it that motivated the gentlewoman to want to be a part of 
this, to get involved with the U.S. Congress? We had talked earlier and 
the gentlewoman said something about welfare. What are your feelings 
there?
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. First of all, when I first went in office 
in the early 1980s in the State, what happened was I saw people go on 
welfare as our State doubled for my business, I ran a corporation, 
doubled the taxes in 1 year. And I laid people off,
 and I saw people go on to welfare who used to work for me as 
secretaries and receptionists, at the entry level mostly, mostly women, 
and it got my attention that government could put people out of work.

  So the point on the contract that I have been focusing on is the item 
of welfare and job creation. You know, the best welfare is a job. I 
cannot think of any family, any single mom, any family of any kind that 
would not just as soon take care of themselves. Welfare is where we do 
not want to be, or we want to get off.
  So when I looked at the contract I saw that they did several things 
in the contract that I liked. I saw capital gains. I used to teach tax 
law changes and I saw people not sell because if they sold they lost 
everyting in taxes, and it tied up their money, and it tied up their 
jobs. And so I looked at the capital gains portion of the contract 
which we are coming up against and I saw it as jobs. If that money is 
released, I had money to hire people.
  Then I looked at the small business section.
  Mr. HOKE. Could I ask the gentlewoman a question about the capital 
gains thing, because our friends from the other side of the aisle, as 
soon as they hear the words capital gains, the accusation is oh, that 
is for rich people, that is just something that is designed to help 
them pay lower taxes. Is that what is going on? Who gets, who gains the 
most from reductions in capital gains?
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. The people I saw were the people I did the 
tax returns for, and I had about 400 clients as well as the company I 
ran, and most of them were small business owners. They were families 
that were investing in property or equipment or whatever. And they 
would benefit or they would lose everyting. And what I would see is 
when we had a high capital gains tax they would hold on, and they would 
not sell, and they would not buy new equipment, and they might not 
upgrade, they might not do anything with their business to grow, and 
they would not create jobs. If we had a reasonable capital gains they 
would turn over equipment, they would buy, they would hire more people, 
and they would grow. And I did tax returns for 15 years and worked with 
small businesses and corporations and it never changed. I did not work 
with the big guys. I worked with the people that provide in my State 80 
percent of the jobs, and that was small business.
  Mr. HOKE. In Germany there is no capital gains tax. In Japan there is 
a capital gains tax of 5 percent, which I understand from accountants 
gets zeroed out with some exemptions, so there is effectively a zero 
capital gains tax.
  It is by creating more jobs, by having that money that would have 
been locked in because people are afraid to sell, they are reluctant to 
sell because of high taxes, that money getting recycled through the 
economy in a way that creates more commerce, creates more enterprise, 
creates more jobs, that is the bottom line of reducing the capital 
gains tax, is it not?
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. Yes. And you know what was really 
something, was for years I sat there running a corporation and not 
realizing until one day when they doubled my tax, and the Federal 
Government messed around with the capital gains again and raised it 
that it was affecting me, and I connected it to jobs like that. And I 
think what is happening around the Nation, and why November was so 
significant is small business people all over the Nation really spoke. 
I really believe that. I know in my district I was a write-in 
candidate, and in 2 weeks the people, nearly 40,000 came together and 
wrote in my name.
  That was fueled by entrepreneurs. It was not fueled by a Boeing or 
Weyerhauser, and these people know that they had better change the 
policymakers here. And when you look at this contract I think it gave 
them hope.
                              {time}  2200

  I see it as a key ingredient to us producing jobs.
  Mr. KINGSTON. There is another angle to this, too. In my area, for 
example, Bulloch County, GA, Statesboro, GA, Georgia Southern 
University has a lot of growth. There are a lot of ladies who are 
widows now but they live on a family farm which is in a growth area. 
The city is sprawling, and they want to sell that property. They have 
owned it for 30 years. They may have bought it for $10,000. Now it is 
worth a half-a-million dollars. But they are in their seventies or 
eighties. They cannot farm it. They have trouble getting somebody to 
lease it out. They want to sell it. Their fixed income on Social 
Security and whatever benefits may be $12,000 or $15,000, but if they 
sell that farm, then all of a sudden they are in the highest tax 
bracket.
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. Worse than that, they have the inheritance 
tax in some cases, depending on when their spouse dies.
  Mr. KINGSTON. That is right.
  Mr. HOKE. Let me ask you a question, if I could, I say to the 
gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston]. What is that tax on from $10,000 
to a half-a-million dollars, is that on what is really being taxed 
there with this capital gains tax?
  Mr. KINGSTON. It is not the tax of the income but the 500,000 sales 
value is treated like income for that year. For that year she might as 
well be a stockbroker on Wall Street.
  Mr. HOKE. She is being taxed on inflation, is she not? Is that not 
really what is being taxed?
  Mr. KINGSTON. That is right. Also what we are doing is we are making 
her dependent, because she may want to sell that farm so she can go 
into a long-term care home. We are saying you cannot do that. She wants 
to be independent. That is why she held onto the property, and now we 
are denying her that option.
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. You know, what you have also led to is 
another part of the contract. We deal 
[[Page H1446]] with inheritance tax reform in the contract, and I would 
like to go even further, whether it is a small business person, usually 
it is, or the tree farmer in my area. They are having to actually sell 
their small businesses to pay the inheritance tax. By the time they get 
done, they can pay nearly 70-some percent in taxes, and they literally 
are often cash poor. In our area now they are mowing down trees on 
these family farms. We grow trees in Washington. They have to cut them 
down prematurely so they can pay inheritance tax to barely hold onto 
the property. That is pitiful.
  In the contract we say middle America should not have to give away 
the farm to the Government. It is unfair. They have paid taxes on that. 
It goes to their families. It should not be lost to Government.
  And so this contract has a great amount of compassion for middle-
class America in it, and that is what made it attractive to me as a 
candidate to be able to talk about it, and now as a policymaker, it is 
in my mind a gift we can give to the American people that we will be 
able to be proud of for many years to come.
  Mr. HOKE. Did I understand that you, as a freshman Member of this 
Congress, are chairing a subcommittee in the Small Business Committee?
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. Yes. I think it is fantastic, because my 
background is taxation and finance for small business. You know, that 
was my life before this. I ran a tax preparation business and a 
management business and was a licensed tax consultant, so it fits well, 
and that is what is
 wonderful about this contract.

  Mr. HOKE. What else do we have in the Contract With America that is 
designed specifically, aimed at job creation?
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. Regulation, regulation reform. You take a 
look at it.
  Mr. HOKE. You want to regulate more?
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. No. We need to regulate right. When a 
regulation is needed, it is needed, and sometimes we have to say there 
needs to be some rules, but the reality is the Federal Government is 
regulating where it is not necessary. So we put some accountability 
into this for businesses and communities.
  A lot of the regulation is raising people's water bills, and so by 
the time we get done making it more job friendly, we are also making it 
more friendly to the families that are trying to get jobs.
  I do not see business as anything more than a job creator, and this 
contract has a section that says we are going to create jobs, and that 
is our best welfare system.
  Mr. HOKE. You know, what I hear in everything that is being said 
tonight is that it sounds to me like we have got a pendulum that has 
been way out here, and it is moving back. It is moving back in a lot of 
different ways. It is moving back with respect to reform of our 
criminal justice system so that the victim gets an even break instead 
of just the criminal. It sounds like we are moving back toward the 
center in our way of regulating enterprise so that the enterprise gets 
a break, the farmer gets a break, the person that is creating jobs so 
that he or she can create more jobs, is getting a break, and we are 
swinging back that way.
  And it sounds like with respect to the regulation of Government 
itself, we are giving tools in this case to our executive branch with 
the line-item veto, to the Congress itself with respect to the balanced 
budget amendment. So there can be some fiscal sanity, some basic common 
sense in the way we spend the taxpayers' money.
  And it seems to me that this is a theme that we have seen in terms of 
what the American people want repeated over and over and over again, 
and I believe that is why they gave us the honor of having a majority, 
and it is our job, it is our job to keep the promises that we made to 
the American people and to fulfill them in a way that gives them 
confidence in our ability to govern and to bring about the kind of 
commonsense legislation in governing that they expect, demand, and 
deserve.
  I happen to see the gentleman from California [Mr. Cunningham], my 
good friend. It looks like you wanted to say something.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I do not want to take a whole bunch of time. We are 
marking up an education bill tomorrow which is part of the contract. We 
are not talking too much about that; also the defense side. But we have 
got the freshmen represented here. Most of them we campaigned for. We 
have got sophomores.
  I just wanted to let you know how proud that we are that for 4 years, 
many of us sat here on the House floor and were rolled over day after 
day. The Committee on Rules determined every piece of legislation that 
came to the floor.
  In 20 years, the Republicans only had one motion to recommit passed. 
The King-of-the-Hill rules, we never won a single one, and for the 
first time, I heard the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] bring it 
up, that there are many of the Members on the other side of the aisle 
that really want to work and do the
 people's business, but the leadership, the liberal leadership, in the 
past has prevented that either from twisting arms or preventing it by 
the rules on the House floor, and I think we are seeing by the numbers 
of these votes that we can do these things in a very bipartisan way in 
which the American people are asking.
  You look at 290 votes or 300 votes on an amendment or against an 
amendment, that I think that shows bipartisanship, and I think that it 
shows people that this House can work, and after the contract is over 
in 100 days, I hope we can continue to do the same thing.
  I just wanted to thank you. I am over there working on this markup 
for tomorrow. I want to thank all of you.
  Mr. HOKE. Thank you very much.
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the distinguished fighter pilot and American hero 
will yield, what we feel so good about, I think being sophomores, the 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hoke] and I am, to be on the team with the 
freshmen, but really to follow in the footsteps of people like you who 
have been out fighting the battle, yet we seem to add more and more who 
are concerned about the future of America.
  You know, none of us are really career politicians. We are going to 
try to do this. We are going to try to get the contract passed. We are 
going to try to change America, but we can also go back home if 
somebody better can do it, if somebody can do a better job, and you 
know, we are not up here so that we are going to be here for 30 or 40 
years and build our own little empires, and Representatives like you 
who have helped us along the way have made it possible, I think, for 
the changes that are taking place to occur.
  Mr. HOKE. My hat is absolutely off to every senior Republican Member 
in this Congress. I am amazed; I mean it, I know what it was like the 
last 2 years. Never having been in a legislative body before, I know 
what it is like just getting beat up every day and losing and feeling, 
frankly, not very proud of that work that is being done in this body, 
and the difference to have something that we feel we ourselves can feel 
proud of, of what we are doing, and we hope, we hope to goodness that 
the American people feel proud of what we are doing.
  My indications from what I understand and from my constituents, and 
if you look at this poll, doubling the approval rating of Congress, I 
mean, where they are feeling confidence once more.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. That is Republicans and Democrats, the approval of 
Congress, what we are doing.
  Mr. HOKE. Is bipartisan. As you point out, I said it earlier, we have 
strong, strong bipartisan support on every single measure we passed. 
You remember, what was the toughest victory for the Democrats in 1993?
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. The tax package.
  Mr. HOKE. The tax package. In August 1993, one vote here, one vote in 
the Senate. It took the Vice President of the United States to break 
that vote. That is because Democrats voted against it. The only reason 
they finally passed it was because they could not abandon their 
President who then at that point had only been in office for about 8 
months.
  What have we seen on this package? We have seen a very positive 
bipartisan cooperative effort notwithstanding the kind of ugly 
partisanship that you see from time to time on the floor.
  The fact is, look at these numbers, and you will see that we have had 
tremendous bipartisan support on every 
[[Page H1447]] single one of these bills. This is Americans thinking of 
not being Republicans first or Democrats first but being Americans 
first and doing what is best for America. I am excited. I am proud to 
be a part of it. I really am proud to be a part of it. I cannot say 
that I was proud to be a part of the 103d Congress. I made no bones 
about it. I let my constituents know that as well.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. You should be proud of what you are doing, but being 
held down and getting beaten down every day makes it kind of tough.
  Mr. HOKE. I wonder if I could ask the gentleman from Tennessee and 
the gentlewoman from Washington and the gentleman from Georgia if there 
are any final thoughts you wanted to share?
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. Well, I had mentioned in my first remarks 
that I had not had a chance to be home that much because of this hectic 
pace here. I have gone home every weekend though for short periods of 
time, and this Contract With America is great. People are still talking 
about it. They know what are doing up here. They are pleased with what 
we are doing. They know we are making progress, and what I tell them is 
that we are in essence simply doing what we said we would do.
                              {time}  2210

  Now I got to admit that is unusual for somebody in politics to do 
that, but that is our motto, we are actually doing what we said we 
would do. We are holding ourselves out as responsible, as accountable, 
to the American public.
  We put it down in writing. It was published in TV Guide. People out 
there know what it is, and I am pleased to stand up and say, ``Yes, 
hold us accountable, make us do what we said we would do, make us bring 
these bills up onto the floor, have a full and open debate, which we 
are having,'' and again, as I say, the hidden peril in this is make us 
all vote up or down on those, and, if you don't like the way we voted 
on it, then you can bring us home the next time you have a chance, in 2 
years.
  So, I, too, am pleased to be with all of you. I cannot imagine what 
it is like to toil in the trench like you have. We are spoiled, and I 
would not have it any other way.
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. As my colleagues know, I think he started 
something that makes me think about the word I used so much in the 
campaign, short as it was, and that was the word commitment. I was 
actually--I came home from vacation after 3 days of vacation, and 
people wanted me to run, and so they did a write-in, and I said,

       I tell you what I'll commit to do: the same thing I've 
     always done, and that's smaller government. I'm going to say 
     no a lot, and I'm going to keep my commitments to you as I 
     always have.

  Well, that is the word this contract represents to me, and that is 
keeping my commitment to the American people. People really like that. 
They do not seem to expect me to dot every i and cross every t, but 
they want us to try very hard to keep our commitments.
  While I have been here a month, and I did serve in the Senate in 
Washington State for several years, so I have some experience, I have 
never had the experience of people working so hard to keep their word 
to the American people. Because I think we all know that in November 
people said, ``Go do what you said, and, if you don't, we're going to 
get some others.''
  We know that, but we also are driven by the fact that we understand 
we are servants, we are messengers from the people, and I think most of 
us understand it, and I got here in a whole bunch of people that have 
been here before me, and they were just ready to deliver that message, 
too.
  The freshmen have been the steam, again, but the train was going down 
the track, and we were able to jump on and be a part, and we have not 
been excluded. I am not Linda Smith, a freshman here. I am Linda Smith, 
an integral part of a complete change that is going to be written in 
history as a turning point of America.
  Mr. HOKE. What do you think, Mr. Kingston?
  Mr. KINGSTON. I say this, Mr. Hoke and Mr. Cunningham, we heard Mr. 
Bryant and Mrs. Smith talk tonight. As she said many times, they are 
the team. I would say they are also the fuel and a little more volatile 
than steam in many respects.
  The changes are real though. We are not turning back. America is 
going to change, I hope, because Congress has changed. We have left the 
foxhole. We are advancing. We are going to take the hill or we are 
going to get shot, and that is still up to the American people, but we 
cannot turn back at this point.
  I will caution this:
  There is talk, the Senate today. I understand that the balanced 
budget amendment might not pass. They are against the line-item veto. 
We are going to be passing a spending cut bill which the Senate has 
already said they are not going to do.
  So I would say to people, let's keep this revolution going, the 
revolution is alive and well in the House. Let's wake up the folks over 
in the other body by phone calls and letters. But we're going to keep 
moving, and I'm proud to be with you, and I'm proud to be serving with 
people like Mr. Bryant and Mrs. Smith.
  Mr. HOKE. Well, we are going to keep moving, and I think it is 
important, and you are absolutely right. We ought to encourage our 
constituents to do that.
  Mr. Cunningham, do you want to add anything?
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I would like to say one thing:
  I see my distinguished colleague, the gentleman from New York [Mr. 
Owens], here, and even though in many of the economic issues we 
disagree, I want to point out something, that on the floor, when the 
leadership of his party was blasting Christians, two of the Members of 
the Black Caucus came up to me, Major, and they grabbed me by the arm 
and said, ``Duke, don't you ever lose your Judeo-Christian values,'' 
and they stick tight, and they believe in those values,
 and I would like to thank my friend, Mr. Owens.

  Mr. HOKE. Thank you very much. Thanks for participating. I 
particularly want to thank the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Bryant] 
and the gentlewoman from Washington [Mrs. Smith] and the gentleman from 
Georgia [Mr. Kingston] for their participation tonight. This is great, 
to be able to share with each other our thoughts on these things and to 
keep track because I think the fact is that we are right on track, we 
are right on target. We are using this as a roadmap to stay the course 
and to do exactly what we said we would do.
  We said it before, we will say it again, and you know how true it is 
in terms of how hard we are working, but we are working hard to keep 
the promises that we have made for real changes. We are going to 
continue to do that.
  It certainly makes for long days, and it is making for some rings 
under people's eyes, but it is very exciting.
  I appreciate your input, and I appreciate your sharing this special 
order with me tonight.

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