[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 28 (Monday, February 13, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H1618]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        VOTE ``NO'' ON H.R. 728

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois [Mr. Durbin] for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to join the effort of my 
colleagues in discussing H.R. 728, which will be considered by this 
House of Representatives today and tomorrow.
  There are three issues before us: police, prevention, and pork.
  On the police side, we passed a crime bill last year. President 
Clinton made it clear that he wanted to put 100,000 new police on the 
streets of America to make our neighborhoods and homes safer.
  I represent a congressional district in downstate Illinois, small-
town America. I can tell you from my town meetings, my contacts with 
people I represent, that this is exactly what they want to see. They 
want to make sure that there is a policeman in a car, patrolling at 
night, on the weekends, keeping a eye on their homes, watching out for 
their families, looking for anything that might be suspicious. That is 
basically what they are looking for.
  Last year's crime bill would deliver it. In fact, last week President 
Clinton announced in my congressional district, one of many, I might 
add, 54 new police who will be working in those towns, in those 
villages, in those cities and counties because of the crime bill we 
passed last year, 54. A downpayment in my district on a national 
promise to put 100,000 police on the street protecting us.
  The second thing that we were committed to in that crime bill is 
something that every law enforcement official that I have spoken to 
supports. They have all said, ``Congressman, give us more cops. Build 
more prisons, but don't think that will solve the problem. You can't 
build prisons big enough or fast enough to stop crime in America. You 
have got to do something to prevent crime.''
  That is part of the program that we passed last year in the crime 
bill.
  Some of my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle mock these 
crime prevention programs. They like to tell you stories about waste 
and how it is not going to work. I wish some of them would sit down and 
talk to the policemen I have worked with. I wish some of them would 
join these policemen as they go into the classrooms under their 
program, a program conceived under President Reagan's administration, 
to alert our kids to the dangers of narcotics.
  Prevention pays off. Kids learn the dangers of narcotics, stay away 
from them, do the right thing with the right information. Good 
prevention, the kind of prevention we want to encourage.
  So, with the police and with the prevention, why are we returning now 
to the crime bill, for goodness sake? It has to do with pork, the third 
P. Because, you see, the Republican approach in H.R. 728 wants to take 
all the money that will be earmarked for new policemen and hand it over 
to mayors and local officials and let them in their judgment decide how 
to spend that money.
  You might say what is wrong with that? Surely they will do the right 
thing? Part of maturity is learning from past mistakes.
  In the early 1970's we tried exactly what the Republicans want to try 
now. We called it the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration; high-
sounding, money from Washington, down to the local level, saying to 
local officials, ``Go fight crime.''
  Do you know what happened? Do you know what happened to those Federal 
dollars when they got down to the local level? One out of every three 
dollars was spent on consultants--not on cops, on consultants.
  The Governor of one State decided he would take his law enforcement 
money and buy a jet plane for his State, a jet plane.
  Another one bought a tank in a small rural town. They kind of went 
crazy. They bought equipment they did not need. Instead of putting 
police on the beat, they ended up a lot of buddies and friends with 
consulting contracts, and the net result of it, it did not work.
  Now the Republicans want to return to those thrilling days of 
yesteryear, turn the money over to the local officials, and let them 
have it.
  Well, let me tell you something: We need cops, not consultants. A lot 
of people say, if Congress passed the crime bill, why are we 
considering a new crime bill just a few months later? The answer, my 
friends, will not be found with police but with politics.
  I think the people in this country are sick and tired of folks who 
are trying to dance around this law and order and crime issue to get a 
vote, trying to
 find a new partisan stand to say, ``We are tougher on crime.''

  The President came up with an idea that was sound, was backed on a 
bipartisan basis last year in the crime bill: 100,000 cops in America. 
It is going to pay off in a lot of the small towns that I represent, 
and I think it will pay off nationwide.
  But if it is going to work, we have to stop this Republican effort 
with H.R. 728.
  I am happy to join with my colleague from Michigan, Congressman 
Stupak, who, before he came to Congress, was a professional law 
enforcement officer. He has been out there, wearing the shield, putting 
his life on the line. His judgment on these issues means a lot more to 
me than the judgment of political consultants who would have us undo a 
crime bill which is moving in the right direction, a bill dedicated to 
more cops and prevention and one that does not leave us wide open for 
pork.

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