[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 28 (Tuesday, March 5, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1506-S1510]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1996--CONFERENCE REPORT

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the clerk will 
report the conference report to accompany H.R. 2546, the District of 
Columbia appropriations bill.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The committee of conference on the disagreeing votes of the 
     two Houses on the amendment of the Senate to the bill (H.R. 
     2546) making appropriations for the Government of the 
     District of Columbia and other activities chargeable in whole 
     or in part against the revenues of said District for the 
     fiscal year ending September 30, 1996, and for other 
     purposes, having met, after full and free conference, have 
     agreed to recommend and do recommend to their respective 
     Houses this report, signed by a majority of the conferees.

  The Senate resumed consideration of the conference report.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there are 15 minutes 
allotted to each side.
  Who yields time?
  Mr. KOHL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, my remarks will be very brief. This 
afternoon--after the vote on the Cuba resolution--the Senate is 
scheduled to vote on a third motion to invoke cloture on the D.C. 
appropriations bill. The first motion was rejected by a vote of 54 to 
44. Last Thursday, the Senate rejected a second cloture motion by a 
vote of 52 to 42. Today, I urge my colleagues to reject this motion as 
well.
  The time has arrived for the Senate to move beyond single issue 
politics to address the urgent needs of our Nation's Capital. It is 
clear that there is a significant--and unresolvable--difference of 
opinion on the scholarship program proposed in the conference report.
  Repeated attempts to move this report have failed, and I am certain 
that the question of vouchers will not be settled on this particular 
legislative

[[Page S1507]]

vehicle. I believe it is time now to move forward with the many other 
reforms that will begin to put the District on a sound fiscal and 
operational footing. As Chairman Jeffords and others have indicated, 
the District is about to experience a serious cash shortage. If the 
remainder of the Federal payment is not released within the next 2 
weeks, the city will be unable to pay its bills or to provide essential 
services. The debate over the scholarship program has been a robust and 
informative one but it is time to move on. So I urge my colleagues to 
vote against the cloture motion.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I honestly hope this is the last time 
that we are called upon to debate the D.C. appropriations conference 
report. It is time to get beyond our differences and come to agreement. 
This conference agreement represents the best consensus that can now be 
achieved. To those who believe that by delaying or defeating this 
conference report they can somehow ensure a better deal, I can tell you 
that this is highly unlikely. I do not know what the House reaction is 
going to be, but I do know that we negotiated long and hard on this 
conference report which essentially gave total local control on the 
question of vouchers and, to my mind, brought it out of the specter of 
being a national test on your feelings on this issue.
  Mr. President, the Federal Government still owes the District 
government more than $254 million, of which $219 million is the 
remaining portion of the Federal payment. There are real human 
consequences to this delay. District vendors are carrying the city's 
debt. The city owes more than $300 million to its vendors. Partially as 
a result of not receiving the Federal payment, the city has taken steps 
to conserve cash including delaying payments to vendors. Many of these 
individuals are small businessmen who depend upon prompt payment to 
meet their own payroll and business expenses. When one of their 
customers is late, it causes a hardship. Some have gone out of 
business. Some have had to lay off employees, and some, like snowplow 
operators, refuse to do further business with the city. And let us hope 
we do not get another snowstorm. But it is still too early to be sure 
of that.
  Mr. President, each year we make an appropriation of $52 million to 
the District's retirement fund for police, firefighters, teachers, and 
judges, who were formerly Federal employees when the District 
government was a Federal agency. As a result of the delay in enacting 
this bill, the Federal Government has not paid $35 million of this 
amount for those pensioners. These funds are invested for the future 
benefit of retirees. Through the end of January, the retirement fund 
estimates that it has lost over $2 million in interest proceeds as a 
result of not having these funds to invest. That is not fair.
  I do not know what more can be said to convince Senators that this is 
the best deal possible under the circumstances and that the District 
desperately needs the money. Last week, the Chairman of the D.C. 
Control Board, Dr. Andrew Brimmer, visited me and gave me a letter 
concerning the effect of delay in enacting the D.C. bill. He stated 
that without the remainder of the Federal payment, the District could 
run out of cash this spring. He also noted that without the bill being 
enacted, the District cannot spend $42 million in new Federal grants 
identified after the 1996 budget was prepared. That authority is 
contained in the conference agreement.
  In closing, Dr. Brimmer states:

       The Authority has begun to make significant progress toward 
     the goal of restoring financial stability to the District 
     without sacrificing core public services or adversely 
     impacting our disadvantaged citizens. . . All this is 
     jeopardized by failure to enact the D.C. budget. I plead with 
     you and your colleagues to adopt the District's FY 1996 
     appropriation bill without further delay.

  The White House has issued a statement which threatens that the 
President's senior advisers would recommend he veto this bill in its 
present form. The Mayor has written a letter to the President in which 
he appeals to the President's good sense and judgment as he weighs the 
advice of those senior advisers. The Mayor makes the case very well 
when he states, ``This appropriations bill is not a vouchers bill. It 
is a bill that only gives local officials the option to do so if they 
choose.''
  Mr. President, we have come to another vote on this conference 
report. I hope my colleagues will heed the words of the mayor and the 
chairman of the control board and invoke cloture so that we do not have 
to wait for some other legislation to enact this bill. Time and the 
District's need for cash are of urgent concern. I ask my colleagues to 
support the conference agreement so that we may discharge our 
obligations to the city.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and yield 4 minutes to the Senator 
from Iowa.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the issue before us is not just the city 
government of Washington, DC, because that general issue is not what is 
holding up this legislation. The issue is whether or not the children 
of the District of Columbia ought to have a better education and a 
better educational system. And if that educational system does not 
evolve, then that the poor of the District of Columbia would have the 
same opportunity as the rich of the District of Columbia to make sure 
their children have an equal educational opportunity. And that revolves 
around whether or not school vouchers ought to be available to the poor 
of Washington, DC, so that they can have then the same educational 
opportunities as the rich of this city who choose to send their 
children to private schools.
  Now, I have not historically promoted the wholesale move to school 
vouchers because I have in the past only supported a limited 
demonstration program that would provide school vouchers to poor 
families that reside in troubled school districts.
  Obviously, the District of Columbia falls into that category. But it 
is certainly an idea, the idea of school vouchers, that deserves a 
chance. And more importantly, it may give many poor children in the 
District of Columbia a chance for a better education.
  How ironic. We have been told that the President's advisers may 
suggest a veto. How ironic that this very same President, when he was 
Governor of Arkansas, supported a voucher program. Thank goodness for a 
candid story in the Post explaining why the President of the United 
States now has a different view. The Washington Post last Sunday showed 
why President Clinton flip-flopped on school vouchers and why the other 
side of the aisle is in lockstep behind him in opposition to this bill. 
You see, it is the special interests. Now, in Iowa, special interest 
when it comes to education means children or, if it is not education, 
it means the elderly or the disabled veterans, but here in Washington 
the special interests are fellows waving big checkbooks. The special 
interest in this case is the National Education Association which 
provided $4.4 million to Federal office seekers, virtually all of them 
Democrats, according to the Washington Post story.
  So I do not want to hear from the other side of the aisle how they 
are voting to save education when they vote against cloture. They are 
not voting for the children's interest of the District. They are voting 
for the special interests of the District.
  Incredibly, many people in the White House and in Congress who oppose 
this small effort to give children of working families a chance send 
their own children to the most expensive private schools in the city. I 
hope as they drive their sons and daughters to their elite academies 
that they can roll up the tinted windows of their cars and, thus, will 
not have to look at the children who have no chance, and they can shut 
out the noises of those children asking for a chance.
  The Post story recounts that President Clinton told the NEA after he 
was elected that he would not ``forget who brought me to the White 
House.''
  No, President Clinton has not forgotten his big special interest 
friends. Unfortunately, it is the children of the poor struggling to 
get a good education who have been forgotten by this White House if 
they, in fact, veto this bill.
  I hope my colleagues will do the right thing for the children of the 
District and vote for this bill and give

[[Page S1508]]

them a chance for a better education tomorrow and a better future as a 
result thereof.
  Mr. JEFFORDS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator from Iowa 
for some very explicit and appropriate comments on the situation that 
we are in. I hope that my colleagues will heed his words.
  I yield the floor, seeing there are speakers on the other side, I 
believe, ready to go.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, how much time remains?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts has 13 minutes, 
6 seconds remaining.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield myself 6 minutes.
  Mr. President, just to sum up where we are in the U.S. Senate, and 
really speaking to the people who live in the District, we are seeing a 
third vote on an issue in which I believe our good Republican friends 
are basically playing politics with the children of the District of 
Columbia.
  It is an interesting fact that 2 years ago, the majority cut $28 
million out of funding for education in the District. This last year, 
they cut some $14 million out, and then $8.5 million out of title I.
  So that is the background, and now what they are doing is asking $42 
million over the period of the next 5 years for a very narrow program, 
which has been rejected 8 to 1 by the District of Columbia, and that is 
the voucher system that is not going to give the choice to the 
individual, it is going to give the choice to the school.
  That is something that our Republican friends do not seem to 
understand. Only 2 percent of the children in the District would be 
able to qualify for this particular program. Who is going to make the 
judgment? Do you think the parents are? Of course, they are not. It is 
going to be the schools that are making the judgment about which 
children they are going to take.
  So, on the one hand, we have seen the commitment to try and enhance 
the academic achievement and accomplishment for all of the children 2 
years ago, and that was cut back, and then you see the commitment to 
enhance opportunities for all of the children, and that is cut back.
  Now we are faced with a conference proposal that effectively 
undermines the first elected school board for the District of Columbia 
by not funding them. Do you hear that, Mr. President? I hope all of our 
Republican colleagues understand, local control. How often we hear, 
``Let's have local control over school planning, local control over the 
allocations of resources.'' That is not this bill.
  The officials elected by the District of Columbia selected their 
school board, and that program is defunded. We have basically a Federal 
oversight that is going to say to the District of Columbia, ``Use this 
money our way or you're not going to get it.'' That is real choice. 
That is real choice. That is real choice for the citizens here.
  So we ought to understand, this is the third time that we are being 
asked to vote on this, Mr. President, along with the other provisions 
of the legislation that provide an assault on the incomes of working 
families here, unlike any other part of the country, where the changes 
in the worker protection under Davis-Bacon have been included, and the 
position of the Congress on the issues of funding for abortions. We are 
making a judgment which the Supreme Court has recognized ought to be a 
State or a local judgment, but, oh, no, we are saying we know best, we 
know what is really best for the education of the students, and we know 
what is in the best interest of the poor and needy women in the 
District, and we know what is in the best interest of workers in the 
District.
  We will hear, as we have over the period of these past months, that 
we in this body do not always know what is best for the people around 
this country. How often we have heard that speech. Now you have the 
chance to say no to that judgment by rejecting this conference report 
and saying yes to workers, yes to needy women, yes to the parents and 
to the enhanced quality of education for the people of the District.
  So, Mr. President, I hope for these reasons and the excellent reasons 
that have been outlined by Senator Kohl earlier today and during the 
last debates and my friend and colleague from Illinois, Senator Simon, 
that this conference report will not be considered; that we will send a 
very clear message.
  As Senator Kohl has pointed out, and it has not been controverted, if 
you eliminated these kinds of restrictions that have no business 
whatsoever being on this bill, this funding would be available this 
afternoon. But, no, we have voted on it. People understand where those 
votes are, and we are being asked to go through this routine and what I 
think is basically blackmailing the children and families of the 
District of Columbia to achieve some purpose for the majority that the 
majority might be able to explain to us. But we are asked to do that, 
Mr. President.
  I want to make it very, very clear to all the members of the District 
of Columbia, we stand strong to make sure that the District of Columbia 
is going to get its funding. It could get it this afternoon if they 
drop these three proposals off the conference report. They could work 
that conference report. All of us have been around this institution to 
know the conferees would be able to get back together. Drop those 
three, and they could get it this afternoon.
  We have had the two votes, and still they want to have the third one. 
But we will do everything we possibly can to work with our friend and 
colleague, the Senator from Vermont, who we admire both his commitment 
to the quality of education nationwide and also in the District of 
Columbia. We will work with him and the other Members of the House to 
make sure the District of Columbia gets its payment, but on this 
proposal we should say no.
  Mr. President, I see my friend and colleague. I yield 4 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I simply want to underscore what Senator 
Kennedy has had to say. The Presiding Officer, as a new Member of this 
body, may not be aware of this, but in addition to everything that 
Senator Kennedy had to say, one of the things that is happening in our 
world that is really dramatic is the spread of democracy. It is in 
Russia, it is in Poland, it is in many countries of Africa now.
  It is interesting, Mr. President, that in all of the democracies of 
the world, there is only one democracy where we deny the people in the 
capital city the right to be represented in a democracy, in their 
parliament. That democracy, I regret to say, is the United States of 
America.
  The District of Columbia has their own elected school board, and we 
make all these speeches about local control, but we say to only one 
school board--and it is not insignificant, it is a school board that 
does not have a vote in terms of having a U.S. Senator--we say to one 
school board, ``You have to do this or you don't get this money.'' That 
just does not make sense. I add one other point, Mr. President. I have 
been around here now 22 years and, generally, we try and work out 
compromises between the House and the Senate. These are provisions that 
were not favored by a single Member of the Senate side. Democrats and 
Republicans capitulated to the House. I understand capitulating because 
you have to do that sometimes. But the body does not need to do that. 
The precedent is simply wrong.

  So I hope that our vote on cloture will be the same. There is no 
reason for anyone to change his or her mind. This is not good policy, 
and I hope we will continue to resist the cloture motion.
  I yield the remainder of my time back to Senator Kennedy.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, first, I thank my colleagues for their 
kind words about our relationship, which I cherish. I thank them for 
very eloquently making my arguments, because they have pinned it all on 
the fact that we are shoving something at a city that has no 
opportunity with their elected officials to say no.
  That is not the case. I wish they would read the bill. What it says 
is simply that we set up the operation, and there is a nonprofit 
corporation set up to handle private funds and public funds. Then there 
will be two voucher plans. One voucher plan nobody disagrees with. One 
is that every child that has problems with their education will have an 
opportunity to seek a

[[Page S1509]]

voucher to go after school--or to go someplace to get the kind of 
remedial attention they need. Nobody disagrees with that. The bill 
further states that, however, the corporation can recommend that money 
would go for tuition vouchers. However, there must be agreement upon 
how much to spend on tuition vouchers, down to zero, and that is up to 
the elected city officials, the District Council. They can say no 
money.
  When we reached this agreement, I was fully aware there had been a 
referendum that said, 8 to 1, ``We do not want any vouchers.'' That 
simply means that I knew, and I am sure others that have agreed to this 
know, that many people in the District are against it. To make the 
presumption that the city council does not remember this vote, that was 
on the ballot, which said that the city voters do not want vouchers, 8 
to 1, and they are going to say forget about that, forget about how you 
feel now--of course, they are not. So I appreciate Senators on the 
other side making the argument strongly that we should not have 
anything that is locally controlled. This conference agreement gives 
the city local control.
  So how can you say you are against it because it does not have local 
control when the whole thing is based upon local control?
  The other issues, we have argued before, with respect to Davis-Bacon 
may not be a problem. If it is, we will correct it. The abortion issue 
is a compromise between the language adopted in 1995, and which was 
adopted by the Senate this year and the more restrictive language of 
the House bill. The conference agreement states that no funds, either 
from the local government or the Federal Government, can be used to 
perform an abortion unless it is to save the life of the mother or in 
cases of rape or incest. That was the best we could do.
  Let us concentrate on the educational provisions now. Mr. President, 
we have done everything in this agreement we can to protect the people 
of this city from a mandatory Federal program which would violate local 
control. That is the case in this agreement.
  In addition, we must remember that there are many other important 
education reforms in this bill besides that one provision. We run the 
risk, as I mentioned earlier, of ending up with nothing here, and all 
the catastrophes that can come from that, including losing the funding 
for the reforms.
  I want to say briefly that I know there are several Members--enough 
to pass this bill--that are tortured by this vote right now, who want 
to support the cloture motion, but they know that the problem has been 
an agreement by the unions to hold the line. The White House is putting 
pressure on and saying they will veto it if it is presented in its 
present form. I urge those Members to look at the facts and get the 
grit to be able to do what you know you should do to help the city and 
to, most of all, help the kids get the education they need in this 
city.
  I reserve the remainder of my time.
  Mr. KENNEDY. How much time do I have?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 4 minutes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself 3 minutes.
  Mr. President, I appreciate the explanation of the Senator from 
Vermont. But I do not think that that ought to be very satisfying to 
the parents of the school district in the District of Columbia. 
Effectively, what the Republican Congress has done is this: They have 
cut $52 million in the last 2 years on the one hand, and they are 
giving $42 million back on the other, if it is used as explained by the 
Senator from Vermont, and that is whether it is vouchers or after-
school vouchers. But if they do not spend it for the vouchers, they 
lose it. They lose it. They do not get the money.
  You have had these draconian cuts that we have seen in the last 2 
years, and they are dangling the money in front of the District now and 
saying the only way you can use this money is if you use it for the 
programs of after-school vouchers and the other vouchers.
  What do you say to the school that says they would like just a few 
more hundred thousand dollars for the literacy program, or they would 
like to have an in-school after-school program? It would not be just 
the kids that get the vouchers, but all the children. You are saying no 
to that group of parents that want to have an after-school program and 
use some of the money. We otherwise would have gotten another $42 
million for the after-school program. What if the teachers and parents 
say we would like to have more technology, computers? Oh, no, we have 
to permit 2 percent of the school children to go to some other schools. 
We cannot say that in your school you might be able to get some 
additional resources for technology.
  Those are the things that are out there, parents, and under this 
proposal, you are denying it. You have had significant cuts in the last 
2 years. You are offering them a lot of money this way, but it has to 
be used not the way the District of Columbia wants to use it, which has 
rejected vouchers in recent years by 8 to 1--if they had wanted 
vouchers, they would have had it before this year. They never have. So 
you are saying we know best, and you are going to use the money this 
way, or you are going to lose it.
  That is unacceptable. We say that the schools know best and the 
parents, who may want to be able to develop after-school programs. 
Schools and parents want to have literacy and technology, and schools 
and parents want to have enhancement of math and science. But we are 
saying, no, you cannot do that. You have to use it our way, or you lose 
the money. That is the issue.
  That is unacceptable, Mr. President. I hope that we will defeat the 
cloture motion and move toward providing the funding to the District of 
Columbia.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. How much time remains?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are 30 seconds remaining.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. I point out that we have never cut the school budgets 
of the city. The city has recommended reductions, some of which were 
accepted. We have never imposed cuts. So, again, let us get the facts 
straight.
  In addition to that, this $5 million is the only thing at risk here. 
All of that can be used if the city council and the scholarship 
corporation agree. It can all be used for the kind of vouchers that no 
one opposes, for remedial instruction. Local control is total here.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, as the Senate today again attempts to 
limit debate on H.R. 2546, the fiscal year 1996 District of Columbia 
appropriations bill, I would like to address what seems to be the 
principal roadblock to Senate approval. That issue is the proposed 
discretionary educational voucher program.
  The conference report on H.R. 2546 would authorize school vouchers 
for as many as 1,500 low-income children at up to $3,000 each. These 
vouchers could be used for one of two purposes: Either for supplemental 
educational services such as remedial training after school, or as 
tuition scholarships to assist with the costs of private education.
  As proposed, the voucher demonstration is not mandated. It is 
authorized first as a choice for the District of Columbia Council. No 
voucher program could go forward until it was approved by the District 
government.
  Furthermore, should the District decide to implement the voucher 
demonstration, the D.C. Council could specify the type of vouchers 
which would be available. For instance, all of the demonstration funds 
could be targeted to supplemental educational services with no tuition 
assistance alternative.
  Mr. President, this legislation respects home rule by giving the D.C. 
government the discretion to choose the type of program it may wish to 
provide, or reject the program outright. It would also give up to 1,500 
D.C. families the ability to make important choices to improve their 
children's education.
  I strongly support the bill, and I strongly support the discretionary 
school voucher demonstration. This is consistent with my support of a 
similar voucher demonstration proposal during the 1994 debate on the 
Goals 2000 legislation.
  The American education system should provide an environment which 
fosters innovation and experimentation. Here is an opportunity to test 
that environment in the Nation's Capital. I urge my colleagues to join 
in voting in favor of educational choice for the District of Columbia.

[[Page S1510]]

  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time.

                          ____________________