[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 120 (Thursday, September 5, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1530-E1531]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




THE REPUBLICAN PARTY PLATFORM: FORMER SENATOR BOB DOLE SAID HE DID NOT 
                     READ IT--BUT IT SHOULD BE READ

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                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 5, 1996

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, 3 weeks ago the American people were treated 
to a confusing spectacle in San Diego. The platform adopted by the 
Republican Party 1 week before the Republican convention reflected the 
same extremist, Contract-With-America rhetoric that we in the Congress 
have witnessed for the past 20 months. This is the same extremist 
program that the majority of the American people have clearly and 
unequivocally rejected.
  The following week, a tightly-scripted convention took place in San 
Diego which ignored the existence of this radical document. That same 
convention--for obvious reasons--also ignored the so-called Contract 
With America.
  The Republican Presidential candidate, former Senator Robert Dole, 
told the press he had not read his party's platform. The Republican 
platform, however, does deserve to be read, Mr. Speaker, because it is 
important for the American people to know the views of those who are in 
the majority within the Republican Party. The Republican platform tells 
us the views of the people who will play leading roles if there should 
be a Dole administration--which, I hasten to add, I sincerely hope 
there will not be.
  Mr. Speaker, an excellent analysis and summary of the Republican 
platform appeared as an editorial in the September 2 issue of The New 
Republic. I ask that this excellent editorial be placed in the Record. 
I urge my colleagues to read it. This editorial gives an excellent 
summary of some of the most egregious and disturbing problems with that 
extremist document.

                 [From the New Republic, Sept. 2, 1996]

                            Platform Diving

       Is the Republican platform worth reading? Not to Bob Dole, 
     who still hasn't found the time, nor to the GOP's oh-so-
     moderate convention speakers, who appear chosen largely 
     because they disagree with its plank on abortion (criminalize 
     it, even when the mother's life is at stake). But although 
     the platform is, predictably, a farrago of inoffensive 
     pabulum (``We are the party of the American family, educating 
     children, caring for the sick . . .'') and unintended 
     hilarity (``Prisons should not be places of rest and 
     relaxation''), it still provides a useful glimpse into the 
     contradictions of what remains the closest thing America has 
     to a majority party.

[[Page E1531]]

       Take, for example, the planks on terrorism, which both 
     excoriate President Clinton for coddling terrorists and 
     pander to the GOP's Ruby Ridge wing: ``To take away the 
     liberty of the American people while fighting terrorism is 
     repugnant to the history and character of our nation.'' How 
     will the anti-big government Republicans fight terrorism 
     while opposing things like taggants to trace bomb-powder? 
     Establish a ``blue ribbon'' commission. Nothing scares 
     killers like a panel of experts.
       Elsewhere, the platform gets similarly caught between its 
     enthusiasm for states' rights and its insistence that they do 
     the right-wing thing. The GOP would ``require the original 
     sponsor of [any] proposed federal legislation to cite 
     specific constitutional authority for the measure.'' Yet the 
     platform cites no such authority for its own calls to 
     nationalize product-liability law and to force legal reforms 
     upon the states: ``restore limited liability'' to churches 
     ``to provide protection against profit-seeking lawsuits,'' 
     ``eliminate the use of junk science'' by ``opportunistic 
     attorneys'' and so on.
       Along with scrapping the Education Department, the platform 
     says plainly, ``the federal government has no constitutional 
     authority to be involved in the school curricula.'' But a few 
     lines later comes a truly bizarre call for Napoleonic 
     micromanagement: an exhortation to ``requir[e] our public 
     schools to dedicate one full day each year to studying the 
     Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.''
       Why not a week? For when the Republicans get through with 
     the Constitution, there'll be a lot more of it to study. A 
     cursory count yields calls for six new amendments: to extend 
     Fourteenth Amendment citizenship protections to the unborn; 
     to deny them to the children of illegal immigrants born in 
     the U.S.; to protect ``victims' rights''; and, of course, to 
     outlaw the various forms of mutilation and political 
     adornment that might fall under the category of 
     ``desecration'' of the American flag. Banning abortion and 
     flag-burning are hardy perennials, and victims' rights, too, 
     is becoming a familiar pander. The denial of birthright 
     citizenship, however--a radical shift in our notion of 
     Americanhood--demands vociferous rebuttal from all 
     responsible quarters.
       In its economic planks, the platform states, ```Research 
     and development is our commitment to the future.'' It then 
     endorses ``de-emphasizing the role of government''--that is, 
     cutting spending--on R&D, which is what the GOP Congress 
     proposed. The next paragraph praises a Dole-sponsored law 
     that expanded federally funded research. The GOP sounds 
     similarly confused on homeownership, which, it declares, ``is 
     not something government gives to the people, but rather 
     something they can attain for themselves. . . .'' Two 
     sentences later, it reiterates support for the mortgage 
     interest tax deduction, a subsidy the government provides to 
     boost homeownership.
       On foreign policy, the platform betrays open warfare 
     between the party's neocons and its America-firsters. ``We 
     vigorously support restoring the promotion of democracy 
     worldwide,'' the preamble announces. How? Not by using 
     economic aid to reward poor countries for breaking with 
     authoritarianism. That, the platform says, is ``social 
     welfare spending in the Third World.'' The multinational 
     disarmament and election-monitoring efforts that have given 
     birth to democracy in Mozambique, Cambodia and El Salvador 
     meet with reproof, too. ``Bill Clinton's peacekeeping 
     operations and other global ventures'' haven't had ``any 
     discernible benefit to U.S. national security.'' Of course 
     not. Promoting democracy in impoverished corners of the globe 
     isn't an expression of American interests in any direct way, 
     it's an expression of American beliefs. But the Buchanan wing 
     of the party doesn't think that America should have moral 
     concerns beyond its borders. So the platform's specific 
     foreign policy planks render its preamble meaningless.
       Bob Dole has, understandably, tried to bury this mishmash 
     of confusion and dishonesty in the scripted moderation of San 
     Diego. Still, if this is the best statement his party can 
     offer about what it would do in office, what does it say 
     about the policies he would pursue as president?

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