[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 26 (Tuesday, March 4, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1933-S1934]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       PUBLIC FAITH IN GOVERNMENT

  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise to make a couple of comments 
about the action that just took place here on the Senate floor with 
respect to the balanced budget amendment and to express, obviously, my 
disappointment as someone who supported the balanced budget amendment, 
my disappointment that we did not succeed in passing what I believe is 
a vitally important measure for this country's future. We will have 
another day where we will be back here and try again, whether it is 
this year or next year or in the next session of Congress, to fight 
that fight again. In a sense, the battle is not lost; it only 
continues.
  I am a little more concerned about another battle which I fear has at 
least as lasting consequences as not passing this constitutional 
amendment, and that is something that is important to all of us here 
and to all Americans. As important as our Constitution is the public's 
faith in our institutions, our governmental institutions and the people 
who serve in them.
  One of the real concerns I have--in fact, I have been traveling 
around my State of Pennsylvania talking at a lot of high schools and 
expressing there my concerns that a lot of young people choose not to 
vote. In fact, in the last election, of 18 to 24-year-olds, I believe 
only a third even bothered to turn out to vote. That is a low since 18-
year-olds were given a right to vote. Not only that, but the last 
election was the low point in turnout for the general electorate. I 
think it was under 50 percent in the last Presidential election.
  A lot of people have postulated as to what is going on with the 
American public, that we seem to become either disinterested or cynical 
about the electoral process and our Government in general. I think, 
unfortunately, what has happened in this debate over the last 2 weeks 
has added to that cynicism, has added to the mistrust that many 
Americans feel toward their institutions and toward the people who 
serve in those institutions.

  I speak, of course, about the people who campaigned promising the 
electors of their State that they would vote a certain way on what many 
people consider the most important issue we will vote on here in this 
Congress. It is a seminal issue. It sort of divides you between the 
politics of the old and the politics of the new, in my opinion. You had 
at least 12 Members in this most recent election who campaigned, and 
campaigned vigorously, stating that they were going to support the 
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution in the same form they had 
supported it in the House of Representatives. And yet not more than 3 
or 4 months after their election, they have changed their minds.
  Yes, the Constitution is important. Yes, amending the Constitution, 
in my opinion, is important. But public confidence in us is as 
important, for if the public does not see us as legitimate, if the 
public does not see its institutions and the people who run them as 
trustworthy, then the Constitution is not nearly as strong a document--
in fact, some would suggest it is even a worthless document--because 
democracy cannot exist without the public faith in what we are about 
and the legitimacy of our Government.
  So I think this debate is sad for, yes, the reason we did not pass 
the balanced budget amendment. That is very sad. But I think the 
greater long-term

[[Page S1934]]

threat to our country is public cynicism over this institution and all 
of our democratic institutions.
  That was harmed and, in some places, it was devastated in the past 
few weeks. That is something we will have a hard time with when 
fighting the battle again. It makes the battle to come back much 
harder. It is not as if we can bring this up again as we can a balanced 
budget amendment to the Constitution. It now is something young and old 
people will be looking at, what happened here, and saying, does 
politics really matter? Why bother to vote; they do not mean what they 
say anyway.
  I commend the Members; some of them had very tough votes in bucking 
their President and their leaders, for standing up and doing the right 
thing, doing what they said they would do. When it comes down to it, in 
this institution--and I suspect in every workplace in America--the 
bottom line comes down to you have nothing here except your word. You 
have nothing except your word. With respect to me and my relationship 
to my constituents in Pennsylvania, I find that to be a solemn vow. My 
word means something. And if my word is no good, then they have every 
right to question me and question the institution in which I serve.
  So I think we did have a defeat today. We had a defeat not for the 
constitutional amendment. Yes, we had that defeat. We had a defeat for 
our institution. We had a defeat for our democracy. We had a defeat for 
the process that legitimizes everything we do here. And that truly is a 
sad thing. It is a sad day for the Senate. It is even a sadder day for 
this country.
  I would just suggest as some anecdote to the people who feel 
disenfranchised as a result of what happened here that most of the 
people in this Senate did do what they said they were going to do, on 
both sides of the aisle. Most of the Members of this Senate stood up 
and told the public the truth when it, frankly, may have not been easy 
to tell the truth. And from that, I think, we should take some solace, 
that, in fact, most Members do stand up and say what they mean. And I 
hope that we can learn from this lesson, all of us learn from this 
lesson, the importance of having the public's faith in who we are, what 
we say and what we do. It matters.
  We have a lot of people in this town now who seem to be pushing the 
edge on a lot of activities. And you see the public just does not 
seem--I get this question all the time--to care about all these 
shenanigans that go on around here. I agree. I think there are so many 
shenanigans going on around here they discount them at the time. They 
think they are all bad, and why is he any different than anyone else.
  Wow, that is a dangerous sentiment in this country. That is a 
sentiment that gets you in trouble. We should be outraged when people 
do things that are illegal, when people do things that are unethical. 
We should be outraged when our public officials, whom we hold up to 
represent us, do not meet the standards that we ourselves meet, and we 
should think differently about them because they do not meet those 
standards.
  It is a sad day, but I hope that we again have learned the lesson 
that it is important for us to be men and women of our word. And that 
goes beyond any bill, any amendment, any issue that we deal with in 
this body. Once we understand that lesson, I think we will be a greater 
body and a greater country as a result.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio is recognized.
  Mr. GLENN. I thank the Chair.
  (The remarks of Mr. Glenn pertaining to the submission of S. Res. 61 
are located in today's Record under ``Submission of Concurrent and 
Senate Resolutions.'')

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