[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 54 (Wednesday, April 30, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3810-S3813]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          VOLUNTEER PROTECTION ACT OF 1997--MOTION TO PROCEED

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now 
resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 543, which the 
clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 543) to provide certain protections to 
     volunteers, nonprofit organizations, and governmental 
     entities in lawsuits based on the activities of volunteers.

  The Senate resumed consideration of the motion to proceed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time between 10 a.m. and 11:15 a.m. shall 
be divided equally between the Senator from Georgia [Mr. Coverdell] or 
his designee, and the Senator from Vermont [Mr. Leahy] or his designee. 
The Chair recognizes the Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I did not expect the majority leader to 
invest the time, which I very much appreciate his having done, to frame 
the nature of the situation we have here. But, just to restate it for 
those who may be listening, in response to the summit on voluntarism, 
we have brought to the Senate floor a very specific proposal, 
legislation, to make it easier for Americans to volunteer. We have 
moved to bring it before the Senate and the other side is filibustering 
that motion in order to prevent our taking action on this Volunteer 
Protection Act.
  As I said in response to the leader, this is legislation that has 
been before the Congress in one form or another for almost 12 years, 
and has been consistently rebutted by the hierarchy of the Trial 
Lawyers Association. It is 12 pages long and it gives modest protection 
to volunteers who step forward in the 600,000 organizations across our 
land who try to promote the interests of those in need, whether they 
are children, the elderly, the illiterate, the wounded, or those who 
have been affected by the very flood we are talking about in the 
Midwest.
  We have appeal after appeal from organization after organization 
requesting the legislation. They are having volunteer members of their 
boards of directors resign, because while they want to help, they do 
not envision taking all their family business and all their family 
assets and putting them in a lottery, so they resign.
  When the organization asks for a mother or father to step forward and 
coach Little League Baseball, they hesitate, because they have read 
about these illogical but, nevertheless, real lawsuits against 
volunteers. Often, the organization has no assets at all, but one of 
the volunteers does. And so the suit goes straight to the individual 
who has accumulated, for whatever reason, some resources, some wealth. 
They are at particular risk because they have what is called deep 
pockets. They are chilled from coming forward. Often these people are 
very talented, high capacity, but they are chilled away; they are 
cautioned away.

[[Page S3811]]

  I told the story several times on the floor of Terry Orr of the 
Washington Redskins. When he came to play for the ball club, senior 
team members brought him immediately in to help with the inner-city 
problems, with the children, which he did. Then he matured, and he took 
on the responsibility and went to the rookies. What did he hear? 
``Well, wait a minute.'' First question, ``What is the liability? How 
much at risk am I?'' He found himself talking to attorneys, and he 
could not bring the same energy and resource that he had seen when he 
first came to the team.
  This is a rather new phenomenon. This has not been a part of American 
life until recently; in fact, until the 1980's. Lawsuits directed at 
volunteers, you could not count them on a hand, but in the eighties, 
several celebrated cases suddenly made the volunteer a new target. 
Throughout the eighties, we saw the number of Americans who were 
willing to volunteer shrink. We have seen the financial resources that 
have to be invested in protecting the volunteers grow, at the expense 
of the programs for which they were designed. For example, the 
Washington, DC, Girl Scouts have to sell 87,000 boxes of cookies to pay 
the premium for the protection of the volunteers--not to help the Girl 
Scouts, but to pay the premium to protect the volunteers. And we have 
seen volunteers leave the scene, resignation after resignation.
  This legislation, this very narrow and targeted piece of legislation, 
protects those volunteers, makes it easier for them to answer the call 
of the Presidents at the summit and will reduce the overall expenditure 
of the organizations trying to do good service and good work in our 
Nation.
  I might add that voluntarism, as I said yesterday, is uniquely 
American. It is a quality that has been noted by every nation about the 
American people. It really is near the heart and soul of who we are. It 
does not happen this way in most countries in the world. As the 
President knows, I was Director of the U.S. Peace Corps, and I had a 
chance to see it right up close. It is an American miracle, and it 
ought to be protected and cherished and nourished in every way that it 
can. I find it the irony of ironies that after that summit, we 
introduce this legislation and we are caught in a filibuster from the 
other side to keep this from being acted on.
  Mr. President, I see that I have been joined by my colleague from 
Wyoming, and I know that he has wanted to speak on this. I yield such 
time as he might need to speak on this proposal.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, thank you. I thank the Senator from Georgia 
for this important piece of legislation. I rise to join my colleagues 
and friends in supporting the Volunteer Protection Act of 1997. This 
bill aims to protect one of the bulwarks of our democratic Government, 
and that is America's volunteers. That is the foundation of the United 
States. That is a principle that we have been working on for a long 
time. We seem to be losing a little of the momentum that our 
forefathers had in the area of voluntarism, and part of that has to 
come out of fear.
  Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to preside over the Senate 
for several hours. During that time, I was amazed at the direction of 
this particular debate. While my Republican colleagues have been 
working to achieve meaningful legal protection for volunteers, one 
Democrat after another has paraded on to the Senate floor to discuss 
matters absolutely unrelated to protecting volunteers from frivolous 
litigation. I have heard speeches on the budget, on flood relief, on 
Medicare and on Alexis Herman, just to name a few. But I have not heard 
any meaningful discussion by my colleagues across the aisle on 
protecting America's volunteers.
  It is time that we get serious about helping our Nation's volunteers, 
and this is not going to happen by wandering into these other various 
and sundry tangents.
  I heard the debate on the budget. The budget is not this debate. The 
budget is still being negotiated, and I understand that is going well, 
but it is not possible for us to debate the budget on the floor right 
now. It is not being held up by this piece of legislation, which should 
only take a little while to debate and pass.

  I heard them talk about the supplemental budget, and a portion of 
that, of course, is emergency relief, and it is important. It is 
important in my State as well as for the people who have debated this. 
But that is not before this body either. That is in committee, and the 
issues that have been raised on that are not ones that are being 
affected by this debate.
  I have heard discussions on Medicare and Alexis Herman. Alexis Herman 
may be more at the center of this delay than anything else that has 
been brought up.
  Right now, there is a hearing taking place on a bill that will solve 
the Executive order. Hopefully, that bill will get a quick hearing--it 
appears to be--and it will be brought over here and will undo any 
misconceptions that there might be on the Alexis Herman situation, 
which appears to be a basis of a major Presidential change since the 
hearings were held in committee.
  Those hearings were held, but the President has changed the momentum 
of his policy with labor since the time of those hearings, but that is 
not a part of this debate either. We have not had any debate from the 
other side of the aisle about protecting our volunteers. Instead, we 
have had a filibuster on a motion to proceed. This is not even the bill 
itself, this is just the motion to proceed. I assume we will have 
another filibuster when we get to the bill itself.
  This is a country of the people, by the people, and for the people. 
We are a volunteer country, or we used to be. We are becoming a country 
of mercenaries. We are beginning to pay people to volunteer. Can they 
truly be called a volunteer if they are paid to do that? And if we 
begin to pay and pay constantly, will we ever have true volunteers?
  We talk about the momentum of volunteers, and that has been a long 
and proud tradition in the United States. Volunteer organizations 
represent a distinctly American manner of living, living out the golden 
rule by strengthening our neighborhoods, our schools, and our churches.
  When I was mayor of Gillette, we had tremendous growth, more than 
doubled in size, and we needed everything basic that a community could 
possibly have. That included mostly water and sewer and streets. We did 
not have money for parks that the people moving there wanted. We got an 
intern from the University of Wyoming to sit down with any group that 
wanted a park, and he would design a park for them. The catch was they 
had to build it, and they did. We built seven parks in one summer with 
volunteers. These were young people who were moving into a boom 
community. If they had known about liability, I do not know that they 
would have participated.
  I spent 10 years as a soccer coach. I am not sure today I would be a 
soccer coach. I don't think I could take the liability. I have worked 
with Boy Scouts. It has become such a litigious society that the Boy 
Scouts now have requirements that any time there is a boy working on a 
project, there have to be two adults around, and that is to prevent 
lawsuits. The Boy Scouts used to have annual Christmas tree sales in 
Gillette. When I went to serve with my son selling Christmas trees, I 
had to have another adult along, because of our litigious society. That 
definitely discourages volunteers.
  Volunteer organizations have strengthened and nourished the lives of 
our citizens and influenced every facet of our culture. A brief 
reflection on the myriad of volunteers and volunteer organizations that 
serve our fellow citizens should remind us of their tremendous value. 
The volunteers of the Salvation Army help feed and clothe the less 
fortunate and provide Christmas gifts for thousands of children every 
year. Meals on Wheels has for years provided more meals and 
conversation to many of our Nation's homebound. Habitat for Humanity 
has helped revitalize our inner cities by providing privately owned 
houses for the Nation's poor. Mother Theresa's Missionaries of Charity 
cares for thousands of dying AIDS patients and unwed mothers in the 
poorest neighborhoods across the country.

  I could go on and on with the Jaycees, Lions Clubs, the Kiwanis, the 
Rotary and the Optimists. The Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts help 
instill in children the virtues of responsibility and enterprise, while 
Little League and youth soccer leagues teach children the

[[Page S3812]]

values of team cooperation and hard work.
  Volunteers in these organizations, and countless others, have given 
generously of themselves in order to help their neighbors and better 
their communities. Unfortunately, even these volunteers have fallen 
prey to our suit-happy legal system. Lawsuits, in recent years, have 
resulted in enormous verdicts against volunteers and nonprofit 
organizations. Too often these suits are for what most of us would 
consider frivolous claims that penalize volunteers who are simply doing 
their jobs.
  The threat of costly litigation and large verdicts have frightened 
many good citizens away from giving their time and energy to volunteer 
organizations. It is time to curb that trend. The Volunteer Protection 
Act would relieve a volunteer from liability if the volunteer is acting 
within the scope and responsibility and if the volunteer is properly 
licensed, certified and authorized by the State in which the harm 
occurred, if such authorization is required.
  It also limits punitive damages that may be awarded against 
volunteers and nonprofit organizations for the actions of the 
volunteers. This bill does not protect volunteers from liability for 
actions which are willful or criminal or which involve gross 
negligence. As such, this bill strikes a healthy balance. It provides 
broad protection for volunteers who are performing their duties, while 
still allowing people to recover against volunteers who cause harm from 
acts that are willful, criminal or grossly negligent.
  Mr. President, it is time to restore some sanity to our tort system. 
Let's begin by protecting our Nation's volunteers from the slings and 
arrows of outrageous litigation. I urge my colleagues to join me in 
supporting the Volunteer Act.
  As we were growing up, we were taught to do what is right, to do our 
best, to treat others as we wanted to be treated, to take the common 
courtesy of asking others what they need to have done, and in America, 
we not only ask what they need to have done, but people follow up on 
that, not to the degree that we could, not to the degree that we used 
to.
  My mother always taught me that service is the price that you pay for 
the space that you take up on this Earth. The service concept in this 
Nation is a foundation that we have to continue to promote, and our 
system of litigation has taken that away from us. Let us restore 
service and voluntarism in this country and give some protection.

  I yield the remainder of my time.
  Mr. BINGAMAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico is recognized.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. How much time remains on the Democratic side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Thirty-one minutes.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. I yield myself such time as I will consume out of that 
31 minutes.
  Mr. President, when I hear the debate here on the floor, it strikes 
me that anyone who is watching or listening to this debate must think 
that we are talking past each other. It must appear that we do not seem 
to be able to engage on any one subject. One Senator comes to the floor 
and talks about voluntarism, the need to protect volunteers from 
liability; another Senator talks about Alexis Herman, the President's 
nominee for Secretary of Labor and the need to get that nomination 
confirmed. People cannot understand why we are not talking about the 
same thing.
  Let me just give my perspective of where we are.
  On the Democratic side, the position that many of us are taking is 
that we should not be going ahead with business as usual in the Senate 
on the last day of April unless we can get the majority to agree to 
allow a vote on the President's Cabinet nominee. We are getting fairly 
far into this year.
  The President, several months ago, nominated Alexis Herman to be the 
Secretary of Labor. In the Labor and Human Resources Committee we voted 
unanimously to recommend to the full Senate that she be confirmed for 
that position. Just in the last couple of weeks we have been told that 
vote will not be taken on the Senate floor, we will not have a chance 
to vote for her confirmation because some on the Republican side 
disagree with the President's Executive order on another issue related 
to project labor agreements. He issued an Executive order on that 
subject which they did not agree with.
  Mr. President, I strongly support the nomination of Alexis Herman to 
be our Secretary of Labor. Our committee, the Labor Committee, did 
report that nomination to the full Senate for consideration. We did so 
unanimously. This was not a Democratic vote and Republicans opposed. It 
was a unanimous vote. Unfortunately, we have not been able to go ahead 
and take that vote on the Senate floor.
  When I tried to put this in some perspective--I have served here in 
the Senate with three different Presidents in the White House. 
President Reagan, when he was in the White House--of course, much of 
the time that he was there the Republicans controlled the Senate, so an 
issue like this never arose. But there were 2 years during which he was 
President when the Democrats controlled the Senate. I am not aware of 
any occasion where we refused to allow a vote on one of his nominations 
because we disagreed with one of the policies that President Reagan was 
pursuing. We certainly disagreed with many of his policies, but I 
cannot recall any occasion where we refused to go ahead and permit a 
vote on one of his nominees in order to gain leverage and force him to 
change a policy.
  The same thing with President Bush. When President Bush was in 
office, of course the Democrats controlled the Senate during that time, 
and he nominated his Cabinet members. I do not recall any effort on the 
Democratic side to refuse to allow a vote on those Cabinet Members. I 
think everyone agreed that the election was over, the President had the 
right to choose his own Cabinet, and that we in the Senate could object 
to some of those Cabinet individuals and we could vote no on their 
nomination, but we certainly would not deny the President the right to 
a vote on those Cabinet members.
  So I see what is happening here with Alexis Herman's nomination as 
sort of unprecedented, clearly unprecedented in the time that I have 
been here in the Senate in the last 14 years.
  I understand that some of my colleagues are opposed to the 
administration's plans to issue an Executive order on project labor 
agreements. I know that many of my colleagues may have fundamental 
disagreements about the appropriateness of that Executive order. This 
is, in my view, simply not adequate grounds for refusing to go ahead 
and have a vote on his Cabinet nominee.
  I personally support the administration's proposal on project labor 
agreements for a variety of reasons. And we can have that debate when 
the issue comes up. As my friend from Wyoming, my colleague from 
Wyoming, indicates, there is a bill being considered. Fine. Let us get 
a piece of legislation out here. Let us have a vote on it. Let us do 
whatever and send it to the President, and perhaps we can persuade him 
to sign something if we can get agreement on something that seems 
reasonable.
  But the Executive order on project labor agreements has nothing to do 
with whether or not the President should be able to appoint his own 
Cabinet. We should allow him to do that. We should certainly allow a 
vote on the Senate floor on those Cabinet nominees. If the majority 
wants to turn down a nomination in order to make some point, clearly 
that is a course they can pursue. But to deny a vote on the Senate 
floor in order to try to register a complaint about the President's 
policy, I think, is improper.

  Ms. Herman presented herself extremely well to the Labor Committee. 
She honestly and fully answered all questions put to her. I think she 
won over several Senators who might have thought, going into that 
hearing, that they might not support her. She will be a strong advocate 
for working families. She will work hard, I am persuaded, to help our 
country prepare for the next century. Her record of public service, her 
record of caring about people on issues that come before the Department 
of Labor, which is unquestioned, her commitment to serving her country 
are the reasons why all of us, as I said on the Democratic and 
Republican side, in the committee joined to send her nomination to the 
floor.

[[Page S3813]]

  I know that if we get a vote on the Senate floor, it will be an 
overwhelming vote of support for this nominee because all of the 
Senators I have talked to believe she would be a good Secretary of 
Labor.
  The working families of this country deserve to have someone in that 
position which is a very important position at this time in our 
history. It is getting late in the legislative year. We need to go 
ahead and allow the President to put his own nominee in there so that 
he can proceed with his agenda.
  I say there will be many opportunities over the course of this year 
and next year throughout the 105th Congress where we will debate issues 
such as project labor agreements here on the Senate floor. I think that 
is entirely as it should be. But I do not think it is appropriate for 
us to proceed with business as usual on the Senate floor while refusing 
to allow a vote on the President's nominee for Secretary of Labor.
  So that is the basis for my objection to proceeding on this bill that 
is pending before the Senate today. I think it is a credible piece of 
legislation which should be debated and should be seriously considered 
by the Senate. But it should be seriously considered by the Senate in a 
circumstance where we are allowing the Executive branch and allowing 
the President to go ahead and name his Cabinet. It is too late in the 
year for us to be playing the kind of cynical game that is going on 
here in denying a vote for this Secretary of Labor.
  So I urge my colleagues to join on a bipartisan basis to bring that 
nomination to the floor and have that vote and then proceed to 
consideration of this other legislation and then proceed to the 
consideration of a great deal of other legislation that we should be 
getting on with.
  I think it is clear that the Senate is rudderless at this point. We 
have very little on the Senate agenda. We look ahead to the next 2 or 3 
weeks, and I do not see a great deal of constructive activity going 
forward here unless there is much more in the planning than I am aware 
of. But I do think the least we can do is to go ahead and get one 
important nomination up and vote on it at the soonest date possible.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of our 
time.
  Mr. COVERDELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. How much time remains on both sides?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are 14 minutes on the Republican side 
and 21 minutes on the Democratic side.

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