[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 54 (Wednesday, April 30, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3833-S3836]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          VOLUNTEER PROTECTION ACT OF 1997--MOTION TO PROCEED

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the motion to proceed.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Madam President, I guess only those who have just 
tuned in would be aware of the fact that we have been discussing an 
attempt since Monday afternoon, from Monday afternoon until Wednesday 
at 3 p.m., to allow the Senate to proceed to S. 543. The other side has 
decided to filibuster this legislation and has now twice blocked our 
attempts to end debate and move on to the bill. Although we are getting 
closer, we might say, well, maybe if there are five more votes like the 
one today, we will finally end the debate; the bill being a very 
narrow, specific proposal that tries to respond to the call of the 
President and three former Presidents to encourage voluntarism in 
America.
  To revisit for a moment what was going on in Philadelphia, it was 
Gen. Colin Powell who said that ``the multiple crises confronting 
children in America have the potential to explode our society.'' I am 
going to reread the quote of General Powell.

       ``The multiple crises confronting children have the 
     potential to explode our society,'' as General Powell called 
     on his fellow Americans to make an extraordinary personal 
     commitment to serve as mentors to at-risk youth.

  Earlier today I pointed out that volunteers being called on today are 
often called on to participate in situations that are less than normal 
environments; that the potential for volatility and miscommunication 
and misunderstanding is very high.
  S. 543 has perhaps more importance today than it did over a decade 
ago when it was first envisioned in this Congress because it gives the 
volunteer a shield, a modest shield I might add, from certain kinds of 
liability. It does not protect the volunteer from willful or wanton 
misconduct. For example, if a volunteer were driving an automobile and 
inebriated, there would be no protection whatsoever. But for the 
everyday routine activity, it would protect the volunteers.
  Here we have General Powell saying to his fellow Americans, make an 
extraordinary personal commitment to serve as mentors to at-risk youth. 
And here we are having spent 3 days trying to pass one modest proposal 
to help those volunteers step forward and we are systematically choked 
and throttled. What a great response to General Powell and to the 
Nation, calling on Americans to come forward and then we have a boot on 
their neck right here in the Nation's Capitol in this Chamber.
  It goes on to say:

       Together with President Clinton, former Presidents Bush, 
     Carter, Ford, 30 Governors and 100 mayors participating in a 
     conference on volunteering--

  Conference on volunteering--

       Powell said that as many as 15 million young Americans need 
     mentors to help them overcome the adversities they face.

  Well, by logical conclusion, that means we have to have many millions 
of Americans to come forward to take care of just this audience--15 
million young Americans need mentoring. That does not include the 
senior citizens who need mentoring, who need Meals on Wheels, who need 
somebody to come by and visit in the evening. That does not include the 
young people who are involved in youthful sports like Little League 
baseball or Pop Warner football. That does not include the Americans 
that would travel to the Midwest to assist in filling sandbags, who 
would help clean out the muck and debris that will follow this flood.

  In other words, it requires millions upon millions of Americans to 
step forward. And yet a cursory review of the data demonstrates 
conclusively that because of legal threats, the number of volunteers is 
dropping. It is going in the wrong direction in terms of what General 
Powell and Presidents Clinton and Bush are asking. There are not more 
Americans stepping forward; there are less. And a principal reason 
there are less is that they do not mind volunteering, but they do mind 
putting their entire family's assets--their checking accounts, their 
home, their business--in a legal lottery.
  I told the story this morning of the situation where a charity, a 
nonprofit, had a gym for youth to use after school and a youngster 
broke his arm when he dropped the weights. The organization did not 
have any resources to speak of, but the volunteer receptionist did. 
Guess who got sued. Right, the volunteer receptionist. Those kinds of 
things get around, and before long you have more and more Americans 
saying, ``I want to volunteer, but I don't want to jeopardize my 
family.''

       General Powell said these children are at risk of growing 
     up physically or psychologically abused. They are at risk of 
     growing up addicted to the pathologies and the poisons of the 
     street. They are at risk of bringing children into the world 
     before they themselves have grown up. They are at risk of 
     never growing up at all.

  Madam President, I have been joined by two of my most esteemed 
colleagues, Senator Ashcroft of Missouri and Senator Thomas of Wyoming. 
I am going to call on Senator Ashcroft to make a few remarks, but I 
would just

[[Page S3834]]

like to remind the Senator and close on this point, that not only are 
we asking American volunteers in the summit to step forward in greater 
numbers but--and this is a key point we have not talked enough about--
we are asking them to be volunteers in very difficult environments--in 
poisonous streets, dangerous streets, where communications are 
difficult. In other words, where the threat of being liable for an 
error or mistake is probably many more times multiplied. This is not 
just asking volunteers to go on a fishing trip. We are asking 
volunteers to go into some very tough situations which only complicates 
and calls further on this Senate, this Congress to do something to give 
them some relief from the threat of everything they own being up for 
grabs.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  Mr. ASHCROFT addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri is recognized.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. I am deeply grateful for this opportunity to respond to 
the final point of the Senator from Georgia, who has pointed out that 
we need volunteers among the most needy and among the most deprived 
individuals in our culture, and those most needy and deprived 
individuals are the riskiest people to help.
  I cite this article which I hold in my hand on civil justice: ``A 
Thousand Points of Fright?''--f-r-i-g-h-t, not l-i-g-h-t. It is a 
scholarly work by David Webber. He writes that ``lawsuit fears are 
dampening the enthusiasm of volunteers.'' And he says, ``And the White 
House is beginning to take notice,'' which is constructive. I commend 
the White House. I commend the President for mobilizing the Presidents, 
to have the Presidents' summit on voluntarism.
  But one of the interesting things that the governmental relations 
director for the National PTA says is that ``we are just more conscious 
than ever before of litigious possibilities. The bad thing has been the 
chilling effect on activities we can sponsor, especially for high-risk 
kids--kids with handicaps--and child care programs.''
  What he has basically said is exactly what the Senator from Georgia 
was speaking of; that in the highest risk situations we have a chilling 
effect not only on volunteers but on programs, where you begin to see 
the withdrawals of programs, the programs that do not go into effect, 
the programs that do not exist, opportunities that are never 
capitalized on because of this sort of chill that comes from the 
litigious, as he calls it, possibilities.

  I must admit that frequently these possibilities do not result in a 
lawsuit with a verdict against the volunteer, but if you work as a 
volunteer and you are sued, it could cost you $10,000 just to defend 
the suit--$10,000. And, of course, you could have a judgment against 
you just as the Boy Scout leader from the Cascade Pacific Council had a 
verdict of $4 million against him, because you let the boys play touch 
football, or the Little League coach who, because he shifted the player 
from shortstop to left field, gets a judgment against him. I mean these 
volunteers obviously are going to think about what happens to their 
family. How can my kids go to school? I would love to help the world, 
but I have to protect my family.
  That would be a response you would have to commend in individuals, 
and yet it is not something we want in America. We do not want to have 
to choose between helping the world or protecting our families. We want 
to be able to say to a volunteer, you can do both. The genius of 
America is that we do not have to be selfish in order to protect our 
families. The genius of America is that we have always been able to 
help each other, while we have protected our families.

  The kinds of lawsuits that we have seen are just incredible. A 14-
year-old boy was sliding into home plate head first when he collided 
with the catcher. The catcher had blocked the plate as instructed. 
Catchers are always instructed to block the plate. In the rules of 
baseball, it is the only position where you are entitled to stand in 
front of the plate without the ball. But the catcher had blocked the 
plate and, unfortunately, there was a neck injury. Although plaintiff 
came to the league sliding head first, and that was the way he liked to 
play baseball, the volunteer coaches were found negligent for not being 
able to adjust the way the child slided--slid. I sound like Dizzy Dean, 
who used to say ``slud into second.'' But volunteer coaches were held 
negligent for not instructing the player on proper sliding techniques 
and failing to warn of the danger created by sliding into home plate 
head first. Of course, the player obviously watched major league player 
after major league player, role models all--and they should be, many of 
them great folks--sliding in head first.
  I wonder about asking people to volunteer to coach these children, so 
many of them without dads in their own homes, so many of them at-risk 
kids, doing their best to provide them enthusiasm for their sport, and 
restraints so as to protect themselves. And, when there is an injury, 
having that kind of lawsuit. So many of our volunteers are around 
sports--you wonder about the kind of lawsuits that surround sports.
  Here is one that really stunned me. It was a part-time official who 
was asked to officiate in a crucial Big Ten basketball game. At the 
last second he called a foul that gave one of the teams a victory. He 
called them like he saw them. It switched the victory. A souvenir 
company that had anticipated the victory by the other team sued the 
official, challenging his call with a $175,000 negligence suit claiming 
he had wrongfully harmed the souvenir company's ability to sell their 
souvenirs. The official won the lawsuit. So let us just lay that to 
rest, the official won the lawsuit. But only after a 2-year court 
battle that went all the way to the Iowa Supreme Court.
  Do you know what it takes, in terms of resources, to take a court 
battle to the supreme court of one of our States? I mean, it takes more 
than it takes to send a kid to college. It takes more than it takes to 
have family vacations. It takes more than it takes for some families to 
buy a home. It certainly takes more than it takes even for the 
wealthiest families, almost, to have a downpayment on a home. We ask 
people to volunteer in these kinds of settings. It seems to me we ought 
to have some protection for them.
  Here is another one that caught my eye. I should not say ``caught my 
eye,'' because this is about a person who was hit in the eye, a catcher 
in a softball game. He was playing without a mask. The umpire had a 
mask. The catcher got hit in the eye. He sued the umpire because the 
umpire had not given him his mask. The catcher walked away with a 
$24,000 settlement.
  We are asking people to volunteer. I think the President is doing the 
right thing. There is absolutely no question in my mind that he is 
calling America to greatness, a greatness that reflects the character 
of the fact that we care for each other. That is what America is all 
about. It is what sent de Tocqueville back to France, 150 years ago, 
exclaiming about the virtue of America. He said it was not to be found 
in the corridors of the bureaucracy or the Halls of the Congress. He 
said it was to be found in the people. He said America is great because 
America is good.
  We want the goodness of America to be reflected again in this 
country. We want the capacity of people to identify with each other, to 
love each other--literally love each other enough to say I am not just 
content to work with my own kids, I am going to work with the kids in 
the neighborhood and some kids who are not as fortunate as mine. Maybe 
they are kids who have lost their mom or dad, for one reason or 
another. That kind of tragedy has touched my family and it has touched 
most of the people in this country, and we want the loving character of 
American citizens to be available and we do not want it to be 
inhibited. We do not want it to be so you cannot volunteer.

  I think about those women in Evanston, IL, who wanted to set up the 
home for battered women. They could not get insurance because of the 
litigation potential. All the insurance companies said you have to 
operate for 3 years without insurance before we can determine whether 
or not we will insure you. So nobody could risk their own family in 
order to help other people. They did not want their own homes to be 
taken in order to provide a home for someone else. So we end up not 
having that extension of compassion in our culture.
  I do not think there is any President who has more successfully said 
to the

[[Page S3835]]

people in this country, ``I feel your pain.'' He says it with 
sincerity, and I believe he does. He has a great capacity to empathize. 
And he has called this country to feel it, to feel the opportunity and 
respond to the opportunity to help one another. And we have a great 
opportunity to say we are going to take a big roadblock out of the way.
  I started out by referring to this article, ``A Thousand Points of 
Fright?'', saying the most difficult to help are the riskiest to help. 
And they need help badly. We have this barrier standing in the way. We 
have gone through examples. I guess we could tell stories about these 
lawsuits until the cows came home--at least that's a phrase my aunt 
used to use--but the truth of the matter is, this is important. It was 
important enough for the four previous Presidents of the United States 
to join the current President of the United States and one of the 
greatest military heroes of our age, to join the whole effort and to 
galvanize public opinion to try to say we need volunteers.
  It is a little bit confounding, to think there are those in this body 
who want to stop us from considering--who do not even want us to have a 
chance to debate and vote on an issue like giving volunteers this kind 
of break.
  I do not know how anybody could say we want to make sure that a 
person who volunteers has the potential to be sued and harassed. I 
notice that a former Attorney General of the United States, Dick 
Thornburgh, wrote an opinion piece for one of our major newspapers. He 
said: ``If you are sued, the average cost to defend yourself--'' in a 
case not involving a car, car cases cost a lot of money, usually--``is 
$7,500.'' There isn't anybody who can afford that and that is the 
average cost. That includes the cases that are dismissed.
  I think it is time for us to say we want more volunteers, we want to 
cooperate with the President, we want America to be what America has 
the character to be. It is time for us to respond to the people. We 
need to respond to the people by inviting them to have the kind of 
caring compassion reflected in voluntarism. It is the least we can do 
to pull the roadblocks out of their way and make a clear path for 
Americans to care for each other.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia is recognized.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Madam President, I appreciate very much the remarks by 
the Senator from Missouri. As usual they are most eloquent and 
inspirational and on target. I appreciate very much his coming to the 
floor and sharing his views on S. 543, of which he is a principal 
cosponsor.
  Madam President, I return to the point I was making a moment ago 
about what the Nation was being implored to do by General Powell and 
the President. Most of these initial quotes are from General Powell. He 
points out that President Clinton appointed General Powell as general 
chairman of the President's Summit for America's Future and the former 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff pledged to ensure that ``promises 
made during the celebrity-packed event are fulfilled long after the 
hoopla is over.''
  Madam President, the hoopla is over. It is time, frankly, for all of 
these officials to send a message here, I think, that we need to take 
this affirmative step. It is a perfect affirmative step for us to take, 
following the glorious visuals, and get down to the real grassroots 
practicals, which are the protection, as framed in S. 543, of 
volunteers, so that they are able to respond to the hoopla. Down in my 
part of the country, they say this is now where ``the rubber hits the 
road.'' It is no longer the glory of the balloons and television. We 
are talking about the real, practical efforts that have to take place 
on the ground to make it possible for volunteers to renew America's 
volunteer spirit.

       The President went on to say to General Powell: ``This may 
     be your most important mission and I thank you for 
     reenlisting.'' The few thousand delegates from across the 
     Nation who were seated on the lawn outside the historic 
     structure, rose to their feet in applause.

  It is obvious that the inspirational moment was infectious. How often 
have we witnessed a gathering like this, raising the expectations, 
lifting the heart, bringing a nation to its feet--an exhilarating 
moment, only to find 3 months later or 6 months later that the issue 
disappeared with the last hand clap, that all the expectations that 
were being sought were forgotten after everybody got back on the plane, 
got back home. We do not want that to be the legacy of this summit. 
Congress ought to step forward, not only on the proposal that I and 
others have offered here, which alleviates, and creates a shield, 
protects the volunteers, makes it possible for them to answer this call 
and to be a piece of this applause, to be an extension of this 
applause.
  There are many things we ought to do to expand voluntarism in 
America, and make it easier and more readily doable. But an absolute 
must, as a beginning, Madam President, is that we remove the chill and 
legal intimidation that has caused a dramatic drop in the number of 
Americans who will answer the call, that have left doubt in volunteers 
about what they do. Even if they answer the call, the way they respond 
to their activity is changed and altered by this legal chill that hangs 
over voluntarism in America.
  It goes on to say:

       By encouraging volunteering, the President is trying to 
     promote positive change in American society at a time when 
     the Congress and bipartisan emphasis on balancing the Federal 
     budget make it politically difficult, if not impossible, to 
     create new Government programs to address the country's 
     pressing social problems.

  This is an appropriate response. This is exactly correct. America's 
financial predicament does not allow us to do some of the things we 
have done in the past, and America must call on its citizens to help 
fill the gaps.
  This is not a new experience for America. America was founded in 
times of austere circumstances for most Americans, and it was in that 
era that the concept of American voluntarism was born. So we are not 
creating a new phenomenon here; we are simply returning to our roots.
  Everybody remembers--we have either seen it or read about it--the 
volunteer coming to the aid of a family that was damaged by some 
accident or problem in the rural area of our country--the barn 
building, the coming together in any kind of need to help families, 
community members. As I said earlier, this is as much a part of 
America's treasure as its Capitol, as its monuments, as its parks. 
Voluntarism is a unique feature of American life, and it ought to be 
nurtured and protected, just as we do the other American treasures, 
like the way we care for this Capitol. This is the Capitol of the 
United States, the capital of the free world, and it is an expression 
of who we are as a people, and we care for it. We should be every bit 
as attentive to our concern about the treasure that voluntarism makes 
for America.
  There is no way to ever calculate the value of what American 
voluntarism has meant to our country in any given year. It is billions 
upon billions of dollars that are freely given and invested to help the 
country be a better place. But I think the connection that the 
President makes between the need for voluntarism and the financial 
predicament the country faces is correct.
  This is a difficult time. This is a time of shrinking resources. Our 
generation of Americans has to confront decisions that were made over 
the last three decades that have left our generation to deal with over 
$5 trillion worth of debt and to deal with promises that, unmanaged, 
will consume 100 percent of the U.S. Treasury within 8 years.
  Let me repeat that. Our basic entitlement programs already consume 
over 50 percent of the U.S. Treasury, which is a dramatic increase from 
when I arrived just 4 years ago. It is spiraling upward. So it is 
absolutely correct for the President to make a linkage between the 
financial condition of the country and the need to reach out and get 
Americans to do things on their own accord that the Government can no 
longer do--maybe one can argue never should have done in the first 
place. I am sure part of the reason voluntarism has been weakened is 
because there has been a message that has been reverberating around the 
country for about 25 years that the final resolution of all of our 
community ills ought to be the Government. I think we are learning that 
that is not, and has never been, the case.
  The final resolution of many of our ills rests with the people 
themselves. A key component of that is the American spirit and the 
American willingness to volunteer.

[[Page S3836]]

  The President goes on and says:

       The era of big Government may be over, but the era of big 
     challenges for our country is not.

  I think every American would agree with that.
  ``So we need an era of big citizenship,'' the President said in 
Philadelphia. ``We need an era of big citizenship.''
  I certainly agree with that, and I think every Member of Congress 
would agree with that. But while the Government may not be able to do 
some of the things it used to do, the Government certainly should not 
be an impediment to big citizenship. The Government ought not to be 
throttling attempts to make it easier to be a forthcoming citizen.
  Frankly, I don't think the Government should be engaged in a 
filibuster that prevents our moving legislation that would make it 
dramatically and clearly easier to be a part of the era of big 
citizenship.
  General Powell, who has experience orchestrating successful 
operations, has made it his own personal crusade to recruit an army of 
millions of volunteers around the country. He has committed himself to 
being able to certify by the year 2000 that the 2 million children 
lacking mentoring, safe places to play and learn, health care, 
marketable skills, and a good education will have those needs met.
  Once again, he alludes to the point that I have mentioned several 
times this afternoon. Safe places to play begs the question that many 
of them do not have safe places to play today. They are dangerous 
places, and being dangerous, they are more likely to be places in which 
accidents and mistakes and misunderstandings occur. In other words, 
this is not your normal playground. This may be a rough-edge community 
which you are asking the volunteer to enter, to subject themselves.
  A more dangerous place means it is fraught with the potential of 
legal action. So we are asking these millions of volunteers not only to 
come forward, but to come forward into environments that are less 
predictable and, therefore, create a greater risk for the volunteer.
  I mentioned earlier today, Madam President, that the need for this 
legislation is fairly new; that we did not have a problem of volunteers 
being sued until we got into the eighties. Suddenly they became 
targets, and once you get something like that started, it feeds on 
itself, and it has. So the lawsuits have grown, and the threat has 
grown.
  Now we are saying, in this environment where litigation is more 
prevalent, on top of that, we want you to go into a more difficult 
environment. Well, there is an incongruity here. As a result of this 
exchange, one of my first acts will be to communicate to General Powell 
that we need his help to convince this Congress that they need to 
remove barriers so that he can get his 2 million volunteers to come 
forward.
  Madam President, the hour is now 20 till 4. We have now been on this 
since 2 o'clock last Monday, this 12-page bill, double spaced, and we 
continue to be prohibited from actually going to the debate. We will 
revisit this, but for the moment, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Faircloth). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________