[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 67 (Friday, May 22, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5426-S5427]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         THE WORK OF THE SENATE

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, this week we conclude another work period 
by disappointing the American people. We recess, again, without 
concluding the people's business and passing a strong tobacco bill. 
Tobacco legislation is now added to the litany of important matters the 
Congress has left unfinished.
  Last month, the Congress adjourned without even completing the 
federal budget and this month we recess, again, without concluding even 
that basic action.
  Most Americans think of April 15 as the day that they file their tax 
returns and pay their taxes, and most Americans dutifully collect their 
financial records and go through the sometimes arduous task of 
preparing their tax returns. I hope that next year and in the years 
ahead that task will be made a little easier by legislation I have 
sponsored to require the IRS to post information and forms on the 
Internet, along with regulations and rulings.
  Well, April 15 was also the legal deadline for Congress to have 
passed a budget resolution. While the Senate did some preliminary work 
on a flawed proposal earlier this year, Congress is recessing, again, 
without completing this fundamental task--another duty ignored, another 
legal requirement violated.
  I hope that as Congress returns from its Memorial Day break it will 
complete work on a balanced budget to serve the American people without 
additional delay. It should be balanced in two senses: It should be a 
balanced series of proposals to meet the health, education, 
environmental and law enforcement needs of the country. And it will 
also, for the first time in almost three decades, be a balanced budget 
that will not rely on deficit financing.
  I recall all too well last year when we were told that we could never 
achieve a balanced budget without a constitutional amendment. I recall 
the stacks of deficit-laden federal budgets proposed by Republican and 
Democratic Presidents since President Johnson and being told that the 
only answer to annual budget deficits was to pass an ill-conceived 
constitutional amendment whose terms and effects could not be 
explained. I defended the Constitution then and this year President 
Clinton sent us the first balanced budget in almost 30 years.
  With the cooperation of the Republican leadership in the Congress we 
can enact the first balanced budget since 1969, and we will have done 
it without inserting a fiscal straightjacket into the text of the 
United States Constitution. They said it could not be done, but it can 
and will as a result of the sound fiscal policies of this 
Administration which have lead not only to balance but to the prospect 
of budget surplus. In 1993, a Democratic Congress put us on the right 
road to fiscal responsibility when we took the hard votes and passed 
the President's plan. Congress should culminate that extraordinary 5-
year effort without further delay.
  Completing action on the budget is the first step toward Congress 
taking action on the annual appropriations bills that are so important 
to the government programs that protect the environment and assist 
State and local governments with education and law enforcement. 
Republican Congressional leadership is well-known for shutting down the 
government by not completing work on these basic measures in a timely 
way.
  Those contracting with the government, working in partnership with 
government services and those dependent on government services deserve 
better. Americans deserve piece of mind and the assurances that their 
government is working. Congress needs to complete its appropriations so 
that the agencies and service providers can plan programs, pay staff 
and work with the American public in an effective manner.
  It is high time for the congressional leadership to do its job and 
for the Congress to get on about the business of governing.
  Congress should not be taking breaks without having completed the 
work of the people. Such callous disregard for the needs of the 
American people has become too much the rule as year after year under 
Republican leadership Congress recesses without having completed its 
work on emergency supplementals, budgets, and appropriations bills.
  The Senate has also failed to take action to end the judicial 
emergency in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. 
On March 25, the five continuing vacancies on the 13-member court 
caused Chief Judge Ralph Winter to certify a Circuit emergency, to 
begin canceling hearings and to take the unprecedented step of having 
3-judge panels convened that include only one Second Circuit judge.
  I have been urging favorable Senate action on the nomination of Judge 
Sonia Sotomayor to the Second Circuit to fill a longstanding vacancy. 
That nomination remains stalled on the Senate calendar. Before the last 
recess I introduced legislation calling upon the Senate to address this 
kind of judicial emergency before it takes another extended recess. The 
Senate has pending before it four outstanding nominees to the Second 
Circuit whose confirmations would end this crisis.
  Unfortunately Republican Senate leadership has not taken the judicial 
vacancies crisis seriously and has failed to take the concerted action 
needed to end it. They continue to perpetuate vacancies in almost one 
in 10 federal judgeships.
  With 11 nominees on the Senate calendar and 32 pending in Committee, 
we could be making a difference if we would take our responsibilities 
to the federal courts seriously and devote the time necessary to 
consider these nominations and confirm them. Instead, we are having 
hearings at a rate of one a month, barely keeping up with attrition and 
hardly making a dent in the vacancies crisis that the Chief Justice of 
the United States has called the most serious problem confronting the 
judiciary.
  We began this legislative year prepared finally to make progress on 
issues like campaign finance reform, tobacco legislation and juvenile 
crime legislation. Republican leadership has lead to inaction on all 
three.
  On the issue of campaign finance reform, Democrats and some notable 
Republicans have been prepared to attack the soft money that so 
pervades the current system. Rather than close the loopholes and 
correct the system, the Republican leadership has chosen to close the 
debate and perpetuate the status quo.
  On tobacco legislation, we have an important opportunity to make real 
progress. Now that the courts have moved to disclose the secret 
documents from the industry's efforts to hide the nature of nicotine 
addiction and their marketing efforts to children, now that the tobacco 
companies' lobbying stranglehold on Congress has been loosened, and now 
that we have demonstrated that the majority of the Senate agrees with 
Senator Gregg and me that we need not grant special legal protections 
to tobacco companies in order to enact legislation that can make a 
difference, it is time for the Senate to move forward. We should be 
passing strong tobacco legislation.
  Since the first week of the year I have been urging attention to the 
matter of juvenile crime. When the Judiciary Committee reported a 
misguided bill last year, I noted the improvements that had been made 
in the Committee's consideration and the aspects that needed to change 
for us to develop a legislative consensus that could help State and 
local law enforcement in the battle against juvenile crime.
  We have heard for months this would be a priority this Congress. 
Instead of

[[Page S5427]]

reaching across the aisle and working to develop a consensus, some have 
limited themselves to Republican-only Dear Colleague letters and 
seeking to pick off a few Democratic allies. Juvenile crime should not 
be a Republican or Democratic issue. There are things we can do to 
assist State and local law enforcement without partisanship and by 
consensus.
  Afterschool programs and crime prevention programs should be central 
to those efforts. I hope that the Senate Republican leadership will 
join in a truly bipartisan effort.
  We still face the same problems and challenges with which we began 
the year. We need to make progress on encryption policy and we need to 
promote personal privacy in the electronic age.
  Given the lack of attention to congressional responsibilities and the 
real problems of working families in the first half of this session, I 
fear what the remainder of this year may hold.
  I expect the Republican leadership will find time for some carefully 
choreographed media efforts and will make time for more personal 
attacks against the President and the First Lady. In an election year, 
I will not be surprised if they look to rewrite the Constitution of the 
United States through a series of popular-sounding amendments.
  I hope that the Republican majority will find the time to make 
progress on the legislative agenda that can make a difference in the 
lives of American people and lead to economic opportunity in the coming 
century.

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