[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 74 (Thursday, May 20, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H3449-H3456]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         CRISIS IN OUR SCHOOLS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Emerson). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. STUPAK. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from 
Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), the Democratic leader, for those words. And I 
would also like the Record to note that earlier today, when we finished 
business, that the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) also came down 
and spoke about recent shootings and tragedies facing this country.
  I want to speak tonight, as the Speaker's designee in our special 
order, about what we Democrats as a party have been trying to do here 
to address this very, very serious national crisis, as the gentleman 
from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), our Democratic leader, stated.
  But what we say here tonight, I want everyone to understand, is not a 
Democratic or Republican issue. We want to work with both sides to try 
to bring some consensus if we can on things that we should take as a 
Nation. But I think it is important for us to understand where some of 
us see as where we are going.
  And things I say here tonight are my beliefs as the convening chair 
of the Crime and Drug Task Force for the Democrats, not just this 
Congress but the past Congress, and does not necessarily reflect the 
views of everybody in our caucus. And I am sure they do not reflect the 
views of my Republican friends.
  But some of us are beginning to sit back and try to meet individually 
and bipartisan; and, as a Democratic caucus, we have been convening the 
chairs of the Education Task Force, the Health and Human Services Task 
Force, of the Crime and Drug Task Force and we have been meeting.
  We were meeting before the tragedy of a month ago out in Colorado and 
really since the first of the year really. We had numerous meetings. In 
fact, today we had another one that we convened and tried to kick 
around more and more ideas and bounce ideas off people. I know many of 
us, both Democrats and Republicans, have been in schools and talking 
with teachers and parents and what can we could.
  As the convening chair, my qualifications before I came into the U.S. 
Congress was I was a police officer for 12 years as a city police 
officer and as a Michigan State police trooper and worked with 
juveniles, worked in juvenile crime areas, and taught criminal 
investigations at the academies and constitutional law and everything 
else. And the school violence issue that has swept across the Nation 
the last 18 months, it is hard to put into words how it has torn at so 
many of us and how do we best address it.
  What we have found through all of the meetings, through everything 
that has happened, even with the shootings today in Conyers, Georgia, I 
think the only thing we can see say is this is a very complex issue and 
there is no single solution, there is no magic program that we can pass 
that would solve this. And we have got to get past blame games.
  I know the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), the Democratic 
leader, again has asked the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) to 
try to put together a bipartisan group. And I hope we can do that.
  As we looked at what has happened, many of us see America has become 
alienated from each other. We see increases in hate crimes. For our 
children, we see and the experts tell us that we spend over the last 15 
years one-third less time with our children than we did 15 years ago. 
So there is maybe less structure, maybe less discipline there, less 
guidance for our children.
  For our children, the alienation that we see is now surfacing in 
schools. Society's problems are beginning to surface in schools. And 
even from our own leadership, I think when we have disputes on the 
floor which end in harsh words amongst each other does not speak well 
of the House as a whole or elected leaders and contributes to that 
alienation.
  It is time for people to come together to try to reconcile our 
differences, the ill will that exists not only on the House floor of 
the U.S. Congress but the ill will that may exist in our families, our 
homes, our schools, our communities, our leaders, and even within 
ourselves.
  So how do we end alienation and begin reconciliation to end the 
school and personal violence that we see that is gripping the headlines 
every night? How we do it is probably as varied as America. What works 
in North Carolina may not work in Michigan. Or we know the program that 
may work in North Carolina, character education, as they tell me, we 
may know it by a different name in Michigan where I represent. But what 
works in my northern rural district certainly will not work in the 
inner cities of our great cities.

                              {time}  1800

  But what we understand is this. We understand that 100,000 weapons, 
be it guns or knives, come to school each day. We know that there are 
four times more guns out there, handguns, than there are children going 
to school, so there is access to guns readily available. We know as the 
Democratic leader said, there are 13 deaths per day of young people in 
America. We know that school psychologists tell us that probably 20 
percent of the kids, students from K through 12 probably 20 percent of 
them need some help in dealing with problems at home, call it mental 
health problems, if you will. They also tell us that 3 to 6 percent of 
the students in our schools have severe mental health problems.
  So when children lash out with those statistics, with the ready 
availability of weapons coming to and from school, you can see how the 
violence erupts and comes out and we see the headlines we see each and 
every day. We ask the statisticians and others in our meetings, is 
there a large enough sample of violence with the shootings that have 
occurred in the last 18 months, enough of a sample to say, are there 
similar characteristics of school violence in America? They have told 
us, no, the

[[Page H3450]]

sample is not large enough, that any kind of conclusions you may draw 
from the incidents may very well be skewed because they have been 
small.
  Let us hope the sample does not get any larger. But we should not 
wait until there is enough violence in our schools to say, ``Okay, now 
we have enough sample, what can we do?'' I think there is enough for us 
to work together as Democrats and Republicans to come together and 
start to look at what can we do.
  There have been many ideas kicked around. I would just like to share 
some of them tonight, not that any one of these ideas would be a 
solution but at least I want the Congress and the American people to 
know we are thinking, we are looking, we are probing, we are asking the 
questions and we need your input. Many of us feel that maybe there 
should be a national commission to examine not just the short-term but 
what are the long-term impacts, what is the long-term approach that we 
want to take here?
  It seems like violence in America is constantly shifting. Maybe we 
need a national focus, much like maybe the Carter Commission we had in 
the late 1960s to address the problems facing the country then that 
actually put forth some proposals and some solutions. How do schools 
and communities access what may work or may not work? What ideas are 
out there? How do they reach out? You have so many programs going on in 
the Federal and State governments and Department of Education and 
Department of Justice and the Health and Human Services and public 
health, can we not somehow put these programs under an umbrella so 
schools can easily access to learn what is working in northern Michigan 
that may work in southern California. Can we have a national 
clearinghouse? Can we be under a commission and an agency? Can we do a 
one-stop shopping area, if you will, so we know what is working?
  We have plenty of studies out there across this country that says 
this works up here in Boston, Massachusetts, or character education 
based on this model will work in North Carolina, or school resource 
officers work in Michigan. How do we allow everyone to access it? New 
Jersey has a program called crisis intervention officers. Is that 
different from a school resource officer which is really community 
policing where parents and teachers and students work together in a 
partnership to keep down crime and violence in the schools.
  We have met with former pro football star Jim Brown. His program 
Ameri-Can is a great program that may help us and is being used in 14 
different States right now to address after-school problems and self-
esteem that young people need. His program looks like one that may 
work. It may not work again in my northern Michigan area but it 
certainly is one we should look at. Each community, each State is 
unique unto themselves, but as we have seen in the last 18 months, we 
are all subject to the same violence in families and in schools and 
communities.
  From the victims families, from all the folks we have had a chance to 
talk to, it seems there is a lot of confusion and hopelessness and 
despair out there. As I said, there is no simple solution. There is no 
political quick fix. We need vision. That is why I was so pleased today 
to see both the Democratic leader and the Speaker speaking of a 
willingness to work together and a need of a vision in this country, an 
action and a long-term commitment. Unfortunately in the United States 
Congress, we authorize and pass programs that will last for 1 year or 
we do a pilot program for a year or two. Then if it looks pretty good, 
we will use a 3-year program or a 5-year program. But I think we need a 
long-term commitment here. We need at least a commitment of a 
generation. I think it is incumbent upon this generation to start 
putting forth and thinking long-term so we can save not only this but 
also future generations.
  As I said earlier, the family situations, the situations that we see 
in school are reflective of so many families that are surfacing in the 
schools. So you cannot say it is a State issue. You cannot say it is a 
local issue. I think the Federal Government must show some resolve. By 
that, we in the Democratic Party believe that it is not just something 
that we pass a program and then block grant it to the States. We at the 
Federal level must show the resolve. We cannot shirk from this 
responsibility. We just cannot block grant away another national 
problem.
  This is a national problem and it is begging for a national solution. 
But if you are going to get at the root of the problem, I think you 
have to strike at maybe four main elements we have seen, we have looked 
at, we have studied, we have discussed in our many meetings and 
discussions with experts. It is what is happening in our communities, 
what is happening in our homes, what is happening in schools and yes, 
what is even happening with the proliferation of guns when we have four 
handguns for every student going to school floating around these 
communities, the easy accessibility of them. Do you address all four of 
them? I think you have to address all four because all are 
interrelated. They are interconnected. All are branches, if you will, 
on a tree that combine to form a trunk or the base but underneath there 
lie the roots and the roots which anchor the tree, the forbidden tree, 
if you will, the anchor of school violence and death that we have 
unfortunately seen once again here today. The branches on this tree, be 
it guns, schools and communities or the home, look remarkably similar, 
and it probably should, because it is us. It is really America. It is 
what we teach. It is what we teach the baby roots, our children, if you 
will. So when they grow, they become the anchor of the tree of school 
violence and death.
  So let us not fail to see the forest but for the trees and let us not 
fail to see America for the violence we are experiencing because 
America is the greatest country there has ever been. We have an 
opportunity here now to stop and look at what is going on in this 
country, in our communities, in our schools,  in our homes, and what 
can we do as a Nation? The violence, we just cannot look at it in other 
people. We have to look within ourselves. Because the violence is 
ingrained. It is not just what we do or what we say, but I think we 
also have to go beyond that and the violence or the signals we send can 
also be caused by what we do not do or what we do not say. By what we 
do, like reconcile differences within our homes, our families and our 
schools and our communities would be a start. So where do we start? If 
we focus with the schools, as I said earlier, I believe society's 
problems are surfacing here, for all to see, to place our sons and 
daughters and children in with the schools, let us focus on the schools 
and what should we be advocating, what should we be doing? Again, there 
is no simple program to pass, if the Congress would pass it and fund 
it, it would go away. Congress cannot reconcile America's alienation 
within the family or within each of us, but we certainly can encourage 
you, support you and assist you. And here are some of the ways some of 
us believe we should start. The Federal Head Start program. Can we not 
expand that program? Many of us for years have said, look, at 3 to 5 
years old, they should be in Head Start. We should fully fund it. But 
if we expand that program, can we not teach mandatory in the curriculum 
violence prevention and conflict resolution? Why can we not take that 
one and expand it? It has been interesting as we have had the Law 
Enforcement Caucus, we have had experts in many times and it has been 
interesting that the larger cities have noticed the problems they were 
having in their schools and part of their curriculum is violence 
prevention and conflict resolution. It is interesting to note it has 
not been the larger school districts that we see that are having the 
violence that we have been witnessing lately. Maybe there is something 
there that we should teach and why not start it at the Federal Head 
Start program? We have the healthy child program. It is a program that 
coupled aspects of it, last year in the balanced budget agreement, we 
put in CHIPs, Children's Health Initiative Program, CHIPs as we call it 
for short. That was to help young people who do not have health 
insurance have health insurance. In the State of Michigan, we are like 
20,000 applications behind. People are waiting 6 months to access this 
program. They are either going to be in the Medicaid program or the 
CHIPs program. Why do they have to wait 6 months? Why are we 20,000 
applications behind, when I was bringing it up with

[[Page H3451]]

the governors representatives and then we really do not have a good 
idea or a good answer on why they cannot expedite the program and 
provide it to these people, to the young people who are uninsured, 
especially when we talk about the mental health provisions that 20 
percent of the students are coming to school with mental health 
problems or difficulties or need someone to talk to and 3 to 6 percent 
of them have severe mental health, how come we are not addressing that? 
Why are we not expanding these programs to address these needs? If you 
take the K through 12, we have heard from school counselors and 
probably everybody across America says, ``Yeah, I know a school 
counselor,'' but when you talk to the counselors, we say what are you 
doing, are you there to counsel, are you there to help, are you there 
to be there for the students, to interact with them. Basically they 
tell us, ``Well, we really don't have time because we're busy with the 
busing schedule,'' or ``We're busy doing the curriculum,'' or ``We're 
busy preparing the students for the next round of testing going on by 
this group or that group or the State,'' or ``We just really are 
helping the students who want to go on to college with their college 
applications and things like this.'' The counseling that we envisioned 
or we saw when we were in school just is not there anymore. So if the 
counseling, be it nurses, psychologists, school resource officers, 
crisis intervention officers, counselors, cops in the schools, should 
we not make sure that if they are going to do this, they have the 
opportunity to do it and not get bogged down and not be utilized for 
busing or for curriculum development or testing or college 
applications? Should they not really have it, should there not be a 
professional staff that could help there? And should that not in order 
to protect them from the budget cuts that occur all the time as local 
taxpayers struggle to keep their millage rates low to provide a quality 
education? If they are the first people who are cut every time there is 
a budget cut, is there a place then for the Federal Government to step 
forward and say, look, if there are going to be professional staff, 
should the Federal Government not at least put forth the majority of 
their salary so they are not subject to these cutbacks, so they can be 
there to interact?

  And what about before and after school programs? Everyone tells us 
that the juvenile crime rate is the highest between 4 o'clock and 8 
p.m. at night when the students are out of school and they have idle 
time on their hands. Can we not have programs? I have often wondered 
why these so-called after-school programs are only run during school 
but when young people are out and about the most during the summer, 
there is no program. Should there not really be a year-round program 
for them? Should cities or schools not do sponsorship? Like in our city 
we have the summer recreation program but after school starts, what 
about those who are no longer in sports, what is for them? In my 
hometown after that?
  Again can we use these professional Federal staff people to assist 
there? That is something I think we should take a look at. We talked a 
lot about school hot lines. School hot lines, ones that have been used 
out East here quite a bit with some success. Those were the school hot 
lines we talked about the student using if they have a concern, be it 
safety or just a concern, they can use the hotline to call in and 
someone would get back with them, be it one of those counselors or 
nurses or crisis intervention people or school resource officers.
  With the recent incidents from Colorado and now too in Georgia, the 
superintendents are telling us and even in my district, even last 
Monday we had another bomb threat, how do you crack down on that if you 
have a hotline? Does that become the hotline for the bomb threats or 
the assaults or alleged assaults on the school? Then do you put in the 
caller ID? Can you crew the trap lines? Can you backtrack it, to cut 
down on these? And why could the hotline not be a parent's link to the 
school to see what is going on in the school, what events are going on, 
what is the drama club doing, what is their next event? Also why can 
the homework assignments not be there so the parents know if there is 
homework assignments, so they can take an active role in there?
  Another suggestion we have heard in our many, many meetings is why 
can we not do hold and safe rooms? Hold and safe rooms is, I mentioned 
earlier, 100,000 weapons come to school every day with young people. If 
you are with a weapon in school, what happens? Do you hopefully not 
like what happened in one school shooting incident where the student 
came with a weapon in school, was sent home, got more weapons and 
unfortunately violence erupted.

                              {time}  1815

  So holding safe rooms, should each district have one, have one 
designated, that is a program that does not even cost anything, but 
what it tells us is a student comes here with a weapon, we are just not 
going to release them back into the community without holding them and 
making sure they are safe and making sure all precautions are taken to 
protect that student, other students and the community itself.
  And what if the student is removed from school? I have heard 
governors say throughout this great Nation of ours, that first student 
that comes to a class with a weapon, just throw them out of school, no 
questions asked. Then where does it go? Where does the student go? Back 
into our communities? Do they work? Where do they go?
  There is nothing to help them, and just letting them loose back into 
the community does not seem to be the answer of all we have seen in 
these recent months, in the last 2 years. So some States have what they 
call alternative schools. Some of us like to call them reentry schools.
  And if you are going to be suspended for whatever, be it weapons or 
whatever it may be, why not, before you come back into your school, 
there is a reentry which must address the reasons for your suspension, 
and especially if it had something to do with weapons or drugs or 
alcohol. Let us answer, let us answer those questions before you 
reenter.
  I indicated earlier that guns unfortunately are readily accessible 
and four guns for every one student we have, and 100,000 weapons come 
to school a day, and we have 13 deaths a day of young people. How do 
you begin to address that? If you are going to start addressing 
legislation such as that, I think not only you have to address what is 
happening in communities but also in our homes.
  And in the last week you have seen many dramatic votes in the Senate 
on it, everything from 21 years old to purchase hand guns to closing 
the Brady loophole on checks at gun shows and pawn shops and child 
safety locks and liability and storage, and these are things I think 
that we have to address and at least talk about. Whether you are a 
Democrat or Republican, conservative, liberal, it is something we have 
to have a discussion about, and hopefully it can be a meaningful 
discussion.
  We have talked, many of us, and I know even today the Speaker 
mentioned about ratings on games and Internet access and things like 
that; and besides all the meetings we have been having, we have been 
hearing articles and experts talk about are we really training our 
children to kill, and they talk about the desensitization which is 
going on with children.
  And many experts have said, and if I can quote from one or two 
articles, children do not naturally kill, they learn it from violence 
in the home, and most pervasively from violence as entertainment and 
television, movies and interactive video games. And they go on to say 
that every time a child plays an interactive video game, he is learning 
the exact same conditioned reflex skills as a soldier or a police 
officer in training.
  Mr. Speaker, every parent in America desperately wants to be warned 
of the impact of TV and other violent media on children, but 
unfortunately we have seen, I said on the Committee on Commerce, 
unfortunately we have seen a lot of our TV networks sort of stonewall 
what it really means in our key means of public education in America, 
and I hope we are not stonewalling them.
  These are all issues that we have been trying to address, and there 
have been again many, many articles that we have looked at, we have 
argued about, we have debated, and we continue to look for answers. As 
I said,

[[Page H3452]]

there is no one single program, there is no one single solution, there 
is no Democratic or Republican solution here. We must work together on 
this.
  As we talked about the counselors, there are about 90,000 counselors 
right now in America, and they are in the public schools from middle to 
high school. We have 90,000 counselors for 19.4 million students. That 
comes out to about 1 counselor for every 450 students.
  But as we spoke to those counselors and their representatives, they 
said, ``We do not get a chance to counsel anymore like we used to. We 
actually spend time,'' as I said earlier, ``helping on developing core 
curriculum, helping on the busing schedule, helping out with kids 
wanting to go on to college,'' and how do we help them out there, ``and 
just basically doing testing, testing, testing so our school scores 
well on the test so we can hopefully get more resources.'' But the kids 
are lost in the whole shuffle.
  So is it feasible to put in 100,000 more counselors, much as we did 
100,000 cops on the street, to stop this violence that we see in our 
schools? And if you looked at it, that would add about 100,000 more 
counselors, would bring it down to 1 to 250 students. But then we got 
to make sure those counselors are not bogged down doing busing, or 
testing, or core curriculum development, or college preparation.
  And what about after school programs? We think there are many of 
them, good programs that can work, whether it is Amer-I-Can or Boys and 
Girls Clubs or whatever, why can we not do those things?
  As my colleagues know, we just did an emergency supplemental 
appropriations that the President asked for $6 billion, ended up being 
$15 billion, and we passed that. Can we not put forth an emergency 
school supplemental appropriation?
  And what about family, school and teacher initiatives? Why can we not 
have these hot lines? Why can we not expand the family medical leave 
that we tried to do, to make it available so parents can go to school 
to spend some time with their children, whether or not, not just at 
report card time but other times? Why can we not expand that?
  These are just some of the ideas I said that have come out of the 
Democratic Caucus. We have been working on it since the first of the 
year. It has taken on new urgency with the situation in Colorado and 
again here today in Conyers, Georgia, but I want you to know that we 
have been working and thinking and trying to take your suggestions and 
ideas that have come from the American people and from the 
psychologists and National Education Association and American 
Federation of Teachers and everyone we met with, and as House Members 
we have even met with Senate Members. And again, we are all trying to 
pull together, and unfortunately today's incident once again leads me 
to come to the floor tonight to join with the Democratic leaders and 
others to try to talk about what we are doing, what we are doing.
  And I notice one of the leaders in this area, Mr. Roemer from 
Indiana, is here, and at this time I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. ROEMER. Mr. Speaker, first of all I want to thank my good friend, 
the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak), from the Midwest, right next 
to Indiana, my home State, for having this special order on a very, 
very important topic in America today. I want to commend our leader, 
the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) for taking the time to come 
to the floor to address this very, very important issue for all 
Americans in facing, and not only are we facing trying to come up with 
creative and bold and innovative solutions to make our schools better, 
we need to make our schools safer.

  I was sitting in my office just minutes ago making phone calls back 
home to Indiana to talk to and listen to farmers, and our farmers are 
going through a very difficult time in small town communities with the 
price of beans and corn and hogs being so low. And I was speaking with 
some of them, and some of them were saying, well, we are in danger of 
going out of business and we are having all kinds of problems in our 
small town communities, but we have our family and we have our 
children, and we will get through this.
  Imagine, imagine what some families in America are going through 
today in Paducah, in Jonesboro, in Springfield, in Littleton, in 
Georgia today, that had their children shot at school, have children 
injured and sent to the hospital, are scared about sending their 
children to a public school or a private school to get an education in 
America today. That is a compelling issue for this Congress to address 
and address in a bipartisan way, address in a thoughtful way, address 
in maybe a short term way but in also a long term way, with vision, 
with perspective, with a lot of thought and with, hopefully, a lot of 
answers.
  I cannot imagine, as a parent of three children, being in the shoes 
of some of the parents that are in these cities across America, in 
these suburbs across America, in these situations across America where 
their children are in danger, where their children are being harmed, 
where their children might be shot. And just on CNN tonight in a Gallup 
poll, they did a Gallup poll to 13 and 17-year-olds, asking our 13 and 
17-year-old children in schools today, ``Do you feel safe?'' Asking 
them what some of the biggest problems are in our schools: peer 
pressure and the cliques and standing up for what you think is right 
and against somebody putting down other students in very harmful and 
mean ways.
  But we have to get back, and I think my colleague from Michigan (Mr. 
Stupak) understands this, we have to get back in Congress to helping 
try to have a national dialogue, as education is the number one issue 
across America. Every single union hall I go into, it is the number one 
issue, every single business I go into it is the number one issue, 
every single home I knock on in Indiana it the number one issue.
  And now not only are we concerned with better schools, innovative 
schools, creative schools, helping with charter schools, helping with 
this Ed-Flex program that we just passed, but we must be concerned with 
safer schools. We cannot let this happen over and over and over again, 
from Arkansas to Mississippi to Kentucky to Colorado to Oregon to 
Georgia. We do not want this happening in Indiana, and I know in my 
good friend's home State of Michigan and Port Huron the other day we 
had another instance of potential violence.
  So I would hope that the Speaker and the Leader could get together, I 
would hope Democrats and Republicans could join together to discuss in 
a national way, with national dialogue and input from a lot of 
different sources, teachers and parents and principals and counselors, 
people that think that families are the number one concern and the 
number one answer, people that think that media violence is the number 
one concern and the number one answer, people that think that metal 
detectors and safety and security measures in schools are the number 
one concern and number one answer, people that think that there are too 
many guns in society.
  Mr. Speaker, let us have these debates. I do not necessarily think 
that we can legislate everything here to answer this compelling problem 
on the House floor, but we can talk about the importance of family and 
the role of bringing up our children, we can talk about how parents 
must be at that kitchen table and talking and listening to our 
children. We can talk about how this has to be done more in America. We 
can talk, and hopefully talk and respect the First Amendment about the 
number of media games, of games on the Internet that companies are 
putting out there for our children, that do not need to be sold to our 
children, that escalate the number of violent activities on the 
programs, that reward kids for the more people that they harm on these 
video games, the more points they get and the more harm they can do. We 
do not need to be selling those products to our children.
  And we can talk about some, yes, some answers that maybe Congress can 
come up with. We can talk about maybe some ways to put some programs 
together to allow our local schools to pick from a host of different 
answers, whether those answers be that the school picks from looking at 
putting more metal detectors in the schools, to having more counselors 
in the schools, to having more mental and psychiatric resources 
available in the schools, to more D.A.R.E. officers in the schools, to 
other proven research

[[Page H3453]]

methods that make our schools safer, allow our local schools to pick 
and choose as they should, as the local schools should do, from a host 
of different measures.

                              {time}  1830

  Let us in this great Chamber, where George Washington peers down on 
us and godly trust is above us, where we have had so many historic 
debates in this great place, let us discuss the issues of the day. Let 
us bring education front and forward to improve schools, to make them 
better and to use more creative approaches to do that, but also look at 
the safety issues, to look at what we need to do to give more 
assurances to our parents and our families, that our schools and the 
United States of America are going to be safe places for our children.
  We can do an emergency supplemental. If we can make that a priority 
in this country, and I voted for it, to make sure our troops have the 
resources overseas to be successful in battle, we should make sure that 
our families are talking about the right things. Where we can help, 
where we cannot, where we cannot legislate this, we can have a national 
dialogue, but we can talk about many of these other things here in this 
body, with Republicans and Democrats together, sharing in some of the 
answers, disagreeing maybe on some of the answers but at least 
proposing some solutions to these problems, with safety in our schools, 
with better schools in all of our neighborhoods across this great land.
  So I really want to say that there cannot be anything more important 
that we as a Congress can deal with in this session of Congress. There 
cannot be anything more important to parents than better schools and 
safer schools. There cannot be anything more important in the history 
of the country as we move into this new millennium than better and 
safer schools and Congress working together to improve those schools.
  So I just want to say, in just the few minutes that the gentleman 
from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) has the special order tonight, that I share 
in his concern; that I applaud his leadership on drawing many people 
together in the Democratic Caucus to look at a wide variety of answers, 
whether they be long-term answers, such as I think fully funding Head 
Start programs and preschool programs, long-term answers like helping 
our families, encouraging our families to stay together and not 
implode, looking at counselors and metal detectors and letting local 
schools pick from a host of solutions, but we need to draw people 
together in our caucus, we need to draw people together across both 
lines of our parties. We need to come together to discuss and debate 
these issues today, in America, at our kitchen tables, in our great 
halls for debate and help solve some of these problems.
  Again, I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) for 
having this special order. I again want to thank the gentleman from 
Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) for taking the time to come to the floor to 
talk about these issues, and I want to commend the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Stupak) for trying to put some packages together on the 
crime side, on the juvenile justice side, to also look at some 
solutions to these vexing and very important problems.
  Mr. STUPAK. I thank the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) for 
joining us tonight and thanks for coming down and joining us. As one of 
the leaders in the education field, as the gentleman has been, with a 
new Democratic coalition and others, we really appreciate the insight 
he has given us as to what works in Indiana, in his district, as I said 
earlier. What works in New Jersey or Michigan or wherever it might be, 
it may work in that community or that State unique unto itself but all 
of our communities in this country right now are basically subject to 
violence in families, in schools and communities. No matter how one 
cuts it, no matter where one stands on the issues, there just seem to 
be so many weapons available and so much alienation out there and so 
many opportunities for violence. I am sure if the gentleman looks 
closer in his polling results that he has seen, he will see there is 
sort of like this hopelessness out there, confusion and despair on what 
we should do, and the gentleman is absolutely right, there is no simple 
solution. There is no quick political fix to this vexing problem.
  We need vision, we need action, and we need long-term commitment, and 
again not just for 1 year or 3 years or 5 years, but at least a 
generation.
  I know that the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) has always worked 
in a bipartisan way with Democrats and Republicans and that is what we 
are asking here. As the Democratic Caucus, we have been reaching out 
and we will continue not just to our colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle but also over in the Senate to try to find some kind of 
solutions.
  All these things, whether it is the community, the schools, the homes 
or guns, they are all interrelated, interconnected. We have to be 
prepared to start addressing all parts of the problem.
  I wish we could but the Federal Government just cannot pass a law, 
the Federal Government just cannot reconcile America, or alienation 
within the family or even within each other, but we certainly can 
encourage; we would support and do anything we can to assist.
  So I certainly appreciate the gentleman's time and effort in coming 
down here tonight to speak with us.
  There is another issue, of course, that is on the minds of all 
Americans and that is, of course, Kosovo. One of our colleagues, the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel), wanted to take a few moments, so I 
am going to yield him some time to talk about that situation.
  So while we talk about school violence or what is happening, we still 
have other matters that we must address again hopefully in a bipartisan 
way, and I would yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel).
  Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend and colleague, the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) for yielding. Let me just say that 
I certainly endorse everything that he has said about violence and 
about the terrible tragedies taking place in our country, in our 
schools today. As the father of three children, I know that every 
parent grieves when we hear of these tragedies at our schools. We 
obviously need to put our heads together, Democrats, Republicans, 
Americans all. There are no easy solutions, and none of us has the 
magic answer.
  We certainly cannot legislate these things. I think as leaders of our 
great country we need to have a dialogue and we need to put our heads 
together and come up with something with which all Americans can 
identify. So I thank my friend from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) for his 
leadership in this regard.
  Mr. Speaker, I wanted to speak a bit about violence that is happening 
on the other side of the world in Europe, and that is the situation in 
Kosova. I had not intended to speak but I earlier heard the remarks of 
our colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham), and I 
just felt that some of the things he said really should not be left 
unchallenged.
  I believe what the United States is doing in Kosova is noble, and I 
believe what the President has attempted to do is noble. We could have 
easily stood by and let the genocide and ethnic cleansing continue and 
not done a thing and that would have been the easier thing for us to 
do, but I think to the President's credit and to our great country's 
credit we decided that we just could not stand idly by 55 and 60 years 
after the Holocaust and see another tragedy going on on the continent 
of Europe.

  To those people who say, well, why is the United States involved when 
there is genocide going on all over the world, obviously we are 
involved with our NATO allies. NATO is the North Atlantic Treaty 
Organization and so NATO is primarily concerned with what goes on in 
Europe, and this has a terrible destabilizing effect in the Balkans and 
indeed on the whole continent of Europe.
  So we, as one of the lead nations in NATO, as the lead nation in 
NATO, I believe we need to be very responsive to genocide and ethnic 
cleansing.
  Mr. Speaker, there seems to be a tendency in some quarters to 
unfortunately equate the victims of genocide with the oppressors who 
are carrying out the genocide. We cannot equate those two. It is very, 
very clear what is going on in Kosova today. The ethnic Albanians are 
the victims and Mr. Milosevic and his Serbian government are the 
oppressors. That is clear.

[[Page H3454]]

  There were two million ethnic Albanians routed from their homes. I 
think when we get into Kosova we are going to see 100,000 or more 
people in mass graves ethnically cleansed. There are already at least 
100,000 missing, and we get reports day in and day out of mass graves. 
We cannot allow that to happen.
  There are some people that say, well, this did not happen until the 
bombing started. That is nonsense. This has been going on for years. We 
have called it slow ethnic cleansing. It is true that the pace has 
accelerated since the NATO bombing but ethnic cleansing has been going 
on against the Kosovar Albanians for many, many months and years, a 
systematic campaign and every negotiated attempt was made to try to get 
Milosevic to come to his senses, and only when that failed did the 
bombing start.
  I went to Rambouillet during the negotiations in France to speak with 
our American officials and to try to help convince the Kosovar 
Albanians to accept Rambouillet. They accepted the Rambouillet Accords. 
Even though it was far short of what they would like, they believe and 
I believe that they are entitled to independence and to self-
determination. When the former Yugoslavia broke up, and it broke up 
because of Milosevic, every other group in the former Yugoslavia was 
given the right to independence and self-determination.
  The Croatians, the Bosnians, the Macedonians, the Slovanians all were 
given that option and opted for independent nations. Why are the 
Kosovar Albanians not given the same option? Why do they have to live 
in second class status? I think it is very, very clear that Serbia has 
lost any moral authority ever again to govern the people of Kosova. 
They have no right to it. The people of Kosova have the right to 
independence and self-determination.
  Ethnic cleansing cannot be tolerated, and I think the principles with 
which we lay down to stop the bombing remain firm and must remain firm. 
There should be no erosion of those principles.
  Milosevic knows what he needs to do. In order for the bombing to 
stop, the Kosovar Albanians need to return to their homes and they need 
to be protected by international armed forces led by NATO and they 
ought to have the right of independence and self-determination.
  We ought to, in my estimation, be arming and training the KLA, the 
Kosova Liberation Army. They are the only counterbalance to the Serbs 
on the ground. If we do not want American troops on the ground, and 
many people do not, then they are the only counterbalance to the Serbs.
  I have introduced a bill along with my colleague the gentleman from 
South Carolina (Mr. Sanford) that says that we ought to be arming and 
training the KLA. In the long-term and in the short-term, we ought to 
be airlifting and air dropping anti-tank weaponry to them because they 
want to turn to us. The KLA wants to work with the west. The KLA wants 
to work with NATO. If we continue to rebuff them, they are going to go 
elsewhere for their arms. They may go elsewhere, Iran and other places 
that we do not like, and then if they do that we cannot then point and 
say, aha, because it will have been a self-fulfilling prophecy.
  They want to be pro-west. They want to work with us. They want to 
defeat the Serbs. They want to aid NATO and we have been rebuffing 
them. It is ashame. It is wrong. It is morally wrong, and it is wrong 
in terms of what we should be planning.
  I also believe, Mr. Speaker, that if we are going to fight this war, 
all options ought to be on the table, including the possible option of 
ground troops. I do not say this lightly, but I think we cannot tell 
Milosevic in advance what we will do and what we will not do, because 
if we tell him what our game plan is he can plan accordingly. That is 
why he has dispersed his military, he has dispersed his armaments 
because he does not fear a ground evasion. If we keep him guessing, we 
will take away a number of options from him.
  Let me say this about Milosevic: We continue to treat him as if he is 
somehow the solution, we are going to negotiate with him, we are going 
to deal with him. I read reports where Milosevic supposedly is ready 
for a deal as long as we state first and foremost that Kosova will 
remain part of Serbia. That would be a disgrace to give him that. That 
would be a disgrace to say that we are somehow pretending that since 
Rambouillet nothing has happened, when we know there are tens of 
thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people executed and 
ethnically cleansed.
  So we should not give in to Milosevic's demands. We should hold firm 
and adhere to those principles.
  Again, all options should be on the table. We have Apache helicopters 
in Albania. In my estimation, we ought to be utilizing them. We ought 
to be doing humanitarian air drops, dropping food to half a million 
starving Kosovar refugees who are trapped in Kosova, who are in the 
mountains and do not have enough food.
  I was at Kennedy Airport last week, welcoming the first round of 
Kosovar refugees coming home to the United States, to be with their 
families, and they were tears streaming down people's eyes, hugging and 
kissing. It was something really to behold. These people are suffering. 
Milosevic is a war criminal who ought to be indicted by the 
International Tribunal in the Hague. We should not be giving in to him, 
capitulating to him or in my estimation even negotiating with him.
  We need to win this war. We need to guarantee that those people come 
back to their homes and we need to put those responsible for genocide 
on trial, and we need to be very, very firm and, again, I believe that 
we need to arm and train the KLA.
  I want to enter into the Record two letters. One is from the Veterans 
of Foreign Wars, which states that the veterans of foreign wars of the 
United States is resolved that in order to bring this conflict to a 
rapid and successful conclusion on terms favorable to NATO we will 
support the United States acting as part of the NATO alliance, taking 
decisive action with the full range of overwhelming military power to 
eject, remove or otherwise force the withdrawal of Serbian military and 
paramilitary forces and to restore Kosovars to their homes.

                              {time}  1845

  Mr. Speaker, I would like to enter into the Record the Kosova 
Coalition, which is signed by many, many people, Christians, Muslims, 
Jews, all kinds of ethnic groups in this country to Members of Congress 
urging our support for NATO's efforts to stop the ethnic cleansing in 
Kosovo. One paragraph says, ``We, therefore, call on Congress to 
request that it take all necessary steps to end Serbia's campaign of 
ethnic cleansing, force the withdrawal of all Serb forces, create a 
secure environment for the return of Albanians to their homes, and 
allow them to govern themselves and to rebuild Kosovo.''
  Finally, I want to say that the smears that have been leveled in some 
quarters against the KLA talking about them using drug money and 
whatever have no basis in fact. Intelligence reports and everybody else 
say that it is nothing but a political smear campaign, and again today 
in the Wall Street Journal it says, The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency 
says claims that the KLA raises money from drugs quote, ``have not been 
corroborated and may be politically motivated.''
  So I am tired of the smears. This country is doing the right thing, 
the noble thing. We are to make sure that the Kosovar Albanians get 
their legitimate rights. We are to stay the course; we are to be firm, 
and I am proud of the United States of America standing up at this very 
important point in time.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

                                                   April 20, 1999.
     The President,
     The White House,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. President: The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the 
     Untied States is gravely concerned about the worsening 
     situation in the Balkans. As the combat veterans who for the 
     last 100 years have fought all of our country's wars, we have 
     until now opposed the deployment of U.S. forces to the former 
     Yugoslavia. Our opposition was based on our concern for the 
     safety of our servicemen and women in the midst of the 
     Yugoslav civil war. Also, we have been uncertain what vital 
     U.S. national security interests were at stake in that 
     country's conflict.
       Since we took that position, however, the situation has 
     changed. In the past few weeks Serbian leaders have used 
     their military and

[[Page H3455]]

     paramilitary forces to overrun Kosovo, destroy the social and 
     economic fabric of the province and terrorize the populace 
     into flight.
       Despite, and in defiance of NATO's diplomatic efforts and 
     its air campaign, Serbia now has achieved its objectives in 
     Kosovo. By doing so it has raised the stakes in this 
     conflict. Having waged unrestricted war on the people and 
     province of Kosovo, NATO's credibility and U.S. leadership 
     have been directly challenged by Serbia. NATO will neither 
     continue as a credible, unified alliance, nor will the U.S. 
     retain its world leadership role if the Serbian challenge 
     goes unmet and Serb aggression is not stopped.
       Many of our members are deeply troubled by the situation we 
     face. Some realize the long history of this conflict, the 
     skill of our adversaries, the inhospitable weather and 
     terrain and the political difficulty of maintaining alliance 
     unity are important factors that will affect our actions and 
     their outcomes. Others are mindful of the lessons of past 
     wars. The gradual applications of force that allow 
     adversaries to seize objectives before our power peaks and 
     the limits placed on the use of our military power which can 
     prolong conflicts, increase casualties and erode public 
     support are lessons that seem to some to apply equally to 
     today as to yesterday.
       Nonetheless, in consideration of the current situation, the 
     Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States is resolved 
     that in order to bring this conflict to a rapid and 
     successful conclusion on terms favorable to NATO, we will 
     support the United States acting as part of the NATO 
     alliance, taking decisive action with the full range of 
     overwhelming military power to eject, remove or otherwise 
     force the withdrawal of Serbian military and paramilitary 
     forces and to restore Kosovars to their homes.
       We also believe that careful consideration should be given 
     to the formation of a NATO peacekeeping force to guarantee 
     Kosovars' freedom from further oppression and the right to 
     its self-determination.
       Finally, Mr. President, with such important questions 
     before us we believe and urge you to ensure first that the 
     American people are behind this effort and then to take this 
     issue to the United States Congress for its advice and 
     consent.
           Sincerely,

                                            Thomas A. Pouliot,

                                   Commander-in-Chief, Veterans of
     Foreign Wars of the United States.
                                  ____



                                             Kosova Coalition,

                                     Washington, DC, May 19, 1999.
       Dear Member of Congress: We are writing to urge your 
     support for NATO's efforts to stop the ethnic cleansing of 
     Kosova.
       We are horrified by the atrocities, including mass murder, 
     systematic rape, and widespread expulsions, committed by Serb 
     forces against the civilian population of Kosova. We strongly 
     support NATO's military campaign in Kosova, but are concerned 
     that our efforts thus far have not been enough to stop the 
     atrocities there. In fact, the State Department recently 
     reported that Serbia has forced nearly 90 percent of the 
     Kosovar Albanians from their homes and is continuing its 
     effort to cleanse Kosova of its Albanian population. We 
     cannot allow Serbia to succeed.
       We, therefore, call on Congress to request that NATO take 
     all necessary steps to end Serbia's campaign of ethnic 
     cleansing, force the withdrawal of all Serb forces, create a 
     secure environment for the return of the Albanians to their 
     homes, and allow them to govern themselves and rebuild 
     Kosova.
       We also support the efforts of the UN War Crimes Tribunal. 
     We strongly believe that those individuals who committed or 
     ordered others to commit crimes against humanity must be 
     brought to justice.
       Lastly, we believe that the international community should 
     continue to help alleviate the circumstances facing the 
     Kosovar refugees. To the extent possible, the refugees should 
     be able to remain in the Balkans to better enable their 
     eventual return to their homes. All countries bordering 
     Kosova should keep their borders open to refugees and treat 
     them with dignity and respect.
       Although we are disheartened by the events unfolding in 
     Kosova, we are supportive of NATO's mission there. But the 
     ethnic cleansing must stop. NATO can help achieve that goal 
     by expanding its mission in Kosova.
           Sincerely,
         Ilir Zherka, National Albanian American Council; Bruce 
           Morrison, Former Member of Congress; Richard D. 
           Heidman, B'nai B'rith International; Glenn Ruga, 
           Friends of Bosnia; John Cavelli, Conference of 
           Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations; 
           Hisham Reda, Muslim Public Affairs Committee; Marilyn 
           Piurek, Polish American Leadership Council; Jess N. 
           Hordes, Anti-Defamation League; Steve Rukavina, 
           National Federation of Croatian Americans; Bob 
           Blancato, Italian American Democratic Leadership 
           Council; Mark Lazar, Federation of Polish Americans; 
           Abdulrahman Alamoudi, American Muslim Council 
           Foundation, John Pikarski,* Gordon and Pikarski; Rabbi 
           David Saperstein, Religious Action Center of Reform 
           Judiasm; Dr. Jim Zogby,* Arab American Institute; 
           Steven Schwarz, Jewish Council for Public Affairs; 
           Tolga Cubukcu, Assembly of Turkish American 
           Associations; Phil Baum, American Jewish Congress; 
           Peter Ujvagi, Hungarian American National Democratic 
           Leadership Caucus; Jason Isaacson, American Jewish 
           Committee.

       *These individuals are signing the letter in their own 
     names. Organizations they represent are included for 
     information purposes only.

  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for coming down and 
sharing his concerns.
  I know the gentleman from Virginia would like to speak on school 
violence, and I would like to yield to him at this point in time.
  Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Michigan for yielding to me. I also want to say a word about the 
comments of the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel), my friend and 
colleague. He is absolutely right. Mr. Milosevic is a war criminal and 
he is a bully, and we cannot yield to him. We must not let him prevail, 
nor can we as a society ever become apathetic to the suffering, the 
murder, the genocidal campaign that has gone on in the Balkans. We must 
stand firm; we must stand with NATO, and that means whether it is 
politically popular, or whether it is not the popular will, it is up to 
us to show leadership. The President is showing leadership. Most of the 
leaders of NATO are showing leadership, particularly in the United 
Kingdom, and we applaud them for doing that. History will give them 
credit if they do not get it from their electorate today.
  As we approach the dawn of a new millennium, we as a people, 
individually and collectively, must stand up for a civil society, a 
society under the rule of law, a society where democracy determines 
leadership, a society where people are rewarded for their effort within 
a capitalist economy.
  So we have a major role internationally. But we must also set a 
standard domestically, and there is an area where this society falls 
short of meeting that standard, and that is in the area of gun control. 
Because the statistics will show that that is one area where we trailed 
the rest of the industrialized nations. In fact, there are more 
children killed by firearms in the United States than all 25 other 
industrialized nations combined.
  Now, when we stand for principle internationally, it would seem that 
it is incumbent upon us to do the right thing domestically, and it is 
not right that 13 young people every day lose their lives due to 
firearms, whether it be through homicides, suicides, or unintentional 
shooting.
  Mr. Speaker, there are events such as happened today, such as 
happened recently in Littleton, Colorado where that enters the radar 
screen of our mind. But it should be an objective every day, 
particularly in this House, to bring us in line with the other 
civilized nations and to stop the proliferation of handguns and assault 
weapons.
  The last year for which we have statistics, we know that about 3,000 
children and teenagers were murdered with guns, over 1,300 committed 
suicide with guns, and about 500 died in unintentional shootings, just 
in one year. A total of nearly 5,000 young people were killed by 
firearms, and that is a relatively typical year. In fact, in a typical 
year, we have over 20,000 people, adults and children alike, killed by 
firearms. That is way out of sync with the rest of the civilized world. 
There is no country that even registers on the same radar screen as the 
United States. They do not reach 100 deaths by firearms in a year, and 
we have 23,000.
  Mr. Speaker, two in 25 high school students, so we are talking about 
tens and tens of thousands of high school students, report having 
carried a gun in the last month. Where are they getting these guns? Why 
are they getting these guns? They are getting these guns because we 
have lax laws, because of our gun control policy which is too 
determined by politics and by political campaign contributions.
  I speak particularly of the gun lobby and of contributions from the 
National Rifle Association. If the Republican Party does not want this 
to be a campaign issue, if they do not want this to be a partisan 
issue, then they should not be accepting the millions of dollars of 
campaign contributions from the National Rifle Association. Because it 
is going to be a campaign issue when 85 percent of those campaign 
contributions are going to Republicans, when one can go right down the 
line of the people who lead the fight against gun

[[Page H3456]]

control, and look at the campaign contributions, and most of them have 
gotten $9,900 a year. Some have gotten as much as $14,000. I do not 
know how they do that, because they are supposed to be limited to 
$10,000 a year, maximum. But we have the numbers. The numbers are 
available. People should look at it. People should compare those to 
votes. People should also respect the fact that an important vote was 
cast today. It was a deadlock, it was decided by the Vice President of 
the United States, and it was the right thing to do.
  I hope that this will not continue to be a partisan issue, that we 
will do the right thing in the House of Representatives. That, in fact, 
we will be able to add the same amendments to the Juvenile Justice 
Authorization, and lacking those amendments, that we will be able to at 
least add them to the appropriations bill on Treasury and Postal 
Operations.
  It is long past time. Thousands of people have died because we have 
not been willing to stand up to the kind of political bullying that 
comes from many in the gun lobby.
  Mr. Speaker, we should not miss this opportunity to focus on this 
very serious problem in our society. We must start to do the right 
thing legislatively. We must stop this violence. I am not suggesting 
that to take away guns is a magic bullet. But I am suggesting that when 
we went to school, we had the same kind of psychological problems with 
peers and girlfriends and so on, but we did not have dead victims as a 
result. We might have done silly things, but gosh, we did not have 
access to guns; we did not shoot people, we did not leave people dead 
in a pool of blood. And that is happening because guns are much to 
easily accessible to our young people who do not have the maturity to 
be able to use them. We ought to increase the age of accessibility to 
guns, we ought to put safety locks on guns, and we ought to reduce the 
proliferation of them, whether it be through pawnshops or through gun 
shows or retail or wholesale or whatever. The time has long since 
passed for us to take the lead in this very serious issue and restore a 
civil society and reduce the violence that is prevalent throughout this 
American Nation.
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Michigan taking this 
time to speak about school violence. School violence is a reflection of 
society. This is an important issue. We ought to be addressing it 
today.
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, realizing my time has expired, I once again 
would just like to thank the Speaker for his courtesies here tonight 
and understand that of course that as we address this issue, it is more 
than just guns, but things are happening in communities, in schools and 
in homes, and we invite Democrats and Republicans to come together and 
address this in a bipartisan manner

                          ____________________