[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 104 (Wednesday, July 21, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8939-S8940]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ORDER OF PROCEDURE

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, under the previous order, I am to reclaim 
the floor, is that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, on the juvenile justice bill, the reason 
why I have encouraged the leadership to move as quickly as they are 
able to--and I say, in regard to what the distinguished Senator from 
Mississippi said earlier, I also know if he were to make the same 
request I made, he could face an objection. What I am urging is that we 
find a way to move forward because to have the full impact in the 
United States of our juvenile justice bill, which passed by a 3-to-1 
margin in the Senate, we have to get it on the President's desk in its 
final form before the August recess so there is some chance of moving 
before school goes back in this fall. All of us, whether we are 
parents, grandparents, teachers, or policymakers, have been puzzling 
over the causes of children turning violent in our country.
  Certainly all of us in our lifetimes have seen random acts of 
violence somewhere in the country. I don't think any of us have seen 
the severity or the number, almost a regularity, of violence we are 
seeing today. The root causes are likely multifaceted, and we know 
that. But the Hatch-Leahy juvenile justice bill is a firm and 
significant step in the right direction. Passage of this bill shows 
when the Senate rolls up its sleeves and gets to work, we can make 
significant progress. But that progress amounts to naught if the House 
and Senate do not conference and proceed to final passage on a good 
bill.
  Once conferees are appointed, there will be another point in the 
legislative process where we will have to roll up our sleeves to work 
out differences between the House- and Senate-passed legislation.
  Every parent in this country is concerned this summer about school 
violence over the last 2 years. They are worried about the situation 
they are going to confront this fall. Each of us wants to do something 
to stop that violence. There is no single cause and there is no single 
legislative solution that will cure the ill of youth violence in our 
schools or on our streets. But we have an opportunity before us to at 
least start to do something, to do our part. Now, it is unfortunate we 
are not moving full speed ahead to seize this opportunity to act on 
balanced, effective juvenile justice legislation.
  We should not repeat the delays that happened in the last Congress on 
the juvenile justice legislation. In the 105th Congress, the Senate 
Judiciary Committee reported juvenile justice legislation in July 1997, 
but then it was left to languish for over a year until the very end of 
that Congress. In fact, serious efforts to make improvements to this 
bill did not even occur until the last weeks of that Congress, when it 
was too late and we ran out of time.

[[Page S8940]]

  The experience of the last Congress causes me to be wary of this 
delay in action on this legislation this year. I want to be assured 
that after the hard work so many Senators put into crafting a juvenile 
justice bill, that we go to a House-Senate conference that is fair, 
full, and productive. We have worked too hard in the Senate for a 
strong, bipartisan juvenile justice bill to simply shrug our shoulders 
when the House returns a juvenile justice bill rather than proceeding 
to a conference. I will be vigilant in working to maintain this 
bipartisanship and to press for action on this important legislation.
  To this end, I circulated yesterday to the distinguished chairman of 
the Judiciary Committee the unanimous consent request that I made. It 
lays out a simple road map for us to proceed to a juvenile justice 
conference before the August recess and before the new school year 
begins. I understand the unanimous consent request cannot be accepted 
tonight, but if we could accept this, or a form of it, this is what it 
would do:
  We would take up the House juvenile justice bill, H.R. 1501; we would 
substitute the Hatch-Leahy bill, S. 254, amended to eliminate the 
provision banning the import of high-capacity ammunition clips; pass 
the bill as amended; request a conference with the House; instruct the 
conferees to include in the conference report the eliminated provision 
on high-capacity ammunition clips--put it back in, because 
parliamentarily it would be allowed--and we would authorize the Chair 
to appoint conferees.
  The fact that the House returned the Senate juvenile justice bill to 
us is not an insurmountable obstacle to get to conference on this 
important issue. This unanimous consent--or a form of it--would lay out 
a simple procedure for us to get to conference promptly, and the 
majority has the power to say: We agree, let's go to conference.
  We know only too well that when it is something that has the 
commercial interests of Y2K liability protection, we can go over what 
seem to be insurmountable obstacles and enact legislation into 
law. There is no commercial interest. There is certainly far more. It 
is the safety of our children. It is allowing our children to have a 
youth. It is allowing our children to go to school, as we did, in 
safety. It is allowing our children to learn, to be young people, and 
not to be forced to grow up in violence.

  It is a gift we could give to the children of America. It is 
something we could do before they go back to school. It is something we 
should do.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. LEAHY. Yes.
  Mrs. BOXER. It is a very brief question.
  I have just gone over with my colleague and some of our staff the 
fact that the House sent this bill over 3 weeks ago. We did our work. 
They did their work. And when our friend, the majority leader, says we 
are dragging our feet, we certainly didn't drag our feet on the 
juvenile justice bill.
  I ask my friend if he agrees that we have not dragged our feet on 
that bill and that we have acted as we should. God knows, we want to 
make sure we do something to make things better.
  As I see it, on June 23, 1999, this bill was placed on the calendar. 
No one is dragging their feet on this bill. Both Houses have done their 
work, and it is time to move forward to avoid another tragedy.
  I ask my friend if he agrees with that.
  Mr. LEAHY. The Senator from California is correct. We have moved very 
quickly on it. I hope we do not run into the situation that happened 
last year. We spent a lot of time on the juvenile justice bill, and 
then it languished and languished after coming out of committee. It sat 
so long that by the time we got to it, the time of the session ran out. 
In fact, the end of the Congress ran out.
  Here we are not right at the end of a Congress, but we are facing a 
school year, and we should begin.
  I promised the distinguished senior Senator from New Hampshire that I 
would wrap up. I believe I have wrapped up.
  Mr. GREGG. I thank the Senator from Vermont.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith of Oregon). The Senator from New 
Hampshire.

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