[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 45 (Tuesday, April 11, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H2097-H2099]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             PROJECT EXILE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Ehrlich) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. EHRLICH. Mr. Speaker, my good colleague, the gentleman from 
Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) will join me in this special order. I welcome 
my colleague.
  Mr. TANCREDO. I thank the gentleman. It is a pleasure to be here.
  Mr. EHRLICH. Mr. Speaker, we have a very important topic this 
evening, Project Exile, a bill that passed on the floor of the House 
today by an overwhelming majority on the Suspension Calendar, something 
I know that pleases the gentleman, pleases myself, and should please 
our respective constituents and the people of the United States of 
America.
  My personal experience with this program, Mr. Speaker, began about a 
year and a half ago when a member of my staff came in to me and 
expressed frustration about my frustration concerning the fact that on 
gun control debates, we always talk by one another. We could not get 
anything done, and the PACs and interest groups raised money, and that 
helps politically, but it does not hit the bottom line, which is bad 
guys with guns.
  I heard about Project Exile, and he said, and this was a former 
Baltimore county detective, and he said I am going to go find out about 
this program. I said, Go for it. We found out about Project Exile and 
took a bipartisan group of Maryland State legislators to Richmond, 
Virginia, and talked to the attorneys down there, and talked to the 
street cops; and we talked to the Federal prosecutor and the business 
community and NAACP. We talked to everybody, and, you know what? It 
works. It works, because it is common sense.
  This is an interesting initiative, because rarely do you hear the NRA 
and handgun control supporting the same gun-related initiative. It is 
certainly working in Richmond, it works in Virginia, it works in New 
York, it works in Texas, and now hopefully around the country, given 
what we passed on this floor today.
  I also heard during the course of the debate today some unfortunate 
mischaracterizations from the minority party. The two that really came 
to mind was, one, who supports this program. The observation was made 
that this is an NRA initiative. It is only the NRA. Of course, as I 
just said, it is also supported by the handgun folks, handgun control. 
It is the right and left coming together to get something done for a 
change.
  Finally, the representation was made that this money could be wasted 
on all sorts of frivolous activities, and the fact is the bill 
specifies how the money can be used with respect to police, 
prosecutors, courts, probation officers, the juvenile justice system, 
prison expansion, criminal history, records retention, case management 
programs, innovation, crime control, the bottom line.
  I personally want to congratulate the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
McCollum) who has been a great leader in this effort, who brought this 
issue to the national limelight, in conjunction with Governor Gilmore 
and other members of our conference. I truly believe that this is a 
logical follow-up to Truth in Sentencing, another issue initiative 
initiated by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. McCollum) some years ago.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to recognize my colleague from Colorado, I know 
who has some salient observations to make about this common sense 
approach that targets gun-toting felons, people who should not have 
guns in the first place, and, when caught, sentences them, exiles them 
to either Federal time if the State status is not in place, or State 
time if the State legislatures have really gotten on board with respect 
to Project Exile.
  I recognize my colleague.
  Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman; and I appreciate 
the opportunity to share a few thoughts about this.
  In many ways our experience was the same in terms of how we came to 
know this issue. I was reading a newspaper article out of Virginia 
where they had arrested a suspect for possession of narcotics. The 
amount of narcotics in the possession of this individual was quite 
significant. It was not just a baggy; it was like a truckload.
  In the past, any time that this kind of thing had happened before, 
any time that an individual with this much narcotics in his possession 
had been arrested, they had found a weapon with him. So they kept 
looking, because the police naturally assumed that he had to have one. 
When they did not find it initially, they kept pressing. Then they kept 
pressing him as to where it was, essentially why he did not have it. 
This went on for hours.
  Finally, the suspect, frustrated at being pummeled by the police, 
figuratively speaking, said, ``It is 5 years, man. It is 5 years, 
man.'' What he was, of course, saying to the policemen was that he had 
gotten the message, the message of Project Exile. If he had been caught 
with a firearm in the commission of the crime, in this case 
transportation of illegal narcotics, he would get a minimum of 5 years 
tacked on to anything else that he ended up with.
  Now, here was a, I cannot say convicted, but a suspect, someone who 
had been arrested, explaining it essentially to the rest of the world 
as to why he did not have a firearm in his possession.

[[Page H2098]]

  At that point in time when I read that article, I thought to myself, 
you know, this is pretty common sense stuff. No wonder it is so hard 
for many of us, maybe in the Congress of the United States or in the 
administration, to actually come to grips with the possibility that 
this could work.
  What we are saying to people, make it clear here, what Project Exile 
is saying, whether it is in Richmond, or now in Denver, Colorado, or in 
the other places that my colleague mentioned, what we are saying is if 
you use a gun in the commission of a crime or if you are in possession 
of an illegal firearm, you are going to look at hard time and you are 
going to look at a minimum of 5 years, and you are not getting out of 
it.
  Lo and behold, when you put this into effect, surprise, surprise, 
levels of gun violence begin to go down. They have gone down in 
Virginia; they are going down every place else where this has been put 
into place. So it is not theoretical. This is empirically proven to 
work. Again, it is such common sense stuff that you wonder why people 
have not really kind of warmed up to it.
  I wonder certainly why some of our colleagues from the other side 
today were so adamant in their opposition to it. I wondered why, 
frankly, as I was driving over here, I heard on the radio that the 
President of the United States referred to this bill, to the passage of 
it today, as a cruel joke. A joke.
  Well, let me tell you what the joke might be. It just may be, Mr. 
Speaker, that we have a joke being perpetrated on the American public. 
But it is not this bill. Let me tell you what that joke may in fact be.

                              {time}  1930

  It may be the allusion to a desire on the part of the minority party 
and on the part of the President of the United States to actually have 
something work, to actually get to a solution; not the ultimate 
solution, of course. I am sure, even if we put this in place in every 
city in America, that there would still be some aspect of gun violence, 
but this is a positive step that we know works.
  Why would we be opposed to this? Why would we refer to it as a joke 
if in fact we really want a solution? But maybe, just maybe, that is 
the joke, that some people in this body and maybe even the President of 
the United States in fact do not want a solution, they want an issue to 
continue to debate into the campaign. If that is true, it is a cruel 
joke.
  But I will tell the Members what this bill is not: This bill is not a 
joke. This bill provides financial support to communities all over the 
country to do something about gun violence.
  Mr. EHRLICH. The gentleman's point is very well taken, Mr. Speaker. 
It may not just be the agenda of the left. That may be the reason they 
do not like Project Exile, because to the extent Exile works it takes 
some steam away from their true agenda, which is gun control. 
Reasonable people will agree or disagree on gun control, but we are 
talking about crime control.
  So I think the gentleman's point is very, very well taken and well 
articulated.
  Mr. Speaker, I love the way the gentleman found out about it, because 
we have all found out about it through the press, because they have 
done a pretty good job in publicizing Project Exile. What I like is the 
multi-tiered approach. We start out federally but go to State 
legislatures, ask them to pass laws, which is what today's bill is all 
about. If we do the right thing, there are the dollars, so resource is 
really not an issue.
  What struck me about Richmond is the lack of ego of State prosecutors 
and Federal prosecutors. They work together. They divide up the case. 
They sit down on a weekly basis and divide up the cases as a function 
of which bad guy is going to get hit hardest in which system; a 
terrific idea, a lot of common sense.
  Probably the best part of Exile is the private sector. It is not 
government money that funds the communications effort, it is the people 
whose livelihoods depend upon safe streets. It is asking them to invest 
in their own communities, what the merchants in Richmond, Virginia, and 
now all over the country and in Denver have done, come up with the 
dollars, put their money where their mouth is, fund the communications 
effort in order to educate that relatively narrow group of bad guys who 
have guns, who shoot other people, who make us less free.
  Is this not a great idea?
  Mr. TANCREDO. If the gentleman will continue to yield, Mr. Speaker, 
it is such a good idea and so bipartisan in its original intent that in 
Colorado, actually, and this is another interesting point, Mr. Speaker, 
the President of the United States today, as I say, called this a joke. 
Yet it is in fact his U.S. Attorneys who have put this in place in 
Richmond, Virginia, and in Denver, Colorado, attorneys appointed by 
this administration who do not believe that it is a joke, who believe 
that it is in fact a very good program.
  When we inaugurated this in Denver, I was there. I was invited to 
participate in the kickoff of the program. On the stage were a lot of 
individuals, but just let me name two. One was Jim Brady and one was 
Wayne LaPierre, the head of the NRA, and Mr. Brady, of course, the 
unfortunate victim of an assassin's bullet who now, of course, is doing 
everything possible to bring about gun control legislation. Both of 
them were on the podium supporting Project Exile.
  Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the President would actually consider going 
to Mr. Brady and telling him that Project Exile is a joke. I doubt it. 
I doubt that he would do that, because in fact we know that this is not 
a joke. This may in fact work.
  Mr. Speaker, here are the Federal laws on guns. Here are the Colorado 
laws on guns. The point I make here, Mr. Speaker, is that it is not a 
lack of inventory that is the problem. I am not saying that maybe other 
gun laws would not be necessary. I am not saying that. I have actually 
voted on this floor, I have voted for other gun laws. I voted for the 
juvenile justice bill. Actually, it went down. I voted for it. I 
believed that those would be positive steps. So I am not telling the 
Members that nothing is necessary.
  However, I am saying that no one could suggest for a moment that it 
is a lack of gun law inventory that is the problem, that is causing all 
of the problem in America with regard to gun violence. It has been a 
problem with regard to enforcement. That is where we are. That is where 
we are coming down with this issue of Project Exile. We are telling 
people that we are in fact going to begin to enforce the laws on the 
books; again, a very logical, commonsense approach that is no joke.

  Mr. EHRLICH. The President's words are profoundly disturbing, but 
when we are a press release politician, of course, the act is done when 
the press conference is over. Forget about the laws. I could do the 
same pile of papers in the State of Maryland, and I am sure all my 
colleagues could do with their respective States.
  I think the gentleman's point is so well taken. I hope the President 
did not mean what he said, because, as my colleague rightfully points 
out, many, not all, not in Maryland, but many of his U.S. Attorneys, 
particularly in Richmond, were the driving force behind Project Exile.
  Just as a bottom line, when we think about it, we take a situation 
where egos do not matter, unbelievable in this town, but we force 
people to cooperate. Who cares who gets the credit. It is the bottom 
line, the bad guys. So we take egos and put them aside.
  Then we target not nonviolent criminals, not even some violent 
criminals, but we target the most dangerous, people who shoot other 
people; a rather narrow group as we know, recidivists all, usually. So 
we target that particular group.
  We ask the business community to fund it. We ask the State 
legislature to pass the laws. We give the resources, as we did today 
with our Federal bill, to local prosecutors to let them do what they 
wish with these extra dollars. And what do we get? Safer streets. Look 
at the dramatic numbers. Look at the results.
  It may not be the agenda of some Members in this Chamber, and that is 
a philosophical orientation. We can debate that until the cows come 
home, and I am sure we will. But at least let us agree that Exile 
works. Let us fund it and let us pass it.
  I yield to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) for a few final 
words.
  Mr. TANCREDO. I sincerely appreciate my colleague's willingness to

[[Page H2099]]

bring this point to the attention of our colleagues here, and hopefully 
to the general public, because this is one of those things that needs 
greater exposure.
  People have to understand what was done today, what was the purpose 
of this legislation, and what we hope to achieve based upon what has in 
fact happened where Project Exile has been put into place. Yet, it has 
been with the support or actually the inspiration of, the idea came 
from members of the administration who are now acting in the capacity 
of U.S. Attorneys.
  I give them full credit. There is no pride of authorship here. I did 
not come up with the idea of Project Exile. I wish I had. I did not. I 
simply am a supporter. A Democrat U.S. Attorney in Colorado held an 
event that I went to and gave as much support as I possibly could, 
because it works, because the concept is good.
  Again, it is not the only thing we can do, but it is an insult to 
suggest that this piece of legislation today is anything but an honest 
attempt on the part of the Members of this Congress to deal with the 
issue of gun violence in America.
  Mr. EHRLICH. I thank my friend. Mr. Speaker, there is no pride of 
authorship here, just enthusiasm for what works.
  Today, Mr. Speaker, six States in this country will qualify for these 
dollars. Unfortunately, my State, Maryland, would not. Hopefully my 
General Assembly next session, in the 2001 session of the Maryland 
General Assembly, will pass the laws needed to qualify for these 
dollars so Project Exile can be implemented in Maryland and in Colorado 
and all the States in this great Union.

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