[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 48 (Tuesday, April 25, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Page S2835]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES TO 
   PROTECT THE RIGHTS OF CRIME VICTIMS--MOTION TO PROCEED--Continued

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, the proponents of the crime victims' 
constitutional rights amendment, as I understand it, have about 6 
minutes remaining. Senator Feinstein has asked that I conclude our 
portion of this opening debate.
  People who are viewing this might wonder what the last 35, 40 minutes 
have been about. This wasn't supposed to be about abortion. How did 
that get involved in the crime victims' rights amendment? Perhaps 
Senator Leahy began this trend when he first spoke this morning about 
the possibility of gun control, abortion, and the balanced budget 
amendment.
  I think the point is that people who are not motivated to adopt a 
constitutional set of rights for crime victims are willing to try to 
use our hard work, our efforts, and our energy to bring this proposed 
constitutional amendment to the Senate--which is very difficult to do--
as a means of trying to tack on their favorite proposal, or to delay 
the Senate action on the crime victims' rights amendment to the point 
that we will have to move on to other pressing business. Either of 
those possibilities, I think, would be very sad.
  Let me recount what has happened here. For almost 4 years, Senator 
Feinstein and I have worked very patiently to bring forward a crime 
victims' constitutional rights amendment. It is very difficult to get a 
constitutional amendment to the floor of the Senate. We have had 66 
witnesses appear at hearings, with I think something like 15 pages of 
testimony transcript. We have had hearing after hearing. We have gone 
through 63 different drafts to make this as perfect as we could. We 
have gotten it out of the Judiciary Committee on a strong, bipartisan 
vote. Then we got the majority leader to give us some floor time, which 
is very precious.
  In other words, we put a lot of work into this in support of victims 
of violent crime in our society. Throughout this building, and in 
others, there are scores of victims and victims' rights organizations 
around television sets watching these proceedings, having finally 
gotten what they hope to be their ``day in court''--an argument about 
the crime victims' rights amendment and a vote on that.
  What is beginning to emerge is a very disturbing tactic by those who 
oppose us, and that is either to try to delay this to the point that 
the majority leader will have to move on to something else, by offering 
all kinds of extraneous amendments, or by seeking to achieve what they 
have never been able to achieve through the normal legislative process, 
by using our proposal as a vehicle to attach their idea onto--in this 
case, perhaps, abortion. What better way to kill ours while getting 
some time to discuss their proposal.
  Some of these same proponents are those who argue most vigorously 
against so-called riders to appropriations bills. They say, well, you 
should not have an extraneous amendment on an appropriation bill. If 
you are going to bring something to the floor, you should not debate 
something else. You should not amend it with something extraneous. We 
are willing to allow germane amendments to victims' rights in an effort 
to resolve how to best protect victims' rights. But what I fear I have 
seen here is a tactic either to defeat what we are trying to do or to 
use what we are trying to do to advance an entirely different agenda. 
That would be wrong.
  The people watching this debate must be saying: There they go again. 
What are these Senators doing? They had a proposal to bring forth a 
crime victims' rights amendment to the floor, and, by procedural 
legerdemain, is that going to be prevented, overcome by an abortion 
amendment or something of that sort? We hope not. The bottom line is 
that there is a reason all of the people who support this amendment 
have said it is now time for a Federal constitutional rights amendment.

  As we have seen this morning, States have been unable to protect the 
rights of crime victims with State statutes and their own State 
constitutional amendments. Attorneys general and prosecutors support 
this. Law enforcement supports it. The Attorney General of Wisconsin, 
Jim Doyle--a very respected Democratic attorney general--said this 
before the Judiciary Committee:

       I believe that most prosecutors strongly support victims' 
     rights.

  He notes some of the concerns of prosecutors. He said:

       I believe these concerns are more than adequately addressed 
     in S.J. Res. 3.

  The bottom line is that we have support from victims' rights groups, 
prosecutors, attorneys general, and Governors, and it is time now to 
decide whether we want to protect crime victims or not. We have an 
opportunity by bringing this matter to the floor. At 2:15, we will have 
a vote on what is called a cloture motion on a motion to proceed. If 60 
colleagues agree, we will be able to go forward and debate the motion 
to proceed, which I assume will be adopted later today. Then we can 
proceed with debate on the constitutional amendment itself. We look 
forward to that. If people want to bring forward relevant amendments to 
that, so be it. That is what the process is about. But I fear what will 
happen if, instead, we get a series of nongermane amendments or 
attempts to delay this, to the point that we run out of time and, in 
effect, a filibuster has killed any hope these crime victims have of 
protecting their rights in our courts.
  We have waited too long. Eighteen years ago President Reagan's 
Commission on Crime Victims recommended the constitutional amendment to 
address these rights. Eighteen years is long enough to wait. I hope 
when we finally have an opportunity on the Senate floor, that 
opportunity is not snatched away by people who want to pursue other 
agendas.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the proponents is expired; the 
opponents have 9 minutes.
  Mr. KYL. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair, in his capacity as a Senator from 
Wyoming, requests the quorum call be lifted, and without objection it 
is so ordered.

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