[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 135 (Wednesday, October 25, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10969-S10972]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise today to refute everything the 
Senator from Massachusetts has said about my State and my Governor.
  Mr. President, I think it is legitimate to talk about a person's 
record when you are running for President of the United States. But, 
Mr. President, I object to the use of the Senate floor to trash my 
State of Texas. And I object to a misrepresentation of the record of my 
State.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I will yield on your time--on the time of the Senator 
from Massachusetts, not on my 15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts has no time.
  Mr. KENNEDY. But there is not a time limitation, is there?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is under a time 
limitation.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I ask my response not be charged to the Senator.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, does the Senator from Texas deny that 
Texas is 48th out of 50 States in terms of the total number of 
uninsured children? Does she deny that?
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I deny that that is the relevant 
point. Because, in fact, 41 States are behind in the CHIP program sign-
up because when Congress passed the Children's Health Care Program, 
they gave the States 3 years to spend the money. It just happened that 
our State meets every other year in the legislature. By the time they 
were able to meet and start the CHIP program, the State had had a very 
steady influx of children. We are on the way, and 40 other States are 
in the same situation.
  So I am going to reclaim my time. I would like for the rest of my 15 
minutes to start now because I thought the

[[Page S10970]]

Senator from Massachusetts was going to ask a question. But I am not 
going to yield further.
  The Senator from Massachusetts has been speaking for quite awhile 
about my home State of Texas. If there is more than 15 minutes before 
we start the foreign operations bill, I ask unanimous consent to be 
able to continue speaking until Senator McConnell comes and have the 
full time to refute what I think are misrepresentations of the Texas 
record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator should be advised, there is an 
agreement to recognize Senator Baucus. But subject to that agreement, 
without objection, the Senator may proceed.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I ask unanimous consent that I have up until the time 
that the foreign operations bill starts. What is the agreement with 
Senator Baucus?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is an agreement that Senator Baucus be 
recognized with no time limit before the foreign operations bill. 
However, the Senator is not here at this point.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak until 
I finish.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, the State of Texas has just surpassed 
New York as the second largest State in America. That didn't happen 
because our State wasn't well run. It didn't happen because we have a 
sorry education system. It didn't happen because we don't take care of 
our children. It happened because we have a great quality of life. We 
have a Governor, George W. Bush, who is doing a great job, and we have 
a legislature led by our Lieutenant Governor, Rick Perry, and our House 
Speaker, Pete Laney. One is a Democrat; one is a Republican. They work 
together. That is the way we do things in Texas.
  There has been a gross misrepresentation about Texas throughout the 
campaign for President and on the Senate floor today. I will tell the 
Senate why the State of Texas is in great shape and why it is 
absolutely unconscionable to trash Texas in order to get an advantage 
in the Presidential race.
  Let's take education. Everyone would acknowledge that we have a 
problem in the public education system of our country. Our Congress, 
the Republicans, and our Governor in Texas have tried to open up our 
public education system. Governor Bush has tried to take the problems 
we have and put creativity and more State resources into those problems 
so that every child will have a chance to reach his or her full 
potential in our State of Texas. That is what we have tried to do in 
Congress for the entire United States. We have tried to put creativity 
into the schools. We have tried to give parents more choices.
  Every time we do, however, it is the people on the other side of the 
aisle who throw up the roadblocks, who want to have the Federal 
Government, from the top down, dictate what the local governments and 
the school boards would do all over our country.

  If you think that Governor Bush disagrees with that, you are right. 
And so do I. He believes in local control. He is very pleased that 
Congress is going to put more money into public education, but he wants 
the decisions made by the people who know the children and who know 
what the children's needs are.
  Let me tell you what he has done in Texas. We were very concerned 
about the high school dropout rate in Texas. It was especially high in 
our Hispanic community. Governor Bush believes, as do I, that if our 
young people are dropping out of high school, that is trouble--T-R-O-U-
B-L-E--for all of us. It means those children will not have a chance to 
succeed, and it means our society is losing the benefit of a productive 
citizen.
  Governor Bush said: Let's find out what the problem is. Well, we 
found out what the problem is. Many of those young people who are 
dropping out of high school can't read very well. So he said: We are 
going to attack this so that every child will be able to read at grade 
level, so that every child will be able to participate in public 
education all the way through the system. So we start testing our 
children in Texas in preschool, kindergarten, in the first grade, in 
the second grade. And in the third grade, the child must read at grade 
level. The child is tested. And if the child cannot pass the test, the 
child will not progress to the fourth grade.
  That child will be given extra help to learn how to read until that 
child can read at grade level. Then that child will go to the fourth 
grade. Governor Bush believes that a child is not going to be able to 
learn multiplication tables if a child can't read in the third grade. 
Governor Bush wants to go back to basics in education. He wants 
reading, writing, arithmetic, and history to be the core subjects that 
are taught in our schools. That is what he has done in Texas. The test 
scores are going up, and especially they are going up among our 
minority students. In fact, we have phenomenal increases in the test 
scores of our minority students, which is the emphasis we have put in 
the program, because we are so hopeful that by starting at that third 
grade level, every child will be able to reach his or her full 
potential.
  Texas is one of two States that has made the greatest recent progress 
in education according to the congressionally mandated National 
Education Goals Panel. African American fourth graders in Texas ranked 
first in the Nation in math. Since 1992, African American fourth 
graders in Texas have made the greatest gains in math, and Hispanic 
fourth graders have made the second greatest gains.
  African American and Hispanic eighth graders in Texas ranked first 
and second in the Nation in writing. Texas eighth graders, as a whole, 
ranked fourth in the Nation. Under Governor Bush, the number of 
students passing all parts of the State skills test has increased by 51 
percent. The number of both minority students and economically 
disadvantaged students passing all parts of this test increased by 89 
percent.
  I think that is a record of which our Governor should be very proud.
  We have had problems in our public education system. We have had 
children who don't speak English in great numbers in our education 
system. We are a border State. We value education. Our Governor was the 
first to step up to the line and say we would educate every child in 
Texas regardless of whether or not that child was a legal resident of 
Texas. The children of illegal immigrants are educated in Texas, and 
that is under the leadership of our Governor.
  So I think it is very important that we set the record straight 
because it is a good record. We take care of our children, and we 
believe a strong system of public education is the ticket to success in 
our country. We believe Texas is leading the way.
  Now the Senator from Massachusetts pointed out that a Federal judge 
had said we are not doing enough for the children in the insurance 
program that has been a part of Medicaid. I think that is very 
interesting because that lawsuit was filed when we had another Governor 
in Texas, not Governor Bush. That lawsuit was filed when Ann Richards 
was the Governor of Texas. Governor Bush has been in office for 7 
years, so that lawsuit has been pending for over 7 years. I wonder what 
it was that made Federal Judge William Wayne Justice decide to rule in 
the last 6 weeks in that case. I wonder why he waited for over 7 years 
to declare that Texas was not meeting its responsibilities. 
Furthermore, I wonder why he waited until October 30 to ask for the 
report from the State--October 30 of an election year in which our 
Governor is running for President. I just ask that question about the 
timing.
  As a matter of fact, it happens that our State is going to report 
that they are doing everything they can to cover every child with 
Medicaid and under the CHIP program because 41 States were not able to 
meet the 3-year mandate of the CHIP program, for a combination of 
reasons. Partly, it was regulations put out by the Federal Government 
that our States had to digest before they would be able to go forward 
and put the program in place. Our State legislature meets every other 
year, as do many other State legislatures. So once they met, they put 
the program in place. Texas has been going full steam ahead ever since 
that point. Mr. President, 100,000 children are now covered under our 
CHIP program; 400,000 are expected to be covered by the end of next 
year.
  Under Governor Bush, the percentage of Medicaid-eligible children who 
get

[[Page S10971]]

prevention care has doubled from 30 percent to 60 percent. Congress is 
going to pass legislation that is going to help all 41 States that 
haven't been able to get their programs up completely and running, so 
that all of them will be covered and they will have the money they 
need, including Texas. So 41 States had to get the program up and going 
with legislatures that meet every other year. So the States and the 
Federal Government are working together to make sure children are 
covered, and our Governor is leading the way.
  I want to discuss the Patients' Bill of Rights, which was mentioned 
by the Senator from Massachusetts. He acted as if we didn't have a 
Patients' Bill of Rights in Texas. We do have a Patients' Bill of 
Rights in Texas, and the Governor worked very hard to get that bill 
passed. The disagreement between the Governor and some of the people in 
the legislature, which was the subject of the negotiation, was how much 
the caps on pain and suffering lawsuits would be. The Governor thought 
they were too high. He didn't veto the bill; he let it go into law. 
In fact, because he did that, it is the basis of the law that 
eventually Congress will pass, because it has very clear internal 
reviews and very clear external reviews and because those reviews are 
so comprehensive and independent, there have been virtually no lawsuits 
filed, which is exactly what you want. You want patients to be covered; 
you want them to get the care they need. You don't want a bunch of 
lawsuits in which the patient is a person forgotten in the process. You 
want a Patients' Bill of Rights so that you can get the care and 
because the internal and external reviews have been so good, the system 
is working.

  It is law in Texas today because Governor Bush was the leader who 
worked to get those internal and external reviews, who worked to have 
reasonable caps, who let the bill become law, and who now, I hope, will 
lead our country to a Patients' Bill of Rights that will not be a 
lawsuit machine but will give patients and their doctors the ability to 
make their decisions.
  The Senator from Massachusetts said our Governor, in running for the 
Presidency, has a prescription drug benefit for our elderly, but he 
said it was ``fuzzy.'' It is not fuzzy. He wants a prescription drug 
benefit for our elderly people who need it. He wants to do it 
immediately. He does not want one person to have to decide between a 
necessity in life and a prescription drug. So he is advocating exactly 
what we have been trying to do in Congress, which is to get money to 
the States immediately to help in a transition until we can have a real 
addressing of the issue of prescription drug benefits. He is advocating 
an option in Medicare so that every person will have the ability to 
have coverage, if that is the option the person in Medicare chooses to 
have--prescription drug benefits--something that would operate like 
Medicare Part B or Medicare Part C.
  I think we should not have to criticize a State in order to make a 
point in a Presidential race. I don't think the people of America are 
very persuaded, and if Vice President Gore doesn't have anything else 
to talk about but the State of Texas, he should not be the leader of 
our country because I think most people would like to know what Vice 
President Gore and what Governor Bush are planning to do in the future 
for our country. I think their platforms are pretty clear. I don't 
think you have to say that the State of Texas is backward when we have 
one of the best qualities of life of any State in our Nation, and 
people are voting with their feet because they are moving to Texas by 
choice. Texas is a great place to live. We have wonderful people, and 
we have a legislature that operates in a bipartisan way. I don't think 
you would hear one of our legislators stand on the floor of the House 
or Senate and trash another State in order to make a point, because it 
is just not necessary.
  We have a system of public education that is improving every day in 
Texas. It is under the leadership of Governor Bush that that is 
happening. We are covering our children in the CHIP program, and our 
outreach is comprehensive. We are trying to do the education efforts 
today so that every child who is eligible will know through that 
child's parents that they are eligible.
  We have a Patients' Bill of Rights that is the leader in the Nation 
for patients in our State, with their doctors having control of their 
health care. We did it under the leadership of Governor Bush.
  Mr. GRAMM. Will the Senator yield?
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I am happy to yield to the Senator.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, let me say I have been busy all morning 
trying to work out our Medicare and Medicaid Improvement Act and work 
on finalizing actions so we can, hopefully, finish the business of the 
Senate tomorrow or Friday. I have not had an opportunity to come over, 
though I understand Senator Kennedy has gone on at great length talking 
about Texas.
  Let me respond in the following way. There are a lot of States in the 
Union I wouldn't want to live in. But I know there are people who love 
those States. I am proud when people ask: What State do you represent 
in the Senate? I am proud I can say I am a Senator from the greatest 
State in the Union. I am a Senator from Texas.
  Now, Texas does not need defense against Ted Kennedy. The fact that 
Ted Kennedy is not for George Bush for President is a very good reason 
to vote for George Bush for President. The fact that Ted Kennedy does 
not like our Patients' Bill of Rights in Texas is a pretty good 
indication we have a good Patients' Bill of Rights in Texas. After all, 
it was Ted Kennedy who joined the Clintons in proposing that the 
Government take over and run the health care system in America.
  I don't have to defend Texas because people vote with their feet. We 
have had 321,666 people move from other States to Texas since George 
Bush has been Governor. They must think things are pretty good in 
Texas. We have created 1.6 million permanent, productive tax-paying 
jobs for the future in Texas while George Bush has been Governor. While 
America has lost manufacturing jobs, we have gained 100,000 
manufacturing jobs in Texas. Come to think of it, wouldn't it be great 
if America were a little bit more like Texas?
  I quote from the rules of the Senate, rule XIX, clause 3: No Senator 
in debate shall refer offensively to any State of the Union.
  Now I don't intend to come over and say bad things about 
Massachusetts. Some great Americans have come from Massachusetts. 
Massachusetts is a great and wonderful State. I don't choose to live 
there, but I know the people who live there love it.
  It is interesting that we are gaining two congressional seats because 
so many people are moving to Texas; Massachusetts keeps losing 
congressional seats. But I am not going to come out here and criticize 
Massachusetts.
  I say to Senator Kennedy and to others: if you want to run for 
President, you want to campaign, go out and do it. But I don't think we 
ought to turn the floor of the Senate into the fulcrum of that 
campaign.
  I thank my colleague for coming over. She does a great job in 
defending Texas and defending its interests. I am always proud to be 
associated with her. Texas doesn't need any defending. But obviously 
the rules of the Senate do. I call on my colleagues to abide by the 
rules. I don't think we help each other if we try to tear down other 
people's States. I think it behooves us to try to build up our own 
States--to try to build up our own country. I think when we do that, 
the country benefits.
  I thank my colleague for yielding.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I wish to discuss for a moment this 
Rand report that has been quoted so many times by Senator Kennedy and 
others. It seems there are some people in the Rand organization who 
have put something out showing Texas in a bad light in the education 
system.
  That was not a full study. Rand actually did a full and comprehensive 
study. It was released July 25 of this year. I will read a few 
highlights of the comprehensive study. The study examined and compared 
the results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress Tests 
taken between 1990 and 1996 among 44 States. They judged the States 
according to State score improvements, raw achievement scores, and 
scores comparing students from similar demographic groups.
  Results from the Rand study show that math scores in Texas had 
improved at twice the rate of the national average. Texas was second 
among all States in improved math scores. Texas leads all States in a 
comparison of students from similar socioeconomic and family 
backgrounds. Texas African

[[Page S10972]]

Americans and non-Hispanic white fourth graders ranked first on this 
test in math in 1996. Texas Hispanic fourth graders ranked fifth. The 
study confirms earlier reports that Texas is one of two States that has 
made the greatest overall academic gains in recent years.
  The report went on to say one reason why Texas has been so 
successful, according to the Rand study, has been the higher percentage 
of teachers who are satisfied with their teaching resources. Governor 
Bush provided those resources. He wants to do the same thing through 
initiatives such as Reading First, at the Federal level, which would 
offer training and a curriculum for teaching reading to K-through-12 
teachers.
  Governor Bush thinks reading is fundamental. I think his mother is 
the one who started that when she started the Reading First Program for 
America. He believes if a child can read, that child is going to be 
able to take the next steps in public education. That is why Governor 
Bush put the resources there in Texas. That is why the real Rand study 
that was comprehensive showed the great improvement in Texas. That is 
why his education plans for America will work because we want no child 
to be left behind in Texas or any other State.
  I hope the campaign rhetoric doesn't hit the Senate floor again. I am 
not going to stand here and I am not going to sit in my office and 
listen to anyone else use Texas as a whipping boy, A, because Texas is 
a great State; B, we have a great Governor; C, the things that are 
being said are misrepresentations; and D, in Texas, where we have been 
behind in the past, Governor Bush has said we are going to get ahead.
  We are tackling our problems. Every State has problems. I am proud of 
the leadership in Texas of our Speaker, Pete Laney and our Lieutenant 
Governor, Rick Perry, and our Governor, George Bush, who have worked 
together in a bipartisan way to make sure the resources are going into 
public education and into our children's health insurance program. It 
was our legislative leaders working with Governor Bush who said our 
entire State tobacco settlement would go to fund the children's health 
insurance program, and they took a huge part of our State tobacco 
settlement and put it in a trust fund in which every county in Texas 
will participate in perpetuity for the treatment of our indigent health 
care patients all over Texas. That was the leadership of our State 
legislature, and our Governor. Because they do want quality health care 
for all our Texas residents.

  Maybe I am a little biased, but I think I come from a very great 
State. I think the statistics prove it. I do not want to hear anyone 
else say that Texas is not meeting its responsibilities in education, 
in health insurance, in patients' rights--because we are a leader. We 
are a leader and we want everyone in America to have the quality of 
public education that we are building to get in Texas. We want every 
child in America to reach his or her full potential. We want every 
child to have health insurance coverage. We want every person in Texas 
to have quality health care. That is why all of our tobacco settlement 
is going for health care or education programs to educate young people 
on the hazards of smoking. That is it, that is the entire use of our 
tobacco money: to educate young people on the hazards of smoking and 
health care for every citizen of Texas who needs it.
  I am very proud of our record. I am proud of our Governor and I think 
he is the person who can bring these qualities to the United States.
  I yield the floor.

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