[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 83 (Thursday, June 14, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6306-S6307]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       VOTE ON ESEA AUTHORIZATION

  Mr. BENNETT. Madam President, the vote we just had recorded only 
eight votes in the ``nay'' column, and one of those eight was mine. I 
don't usually find myself that isolated. I thought on this occasion 
that it would be appropriate for me to explain why I voted against this 
bill.
  I am not sure what I would have done had my vote been decisive, 
because I recognize that we need to pass an elementary and secondary 
education bill. We need to move forward on an issue that President Bush 
has correctly identified as our No. 1 domestic priority. Nonetheless, I 
was troubled enough by the bill that I voted against it and wanted to 
make my reasons clear in the hope they might influence the conferees.
  I have three reasons for voting against this bill. The first one is 
money. The cost of this bill is twice what it was when the bill hit the 
floor to begin with. We added money here; we added money there. We had 
a drunken sailor's attitude toward this situation: Education is 
wonderful; let's throw money at it.
  I am troubled by that kind of view with respect to how we should 
legislate around here. It struck me as being a bit out of control.
  Secondly, as I heard more and more from the people in Utah who will 
have to live under this bill, they kept saying to me, This feels an 
awful lot like a Federal straitjacket. This feels an awful lot like 
Federal control. This feels an awful lot like we are losing the power 
to run our own schools. I find that troubling as well. As some of my 
colleagues have said, I didn't run for the federal school board; I ran 
for the U.S. Senate.
  Many of the decisions that were made with respect to this bill were 
decisions that were made on the assumption that Washington knows better 
than the local school boards, and that assumption troubles me.
  It is because of the third reason, as I looked at the bill as a 
whole, that I decided to vote against it. I am passionate enough in my 
commitment to education that I could swallow the idea of more money. 
Frankly, if we were getting the right results, I could look the other 
way and say, Well, since we are getting the right results, I can 
tolerate increased Federal control.
  But this bill is not a step forward in education. This bill is 
overwhelmingly timid. It has almost no significant new initiatives in 
it. It is simply funding the status quo to the maximum. The more I look 
at education, the more I think we need to break out of the status quo. 
We need to try new things. But any time a suggestion was made that we 
try something new, even on a pilot basis in a very limited sense in 
just a few places, it was swatted down.
  People talk about Government as if inertia at rest is the problem, 
that nothing ever gets done. It is my experience that it is inertia of 
motion that is the problem with Government. It is not just the law of 
physics. A body in motion tends to stay in motion and in the

[[Page S6307]]

same direction, whether it is a body moving through space in the 
physical world or whether it is a Government agency moving through 
regulations that always does things the same way. It keeps things 
going. It takes yesterday's answers and tries to force them on today's 
problems.
  As I look at this bill overall, I do not see the boldness, the 
freshness, the challenge to do something different and try to break out 
of the old patterns that, frankly, were there when President Bush first 
submitted his education plan. We, in this body, have added so much 
baggage to that exciting first motion that it is hard to recognize the 
President's initiatives in this bill. They are buried under piles of 
money and piles of directions that are rooted in the status quo and in 
the past.
  So I decided that the bill is going to pass, regardless of what I try 
to do. But if I can draw a little bit of attention to the fact that the 
bill is not, in fact, as bold, as innovative, and as hopeful as it 
started out to be by casting a negative vote, then that would justify 
casting a negative vote.
  I don't expect very many people will listen to what I have to say, 
and I don't expect very many people will pay attention to the vote I 
have cast. But I remember when I first came here as a young Senator, 
someone said to me, Cast your vote with this in mind--how will you feel 
as you drive home thinking about it after the debate is over?
  I decided that as I drove home thinking about this one that I would 
drive home feeling better having cast the protest vote than I would if 
I had gone along with the large majority of my colleagues.
  I don't mean to suggest that anyone who voted for this bill was not 
voting out of complete, sincere dedication to the idea that this is 
something good. I don't mean to question the motives of anybody else. I 
simply want to explain my own. This bill has grown too expensive. This 
bill has grown into too much Federal control. And the end result, in 
terms of timidity and support for the status quo, is simply not worth 
those first two. That is why I opposed the bill.
  I hope the product that comes back to us from conference will be 
better and that I will then be in a position to support it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska is recognized.

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