[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 75 (Tuesday, June 13, 2006)]
[House]
[Page H3892]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                THE FEDERAL CONSENT DECREE FAIRNESS ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I am here today to talk about the Federal 
Consent Decree Fairness Act that I hope we see on the floor during this 
Congress. Mr. Garrett from New Jersey and Mr. Bishop from Utah and 
other members of the Congressional Constitution Caucus are also 
speaking on behalf of this important legislation tonight. I would also 
like to thank the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper), who is the 
lead cosponsor of this legislation along with me.
  I am pleased to be the sponsor of the Federal Consent Decree Fairness 
Act. I would like to start by explaining what it is not about. This 
bill is not about reining in an activist judiciary or about ending 
consent decrees. This legislation is about increasing the 
responsibility and accountability of elected officials. This is really 
focused on what elected officials are elected to do.
  Consent decrees are too often used by elected officials as an excuse 
not to solve the problems they have been elected to solve. The 
principal goal of this legislation is to return the responsibility for 
public policy-making and the governing of public institutions to 
elected officials. When a consent decree lasts for decades, as many of 
them do, many elected officials never have the opportunity to take 
responsibility for important public services. A politician can say, I 
would really like to do something about the transportation system in 
Los Angeles County, for example, but I cannot because of that consent 
decree. Or I would like to spend more on education in this State, but I 
really cannot because our budget is determined by these consent decrees 
on other issues or even on education itself. And their successors in 
that office can and often do say the same thing.
  Consent decrees, in my view, have become a hiding place for public 
officials, relieving them of responsibility in the area that the 
consent decree affects. So let me again repeat, this is a bill, an act, 
that would really make public officials take responsibility for the 
things they have been elected to do.
  This bill would create an obligation on the part of newly elected 
public officials that they would have an opportunity to look at every 
consent decree that their predecessors were part of and defend why the 
consent decree should continue or go to the courts and explain why the 
consent decree no longer applies. If the plaintiff can explain to the 
judge why it is important that the consent decree continue, then the 
decree stays in place.
  Our goal is to return public responsibility to public officials. Too 
many people in the country today, too many public officials who even 
try to take on these issues find that the consent decrees that were 
entered into decades before by their predecessors prevent them from 
doing the hard things that need to be done.
  The only consent decrees that could be dissolved under this action 
are those in which the plaintiff is incapable of proving a continued 
need for court supervision. If there is no longer a need for court 
supervision, would it not be undemocratic not to return the policy 
decisions to elected officials and in turn to the voters?

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