[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 75 (Tuesday, June 13, 2006)]
[House]
[Page H3897]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                        LIMITING CONSENT DECREES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate joining the majority 
whip, Mr. Blunt of Missouri, as well as the chairman of the 
Constitution Caucus, Mr. Garrett of New Jersey. For several weeks now 
we have tried to come before this body and talk about issues in which 
the Federal Government in its effort to be helpful has actually caused 
greater harm than good.
  We have talked about the significance of sunset reviews, reviewing 
administrative decisions, mandates, States that would put on specific 
pieces of legislation that would help solve some of those problems. 
Again we come before you today, and I am grateful to be able to talk 
with these good gentlemen about once again the Federal Government, in 
an effort to be helpful, not malicious but helpful, tipping the balance 
of power with the net result that people are harmed, not by design, but 
that is the way that has happened.
  Consent decrees, which shift the horizontal balance of power, have 
had the net effect of actually harming individuals. It is something 
that is a phenomenon that every State has experienced. Federal consent 
decrees are enforced in all 50 States, which end with judges running 
prisons, schools, welfare agencies, health care systems and on and on, 
usually on decisions that are based upon the advice of the advocates 
who brought original lawsuits in the first place.
  It has been mentioned there have been a couple of Supreme Court 
decisions that have talked about these phenomena. The case of Jenkins 
v. Missouri is one of those great ones in which the Kansas City school 
district was taken over by a Federal judge. In an effort to try to 
improve the school system, not only did they use the executive 
authority to control hires and fires as well as curriculum, they 
assumed the legislative authority by actually advancing a property tax 
on the citizens of Kansas City, Missouri, in an effort to try to 
improve the education system. At least at that time the Supreme Court 
said in a 5-4 decision that they had gone too far.
  That kind of usurpation of other authorities does not actually 
produce the better result. In the case that Mr. Garrett spoke about, 
Frew v. Hawkins in 2004, the Supreme Court once again said this can 
lead to the Federal court's oversight programs for long periods of 
time, even when there is no violation of the law still in effect.
  Now what does this do for individuals? Let me give you a couple of 
examples. In a west coast city, they recently entered into a 5-year 
consent, actually in 2001 they went to a 5-year consent decree, in 
which certain practices would be done by the police department of this 
particular city. They recently conducted an independent review on how 
they had done in compliance with the consent decree.
  The consent decree had said that every time a police officer uses 
nondeadly force such as perhaps twisting an arm of a suspect to 
handcuff him, the captain or above has to write a report of the 
incident within 14 days. There was a 94 percent compliance with that 
provision, but not enough to satisfy the consent decree.
  The police commissioner was supposed to report within 45 days the 
quarterly discipline report. He actually took 15 days longer than that 
and was once again out of compliance. The department took 21 days 
rather than 7 days to send in its audit report to the Inspector General 
and was therefore out of compliance.
  In fact, it would be possible to comply with all the decisions of 
this consent decree if the police department actually hired more 
personnel to keep the paperwork going. In fact, that is exactly what 
they did. They did hire more personnel to do the paperwork that was 
necessary to fulfill the details of the consent decree.
  One article in the National Review talks about how the city's police 
department and their supervisors would meet to discuss the issues of 
the police department, and their topics of conversation tend to go 
almost universally to how to fulfill the provisions of the consent 
decree.
  If I could quote from one article, they said for more than 2\1/2\ 
hours they gathered captains, sergeants lieutenants, and detectives 
spoke of nothing but processing the paperwork. Not a single word was 
uttered about reducing crime or otherwise how to improve the quality of 
life of people in the area in which they serve. The supervisor who 
attended this meeting simply called the process pathetic.
  Oddly enough in the report of how they were doing in fulfilling their 
consent decree, it also mentioned that what the city needed were more 
personnel on the street and more supervisor oversight for the officers 
in the field, which oddly enough, in one of those ironies of life, they 
could have done had they not spent their money to hire the personnel to 
do the paperwork for the consent decree.
  In New York City, they have had, since 1974, a consent decree 
mandating bilingual education in some of the city schools that has now 
been going on for 30 years, well past the original intent of it, even 
though the parents do not want to participate in this particular 
program.
  Another west coast city was issued a consent decree in 1991 for their 
school districts, again claiming there were too few experienced 
teachers. Again the court stepped in increasing the taxes of these 
individuals by $11 million a year, and now, 15 years later, finally, 
the judge declared herself satisfied and declined to extend this decree 
for yet another 5 years.
  The problem with consent decrees is very simple. Once entered into, 
those who are subject to those decrees have no recourse. There is no 
balance, there is no kind of protective area in which to go, in which 
case in that particular situation it is why the majority whip has asked 
us to introduce this piece of legislation to put a time limit on 
consent decrees.

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