[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16971-16973]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                  UNANIMOUS-CONSENT REQUEST--H.R. 1501

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am about to propound a unanimous consent 
request on the juvenile justice conference. I notified the 
distinguished majority leader that I would be doing this earlier, and a 
day ago I also notified the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary 
Committee. I do it not in expectation the unanimous consent request 
will be agreed to but to, I hope, move this ball down the field.
  So my request is this: I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to the consideration of H.R. 1501, the House juvenile justice 
bill; that all after the enacting clause be stricken, and that the text 
of S. 254, as passed by the Senate, minus the provision added by 
Senator Feinstein's amendment No. 343, as modified, be inserted in lieu 
thereof; the bill be passed, as amended; the Senate insist on its 
amendment and request a conference with the House; that the conferees 
be instructed to include in the conference report the provision added 
by Senator Feinstein's amendment No. 343 to S. 254; and that the Chair 
be authorized to appoint conferees.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. LOTT. I reserve the right to object--and I will object.
  First of all, this is the kind of motion that usually the majority 
leader would make, and it is my intent to do that in the near future. I 
think we should go to conference on this issue. The juvenile justice 
bill came from the Judiciary Committee. The committee had been working 
on it, I think, for 3 years. Senators on both sides of the aisle worked 
on that bill. It included a variety of Senators, including, obviously, 
Senator Leahy, Senator Hatch, Senator Feinstein, Senator Sessions, 
Senator Ashcroft, Senator Thompson, and a whole number of Senators over 
a period of years.
  It does have very important provisions in regard to how do you deal 
with juvenile crime, how do you try offenders, and where do you 
incarcerate them. It deals with the real world problems of trying to 
deal with juvenile crime, including security in our schools. 
Specifically, it provides for metal detectors at our schools. It has 
programs that deal with alcohol abuse, drug abuse. It has some very 
important amendments dealing with values in society and how we can help 
in that area with our young people.
  So I think this is legislation that should go to conference. It is my 
intent

[[Page 16972]]

to move to go to conference and to appoint conferees. However, there 
have been some Senators who had some concerns about it both in terms of 
the makeup of who the conferees would be, but also I think it would be 
fair to say that Senator Smith of New Hampshire has indicated that he 
would be opposed to going to conference at this time. I have been 
working with him to see how that procedure could be worked out. I know 
most Senators don't get into some of the esoteric rules around here, 
but believe me, we need to try to find a way to work it out where we 
can get to conference. I am trying to do that. At an appropriate time, 
within the next 2 weeks, I will do so--if not this week, next week. The 
only reason I didn't do it this week is because of interminable delays 
by the Senate on other issues.
  We had the whole of last week tied up with the Patients' Bill of 
Rights. We didn't want to interrupt the Patients' Bill of Rights for a 
3- or 4-hour process to appoint conferees. And then this week we have 
been dragging all day and yesterday on a question we should have done 
like that--reorganization of the Department of Energy. Hearings have 
been held on it. We had a good proposal. Instead, we have been talking 
and chatting here all day. Now it is 6 o'clock and we still have not 
gotten it done, the intelligence authorization bill, an authorization 
for intelligence, the CIA. Give me a break.
  If the Senate would like for us to act on some of these issues, then 
the Senate needs to find a way to quit delaying and dragging out other 
issues. We have appropriations bills to do. We need to get going on 
them.
  The main thing I want to assure the Senate is, I think we should go 
to conference. I intend for us to go to conference. If Senators on both 
sides will work with me and support my effort to do that, I think we 
will get an overwhelming vote to do that. But as is the case with 
Senators on both sides of the aisle, when a Senator or Senators have 
problems, my disposition is to try to see if we can work it out in a 
way that is acceptable to him or her. That is my intent.
  Mr. President, I make that explanation as to what is happening. We do 
intend to go to conference. With the cooperation of both sides of the 
aisle, I am sure we will go to conference.
  I do object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I appreciate the explanation of the 
distinguished majority leader. He and I had discussed this earlier. I 
anticipated both the objection and the explanation.
  I fully concur that such a unanimous consent request would normally 
be made by the leadership, but it is also the reason I notified both 
the distinguished majority leader and the distinguished Democratic 
leader that I would do this. I had expressed my concern, actually, 
before the Fourth of July recess, how the Congress is able to move 
legislation and move it quickly if the right interests want it. I 
compared the priority being put on two separate pieces of legislation, 
S. 254, the Hatch-Leahy juvenile justice bill, and H.R. 775, the Y2K 
Act, to show how this works.
  The Hatch-Leahy juvenile justice bill, S. 254, passed the Senate 
after 2 weeks of open debate, after significant improvements, on May 
20. That was a vote, as I recall, of 73-25, a bipartisan vote. On June 
17, the House passed its version of this legislation but chose not to 
take up the Senate bill and insert its language, as is standard 
practice. Nor has the Republican leadership in the House made any 
effort over the past month to seek a House-Senate conference or to 
appoint House conferees.
  Instead, what the other body did was send the Senate a blue slip, 
returning S. 254 to the Senate on the ground it contained a revenue 
provision that must originate in the House. The provision they point to 
is the amendment to S. 254 that would amend the Federal Criminal Code 
to ban the import of high-capacity ammunition clips. Whatever the 
merits are of that particular provision, the majority thought that did 
have merit. I voted against it. But it appears to me that no matter 
which side one is on, the House resorted to a procedural technicality 
to avoid a conference on juvenile justice legislation.
  The amendment is in the final bill which a majority of us, three-
quarters of us, voted for. The Senate has so far taken no steps to 
proceed to conference on the juvenile justice bill or to appoint 
conferees. This delay costs valuable time to get the juvenile justice 
legislation enacted before school resumes this fall.
  I appreciate the words of the distinguished majority leader that we 
will try to move quickly to it, but I mention this as a contrast to the 
pace of action on the juvenile justice bill when we look at the Y2K 
Act. That legislation provided special legal protections to businesses. 
After earlier action in the House on H.R. 775, the Y2K liability 
limitations bill, the bill passed the Senate on June 15, almost 1 month 
after we passed the juvenile justice bill. On June 16, the next day, 
the Senate asked for a House-Senate conference and appointed its 
conferees. The House agreed to the conference and appointed its own 
conferees. The legislation immediately went to conference. The 
conference met that same day, on June 24. After a weekend break for 
extensive negotiations with the administration, the conference report 
was filed on June 29. The bill was taken up, passed before the Fourth 
of July recess, and the President signed it yesterday.
  Now, this took care of the potential liability of a lot of businesses 
under Y2K, some found it at the expense of American consumers, but 
whichever way it was, it become law very quickly.
  The juvenile justice bill can make a difference in the lives of our 
children and families. That should be our No. 1 priority, so that we 
get the conference, conclude it, and so that new programs and 
protections for schoolchildren can be in place when school resumes this 
fall, and not wait until this fall to do it. A lot of the programs in 
here are designed to be available to schools when they come in.
  Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator from Vermont yield?
  Mr. LEAHY. I will yield for a question.
  Mr. DURBIN. I ask the Senator from Vermont, if the majority leader 
appoints a conference committee within the next 2 weeks, doesn't that 
diminish the likelihood that we could even have a conference report and 
do anything before school starts again?
  This bill was inspired in large part by school violence and shootings 
in schools, and now we will have passed through the entire summer and 
not have done anything in the Senate or the House to respond to that if 
we delay this conference committee. Is that not a fact?
  Mr. LEAHY. The distinguished senior Senator from Illinois raises a 
valid point. This bill is designed, very substantive parts of it, for 
programs that we in the Senate debated and I think the American public 
are in support of and thought should be in place before our children go 
back to school this fall. This prompt action is what parents have 
talked to me about it, what school administrators have talked to me 
about it--that they need to have it in place before the schoolchildren 
go back this fall. They want to pass into law the things we learned 
from Columbine and other school tragedies.
  That means we have a very short window, I think about 3 weeks, to 
finish this before the August recess. We have a very short window. If 
we don't finish this before the August recess and get it on the 
President's desk, I don't know how these programs will be in place.
  Frankly, a lot has changed since my children were young enough to be 
in those classes. It may have been growing then, but the demand is 
paramount today. The Senator from Illinois is absolutely right. If we 
don't do it now, we are not going to get it done on time.
  Mr. DURBIN. I salute the leadership of the Senator from Vermont. I 
hope he will renew this request on a regular basis until we have a 
conference committee appointed to pass the juvenile justice bill to do 
something in Congress about the school violence which American families 
understand is a national problem we should address.

[[Page 16973]]


  Mr. SCHUMER. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. LEAHY. I thank the Senator from Illinois. I yield to the Senator 
from New York without losing my right to the floor.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Vermont and just 
want to concur with what the Senator from Illinois said and what the 
Senator from Vermont said. We should be moving this bill. As I 
understand the Senate procedure, even if we wait 2 weeks to appoint 
conferees, and there is objection, we could have trouble there as well. 
So there is no guarantee at all, given the volatility of this issue, 
that we would go to conference even after 2 weeks. Am I correct in 
assuming that?
  Mr. LEAHY. The Senator from New York is correct. The Senator from New 
York has sat on a number of conferences in the other body and now is a 
distinguished and respected Member of this body. He knows from that 
experience that conferences can take awhile, especially when you are 
dealing with criminal law. I recall the Senator from New York and I, 
when he served in the other body, on a major crime bill, sitting there 
until 5 or 6 o'clock in the morning, breaking for 45 minutes while we 
grabbed some breakfast, and going right back in around the clock again.
  There is no guarantee if we went tonight that we could finish by 
August. If we wait until the last few days, it is almost impossible.
  Mr. SCHUMER. The bottom line, I say to the Senator, is that if we 
want to get something done, we really can't afford to wait. There are 
so many slips between the cup and the lip, especially on an issue such 
as this, that we ought to be moving and not waiting 2 weeks but 
appointing conferees tomorrow.
  Mr. LEAHY. I agree, Mr. President.
  I have been advised by the distinguished chairman and vice chairman 
of the Senate Intelligence Committee that they are prepared to wrap up 
with voice votes.

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