[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 16]
[Senate]
[Page 23553]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 23553]]

                 SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON CULTURAL MATTERS

  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, last evening after the final vote 
occurred, my friend and colleague from Kansas, Senator Brownback, took 
the floor and offered an amendment which he then withdrew. I was not 
able, because of my personal schedule, to be here at that time. But as 
an original sponsor of the original legislation offered by Senator 
Brownback, which would have created a special committee on cultural 
matters, I did want to simply say a few words about this.
  I know this became controversial within the Senate, but I felt from 
the beginning that Senator Brownback's intentions were not only worthy 
but they were relevant; that the cultural problems which the committee, 
or later the task force, would have addressed are real, as every family 
in America knows when their children turn on the television or go to a 
movie or listen to a CD or play a video game.
  The problems are not only real, but they are actually relevant to so 
many of the matters we more formally discuss on the floor of the 
Senate--such as the solitary explosions, violent criminal behavior, 
problems such as teenage pregnancies, I think all of which are affected 
by the messages our culture gives our children and, indeed, adults 
about behavior. Of course, I am talking about the hypersexual content, 
hyperviolent content in too much of our culture.
  In this case, this effort by Senator Brownback, with the withdrawal 
of the amendment last night, was not to culminate successfully. But the 
battle will go on.
  Clearly, the standing committees of the Senate will--I certainly hope 
they will; I am confident they will--continue to pursue cultural 
questions because they are so important, they are so central to the 
moral condition and future of our country. I look forward to working on 
those with Senator Brownback and other colleagues as we go forward.

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