[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 17666]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                     NO CONTROLLING LEGAL AUTHORITY

  (Mr. BALLENGER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. BALLENGER. Mr. Speaker, Vice President Gore made a promise to the 
AFL-CIO that he would keep Federal contracts from companies the unions 
did not like. This ``blacklist'' would be created under the proposed 
rules the administration released late last month and would allow 
unions to punish companies by holding hostage the yearly pool of $200 
billion in Federal contracts.
  Mr. Gore's ``blacklisting'' regulations kick in far too easily. Under 
the proposed rule, all it takes for a contractor to be denied a 
contract is one adverse decision by an administrative law judge.
  Mr. Speaker, when the Vice President got caught making questionable 
phone calls for campaign cash, his defense was that there was not any 
controlling legal authority. Well, Mr. Vice President, administrative 
law judges' decisions are not ``controlling legal authority'' either. 
Their decisions are often overturned by agencies and by the Federal 
courts. In fact, a court recently overruled an ALJ and the board held 
that a company could lawfully fire a worker who sabotaged a company's 
repair work.
  If Mr. Gore is going to try to punish honest companies and their 
hard-working employees, let him at least do it upon ``controlling legal 
authority.''

                          ____________________