[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 17871-17872]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                   UNANIMOUS-CONSENT REQUEST--S. 2497

  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, on behalf of the majority leader, I have 
been asked to make a unanimous-consent request.
  I ask unanimous consent that immediately following the passage of 
H.R. 4444, the Commerce Committee be discharged from further 
consideration of S. 2497 and the Senate proceed to its immediate 
consideration under the following terms: Two hours on the bill to be 
equally divided in the usual form; that there be up to one relevant 
amendment in order for each leader, that they be offered in the first 
degree, limited to 30 minutes equally divided and not subject to any 
second-degree amendments; and that no motions to commit or recommit be 
in order.
  I further ask unanimous consent that following conclusion or use of 
debate time in the disposition of the above described amendments, the 
bill be advanced to third reading and a vote occur on final passage of 
the bill, as amended, if amended, all without any intervening action or 
debate.
  The bill has to do with the entertainment industry and the 
entertainment industry marketing their videos and CDs to those people--
children--who are proscribed, really, from buying them or attending 
those kinds of movies. These are R-rated movies. Children under 17 are 
not permitted in these without an adult. Yet we have a report just 
issued, I think earlier this week, that says the movie industry targets 
the very people who are not supposed to be viewing these kinds of 
materials or listening to these kinds of materials.
  So this is a unanimous-consent request to move this out of the 
Commerce Committee and to deal with this issue on the floor promptly. 
This is an important issue that has been a bipartisan issue in the 
past. I hope my unanimous-consent request will be approved by the 
Democrats.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Mr. REID. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, we, also, in the minority, are very 
interested in this subject. We think the Vice President and nominee 
has, along with others, set a good tone as to how we should look at 
what is going on with media. However, as we speak, at this very minute 
there are hearings on this subject going on in the Commerce Committee. 
The ranking member, Senator Hollings, has not had an opportunity to 
review this unanimous-consent request. We believe if there is going to 
be legislation brought before the Senate, it should be in the regular 
order; that is, there should be an opportunity to amend the legislation 
if in fact that is necessary. We know there are a number of Senators 
who wish to offer amendments.
  This unanimous-consent request that we have allows one amendment, and 
on that one amendment Senators can speak for 30 minutes. So when we 
have so much to do in this body--we have 11 appropriations bills we 
have not completed. I am going to discuss, in a little bit, some more 
things on education. We have a Patient's Bill of Rights we need to do, 
a prescription bill we need to do, minimum wage--I think it is awfully 
late in the game, when we have 15 days in the session left, to start 
talking about media violence. This is an issue that has been 
outstanding for many months. We have members of the minority who have 
spoken out on this time after time.
  Based on that, and for other reasons, we object.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SANTORUM. The reason we are trying to move expeditiously here is 
the FTC has come out with a record that shows the egregious nature of 
the conduct of Hollywood with respect to the marketing to young people 
of material that is inappropriate for them,

[[Page 17872]]

that they have said they would not so market. It is very similar to the 
charges we have heard about tobacco companies, that are not supposed to 
sell to minors, marketing to minors. Here we have the identical 
situation.
  The other side has not been reticent about bringing tobacco 
legislation to the floor to stop the marketing to minors at the drop of 
a hat. Yet when it comes to protecting Hollywood, we have a roadblock. 
We have an opportunity here to reform the system, to do something 
substantive about an issue that is undercutting the moral fabric of our 
country, that is poisoning the minds of our children, and we have a 
roadblock because we have more important issues to discuss. According 
to the other side, there are other issues more important than these 
issues. I don't think there are very many issues that are more 
important than a deliberate attempt to market inappropriate material to 
young minds. That, to me, is about as high a priority as we can get.
  There may be some other things the other side believes are more 
important than that, but bringing this bill to the floor and having 
this debated is a very important issue. As the Senator from Nevada 
mentioned, their own Vice Presidential candidate believes this is a 
very high profile issue.
  Let's deal with it. Let's not talk about it; let's not politic about 
it; let's not pander about it; let's do something about it. Here we 
have, again, an opportunity for us to do something substantive, to 
create reform, to move the agenda forward, and we have a roadblock; we 
have an objection: It is just not the right time; it is just not the 
right way; it is just not the exact thing we would like to do.
  Let's move forward. Let's start moving on reform. We hear complaints 
that nothing gets done around here. Every time we start to put 
something forward to try to move a reform, the answer is no. We are 
going to continue to try. This is not the last time we are going to try 
to get unanimous consent on this matter. This is an important matter 
that we need to bring up and we need to deal with before this session 
ends.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, we do not apologize for the work we have 
done on tobacco. We, of course, have led the Nation into focusing on 
the evils of tobacco and what it has done to hurt not only the youth 
but the adult communities throughout America. We do not apologize for 
that. This has been led by the minority, and we are proud of that.

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