[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 18]
[House]
[Pages 27105-27110]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



THE INDIAN AMERICAN FRIENDSHIP COUNCIL AND STRENGTHENING INDIA-AMERICA 
                                  TIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman) 
is recognized for the remainder of the minority leader's hour.
  Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, it has been a pleasure to work with the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) on strengthening the ties 
between the United States and Israel.
  I want to join with him in praising the Indian American Friendship 
Council and discussing how important U.S.-India relations are for the 
people of the United States and the important work of the Indian-
American Friendship Council in strengthening those ties.
  Mr. Speaker, just a few years ago, half a billion Indians went to the 
polls to choose a new parliament, five times as many people who 
participated last month in the U.S. Presidential election. Frankly, a 
higher level of participation in democracy than we enjoy here in the 
United States.
  India has demonstrated to the world that democracy is not just a 
system of government for the developed world, but, in fact, is a system 
of government that can work anywhere. Where else would democracy face 
such incredible challenges? A Nation of a billion people, perhaps the 
most ethnically and religiously diverse nation on the face of the 
earth, with one democratically elected parliament.

[[Page 27106]]

  India has surprised the world, not only with its ability to maintain 
and strength its democratic institutions but also with its economic 
growth. It serves as a model to the entire world.
  The Indian-American community has also served as a model. It is now 
the most highly educated of all of America's ethnic groups. Forty years 
ago, there were 35,000 Indo-Americans. Today, there are 35,000 Indo-
American physicians, not to mention the tens of thousands of Indo-
Americans who are in the various other professions who have succeeded 
in business, particularly information technology and who have 
participated in the cultural and political life of America.
  Clearly strengthening ties between India and the United States is an 
important mission, and no organization performs that mission to a 
greater degree and with more finesse and capacity than the Indian-
American Friendship Council.
  The Indian-American Friendship Council has prominent chapters in 
networking groups, in many cities and States across this country. As 
the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) pointed out, every year the 
council hosts a major annual event here in Washington, which attracts 
scores of Members of the House and of the Senate and serves as a 
platform for discussion between the Indo-American community and other 
supporters of the U.S.-India relationship and elected Members of the 
Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, not only does the Indian-American Friendship Council 
serve as a bridge to those who serve in Congress, but it also serves as 
a bridge to the State Department and the other departments involved in 
international economic and diplomatic policy of this country.
  I am particularly proud of Dr. Krishna Reddy, the founder of the 
Indian-American Friendship Council, who I am proud to say is a Southern 
Californian. So while the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) has 
accomplished much for the Indo-American relationship, he cannot claim 
that his region is the home of Dr. Reddy, whereas we, in Southern 
California, can.
  With that in mind and knowing of all the gentleman has done for the 
U.S.-India relationship and to support the Indian-American Friendship 
Council, I would at this point, yield to the gentleman from New Jersey 
(Mr. Pallone), for any parting words about the importance of the 
Indian-American Friendship Council.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Sherman), and I agree that I cannot lay claim to Dr. Reddy, because he 
is from the gentleman's part of the country. I will say that about a 
year or two ago, Dr. Reddy started a chapter of the Indian-American 
Friendship Council in New Jersey.
  They are now very active, and I have been to some of their meetings 
where there were maybe 200 or 300 people, and so even though he is from 
California, his name and his activities have now spread to my great 
State as well.
  Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am glad to see that Southern California 
is spreading wisdom to the far shores of New Jersey.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Pallone), who has been here long before I was involved in the India 
Caucus and in strengthening ties between the world's richest democracy 
and the world's largest democracy.


   Issues That We Need to Confront to Avoid Constitutional Crisis of 
                             Coming Decades

  Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin the speech I had 
planned to give tonight.
  Mr. Speaker, you have been here on many occasions when I have 
addressed the House late at night, and this is the last speech of the 
106th Congress, as I understand it, the last three quarters of an hour 
which you will be presiding over this House.
  I wish the gentleman tremendous luck and tremendous good fortune as 
the gentleman leaves this House. I want to thank the gentleman for his 
service to this House and to this Nation, and particularly his service 
as a presiding officer over this House, which he has done so many 
times.
  Mr. Speaker, I especially want to thank you in advance for your 
indulgence during the next three quarters of an hour.
  I also want to thank the House for this opportunity to address the 
House in the closing minutes of the 106th Congress and take this 
opportunity to wish all of my colleagues happy holidays and a happy and 
productive new year.
  Mr. Speaker, we come to the end of the 106th Congress; and we come to 
the conclusion of the selection of the 43rd President of the United 
States, perhaps more in exhaustion than in glee, having severely tested 
our constitutional structure. When we come back next year, we need to 
do so in the spirit of bipartisanship; and I think in that spirit, we 
need to address some of the issues as to which there is no Democrat 
policy, no Republican policy, but issues that go to the structure of 
our democracy, issues that we need to confront now to avoid the 
constitutional crisis of coming decades, issues that go to the 
structure of our government and go to protecting the Presidency from 
challenges that it could face in the decades to come.
  I have been asked who could have imagined the problems that we have 
faced over the last month. The fact of the matter is anyone with a good 
imagination could have imagined these problems and hundreds of others.
  We simply need to look at the technical mechanisms for our 
government, for our Constitution. And for our democracy in order to 
identify those issues that could present crisis in the future.
  Now, there are a variety of different kinds of problems this country 
faces as to which Members of Congress are not to be expected to have 
in-depth expertise. In my own State, there are tremendous problems 
dealing with the generation and distribution of electric power. And few 
Members of the State legislature of this Congress have in-depth 
expertise or experience in matters of electric power; but when it comes 
to government and politics and voting, that is the one area where we 
are experts. It is time that we turn that expertise to making sure that 
all of the foreseeable problems that could go to the structure of our 
government are given attention and hopefully are solved.
  These are problems, and I will address nine different problems in the 
remainder of any speech, that have not gotten much attention. They are 
problems that we are not lobbied by the insurance industry or the 
physicians. The NIFB has no position, nor does the AFL-CIO; neither the 
sugar producers, nor the candy makers have a stake in the outcome 
directly.

                              {time}  2000

  None of the hundreds of lobbyists and constituent groups that have 
come to our office in the last 2 years have even addressed these 
issues. Given what has happened in Florida, we will begin to hear of 
one or two of them, but we should address them all and others besides, 
because I am not confident that I have the right answers, I am not 
confident that I have identified all of the relevant questions. But I 
am sure that it is time for this House to imagine those mechanical 
threats, those threats to the mechanics to our democracy that could 
occur, not just in the next few years, but in the coming many decades.
  Mr. Speaker, if I had come to this floor 6 months ago and said that 
chad posed a risk to our democracy, a member of the Committee on 
National Security would have responded that the West African nation of 
Chad posed no threat to us, that it was not the site of terrorism nor 
military threat. Yet, we must defend our democracy, not only from the 
most obscure sources of international attack, but from those things 
that could undermine faith in our institutions.
  We have learned that the word chad does not only apply to a nation in 
West Africa, but refers to just one of many mechanical problems that 
could undermine our faith in those institutions.
  Mr. Speaker, it is not enough for us to address just what happened in 
Florida, because tomorrow's constitutional crisis will not be the same 
as yesterday's. The crisis that we have just

[[Page 27107]]

faced will inspire us to close the barn door now that the horse is 
departed. But it is not enough to close the door through which one 
horse escaped, we must, instead, examine the barn and close every 
window and every door and make sure that the walls are structurally 
sound.
  We must identify as many possible constitutionally undefined areas 
and address those areas long before they become sources of major 
partisan controversy. We must imagine all the problems that we can and 
not scoff at those who would solve ``imaginary problems.''
  The first of these issues that I would like to address is one that 
has not been discussed, I believe, on this floor for at least a decade; 
and that is the issue of Presidential succession. We all know that, if 
the President is impaired or becomes deceased, the Vice President 
succeeds to that office. We all know that a Vice President who then 
becomes President can appoint a successor to the Vice Presidential 
office.
  We all know if things go smoothly, there will always be a President 
and a Vice President and a Vice President ready to take over if the 
President, God forbid, is deceased. But, Mr. Speaker, there could come 
times when we go for months or years without a Vice President. We did 
when Gerald Ford became President after the resignation of Richard 
Nixon. One could have imagined the crisis we might have faced had 
President Ford faced some untoward calamity.
  See, Mr. Speaker, we have laws that provide for succession to the 
Presidency. Such laws ought to provide two things, certainty and 
continuity. The present statute does provide certainty. For if there is 
a vacancy in both the Presidency and the Vice Presidency, the next 
person in line is the Speaker of the House and then the President Pro 
Tempore of the Senate followed by the various cabinet officials in 
order of the seniority of their departments. That will provide for 
certainty as to who holds the office of President.
  But it is not enough for us to have certainty. We also need 
continuity; and by this, I mean continuity of policy. If, for example, 
the Vice President has become President and there is a vacancy in the 
Vice Presidency, the stock markets should know that, if that Vice 
President who has become President were to die, that our national 
policies would remain pretty much the same, that our economic policies 
would remain the same.
  Our adversaries and our friends around the world should know that, 
even if there is no one currently serving as Vice President, that the 
next person in line will carry on pretty much the same policies. No one 
should have any belief that a change in who is President except at a 
national election could radically change our policy.
  Most important, it is key that any potential assassin not believe 
that they can radically change America's foreign or domestic policies 
with a bullet. They can change the person but hopefully not radically 
change the policies.
  Unfortunately, our present statute does not meet that standard of 
providing for continuity, continuity of policy. Because the person in 
line after the Vice President may or may not be of the same party.
  Our old system was, I think, superior. The statute, until a couple of 
decades ago, provided that, if there was a vacancy in both the 
President and the Vice President, the next person in line was the 
Secretary of State, and I believe after that the Secretary of the 
Treasury, individuals who had been confirmed by the Senate, individuals 
of high integrity and very substantial governmental responsibility, 
individuals, though, most importantly who would share a general 
philosophy with the President of the United States.
  Today, we have a very different system, a system where we could have 
a change in the party in the White House, not as a result of an 
election, but just as a result of succession. One could have imagined 
in the 1970s with Gerald Ford serving as President that the country 
would wonder what if something happened to President Ford? Would that 
mean that we would pull out of Vietnam? Who knows? No one should have 
doubted during that time, but anyone looking at the Constitution and 
our statutes would have doubted that a change in the person of the 
President would change the policies of the Presidency.
  Now I should point out that we changed our statute several decades 
ago because it was believed that the first four persons in line to 
succeed to the Presidency should be elected officials. I do not find 
that incredibly compelling, but I can understand why others do.
  So let us maintain that policy should others think it important, but 
let us provide that every President may file with the Clerk of the 
House and the Clerk of the Senate an official document indicating who 
shall be third and fourth in line in succession; that they would 
designate that the person third in line would either be the Speaker of 
the House or the Minority Leader of the House, and the person fourth in 
line would either be the Majority Leader in the Senate or the Minority 
Leader in the Senate.
  Under those circumstances, we would know that a Member of Congress 
would be third and a Member of Congress would be fourth in line. Then 
no matter what is likely to happen, an elected official held in high 
esteem by their colleagues in the Congress would serve as third and 
fourth in line. At the same time, we would know that the party in the 
White House is not subject to change except through election.
  If we fail to do so, then some time in the next century, we will face 
months, if not years, when our allies and enemies around the world 
wonder whether there could be a radical change in our policies due only 
to a sad death or incapacity. Assassins or potential assassins may be 
inspired to their evil deed by the belief that they are, not only 
committing a heinous act against this country, but in the misbegotten 
belief that that is an appropriate way to change radically America's 
foreign or domestic policy. Mr. Speaker, we have not addressed this 
issue, I believe, for decades. We ought to.
  Let us move on, though, to another issue that is also important; and 
that is one that has been discussed at great length, and that is the 
need for voting machines around this country or vote tabulation systems 
that are worthy of the 21st Century and worthy of the world's most 
powerful democracy.
  There have been several bills introduced that provide for at least a 
study of what can be done to improve our vote tabulation system. But 
let me describe how important that is. Thirty-one percent of this 
country uses the punch card system which we became all too aware of in 
Southern Florida. That system is used, for example, in Los Angeles and 
Ventura Counties, major counties which I partially represent.
  One out of every 66 persons voting for President in Florida in a 
punch card county had their vote unregistered for President, an 
undervote. Now, you may say perhaps 1 out of every 66 Floridians did 
not care to register a vote for President. But in the adjoining 
counties where optical scanners are used, only 1 out of every 250 
voters chose to skip that office. We know from our own experience that 
the vast majority of people who go to the polls at a Presidential 
election cast a vote for President, especially when they are given, not 
only the two major choices, but several other choices besides.
  In fact, experience in Florida shows that it is not the case that 
there are just certain counties in Florida where people want to skip 
the office of President, because several counties have moved from one 
vote casting system to the other from 1996 to the year 2000. When they 
did so, they went from roughly 1 out of every 66 ballots missing a vote 
for President to 1 out of every 250.
  So we see that the tendency to vote for President, when accurately 
tabulated using the best machines available, that 249 out of 250 people 
cast a vote, that squares with our experience, and that, in fact, the 
vote tabulating machines used in punch card counties are ignoring 
almost 1 percent of the votes cast for President. This needs to be 
changed, and we need to do more than just have a Band-Aid.
  Yes, we could provide Federal funds on a pilot basis to a dozen 
counties

[[Page 27108]]

around the country. We could provide $50 million or $70 million. We 
could stand in front of a few fancy machines in a few counties. But 31 
percent of all Americans are using this punch card system. Other 
Americans are using equally bad systems. And 1 percent of that 31 
percent are being disenfranchised. That is wrong.
  We should provide $1 billion a year for several years, real money for 
a real problem, because there are 180,000 precincts in this country, 
and each one has half a dozen or more voting booths with tabulation 
devices. Every county has to be able to count the ballots. This is a 
big deal and cannot be dealt with by a few pilot programs that solve 
the problem in just a few counties.
  What we ought to do is provide grants to counties and other local 
jurisdictions responsible for elections, grants of between 50 percent 
and 80 percent of the cost of new vote tabulation and vote casting 
machinery and the cost of implementing the systems and training the 
employees involved.
  What we ought to do is commission the Federal Election Commission 
with the responsibility of identifying one, two or three of the best 
vote tabulation systems for large counties, perhaps a different list of 
one, two or three systems for medium-sized counties, and perhaps a 
different list of the best systems to be used in small counties. Then 
we should turn to every county in America that does not have one of 
these good systems and offer between 50 and 80 percent of the cost of 
buying the new equipment. To do otherwise is to say that democracy is 
worth a quarter trillion dollars a year to defend from foreign threats, 
but not even a tiny, tiny portion of that to defend from constitutional 
crisis from unintentional disenfranchisement.
  Furthermore, the Supreme Court, whether one agrees with it or not, 
has just enumerated or identified an equal protection right for votes 
to be counted accurately.

                              {time}  2015

  Now, it is possible that this court will never find another 
circumstance in which to apply that new constitutional right. It is 
possible that this court found that new right to apply it only to this 
election and now will want to seal it and never use it again, but that 
is just this court. One can imagine a court inspired by more liberal 
values that would rely on this case to question or invalidate elections 
from coast to coast if there was a denial of equal protection of the 
right to cast one's vote in a way in which it would be accurately 
counted.
  The fact is these old vote tabulation systems are found often, and to 
a greater extent and a greater proportion, in urban counties, with 
previously disenfranchised minorities, disadvantaged minorities, using 
systems that throw out 1 percent of their vote, while adjoining more 
economically upscale counties use new upscale vote tabulation systems. 
I am not sure this court would use the Equal Protection Clause to deal 
with that issue, but I do know that in other courts in other decades 
this issue may rise to the level of constitutional scrutiny, and at 
that point, at that point we may face another constitutional crisis as 
some other court examines whether it is fair to use accurate systems in 
upscale counties and decrepit systems for those who are poor and those 
in traditionally discriminated against racial minorities.
  I also, though, want to point out another issue, and that is if we do 
have a Federal right, an equal protection right to accurate voting, 
that we establish some rules that require that those rights be raised 
on a timely basis. I cite the butterfly ballot, now famous from Palm 
Beach County. Certainly we ought to have a rule that says that that 
ballot needs to be challenged 30 days before the election or 3 days 
after it is known or should be known to the candidates involved in the 
election so that we do not have a Federal Court invalidating an 
election weeks or months afterwards because it finds that the butterfly 
ballot denies equal protection to those who use it.
  We must have a system that puts the onus on candidates to bring to 
the attention their objections first to county election officials and 
then, if they feel they have a constitutional claim, to the Federal 
courts. The butterfly ballot should have been objected to long ago, 
long before the election.
  Mr. Speaker, let me turn to a third issue, and one that has also 
gotten some attention, and that is the electoral college system. When 
the electoral college was first instituted, democracy was a newfangled 
dangerous idea that our Founding Fathers did not want to fully embrace, 
but which other modern countries have more fully embraced than we have 
because it is now a proven idea, and American values require that the 
President of the United States be elected by the people. Now, the 
values of the 1700s may have been different; but until recently, 
virtually no American could have conceived of the idea, was even aware 
of the existence of the electoral college.
  Secondly, Mr. Speaker, I would point out that at the time our 
Constitution was signed, the States really were independent countries. 
When they were independent countries, we used the following 
terminology. We would say the United States are going to do something. 
Today we say the United States is going to do something, because we are 
now one Nation, with one President that presides over one people. We 
are both a Republic and a democracy. The distinction between a 
democracy and a Republic is now, I believe, outmoded because we are a 
Republic that should be guided by democratic values, particularly in 
the selection of a President.
  Now, in this election, the person who will be in the White House did 
not get a plurality of the votes, but that was by a mere 300,000 to 
400,000 votes. Imagine if by 1 million votes or 2 million votes or 
perhaps 3, 4, or 5 million votes one person is installed in the White 
House while the other won the popular vote. Would that President have 
all of the legitimacy that we would like the President to have? What is 
worse, what happens if there is a tie?
  I know we just lived through one crisis. But what if Ralph Nader had 
won Florida? Not this election, maybe next election. If that would have 
occurred, then none of the Presidential candidates would have had 270 
electoral college votes, and the Presidency would have been decided 
here in the House of Representatives. So far that sounds reasonably 
fair. But we in this House would vote by States. North Dakota and South 
Dakota would have as much influence as New York and California 
combined. Would the country really accept a President who had been 
chosen by a majority of the States, representing only a fraction of the 
Nation's population? I think such a President might have been accepted 
in the 1700s. In fact, that is how Thomas Jefferson was selected. But I 
am not at all sure that a President selected through such a manner 
would have legitimacy today.
  Finally, the maintenance of the electoral college means that there 
could just be a few dozen votes in one State that could decide an 
election and could be the subject of a recount, or more than one 
recount.
  The solution is clear. We ought to elect a President by national 
vote. But one issue then arises. What if no Presidential candidate 
receives 50 percent of the vote? I suggest that we draw the line at 40 
percent, since throughout the last hundred years every President we 
have installed, I believe, has received 40 percent of the popular vote; 
yet in contrast, no President in the last 12 years has received over 50 
percent of the vote. But if we had a situation with three, four or five 
viable candidates for President and none of them got over 40 percent of 
the vote, then I would suggest a national runoff.
  For those who disagree with the cost of such an enterprise, even in 
those incredibly rare occasions when a leading candidate failed to 
receive even 40 percent, then perhaps the House of Representatives 
could select the President, with each Member of the House having an 
equal vote.
  Mr. Speaker, we may not abolish the electoral college; but if we do 
not, it is time for us to stop playing with the excitement of wondering 
if we will have faithless electors. Now, I am confident

[[Page 27109]]

on December 18 we will not have faithless electors; that every elector 
will cast their vote for the slate to which they are pledged. But just 
because it does not happen next week, does not mean we can sleep and 
wait for when it does happen. There have been faithless electors in the 
past.
  If we cannot agree to abolish the electoral college, let us at least 
abolish electoral college members and use a point system that is 
automatic. If we like the pageantry, then we could have electoral 
college members, but their votes should be tabulated for the candidate 
to which they are pledged, unless that candidate releases them by a 
formal notarized document. If we do otherwise, then we will take a 
breath, we will relax on December 18, when faithless electors do not 
control the outcome of the Presidency, and we will leave it to our 
children and grandchildren to experience the constitutional crisis that 
we could prevent today by eliminating the risk of faithless electors.
  Now, there is another issue I would like to discuss, and that is the 
statutory interpretation. It is by no means clear whether this is the 
law of the land, but it is the belief of some that a candidate for 
President cannot tell the people of the country who would serve in his 
or her cabinet. There is discussion that our various anti-bribery 
statutes, et cetera, indicate that no candidate for office can indicate 
who will get an appointment should he or she be successful. Now, I 
agree we should not be selling appointments, and that would never be 
legal; but we should certainly clarify the law so that if a 
Presidential candidate chose to announce who would serve in this or 
that position, and announced it publicly, that the country would take 
that into consideration.
  No candidate should risk the violation of Federal law. One could even 
postulate the idea of a criminal conviction just for telling us what 
some of us want to know. Now, as a politically involved individual, I 
would advise most Presidential candidates not to tell us who they would 
appoint to the cabinets. But any Presidential candidate who chose to do 
so should not face any retribution.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, the next time bomb which we have not bothered to 
listen to is the method of amending our Constitution by holding a 
Constitutional Convention. We have never amended our Constitution that 
way, and so we have tremendous questions as to how such a 
Constitutional Convention would work. The last time Congress dealt with 
this, I believe, was in the 102nd Congress, when there was a 
Constitutional Convention Implementation Act introduced but basically 
ignored by the House and the Senate. Here are a few of the issues.
  Let me cite article 5 of our Constitution, first of all, which says 
that with the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the 
States, there shall be a convention for proposing amendments to the 
Constitution, which would then have to be ratified by the legislatures 
in three-quarters of the States. In fact, quite a number of States, at 
times in the past, sometimes 50 or 100 years in the past, have passed 
the necessary resolution to call for a Constitutional Convention. 
Usually, they have called for a Constitutional Convention to deal with 
this or that problem. Some States have called for constitutional 
conventions to deal with a balanced budget amendment or with term 
limits. But if a Constitutional Convention were called, or purportedly 
called, perhaps called in the opinion of some and not called in the 
opinion of others, the Congressional Research Service outlines quite a 
number of questions that have not been settled.
  For example, on question yet to be settled is whether or not the 
petitions to call that convention must all be the same document or 
whether some can call for a convention to deal with term limits and 
others a convention to deal with balancing the budget, and a bunch of 
others calling for a convention to completely revise the Constitution. 
What are the scope and limitations of any such Constitutional 
Convention? Once assembled, for example assembled for the purpose of 
passing term limitations, is the convention free to propose to the 
several States the complete revision of our constitution? What is the 
validity of any rescission of a petition by a State legislature? If a 
legislature called for a Constitutional Convention to deal with the 
adverse consequences of prohibition and passed that resolution in the 
first half of the last century, is that State, one, counted toward the 
calling of a Constitutional Convention included in the tally of modern 
States that have called for a Constitutional Convention to deal with 
such modern concepts as term limits?

                              {time}  2030

  Do State petitions have to be contemporaneous? Another unsettled 
issue? There are many others.
  And yet, our entire Constitution could be revised from the beginning 
through the most recent amendment by a constitutional convention which 
may or may not be legitimate because it may or may not conform on one 
of these issues.
  It is time for Congress to either abolish the entire concept of a 
constitutional convention or at least clarify how it would be called 
and what would be the scope of its powers.
  I might add that perhaps we should move to a system where Congress 
can propose or State legislatures can propose amendments to our 
Constitution either two-thirds of both Houses of Congress or two-thirds 
of the State legislatures who could then see that amendment approved at 
a referendum by two-thirds of the people of the country. It may be time 
to look to the referendum as a way to ratify amendments to our 
Constitution.
  Those are at least issues that we should talk about as much as we 
talk about the issues that pit Republicans against Democrats. We should 
deal at length with the structure of our democracy.
  We also, of course, should deal with campaign finance reform. And 
then we should deal with an issue put before us by the Supreme Court 
decision in Jones v. Clinton. You will remember that that is the 
decision in which the Court decided that anyone could sue the President 
for any reason, that the lawsuit would go forward, the President could 
be deposed.
  And fortunately, in the last 4 years only one party, only one 
individual, has sued the President. It had very significant 
consequences.
  I would cite the House to the last paragraph of the Supreme Court's 
decision where it says, ``If Congress deems it appropriate to afford 
the President stronger protection, it may respond with appropriate 
legislation.''
  We ought to take the court up on that. And here is why: anyone with 
sufficient financing could sue the incoming President and we could have 
dozens and dozens of lawsuits financed by people who simply are angry 
with President-elect Bush or then-President Bush. Slander lawsuits, 
sexual harassment lawsuits, job discrimination lawsuits, Federal 
lawsuits, State lawsuits.
  Could $10 million be raised from highly partisan Democrats for the 
purpose of financing dozens of lawsuits resulting in dozens and dozens 
of depositions of the incoming President? Perhaps. I do not want to 
find out. And even if that is not the state to which our country has 
yet sunk in levels of partisanship, do we want to wait a decade or two 
or three until there is an organized effort to sue whoever is then 
President as many times as possible and take as many depositions as 
possible on as many salacious topics as possible?
  I suggest, instead, that we indicate that any lawsuit against the 
President is suspended, that the statute of limitations is told, that 
the rights of the plaintiffs are preserved until that Presidency is 
completed, and that any depositions necessary to preserve evidence, any 
documents that are necessary to be preserved are preserved so that 
trial can go forward after the defendant in that lawsuit leaves the 
White House. To do otherwise is to invite anti-Presidential retribution 
by lawsuits.
  There is another issue that I hesitate to bring before the House but 
one that we might be able to deal with, and that is the ongoing 
investigation begun by Kenneth Starr. Most of this country

[[Page 27110]]

knows that we have failed to reauthorize, that we have squelched the 
Independent Counsel statute. Much of the country does not know that the 
Independent Counsel's Office of Ken Starr continues to operate and is 
allowed to continue to operate as long as it wishes to or until we in 
this Congress by statute pull the plug, padlock the office, and send 
the files to the Justice Department.
  Now we have a particular reason to do so. The Justice Department, on 
January 21, will be in Republican hands; and if there is anything in 
those files which even a Republican administration using reasonable 
discretion determines to prosecute, they are free to do so. But we 
allowed the Independent Counsel statute to expire because we know that 
it does not operate with discretion, that an office that exists only to 
prosecute one individual and it is terminated if it fails to prosecute 
will find some reason to prosecute, at least find some reason to 
continue to investigate.
  And if you think that partisan tensions are now as high in Washington 
as they could ever be, imagine how this country will react if a 
Republican Congress allows to continue the Ken Starr investigation.
  Will we just be viewed as another Pakistan, another troubled 
democracy or an occasional democracy if we begin the process of 
indicting our former Presidents?
  I suggest that the continued failure of this Congress to act, the 
continued allowance of this Congress to fund Robert Ray's operation has 
the seeds for raising partisanship to one unnecessary level.
  We have heard as much as we need to about Monica Lewinsky, and 
Federal dollars should no longer be spent to finance an office that has 
nothing to do, that loses its power, that loses its payment as soon as 
they decide that the Lewinsky matter is no longer worthy of 
investigation.
  Mr. Speaker, I have brought up bipartisanship quite a number of times 
in this presentation. Let me just take a minute to talk about what I 
think bipartisanship means.
  Bipartisanship, when it comes to legislation, means working together 
to obtain bills that have substantial support on both sides of the 
aisle, working with the leadership and the mainstream Members on both 
sides of the aisle to put together bills that solve problems for 
America.
  Alternatively, it could mean working through the committee process, 
and should mean working through the committee process, on bills that 
obtain the support of the ranking member and the chairperson of the 
subcommittee that is relevant and/or the committee that is relevant or 
obtain substantial support from Democrats and Republicans on the 
relevant committee.
  My fear is that we will deal with bipartisanship by finding a bill 
that is purely partisan and then reaching out to one or two Members of 
the other party and saying a bill that is 99 and three-quarters percent 
Republican and one-tenth of one percent Democrat is a bipartisan bill. 
That would be a betrayal of the consents of bipartisanship.
  I commend President-elect Bush for reaching out to Democrats to 
appoint to his administration, just as President Clinton has appointed 
a Republican who now serves as Secretary of Defense. But it would be a 
bitter form of bipartisanship if the appointment process was used 
cynically to appoint a sitting U.S. Senator that is a Democrat not to 
bring bipartisanship to the administration but to change the partisan 
makeup of the United States Senate.
  There are many retired Democratic U.S. Senators and House Members 
that would make excellent members of President-elect Bush's cabinet. He 
should not use bipartisanship as a tool for partisanship as a device 
cynically used to appoint and thereby alter the effects of the 
congressional election.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank you for your indulgence. I thank you for the 
hours that we have spent together in this hall from time to time. I 
thank you for your indulgence. And I thank the House for giving me the 
opportunity to be the last to address the 106th Congress. I know that 
when we return we will reach across the aisle to begin solving the 
problems of America, and I hope that that process is aided by focusing 
on those problems as to which there is no Democratic or Republican 
view.

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