[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5027-5028]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                           THE SENATE AGENDA

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I will discuss for a moment the issues 
that face the Congress, where we are and why we are here, and suggest 
perhaps a slightly more robust agenda for the next couple of months.
  It is now a Monday in April, and it is not quite clear to me what the 
agenda will be on the floor of the Senate this week. I guess it is not 
quite clear yet to anyone. We know that in the coming weeks we will do 
our work as appropriators. I am on the Appropriations Committee, and we 
will do our work as appropriators and bring appropriations bills to the 
floor of the Senate, and there are some authorization bills that must 
get done. But beyond that, it is not quite clear what the agenda is.
  Recognizing that my political party, the one I represent in this 
Chamber, did not win the election, it is also clear we don't set the 
agenda in the Senate. The political system has a unique way of 
describing who controls institutions such as this. And those who have 
the most members, who get the most votes in a general election, have 
the opportunity to control and create an agenda. That is as it should 
be. But it is perhaps frustrating for me and others that our agenda is 
not nearly as robust as it could or should be.
  Let me describe some of the things I think we ought to be doing and 
that I hope the majority leader and others will agree at some point in 
the coming weeks that we will do.
  First, we passed some long time ago a Patients' Bill of Rights. I 
didn't support the Senate version of it because I didn't think it was a 
good bill. But the House of Representatives passed a bipartisan piece 
of legislation coauthored by a Democrat and a Republican in the House 
of Representatives. It was a very vigorous battle in the House. They 
passed a real Patients' Bill of Rights bill.
  It says in this contest of wills between patients, doctors, the 
insurance companies, and HMOs, that there are certain rights that 
patients ought to have.
  Every patient in this country who seeks medical treatment ought to 
have the right to understand all of their options for medical 
treatment--not just what's the least expensive.
  Those who need emergency room treatment ought to be able to expect to 
have emergency room treatment when needed.
  When a woman falls off a 40-foot cliff and is hauled into an 
emergency room comatose, and then the HMO later says: We will not 
approve your emergency room cost because you didn't get preapproval for 
emergency room treatment--there is something wrong with the system.
  Are there certain rights that patients ought to have in this health 
care system? The answer yes. Among those are the rights embodied in the 
bill in the House of Representatives called the Patients' Bill of 
Rights. It is now in conference. It is not likely to produce 67 votes, 
unfortunately, under current circumstances because the House-appointed 
conferees, who in most cases didn't vote for the bill, sent it to 
conference.
  The Senate, of course, has a piece of legislation that does not do 
the job. But those of us who support a strong Patients' Bill of Rights 
remain hopeful that between now and the end of this legislative session 
we will pass a bipartisan piece of legislation called a Patients' Bill 
of Rights that really provides the rights and the assistance to 
patients in dealing with their insurance companies with respect to 
their health care treatment.
  Juvenile justice: We passed a juvenile justice bill in the Senate. 
That bill was passed in Senate legislation that many do not like.
  Among the two pieces of legislation that people do not like on that 
bill--and the reason I guess it is stalled--is some legislation dealing 
with guns. We provided two simple components to that piece of 
legislation.
  I come from North Dakota. I grew up hunting. I had a gun when I was a 
teenager. I pheasant hunted, I deer hunted, and practiced target 
shooting. I know about guns. I am not somebody running into this 
Chamber saying let's have gun control. That is not my orientation at 
all.
  But the two pieces dealing with guns that we added to the Juvenile 
Justice Act are so sensible. One is mandatory trigger locks for 
handguns. When 6-year-olds go to school and shoot another 6-year-old, 
ought we not to understand the need for trigger locks on handguns? It 
seems to me that is eminently sensible.
  Second, the issue of gun shows, and the question of whether at gun 
shows that people set up around this country on Saturdays or Sundays 
there ought to be an instant check when guns are sold to find out 
whether you are selling a gun to a convicted felon.
  Go to a gun store anywhere in this country and try to buy a gun. They 
are going to run your name through an instant check to find out if you 
are a convicted felon because if you are, you cannot buy a gun. But we 
have a loophole at gun shows which are big, and getting bigger. There 
are more of them. Many feel--including the Senate, incidentally, by a 
rather close vote--that we ought to have the opportunity to close that 
loophole and say if you are going to buy a gun, it does not matter 
whether it is in a gun store or at a gun show, you ought to have to 
have your name run through an instant check so we can make sure we are 
not selling a gun to a felon.
  Those two issues--trigger locks for handguns for the safety of 
children in this country, and closing the gun show loophole--have meant 
that the juvenile justice bill, which is so important, is now in 
conference, and apparently we can't get it out. I hope we can be more 
sensible about this and get that bill out of conference, bring it to 
the floor of the Senate and the House, and get it to the President for 
his signature.
  There are other items we continue to struggle with, such as the issue 
of school construction.
  I have spoken at great length about walking into the Cannon Ball 
School and seeing little Rosie Two Bears, a third grader, who says: Mr. 
Senator, are you going to build me a new school?
  I said: No, I don't have the money to build you a new school, Rosie.
  This is a school with 150 kids, one water fountain, two toilets, and 
closings of the school building which is not fit for classes, where 
sewer gas comes up and they have to evacuate the rooms. Rosie isn't 
getting the kind of education we want for her as an American.
  When we say let's help rebuild, renovate, and construct some of 
America's schools to bring them back up to standard, we are told, no. 
You can't do that. That is not the Federal Government's job.

[[Page 5028]]

  It is interesting. There was a piece in Newsweek by Jonathan Alter, a 
rather interesting columnist. He said about 4 or 5 years ago the 
Congress decided they were going to spend $8 billion to upgrade jails 
and prisons. The State and local governments absolutely spent the money 
for jails and prisons. The Federal Government can upgrade the jails and 
prisons but not the schools. Is it less important to bring schools up 
to standard than a jail or a prison somewhere?
  If we can spend $8 billion to improve places to incarcerate 
criminals, we ought to be able to spend a few billion dollars to help 
kids go into a classroom door in a school that we as parents could be 
proud of. That ought to be done in this session of the Congress as 
well.
  Judicial nominations, we want to get through. We don't have a 
committee in this Congress for lost and found. Almost everywhere else--
hotels, airports, every other institution--when you lose something and 
ask where the lost and found is, they send you there. There is a lost 
and found over there. In Congress there is no place you can go to the 
lost and found. Maybe we need a committee on the lost and found. When 
these policy issues leave here, you never hear from them again.
  I hope that in the coming days Republicans and Democrats together can 
decide that there are certain common elements to an agenda that will 
strengthen this country and make this a better place in which to live. 
I don't believe that we have a circumstance where one side of the 
political aisle is all right, and the other side all wrong. That is not 
the case. We have good men and women serving in this Chamber on both 
sides of the political aisle. But it remains a frustration that in some 
areas where we have passed legislation, it gets sent to a conference 
somewhere never to be seen again because a small minority refuses to 
accept sensible judgments of the majority in both the House and the 
Senate.
  I think that is the case with the Patients' Bill of Rights with 
respect to the vote in the House, and certainly is the case with 
juvenile justice and decisions in the Senate on things such as trigger 
locks and also closing the gun show loophole.
  I hope we can find a way to address some of these important issues in 
the coming weeks and months.
  I hope we can demonstrate to the American people that we care about 
education and health care, address the crime issue in a thoughtful way, 
get nominations through this Chamber, and appoint Federal judges to 
fill vacancies, which are things that represent part of the agenda that 
needs to be completed as soon as possible in the Senate.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the 
absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, are we in a period of morning business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The leader is correct. Under the previous 
order, the leadership time has been reserved.

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