[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 15963-15964]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         STATE FAIR FOCUS GROUP

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, I say to my colleagues, Senators 
Lieberman and Thompson and others who will be here, I have been known 
to speak for several hours, but I will not. I will just take a few 
minutes. When Members come to the floor to start debate of the homeland 
defense bill, I will be pleased to finish.
  As a matter of fact, I will have an amendment, which will be the ``no 
Federal contracts for expatriates'' amendment, which is very similar to 
what I did on the Department of Defense bill. The House of 
Representatives actually took action on this with a pretty strong vote. 
What this says is, if you have companies that have moved to Bermuda and 
renounced their citizenship, they will not be getting any Federal 
contracts. It is a pretty simple proposition. I look forward to 
introducing the amendment and hope to do it shortly, this afternoon. I 
am ready to get going.
  We have so much to do in such a short period of time that I hope 
Senators will come to the floor with amendments on both sides. I will 
be ready to do so.
  As long as I am on the topic, I wanted to talk about my experience 
back home. I don't know about you, but we all have our own focus 
groups. The greatest focus group in Minnesota is the State fair. It is 
really quite a happening. In about 12 days, almost half the State's 
population comes to the State fair--2.5 million. That might be a slight 
exaggeration but not by much.
  There are a couple of things I really like about the fair. One is, it 
is sort of the essence of political equality. Nobody has a lobbyist. 
Everybody counts as one and no more than one. Everybody comes up and 
talks with you.
  I also like what we call the greater Minnesota focus. We have a very 
thriving metropolitan community, but we are also an agricultural State. 
It is great to see the very strong emphasis on agriculture at the fair.
  It is a focus group because you can be at your own booth, and lots of 
people come up, and I guess that is self-selection, where maybe it is a 
lot of supporters and whatnot. But even there, certainly walking 
around, you will run into everybody and anybody, and people are going 
to tell you what is on their mind.
  I heard a lot--a lot, a lot--about corporate responsibility. I don't 
know if people used those words, but there is really a lot of concern 
about this flat economy. And look at the news yesterday and today. That 
is what we have. People really are worried that they will not have any 
pension, and they are worried they might not have a job. In Minnesota, 
Mr. Joseph Nacchio, CEO of QWEST, Minnesotans, starting with the QWEST 
employees who worked so hard to build that company, they are not one 
bit pleased that while Mr. Nacchio was cheerleading them to invest a 
big part of their 401(k) in QWEST stock, he was dumping his own and 
walked away with around $230 million. There is a lot of that.
  People are looking for those of us here to be watchdogs for them. 
They are looking for us to not be too influenced by all the big 
economic interests with all their money and lobbyists and their 
connections and clout. People are saying to all of us, we want you to 
be for us. I guess sometimes they are not so sure the Senate always is 
for them. In that respect, the Sarbanes bill was a very positive step 
forward.

[[Page 15964]]

  We had a stalemate here in 1994 on health care when we were talking 
about universal health care coverage. Really between 1994 and now, it 
is as if this never was an issue. But the issue of health security, of 
affordable health care coverage for people, for their loved ones and 
families, has walked into people's living rooms. I heard more 
discussion of the cost of it--the premiums, the copays, the 
deductibles, the inadequate coverage--just unbelievable--and, of 
course, prescription drug coverage by the elderly and also by others. 
Health care has emerged. I don't have my own poll on all these issues, 
but I think it is a top issue for families.
  In Minnesota, children have just started school, as in other States, 
and education is right up there. I am not without my bias. Two of our 
children are teachers. I will just tell you that Minnesota and a lot of 
States around the country are still counting on us to provide the 
resources that we committed to providing to them for education. There 
is a lot of discussion about education.
  There were questions about Iraq, what is going to happen, concern. I 
don't think people feel they have much information. They want more 
information. They want to know about the different options and 
consequences of those different options.
  Over and over again, if you want to say politics is very concrete and 
doesn't have much to do with labels, whether it was suburbs, inner city 
or greater Minnesota small towns, so much of the discussion was about 
the economy, so much of the discussion was: Senator, what is going to 
happen to our schools? We had to cut all these teachers. We don't have 
enough resources. Senator, my wife or my husband has $800 a month or 
$500 for prescription drugs. Senator, why do the pharmaceutical 
companies have so much power? Senator, what is going to happen to my 
pension? Senator, how did those big companies get away with what they 
have done to us?
  That is really what I heard about again and again: I have no 
coverage; I don't have enough insurance.
  I could go into a whole separate discussion. I see my colleague, 
Senator Lieberman. I said when he came to the floor I would finish. I 
will.
  I could have a separate discussion about agricultural policy and 
about small business and about veterans who are coming up, facing long 
waiting lines for health care in Minnesota. I just want to remind 
everybody: We have a lot of work to do in a short period of time. We 
ought to have amendments out here on the floor. We better make sure 
that we do not lose sight of these basic bread-and-butter economic 
issues so important to families and so important to people's lives.
  We have a lot of work to do. I hope we will do it.
  I say to my colleague from Connecticut, the reason I came over is 
that I am ready to offer an amendment. I think we need to do the work. 
I want to wait to see what my colleague has to say. I congratulate him 
on his superb work.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut is recognized.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I thank my friend and colleague from 
Minnesota. In a moment, I will call up an amendment, which is the 
Senate Governmental Affairs Committee substitute amendment on homeland 
security, the substitute for the House bill that was sent over here. I 
will speak on the substitute amendment.
  It had been my thought that, in the normal course, Senator Thompson, 
as ranking member on the committee, would introduce the first 
amendment. I have some reason to believe he may not be prepared to do 
that right away. But we are prepared to go forward.
  I want to indicate--and perhaps my friend from Minnesota will want to 
talk to the leader about this--that I understand that Senator Daschle 
and Senator Lott are prepared to move to table any amendments that they 
consider to be non-relevant to homeland security. Although, as the 
Senator from Minnesota knows, I share his anger about tax traders--if I 
may use that term--or tax evaders and support what he wants to do.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I say to my colleague, in the strict text, I have 
drafted it as a relevant amendment.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I look forward to reasoning with the Senator and the 
leadership on that very question.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada is recognized.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, is the bill going to be reported now?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. It is.
  Mr. REID. I thank the Chair.

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