[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book II)]
[August 26, 1994]
[Pages 1506-1509]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Teleconference With Mayors on Anticrime Legislation and an
Exchange With Reporters
August 26, 1994

    The President. Hello? I'm just listening to your war stories; you 
sound good. I think they did help, all those calls you mentioned. They 
made all the difference.
    The Attorney General and I are here on the phone, and we want to 
begin by just thanking you for everything you have done. I think, you 
know, it's obvious that this was a very tough battle in the House and in 
the Senate, that the outcome was often in doubt, and you guys hung in 
there tough. And you made a huge difference, and we are very, very 
grateful to you.
    I know that you know well that among the things that this crime bill 
does is to create 100,000 new police officers, a 20 percent increase in 
police on the beat in the United States in communities all over this 
country. And in just a few minutes, I'm going to sign an appropriations 
bill here that makes available the first

[[Page 1507]]

round of resources to make the crime bill a reality next year. We've 
already put some new police officers on the street through the funds we 
provided last year as a downpayment on the crime bill. The bill I'm 
about to sign will provide funds to train and hire 15,000 more police 
within the next 12 months. I know that some of you put police officers 
on the streets with last year's funds, but you probably all know that we 
received 10 times, 10 times as many applications for police hiring as we 
could afford, including many that were well-qualified. That is a real 
rebuke to those who say that there's no real need for this police 
funding. In the next 2 months alone, we're going to give you the 
resources to hire 2,500 more police officers in cities that were only 
turned down last year and this year because we didn't have enough money.
    Let me emphasize, too, that this appropriations bill, consistent 
with the crime bill, provides significant money to fight violence 
against women, to lock up criminal aliens, for prisons, and for boot 
camps and drug courts and the other prevention programs that we believe 
so strongly in and also to help enforce the Brady bill. This is the 
downpayment. We're looking forward to seeing you all here when we sign 
the crime bill and celebrate it, but now I think we all know that the 
responsibility is on those of us who fought so hard for this to make 
sure the money is well spent, to make sure the implementation works, and 
to make sure that we make people safer and more secure on our streets.
    General Reno, would you like to say something?

[Attorney General Reno expressed her appreciation to the mayors for 
their hard work on the legislation and said she looked forward to 
working with them to implement it. During her remarks, one of the mayors 
indicated that they were not receiving the transmission. When the 
problem was resolved, the teleconference resumed.]

    The President. Mayor Giuliani, are you on? Go ahead, Mayor.

[Mayor Rudolph Giuliani of New York City commended the President and the 
other mayors for their efforts on the legislation.]

    The President. Thank you, Mayor. I have to say, I think the fact 
that you and Mayor Riordan and some of the other Republican mayors were 
willing to stand up and be counted on this made it easier for the House 
and the Senate Members of your party who wanted to join in this endeavor 
to stay with it. And I can't thank you enough for that.
    I think, you know, we have got to find a way to do the public's 
business on issues that affect all Americans without regard to their 
party. And there is nothing more profoundly significant than this. I 
just--I can't say enough to thank you. We tried to take this crime bill 
beyond the debates of the past, beyond what I like to call the false 
choices that have been imposed too often on political debates.
    This bill has got prevention and prisons and punishment and police 
in it, and I think will help to empower communities to make their 
streets safer. And as the Attorney General said, that's what, to me, was 
the compelling attraction of this bill. And as the days and weeks ahead 
unfold, the American people will learn more and more about what's in 
this bill, and I think they will like it even better than they do. And 
you will always, I think, be very proud of what you did.
    Mayor Daley.

[Mayors Richard Daley of Chicago, IL, Norman Rice of Seattle, WA, 
Richard Riordan of Los Angeles, CA, and Emanuel Cleaver II of Kansas 
City, MO, each made brief remarks praising the President's efforts. 
Mayor Cleaver then said he hoped the President would be able to take a 
vacation.]

    The President. Well, I'm going to oblige you later today. Are you 
still running, Mayor?
    Mayor Cleaver. Yes.
    The President. You've gotten so thin you're making me look bad. 
[Laughter] Stay after it.
    Mayor Cleaver. All right.
    The President. Mayor Rendell, I just want to say before you speak 
that I think you and Mayor Daley and Mayor Giuliani and the other mayors 
who are former prosecutors, were able to make a unique contribution to 
this debate because we tried to keep always in the public mind and in 
the minds of the Members of Congress that the law enforcement concerns 
were driving this bill and that even the prevention programs, as the 
Attorney General said repeatedly, were pushed and inserted into the bill 
with the insistence of people who had been in law enforcement who knew 
that they were a critical part

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of this strategy. So I want to thank you for that especially because 
your conviction here was rooted in your experience as is the case of the 
mayors--the other mayors who are former prosecutors.

[Mayor Edward Rendell of Philadelphia, PA, thanked the President for not 
backing down on the key components of the bill despite the difficulties 
he encountered.]

    The President. Just another day in paradise here. [Laughter]

[Mayor Rendell discussed the importance of crime prevention programs and 
the bill's provision to prevent Federal courts from controlling the 
number of prisoners placed in State or local prisons.]

    The President. Well, I can tell you, as a former Governor, that's 
one provision I wanted in there in the worst way, because I went through 
all those lawsuits as an attorney general and Governor; I know what it's 
like. I spent millions and millions of dollars of our taxpayers' money 
at home building prisons. I didn't begrudge that, but I also thought a 
lot of those requirements on spacing and population were excessive. And 
this is a very good piece of legislation on that. I thank you for that.
    Mayor Abramson, I think you get the prize for making the most 
telephone calls. You must have a cauliflower ear; they tell me you made 
over 200 calls on this bill.

[Mayor Jerry Abramson of Louisville, KY, thanked the President for 
allowing mayors and police chiefs to help develop a balanced bill.]

    The President. Thank you very much. General, do you want to say 
anything? I think they can all hear you now.
    Attorney General Reno. They just did a wonderful job from the very 
beginning, and I think the bill is strong because of them.
    The President. Thank you so much.
    The Mayors. Thank you, Mr. President. Have a good vacation.
    The President. Let's go to work on this thing now and implement it 
right.
    The Mayors. All right, we'll do that.
    The President. Goodbye.

[At this point, the teleconference ended, and the President then took 
questions from reporters.]

Health Care Reform

    Q. Mr. President, Senator Mitchell all but said today that he's not 
going to be able to get comprehensive health care reform through and 
that he'll spend the recess looking for ways to make progress on health 
care. Is that acceptable to you? Is there any point at which you would 
accept, or which you would take off your veto threat?
    The President. Well, he's coming over here to see me today, and I 
think I better talk to him. I have talked to, oh, four or five other 
Senators in the last day or so since the crime bill passed last night. 
And a number of them who are strong supporters of health reform think 
that we ought to give this break a few days to occur and give Senator 
Mitchell and Senator Chafee and a couple of others a chance to talk 
before we make any decision.
    I certainly don't want to embrace an approach that will do more harm 
than good and that won't achieve our objectives. But let's see what 
they're doing; let's see what people are feeling like after they get a 
night's sleep or two. These folks went through an awful lot here the 
last couple of weeks, and it may be that the long road they had to walk 
through--crime--was in part made longer by people who were working the 
timetable.
    But they did it, and they deserve a lot of credit. And one of the 
things that this crime bill shows--this is a big, sweeping, complex 
piece of legislation that's really good for America. And it shows that 
it is possible to do something like this in what has been too often a 
too partisan environment. So I'm not prepared to make a final judgment 
on that at this time.
    Q. Mr. President, you said just a moment ago that you didn't want to 
embrace an approach that would do more harm than good. That sounds like 
you'd be willing to wait.
    The President. Well, I think the less I say right now, the better. 
Let me talk to Senator Mitchell. This debate is now going on in the 
Congress. It depends on what Congress is capable of producing. And I 
think we need to wait on that. That's the counsel I've been given by a 
number of Senators who do want health care reform and want it as quickly 
as we can get it. They think we ought to let the dust settle a couple of 
days and give Senator Mitchell a chance to do a little talking with some 
others

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for a couple of days, and then we'll see where we are.

Cuba

    Q. Mr. President, do you think you've stemmed the tide of the Cuban 
refugees?
    The President. Well, we're working at it, that's all I can tell you. 
I'm encouraged that the numbers are down. The weather may or may not 
have something to do with that. We have made it clear that we're willing 
to discuss, through the appropriate channels, the whole issue of 
immigration. And we do have laws on the books which will permit us to do 
some more on legal immigration than we have done. So we're working at 
this.
    And I just want to say what I said yesterday: The Attorney General's 
doing a great job; the Immigration and Naturalization Service folks are 
doing a good job. We just need to be calm, steady, and firm, and I think 
we'll work through it just fine.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 3:20 p.m. from the Oval Office at the White 
House. H.R. 4603, approved August 26, making appropriations for the 
Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and related 
agencies, was assigned Public Law No. 103-317.