    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
    [June 19, 2000]
    [Pages 1172-1176]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Southwest Voter Registration Education Project Reception in
    Houston, Texas
    June 19, 2000

        Thank you very, very much. Well, I think Representative
    Noriega did his family proud, don't you? I
    thought it was great. Thank you. [Applause]
        I would like to thank all of you who are here, including the folks
    behind me: my good friend Bill White and my long-
    time friend Representative Al Edwards and Carlos
    Truan, whom I've known for nearly 30 years.
    And Antonio Gonzalez, thank you very much.
    And Billie Carr is still working her cell phone
    after all these years. [Laughter] Tell whoever it is I said hello,
    Billie. [Laughter] I love this.
        I want to thank Representative Sheila Jackson Lee for being here. And Mickey Ibarra, who is my special assistant who works with State and
    local government around the country, I thank him for coming down here,
    along with Steve Ricchetti, my Deputy Chief
    of Staff.
        I'm delighted to be with Southwest Voter Registration Project, and I
    want to thank you for all the work that you have done with me and the
    Vice President over the years, the work you have done to advance
    democracy, to bring Latino voters into the process, to promote education
    and economic development.
        I also appreciate the solidarity you have shown with others who also
    deserve to be empowered and to have a full portion of the American
    dream. And I want to acknowledge, again, Representative Al
    Edwards, who is here, because today is June 19th,
    which is known in the African-American community in the South as
    ``Juneteenth.'' It's the holiday that celebrates the emancipation of the
    slaves in Texas.
        And for those of you who don't know, basically, Abraham Lincoln, in
    what is now the Lincoln Bedroom, signed the Emancipation Proclamation in
    September of 1862. It became effective January 1, 1863. But most of the
    slaves who were freed did not find out until after the Civil War,
    because the proclamation ran to the States that had seceded. And formal
    notice came on June 19th in Texas, and it became known as Juneteenth. In
    the western part of the Southern States, it's still not uncommon to see
    these ``Juneteenth'' celebrations all across the South, particularly in
    little towns who have family ties going back to that period. And
    Al

    [[Page 1173]]

    made it a holiday in Texas. We congratulate him. Thank you, old friend.
        And let me sort of pivot off of that to say that this day should be
    a day for rejoicing but also for reflection and for reminding ourselves
    that there's still a lot of hardship out there and still a lot of
    discrimination against people because of their race or their sexual
    orientation or something else that makes them different and therefore
    makes other people afraid of them or believe that they can look down on
    them and do things that aren't right.
        On the way in here, I met with Louvon Harris and Darrell Verrett, the
    sister and the nephew of James Byrd. They're right here. Stand up.
    [Applause] It was 2 years ago this month that James Byrd was killed here
    in Texas, in a heinous act that shocked Americans in every corner of the
    country, including all the good people of Texas. It reminds us that
    crimes that are motivated by hate really are fundamentally different
    and, I believe, should be treated differently under the law.
        In the Federal Government we have Federal hate crimes legislation on
    the books that I believe should be stronger. But we have prosecuted a
    number of the cases. We have substantially increased the number of FBI
    agents working them; we have formed local hate crimes working groups;
    and for 3 years we've tried to pass a stronger Federal bill and to
    support similar actions in States across the country.
        I know you were disappointed when the State hate crimes legislation
    didn't pass here. But I am pleased to be able to tell you that the
    United States Senate has finally agreed, the leadership of the Senate,
    to allow a vote, up or down, on hate crimes legislation that has now
    been held up since November of 1997,* when I had the first White House
    Conference on Hate Crimes. But it's now going to be voted on.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        *White House correction.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        And I want to tell you about it. The bill has been strengthened. The
    version of the bill that is now going to be voted on will be introduced
    by Senator Kennedy today on the Senate
    floor. It strengthens the Federal hate crimes legislation and also gives
    State and local officials more Federal resources to help to prosecute
    these crimes.
        Now, we believe that most hate crimes should be prosecuted--
    investigated and prosecuted by State and local officials, with the
    Federal Government being a partner. But too often Federal officials have
    literally been prevented from teaming up with local law enforcement, and
    that has kept communities from being able to do what needed to be done
    to work these offenses.
        Senator Kennedy's bill takes steps to
    change that by giving State and local officials the assistance they
    need. It also requires the Attorney General to confer with them before
    bringing a case in Federal court. So we have actually strengthened the
    original bill, put some more resources in it, and done it in a way that
    I hope and pray will get us enough Republican votes to actually pass the
    bill. And I ask all of you to stand with this fine family. They've been
    out here working for this for 2 years now. They have worked through
    their grief and through their pain. They've been willing to stand up and
    be counted.
        And we have a chance now to pass this at the Federal level. And I
    know that Representative Sheila Jackson Lee cares very deeply about this. I brought two United
    States Senators down to Texas with me today, Ron Wyden and Bob Torricelli, who
    are profoundly committed to it. And I just want to ask you to help us.
    You have shown your solidarity on all these human rights issues. We have
    people here from the Human Rights Campaign Fund in this room today. I
    want to ask you to help us. We've got a chance now. We have to pass this
    legislation.
        I'd like to mention one or two other things, if I might. Congress, I
    hope, will pass some legislation to correct two long-standing injustices
    that affect immigrants in our country. First, we need to amend our
    immigration laws to provide equitable treatment for all Central American
    immigrants. In that connection, we should give migrants with
    longstanding ties to our country the chance to legalize their status.
        As all of you know, we had a huge amount of turmoil in Central
    America right through the 1980's, into the early nineties. The Federal
    law actually discriminates against Central Americans who came here for
    the same reasons, depending on what country they came from and what the
    nature of the conflict was back home. And I don't think any of us think
    that is right. And a lot of these folks have been here a long time.
    They've established families; they've married people from other
    countries or from our country; they've got kids in our schools. And we
    need to do this.

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        The third thing I'd like to ask your help on is to continue working
    with us to see that our Federal courts reflect America's growing
    diversity. [Applause] I appreciate you clapping, but I want you to
    really help us do something about this.
        Representative Noriega said that I had appointed and nominated the
    most diverse group of Federal judges in history. We've appointed more
    Hispanic-Americans to the Federal bench than any administration before.
    Twenty-four of my judicial appointees have been Hispanic-Americans, more
    than the previous two Republican administrations combined. I'm proud of
    that. But--yes, but--[laughter]--and the ``but'' is important--several
    eminently qualified minority nominees have become casualties of a highly
    politicized confirmation process.
        Let me back up and say that, generally, if you--there have been lots
    and lots of scholarly articles pointing out that my nominees are the
    most highly regarded by the American Bar Association professional
    evaluation in 40 years, that they have by and large not been political,
    that they have not been on one ideological extreme. They have been
    mainstream appointees. And they have constantly been attacked in the
    Senate, because they didn't fit the ideological mold that the Republican
    majority wanted.
        For example, Ricardo Morado, my candidate
    for the Southern District here in Texas, his nomination has been put on
    hold. Kathleen McCree Lewis in
    Detroit--her father, Wade McCree, was one of the two or three most
    important lawyers in the entire civil rights movement--highly regarded
    lawyer. Never been an African-American woman on the Court of Appeals
    there. Can't get a hearing for her.
        And perhaps the most egregious case in the entire country, I think,
    is the case of Enrique Moreno, who I
    nominated to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He has been
    waiting more than 275 days, without even receiving a Judiciary Committee
    hearing. And last month Senator Gramm and Senator
    Hutchison said they were going to
    oppose his nomination because he wasn't qualified. They said he wasn't
    experienced. Well, you be the judge. From humble beginnings in El Paso,
    he established, first of all, an utterly brilliant academic career--I
    might add, more brilliant than that of virtually everyone who'd be
    voting on his confirmation. [Laughter] The State judges in Texas said
    he was one of the top three trial attorneys
    in El Paso. The American Bar Association gave him their highest rating--
    not just a good rating, their highest rating. But this State's
    Republican Senator said he's not qualified. And apparently everybody
    else is going along with it, because there's been no voice to the
    contrary. Now, I don't know about you, but if he's not qualified, who
    is?
        This is the kind of thing--we've been going through this--I can give
    you lots of other examples. The first African-American ever to serve on
    the Missouri Supreme Court was defeated in the Senate by a blatant
    partisan misrepresentation of his record. And we can't have this kind of
    thing in our country.
        It wasn't as if I said, ``Well, I want a quota here, and I'm going
    to appoint this guy because he's Hispanic.''
    This guy has a brilliant academic record, a brilliant record as a
    lawyer. The American Bar Association says they give him their highest
    rating. And the Senators here say he's not qualified. And this is part
    of a distinctive pattern.
        This should not be partisan. I went out of my way because we'd had
    20 years of partisan fights in judgeships. I went out of my way to try
    to pick people that would not raise partisan hackles, to be totally
    bipartisan in this. And in spite of that, because there are those in the
    other party who see the courts as an instrument of partisan policy and
    want it to be that--not because I've made it there but because neutral
    is not good enough, fair is not good enough, unbiased is not good
    enough--that's what's going on here. And if you feel strongly about it,
    you better be heard.
        And the device is always to deny these people a hearing or to deny
    them a vote. Why? Because they don't want them on the court, but they
    don't want the people you're trying to register to vote to know they
    don't want them on the court. Right? So the answer is, blur everything,
    shift, kind of just sort of waver around here, and let it all die and
    hope nobody will know what really happened.
        So I'm here to tell you this is a good man. If he was involved with
    me politically, I don't know it. Maybe that's--I don't. I appointed him
    because the people came to me and said, ``We've got a chance to appoint
    a guy who's superbly qualified, who can get
    the highest ABA rating and be a good thing for Texas, a good thing for
    the fifth circuit,'' and so I did it. And I think for him to be denied,
    not because he's

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    political but because he's not political enough in the right way, is
    wrong.
        Now, let me just say a couple of things in closing. We've got to get
    everybody to vote in this election, and then they need to know what the
    stakes are. You want people to register to vote and to make intelligent
    choices. And I think we're actually quite fortunate in this millennial
    election, because we don't have to engage in a kind of personal,
    negative histrionics. I think you've got two good people running for
    President who have profound disagreements. But it's important people
    know what the differences are. I think you've got good people running
    for the Senate all over America, and running for the House. There's one
    Senate race I'm especially interested in. [Laughter] But anyway, you've
    got all these good people. We don't have to run an election where
    anybody badmouths anybody else. Just everybody stand up and say where
    they disagree, and let the voters make up their mind.
        But it is important not to think that there are no disagreements and
    that there aren't any consequences, because there are. Just because we
    have a bunch of good people doesn't mean there are no consequences to
    the decisions the voters will make. So people have to make up their
    mind. And first, they have to register; then they have to vote. And when
    they go, they need to actually have a clear view of, ``If I vote for
    this set of candidates, this is what I get; these are the decisions I
    get; this is the direction I get. If I vote for this section, this
    group, this is what I get.''
        And I've done everything I could to try to turn the country around.
    And I'm very proud of the fact that we're paying down the debt instead
    of running it up, that we've got the longest economic expansion in
    history and over 22 million jobs and the lowest Hispanic unemployment
    rate ever recorded and the lowest poverty rate in 20 years and the
    highest Hispanic homeownership and 2\1/2\ times as many SBA loans and
    all that.
        But the truth is, all that matters is, what are we going to do with
    it? What is it that you propose to do with it?
        I'm glad we had a successful empowerment zone in south Texas. I'm
    glad that we've been able to do these things. But the issue is, what are
    you going to do with it? What should the economic policy of the country
    be? Should we continue paying down the debt and protecting Social
    Security and Medicare and investing in education? Or should we give all
    the projected surplus back to you in a tax cut and just hope that we
    won't run a deficit and hope somehow we'll find the money to invest in
    education?
        What should we do in education? Should we modernize our schools and
    make sure we hire enough teachers and identify schools that aren't
    succeeding and turn them around, or change the leadership? Or should we
    adopt a voucher program and say that public schools probably can't be
    made to work, so let's go to a voucher system?
        I was in a school in New York City this week--let me just give you
    one example, one example. Two years ago, Public School 96 in Spanish
    Harlem--2 years ago, 80 percent of those kids in this grade school were
    reading below grade level--2 years ago. Today, 74 percent of them are
    reading at or above grade level, and doing math at or above level--in 2
    years.
        I was in a school in Kentucky the other day that was one of the
    worst performing schools in the State--elementary schools. There were 5
    percent of the kids reading at or above grade level 4 years ago; today,
    57 percent of them are. There were 12 percent of the kids doing math at
    or above grade level; today, 70 percent are. There were zero percent of
    the kids doing science at or above grade level; today, two-thirds are--
    basically, in 3 years. It's the 19th best elementary school in the State
    of Kentucky. And way over half the kids are on free or reduced school
    lunches.
        So what I want you to know is that without regard to income or
    background, intelligence is equally distributed, and schools can be made
    to work if we just do what we know works. And that's what I think we
    ought to make a commitment to do. You know, when I started this school
    reform business 20 years ago in Arkansas, when I was trying to do it, we
    didn't really know what worked. But we do now. And it would be a
    terrible mistake for us to turn away from what works toward something
    that we don't have any idea whether it works or not but would drain a
    lot of money off--I think.
        What about the economy? Well, I think it's important that we do more
    to bring the benefits of the economy to people and places that haven't
    fully participated. That's why I want to increase the earned-income tax
    credit, something you helped me do before--lifted over a

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    million Hispanics out of poverty in the years that I've been in office.
    That's why I think we ought to raise the minimum wage again. That's why
    I think we ought to adopt this new markets initiative. It's the only
    really good bipartisan thing we've got going up in Washington now. We
    are working really well in the House in a bipartisan way. It's really
    quite touching, and I thank the Speaker of the House for doing it. And I
    hope we can do it in the Senate. It's why I think we ought to implement
    a lot of the recommendations of the Southwest Border Initiative Task
    Force that I got. A lot of you have been involved in that in one way or
    the other.
        What are we going to do about health care? Are we going to have a
    Patients' Bill of Rights or not? Are we going to let all the seniors on
    Medicare have access to affordable prescription drugs or not? Are we
    going to do more to let working families have access to affordable
    health insurance or not? I've got a big proposal on that. I think
    Houston has one of the highest percentages of working people without
    access to health insurance in the entire United States, a lot of them
    Latino. This is a big issue.
        So that's the last thing I leave you with. The country is moving in
    the right direction. Things are better than they were 8 years ago. But
    how a nation deals with its prosperity is as stern a test of its
    character and judgment as how it deals with adversity. And those of us
    that are old enough to remember different times know that nothing lasts
    forever. And when you're in the bad times, you can thank God for that.
    But when you're in great times, you should be humble and grateful and
    make up your mind to make the most of them.
        We've got the best chance in my lifetime to deal with the big
    challenges still out there, to seize the big opportunities out there.
    And that's why it's important that you empower people. They can't take
    good times for granted. And if they're still in trouble, they shouldn't
    take that for granted, either. The vote is the voice, just like your
    sign says.
        And it's been a great honor for me to serve. It's been a great honor
    for me to work with you. I've had the time of my life. This is the first
    election in 25 years I'm not part of; most days I'm okay about it.
    [Laughter] But as a noncandidate, the only thing I ask everybody to do
    is to vote and to be intelligent about it, to make up your mind what you
    think we ought to do with this moment of prosperity, and then to clearly
    understand the choices before you and go out and make yours. If we do
    that, America will be in good hands.
        Thank you very much.

     Note:  The President spoke at 11:35 a.m. in the Austin Room at the Four
    Seasons Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Texas State
    Representatives Rick Noriega and Al Edwards; Bill White, former chair,
    and Billie Carr, executive council member, Texas State Democratic Party;
    Texas State Senator Carlos F. Truan; and Antonio Gonzalez, president,
    Southwest Voter Registration Education Project.