[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.
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    *White House correction.
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    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.

[[Page 1174]]

    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

[[Page 1175]]

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.