John Ashcroft

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I rise to make some comments on the TEAM Act, which is one of the matters that we have been discussing in the U.S. Senate. The word ``team,'' of course, is a favorable word in the mentality of Americans because we are accustomed to teams. It is an Olympic year when we want to support our team, and we want to do well in the competition between the nations. So ``team'' has favorable connotations. I think all of us would want to be in favor of an act called the TEAM Act. But it is far more important that we understand the act itself in that we just have the connotations of the word ``team.'' As a matter of fact, the need to be operating as a team in the United States is a mutually agreed upon concept. We need to operate as a team because, indeed, we are in competition and the competition is far greater than the competition of the Olympics. We talk about the competition of the Olympics, ``going for the gold.'' It is an award, and it is an honor. But to be honest with you, the competition between nations is more than just a competition for an award or for an honor. It is the competition between nations. The need for productivity which will allow America to succeed and to continue to be at the top is a competition for existence. It is the competition for the survival of and for the success of our society in the next century. Are we going to prepare for the next century? Are we going to have a framework for work and productivity which allows us to succeed? You have nations approaching the competitive arena of the workplace, nations like China. You have the Pacific rim all the way from Korea and Japan down through Singapore and Indonesia, hundreds of millions of individuals whose educational levels have skyrocketed, who are poised with the capacity to challenge us for our ability to meet the needs of the world. We as Americans want to be able to meet the needs of the world. When we meet the needs, we have the jobs. When we do not meet the needs, someone else has the jobs. When we have made the commitment in terms of our own development and our own capacity, we will be the people who are the beneficiaries. If we restrain ourselves, if we hamstring ourselves, if we decide we do not want to do our very best, we will yield the gold, not just the gold medal of the Olympics but the prize of enterprise to other countries. We would not think of sending our individuals to the Olympics if we did not allow them to train to be their very best. We would not think of taking 9 out of 10 members of the Olympic team and keeping them from being able to discuss ways to improve their performance with their coaches. It would be unthinkable. Why would a company, or a country, want to restrain its work force, or want to restrain its competitors from being at their very best? Yet, that is the strange argument that we hear from those who oppose the TEAM Act. Let us just stop for a moment to consider what the TEAM Act authorizes. The TEAM Act authorizes employers to confer with and discuss with employees ways in which to do a number of things: One, to improve productivity. If they think there is a more efficient way to do it, if there is a better way to do it, if there is a better way to build the project, if a mousetrap can be improved, the employee is most likely to know about it. After all, if you work on these things 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, and 50 weeks a year, you are probably likely to have some ideas and very good ideas. Professor Demming in the 1930's, I think, originally wrote about that. We did not take that to heart until the Japanese demonstrated it with their high-quality products and their competition in automobiles and electronics, which finally got our attention. We decided to say that we want to be able to tap the energy that exists when workers and managers talk together to figure out better ways to do things just like when coaches and players talk together to discuss ways of improving performance. So in the United States there are about 30,000 companies now that have institutionalized this practice of saying to workers, We want to get together with you; we want to hear from you about ways that we can improve our performance so that we can have the jobs of the next century. We want you to be partners with us so that we can get the job done efficiently and effectively so that, in the competition of the next century, America continues to be the survivor; that America provides the much-needed goods and services around this world that leaves America at the top of the heap. Good plan. It is working. You have seen it work. You have seen it work in automotives and a variety of other settings. In industry, we have begun to witness a recovery. In automotives, our quality assurance has gone higher and higher until we compete now very effectively with the nondomestic producers in large measure because of what the workers can bring to the equation, their contribution to quality, their contribution to efficiency, their contribution to increased safety, and their contribution in part because of their realization that when they are full-fledged partners and they are real contributors to the process, they feel a lot better about themselves. I like to think that I am respected for what I can be and ought to be. The ability to have these teams is a way of respecting and understanding the great value that American workers bring to the equation. It is the working population of America that distinguishes this country from countries around the globe. Everything was working pretty well in that direction until, just in this decade, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that it is illegal for managers to confer with employees about safety and about a variety of other things. These rulings are so stunning that I think I have to tell you the names of the cases and all to let you know what the National Labor Relations Board has forbidden. In the case of Sertafilm and Atlas Micro Filming, the NLRB ruled that it was illegal to discuss extension of employees' lunch breaks by 15 minutes. Employers could not talk about that with employees. In the case of Weston versus Brooker & Co., the length of the workday could not be discussed--wrong for employers to discuss this with a view toward accommodating the needs and demands of workers. Now, you and I know, with the number of people working in our families and our need to accommodate our responsibilities as parents as well as our responsibilities as workers, we need to be able to discuss things like working arrangements with our employers. That is against the law according to the Weston versus Brooker NLRB case, which was decided just a few years ago. A decrease in rest breaks from 15 minutes to 10 minutes, the U.S. Postal Service could not do that, according to the NLRB. Paid holidays were off limits, according to the Singer Manufacturing case. Extension of store hours during the wheat harvest season, Dillon Stores, 1995, that is off limits. Employers could not confer with their employees about things like this. We need to be able to tap the genius, the innovation, the problem- solving capacity of American workers. We have a law against it. Jimmy Richards Co., which is a 1974 case, discussing paid vacations was illegal. Here are some more. Flexible work schedules. That is interesting to me. The NLRB has said that it is illegal for the employer to ask employees what they would like to have and to consider, get into a dialog with the employees about what they would like to have in terms of flexible work schedules. We need for people to have flexible work schedules. As a matter of fact, I have introduced a bill to give to the working population in the private sector the same kind of break that the Federal Government has had for flexible work schedules since 1978. I regret to tell you that the administration opposes it. I am sorry about that because the President himself keeps talking about flexible work schedules. As a matter of fact, USA Today for Monday of this week talks about President Clinton, and he is going to hold a convocation about corporate citizenship with dozens of CEO's. According to the newspaper: President Clinton has outlined five challenges that he says contribute to corporate responsibility. He singles out companies for praise saying that they should establish family-friendly policies. We want to have the TEAM Act, which will allow employers to talk to their employees about flexible work schedules. You would think, if you read the newspaper, that surely since the President is calling upon the corporate community to establish family-friendly policies--and he is right in calling on them to do so--he would support the ability of corporations to talk with their employees about flexible work schedules. But, no, it is against the law to do so. We want to change the law so that we can operate as a team, so we can talk to each other about the objectives and the working conditions and the safety conditions and the like. The President and his administration threaten to veto the concept. I began this inquiry for myself about almost a year ago today. Frankly, this is May 8, the birthday of a notable Missourian. Harry Truman was born on May 8. He sat at one of these desks in the Senate. But on May 10 of last year, I wrote to the Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, and I asked him about the TEAM Act. I quoted to him his demands upon the American corporation that we would cooperate for flexible work schedules and that we would confer with each other and that we would act as teams. I asked him to support the TEAM Act because I am a cosponsor of the TEAM Act, but, more than that, I asked him to support the TEAM Act because it will help us prepare for the next century. We want the jobs to be here for our children. We do not want the jobs to be overseas for their children. We want to preserve the advantages that our forefathers gave us when they worked hard and sacrificed. The productivity, the competitiveness, the capacity of American workers should not be frittered away because we do not allow the team to confer with the coaches. We are 363 days away from the time I sent this letter, and I have yet to receive a response. I suspect it is very difficult to respond to this letter because their position is that they want to veto the TEAM Act. They oppose the TEAM Act. People on the other side of the aisle have opposed the TEAM Act consistently, and yet all their speeches are talking about teamwork. I was just very pleased with the President's references to teamwork in his State of the Union Message. He called upon the citizens of this great country to work together. He called upon the Congress to call for teamwork, saying that we can only do things together; we cannot do them separately. But the TEAM Act still seems to be beyond the teamwork he is calling for. Where is it legal in the United States for people, employers to confer with employees? Where can that happen? Well, it can happen when there is a union present. But it is illegal to do it if there is not a union there. Really, the fact is that only 11 percent of America's workers outside of Government are in unions. So for 9 out of 10 workers in America we are tying their hands. We are saying you cannot have the benefits of these kinds of discussion groups. You cannot have the improved potentials that come. You cannot have the productivity. You cannot have the chance for success that you could otherwise have. I think, if it is appropriate and good to have this kind of discussion in union facilities, and it is--I mean our automotive people have made great strides in improving productivity and improving quality and improving safety and improving on-time deliveries; they have done it all, where it is allowed--I do not see why we do not allow this in other areas as well. So I believe we ought to allow this to extend to the rest of the community. Nine out of ten workers should not be forbidden. There are those who say the TEAM Act will permit an employer to have sham unions. Not so. No rule about sham unions is changed at all. I mean, if a person wants to petition to have a union election, the same rights inure, the same rights to vote in favor of a union inure to workers whether the TEAM Act is in place or not. The TEAM Act would merely authorize the coach to talk with the players, to decide things that would improve productivity. There is an interesting case in my State. The company is named the EFCO company. They employed about 100 people or so when I became Governor 10 years ago--12 years, I guess. Time flies. They decided they wanted to be expert. They wanted to be the best in their field. They knew they could not do that just from a management perspective, so they had to call upon the team of employees. They invited them in. One of the first things they wanted to address was on-time deliveries. They had not been making on-time deliveries very well, 70-some percent in on-time deliveries. And they wanted to boost that. They moved from 70- some percent in on-time deliveries to well over 90 percent in on-time deliveries by tapping the ingenuity, creativity, understanding, and perspective of people on the job floor. What did that do to the job? Did that hurt the working people of Missouri? Not really. Because that company went from 100-plus to 1,000- plus people in manufacturing, and their architectural glass now graces skyscrapers not only across America but around the world. It came as a result of the increased capacity of workers when they conferred with each other in the context of talking with the coach, with management. If we want to go for the gold, I think we have to be able to do that. The folks on the other side of the aisle said there are 30,000 employers who are doing it now, it must be legal. It is hard to say it is legal when the NLRB is out filing charges and saying it is illegal and chilling this operation. Frankly, in my judgment, I think it is important to note if people on the other side of the aisle say it must be legal, and there are 30,000 companies that are doing it now, what is the big hubbub? Why filibuster the potential? Why oppose it? Why say it is a draconian measure, that it is going to ruin the country? You cannot have it both ways. If there are 30,000 people that have them and you do not think it is a problem, why say that this is the end of our ability to be competitive? I believe people want to be able to confer with the coach. People want to be able to confer with each other. People want to be able to improve the working conditions. I was just stunned in reading more of these things that were off limits for discussion. It was off limits to talk about bonuses to be given to people as compensation for their good work, off limits to talk about merit wage increases, off limits to talk about free coffee, off limits to talk about safety issues. I was stunned.

Mr. ASHCROFT. There are 30,000 employers, I believe, that have sought to use this kind of collaboration.

Mr. ASHCROFT. That have sought to do this, yes, and some are not any longer doing it. Obviously, when the NLRB began to prosecute this as a violation of the law, there are those who have chilled their operation. There are some under an order to quit. They have been ordered to stop conferring about things. One of the things they were ordered to stop conferring about was safety. It stunned me, the Dillon case said it was inappropriate to discuss safety labeling of electrical breakers. I would certainly hope if I were employed in a plant you could confer with management about the appropriate labeling of electrical breakers. But tornado warning procedures--I know there is going to be discussion about tornado procedures. I mean, if the tornado starts to hit the plant, there will be discussion, regardless of whether the NLRB says it is legal or not. But I would hope it is not illegal to do so in advance. The absurdity of saying it is illegal for employers to discuss with employees evacuation procedures in the event of a tornado points out the fact that this law, which was passed in the mid-1930's, is so out-of-step with America of the year 2000. It is our job to prepare for the future. We ought to be saying we want more discussion between employees and employers and I am pleased that the President is saying that. He is calling this conference to say he wants more discussion. But to say you only want more discussion in the context of unionized plants, which represent 11 percent of the working people of this country, and you will not allow it in terms of the other 89 percent or 88 percent, that boggles the mind. That challenges any credible or reasonable approach to the thing. If, indeed, we want to be competitive and if, indeed, we want people to have job satisfaction and we want them to have job security, we will build the strongest job base possible and we will not say to all those people who are not members of unions: You are not intelligent enough, strong enough or worth enough to be able to confer with your employers, and you will not have the ability to tell whether you are in a union or not. I have had the wonderful privilege of going home to work. It is one of the things I do as a U.S. Senator. I go home, work on production lines. I have worked next to people filling feed sacks. I have worked next to people building windows and window components for new construction. I worked in a wide variety of things. I do not care what job I have done, whether it has been assembly or manufacturing or if has even been in the service industry--one time I helped prepare tax returns--everyone that I have ever talked to was plenty intelligent enough to know how to make improvements and could make suggestions. And they all knew whether or not they were in a union and would know the difference between a sham union and a real union. And they would all know how to call the NLRB if there was an unfair labor practice and make that kind of complaint. For the resistance to mount to the authorization for American workers to talk with their employers about safety conditions, about improving productivity, about innovation, about improving marketability, even about sales practices and, sure, about safety--things like leaving the building in the event of a tornado? Here is a case which said for the employer to talk with the employees about rules relating to employees that got in fights was illegal. I would think it would be important, to confer with our workers on things like that. The purpose of committees--they are designed to improve the security and productivity of American jobs and we should enact the TEAM Act. Let me just give a few words from the language of an administrative law judge who ruled on one of these cases. I quote the administrative law judge's opinion from the EFCO opinion. I am quoting now. The committees ``were established by the company, in furtherance of Chris Fuldner's [that's the CEO's] vision for a more productive, more profitable and more satisfying place for employees to work, [by improving] employment policies, employee benefits, employee safety; and employee suggestions.'' That is what these things were created for, ``To make a more productive, more profitable, and more satisfying place for employees to work, [by improving] employment policies, employee benefits, employee safety; and employee suggestions.'' The opinion went on to say, ``In Fuldner's view, management should encourage employees to feel good about themselves and their jobs, and management should try to keep employees happy with their benefits, and to appreciate these benefits.'' That was the goal. The administrative law judge confessed that these were all the positive benefits. But then said that the law requires that these be stricken as inappropriate because the company not only talked about these benefits but actually took them to heart, provided things like places for the groups to meet, and pencils and papers upon which they could write. We started out talking about the Olympics. We would not want to send our team to the Olympics without a chance to win. We do not want American employees to compete in the world marketplace without the ability to win. You would not think of sending 9 out of 10 athletes to the Olympics without allowing them to talk with their coaches and each other about ways to improve their performance, and yet, we have a rule in American industry that to confer with workers, 9 out of 10 of them-- there are 11-something percent that are in unions; they are allowed to make these discussions--for the ones not in unions, it is against the law. I do not think we can afford to look to the future and say to 88 or 89 percent of our work force, ``You can't take advantage of your creativity, your innovation, your wisdom, and share it with your employer and improve productivity and performance in order to be on a winning team.'' Because we cannot afford to go into the competitive marketplace with our hands tied behind our back, we should enact the TEAM Act, which provides specific authority, not for anything great, not for anything outlandish, but basically for something the President says he wants: cooperation, teamwork--he asked for it in his State of the Union Message--between employees and employers. I believe, if we provide the American people, through the right legal framework, the opportunity to cooperate and work as teams, we will come home with the gold. We have shown it over and over again; even when we slip behind, if you let the American people put their shoulder to the wheel and their nose to the grindstone, we cannot be beaten. But if you hamstring us for special interests rather than turn us loose to win the game, we will have a hard time competing. We must enact the TEAM Act in behalf of the workers of today and the children of tomorrow for the jobs we hold, not only for us, but we hold them in trust for those who will follow us. Thank you, Mr. President. Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. ASHCROFT. You have said you do not think progress can be made as long as the management has the prerogatives that we ask for in the TEAM Act. We are really asking for the prerogatives to confer. If there is nothing in the law against it, why is this so terrifying? In the one case where they have tried to shut this down in Missouri, which is the most notable case in my State, it went from 100 employees to 1,000 employees. The workers have stormed my office and said, ``We want this. The National Labor Relations Board is keeping us from doing this.'' It seems to me you are saying it will not work in theory. But there are a thousand workers in Monett, MO, saying, ``It sure works in practice, because we have 10 times the jobs we used to have, and we like it.'' I met with 300 or 400 workers this morning who were here to lobby the Congress saying, ``Let us keep doing what we are doing.'' I understand you might say theoretically it cannot work. You said there cannot be any progress under the things we are asking for, and the things we are asking for, when it was allowed to operate that way-- I saw one plant in my State that went from 100 workers to 1,000 workers. I call that progress.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Would the Senator yield?

Mr. ASHCROFT. Is the Senator's position that the management should not make the final decision about procedures, that it is inappropriate to confer with workers unless you turn over the final decision to them? I mean, it seems to me that----

Mr. ASHCROFT. So it is the Senator's position that management could only adopt a policy which had been previously forwarded to them by the workers? I mean, as I understand it, you allow workers, their contribution to be made, but you do not have to surrender the management of the corporation to do it. I do not think most workers want you to surrender, but they want input.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Do you think the confidential secretary of the president should not have the right to participate in making contributions like other workers?

Mr. ASHCROFT. How do you break the deadlock in the case of a deadlock under your system, if they are equal positions and one says yes and one says no? Are you saying that if the workers say, ``I don't want to do that,'' and the employer says, ``We need to have that done,'' is it a deadlock for you, or who breaks the deadlock?

Mr. ASHCROFT. I believe we have rights, and I think they ought to be protected, but I believe that when the employer says something needs to be done, it has to be that way. I would say this, and I thank the Senator, and I will not further interrupt your speech, but I would just ask----

Mr. ASHCROFT. My whole point is, it is not my way or the highway. My whole point is, we need to allow managers to welcome and to capitalize on and to implement and to benefit from the special expertise, creativity, and input from people in the production pool. Then it is a very valuable thing. It is not that it is antagonistic. I do not think management can survive without it. I do believe you are right, that there are very few times when it is against the interests of management to hear from labor. I think in the overwhelming number of cases really what I have sought to do is to provide a framework in which that is something that is legal and is appropriate and management is free to solicit the view of labor and to go and ask for it. I thank the Senator for the time.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I certainly want to commend the Senator from Vermont for his outstanding remarks regarding the TEAM Act. He talks about productivity and about these fundamental communications. I have here in my hand a document which lists the illegal subjects of discussion as they have been decided in different cases. The Union Child Day-Care Center case of 1991 said it was illegal to discuss allowing employees to use company vehicles to obtain lunch. Therefore, if there was some sort of discussion that said, ``Well, if we could just occasionally use one of the company vehicles to go get the lunches, we could * * *,'' it would be illegal. Here is another example. It says an impermissible topic is, ``In- plant cafeteria and vending machine food and beverage prices.'' So, if a discussion group said, ``You know, we need to lower prices on some of these things. This concessionaire you have got running the vending machines around here * * *,'' it would be illegal. Here is a third example: ``Company provided meals'' is an impermissible topic. If the discussion group said, ``You know, we could get some more done if you guys could provide some meals or help us with our eating * * *,'' it would be illegal. ``Abolishing a paid lunch program'' was found to be illegal, according to the Van Dorn Machinery Co. case. Here is another example that is really troubling, a whole category of safety topics that it was illegal for workers to talk to their employer about. ``Safety labeling of electrical breakers.'' I should think we would want workers to be able to talk to their employers about conditions of a safer workplace. Workers, individually or collectively, should be able to say ``these things are not labeled properly as `illegal'.'' ``Tornado warning procedures.'' It is illegal for workers to talk with their employers about that, according to the Dillon case. ``The purchase of new lifting equipment for the stock crew.'' Rules about fighting--if there is a fight that breaks out among employees, American workers must say, ``no, we can't have anybody talk to the employer about how to settle it.'' I think these are obviously the kinds of things that workers should be consulted about, and they should be given an opportunity. ``Safety goggles for fryer and bailer operators.'' ``The sharpness of the edges of safety knives.'' Here is a case where employees could not talk to their employers about a smelly propane operation, propane being an explosive gas, burnable gas. I would want to be able to talk about that. The case of the E.I. DuPont case, which was a 1993 case. The subject was safety. ``No. You can't allow workers to talk.'' Of course American public policy should encourage rather than discourage employers from discussing safety issues. ``Drug use and alcohol testing of employees.'' That could not be the subject of discussion. It is no wonder that the Senator from Vermont is so compelling in his arguments about this whole situation when he says that we need to be able to discuss these things. This is not the old days of the 1930's. I thank the Senator for bringing out the fact that there were times when America marched forward by having adversarial fights between labor and management--between employers and employees. I think we will march forward much more quickly and competitively if we can have the benefit of the wisdom of workers in solving some of these fundamental problems. Every once in awhile you hear about these teams, and you think they must be talking about advanced circuitry. Sometimes they are. But sometimes they are just talking about, ``Hey, we'd better make sure that the safety procedures are good enough here in the event we have a tornado.'' According to the rules as they now stand, if you want to discuss how you evacuate the building in the event of a tornado, you violate the law. I thank the Senator from Vermont.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I am very pleased to yield the floor. I, of course, cannot yield but to the Chair, but in respect to my understanding and awareness that the Senator from Vermont is here, it is my pleasure to yield the floor and to thank the Chair for his indulgence for my opportunity to support what I believe is a fundamental ingredient of the success and the survival of this society in the next century, productivity and competitiveness when we call upon workers and allow them to make a contribution which will allow us to succeed.

Mr. ASHCROFT. I thank the Chair. I thank my friend, the Senator from Illinois, in whose State I spent some time this morning. I have to say that I highly respect the senior Senator from Illinois. He is right. I will differ with him, but I will not disagree in a way that would be disagreeable. No one really challenges the need for balance in the culture or in the society, but I think the balance should be struck by American workers. The decision about how many people should be in labor unions and how many people should not be in labor unions should not be something we manipulate from the U.S. Senate. Rather, the decision about who is in a union or who is not in a union should be left to American workers. We have a system in the United States, the National Labor Relations Board, which is designed to ensure that there is no oppression or coercion of workers in unduly restricting their access to labor organizations. In the same light, the National Labor Relations Board also should make sure that there is no coercion in forcing people to be a part of labor organizations. More importantly than trying to strike a balance from Washington, DC, by trying to impose a certain level of unionism on this country in order to match France or Germany, or England, we should provide American workers with the ability to strike that balance for themselves. Frankly, I do not want to be like France or Germany or England. I have not noticed a great stream of immigrants from the United States to France, Germany or England. The big stream of immigrants is from other countries to the United States. It always confounds me a little bit when people in this Chamber hold up what happens in other places as a reflection of what the United States should become. Sure, there are free economies, but I will guarantee you they are not as free as the economy of the United States. And the reason people make the tough journey--and they have for centuries--to these shores is because there is greater freedom here and that is because we do not try to impose decisions on people from Washington, DC. We try to let people make the decisions, and that same ideal should ring true in the case of the TEAM Act. What is the TEAM Act? What has happened that has provoked the Senate to consider something that would fundamentally adjust the way in which we allow workers to interrelate with their employers or companies? Maybe it is best to start at what is our overarching goal? Here we stand in 1996, 3\1/2\ years from the turn of the millennium. What do we want to do? What should our policy be? What do we want? I think we want American society to survive in the next century. And I believe that we know we can survive if we are productive and if we are competitive. We have had some real challenges to our productivity and to our competitiveness in recent years. Just a couple decades ago some folks from the Far East--instead of Europe--made a real run at the United States. They began to teach us some lessons which first were outlined by an American professor but first were embraced by the Japanese. These were the lessons about how successful we all could be if employers tapped their workers as a resource to help both workers and companies do their very best to improve the product, to streamline production, to improve safety, to improve conditions in the work environment, that if workers could help make improvements, you could develop a higher quality and greater efficiency. That enhanced productivity--the quality and efficiency together equal productivity--would mean a surge in the marketplace, and it did. The Japanese with their auto production and electronics production nearly displaced the United States. However, we have made a comeback. How have we made a comeback? We made a comeback when we recognized the Japanese principles that were initially discovered and taught in some of the business schools of this country--the principle that recognized the value of workers. These principles say that no one will know the industrial process quite as intimately as the person who is on the line and that person has something extremely valuable to contribute. And so American industries started to say let us have meetings. Let us get the workers together and let us discuss how we can improve our standing--when we have improved standing and improved productivity, we have improved job security. When we do a better job, when we produce a better product, we are going to do better and it will lift us all. It will lift the employer. It will lift the employees. We will deal together as associates, and we will move forward. As a matter of fact, there is a wonderful company in the State of Missouri. The name of the company is EFCO, E-F-C-O. They make what is known as architectural glass. If you are going to build a skyscraper and you are going to cover it with glass, you figure out the dimensions of each pane and then order the glass to fit your individual project. You figure out if it is going to have gas between the panes of glass or tinting to make the building more energy efficient. EFCO was that kind of company except and it had about 100 employees. They decided they wanted to be a leader in the industry. So they began asking their employees how to do it. They developed these techniques for asking employees how to make a more better product and how to improve the efficiency of production. They asked the employees if they had any ideas about safety so they could improve the safety, how they could increase quality, how they could have on-time deliveries. They were only having about 75 percent on-time deliveries when they started these committees, and recently, after doing this for quite some time, they were up to the high 90's in on-time deliveries. Everything was going well. The workers were earning more. The company exploded from 100-plus workers to over 1,000 workers, supplying architectural glass to people not only in this country but around the world. All of a sudden a grievance was filed that these committees are an inappropriate act and that somehow, this is some phony union. I want to be clear and distinct about my disagreement with the senior Senator from Illinois, who said the TEAM Act permits a company basically to establish a company union. Not so. The workers would have every opportunity, and never lose their opportunity, to petition the National Labor Relations Board to certify a union on the premises of these plants. There is no part of the TEAM Act which says that if you establish these company committees to improve communication, to elevate productivity, to lift worker satisfaction, that it in any way prohibits a union from being established. It is just wrong. It is inappropriate, it is inaccurate, it is a misrepresentation of the bill to say that it permits a company union. It does not. But it does authorize companies, if they want to, to tap the most vital and essential resource that a company has, and that is the people who work there. EFCO got to talking to people, and some of the people in these groups said you ought to let us do things this way, to have our vacations so we could be happier workers and be more productive, and to think about this in terms of the way you compensate us. A grievance was filed saying that this was somehow a company union, because the company dominated the committees by providing something as fundamental as a paper and pencil, because there were discussions of things that related to employment and because the company did not ignore the discussions but actually took them to heart. Therefore it was disqualified as if it were a union. Let me just say a couple of things about that. No. 1, Missouri workers and American workers are not stupid. I spent a lot of time on my campaign working in the plants in Missouri and since I have been a Senator, I have gone back to work in the plants. These workers know whether they are members of a labor union or not. They know whether they are in a discussion group or not. I do not have such a low regard for the workers in my State to think that they cannot tell the difference between a discussion group and a labor union. As a matter of fact, it is strange to me to see those individuals who fear these committees, because individuals who work in these settings are happier and more productive. Maybe they think they do not need a union as much. That could be. I would not argue with that. If they are getting along without one, they might not want to pay union dues. That could be the case and it would remain their choice. But these workers know whether they are in a union or not. It is strange to me that while employers are highly valuing employees--and do not have a low estimation of who these workers are, what they are, and what they can achieve--and those who are representing the organized labor interests in America are saying that these highly valued employees are being confused about whether this is a union or not. I want you to know that, from my experience, none of the employees who have participated in these activities--that I know of--confuses these committees with a labor union. But nonetheless, the National Labor Relations Board brought an action against EFCO, the company I talked about that went from 100-plus employees to 1,000 employees, to stop them from valuing their employees. The NLRB said it was an unfair, inappropriate labor practice to have this kind of discussion, this kind of interrelationship, and this utilization and tapping of a wonderful resource of informed and enthusiastic workers to improve their productivity. What a terrible thing. This win-win situation is now illegal. An interesting question is whether it is illegal to have these kinds of discussion groups if there is a union on the premises. The answer is--not at all. As a matter of fact, in a union setting, these committees are just fine. There is no problem. In my opinion, this is a discrimination against companies and workers who decide they work better and choose to work better absent a union. My colleague, the senior Senator from Illinois, says we need balance. It seems to me, if this is a device that is available to union facilities, it ought to be a device that is available to groups of workers and their employers when those groups of workers have chosen-- not to be unionized. If we are talking about balance here, the balance ought to be that workers make the choice, not that we manipulate the choices from here in Washington, DC. These are win-win situations. There is a very simple question here. Are we going to forbid employers and companies in America from consulting with workers to improve productivity, to improve safety, to improve worker satisfaction, to build job security? Are we going to make that illegal? Are we going to continue to allow that to be the source of conflict with an enforcement agency of the Government that says: Whatever you do, you cannot ask your workers what would be a better way to do things? You cannot ask them how you could better improve their safety? You cannot ask them how you could make the output more efficient so they can be more competitive around the world and thereby protect their jobs? Are we going to maintain a system that says you cannot do that? Or are we going to say: Wait a second, we are going into the next millennium and we have to be competitive with people from Singapore, people from Taiwan, people from China--1 billion plus people-- energetically pointed toward the United States and the world as a marketplace, who want to compete with us. Or are we going to say to employers: You cannot talk to your workers to find out what is efficient and what is inefficient? As I look toward the next century and as I look at my children--you know, one is just out in the workplace now. Two are still involved in education. I hope one of them is going to graduate next Saturday. But in the workplace, what kind of a team do we want to play for? Do we want to have a team where we hobble the real stars? The real stars of the competitive productivity of the United States are the workers. Are we going to say we want to tape their mouths shut, we want to rely only on the individuals in the board room? Do we want to rely only on the guys who come out with the fancy degrees? Or are we willing to hear the voice of the people from the shop floor who are able to say: You know, I have looked at this and I have been working on this and I believe if we just swap positions in the process, this for that, it would be a lot safer; or, we can eliminate this step in the production and we can be a lot more competitive. I frankly believe, as we face this next millennium, we can no longer afford a NLRB that goes to the companies and says, ``Unh-unh, shame on you for talking to the workers.'' Eighteen cases were pursued by the NLRB since 1992 saying you cannot talk to the workers about improved conditions, you cannot confer with them about how to have an increase in your safety, you cannot ask them to help you figure out how to be more competitive. We have had about 30,000 employers trying to use these methods in response to the competitive surge from across the ocean, from Japan and others who are using these techniques. Let me say American workers have the right to opt for union membership. They have the right to ask for it. They have the right to petition for it. That right would persist. Nothing is done to change that by the TEAM Act. They would have the ability to ask that unions be organized and they would have the entire framework of the NLRB to make sure that any election is a fair election. But I think, for us to say we do not want to be able to use the resource that workers present as a means of improving our productivity is a terrible violation of basic sound public policy principles. It undervalues the American work force substantially. It ignores the fact that, of those who make a contribution, I believe the contribution of the worker is high on the list. You know, this was a theme of President Clinton's State of the Union Message. He kept talking about teamwork. He said what we cannot do separately we ought to be able to do together. He talked about cooperation. He said, and I agree and I quote: ``When companies and workers work as a team, they do better, and so does America.'' Not only do I agree with that, I do not think I could have said it better myself. This just appears to be one of those disparities. I do not think he meant to say, ``When union companies and union workers work as a team, they do better and so does America.'' I am sure that is true, but to limit that to 11 percent of the work force--as the senior Senator from Illinois said, 11.8 percent of the work force in the United States, outside of government, has decided to be represented by a union--to limit the ability to confer and to have those advantages to only 1 out of 10 workers seems to be a terrible way to structure and to establish the potential for this country to succeed in the next century. I believe that it is the fundamental responsibility of Government-- this is at the base of it all; this is why we are here--to establish an environment in which people reach the maximum of their potential. Government ought to be an institution which promotes growth, not growth in Government, but growth for people, for individuals and for institutions, for citizens and for corporations. And if we are a society of growth, we will succeed. And if we are a society of shrinkage, we will not. Now, are we going to grow by using the entire array of talents in our culture, or are we going to say to 9 out of 10 workers, ``You can't collaborate, you can't confer with, you can't discuss, you can't make suggestions.'' When the EFCO case, to which I have referred, was handed down by the judge, the judge said, ``This is good for the workers, this is good for the company, this is good for the community, but the technical aspects of the law require that I stop this procedure.'' And we want to say, ``You're right, judge, it's good for the workers, it's good for the company, it's good for the community, and we want to change the law just to allow it to be possible for the 9 out of 10 nonunion workers to be able to confer with their employers in the same way that union workers do in terms of making suggestions for increased productivity.'' I believe that the TEAM Act should be enacted. It must be enacted if we really care about American workers. Let me just say, we are talking about 9 out of 10 workers in the American workplace. A lot has been said about the minimum wage. The minimum wage affects fewer than 5 percent of the workers in this country. We are down at very low levels of people who are affected. I think minimum wage affects about 3.1 percent of the population. Here we are talking about something that affects the entire population, the ability of this whole society to move forward competitively. I see my friend, the Senator from Vermont, on the floor. Mr. President, does the Senator desire to speak on this issue?

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, one of the things that workers want to talk to their employers about, and they want to talk to us about, is their ability to resolve the tension that exists between the workplace and their families. Most of the men and most of the women in today's modern work force feel a tension between serving the needs of their families and being on the job. If we were really concerned about workers, we would also direct our attention to the substance of the Fair Labor Standards Act. This archaic rule literally makes it illegal if an hourly worker goes in on Friday afternoon and says, as an employee, ``I have to go see Sally get an award at the honors program at the high school this afternoon. Can I make up the time on Monday?'' Our labor laws make that illegal for the employer to let the employee just make up that time on Monday. We have a situation where we have so many people now trying to juggle both work and family--I do not need to go through the statistics. In the 1930's, when we created the Fair Labor Standards Act, we had fewer than 16 percent of the women of childbearing age in the work force. Now 75 percent of all the women with children 6 and under are in the work force. We have just a dramatic difference. We need to make it as easy as we possibly can for these people to accommodate the needs of their children. This can be accomplished by having flexible work schedules, by allowing individuals, if they are asked to work overtime sometime, to say, ``I'll take it in comp time, time and one-half, in terms of time off.'' We accorded this privilege to the Federal Government in 1945. That is how long they have had the potential of not taking overtime but just taking comp time for people who would rather have time than pay. Since 1978, we have had a flexible work arrangement for Federal employees which allowed those who are running the Federal Government and the different departments to say to their employees, ``If you need to take 2 hours off on Friday afternoon you can make those 2 hours up on Monday.'' The Federal employees have had it in terms of comp time for over half a century; in terms of flexible time, for 18 years. However, the rest of the American workplace still finds itself rigidly confined and the family disadvantaged substantially by the fact that it is illegal for someone to say, ``Make up the 2 hours on Monday afternoon. We are glad to have you go and participate with your family.'' I have introduced legislation to address this. It is called the Work and Family Integration Act. It is the way to build a better workplace for the next century, recognizing and reflecting the needs, concerns, and the difficult challenges that families face now. It does not allow any employer to demand or extract any overtime in any way without paying time and a half for it in accordance with the traditional rules. But, if the worker desires, the worker could shift some of his workweek from 1 week to the next with the managers or the employers' agreement. We held a hearing on this in the committee and people were talking about snow days here in Washington. A whole group of employees were snowed out on Friday. Their employer was not allowed to let them make that 8 hours up 2 hours at a time in 4 days the next week. As a result a whole group of workers lost a whole day's pay. I am talking about 300 people at one plant because our labor laws prohibit the making up of time once you cross the end of a week. Now, it seems to me if the employees request and the employer is willing to accommodate, we should have flexible work arrangements. Also, we should allow--if the employer asks someone to work overtime-- the employee to choose to take that overtime not in extra money but in time and a half off. As a matter of fact, that comports with, obviously, what the Federal Government has suggested is available for its own employees for the last 50 years, but it is something where the average worker just does not have equality with the Federal employees. I believe this is a measure which ought to be supported if we really care about workers. Mr. President, 60-some percent of all the men in the culture say they want to spend more time with their families. Give the employers and the employees an opportunity to work together to spend more time with their families. I was stunned with a statistic I read the other day that 30-some percent of all the men in America said they had passed up promotions in order to spend more time with their families, and 60-some percent of the women in America said they had passed up promotions. When people pass up a promotion that means they are not living or working at their highest potential. It means their employers know they could do a different kind of job, a better job, more demanding job, and it means the person knows they can do it, but they do not want to sacrifice the family. So we end up deploying our resources, our great human talent, at lower than optimal levels because people are protecting their ability to work with their families. Why do we not say we will allow you to protect your ability to work with your family by giving you flexible working opportunities like we have in the Federal Government. Just extend to the private sector what we have in the Federal Government. We should do that so we get the greater productivity and output from the workers across America. If we have higher productivity and output and we have more time with our families, we have more worker satisfaction, I can guarantee that will be a formula for success and survival into the next century. Whether we sink or swim depends on our ability to be competitive. We have rules from 60, 70 years ago s which make it impossible for us to survive. It is like swimming across the lake with a sack of cement. It is heavy to begin with, but when it solidifies it is a weight to carry and we need to shed this kind of impediment. We need to free individuals to make these requests and agreements. Some say, ``Wait a second, some might be abused by their employers.'' We have the Department of Labor, an army of wage and hour enforcement individuals. There would be no ability to compel anything that is not compellable now. All we want to do is free these friends, the employers and employees to work cooperatively so they can accommodate the needs of their families. I think it is something which ought to be done. As a matter of fact, it is something with which the administration agrees--at least rhetorically. I was pleased to note from the Bureau of National Affairs, the Daily Labor Report, Vice President Gore, May 3, called on U.S. employers to create father-friendly workplaces. Addressing a Federal conference on strengthening the role of fathers in families, Gore ``urged American companies to give employees flex time opportunities to expand options.'' Now, wait a second. We have the Vice President of the United States saying we need flextime, legislative proposals before the Congress which would provide for flextime, the President of the United States having said we need to work together as teams in his State of the Union Message, but a promise they will veto employee option flextime and comp time. Again, we have the dysfunction between the speak and the specifics, between the rhetoric and the reality. It is high time we say to American families, ``We want to do more than talk about you. We want to do more than say we need family-friendly and father-friendly work policies.'' We ought to be willing to say, ``Yes, the American worker in the private sector deserves the same kind of opportunities to work cooperatively, to arrange to meet the needs of her family, his family, meet that need just like Federal employees.'' In 1978 we started flexible scheduling in the Federal Government as a pilot project. In 1982, we extended it. Along about 1985 we decided, hey, this is good enough to put right into the law. We have a report to congressional committees from the United States General Accounting Office, ``The Changing Work Force: Comparison of Federal and non-Federal work family programs and approaches,'' that documents the fact this is available. It is available and it is working in the Federal Government. But we are afraid to extend it, afraid to offer this opportunity to people in the private sector. I cannot believe it. Do you know what Federal workers said about this? Overwhelmingly, ``We like it, we want it, we must have it, we should continue to have it,'' when they talk to their employer about conditions of employment. President Clinton, the President himself, in 1994, put out an Executive order that this is a good deal, best thing since sliced bread. This is something you cannot argue with. He says we should extend this, make sure that every person in the executive branch, even those in the White House, have this capacity. It is good enough for the White House--if it is good enough for Pennsylvania Avenue--it is good enough for Main Street, USA. If we really care about workers, and I believe we must, if we really care about our fellow Americans, we must care less about special interests who are afraid if we make workers happy they might not join unions. I think what we have to say is: How do we confront the challenges of the next century? How do we make sure that America does not slip? How do we make sure there is a job base, an industrial capacity competitive enough that when our children and grandchildren need jobs and when the other countries of this world come fully online with a competitive challenge--how do we make sure we are ready to meet that challenge? Can we do it with a law that was passed in the 1930's and says that, ``Well, shucks, we cannot allow Americans to accommodate the needs of their families. We certainly would not want people in the private sector to have the same benefits the Federal employees have for accommodating those needs. We have to be very much afraid if these workers get too happy, either conferring with their employers or cooperating so that they can see the soccer game or watch the awards ceremony that the special interests in this country will not make it. Well, I think you and I understand, and I think down deep we all know that it will not do much good to have healthy special interests if the national interests go down the drain. As we look to the next century, I think we have to look to those national interests: Flexible work arrangements are important in helping mothers and fathers be deployed in the workplace to the maximum of their capacity and to accommodate the needs of our families. We have to look after American families. Yes, let us let workers talk. Let workers talk to their fellow employees and employers about things as fundamental as tornado drills and whether the propane is leaking out of the tank and whether the electrical circuit breakers are properly labeled. Let us not assume they cannot do that unless they first call in the union. Let us not underestimate the value of the American worker. Let us capitalize on the value of the American worker. If we really care about America's workers, we will do things for all of them, for the vast majority of them, like flex time and the TEAM Act, which invites the entirety of the population to flourish. Sure, I understand concerns about the tiny, narrow fragment of people on the minimum wage. However, well over half of those people are part of households that make over $45,000 a year. I think the number is 57 percent. I started working way below the minimum wage, a third below the minimum wage. I am glad somebody did not tell me it was ``because you are not worth the minimum wage; you are useless.'' I may have been useless at the time, but somebody agreed to pay me 50 cents an hour when the minimum wage was 75 cents, and I got my start. I do not think I have missed a day of work since. There are those in my home State who think I am still worth about 50 cents an hour, but my view is that my work and my values should be determined by what I can produce. I should not be told if I cannot produce at one level, that I am worthless and worth nothing at all. Let me just make one other comment about another topic. I do not see anyone else seeking the opportunity to speak. There is a lot of talk about gasoline taxes. Frankly, I think the most recent gas tax, the one passed in 1993, was mislabeled. It was a tax on gasoline all right, but it went someplace else. Prior to that time, gas taxes were all spent to build highways and roads. But the gas tax in 1993, the most recent one that added significantly--about 25 percent--to the gas tax we already had, or more, I guess, that gas tax went into the general fund. So when the Senators from a variety of jurisdictions get up and say we need gas taxes because they build highways, the general fund does not build highways. The highway trust fund builds highways. The last gas tax was not a demand for more road-building capacity. It was a demand that people who drive perhaps would subsidize social programs. Now, that bothered me because I think the gas tax that builds highways is really a reasonable, uniquely sensible approach. The people using the highways are paying for the highways. How wonderful. Government ought to work that way. The more you drive, the more you pay. The more you drive, the more you use the highways. Makes sense. But, no, in 1993 they decided--and I opposed it. I was not here, but I was opposed to it. That was not the right way to do things, to take what people were trusting to be a gas tax and put it in the old general fund so it would support social programs. I have to say I am distressed by that because it says that we are going to put a tax on drivers, and we are going to use that to support social programs, and that means people who live in the outer-State areas--a lot of people in the West where they drive long distances when they go to work--are going to be asked to subsidize social programs at a higher level, to bear an inordinate cost, to bear an unusual share of these social programs. Well, you all know, and I know, that the social programs have driven the deficit in this country, which is about $5 trillion now. A newborn child owes $19,000 the day he or she is born. The idea of trying to figure out ways to keep displacing the burden of taxation, to load it up on the guys out West, or the people who are in the nonurban areas, to drive just for the privilege of driving, they are going to have to pay an inordinate share of these other programs. That, to me, is a bankrupt concept. It might be different if we had passed the gas tax to pay for what the gas really uses, and that is the highways. But this is not one of those situations. I opposed it because it is not one of those situations, and I would favor the repeal of it because it is not one of those situations. We do not spend the money in the highway trust fund we have now. We use it to mask the deficit in part of the flim-flam of Washington economics. To add an additional gas tax as additional flim-flam to spend on a variety of other Government programs that have not really gotten us far, except into debt, I think has moved us in the wrong direction. I personally will be glad to support a repeal of the gas tax, because I believe that, as it relates to taxes, America is running out of gas. We are tired of taxes. We realize that we have them at a higher and higher level. Last week, the Department of Commerce released the data for this last year, and we have had the highest tax rate from the Federal Government we have ever had in the history of America. We fought the world wars and charged American citizens less than we are charging them now. We spent our way out of the Depression and charged America less than we are charging now. It is time for us to come to grips with the responsibility we have to put Government under control, to change the Washington-knows-best way of doing business. It is time for us to be sober about our responsibilities as it relates to the hard-earned money of our constituents. As it relates to taxes, America is running out of gas. It should be running out of a gas tax which was inappropriately levied in 1993 and should be appropriately repealed by the U.S. Congress in 1996. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Madam President, families are the cornerstone of America. It is both instructive and important to honor those who have taken the commitment of ``til death us do part'' seriously, demonstrating successfully the timeless principles of love, honor, and fidelity. These characteristics make our country strong. I rise today to honor Mr. Loren and Mrs. Orpha Nichols of Savannah, MO, who on March 28, 1996, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. My wife, Janet, and I look forward to the day we can celebrate a similar milestone. The Nichols' commitment to the principles and values of their marriage deserves to be saluted and recognized. I wish them and their family all the best as they celebrate this substantial marker on their journey together.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, families are the cornerstone of America. The data is undeniable: individuals from strong families contribute to the society. In an era when nearly half of all couples married today will see their union dissolve into divorce, I believe it is both instructive and important to honor those who have taken the commitment of ``til death us do part'' seriously, demonstrating successfully the timeless principles of love, honor, and fidelity. These characteristics make our country strong. For these important reasons, I rise today to honor Lelslie and Isabella Waltman of West Plains, MO, who on March 28, will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. They understand the meaning of the word ``covenant.'' My wife, Janet, and I look forward to the day we can celebrate a similar milestone. The Waltmans' commitment to the principles and values of their marriage deserves to be saluted and recognized. I wish them and their family all the best as they celebrate this substantial marker on their journey together.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, families are the cornerstone of America. The data is undeniable: Individuals from strong families contribute to the society. In an era when nearly half of all couples married today will see their union dissolve into divorce, I believe it is both instructive and important to honor those who have taken the commitment of ``till death us do part'' seriously, demonstrating successfully the timeless principles of love, honor, and fidelity. These characteristics make our country strong. For these important reasons, I rise today to honor James and Esther Morales of Neosho, MO who on March 9, 1996 celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. My wife, Janet, and I look forward to the day we can celebrate a similar milestone. George and Barbara's commitment to the principles and values of their marriage deserves to be saluted and recognized. I wish them and their family all the best as they celebrate this substantial marker on their journey together.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. I thank the Senator.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Is the Senator representing that, because a person is term limited he will automatically ignore his constituency? I ask that question because I spent two terms as Governor of my State. In my second term as Governor, I was term limited. But the kind of considerations which the Senator appears to be suggesting are really foreign to my mentality. I did not seek to rip off the public treasury, and I did not ignore my constituents. I did not view people who came to my office as potential employers. I sought to serve the people of my State. I am just not sure what the line of reasoning is. I inquire of the Senator, is this projection something that he thinks is an inevitable consequence of term limits?

Mr. ASHCROFT. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Madam President, the fundamental values of the American people compel us to accord them the opportunity to evaluate an amendment to the Constitution proposing term limits, the value of choice, the value of representing the people, the value of access and participation in politics and the value of limited power. All of these components of American history, all of these principles by which we have stood are the principles which call upon us now in the voices of 70 to 80 percent of the population in saying to us, ``Give us the opportunity to participate in Government by ratifying an amendment to the U.S. Constitution which would limit terms of Members of the U.S. Congress.'' I thank the Chair.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Madam President, I thank you very much for this opportunity to speak. I express my deep appreciation to the majority leader for scheduling this historic opportunity for the Senate to act in a way which will allow the States to make a decision about whether or not to amend the Constitution of the United States to limit the terms of those of us who serve in the Congress. Senator Dole, by bringing this issue to the floor when no other leader has been willing to do so for the last several decades, has staked himself clearly on the side of the American people, the 70 to 80 percent of the American people who have endorsed term limits. And they have done so knowingly. They have done so having had experience. They understand that the President of the United States has been term limited since the early 1950's, that the Governors of 41 States are term limited, that legislatures in a number of States are term limited, that city councils are term limited from New York to Los Angeles and many cities in between, and State officials in addition to the Governor. What we find is that there is a tremendous exception that has been carved out for the Congress. The suggestion that somehow the proposal before the Congress today does not involve real term limits because they are not retroactive really flies in the face of what the people across this country have done regarding term limits at home, for their city councils, for their Governors, for their State legislatures. It flies in the face of their efforts because none of their efforts really provide for all this retroactivity. When the people have spoken, they have decided that our laws should operate prospectively. This amendment would say that after its enactment, if it were to be embraced by the States, no person could be elected more than twice. I believe that is a step in the right direction. It is a step in the right direction, and it is a necessary step because it reflects the will of the people. We need to accord to the people the opportunity to make a judgment about whether they want to amend the Constitution of the United States so as to impose term limits on the Congress. There have been those who have come to say that this is an idea of passionate demagogs, who as a result of frustration in the body politic have now somehow embraced this issue because it is one for demagogs. This issue was close to the heart of Thomas Jefferson. It was close to the heart of Richard Henry Lee. It was part of the debate at the founding of our Republic. And then when they find out they do not want to call Thomas Jefferson a demagog and they do not want to say that Richard Henry Lee was a passionate individual just trying to play upon the passions of the voters, they say, well, they decided against term limits for the Senate and House and therefore the decision has been made and we must respect it. In all honesty, we have to understand that the Senate is a different body than it was when the Founding Fathers created it. When the Founding Fathers assembled our Constitution and when it was embraced by the colonies which were States, the Senate was not composed of people elected in popular elections. It was composed of individuals who were sent here by the State legislatures. None of the problems with elections, none of the problems with campaign financing, none of the incredible value to incumbents had surfaced. The Founding Fathers could not possibly have anticipated that the Senate would need term limits because none of them really anticipated the popular election of Senators. So for us to say that we need to give States the opportunity to implement or employ term limits is for us to allow the people of the United States to fine tune a change they have already made to the Constitution. The change already made was to provide for the popular election of Senators which resulted in the campaigns we see, resulted in the influence of resources in the campaigns, and it is high time that we be able to correct an adjustment which we already made. It is an adjustment which has tilted the playing field so dramatically toward incumbents that incumbency is a virtual guarantee of reelection. Nine out of every 10 incumbents end up being reelected. It is no wonder then when there are incumbencies the number of people who are running for office is constricted. People do not bother to try to get involved. That offends a fundamental value of America which is access and participation. It is kind of interesting to look back. Two years ago I was running for the Senate. One of my opponents was a Member of the House. In the year before he chose to step down and run for the Senate, there were only two candidates. This year there are only two candidates for his seat. But in the year it was an open seat, there were 11 candidates. Some people say that to have term limits would reduce the number of choices. If you reduce it from 11 to 2, I think it is an exponential explosion in the number of choices. So the real choice would be expanded by term limits, not limited. Then there are those who say we have to have experience in the House and Senate. Nothing would keep us from having experience. People who are experienced in State government, people experienced in the House move to the Senate. People experienced in the Senate move to the House. They would not have the value of incumbency to tilt the playing field. More importantly, I think it is essential that we recognize there is experience in this life that counts every bit as much as experience in the House or the Senate, and the people of America know about that experience. It is the experience of raising families. It is the experience of living under the laws. It is the experience of the private sector. One of our colleagues said that we needed the experience of one Senator who is particularly good in the area of scientific awareness. Well, for Heaven's sake, the Senate is not the repository of science in America. We need to welcome people from outside who know about science. And as I think about my colleague from Tennessee, who is a surgeon in heart transplantation, that is the kind of experience you cannot get in the Senate. When we talk about things relating to medical challenges and how we are going to solve problems of access for people regarding health care, we have to listen carefully to experience that comes from beyond Government. People of America know that the future of this country is far too important to trust to Government alone or to those who are experienced in Government alone. We need to welcome experience from far beyond just the governmental sector. I think it is important to listen to what George Washington said. Washington said: Nor can the Members of Congress exempt themselves from consequences of any unjust and tyrannical acts which they may impose upon others for in a short time they will mingle with the mass of the people. It was anticipated that Members of the Congress would shortly mingle with the mass of the people. One of those who has debated in this Chamber suggested that the anticipation of mingling with the mass of the people might somehow undermine the commitment of a person for service. George Washington saw it absolutely opposite. He thought that people who knew they were going to have to go out there and live with the people would render better service, not render lesser service; that their service would be more noble. And how do you measure nobility? By whether or not it makes it better for the general public, whether it elevates the general welfare. George Washington said beware because you will have to be mingling with the public. I think every Member of the House and Senate should look forward to mingling with the public. They should look forward to going home. They should look forward to being in a situation at a time and place when they live under the laws that we not only propose but under the laws which we enact. So we have a tremendous opportunity. It is an opportunity which will reinforce fundamental values of America, The people's will must be served. Let me just reinforce this point. Seventy to 80 percent of Americans, with the knowledge of 50 years of experience of term limits, say, ``It is something we want, we like.'' I think we ought to represent the people to the extent we are saying, ``If you think you like that, let us give you a choice,'' not impose term limits on them, but let us send it out to the States and create a great debate about it and let States determine whether or not they want term limits. Let the people participate. Seventy-four percent of the American people, according to one poll, support term limits. Twenty-three States, almost all of which had the initiative so that people could start the movement for term limits themselves with petitions, have enacted term limits. We have the new ``electronics to petition the Congress.'' Over 50,000 people visited the home page for term limits here in the U.S. Senate. Well over 7,000 people signed the petition. Of those--it was overwhelmingly in favor of term limits. I believe that, in a democracy, we should accord to the people the opportunity to make decisions. We should trust them. Then there is this idea, ``Oh, somehow we have to be careful that we do not find ourselves absent the talent.'' There has been a wonderful parade of public figures oratorically through the Chamber of all the people who were here and who might not have been able to serve for life or for extended periods had we had term limits. If George Washington had thought that he was the only person who could lead America, he would not have walked away after two terms. If Thomas Jefferson had thought that there was a limited pool of talent, that the American people were a very shallow pool and you could not trust anyone else but them, he would not have walked away. President after President walked away for the first 100 years of this Republic because they had a different kind of confidence in the American people than we have heard expressed all too often here. They had a confidence that there was greatness in this Republic and it was not limited to a few who had been elected. I was interested in what those people who wrote me on the Internet had to say. One was ``7100'' who communicated, who said: I see that you're a Republican. I'm not. This is one issue, however, more important to me than the success of any party. Another said: Serving the public was never meant to be a way to amass power and money. Our Founding Fathers would be ashamed. Please stop the insanity and pass term limits now. I think what we have is a great opportunity to say to the people, ``We welcome your participation in Government.'' We hope that more people will find their way into elections, and they will if there are fewer incumbencies that are extremely well funded. We hope that more people will find their way into office to bring the wisdom of America to Washington, DC. We do not distrust the talent of the American people. We think there are plenty of people who are capable of serving. We think that the nature of real choice will be expanded, and we think that there will be the evidence of a discipline in the Senate which will come from individuals who expect to return to mingle with the public. There are those who have said, ``Well, unless we make term limits retroactive so that we will virtually say anybody who has already served two terms will be out from the date of enactment forward, we will not have real term limits.'' Let me tell you, that is not the way term limits have ever worked. The American people know how term limits work. They have seen it work in their city councils, they have seen it work in their States, they have seen it work for 40-plus Governors, and they have seen it work for the President of the United States. The truth of the matter is, so many of those individuals who suggest they want that kind of term limits are opposing term limits altogether. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 minute in which to conclude.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, families are the cornerstone of America. The data is undeniable: Individuals from strong families contribute to the society. In an era when nearly half of all couples married today will see their union dissolve into divorce, I believe it is both instructive and important to honor those who have taken the commitment of ``till death us do part'' seriously, demonstrating successfully the timeless principles of love, honor, and fidelity. These characteristics make our country strong. For these important reasons, I rise today to honor George and Barbara Morales of Costa Mesa, CA who on March 29, 1996 celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. My wife, Janet, and I look forward to the day we can celebrate a similar milestone. George and Barbara's commitment to the principles and values of their marriage deserves to be saluted and recognized. I wish them and their family all the best as they celebrate this substantial marker on their journey together.