Joe Biden

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. No, my question was about Senator Kerrey from Nebraska. Are we ready to vote on that amendment?

Mr. BIDEN. If the Senator will yield, they were all filed by noon today.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield?

Mr. BIDEN. Surely.

Mr. BIDEN. And enter time agreements on all the remaining amendments?

Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator be prepared to move forward if we drop the four gun amendments?

Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator yield for a question, just a brief question, a serious question?

Mr. BIDEN. We are ready to vote, Senator.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I realize the majority leader is very busy, and he has a lot of pieces of legislation he has to deal with and a lot of other matters relating to national responsibilities and the Republican Party. However, I want to point out to him, he keeps talking about 60-some amendments. It is down to 16 amendments, No. 1. No. 2, of the 16 amendments, there are only 4 amendments that there is a problem with here. The four amendments relate to guns. That is what this is about. The President wanted wiretapping authority in this. We have an amendment for that. The other side does not want to get tough on those terrorists and allow the Government to wiretap them. I understand that. It is a civil liberties issue from their perspective. I understand it. But the President wanted it. The President wanted posse comitatus, but apparently some of the posses out West do not want posse comitatus change, so we will have a vote on it. The President also wants it in this bill. He wanted some authority relating to immigration that the other side does not want. It was in his bill. They took it out. I understand. That is one of the amendments in here. There are four amendments, five amendments, with regard to time agreements--the longest 90 minutes, the shortest 20--relating to habeas corpus. The President says he wants habeas corpus. He did not say he wants the Republican habeas corpus; he says he wants habeas corpus. We want to give the Senate the one the President wants, not the one the Republicans want. We want to debate it. So, look, the amendments we are talking about here, all of which have time agreements on them, all of which, on our side, have time agreements on them, are amendments--but for four of them--that the President does want or wants a version of them different than the one in the Republican bill. So I would like to ask this question: Why do we not have a cloture vote on those four gun amendments, because that is what this is about. Why not have a cloture vote on those? And why do we not move on with the rest of these? And if we get cloture on those four amendments, fine. No problem. They are gone. I am sure they will come back. But they are gone. I do not want them on this bill. I did not want any of these on this bill. But we should get something straight here. This is an interesting way to proceed. There was a bill that was brought up, not out of committee--which I understand and I am not being critical of--and it gets brought up on the floor, everybody not having not had a chance to read it, because it is a Republican bill that was not finalized on the day we started to debate it, and I understand that, too. Everybody put all these place holder amendments out there. There were 60, 70, 80, 100, I do not know what the number was, a humongous number. So we stayed here late 1 day, Senator Hatch and I, to get a finite list so no one could add more amendments. So we get a finite list and we list them. And then the leader comes back before we voted on any of them and he files a cloture petition. Now, I realize this will be lost on the public, and I understand this is inside baseball. I understand this is the Senate. I hope the press understands it, though. Then the leader looks down and says, ``OK, you now have shown me your list. You have agreed this is a limited list. Now I want to go down the list. I don't like that one, that one, that one, that one, so I'm filing cloture. Gotcha.'' Look, whether there is a time agreement, we walked out of here and came out of a caucus. I did what I committed to do. And the leader did what he committed to do. I came out here and I said, ``OK, here is a time agreement with these four. Can we move them right away?'' I thought the Republican side was for it because they printed up a unanimous-consent agreement. All of a sudden, boom. We cannot debate them. Or we cannot vote on them. We have a Kerrey amendment. The President wanted the ATF involved. Apparently, the ATF is like holding up a cross to Dracula to some folks around here. He stood up and gave a time agreement of 30 minutes. He made his pitch on ATF, why they should be included the way the President wants them included. All of a sudden, there is silence on the other side, not a response, no question, just so we cannot vote on it. What is this, legislation by fiat? Now, look, if this is about getting the bill done, which I thought that is what the cloture thing was about, getting it done, in the 2 hours we have wasted, we could have disposed of at least four of these amendments already. We can get this done. But that is not what this is about. This is about making sure that the Republican bill stays the way they wrote it. And they are using legitimate procedural approaches under Senate rules to effectively make sure we cannot offer other amendments. As a matter of fact, one of the four amendments that are about to be offered relative to guns, I am voting against. I do not think we should take away the civilian marksmanship money. Why can we not even allow the guy to raise it? I tell Members, this is not about time, folks. Understand, this is not about time. This is not about anything other than making sure that the majority can dictate to the minority what they can bring up and under what circumstances they can bring it up. I suspect they would be very satisfied--I hope they would be satisfied--if they brought up all the amendments that would not fall when cloture was invoked, vote on them, and then try to make the rest of them fall. I cannot think of any major bill--I am sure there is an exception to this--off the top of my head, any major bill, that did not have nongermane amendments in a technical sense attached to it. I cannot think of any. It is possible. I am sure there are some, but I cannot think of any. And we are acting like this is some kind of unusual procedure. Look, we can give a time agreement on all the 16 amendments. It can all be [[Page S7748]] done--could have been done by tonight. It still can, if we are willing to stay in very late. We could be finished. We do not even have to get to cloture to get to final passage on this bill. But if there is another reason not to do that, I understand it. I respect the right of the Republican majority to deal with this under the rules. If they want to do that, fine. But, please, do not make anybody make any misunderstanding. There are not 60 amendments, there are not 50, there are not 40, there are not 20, there are 16 and dwindling. Four--five of which so far we have been told bluntly they will not allow us to vote on them. The one--let me be precise. Four we are told we are not allowed to vote on. And, by the way, the longest one has a 60-minute time agreement on it. The others have 20-minute time agreements. And one of which I do not know what they are saying, on the Kerrey amendment about ATF. I ask my friend from Utah, are we ready to vote on the Kerrey amendment?

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. If I can respond to the Senator's basic question, there are a number of items in this bill, amendments we have already accepted, amendments we have debated and voted on--some defeated, some not--that are nongermane in a technical sense, like the gun amendments are nongermane. What this is all about is they only want their nongermane amendments. They want to be able to dictate to all of us what we can and cannot offer on this amendment. Who is to say whether or not it is any more relevant to terrorism that you have a habeas corpus provision in this bill or whether it is more relevant to have a provision like the one the Senator from Massachusetts is suggesting? That is a judgment call. That is a judgment call. I think we should not delay in this. Again, I made a commitment to the leader, the Republican leader, that I would implore the Democrats to reduce their number of amendments and to enter into time agreements. We have done that. We have done that. So we can get to what his objective is, the telecommunications bill, tomorrow. We are able to do that. [[Page S7740]] We have spent, now, an hour talking about whether or not we can proceed. We could have already disposed of my colleague's amendment and the Bradley amendment by now. They would be over, finished, either in the bill or out. And I have a feeling, unless I count incorrectly-- although I agree with the Senator from Massachusetts--I have a feeling he would be out if they let us vote on this just because of the way the votes have stacked up. But this is not about moving the bill along. This is about several Republican Senators wishing to filibuster indirectly this bill by not allowing my colleague to introduce his amendment, or the other three amendments, for which we have time agreements if they would agree.

Mr. BIDEN. I will be happy to.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, the way that translates to me is that the Republicans have concluded they are not going to allow Senators Kennedy, Lautenberg, Kohl, or Bradley to have a vote on their amendments. I understand that. I am a big boy. I understand how that works, if that is what they have decided to do. To suggest that we wait until cloture, by definition, cloture means these would not be in order. Now, every single bill that I know of that we ever pass through this place has nongermane amendments on it. I cannot think of one off the top of my head that does not have nongermane amendments on it. That is the practice. That is the practice. That is the rule. That is the way we proceed. And the theoretical reason for cloture is that people are taking too much time on this bill. I have time agreements on all these amendments. Before the next half- hour is up, every Democratic amendment on any subject that is in this bill, we can get a time agreement on. We can settle this thing tonight. We can get this done. I thought the reason for cloture was worry on the part of the majority leader that we would never get to a final vote on this bill. I am telling you I can get a time agreement on all of the Democratic amendments. We can get to a vote on this bill tonight. But what I am being told here is, we can only get to a vote on this bill tonight if we only vote on the things the Republicans want to vote on. That is what this translates to. I understand that. I accept that. But let us understand what we are talking about here. This is not about delay. Democrats are willing to vote. We are willing to give time agreements. On this amendment, the Senator spoke for 10 minutes. Ask for 10 minutes and then vote. If they do not even want to respond--vote. We are ready to vote. This is not about delay. This is about the Republicans wishing to dictate what they will and will not allow to be offered as an amendment on a bill. I understand that. That is their right. I do not quarrel with that right. But let us make this thing real clear. That is what it is about.

Mr. BIDEN. I yield.

Mr. BIDEN. Fine. Mr. President, I think that is fine.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, while the distinguished chairman of the committee is, I guess, deciding how, when, and under what circumstances to respond to the amendment of the Senator from Nebraska, I just want to bring the Senate, and particularly the Democrats, up to date. I would like every Democrat who has an amendment to come to the floor as soon as they can or communicate to the Cloakroom whether or not they intend to go forward with their amendment and if we can enter into a time agreement on their amendment, if they insist on going forward. I will say, and I have been discussing this with the Republican manager of the bill, that we have narrowed the list of amendments even further and we have gotten time agreements on 80 percent of the amendments on the Democratic side that are left. The longest request for any time on an amendment is 2 hours. Most are in the range of 20 to 30 minutes. So we are making significant progress. There are three Senators who are ready to move on amendments that have short time agreements. Senator Kennedy has agreed to a 30-minute time agreement on his first amendment; Senator Bradley, who is to go next if we can work that out, has agreed to, I believe it is a 20- minute time agreement. This is being typed up now. But this is to give some people notice for planning purposes. Senator Bradley has agreed to 30 minutes on his amendment characterized as relating to cop-killer bullets. Senator Kennedy has agreed to 20 minutes on his amendment that is characterized as relating to multiple gun purchases; and Senator Lautenberg has agreed to 1 hour equally divided on his civilian marksmanship amendment. It is my hope that when we dispose of the Kerrey amendment, which I hope will occur very shortly; that we can agree to take up those amendments under such time agreement--I am not asking unanimous consent for that now; that is being checked in the Republican Cloakroom--and then I can assure my colleagues on the Democratic side, we have additional amendments we are prepared to go to with very short time limits. It is still my hope and expectation that we can finish this bill or come perilously close to finishing this bill tonight. In the meantime, while the Republican Cloakroom is determining whether or not such a unanimous-consent request would be in order for the next three amendments, I will suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator withhold that request?

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. The logic of the argument of my friend from Utah would be to reduce the statute of limitations for embezzlement from 5 to 3 years, reduce the statute of limitations for assault from 5 to 3 years, to reduce the statute of limitations for most crimes from 5 to 3 years. I would stand ready to debate him if he wishes to do that. I yield the floor and thank my friend from Tennessee.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that he yield me 30 seconds.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I listened to my friend raise questions about the [[Page S7729]] amendment. My response is that all the questions he raised are totally irrelevant. Whether or not 40 percent of the American people are afraid of their Government, the idea is that who they should be afraid of is anybody walking around with a bomb, grenade, rocket launcher, or a silencer on their gun, or a machine gun. That is who they should be afraid of. Whether there have been prosecutions or not is totally unrelated to whether or not the statute of limitations should be 3 or 5 years. And the notion of dangling over their head the prospect of prosecution--I have zero sympathy for anyone, whether they are a Mafia don, whether they are a rapist, or whether they are someone walking around with a rocket-propelled device, I could give a darn about their concern, if they violate the law. The question is did they violate it or did they not? They will have a chance to prove it in court. The police should have a chance to bring them to court. With all due respect, I think his questions raised are irrelevant. I hope my friend from California will not bother to answer them, but that is the right of the Senator from California.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I know the Senator from Tennessee is waiting, if he allows me 60 seconds.

Mr. BIDEN. Let me conclude, Mr. President, because again, it is a little bit like when we first raised the issue of taggants. There was initially--because a lot of people did not understand it--a lot of resistance. Yesterday, we overwhelmingly passed it because we talked about it. I am sincerely hopeful that as the staff of Senators who were otherwise occupied now in committee hearings and may not be able to hear this themselves will understand that this does not have to do with guns. It has to do with equity. A person convicted, as I indicated earlier, of impersonating a Federal employee can get up to a 3-year sentence, while a person convicted under the National Firearms Act can receive up to 10 years in prison. [[Page S7728]] One has to wonder why a statute of limitations is shorter for the great offense and longer for the shorter offense. It does not seem to make sense. Again, although I cannot and do not speak for the NRA, it seems to me on its face this is totally consistent with the philosophy that the NRA has adopted relative to gun offenses. That is, when the law is violated relating to guns and/or explosives, that person should be punished severely. One of the things that we all know, in tracking these cases, is the police need time. It is totally consistent with the way we have dealt with other crimes and totally consistent with the philosophy on the left and the right, it seems to me, to just merely standardize the statute of limitations for these very serious offenses. I hope, if we are prepared to vote on this, or whatever decision the Senator from California makes, I hope the Senator sticks to her guns here. I am convinced if people understand what the Senator is attempting to do and depoliticize it here and just look at the facts, the facts are it makes no sense not to give the police what they want, the additional 2 years to be able to track and apprehend people who violate only the most serious of the laws relating to firearms and explosives. I yield the floor.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, let me respond to the question posed to me by the Senator from California, Senator Boxer. There are a couple of things I have observed in the years of working with Senator Boxer, and that is when she thinks she is right, there is nothing that slows her up. I mean nothing. Almost without exception, in my dealings with her and the matters we have worked on, she has a commonsense approach to these things that is, quite frankly, sometimes around this place is not factored in. If she had stood up today on the floor of the Senate and said, you know, my colleagues in the Senate, the statute of limitations for rape is 3 years. Yet, the statute of limitations for robbery is 5 years, and what I want to do is I want to increase the statute of limitations for rape from 3 to 5 years, I imagine there would be a chorus of Members in the Senate on both side standing up and saying, bravo, right. My goodness, why would we have a serious crime like rape be a statute that was only 3 years and yet a less serious crime like assault be a 5- year statute of limitations. Because I want to make it clear--and I know all my colleagues and everybody on the floor here who has dealt in this area or are accomplished lawyers in their own right know that--let us keep in mind what the rationale for the statute of limitations is. The rationale is, the more serious the crime, the more we are committed to finding the perpetrator, and ofttimes that means we need more time. A second factor that goes into this is that some crimes are more difficult to solve than others because the evidence that is needed to solve the crime sometimes takes a long time to track down. Third, we have generally tried--in terms of title 18, the criminal code in effect for the Federal Government--to standardize the amount of time we give prosecutors and the Government to find perpetrators of crime. Now, the fact of the matter is that I do not think this has anything to do with gun control. It happens to be that we are talking about a Firearms Act that affects guns, but it really does not matter. It has everything to do with equity, and it has everything to do with giving the victim and the Government a chance to find the person who did the thing that we think is a very bad thing. For example, if someone is out there violating the Firearms Act with a machine gun, then we have as a policy, as a nation, for the past several decades said that is a very bad thing. Yet, there is a 3-year statute of limitations for that. Or if we go out and say we do not want people using chemical weapons or making explosives that can do great damage, we said in the first instance that is a bad thing to do. It is unhealthy for Americans, for people to be making these devices or putting silencers on their guns. Why do people put a silencer on a gun? Is it because they are target practicing in their basement and they do not want to disturb the folks on the second floor? Or is it because they do not want the deer to hear the bullet coming? Why do you use silencers? You use a silencer to avoid detection. And so if someone is out there violating the Firearms Act with a silencer or machinegun or building a bomb, it seems to me, just on the face of it, that we should give the Government and the victims enough time out there as we give somebody if they are assaulted. My Lord, if someone is assaulted, the case stays open for 5 years. Yet, if someone violates what we all say is a serious problem, we are saying 3 years. Now, look, I know that some of my friends on both sides of the aisle are a little concerned about this because I know that it says ``guns and firearms,'' and when you say that around here, that sets off bells and whistles and so on. But I respectfully suggest that this is totally consistent--although I have not spoken to the national NRA, I have State. I keep in contact with them. As I said yesterday, in my State, the NRA are upstanding citizens. The leader in my State is a member of the ACLU and the NRA and is a practicing lawyer in town. The No. 2 guy in my State in the NRA is a former captain in a police department in Dover, DE. These guys are not wackos or nuts; they are serious citizens. Now, I have not spoken to them about this, but I have spoken to them and the national NRA about how we should be dealing with guns and gun offenses. What do they always say to us? They say, look, do not outlaw the gun, increase the penalty. So Senator Gramm comes to the floor all the time and makes a logical, coherent argument. He says, hey, do not do away with assault weapons, but if you have anybody using one, violating the law in its use, nail them. Minimum mandatory sentences, minimum mandatory imprisonment. And so the philosophy that the NRA has adopted--and to their credit it is consistent--is that people kill people, guns do not kill people. And only when they take that inert instrument, that thing called a gun, and do something bad with it, do you engage the Government. We have decided as a matter of law under the Firearms Act that it is a bad thing to go around putting silencers on the end of revolvers, or rifles for that matter. We decided that it is a bad thing to tote around a machinegun. We decided that. I do not hear any gun organization saying, by the way, legalize the sale of machineguns again. I do not hear anybody saying silencers are something we should be using. So I am a little surprised that there is any opposition to the initiative of my friend from California. The one thing she is probably--I will speak only of the Democratic side, so I do not implicate any of my Republican friends. She is among the four or five most successful legislators. She knows how to get things done. I assume that it comes from her 10 years of experience in the House. I think she is as surprised as I am that this may be resisted, because I cannot figure out why it would be. It is consistent with what--I do not want to put a negative spin on it--the gun proponents say is the way we should handle the issue of firearms in America. It is consistent. It relates to penalties, not outlawing them. And it is totally consistent with the way in which we decide under title 18 to deal with the vast majority of crimes. Now, look, this increases from 3 to 5 years the statute of limitations for the most serious weapons offenses, specifically those under the National Firearms Act. In doing so, this amendment brings the statute of limitations into line with the vast majority of Federal offenses which have to do with guns and do not have to do with guns. Generally, the statute of limitations is a period which the Government has following the crime to bring an indictment under Federal law. All noncapital crimes are subject to a limitation. The National Firearms Act covers the most dangerous weapons: machineguns, sawed-off shotguns, silencers, and destructive devices which include any explosive or incendiary or poison gas, A, bomb, B, grenade, C, rocket having a propellant of more than four ounces, D, missiles having explosive or incendiary charges of more than one-quarter of an ounce, and E, a mine. You know, these are not playthings we are talking about. These are serious offenses. Again, I do not know anybody, whether they are the NRA--and I stand to be corrected by anybody else--who says, by the way, you should not outlaw sawed-off shotguns, machineguns, and rockets having a propellant and the charges, grenades, bombs, incendiary charges of more than one-quarter ounce, and missiles. So all the Senator is asking for is what the police are asking for. It defies logic to give offenders a break by limiting the statute of limitations to only 3 years. The statute of limitations in other Federal crimes is that, as has been pointed out by the Senator from California, a vast majority of those crimes already are 5 years. Let me give you a few examples. Crimes with a 5-year statute of limitations include assault, 18 United States Code section 111; kidnapping, 18 United States Code section 1201; bank robbery, 18 United States Code section 2113; car robbery, 18 United States Code section 2119; embezzlement, 18 United States Code section 641. I also point out that the statute of limitations is also 5 years for illegally importing lottery tickets, impersonating a Federal employee, unlawfully shipping, transporting, receiving, possessing, selling, distributing, or purchasing contraband cigarettes, counterfeiting, forging, or using any counterfeited or forged postal or revenue stamp of any foreign government, unauthorized use of the character Smokey the Bear. It is a misdemeanor, but it is a 5-year statute of limitations. Unauthorized use of the character Woodsy Owl. That is a 5-year statute of limitations. Now, look, if we are going to give the Government 5 years to track down the guy who impersonates or uses Woodsy the Owl, why in the devil would we not give 5 years to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to track down somebody who has violated the most serious weapons offenses that nobody I know of is suggesting we do away with?

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield for a moment, I am anxious to do that. I sincerely hope she does not amend her amendment. I will, in time, at an appropriate time, explain why I hope that is not the case. I am of the view that if Senators listen to this debate or this discussion, I think it is very, very difficult to make a case why the exception being sought should be granted. I will yield the floor back to the Senator, have her make her case, and I am prepared and anxious to speak to her amendment. Mrs. BOXER addressed the Chair.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, that is why I rose to speak to this to divert slightly from the amendment process. I am not being so solicitous. I know of the Senator's interest, knowledge, and genuine concern about this. One thing that he did not mention that he has in the past, but I think it is worth noting here, is this information also has the ancillary benefit of saving police officers' lives. The Presiding Officer knows that in his State of Pennsylvania he has had a rough year already with loss of police officers' lives. It has not been a good year. The start has not been a good one. It is very, very, very practical information when that trooper pulls up behind an automobile. If he has the system and equipment in his automobile and the database is real, he literally can, before he gets out of the car, punch in and find out if that automobile is not only stolen but where and when and how. He also has the capability, if we give him the capability and if the States step up to the ball, of using this portable, automatic fingerprinting operation where they can literally have a driver come up into their automobile--what the average citizen would think is a portable fingerprinting machine--to actually have that person get out of the car, walk up, stick their thumb or forefinger in this machine in the automobile, and instantly get a readout as to whether or not the license that they are carrying comports with their identity. This not only makes a lot of sense in terms of tracking and using it as a device to solve crimes, but it also has the immediate benefit of literally saving lives of police officers. As a former prosecutor, the Senator from Ohio knows this. In my discussion with police--and, as you know, the head of the FOP and a number of leading members of the FOP are from the home State of the Senator from Ohio--they know of his work and his interest in this area. So I compliment him on his initiative and thank him for his willingness to speak with me about the formula. With that, unless the Senator from Ohio wishes to say anything else, I see the distinguished Senator from California is on her feet and is ready to go with her amendment, I think, or is she?

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, let me say to my friend from Ohio that I applaud his efforts. As he knows, in the crime bill that we passed we provided $100 million for just these purposes. As a matter of fact, it has been over a decade ago that I initiated an effort in the first crime bill introduced to get the NCIC up to speed to actually make it work. We received some considerable resistance then interestingly enough from the very left and the very right, the right because, as the Presiding Officer notes, the right is always concerned about anyone when anything has to do with Government having power, and the left because they are concerned about the Government having power. So it was stalled for a while in the so-called Biden crime bill which passed out of here. I wanted that number to be higher out of the trust fund. The most we could get any agreement on was $100 million. I do not quibble with the notion that we could effectively spend more money. The Senator may recall, because he was in the House at the time, that the local authorities thought they could get by with the $100 million as long as the FBI was essentially going to be the purchasing agent for them. What we do not want to have happen is a little police department in central Ohio or southern Delaware--they may be the very people who pick up the McVeigh's of the world--and we do not want them to be in the position where in order for them to purchase this equipment and some of the more automated fingerprinting capability, the NCIC, the blood and saliva DNA capability, we do not want them to be out there since they are purchasing a very small quantity of whatever it is that is being purchased having to pay considerably more than the police department in Columbus, or New York, or Wilmington, DE, or Philadelphia has to pay. But as it turns out they have concluded that they need more help. Again, I look forward to working with my friend from Ohio on this issue as the continuation of an effort that he supported when he was in the House as well. He is not new to this. He knows this area as well as anyone does. One of the things at some point--I will not take the time now because the distinguished Senator from California who has been waiting since 9:30 to go with her amendment is ready to go now that the chairman of the committee is here. We will have a long day today. Maybe the Senator and I, as we say, can repair to the cloakroom. I would like to talk about his formula which he has built in here which is the distribution based strictly on population which seems at odds with the notion that we acknowledge that these little police departments, and smaller areas in population, also in a strange way need the help more than even the large police departments. So I acknowledge at the front end the parochial interest in that Delaware is a small State and under the formula would be in a disadvantageous position for this additional funding. I do not expect the Senator to change his formula. I would like to make my case to him since this is esoteric.