Barbara Boxer

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mrs. BOXER. I ask my friend from South Carolina what issue he is here to discuss tonight and what his time parameters are.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, as I understand it, I will have up to 60 minutes to discuss this tonight; is that correct?

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask what the pending business is.

Mrs. BOXER. If I could ask my friend, is the Senator able to wait 30 minutes?

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. There is no question about it. With this administration, the very first thing the President did was put in place the international gag rule, which stopped nonprofits all over the world from getting Federal funds to use to help these women to plan their families. Let me tell you what has happened. We have seen already an assault on a woman's right to choose. I think my colleague is absolutely right to point out that Roe is just one of their goals; it is their major goal, however. I will tell you what is happening. Federal regulations were issued by this administration that make embryos and fetuses, but not pregnant women, eligible for health benefits. What you will see is this is all leading up to the place where a woman eventually will not have a right to choose, or any rights at all when she is pregnant. In other words, pregnant women now cannot get the prenatal care; it is the fetus. We have never done that before. We have always recognized that it is the woman who is nurturing that child; that the woman gets the help and the child gets the nourishment. There is legislation being pushed here to recognize an embryo as a person with rights separate and apart from the woman. That is another move to set up a situation where abortion, even in the first minute, would be seen as murder. So this is what is happening today. There is moving legislation forcing some young women to make reproductive health choices alone and criminalizing caring adults who help them. There are attempts to block women's access to RU486, a drug that is proven safe and effective and would be an alternative to surgical abortion. There are attempts to block access to emergency contraception. There is a denial of Roe v. Wade protections to Federal employees and low-income women who rely on the Federal Government, who live in the District of Columbia, and to U.S. servicewomen living overseas, and women in Federal prison. These women cannot get the health care if they want to exercise their right to choose, whereas a wealthy woman can do that. Here is your point: They are starving funding for family planning programs, both here and abroad. And there is also the cancellation of international family planning funding. We voted in Congress for $34 million for international family planning money. The Bush administration will not spend a penny. When you ask them why, they say these agencies are using it for abortion. That is plain untrue. It is untrue. They don't because they are audited and monitored, and they cannot. In winding down this debate--and we have several hours left--I want to say why I think it is so important that we stand in favor of Roe v. Wade. We are going to go back to what the debate is really about. It is about standing up for the Senate language that was brought to us by the Senator from Iowa, Tom Harkin, with over 50 of us signing on and voting for it, that simply says it is the sense of the Senate that the decision of the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade was appropriate and secures an important right, and such decision should not be overturned. It is a very straightforward and simple statement--elegant, if I may say so; it is an elegant amendment by the Senator from Iowa that says to the women of this country that we respect you and, as my friend said, he is personally opposed to abortion. You know what. That is so much that is right in this country of ours. That is what being pro- choice is--that each of us in our own hearts, with our own family, with our God, can decide this issue for ourselves, without Senators peering into our private decisions. What a horrible thought is that. Really, life is complicated enough without having a bunch of Senators deciding what we should do in the privacy of our own homes in the early stage of a pregnancy. That is what Roe was--a very balanced decision. It says: If you want to go through with this pregnancy, absolutely that is your right, but if you do not, in the early stages it says to women: We respect you enough, we give you that dignity; we trust you enough to make that decision. Senator Harkin said it right. This Senate stood up with him and we voted in favor and appended that language to the banning of this medical procedure. Our colleagues in the House looked at this--and they are so radical, I say to my friend--and rather than moving that bill right through to the President's desk with sense-of-the-Senate language that has no force of law, they chose to strip out this language from the bill, and now we have to take this bill to conference. The reason I am here and the reason the Senator from Illinois is here tonight is to say we are going to take another stand in favor of Roe. We are going to vote to disagree with what the House did. We hope that vote will be large, and we hope that the conferees will, therefore, go into that conference and push hard to have this language added. If this language is not added, this Senate is going on record with S. 3, minus this language, of saying: Women's health is just not important. I hope every woman in this country, whether they agree with Roe or they disagree with Roe, whether they themselves would make one decision or another, will come together and say: Pro-choice means that the Government respects the individual, and isn't that really what our country is all about? I thank the Chair. I yield back my time.

Mrs. BOXER. I think the Senator is right. The further we get away from those years, there is less memory. I think there is something else. I think most people--young people and middle-aged people--who don't have that many memories of it think Roe v. Wade will not be overturned; it is just a slogan. Let me say what my friend knows so well. Roe v. Wade is hanging by a 5-to-4 vote in the Supreme Court. That is why I think my colleagues keep coming back with this approach of banning this medical procedure, which many doctors have used because it was the safest one to save the life and health of a woman. They keep coming and they keep thinking someday the Court will reverse it and go 5-to-4 the other way. I think at that point women will rise up. But it is our job. That is why I am so grateful to the Senator for coming over here. It is our job because we are lawmakers to look ahead and not wait for that crisis, and to make the point and to discuss what could happen to a woman. She could have a stroke if this procedure is outlawed. She could have a hemorrhage or a blood clot. She could become paralyzed. She could be infertile. These are horrible things that can happen to our daughters, our granddaughters, and it could even be worse. We can have some States, if Roe were overturned, that could put a woman in jail, could put a doctor in jail for trying to assert a privacy right.

Mrs. BOXER. It would be a disaster for women. I have noted that before Roe, 5,000 women a year died because there were very harsh laws. If Roe v. Wade was eliminated, women would not have the right to privacy in this matter. Early-stage abortion would not be between her and her doctor and her God and family, but it would be a matter for Senators to determine--and State Senators and assembly members and Governors all over this country. And a woman would risk her freedom if she had an abortion, just like we had before 1973. So affirming Roe v. Wade is the right thing to do. It has made a difference in women's lives. More than anything, I think as our country matures, we recognize that women deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. It has been a long, hard road for women in this country, I say to my friend who is such a supporter of equality across the board. Women didn't even get to vote until 1920. We had to struggle. In 1973, I remember it very well. I remember women risking their lives to get an illegal abortion. I had read a case of a woman who was raped and she was so fearful and embarrassed and ashamed, she got an illegal, botched abortion. She was sick and the doctor even threatened to call the police on her.

Mrs. BOXER. That is right.

Mrs. BOXER. That is right. But it is even worse because the language Tom Harkin had written into the bill, the sense-of-the-Senate language, is now being stripped out of the bill by the House. The reason we are here talking about this is, I want the Senate to disagree with what the House did. It is bad enough to do what we have done here without my vote--and I believe without yours, although I am not sure in the end how you voted. The bottom line is, it is bad enough to ban a procedure and make no exception for the health of a woman. It is so violative of her rights and her dignity and of the respect that is due her. But in addition, they stripped out the language we added that said, maybe people, for whatever reason, are going to vote for this, but we also want to go on record in support of Roe. The reason we are here now is that the House, rather than take that language and send it off to the President, would have gotten their ban with a little sense-of-the-Senate language that supported Roe. No, the House had to prolong this, strip this out. And now to get to conference, we have to have a motion to disagree with what the House did, which I hope we will disagree with what they did. So what I was trying to do and what Harkin was trying to do--and we all were trying to do--is say: S. 3 has problems, but you should know we still support Roe.

Mrs. BOXER. That is right.

Mrs. BOXER. Well, I would say politics is part of it, but I would also say there is an agenda in this Senate and in the House. That agenda is to overturn Roe, to keep on pushing through bills that challenge Roe directly. And Roe, as I said, is very clear on the health exception. Let's go back to the first chart. The bottom line is, Roe is very clear: In 1973, for the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe-- which is a fancy word for ban-- abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother. This is the heart of Roe.

Mrs. BOXER. The answer is absolutely not. That is why it is so shocking to me. My friend knows because he worked hard on this. He tried to get a health exception. As a matter of fact, it was very strong language. Will my friend remind me what he said in making that health exception?

Mrs. BOXER. What the physicians have told us is there are serious health consequences of banning safe procedures such as the one that will be banned in this bill. One is hemorrhage. People can die, they can lose blood, or be ill for a very long time. They can rupture their uterus and therefore never be able to carry a baby. They could get blood clots and have serious brain damage, an embolism, a stroke. There could be damage to nearby organs. There could even be paralysis. These are the terrible incidents that could happen to a woman if a doctor is in a situation of an emergency late-term procedure and is not able to use everything he has been able to use up until S. 3.

Mrs. BOXER. Working with physicians across the country, I want to tell you what they have told us in writing. I ask unanimous consent to print those letters in the Record.

Mrs. BOXER. It was in 2000. It was a case of a Nebraska law. And, yes, the Court found it unconstitutional. What the authors of S. 3 will tell you is they have met the test. But what constitutional lawyers tell us is that the test isn't met at all. There is no exception for health. My colleague actually carried the health exception. Now, this is what the Supreme Court said--and I am glad my colleague asked this question--in Stenberg v. Carhart. They basically said: If you are outlawing a medical procedure, you have to have a health exception. The governing standard requires an exception ``where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.'' Our cases have repeatedly invalidated statutes that in the process of regulating the methods of abortion impose significant health risks. My friend is right on target. This is the Supreme Court.

Mrs. BOXER. Yes.

Mrs. BOXER. Nebraska.

Mrs. BOXER. Senator Hollings raises several issues that are so important to the Nation. This issue of media ownership getting out of control and the need to reverse what the FCC did and also the issue of the war, how badly it is going, how much it is costing, the danger our troops are in, the fact it is not internationalized and there is virtually no burden sharing going on--these are all issues that I hear about at home when I go to the grocery store or take a walk. People are anxious and concerned. These are the issues of the day. Therefore, it is rather stunning to me that given all this and the fact that the deficit has gone off the charts--we have seen the picture of what has happened to the deficit since Bill Clinton left office; it is a straight line up. I never saw anything like it in my life. We are getting to the point where we are bankrupting this country and laying all that bankruptcy on the backs of our kids, as Senator Hollings has said. With all of these issues pending, why am I here tonight speaking about an issue that was resolved in 1973, the right of a woman to choose--the fact that this Senate went on record supporting that right quite recently as part of S. 3, that very simple language that simply said Roe v. Wade has saved lives, stating it is the sense of the Senate that the decision of the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade was appropriate and secures an important right and such decisions should not be overturned. That was language in S. 3 which also for the first time banned a medically recognized procedure. Senator Harkin and I and a majority of the Senate added this language. What happens with all of the problems we are facing and with our brave men and women in such jeopardy abroad, our taxpayers just getting squeezed, our education bill underfunded, the country going broke, the environment getting worse because every other day, and usually on Fridays, we see more rollbacks of environmental laws, the media getting bigger. We have to overturn that. With all of those issues, one would think the House of Representatives and the Republican leadership would have said: We want to get this bill to the President's desk. We want to ban this procedure. So let's just take this language. The decision of the Supreme Court in Roe was appropriate and secures an important right, and such decisions should not be overturned. Friends, that was not to be the case. Instead of sending this bill off to the President for his signature, which my colleagues have been wanting to do for a very long time, they say we need to strip out this very simple Roe language. In fact, that is what the House did. So before this bill can go to conference--and it is a technical matter, but in order for a bill to become law, when the bills are different, you have to have a conference to resolve the differences. When the bills are the same, the bill can go straight over to the President's desk. No, the House leaders, Republican leaders, I believe quite radically on this point of a woman's right to choose that was resolved in 1973, they strip this out. Now in order to go to conference, we will have a vote to disagree with what the House did. I hope we will disagree with what they did and take another stand for Roe. That is why we are here tonight. The reason the House will not go along with this, and many in our own Senate will not, the real agenda in all of these bills that attack a woman's right to choose--and there have been many, and I will go through them, including bills that hurt family planning--the real agenda is to overturn Roe. I believe that is what we are talking about. It may show up in a different form, such as banning one medical procedure, which is a horrible precedent, as we are going to do. It may show up by saying to a woman in the military: You will have to fly back to the United States on an ``as available'' basis and spend your own money--nothing to do with your own military pay--to get an abortion. We have said to Federal employees: You cannot use the health insurance that you pay a good part of to get a legal abortion, legal, not illegal, a legal abortion. Abortion is legal. My friends, some of them here do not like that. So there has been this huge attempt to narrow this right. So every time we get a chance, when we see these bills come forward that would narrow this right, that would potentially harm women, we offer the Harkin-Boxer amendment in favor of Roe. Even though we did not get as many votes as we would like, we got a majority, and that is what we are continuing to discuss. Now, what does Roe guarantee to women? In the decision of the Supreme Court, the Court found that a woman's reproductive decisions are a privacy right guaranteed by the Constitution. But I have to say that even though this right was granted to women, it was not an unbalanced decision. It was a very moderate decision. That is why, in my opinion, the majority of Americans support it. In the early stages of a pregnancy, the Government cannot intervene with a woman's right to choose. That is it, plain and simple. Guess what. We are not going to be big brother or sister, as the case may be. We are going to allow a woman, her doctor, and her God to make that decision. But in the later stages of pregnancy, Roe found that the Government can intervene, that it can regulate, that it can restrict abortion. We all support that. All of us support that. But there is one caveat-- always, always, always. Any law that a State may pass to restrict abortion rights has to have an exception to protect the life of the woman or to protect her health. This is important because, I have to tell you, before Roe, before 1973--and I remember those years--life for women was very different. Before Roe, up to 1.2 million women each year resorted to dangerous illegal abortions. According to one estimate, at least 5,000 women a year died as a result of botched illegal abortions. Thousands of others nearly died, became infertile, or suffered other health complications. I have a few stories--I want to tell a couple of them--of life before Roe. Polly Bergen--we know her--an actress, went public with her story. She became pregnant when she was in her late teens and it was a disaster for her. As a result of an unsafe abortion, she had several miscarriages. At the age of 33, her doctor said, because of that botched abortion, she had to have a hysterectomy. She desperately wanted children. She had a hysterectomy. Lynn Kahn was 24. She was divorced with two young children when, in 1964, she was raped by a stranger on her way home from work. Because she was so ashamed, she did not report the rape. But she soon found out she was pregnant. She scraped together $300 for an illegal abortion. She nearly died. She was hospitalized with a serious infection caused by a botched abortion. During her multiday hospital stay, she was absolutely terrified that the police would come and arrest her because the treating physician had told her he was going to inform them about the abortion. The police did not arrive, but the whole experience was so traumatic that Lynn was unable to talk about it for over 20 years. Mary Roper, a 19-year-old sophomore in college, was in an abusive relationship. She got pregnant, and the man she was dating encouraged her to get an abortion. She had been raised a Catholic and felt she could not be single mother in her community. She endured three attempts to end her pregnancy--one person used a coat hanger, and one a hose. During the time she was seeking an abortion, she was questioned by the police about her intention. She finally found a doctor in Chicago, 3 hours away, to perform an abortion. She continued to have problems and a couple of months later needed her parents' written permission to receive a medically necessary abortion. She continues to have nightmares today. Elizabeth Furse, a former Representative from Oregon, was 25 in 1961, married and pregnant with her third child. During the first trimester of her pregnancy, she developed the measles. She was subsequently tested, and the tests confirmed what she and her husband, and obstetrician, had feared: if she carried her pregnancy to term, the baby would likely be blind, deaf, and severely brain damaged. They were anxious to have more children but did not want their child to suffer and be in pain, and so they sought an abortion. Her physician was sympathetic but would not perform an illegal abortion. At that time both the doctor and Elizabeth could be prosecuted and jailed for terminating the pregnancy. She did not want an illegal abortion and could only have one legally if her life was threatened. Since she had one kidney, her doctor thought that they might be able to persuade a panel of doctors that he life would be in danger if she carried the baby to term. They agreed, but required her to have a total hysterectomy at the same time. Rollyn Carlson of Austin, TX, was 20 years old in the summer of 1971 and pregnant. She decided to have an abortion and found an office in Mexico on the other side of the Texas border. After the abortion, she bled heavily and ran a high fever for 3 days. She was one of the lucky ones. She married and had two children. She now has a teenage daughter and is concerned about her. What if she got pregnant? What if she needed an abortion? Rollyn worries that if abortion is illegal, her daughter would have to have an illegal abortion and could die. Sherry of Peoria, IL, was married with two children when in the mid- 1950s, she was brutally raped and left for dead. She did not die, but as a result of the rape, she became pregnant. She went to her doctor-- he would not perform an abortion. She went to another--he would not perform an abortion either. She then resorted to ``home remedies'' such as pounding on her abdomen with a meat mallet and throwing herself down the stairs. It did not work, so she went to the local abortionist. He was drinking during the procedure and offered to give her back some money if she would perform oral sex on him. She subsequently started to hemorrhage and was hospitalized. Decades later, she still has nightmares about the procedure. Romanita of Pittsburgh, PA, married and had three children, one--her daughter, Norma--with spina bifida. Her husband was a heroin addict and had left the home. One day he showed up and raped her. He then disappeared, and she found out she was pregnant. She did not want to take the chance of having another baby with deformities. She sought out an illegal abortion and experienced bleeding for 2 weeks. So the point is that when the Court made this historic decision called Roe v. Wade, women were dying, maybe 5,000 a year. And you ask me, why would people, lawmakers, want to see us go back to those days? I will tell you right now, I don't understand it. It isn't right. It isn't right for the women of this country. It isn't right for the families of this country. Roe v. Wade was a balanced decision. Then you have a situation where we wish we had more family planning funds because then we would be in a situation where we would not have these unwanted pregnancies. The same people who want to outlaw abortion are not interested in family planning funds. And interestingly, the same people who want to go back to the days when abortion was illegal, who will fight for the right of the fetus over the right of a woman, where are they, sometimes, on preschool programs, afterschool programs, caring for our children, helping our children? A lot of times they do not vote for it. As a friend of mine once said, he sometimes thinks that some of our colleagues who take this position, and then don't help the kids, are all for the kids between conception and birth; and then where are they? So the reason we are here tonight is because the House is so radical on the point that they will not accept our language, that simply says: The decision of the Supreme Court in Roe was appropriate and secures an important right, and such decision should not be overturned. Imagine, they say they want S. 3 so badly, they want to outlaw this medical procedure, which is the first time an accepted medical procedure is outlawed by politicians, but yet they cannot accept this language, which has no force of law. That is the incredible thing. It is a sense of the Senate. It does not even have the force of law, but it shows you that the goal here is not simply outlawing this one procedure; it is overturning Roe. I cannot say that enough because that is absolutely true, even when 80 percent of the people said that whether to have an abortion is a decision to be made between a woman and her doctor. This debate is very serious. It is very serious because the underlying bill, S. 3, which bans this procedure, makes no exception for the health of the woman, and we tried every which way to do that. We said: Roe is the law of the land. Under Roe, the life and the health of a woman must always be protected. So in order to be constitutional, we are willing to walk hand in hand with you, and we will ban this procedure, even though some of us believe we should not get into playing doctor--that is not our role. There is no OB/GYN in this body. People don't come to us when they are sick. They come to us when they are sick and tired of politics, but they don't come to us when they are physically ill. We were willing--those of us who are very pro-choice--to say: We will accept this if you will have an exception for the life and the health of a woman. Oh, no. They would not do it. That is why our language on Roe, that we attached to this bill, is so important. Because, folks, this bill, when it becomes law--and it will become law--is going straight to the Court. We want the Court to understand we stood firmly for Roe. When they take a look at the outlawing of this procedure, and when they see there is no exception for the health of a woman, they will realize maybe some people voted for it who would have preferred a health exception. By showing them we have the votes to sustain a sense of the Senate in favor of Roe, we will be sending a strong signal on behalf of the women of this Nation to the courts.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, the images of September 11, 2001, remain etched in our minds and our hearts. On this second anniversary of the attack, we commemorate those who died in the attacks and the unwavering spirit of those who survived. We remember the true heroism that emerged out of tragedy, how strong and united we can be, how we can set aside differences for the greater good and work together. Californians were part of each tragic moment of that day. Some were trapped in the World Trade Center. Some were at work in the Pentagon. And the fates of others were sealed as they boarded planes bound for San Francisco or Los Angeles. All four planes used by the terrorists on September 11 were headed for my State of California. I want to remember the more than 50 Californians who were victims of the September 11 attacks. Their memories will live on and their legacies will live on, as will the memories and legacies of every innocent victim who we lost on that tragic September day. The people of California join the Nation in mourning the loss of these Americans: David Angell; Lynn Angell; David Aoyama; Melissa Barnes; Alan Beaven; Berry Berenson; Dr. Yen Betru; Carol Beug, Mark Bingham; Deora Bodley; Touri Bolourchi; Daniel Brandworst; David Brandhorst; Ronald Gamboa; Charles ``Chic'' Burlingame; Thomas Burnett; Suzanne Calley; Jeffrey Collman; Dorothy DeAraujo; Lisa Frost; Andrew Garcia; Edmund Glazer; Lauren Grandcolas; Andrew Curry Green; Richard Guadagno; Stanley Hall; Gerald Hardacre; John Hart; John Hofer; Melissa Hughes; Barbara Keating; Chad Keller; Christopher Larrabee; Daniel Lee; Dong Lee; Joe Lopez; Hilda Marcin; Dean Mattson; Dora Menchaca; Nicole Miller; Laurie Neira; Ruben Ornedo; Marie Pappalardo; Jerrold Paskins; Thomas Pecorelli; Robin Penninger; Marie-Rae Sopper; Xavier Suarez; Alicia Titus; Otis Tolbert; Pendyala Vamsikrashna; Timothy Ward; Christopher Wemmers; and John Wenckus. As we reflect on the horror and the pain of September 11, we embrace our Nation and our freedom. We must continue to work together to strengthen democracy in the world, and we must redouble our efforts to erase terrorism's shadow from our lives.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. I would be proud to add Senator Reid as a cosponsor. I make that request.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, as we look at the request for $87 billion, most of it for Iraq, I hope we will find it in our hearts to look at the millions of children in our own country who are waiting to get into afterschool programs. When we passed the No Child Left Behind Act, we made a promise to our children. I want to focus on that promise as it pertains to afterschool programs. This is a blowup of a little of the act itself. It is the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 that President Bush is talking about everywhere he goes in the country but unfortunately is underfunding. It is very clear. It is in black and white. The No Child Left Behind Act spelled out exactly what was supposed to be spent on afterschool programs for our children. In the year 2002, we were supposed to spend $1.250 billion; in 2003, we were supposed to spend $1.5 billion; and in 2004--the bill we are debating now--we were supposed to spend $1.750 billion. If this were an exam that our children were giving us, we would fail and fail miserably. Afterschool is a great program. That is why this afterschool act which is part of the No Child Left Behind Act was supported by both sides of the aisle. It was written by myself and Senator Ensign. But I have to say, as the author of this bill, that it saddens me greatly to realize we are breaking our promises to children. Let me show you how we have broken those promises. It is a sad chapter in our history. I told you that the No Child Left Behind Act calls for $1.7 billion this year. The Bush budget was $600 million. Not only would he not fully fund the No Child Left Behind Act but he cut it from the $1 billion level that is in the current bill before us. I commend my colleagues for at least adding $400 million and getting it up to level funding. The Boxer amendment doesn't even meet the commitment of the No Child Left Behind Act. If it did, I would be adding $750 million. But in an effort to win the votes of my colleagues, I am asking for $2.25 million. The No Child Left Behind Act says we should be spending $1.75 billion. The Bush budget, with only $600 million, throws thousands of children out of coverage. The Senate bill comes to us with $1 billion, and I am attempting to begin moving this funding to where it would reach what the No Child Left Behind Act has promised. We are breaking a promise to our kids. I want to translate this money into children so that you see how we are not just talking numbers but we are in fact talking about children. In the Bush budget, if we had not changed the number in the No Child Left Behind Act, 1.6 million fewer children than we promised would have been covered. Under the Senate bill right now, 1.1 million fewer children are covered. Even under my amendment, 800,000 fewer children than we promised would be covered. To put it another way, the No Child Left Behind Act was supposed to cover 2.5 million children--our present children--after school. Instead, the Bush budget would cover 850,000 kids; the Senate appropriations committee, 1.4 million kids; and the Boxer amendment would cover 1.7 million children. Even though we are not going to fully cover the 2.5 million children the act promised, at least we are moving up from where we are; 300,000 more children will be covered by the Boxer amendment. The demand for afterschool care is great. According to the Department of Labor, the parents of more than 28 million school-age children work outside the home. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as many as 15 million latchkey children go home to an empty house. Where are our family values? You are a devoted mother, Madam President. You know how important it is for the children to have someone to be there when they come home from school. Yet we are depriving millions of children whose parents can't afford to have a babysitter there, who can't afford to enroll them in some private afterschool program. What does latchkey kids mean? They have a key, they let themselves in, and they are on their own. The parents can't afford programs for these children. Mayors surveyed in six cities reported that only one-third of children needing afterschool care were receiving it. And the need for Federal help is growing. In Minnesota, for example, State budget cuts are forcing schools and community partners to scale back or cut after-school enrichment programs. This means that in Duluth, the Lincoln Park Youth Collaborative, which unites the Lincoln Park School with such organizations as Lutheran Social Service, the Boys & Girls Club, Duluth Family YMCA and Neighborhood Youth Services, will be dissolved. Additionally the Boys & Girls Club in Duluth is scaling back hours and activities. Currently, more than 80 percent of the 665 students at Lincoln Park School participate in one or more of these programs. How are people in Duluth reacting? According to the Duluth New Tribune, they are afraid-- afraid that youth crime and violence will increase. And the children are devastated, as Tylor, a Lincoln Park seventh grader put it, ``How would they feel if they were kids and we were the ones taking the money and they wouldn't have anything to do?'' We know that when our schools close down, their afterschool programs--which is what is happening now because they are so short of funding. It is very devastating to children. It is very devastating to their families. And the teachers suffer because the kids are just not what they were before. They are not ready for school. They don't have mentors to teach them and to work with them one on one after school. Afterschool care is not a luxury; it is a critical investment in our children's future. I want to show you a chart that shows juvenile crime. You might say it is a no-brainer. But I think it is worth looking at an FBI chart. What is it showing? Juvenile crime soars to its highest rate between the hours of 3 and 6 p.m. It just goes way up as soon as school ends. We all know this intuitively. But this is a FBI statistic. What is happening is very clear. According to the National Center for Juvenile Justice, children are more likely to be involved in crime, substance abuse, and teenage pregnancies if they are left on their own after school. We know from studies that these afterschool programs work. They reduce crime. They reduce drug use. They reduce teenage pregnancies. We have studies done by Quantum Opportunities. We have researchers from Columbia University and the American Health Foundation. They compared five housing facilities without Boys & Girls Clubs to five similar facilities with Boys & Girls Clubs. By the time the study was concluded, housing facilities without the Boys & Girls Clubs had 50 percent more vandalism and they had 37 percent more drug activity. It is no surprise then that law enforcement supports afterschool programs. In a poll conducted by George Mason University, 86 percent of police chiefs nationwide said that expanding afterschool programs will greatly reduce youth crime and violence. I will show you a quote from Sheriff Drew Alexander from Summit County, OH--right from the heartland. This is what he said: We can pay now for afterschool programs and invest in success. Or we can plan to spend far more later on prisons for our failures, and funerals for their victims. When I first got into politics and into local government, those of us who wanted to invest in things such as afterschool and early childhood education had arguments with law enforcement. They didn't agree. They said: We will get the criminal after the crime is committed. They have changed dramatically. They are now on the front lines. They are my best helper in helping to get back-to-school programs, which we have enacted here. They have been my best helper in rounding up votes. I hope they have been successful today. We are going to find out later. What is also remarkable is that while the administration cut afterschool funding in half, throwing millions of children out of afterschool programs, another arm of the administration was saying in a paid-for advertisement. This is an amazing paid-for advertisement from our government: ``It's 3 p.m. Do you know where your kids are?'' Times have changed. Keeping kids off drugs means knowing what they're up to. Especially after school. There are ways to do it. And they talk about various ways to keep your eye on your children. This is remarkable. It comes from the Office of National Drug Control Policy. While the administration is spending money asking parents where their kids are after school, on the other hand, with their red pencil they are cutting the funding for afterschool. I don't know how this makes any sense. I was fortunate enough to spend the month of August in my home State. I went to a number of afterschool programs, as I have done over the years. As a matter of fact, I have made 23 visits to afterschool programs. I will show some of the pictures of the kids I have seen in these afterschool programs. Here is a picture from Sacramento Start. These kids are thoroughly involved in work. They are playing a learning game. They are engrossed, instead of being home alone, watching cartoons, or out on the street getting into trouble. Here is another picture from Sacramento Start. A mentor came in with this huge alligator. All the kids are standing around in amazement. There is not one disinterested look, not one idle face in the room. It is so exciting what can be done and what is happening in California and across this country in afterschool programs. Here is an afterschool program at Sullivan Middle School in Fairfield, CA. We call this program, which I visited, The Place To Be After 3. These kids are shining. Walk in there and anyone will see they feel proud of who they are and what they are doing. You can see from the smiles on their faces. When you ask them why, and I do every time I go to one of these programs, they say, ``We are safe. Kids ask us to do things after school that are not good and we just say, 'We can't. We are in afterschool programs.''' They come home; they have done their homework; they can have family time. When mom and dad get home--or if it is a single-parent household, they are exhausted. They have to make dinner, make sure the child is bathed and ready for the next morning. The bottom line is the child comes home, the homework is done, and they can then bond with the parent. It really works. I will read some of what students have told me. One of L.A.'s best students said: The most important thing I learned was that anything I set my mind to, I can do. That is from a fifth grader at Hart Street Elementary School. Another from Manchester Avenue Elementary School said when asked what he most liked: There are no strangers to harm us, because the teachers are around. From a fourth grader at Canoga Park Elementary School: I know if I'm in trouble, I can turn around and they'll be there for me. And then a parent of a student: My daughter has gone from the bottom 30% to the top 25% after joining the LA Best afterschool program. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record other stories of other children.

Mrs. BOXER. I ask if my colleague from Nevada would like to take some time now for a consent request.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I will send an amendment to the desk. I ask if I have 15 minutes to present this amendment. Is that accurate?

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.