Barbara Boxer

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. That will be my unanimous consent request.

Mrs. BOXER. I ask my friend to stay on his feet because I want to continue this discussion. When I was a child, I learned how a bill becomes a law. We always had that book in school, how a bill becomes a law. A bill starts out; someone authors it on one side, the Senate; someone authors it in the House. If it is a money bill, it has to go through the House first. And then each House, the House and the Senate, will act on the bill. If there are differences, it will go to conference. Those differences are worked out. If they are worked out--either body will vote on them--it goes to the President; he says yea or nay. If he issues a veto, two- thirds to override; if he signs it, it is a law. We learned this. I say to my friend, it almost seems to me that what is happening is unconstitutional. I do not have a law degree. But we don't see these bills coming through the Senate for Senators to comment on. Sometimes we get a bill through here and it is not controversial. We will agree to a 2-, 3-, 5-minute time agreement. But at least we have a chance to look at it. That is our job. If we don't look at it and it does some harm to our people, that is our fault. But if bills never come here and if they are sent directly into a conference committee and bypass the Senate, this says something is very wrong, that we are not doing what we are supposed to do according to the Constitution. I honestly wonder whether there couldn't be some kind of lawsuit by some citizen out there who looks at this and says: The way the Senate is operating, I have no voice in this because my Senator is bypassed. As Senator Byrd shows in his chart, 23 States are not on appropriations. They don't even have a chance to utter a word in the committee. I was wondering, not being a lawyer, as the Senator is a lawyer, whether there isn't some kind of lawsuit waiting to happen. This isn't the way a bill is to become a law. I think this could be considered taxation without representation. For some of these cases, some colleagues could say to their people: I didn't know; I didn't have a chance; I could only vote no or aye at the end; I voted aye because there were so many good things in the omnibus bill; but there were 23 bad things, but I had to keep the Government going. I think we are treading on some dangerous ground. I am happy to yield if my friend has a comment.

Mrs. BOXER. In this remaining 5 minutes, I wanted to ask my friend from Iowa if he will stay on the floor because Senator Kennedy, who is our leader on education issues, as we know, in terms of his position on ESEA, said it looks as though if we don't reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act when the funding expires, which is this year--which is this year--it will be the first time since the 1960s, since 1965, that this bill will not have been reauthorized. What I want to ask my friend--I know he is going to take his time to talk about prescription drugs, and I am going to stay here for that. It seems to me, with both Presidential candidates out there talking about education, and with huge differences in the two positions; where you have George Bush supporting a voucher system to pull money out of the public schools into the private schools, and you have Al Gore saying he wants to do twice as much for education; in terms of budget authority, where you have Vice President Gore supporting putting 100,000 new teachers in the classroom and George Bush opposing it; where you have our Vice President supporting school construction, and these are all initiatives that emanated from this side of the aisle with opposition on the other side. A fair debate. Whether or not we want to continue in the tradition of President Eisenhower, a Republican President who said, yes, the Federal Government should step in when there is a void, and that is why he signed the National Defense Education Act saying way back in the fifties--the happy days when I was growing up--that if you do not have an educated workforce, you can have the most powerful military in the world and it will not matter. Al Gore wants to follow in that tradition, but we have the opposition saying the Federal Government should not have anything to do with it, block grant it, and who knows what will happen. Does my friend agree with me--I know he agrees with me; I would like him to talk about this--why is it so crucial we bring this education bill to the floor--and do it soon--and we allow this Senate to work its will on the issues that all of America cares about, whatever side one is on. Does he not agree this is a stunning departure from tradition and history since 1965? We sit here and there is nobody on the other side. We have the time to talk when we could be acting on the ESEA.

Mrs. BOXER. What I would like to suggest to my assistant leader is, after I finish my 5 minutes, during which I would like to continue engaging in a little colloquy with my friend from Iowa, that he be recognized for 30 minutes. Is that acceptable to my friend?

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, yesterday, the Senator from Alaska, Senator Murkowski, made a reference to me which I would like to respond to and set the Record straight. The Senator from Alaska said that H.R. 2884, which would reauthorize the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, is being held up by a senator from the Democratic side of the aisle who is objecting to the reauthorization of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act. I support H.R. 2884, but I oppose Senator Murkowski's substitute amendment that undermines the new oil valuation rule for royalty payments on oil produced on Federal lands. This rule took over three years to finally implement. Senator Murkowski's amendment would do great damage to the rule, which just took effect a few months ago and taxpayers would be hurt. In conclusion, I support the House bill, which sets up a heating oil reserve for the northeastern states and reauthorizes the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but I object to the royalty provision in the substitute amendment. I call on the Senator from Alaska to let H.R. 2884 move forward as it was passed by the other body--without the royalty language.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask that my friend get an additional 2 minutes.

Mrs. BOXER. It is just a very brief question. I thank my friend. I think that is the clearest explanation I have ever heard of the Bush plan. It is very clear. Something that I read yesterday reminded me of the days when Newt Gingrich was in control, and as the Senator well remembers, in 1995 it led to a Government shutdown. They wanted to cut $207 billion out of Medicare over 10 years. And we said that is the end of Medicare. It turns out that Governor Bush in those years said that Gingrich and the Republicans were courageous to do this, and he lauded it. I think if you take that statement and mesh it with what the Senator from Iowa just taught us about his plan, it all adds up now. It is the end of Medicare.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, will my friend yield for a question?

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I withdraw my unanimous consent request. Let us move on. Then I will take time under the cloture motion.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for about 12 minutes.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Will my friend yield for just a couple of quick questions, and then I will allow him to, of course, finish his statement. First, I really came over to the floor when I saw the Senator took time to speak on the floor about the Violence Against Women Act. It was my great honor when I was in the House that he asked me to carry that bill those many years ago. I remember what a struggle it was. We couldn't get that House at that time to recognize this problem. I have heard my friend say many times, even the words ``domestic violence'' indicate something that is different about this particular kind of violence; there is something that is domesticated about it. It is violence; it is anger; it is rape; it is hard to even describe what women, particularly women--although it does happen to men--go through. So I took to the floor just to ask a couple of questions. In light of the House passage with the kind of vote you rarely see over there--my goodness, we hardly ever see a vote like that--and the fact it was freestanding, wasn't attached to any other bill, doesn't my friend believe we should bring this up--I agree with him--with a short time agreement, 2 minutes a side? It doesn't matter to me. We have talked enough about this over the years. Doesn't my friend agree it would be much better to just bring it up freestanding instead of attaching it to another bill that some people may have problems with? Why would we want to take this idea, this incredibly important idea that the Senator pushed through this Congress, and attach it to another bill that may be controversial?

Mrs. BOXER. That is right.

Mrs. BOXER. Right. I say to my friend, since we are strategizing here in front of the world----

Mrs. BOXER. We might want to see if we could get some signatures on a letter asking him to bring it up freestanding because it seems to me to be the best thing to do. Almost everything else we do, as my friend has pointed out, is controversial. But when you have a bill that has worked to increase the funding for shelters and train judges and doctors and the rest, and as a result we have seen a 21-percent decline in this kind of violence, it ought to breeze through here. But I really came to the floor to thank my friend for his leadership here and his continued focus on this issue. A lot of us, as we get older, start thinking: What have I done that I am really proud of? I know my friend can truly say--and I can say it because I was fortunate he involved me in this early on--this is one of the good things, one of the great things. I thank my friend and hope we can prevail on the majority leader to bring this up freestanding. I thank my colleague for yielding.

Mrs. BOXER. Will my friend yield on this point?

Mrs. BOXER. I think also--and I know he is so aware of this--another reason they do not walk away is their kids.

Mrs. BOXER. They fear for their kids. With all of the attention we have paid to the entertainment industry--and the Chair has taken a lead on this--to call to everyone's attention the excess of violence and the marketing of too many R-rated films to kids, we know for sure, I say to Senator Biden, there is only one proven predictor that violence will be passed on to the next generation, and that is when the child sees a parent beat the other parent. We know that 60 percent or more of those kids are going to grow up in the same fashion. I was going to leave now, but every time the Senator starts to bring up another point, it is so interesting, I am kind of spellbound. But the bottom line is, with this bill we are helping women and children and families. We are standing for the values that I thought we all mean when we say ``family values.'' Again, my thanks.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Exactly.

Mrs. BOXER. Will my colleague yield for a question?

Mrs. BOXER. I thank my friend. I thank him and Senator Daschle, our leadership team here, for what you are doing. The Senator from Utah asked, I thought, a very reasonable question when he said: What is this going to cost? I say to my friend, on the issue of cost--and I think this is important--what happens to a family when the worker in that family is told to leave? Because if we do not pass this law--which is what our friends want; they do not want us to pass this law--that worker goes back to the country of origin and has to wait 10 years there, leaving behind--let us say it is a man in this case--a wife and children, children who are citizens of this country. My friend from Utah says: Illegal. Those are American children. If we do not act, their dad is going to be deported. For 10 years they will have to wait. What happens to the cost when a wage earner has to leave this country, perhaps for up to 10 years, leaving the children behind? The Senator pointed out the business community is without workers, so they are going to have to pay more to get fewer workers. That is a cost. But what is the cost if these people have to go on welfare, I say to my friend, because the breadwinner is summarily removed from this country because we have failed to act on this immigration fairness act?

Mrs. BOXER. Right.

Mrs. BOXER. When I am completed I am sure there will be time for others, but I do not want to lose my train of thought. What my friend has said is when someone asks what is the cost of this immigration fairness act amendment, we are saying it is more costly not to act because of the impact on the business community and their ability to get help is huge. The impact on the family, when the breadwinner has to leave behind American citizen children and perhaps the mom has to go on welfare, is very high, not to mention the cost of splitting up families. My friend has been a leader on this, as has my friend from Utah as well. We know what happens when parents split up. We know the costs to society. We know what happens to the kids. We know what happens to people using alcohol to dull the pain and all those things, when a family is summarily split apart. I do not hear my friends on the other side saying, ``change the law for Nicaraguans or Cubans.'' Good for them, we should allow those people to stay. What about the Salvadorans?

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask to be added as cosponsor to this amendment, that is so important, to the Latino and Immigrant Fairness Act.

Mrs. BOXER. The last question I have is this: Our colleagues are up in arms about allowing us to have a vote on this, but they are bringing out amendments without even asking the authors if they want them attached to this particular bill. It amazes me. I guess the final question I have for my assistant leader is this: If our friends on the other side do not like this bill, why do they not just vote against it? We are not asking to pass this without a vote. Are we not asking for the ability to put this on the Senate floor, debate it very briefly--or as long as they want? You yourself said, I think, you would take 10 minutes of debate and whatever the other side wants. Is it not their right to vote against this fairness legislation if they so desire?

Mrs. BOXER. That is it.