Daniel Coats

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. So here we are on this floor debating something that is very much in the role of the Senate. If it is not in the role of a Senator to make moral judgments, then we might as well close the place up because there is very little else to do. Most of what we do here has moral implications. There are some things that do not, but most things do. If that is the case, then I think a lot of people are going to have to remove their names from sponsorship of legislation that mandates mammograms for women under a certain age. Some Senators are going to have to remove their names from support for laws that require 48-hour hospital stays after birth. Some Senators are going to have to remove their support for laws and legislation that condemns genital mutilation. Are those not medical procedures? So if we are going to leave all that to the world outside of this Chamber, I think a lot of Senators are going to have to rethink their positions on a lot of issues. I also think it is inappropriate to suggest that this is some kind of male conspiracy against women. I think when the vote is taken today, we will see women voting to terminate this procedure. I think when the polls are taken and women are addressed throughout our society, we will find there are as many women in opposition to this procedure and in abhorrence of this procedure as there are men. It is also wrong to say that this is only some kind of a pro-life Senate movement. There are a number of people here who have openly stated they are pro-choice Senators but are voting to ban this procedure. So let us tone down the accusations and let us deal with the facts. I think the facts and medical science that have been presented to us so outstandingly by the Senator from Pennsylvania need to be carefully considered by each and every one of us. A civil right to the weakest among us, the inalienable right to life as enunciated in the most fundamental of all the documents of democracy, our Declaration of Independence, can be honored here today by our vote to ban this procedure. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania particularly for his outstanding work and yield back whatever time I have remaining. Mr. SANTORUM addressed the Chair.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Pennsylvania for his kind words. The real credit goes to the Senator from Pennsylvania for his effective and unrelenting advocacy on behalf of life. The Senator has expressed in many, many ways and provided us with many, many facts that I think gives all of us pause and that has given us a reason to give great deliberation and consideration to this most fundamental of issues. I also think it is appropriate to mention the efforts of Senator Smith of New Hampshire who had the courage to come to this floor some time ago and introduce the Senate to a procedure none of us had ever heard of. He was vilified on this floor and in the press. He had the courage to raise an issue that many didn't want to talk about. We have come a long way since that day when Senator Smith walked onto this floor. We are close. And we clearly have a majority in both the House and the Senate now in favor of banning partial-birth abortion. We have more than a two-thirds majority necessary to override a Presidential veto in the House, and we are hopeful that we can achieve that level today. We will know at 2:15 this afternoon. Mr. President, I think it is most appropriate that we are debating this issue on the Senate floor because we are talking about one of the most fundamental, if not the most fundamental, of all issues that we debate on this floor. That is the meaning of life itself. It is a right that is guaranteed or enunciated in our Declaration of Independence. It is labeled an inalienable right, meaning it is not created by government; it is not taken away by government; it is not the purview of government. It is an inalienable right, according to our Founding Fathers, the right to life being the very first enunciated, written-- inalienable right, part of the very fabric of the foundation of this society, not endowed by government but endowed by the Creator. Over the 200-years-plus history of this country and of this Congress, we have had monumental civil rights debates, appropriate debates on the meaning of inclusion in the American experiment of what it means to be part of this greatest in all experiments in human history, of democracy, of being part of a system which allows each individual the dignity of being part, an equal part, of this democracy. Great civil rights debates have taken place in this Chamber, the debates about allowing women equal opportunities, equal rights to vote, equal rights to participate in society, the rights of handicapped, reaching out and providing within the American experiment to include them, the weakest of our society, the most disadvantaged of our society. And now we come to the weakest of all, now we come to the most disadvantaged of all, those who have no voice of their own, those who have no political action committee, no caucus, no ability to march, to speak for themselves, but those who have every right to be included in this great experiment in democracy. I do not know what the vote count is going to be this afternoon. I am obviously hoping it will exceed the 67 votes needed to overcome the President's intransigence on this issue, the President who pledged to the American people and to the Congress that he wanted abortion to be safe, legal and rare, the President who is confronted with the information that this is not a rare procedure, that this is a procedure that is done thousands and thousands of times mostly for the convenience not of the woman but of the abortionist, a procedure that is more convenient for the abortionist than it is recognizing concerns of women and certainly the rights of the child to live. I do not know what that vote count is going to be, but win or lose, we have fundamentally altered the nature of this debate. Win or lose, we are now debating the meaning of life and the right to life in this society, and that is where the debate should have been centered and where the debate needs to be centered. I am pleased that we have finally arrived at this point. I do not question the motives of other Members, those who vote for or those who vote against. That is why I did not question the motives of the minority leader when he stated that he thought we ought to engage in the debate on the viability of the child. It advances the debate one way or another. Some are skeptical about his efforts, about his amendment. I do not think it is an appropriate amendment because I thought the exceptions allowing the decision to be in the hands of the abortionist himself or herself was not appropriate to defining the right to life. But by placing in the Chamber the question of viability, we will now center the debate on what is the meaning of life. When does life begin? What are the rights of that life as well as the rights of the woman? So I am pleased that we have arrived at this point. As I said, win or lose, we are now focusing the debate where it ought to be. Several years ago, Justice O'Connor made the statement that Roe versus Wade, the decision of the Court in Roe versus Wade, was on a collision course with medical science because medical science was demonstrating to us the viability of life at earlier and earlier ages. Sonograms, listening to heart beats, and the ability to perform fetal research, the protection of the infant in the mother's womb, and the rights of that infant in cases of negligence, in cases of attempted murder, in a whole number of areas of the law have demonstrated to us that there is a life with a heart beating within the womb of that mother, and that life deserves our consideration in terms of the protections that we give it. Recently there has been a lot of talk about new discoveries of brain activity and a lot of focus on that, focus brought to this floor by those who say we must make sure we give children ages zero to 3 the right opportunities so that their brain can develop in ways that medical science tells us it needs to develop to a fully competent human being. We need to ensure that that takes place. What medical science is also telling us and what we have not discussed on this floor is that we now know that brain activity exists much earlier than we thought. Never has the conflict between science and abortion been more dramatic than in the recent discoveries about the science of the brain. We know that a human embryo at 10 or 12 weeks after conception has astonishing brain activity. We know that by the fifth month of gestation the brain is fully wired, as the scientists say, with the connections between neurons largely complete. Astounding evidence. We know that these neurons are firing with impressive complexity once a minute, shaping the brain itself, and we know that when this process is interrupted by malnutrition or drug abuse or a virus, the results can follow a child its entire life, and we know that a child may be born knowing the distinctive sound of its mother's and father's voices. In short, our mental development, not just our physical development, the mental development, the process of learning begins well before birth. If we look at the evidence--not the rhetoric, not the anecdotes, but the evidence, the facts--it is increasingly evident that human life is a continuum in which birth is really not a particularly decisive moment. An essential part of who each of us is, who we are, including the shape of our minds, is determined even before we are born. Even those who do not call themselves pro-life have to find this a troubling experience and troubling knowledge. They have to because abortion not only destroys the body; it extinguishes a complex, developed mind. This point, I think, has particular relevance in this debate on partial- birth abortion because the very procedure itself destroys the brain. Yes, it kills the body, but when we understand the complexity of that brain, when we understand the development of that brain, mostly fully wired at the point of termination, we have to understand that plunging a scissors into the back of that skull and sucking out the brain has enormous implications. Mr. President, I ask for just 2 additional minutes.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, this evening I should like to take just a very few moments to report, along with my colleague from Connecticut, Senator Lieberman, on the recently released Quadrennial Defense Review. It was released today by the Secretary of Defense. It is the culmination of a very extensive process at the Department of Defense over the shape and makeup, the characterization and the implementation of our Armed Forces for the next several years. We are at a unique point in our history, particularly as it relates to defense issues. We have come through a period of time when our strategy was primarily based on the threat from another superpower--the Soviet Union--a nuclear threat that required an extraordinary commitment of resources, of manpower, of effort to try to contain and to try to nullify that threat. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, with the fall of the Soviet Union, with the realignment that has taken place with the United States emerging as the one superpower in the world, we may have the luxury of looking at our defense structure, of making decisions and beginning a process of fashioning our defense forces for the threats of the future and not the threats of the past. It is important to recognize, as Secretary Cohen has and as acknowledged in this Quadrennial Defense Review which was just released today, this is not a status quo situation. We have made extraordinary strides in terms of reshaping our forces from perhaps what was the peak of our defense effort in 1985, a very, very substantial decline in the number of active duty forces and the percentage of our budget and percentage of our gross national product that is devoted to defense. In the process, much of the framework that puts us in a position to make decisions in the future has at least been initiated, and the QDR, Quadrennial Defense Review, encompasses a lot of that thinking. Because so often in the Congress we receive the conclusion of the analysis of the Department of Defense after all the decisionmaking process has been conducted and after the options have been evaluated, we do not have those same resources here in the Congress to ask the appropriate questions and get the full view of where we think we ought to go with our national defense policy. So Senator Lieberman and I, along with others, in last year's authorization bill created a National Defense Panel consisting of outside experts in military affairs, who had a lifetime of experience, who could give us through this process a second look, a second opinion. I am pleased that they were able to have access to the process, the thinking process and the decisionmaking process that was undertaken in the Department of Defense on the QDR. They will now undertake a very thorough and very complete analysis of this QDR and report back to Congress. We have their preliminary report. They will report back to Congress no later than December 15 of this year giving us their view of current threats and future threats the United States might face, the strategy that we ought to employ to address those threats, as well as how we ought to implement that particular strategy and how we pay for it. So we are looking forward at a process, and I have described this process in some detail because I do not want Members to think that this is the final chapter in the book. This really is the initial chapter in the decisionmaking process that has to be undertaken by the Congress and the administration over the next several months, if not several years, as we look into the next century and try to define the national defense strategy and the force to implement that particular strategy. I will say this: I think the Secretary of Defense and the people who have undertaken this effort, the QDR, have done this in good faith. I think they have asked the tough questions. They have evaluated the various options. They will admit that this is an initial stage of the process and not the final chapter. They will indicate that there is more to come. There are more decisions to be made. But I also say to my colleagues, a lot of the burden and responsibility also falls on us. The Department of Defense has presented its viewpoint of where we are going in the future, but we are the ones who have to ultimately make the decision as to whether to ratify what they have said, modify what they have said, or reject what they have said and come up with our own alternatives. There are issues in the QDR Report to which a lot of Members, various Members, are going to say: ``wait a minute, that gets a little too close to home.'' We are talking about two more rounds of base closings. We have reduced our force structure more than a third since 1985, and yet we have reduced our infrastructure, our bases which support that force structure, by only approximately one-half of the amount that we reduced manpower. There is infrastructure that is excessive, and we are looking at a very difficult decision, in terms of how to go ahead and continue to advance the process of closing bases, of scaling back infrastructure, because every dollar spent on a facility or a support function that does not go to support our forces takes resources away from more pressing needs. To simply preserve excess infrastructure because it happens to be in a particular State or particular Member's district, or to preserve it because we were not able to come to a conclusion about closing it results in dollars staying in infrastructure that take away dollars from the very badly needed modernization of our forces, from research and technology, and from support for our active duty forces in terms of their readiness and deployment, et cetera. So we have to recognize that the decisions that will be made here, whether it is streamlining the Department of Defense, whether it is consolidating or streamlining various defense and support agencies, which is recommended here--I wish the QDR provided recommendations in more detail, but it is recommended here nonetheless--whether it is closing bases, and even decisions on modernization will be made in this Chamber, will be made by these Members, and they will not be easy decisions. We all recognize, I think, that one of the most important actions we can take, as this report says, is make decisions about modernizing our forces and investing in research and development of new technology. Whether this relates to platforms like tactical air for the Air Force and the Navy, ships for the Navy, land forces for the Army and Marines, or new technology to advance the way they do their business, all of that requires resources. And all of that will have to be done with offsets, because we pretty much have a static budget line. Without an external threat that we can foresee right now and without a major conflict, we are going to be at a pretty level funding appropriation for the next several years. If that is the case, then, if we want to retain the forces readiness, if we want to retain our current forces capability to deal with the threats as we see them, and if we want to restructure and modernize the force, we are going to have to provide them with the resources, and the only place we can get the resources is from existing expenditures. This report takes us some of the way down that road. I am a little disappointed in the QDR in that it did not more specifically outline how we can go about particularly restructuring the base closing procedure, how we can restructure some of the defense or support agencies, how we can restructure the Reserve and the National Guard to better complement our active duty; but also to define, in some sense, different roles for them in that process, how we could go forward in making the decisions on modernization, what the different options are, and so forth. I think there are several questions that Congress is going to have to address. I just mentioned modernization. Commitment to modernization, yes, but where do we put that money? What research? What new technologies? What new military platforms--ships, planes, et cetera-- should we select? And how many of those should we buy? These are critical decisions. It is not enough just to say we need to increase our modernization budget. It is where we put those dollars that will be critical to define the military of the future, and how we address these questions about the role of the Guard and Reserve and the reductions in defense infrastructure, which I mentioned earlier. I am disappointed we did not address the medical care issue in the QDR. Clearly, how we provide medical care for our active duty servicemembers and their family members, Reserve forces and others such is a major cost item in the defense budget. That needs to be addressed in the future. Missile defense, how we allocate funds to missile defense, the Secretary says we have a shortfall in research and development funds for a National Missile Defense System and we need to shift a substantial amount of money, up to $2 billion, into that particular account--where does that money come from? That is not identified. These are all issues which the Congress is going to have to grapple with in the next several months. Beyond that, we need to ensure that, in our thinking, we realize this is the beginning and not the end of the process. We need to look to outside sources like the National Defense Panel to give us guidance in terms of what the proper questions are: How we look at the scenarios in the future that will require a defense structure to address those challenges; how we devise the right kind of strategy to meet the threats; how we build in the flexibility-- because we do not know what all those threats are going to be--how we build in the flexibility to have our forces able to adapt to those threats of the future; how we avoid making critical mistakes in resource allocation that prohibit us from having that flexibility in the future; how we go about implementing all of this and how we come up with the resources to address it. So there are many, many questions still outstanding. It is an ongoing process. I look forward to working with my colleague, Senator Lieberman of Connecticut, as we explore this, as well as my other colleagues, both on the Senate Armed Services Committee and the House Armed Services Committee, as well as our colleagues here in the Senate.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I certainly agree with my colleague--we worked on this together--that this QDR report doesn't meet all of our expectations. We wanted a more visionary document. We wanted some bolder challenges, at least a broader definition of what the future might look like and what options we would have to address it, because the point is that we are at such a critical decisionmaking point, in terms of allocation of resources, that we need that look into the future in order to try to make the decisions that will give us the flexibility and the resources to address those future threats. The real concern here is that we stay locked into, not necessarily a status quo proposal, but one that closely resembles the current state of affairs within the military, and that we will, on that basis, make decisions that will preclude us from having the resources to make different decisions in the future or to address different threats in the future. That, again, is the reason why we wanted a national defense panel, outside evaluators and experts, to give us some guidance on that. While that Panel's report will not be available to support us in this year's decisionmaking process for the fiscal 1998 budget, it will be available for us next year. So I hope we can keep that in mind when we are allocating these resources and making these decisions. Second, I say to my friend from Connecticut that, while many of our colleagues, and many individuals, will criticize this QDR as a status quo document, my guess is it will be extraordinarily difficult to convince them that they ought to adopt even half of the proposals of this status quo document because it will affect bases that are located in their State, it will affect defense contractors that manufacture defense products in their State, and so on. Each of us has our favorite service, I suppose, perhaps one we served in. We try to be objective in that, but, you know: ``I was a marine, and therefore, we're not taking one person away from the Marines,'' or, ``I served in the Navy, and we can't take ships down.'' ``They build ships in my district; therefore, I can't support any changes in shipbuilding.'' And on and on and on it goes. We have that fight every year. So my guess is that, if we can implement half of what is here, it would be a pretty extraordinary step for Congress. Now, what is the point? The point is that we cannot just always blame the Department of Defense for not being bold enough, challenging enough, visionary enough when we ourselves are not willing to take some of those steps. So it is going to require several things: one, some good outside evaluation and expert help for us to even ask the right questions in order to arrive at the right decisions; and, second, some bold initiatives and some courage on our part in order to enact and effect some of these decisions. The Senator from Connecticut talked about a different kind of threat, driven by technology, that we are just now beginning to understand. We probably are not looking at the massed formation type of standoff, a mass army versus mass army threat that we have looked at in the past. We are looking at technology which can give our adversaries advantages that perhaps we have not even thought of and capability we have not even thought of; but yet also offer us great promise in terms of defense capabilities to counter those threats if we can anticipate them coming our way in the future. So there is a lot of work to do. I guess the caution here is that we allow ourselves to get outside the normal pattern of how we make decisions and how we appropriate funds for defense, to think beyond the next election cycle, to think into the next century, to be willing to take bold steps in either saying no or in saying yes to decisions that will have tremendous future implications for this Nation. What does that mean? That means that we have to have an open mind, we have to see this as a process and not as a fixed point for which decisions made today will necessarily be those decisions which will be implemented tomorrow. We have to retain that flexibility as we understand how to develop a national defense strategy for the future. It has been said that no major changes in military affairs in history have ever occurred except after a crushing defeat. We had a stunning victory in Operation Desert Storm. I think a lot of that was accomplished because of the lessons we learned in Vietnam, the changes that were consequently made. Yet, for us now to rest on that success and pretty much indicate that we are not willing to make major changes would condemn us to the lessons of history; we cannot simply strengthen and retain the capabilities of our last success, but we must fully understand and prepare for the potential of our next war. We want to avoid preparing for the past. That is going to take some bold thinking. That is going to take some stepping outside the box to take some challenging questions about current assumptions and the current status quo as we look out in the future. I think we have started that process. I want to commend my friend from Connecticut for all the effort that he has put into this and our other colleagues who have been involved in setting up our National Defense Panel and working with the Department of Defense, working with the new Secretary, who I think is committed and pledged to do this very thing. I thank the Senator for his time.

Mr. COATS. If the Senator will yield.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. I further ask unanimous consent the Senate recess from the hour of 12:30 to 2:15 p.m. for the weekly policy conferences to meet.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in adjournment until the hour of 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, May 20. I further ask consent that on Tuesday, immediately following the opening prayer, the routine requests through the morning hour be granted, and the Senate then be in a period of morning business until the hour of 10 a.m., with Senators recognized to speak up to 5 minutes, with the following exception: Senator Hagel and Senator Kerrey in control of 30 minutes.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I now ask that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. For the information of all Senators, at 10 a.m. tomorrow morning it is hoped the Senate will be able to reach an agreement allowing for the completion of the partial-birth abortion ban bill. If that agreement is reached, Senators should anticipate a vote on passage of that legislation at approximately 2:30 p.m., on Tuesday. Also, Senators should be reminded that it is the intention of the majority leader to begin consideration of the budget resolution tomorrow afternoon. Senators can expect rollcall votes throughout Tuesday's session, as the Senate attempts to make progress on the first concurrent budget resolution. Members who intend to offer amendments to that resolution should be prepared to offer those amendments during tomorrow's session. It is the hope that the Democratic leader will join the majority leader in an effort to yield back much of the statutory time limit for the budget resolution. All Members will be notified accordingly as any votes are ordered with respect to any of this legislation. I thank all Members for their attention.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent that the Budget Committee have until 12 midnight this evening in order to file reported legislation.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I appreciate so much the remarks of the Senator from Pennsylvania. I associate myself with everything he said, and I intend to speak on this subject tomorrow before we have the final vote. I trust that Members will give it great thought before they make their final decision because we are on the verge of making a determination that I think is very important to the future of this country.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. I do not intend to take a great deal of time. I wanted to comment on this particular legislation. Mr. President, I, like most Members, if not all Members, have been back at home discussing at official forums, school meetings, and with teachers, educators, parents, and students the impact of the current statute relative to education for children with disabilities. Clearly, there have been problems. There have been discipline problems, as the Senator from Washington has enunciated. There have been problems of excess regulations and paperwork for teachers. There have been accountability problems for schools. There have been funding problems due to the Federal Government not living up to its promise to fund up to 40 percent of the cost of this particular education. Now, there have been numerous attempts over the years since this was first introduced--in 1975, I believe--numerous attempts to modify and correct some of these problem areas. Most of those have not succeeded and many of the situations that have been enumerated by the Senator from Washington have continued. By the same token, there has been nowhere near consensus in this body to revoke that statute. I think there is a solid commitment to provide educational opportunities for students with disabilities. There has been strong support for that. There will continue to be strong support for that. The question this body has been faced with over the past 3 years is whether or not we could make substantive, important changes addressing many of the problems that arise under the current statute. Our task has been to make effective changes, gain a consensus in support for those changes, and preserve the essence of the statute. These amendments seek to provide all children with disabilities in America with the opportunity for education and do so in a way that provides more accountability, ensures a safe environment for all students, and addresses a number of the other perceived flaws in the current statute. This has been a 3-year effort. Senator Frist, from the Labor and Human Resources Committee, undertook the effort as subcommittee chairman last year under the chairmanship of Senator Kassebaum and spent an enormous amount of time and effort trying to pull a consensus together. We were not able to do that by the end of the session. That effort was restarted in this new Congress under the direction of the majority leader. The majority leader appointed a special task force of Members--a bicameral, bipartisan task force of Members--to see if it was possible to get everybody in one room around one table and address these issues on an issue-by-issue basis and come to some type of an agreement. Now, when you do that, you clearly end up with a piece of legislation that is not perfect from any particular person's point of view. It leaves probably more to be discussed and debated and perhaps corrected in future efforts, but the goal here was to see if we could substantially improve the current legislation. My colleagues need to understand that the choice here today is not between repealing the statute as it currently exists on the books and going back and writing a new one from scratch. I doubt very much we would be able to successfully do that, or at least come up with something that is in any measure different from the current statute. The choice is: Given the statute on the books; given what we know through experience over 20 years with this particular law and its implications for parents, teachers, students, educators, Members of Congress and appropriators, and others; given the need to put together a consensus that will allow us to substantially improve that current statute; the choice today is, stay with the existing law, with all of the problems that it has, all of the concerns that people have, or move forward on legislation which, while it does not give any one person everything they wanted, moves the mark very substantially toward a better bill. I think we have done that with S. 717. We have made a better piece of legislation, a better IDEA. It is better for children, better for parents, and it is better for educators. First, we increase substantially the role that parents play in their children's education. This is a very important principle, to involve the parents more thoroughly, engage them more in the decisions of placement, provide them with information that parents of general education students receive, and give parents access to all their children's records. This provision helps provide accountability, and helps provide a framework for understanding the problems that the teacher might be dealing with in school. Second, we include children with disabilities in State- or district- wide assessments, and in doing so, we provide systemwide accountability. Schools will now be responsible for what children in special education are learning. Third, S. 717 moves us toward a much better understanding of the inequity and imbalance that exists in the funding of IDEA whereby the Federal Government has not lived up to its promise to provide 40 percent of the costs of special education. We are actively engaged now in working with the appropriators and others to increase the Federal funding for this act. In fact, the Republican Party, as part of its top priority as defined in our caucus at the beginning of this session, committed to making good on the promise of the Federal Government to pay its full share of IDEA funding, and to no longer leave this obligation and burden on the States and local districts. I am hopeful that the Appropriations Committee can help us this year in making a very substantial step in that direction. We have taken special care to address the question of the amount of regulations and paperwork that educators have to deal with. This bill provides far more flexibility for teachers and will allow them to spend more time with the children and less time filling out forms. Finally, we have worked very carefully and very thoroughly to try to craft a discipline provision in this reauthorization bill that addresses many of the concerns raised by the Senator from Washington. This is a particularly contentious area, and it is important that we understand that the task force looked at this very, very carefully and worked very hard to try to address these concerns. Now, in regard to specific discipline procedures, we came to the belief that parents needed and, in fact, deserved codification of major Federal policy governing how and when a child with a disability may be disciplined by removal from their current educational placement. Here we have a disagreement with the Senator from Washington. I understand where he is coming from. But to avoid having literally tens, if not hundreds or thousands of different standards, the Federal statute must include guidelines for a consistent standard that parents and educators can understand, so that everybody knows where we are coming from on this. The bill takes a balanced approach to discipline procedures. It does not go all the way in the direction that the Senator from Washington would like to go, and it probably goes further than others would like to go. That, again, was part of the consensus that we reached on this legislation. But we do recognize in the discipline section the need to maintain safe schools, and to balance that with the need to retain and preserve the civil rights of children with disabilities. We are dealing with a whole series of court cases. We are dealing with legislation here that has to stand the scrutiny of the courts. So we have to pay attention, obviously, to those cases and try to craft legislation which would give us a constitutionally sound and civil rights compliant discipline procedure. For the first time, this bill brings together the rules that apply to children with disabilities who are subject to disciplinary action and clarifies for school personnel, parents, and others, how these disciplinary rules work in conjunction with the school's obligation to provide a free, appropriate education. We have to meld these two concepts together to make an effective discipline procedure. The bill provides specificity about important issues, such as whether educational services can cease for disabled children--they cannot. But also how manifestation determinations are made, what happens to a child with a disability during parent appeals, and how to treat children not previously identified as disabled. In each of these categories, we have taken a very substantial step forward, and made very substantial improvement to the current legislation. When a child with a disability violates school rules or codes of conduct through possession of weapons, drugs, or a demonstration of behavior that is substantially likely to result in injury to the child, or to others in the school, the bill provides clear and simple guidance about educators' areas of discretion, the parent's role, and procedural protections for the child. Clearly, we must remember that we are dealing here with the potential for litigation, with court cases, with the civil rights of children, the rights of the parents, and the responsibilities that we give to educators. Finding the appropriate balance is not easy. It is very difficult to find that balance that will allow us to meet all these concerns and tests. Dangerous children can be removed from their current educational placement. I want to stress this. There is a belief here that there is nothing we can do with children whose behavior is disruptive, if they bring violence to the classroom or to themselves, or if they possess weapons or drugs; this is not true. Under this legislation that we are debating and will be voting on, dangerous children can be immediately removed from their current educational placements. Specific standards must be met to sustain their removal. So you can remove the child, but S. 717 states that you must then apply specific standards in order to sustain that removal. And it is possible to sustain that removal. If a behavior that is subject to school discipline is not a manifestation of the child's disability, the child can be disciplined the same as children without disabilities. If, however, it is determined that the behavior was a manifestation of their disability, then, obviously, there is a separate standard to follow. If parents disagree with the removal of their child from his or her current educational placement, they can request an expedited due process hearing. These are the parent's rights. If educators believe that the removal of a child from their educational placement must be extended, they can ask for an extension in an expedited due process hearing--once again, the balance of the rights of the parents, the child and the educators. The bill allows school personnel to remove a child with disabilities to an interim alternative educational setting for up to 45 days if that student has brought a weapon to school or to a school function, or knowingly possesses or uses illegal drugs or sells or solicits the sale of a controlled substance while at school or a school function. The bill gives school personnel the option of requesting that a hearing officer move a child with a disability to an interim alternative educational setting for up to 45 days if a child is substantially likely to injure themselves or others in their current placement. There are some other provisions here, Mr. President, which, in the interest of time and because others want to speak, I won't state. I just say to my colleagues that I very much believe we have made substantial improvements and addressed some of the major concerns in the current statute. I don't discount all the things the Senator from Washington says because many in my State have indicated the same to me. We have tried to address those concerns, balancing the civil rights of those students and what we believe are important educational opportunities for those students, with the rights and the needs of teachers to have an orderly and safe classroom. We have put all this together in this consensus bill which has been crafted with bipartisan support on a bicameral basis. I think we have a bill--maybe the only bill--that can pass. Failure to pass this reauthorization bill, or alternatively passage of the amendments being offered, would undermine the consensus process and put us back to the status quo. We would be right back to a situation where none of the complaints or concerns arising from the current statute are addressed, and we would probably go an even more considerable amount of time before Congress is able to put together consensus to address these significant concerns. So I hope we will look past what we believe to be perfect and look instead toward what I think is a good, substantial move forward in terms of this statute. I commend the chairman of the committee for his diligent work in that, and Senator Harkin for his long time support for this and the many others, including the majority leader, who worked so diligently to achieve this legislation. I thank the Chair and yield the floor. Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Georgia for yielding and, more important, thank him for his leadership on this issue. I listened, as the Presiding Officer for the past hour, to his remarks about the irony of the voluntarism conference taking place in Philadelphia at the same time the U.S. Senate is attempting to secure approval to go ahead and debate--not vote on but just debate--the passage of legislation that will make voluntarism more acceptable to the American people and provide an incentive for people to volunteer. I had the privilege of being designated as a delegate to that summit conference in Philadelphia, and as a delegate attended various meetings, shared time with the President and former Presidents who were there, along with Colin Powell, and Ray Chambers, and others who were instrumental in putting that together. The whole thrust of the meeting, the whole thrust of the summit, the factor that drew all of our current living Presidents to this summit, was the idea that we needed to stimulate and do whatever we could to encourage Americans to take a more active role in solving some of the problems that our families face and in contributing their time and their resources on a volunteer basis to help particularly those in need. The thrust was directed toward children, children that were falling into what we describe as an at-risk category, children without fathers at home, children without the opportunities that many children in America enjoy. The goal--2 million children reached by the year 2000--is an ambitious goal, one which will require considerable commitment on the part of the American people. Yet a number of organizations were there that pledged their commitment to reach that goal, a number of corporations pledging their efforts to ensure and help their employees participate in reaching that goal, whether it is mentoring a fatherless child in an organization like Big Brothers/Big Sisters or working through Boys Clubs, Girls Clubs, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, various literacy programs, teaching a child to read, juvenile delinquency, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, all of these human problems that require not the hand of big Government--we have tried that, and it has been wanting-- but involves the personal commitment on the part of individuals working with those children. One of the most encouraging things about that summit was that there was a widespread recognition on the part of people from both parties, different points on the ideological spectrum and political spectrum. There was a consensus that big Government was not the solution, that our, in many cases well-motivated, efforts in the past to reach out through the mechanism of Government to address these human needs had not succeeded, and that while no one felt comfortable with simply absolving ourselves of all responsibility, hoping that the so-called free marketplace of social interaction and community support would fill the gaps, clearly there was a consensus that the solution did not lie in more funding for various Government agencies, more Government involvement, but the solution lay in individuals making commitments to help kids in need, to help organizations in their communities that were helping children in need. And this was a very uplifting occasion. As I said, our former Presidents and our current President was there. We had Republicans and Democrats speaking from the platform, organizations that are doing extraordinary work today in our communities all across America. But the bottom line was, in order to accomplish the task ahead, we need more volunteers. We need more people to commit time to join up with a child in need or a family in need or an organization that is there to serve those people in need. We need to recognize those who are already making those sacrifices in volunteering, and we need to encourage more to do it. Anyone who has been involved in volunteer work understands that the benefit exceeds the sacrifice, if we can even label it a sacrifice; that the recipient of the volunteer's efforts obviously is supported and helped; but the rewards, not money rewards, but the intangible rewards that come to the volunteer are very, very significant. So out of all of this, I am confident, we have come to a time when there is a renewed interest in supporting our neighbor, supporting those in need, providing effective compassion, expanding the role of volunteer community organizations and charitable organizations, expanding the role of the church and encouraging its work in dealing with some of these problems. But one of the key impediments to that involvement of voluntarism that we are trying to encourage has been what I would call almost a tax on voluntarism. That tax is the result of lawsuits, many of which are frivolous, that have been filed against organizations or against boards of directors of organizations or of volunteers. It is a discouragement and a disincentive for individuals to volunteer. The Senator from Georgia referenced that. The first response to a bump on the head or a trip on a step is, ``I hope you're not going to sue us,'' because we seem to be in a pattern of litigation in what has been described as the world's most litigious society. It seems that for many the first thought is, ``How can I collect? Who can I sue?'' Well, it is one thing if individuals are covered by insurance policies; it is another if they either are not covered or those insurance policy premiums have risen to the point where organizations are finding it difficult to pay the premium. Over just the past few years, liability premiums for volunteer associations have risen 155 percent. So organizations like Little League and Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, volunteer fire departments, and all the myriad number of volunteer associations and groups that provide so much important help to people in this country are finding themselves squeezed, squeezed by higher liability premiums, squeezed from their ability to attract people to serve on their boards, to attract volunteers to work in the work of the agency. We need to recognize that every dollar that is devoted to increased liability premiums means that it is a dollar less that goes to meet the needs that the organization or the individual is attempting to address. Congress has attempted to address this in piecemeal fashion. I was proud to lead the effort last year to pass the bill that provided liability protection for doctors and nurses that volunteered their time to those in poverty that did not have insurance. Senator Santorum passed a bill that provided restaurants that donate food to homeless shelters, food banks and soup kitchens some protection from liability. But essentially what we are talking about here today is a bill that would expand the scope of liability protection to the numerous agencies and literally hundreds of thousands of volunteers who are not now covered or who find that the premiums are prohibitive for liability coverage. Of course, there are protections in the bill here. We are not excusing people from negligence. We are not excusing people for willful injuries or criminal misconduct. If a suit is warranted, the suit can be brought. But what we are saying is that there ought to be some protection against frivolous lawsuits, there ought to be some protection against honest mistakes, there ought to be limitations on liability to those who actually bear the responsibility for the injury, and not this, what we call joint and several liability, that flows to every member of the organization, every member of the board which allows lawyers to simply find the deepest pockets or the richest pockets to sue, and so if one member of a board commits an act which warrants an action against that individual, all members of the board find themselves involved in the lawsuit. As I said, liability insurance can be purchased, but the rising cost of that has been prohibitive, and it drains dollars away from the central purpose of that organization. In many cases we have people who are not covered by insurance, yet they want to volunteer their time. Mr. President, just a little bit ago--I think it was just a week or so ago--Lynn Swann, who is a former member of the Pittsburgh Steelers and is in the National Football League Hall of Fame, testified before the House on the impact of increasing insurance premiums and the problem of liability coverage for Big Brothers/Big Sisters. Lynn Swann is a national spokesperson for Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America. I had the privilege of serving on that national board with Lynn. He has dedicated an extraordinary amount of time and effort to promoting the concept of mentoring and promoting Big Brothers/Big Sisters as an organization that has been established now for nearly 100 years in mentoring children on a one-on-one basis. Lynn testified before the House indicating that the inability to pass liability coverage for volunteers was providing a disincentive to attracting volunteers to be Big Brothers or Big Sisters. Currently, there are 100,000 individuals in this country who have volunteered their time on a consistent basis--not a one-time only, but a consistent basis--to mentor and be a Big Brother or Big Sister to a child from a fatherless family, to a child who needs someone to come alongside, to be with them, to help them with homework or just to listen to them on the phone or to incorporate them in some of their daily activities, to be a friend, to be a Big Brother, to be a Big Sister. But there are 40,000 young people on the waiting list because we do not have enough Big Brothers, Big Sisters to match those on the waiting list. One of the reasons is that agencies have not been able to attract enough people because people are concerned about frivolous lawsuits or liability actions taken against them that they know they are probably going to have to pay or settle to some extent just to keep from having to spend 2 or 3 or 4 years in court dragged out through an expensive legal process. So we go back to the original point. At a time when this Nation's attention is focused on the concept of voluntarism and how it can support those genuinely in need, how it can provide help for children at a time when former Democrat and Republican Presidents and our current President are meeting in Philadelphia to promote and encourage and ask and plead with individuals and corporations and businesses and entities in America to do more, the U.S. Senate is voting to not allow debate on a strictly--I guess it was strictly a partisan vote. There was a clear division between the Republicans and Democrats on this issue. They were voting to not even allow debate and amendments to go forward to move to final passage of this particular legislation. So on the one hand, our Nation's attention is focused on the plea of President Clinton, former President Bush, former President Ford, and former President Carter to get more involved, to volunteer, to support agencies that are reaching out to children in need, calling for 2 million additional volunteers by the year 2000. Yet at the very same time the U.S. Senate is saying, no, we are not going to remove impediments to voluntarism, we are not going to adopt sensible measures to protect those who give voluntarily of their time to serve the needs of our communities and serve the needs of our fellow citizens, we are not going to do anything to take away any barriers that might be in place that are identified as limiting the size and the scope of the volunteer effort. It is just such a disconnect, just such an irony that our President is in Philadelphia urging us to become more involved in that spirit of voluntarism that I was privileged to experience in Philadelphia over the last 2 days, and that it is now clouded over with a deep, dark cloud that basically says, no, we are going to protect the lawyers, we are going to give the lawyers more protection than we are going to give the volunteers, we are going to make somebody who volunteers for Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts or Big Brothers/Big Sisters or any of a number of organizations and wants to give their time to the board, we are going to say that you are jointly and severally liable, if somebody on that board makes a mistake, we are going after the guy with deep pockets, we are going after the guy with all the money. So good people who want to give their time and effort to volunteer organizations and volunteer help find themselves restricted and limited because they may not have control over an individual on a board that does something that brings a lawsuit, that allows every member of that board to be swept up in that lawsuit. We are providing a disincentive to those citizens and volunteers who want to give of their time, who want to provide the support that children need in this country by saying, ``Do not forget about the lawsuit liability. Watch out for the trial lawyers.'' We are losing people, 40,000 young people on the waiting list for a Big Brother or Big Sister, and we cannot reach out to volunteers with any assurance that they will be protected from sometimes some of the most frivolous, meaningless, but yet effective lawsuits filed against them. Are we foreclosing the right of someone to go after criminal misconduct or willful actions? Absolutely not. That protection is provided in the legislation that we are debating. What we are trying to do is make it easier for people to be good neighbors, to be good citizens. What we are trying to do is to provide a recognition that as Government necessarily scales back its effort at providing help for humans in need--which has been an extraordinary effort. I am not questioning the motivation of those who attempted it. It just simply has not produced results. There is a recognition across the spectrum now between Democrats and Republicans that we need to find better alternatives, that we need to support the role of the church, we need to encourage the role of the church, parish, and synagogue, of charity, of volunteer charity organizations, of volunteer associations, of PTA's, of all of the groups that are working now in our community--including the Salvation Army, on and on it goes--who want to do more but need help to do more. They need our involvement, No. 1. They need our funds, No. 2. But No. 3, the least we can do is remove an impediment to voluntarism when someone's lawyer says better not be involved with that group because, as you know, while it is purely a voluntary act, if something happens to some member of the board, this whole board can be sued. Every one of you will find your name on a summons. Every one of you will find your name as defendants in a lawsuit. Every one of you will have to pony up for money to pay the attorneys. These guys will squeeze us for years until we settle, and maybe there is no liability at all, but we cannot afford the time. We cannot afford the ultimate money. So we will simply put a settlement out and everybody has to kick in. So people are discouraged from exercising some of their best instincts. This legislation makes a great deal of sense. I hope my colleagues who did not support the cloture motion, the motion to allow us to go ahead and proceed with this legislation, I hope they will weigh that action against what is taking place in Philadelphia. I hope they will take the opportunity, as I just did in our reading room back here, to go and look at the stories and pictures in a whole number of newspapers from across the country--the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Chicago Tribune, and on and on it goes, USA Today--on the front page of every paper out there. A lead item on all the news stories last night was the Philadelphia summit, the President's gathering, organizations pledging, individuals committing to a new spirit of voluntarism that, hopefully, will sweep across this country, hopefully will reach out to those 40,000 kids and Big Brothers and Big Sisters that are waiting for a match that can change their life, that can make a difference in their lives. For all those who want to expand the board, expand the participation and expand the number of volunteers, I hope they will go and read the headlines and look at the pictures. I hope they will look at the pictures of the kid waiting for the Big Brother/Big Sister match, for the involvement of organizations that can help their family, for the encouragement of groups like Habitat for Humanity and others that are making some an extraordinary difference in our world today. We want to do more. We want to do better. We want to expand that effort. What is stopping us? The trial lawyers--the trial lawyers who will not even let us go ahead and debate the bill and vote on the bill. A cloture motion has to be filed to prevent a filibuster. Because of a strict party-line vote, which escapes me why every member of the other party feels it necessary to prevent this at the same time their President is urging, in an eloquent address--one of the best addresses I ever heard President Clinton give. I am not often standing at the lectern praising the President, but it was an extraordinary address to the thousands that were gathered yesterday in Philadelphia. It was a plea for support. Here we are trying to provide one measure of support to remove one disincentive to voluntarism, to serving on a board of directors. As I said, I am on the national board of Big Brothers and Big Sisters. We have discussed this. Lynn Swann comes down and testifies and says we can put more kids together with more mentors, but one of the things that is holding us back is the liability we expose volunteers to and the extraordinary increase in insurance premiums over the past several years because of all these lawsuits. So every dollar that Big Brothers and Big Sisters worked so hard to achieve to provide a match between a Big Brother, Big Sister and a little brother and a little sister, every dollar that has to go to pay the increased liability premiums is a dollar that cannot go to provide for a match or support a match. I hope my colleagues will reconsider and allow us to go forward with this. If it needs to be amended, we should amend it. If it needs to be modified, we should modify it. But do not stop it from even being discussed, debated, and voted on, particularly at a time when our President and our former Presidents and our Nation is saying, ``We want to do more. We need to do more. We must do more.'' We should not throw a bucket of cold water on what I think is a noble effort, a necessary effort, to address some of the basic human needs in this country. Mr. President, I appreciate the generosity of the Senator from Georgia in allowing me to address the Senate. I again commend him for his efforts, and hope that when we get to the next cloture vote we can do better than we did today.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I yield myself 10 minutes from the time controlled by the Senator from Georgia.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I appreciate the efforts of the Senator from Georgia in bringing to light an important issue that this Congress clearly needs to examine and examine quickly. Two basic problems exist with the President's attempt to unilaterally overturn a 50-year-old law. The first is that it usurps the very function of the legislative branch, and appears to be a payoff, a payoff to a special interest group--big labor. The President, knowing that he can't secure the support of a majority of the Congress, simply decides to bypass the Congress. I think it is a pure usurpation of the role of the legislative branch. Second, it will cost the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions, in additional expenses. To mandate that each agency seeking to contract with the Government needs to get big labor's seal of approval before making a contract award clearly is going to add substantial cost to Federal construction and to Federal contracting. If the Clinton administration wants to change the laws governing the awards of Federal contracts, it ought to have the courage to send the legislative changes to this Congress for consideration. If then it can make the case to the American people that the changes are justified, so be it. But it is simply unacceptable for the President to cut a deal with a special interest group that has been supportive of him politically, with such a deal having tremendous ramifications for the American economy and, arguably, circumventing the law. We simply cannot allow this kind of power grab to go unchecked. inheritance tax Mr. President, I also want to bring to the attention of the Senate an item that I found this morning in the Washington Post. I got up thinking it was going to be a good morning, poured myself a cup of coffee, got out the Post and the Washington Times, and was thumbing through and happened to come across a headline that certainly grabbed my attention. The Post article, written by Clay Chandler says, ``Treasury Official Slams Estate Tax Rollback Effort. Changes Sought as Part of Budget Pact.'' Deputy Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, senior member of the Clinton administration, and someone whom the Post says is clearly becoming one of the key players in the President's economic agenda, and certainly in the budget discussions, has indicated that the efforts to roll back the inheritance tax as part of this year's budget agreement is ``motivated by selfishness.'' He goes on to say, ``When it comes to the estate tax, there is no case other than selfishness'' for providing relief to families from this death tax. Further, he asserts that the evidence put forth in support of repealing the burdensome tax ``is about as bad as it gets.'' Mr. President, I would like to review for the Senate the evidence that currently exists about the effect of this so-called inheritance or death tax and let the Members of the Senate and the public decide whether or not this is ``as bad as it gets'' or is ``selfishness'' on the part of the American people. Currently the death tax would take as much as 55 to 60 percent of a small business owner's assets at death. Whether you are a farmer who has worked for years to build an estate, a small businessman, or an individual who has worked successfully and achieved some success and self-reliance and prudence in terms of how you use your money, or are someone who has planned for the future, upon death the family will find itself in a very unseemly situation, one that requires, immediately after the funeral, that the family move right on down to the IRS office to try to figure out how to deal with the extraordinarily difficult problem; that is, the Federal inheritance tax, or the so-called death tax. It is particularly difficult for those who have run a farm, those who have run a small business, those individuals who have paid a great price, and at great sacrifice, to accumulate some degree of wealth, to pass it on to the family. Clearly, the situation that exists today is that in many cases the farm or the business has to be sold instead of passed on through the family from generation after generation just to garner the funds necessary to pay the estate tax. When you are paying a 55 percent to 60 percent rate, it usually forces the sale of a particular business. The White House Conference on Small Business indicated that 70 percent of all family businesses do not survive through the second generation, and 87 percent do not make it to a third generation. The reason for this is pretty simple. The primary cause of the demise of family farms and businesses after the death of a founder and the founder's spouse is the death tax. When a tax can take more than half of the current valuation of the assets--many of these assets are invested in machinery, in buildings, in land, and in farm equipment, and the tax is more than half of that total valuation--very few families have the liquid assets available to pay the immediate tax and, therefore, have to liquidate the farm, have to sell off acreage, sell the entire farm, sell off the business, or sell ownership in the business, and it can't be passed on to the family. Recently the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated that between the years 1992 and 2002, more than 500,000 farmers will retire and that 95 percent of these farms are sole proprietorships, or family partnerships, and that every one of these estates, unless they are under a very low threshold, are subject to death taxes. On average, 75 percent of the farms in America today consist of nonliquid assets, such as I mentioned--real estate and farm equipment-- making payment of the death tax extraordinarily difficult to achieve without liquidating capital. For small business owners, 33 percent report that they expect all or part of their businesses will be liquidated when death taxes come due. Among a survey of black-owner enterprises, nearly one-third say their heirs will have to sell the business to pay the death tax, and more than 80 percent report that they do not have sufficient assets to pay the death tax. If that wasn't bad enough, look at the average cost of just paying those taxes. The average family business spends nearly $20,000 in legal fees, $12,000 in accounting fees, and $11,000 for other advisers in order to do the paperwork and the processing to compute the tax and to sell the necessary assets to pay the death tax. Mr. President, the point here is not how many examples we can give of ``bad and selfish'' evidence that Mr. Summers cited. I don't think any of this could be categorized as ``bad and selfish'' evidence. That doesn't serve the point to castigate Mr. Summers. The bottom line is that the Congress owes it to all Americans, and particularly the American farmer and the American small business men and women and their families, to get relief from the current estate tax, which is a perverse tax that goes against the very things that we want Americans to strive for. We want Americans to be self-reliant. We want them to save and to invest. We want them to build up their businesses and their farms. We want them to be prudent. We want them to be self-reliant. And we want them to have the ability to pass that farm on to the next generation and the next generation. I have a very close friend who runs a farm in western Kansas. It is a typical farm that you find in the West with thousands and thousands of acres because of the sparse amount of rainfall--raising hogs and cattle, a great investment in equipment and land, barely making it from year to year, depending on the weather. Some years are better than others. When this individual dies--and their farm has been in the family now for two generations--his son's dream has been to continue the farm within the family. Yet, my friend is faced with what farmers and business men and women all across this country are faced with: The reality that, upon the death of he and his spouse, most of the farm will have to be sold or liquidated in order to pay the taxes. It is a double form of taxation because the earnings from that farm have been taxed on a year-to-year basis. So it is a governmental grab. Is it selfish to want hard-working Americans to be able to keep the assets they have accumulated through their ability or good fortune, hard work and dedication? Is it selfish to say that they can't pass that on to their family but they are better off giving it to the Government so that Government can make better use of that money than the family to continue the business or continue the farm? I think we have all heard the horror stories about how $1 comes into Washington, comes into the Government, and suddenly disappears. We can't trace where it goes. Of the money which goes into fighting poverty, 65 percent never makes it to the people who are the recipients, who are at or below the poverty line. It gets eaten up in bureaucracy. It gets eaten up in other special designations. So, Mr. President, the American dream is not to die and pass everything you have worked so hard--Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 3 additional minutes.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, the American dream has been to be prudent, to save, to try to make life better for your children and your grandchildren than it has been for you. The current inheritance tax system takes away that American dream--the dream that one generation can build upon the success of another to build a better life for themselves and their children. The current tax sends a message that the Government will take away what you have earned and not allow you to pass it on. That is a disincentive to work hard. It is a disincentive to be successful, a disincentive to pursue the American dream because when you die the fruits of your labors will be taken away from you and away from your family and given to the Government. This is selfish? Mr. Summers, who speaks for the President and the Vice President, says this ``is about as bad as it gets;'' that it is about as selfish as it gets; that it is selfish to want to retain the fruits of your labors; that it is unselfish to give it to the Government, which in many instances wastes the money that you have worked so hard for. The President campaigned on repeal of the exemption for the estate tax, and Senator Dole when he was running for President on his proposal to lower the estate tax. Now that we are debating this in the budget, Mr. Summers comes along and says it is a selfish thing to want to do. I don't think it selfish, Mr. President, to allow the American taxpayers to keep the fruits of their hard-earned labors and not to have it taxed away to the point where they have to sell their farms, to sell their businesses, or to sell their assets just to pay the tax to the Government. Mr. President, I am a proud a cosponsor of legislation--in fact, four pieces of legislation--that call for repeal or at least reduction in the amount of estate tax to counter the efforts that are currently underway to eliminate even the exemption. I am pleased, and I hope that the Congress will hold firm on this issue as we go through our budget negotiations. I would like to, in closing, invite Mr. Summers to visit some mom and pop businesses in Indiana that are hard hit by this devastating tax. I would like them to visit some farms of some friends of mine who want to pass it on to their children and grandchildren but have to liquidate the farm in order to pay the estate tax. Come out to Indiana and tell the family that is forced to sell the farm or the business that has been in the family for more than 100 years that they are being selfish for wanting to keep that farm in the family and not to turn that money over to the Government. Mr. President, the Federal Tax Code is the only part of this debate that can truly be labeled selfish. The Government has no right to take unjustly the fruits of its citizens' labors. I hope the President and the Vice President will quickly disavow the statement made today, or reported today in the Washington Post, by Mr. Summers when he calls it selfish on the part of the American people to try to retain the business of a farm that they have worked so hard to acquire. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I thank the Senator from Georgia.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I rise in support of H.R. 1003 and I urge my fellow Senators also to vote in favor of this legislation. This bill simply prohibits the use of Federal funds for the controversial and immoral practice of assisted suicide. It rightly keeps the Federal Government out of the business of killing. The bill prevents the use of funds to provide health care items or services ``furnished for the purpose of causing * * * the death of any individual, such as by assisted suicide, euthanasia or mercy killing.'' Death of the individual has been included because proponents of assisted suicide, mercy killing, and euthanasia often use other terms to describe these activities, such as physician aid in dying. In fact, the Oregon Death with Dignity Act, which legalizes these actions under certain circumstances, specifically provides that ``actions taken in accordance with [this law] shall not, for any purpose, constitute assisted suicide, mercy killing, or homicide''--even though the actions precisely are assisted suicide or mercy killing! The bill is very clear about the activity that should not receive Federal funds: an item or service furnished for the purpose of causing the death of any individual will not be funded by American taxpayers. Close observers will note that this broad language is used in sections 3, 4, and 7 of the bill, while more narrow language is used in sections 2, 5, and 6, where funds are prohibited for ``causing the suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing of any individual. The broad language is used with regard to the general prohibition on health care funding (section 3), the prohibition on the use of funds under the Developmental Disabilities Assistance Act (section 4), and the Patient Self Determination Act (section 7) to ensure that the activities and actions intended not to receive Federal funds in fact do not receive them. The broad language is necessary because proponents often describe these activities in different terms; it is used without concern of unintended consequences because the programs covered in these instances are clearly and narrowly defined. The narrow language is used in the bill's findings and purposes provisions (section 2, which does not have the force of law), restrictions on advocacy programs (section 5), and restrictions on funding for mercy killing, euthanasia, and assisted suicide in national defense and criminal justice programs (section 6) because broad language, if applied to these programs, could have unintended consequences. For example, if the broad language were used with respect to criminal justice enforcement, it may have the effect of prohibiting capital punishment. But this bill is only about funding for assisted suicide--mainly in Federal health care programs, because proponents of assisted suicide are successfully legitimizing assisted suicide--for some--as a form of health or medical care. Assisted suicide is not health care. Or medical care. The Federal Government, supported by all American by all American tax payers, should not pay for this. This carefully crafted bill will ensure that that does not happen. It deserves our support. Some questions have arisen as to whether H.R. 1003 applies to the provision or withholding or withdrawing of medical treatment, medical care, nutrition, or hydration. My reading of the bill indicates that the bill does not address such situations. H.R. 1003 is a deliberately narrow piece of legislation. It deals with the issue of Federal subsidies for direct killing, as by a lethal injection or a lethal drug. It is not designed to address or affect in any way, positively or negatively, Federal funding for the withholding or withdrawal of medical treatment and medical care, nutrition or hydration. Nor is it designed to address affect in any way, positively or negatively, such withholding or withdrawal in veterans' hospitals, military hospitals, or other Federal facilities. Therefore, Mr. President, no one should read into the adoption of this legislation any expression of blanket congressional approval for the practice of withholding or withdrawing of nutrition and hydration or, for that matter, of any lifesaving medical treatment. This Senator, for one, is convinced that causing a patient to die of starvation or dehydration is absolutely wrong. I, for one, would not have supported this bill as an original cosponsor if I believed that it authorized the use of Federal funds to withhold or withdraw nutrition and hydration from a patient. Indeed, I am convinced that every Member of this body, and I dare say of the other body as well, can think of at least some circumstances in which he or she would agree that denial of medical treatment, or of food and fluids, is wrong and should not be subsidized with Federal tax dollars. Plainly, then in voting for this legislation we do not intend some broad sanction for denial of nutrition, hydration, medical treatment and care. All we do in section 3(b) of H.R. 1003 is make clear the narrow scope of this bill: that it deals with direct killing only, and not with these other practices. Thus, section 3(b) should be read simply as a scope limitation for this legislation, and not as expressing a substantive policy position on withholding or withdrawing medical treatment, medical care, nutrition or hydration. That is a matter for another day. In conclusion, Mr. President, I want to express my firm belief that ours is a Nation that should direct itself to expanding the scope of the human community; to ensuring that all its members enjoy full access to the protection of life, liberty, and happiness. Our culture is one that increasingly commits itself to death, to killing those that some do not consider to be part of the human family. For years some in this country have treated the preborn child as unworthy of that protection. Recently, the President has vetoed a ban on partial-birth abortions-- has allowed the killing of a child just three inches and 3 seconds from full protection of the law. Now our culture is moving toward promoting the killing of the elderly, the handicapped, those who suffer desperately--instead of offering them support, resources, and hope. I commend the Senator from Missouri for his excellent work on this bill and his steadfast efforts to prevent taxpayers from being forced to support a culture of death. His work reclaims some of our hope that America can again be a beacon of light in a culture of life.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, yesterday, I took the floor to detail what I thought was an extremely disturbing and very potentially abuse of Executive power of the White House to improperly influence the outcome of the American Presidential election. As part of that chronology of events of information that we now know that has been printed and that we are aware of, I detailed the situation relative to the latest scandal that has been reported in the press, and that involves Mr. Lake, former National Security Adviser to the President, an individual nominated for the job as Director of the CIA. Mr. Lake, as we all now know, withdrew his name from consideration the day after a major story broke about a problem involving the Democratic National Committee, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Council, and the fundraising operation of the White House. I think this is probably the most damaging, or at least one of the most damaging allegations relative to the entire fundraising efforts by the Democratic Party for this last election. We now know that the Central Intelligence Agency was used by the Democratic National Committee to encourage access to the President by an individual who is an international fugitive and was a major donor to the Democratic Party. The administration, in response to Mr. Lake's withdrawal, indicated that it was the confirmation process by members of the Intelligence Committee that is at fault in the withdrawal of the Lake nomination. The fault, Mr. President, I suggest, lies elsewhere. The Lake nomination was eventually undermined because Mr. Lake was forced to operate, or at least chose to operate or was forced to operate, in the very center, the very heart of a political fundraising machine whose abuses are revealed to us each day as we pick up the paper in the morning. The White House blames partisan Republicans, and yet a major story in the New York Times today, titled ``Leading Democrat Tells of Doubt of CIA Nominee, White House Was Warned, Senator Kerrey's Reservations May Have Persuaded Lake Not To Fight the GOP,'' hardly speaks to a partisan effort to dethrone Mr. Lake. Legitimate questions were asked of Mr. Lake of what his role was as National Security Adviser to the President in terms of clearing certain individuals to come to the White House for various favors, coffees, Lincoln Bedroom stays, et cetera, and, on several occasions--at least two that we know of--the National Security Council issued very direct reservations and, in fact, warnings about certain individuals who, nevertheless, attended more than one meeting at the White House. Mr. Lake's response was that he essentially was out of the loop; he did not know what was going on. Legitimate questions were raised: If you did not know what was going on with a 150-member staff that went to the very essence of the Presidency, of who sees the President, of what the involvement of these individuals is relative to fundraising for the election, if you are not aware of that going on, how are you possibly going to manage a multithousand-member agency with 12 separate divisions as important to the security of the United States as the Central Intelligence Agency? So even though the White House blamed partisan Republicans, we now know that the vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee had raised his own concerns about Mr. Lake's qualifications and what his role was and the role of the National Security Council in terms of all this fundraising morass that the administration is caught up in. Mr. President, fortunately, publications that are following the story are not buying the White House response. The New York Times editorial today states: In the end, Mr. Lake was undone by Mr. Clinton's reckless 1996 election campaign and the failure of top White House officials, including Mr. Lake, to insulate American foreign policy from fundraising efforts. That is an extraordinary statement, Mr. President, and I want to repeat it. The New York Times editorial today refuting the White House response to Mr. Lake's withdrawal from nomination to be CIA Director, states: In the end, Mr. Lake was undone by Mr. Clinton's reckless 1996 election campaign and the failure of top White House officials, including Mr. Lake, to insulate American foreign policy from fundraising efforts. Jim Hoagland, in today's Washington Post, states: [Lake] is not a victim of the system but of the President he served. His angry words try to obscure an embarrassment and the true dimension of one more political fiasco at the Clinton White House. One more close Clinton associate is badly damaged while the President cruises on with high but flagging approval ratings. To continue: The system that did in Tony Lake is the one that allowed the fundraisers to trump Lake's staff repeatedly over access to the White House. In Washington the system is people--people who are supremely attuned to the wishes, needs, and whims of the boss. If Roger Tamraz, Chinese arms supplier Wang Jun, Thai trade lobbyist Pauline Kanchanalak and the others made it into the White House, it is ultimately because Bill Clinton communicated, in one form or another, that he did not want tight screening of campaign contributors. In the end, Tony Lake paid the price for Clinton's need not to know. That from today's Washington Post. Then, finally, Maureen Dowd in the New York Times states: Although Mr. Lake's ``haywire'' line got all the attention-- That is referring to a process ``gone haywire'' that Mr. Lake stated-- it was another sentence in his letter that provided the real reason for his withdrawal. Quoting Ms. Dowd: In addition, the story today about the activities of Mr. Roger Tamraz is likely to lead to further delay as an investigation proceeds. Maureen Dowd goes on to state: Mr. Lake would have had a tough time explaining why he was missing in action while the Democratic Party tried to use the CIA to pressure Mr. Lake's office to help get an accused embezzler and big donor access to the White House. The cold war might be over, but don't these agencies have something better to do than vet global hustlers and fat cats? Sheila Heslin, an NSC Asia expert with a regard for ethics unusually high for the Clinton White House, offered to shield the President from the notorious Roger Tamraz. But like the ubiquitous Johnny Chung, who also got into the White House despite tepid NSC warnings, Mr. Tamraz had his run of the people's house. So that's why Tony Lake pulled out: She concludes-- He was not Borked. He was Tamrazzed. Mr. President, former President Harry Truman had on his desk a sign that said, ``The buck stops here.'' Unfortunately, it seems that the sign posted throughout the White House and throughout this administration is ``The Buck Must Rest Somewhere Else; It Sure Doesn't Stop Here.'' Mr. President, we have a very serious situation before us. We have allegations, backed by substantial evidence, that the executive power of the White House was abused to improperly influence the outcome of an American Presidential election. We have serious questions about foreign governments' involvement at invitation by the Democratic Party and the Clinton administration, involvement in helping corrupt American elections. We have serious allegations, backed by considerable evidence, that the privilege of American citizenship has been distorted and undermined to serve the President's reelection. And now we are forced to ask, were American intelligence services manipulated by this administration as part of this fundraising machine? All of this, Mr. President, speaks for the need for independent counsel, speaks for the need to move this process outside of the Congress because clearly the administration has taken the position that whatever is said by this Member or any other Member of the Republican Party is simply partisan politics, that everything that happens is directed from a partisan basis. What we are trying to get at here, Mr. President, is the truth. What we are trying to do is examine what statutes were violated, trying to examine what ethics rulings were violated, trying to impose some standards on the way in which we conduct elections in this country and the way in which the White House is viewed and held by occupants of that White House and what its purpose should be. Mr. President, for that reason, I supported the resolution to call for an independent counsel. I would hope that the Attorney General would pay close attention to the recently passed Senate resolution in that regard. I think these are serious issues and they must be addressed. Finally, let me just say that the practice of this administration and this President of simply saying, the process is corrupt, that the Congress is partisan, that all of this has to do with politics and none of this has to do with ethics and legal violations, that that is a lame excuse and removal from accountability and responsibility that we expect in the leadership of this country. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. CRAIG addressed the Chair.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, it is my understanding, under the previous unanimous consent agreement, that discussion and debate will be taking place on either the resolution that Senators just voted on or the pending independent counsel resolution. Is that a correct assumption?

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I do not believe I will consume the full 40 minutes. In fact, I am sure I will not. And if I finish before that, I would be happy to yield that time back to expedite the process. Mr. President, I generally believe that the Senate floor should be a place to talk about issues, not about scandals. So my first inclination is to voice my support for an independent counsel and hope the process will take its course. The need for this investigation should be beyond question, proven on the front page of the newspaper every morning. Under normal circumstances, there would be little more to say. But this circumstance is not normal because it now concerns some of the most disturbing questions that can be asked in a democracy. Was the executive power of the White House abused to improperly influence the outcome of an American Presidential election? Were foreign governments invited by the Democratic Party and the Clinton administration to corrupt American elections? Was the privilege of American citizenship distorted and undermined to serve the President's reelection? And now we are forced to ask, were American intelligence services manipulated by this administration as part of its fundraising machine? The revelations that began last October, and have continued until this morning, do not primarily concern the low standards of our current campaign finance system. Those standards, it has been argued, should be changed. We will be debating that in this body. What the almost daily revelations we have seen do concern are the legal and ethical breaches of the current standards by the Clinton administration. And that charge is different in kind in the seriousness from the policy debate on campaign finance reform. It is not the technical violation of campaign finance law that primarily concern me. Those are for lawyers and prosecutors to debate and decide. The issue is far greater than the sum of those ethical and legal problems. All of the strands of this scandal--high-pressure soft- money fundraising, illegal foreign contributions, the abuse of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and of the CIA--reveal an administration obsessed with reelection, indifferent to ethical rules and organized to skirt the law. All of these efforts were directed toward one event, and one date: The Presidential election on November 5, 1996. There are countless complex elements to this scandal, but only one central issue. Was the executive branch of Government corrupted and compromised by a rogue political election operation centered in the Democratic National Committee, the Office of the President, the Office of the Vice President, and the Office of the First Lady? By definition--no matter what the justification--this would not just be a violation of legal and ethical standards regarding campaign financing, but arguably a crime against democracy itself. The most recent revelation is one of the most damaging. We now know that the Central Intelligence Agency was used by the Democratic National Committee to encourage access to the President by Roger Tamraz, an international fugitive and major donor to the Democrat Party. We know that Donald Fowler, chairman of the DNC, made a call to the CIA asking that that agency provide classified information to the White House about Mr. Tamraz and his business interests in a pipeline project funded partially by Chinese businessmen. When the National Security Council refused to recommend a meeting between Mr. Tamraz and President Clinton, the White House eventually scheduled at least four that we know of. One meeting in April 1996 took place while Mr. Tamraz was being sought for questioning by Interpol, the international police agency, for bank fraud in Lebanon. Mr. Tamraz made $177,000 in donations to Democrat causes and maintained business ties with both Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Muammar Qadhafi's Libya. The White House has responded by saying in effect, as they have said to every issue that has been raised regarding their ethics and regarding their fundraising operation, ``Well, everyone is doing it.'' Mr. President, unless there are things going on here in the Senate that I do not know about, the White House defense that ``everyone is doing it'' does not apply here. It has been said that the confirmation process is at fault in the withdrawal of the Anthony Lake nomination, the individual who headed the National Security Council during these events. The fault, in fact, Mr. President, lies elsewhere. The Lake nomination was eventually undermined because he was forced to operate in the heart of a political fundraising machine whose abuses are being revealed to us in expanded detail each day. The White House blames partisan Republicans, but the final straw in the failure of this nomination came because our intelligence services were politicized for partisan political advantage. We are not entirely sure what Mr. Lake's role was in this. That is the reason why we requested interviews with NSC staff, interviews that were denied, and why we were going to seek today subpoenas to order those interviews to take place. But we do know what the White House role was. And it was clearly inappropriate. If Anthony Lake is the victim of a political process gone haywire, that political process is to be found in the White House itself. The most recent revelation is part of a pattern, a pattern of abusing executive power for political ends. Concerning political solicitation at the White House, we now know that the Office of the President, the Office of the Vice President, and the Office of the First Lady were all involved in these efforts. We know that the President's request for immediate action on fundraising in early 1995--the written message that read ``ready to start overnights right away''--we know that this began a program of White House coffees and Lincoln Bedroom overnights that eventually raised nearly $40 million. We know that an unsigned memo was written to Martha Phipps, deputy chief of staff to the chairman of the Democratic Party, which suggested 10 White House rewards for major donors: two seats on Air Force One, two seats on Air Force Two; six seats at all private dinners; six to eight spots at all White House ceremonies and events; official delegation trips abroad; better coordination on appointments to boards and commissions; White House mess privileges; White House resident visits and overnight stays; guaranteed Kennedy Center tickets; six radio address spots; photo opportunities with White House principals. We know, Mr. President, that at least 7 of these 10 perks were actually used in fundraising efforts. We know that the administration, in its fundraising efforts, applied few, if any, ethical standards to those who were given access to the White House. Included in the White House coffees with President Clinton were a major drug dealer, a twice-convicted felon for theft and tax offenses, a Chinese arms dealer, and an international fugitive on conspiracy and embezzlement charges. We know that the Vice President, Mr. Gore, solicited campaign contributions by telephone from his White House office on more than 50 occasions. One business figure who received a call recounts--and I quote--``There were elements of a shakedown in the call. It was very awkward. For a Vice President, particularly this Vice President who has real power and is the heir apparent, to ask for money gave me no choice.'' We know that the First Lady's chief of staff, Margaret Williams, accepted a $50,000 political contribution at the White House. We know that Harold Ickes, assistant to the President, wrote a memo to a major Democrat contributor advising him on ways to make a $5 million contribution to the Democratic National Committee tax deductible. The three-page document detailed how such a contribution could be filtered through 501(c)3 organizations that were helpful to Democrat reelection efforts. In the memo, Mr. Ickes wrote, ``If possible, it would be greatly appreciated if the following amounts could be wired to designated banks.'' We know there was a clear direction from the President and First Lady to use a White House computer database for political purposes. That database, by the way, was purchased with $1.7 million of taxpayer dollars. One memo marked ``Confidential'' from White House political aide Marsha Scott argues that the database be made available ``to the [Democrat National Committee] and other entities we choose to work with for political purposes.'' On this memo are the handwritten words, ``This sounds promising. Please advise.'' Signed HRC. Another memo from Ms. Scott, to Erskine Bowles, the President's current chief of staff, outlines a plan to use the database to reward supporters with ``trinkets'' and access. The memo concludes, ``This is the President's idea and it is a good one.'' Another memo from Ms. Scott to Thomas McLarty, the President's former chief of staff, states of this plan, ``Both the President and the First Lady have asked me to make this my top priority.'' We know, Mr. President, that former White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum, early in the Clinton administration, had contributed a memo titled ``Criminal Statutes.'' In that memo he wrote, ``A number of criminal statutes prohibit the use of Federal programs, [Federal] property or employment for political purposes. Violation of these criminal statutes is punishable by imprisonment and/or payment of a substantial fine.'' The memo went on to outline the type of activities clearly prohibited by the law: ``Soliciting or receiving campaign contributions on Federal property or in Federal buildings. This means that fundraising events may not be held [--may not be held--] at the White House; that no fundraising phone calls or mail may emanate from the White House or any other Federal buildings; and that no campaign contributions may be accepted at the White House or any other Federal buildings.'' So, Mr. President, based on the Nussbaum memo, the former White House counsel memo, then White House counsel, we know this administration was fully informed of these ethical and legal standards, the standards of the current system, but we also know those standards were broadly and repeatedly violated at every level of the Clinton White House. And then there is the issue of White House political involvement in foreign political contributions. We know that many of the principal figures in the current scandal-- including John Huang, Charlie Trie and Johnny Chung--have been longtime Clinton supporters, some brought to Washington from Arkansas. They have had open access to this administration --Huang visiting the White House 78 times in 15 months and Chung visiting at least 49 times. We know that Johnny Chung took six Chinese businessmen to the White House to hear President Clinton's radio address on March 11, 1996, in exchange for a $50,000 contribution to the Democratic National Committee--the contribution that was given to Margaret Williams on March 17. We know that Charlie Trie attempted to make a $460,000 contribution to the President's legal defense fund, claiming the money was collected from a variety of sources. Yet the serial numbers on the money orders were sequential and much of the handwriting was identical. Initially, only $70,000 of the money was returned. It took several months for the law firm overseeing the fund to return the remainder of the contribution. We know, Mr. President, that John Huang was an official at the Clinton Commerce Department with a top-secret security clearance. While an official at Commerce, he recommended policies unfavorable to Taiwan and supported by China. We know that John Huang visited the Chinese Embassy at least two times during his tenure. In one instance, Mr. Huang requested top-secret documents on May 10, 1995, the day he was scheduled to meet the Chinese Ambassador. We know that in an Oval Office meeting on September 13, 1995 -- including President Clinton, Bruce Lindsey, John Huang, and James Riady, the Indonesian head of the Lippo Group--a decision was made to transfer Mr. Huang to the Democratic National Committee where he became vice chairman of finance. We know that John Huang approached officials of the Asian American Business Roundtable with a plan to channel more than $250,000 through roundtable members to the Democratic National Committee in return for a $45,000 kickback. We know Huang helped arrange a California fundraiser at a Buddhist temple, attended by Vice President Gore, in which illegal contributions were transmitted to the DNC through third parties. One participant was paid $5,000 in cash in small bills and told to write a check. Vice President Gore claimed for 2 months he was unaware this event was a fundraiser. But a memo later surfaced that revealed that Vice President Gore's staff had briefed him on the fundraising purpose of the event. We know that John Huang raised more than $3 million for Democrats in illegal contributions from Asian sources. We know that the FBI, based on surveillance of the Chinese Embassy, expressed serious concerns that the Chinese Government was attempting to influence American elections through illegal contributions. That information was communicated to two officials at the Clinton White House in June of 1996. For reasons that for the moment are unclear, Mr. President, that information was not acted upon. Another area of White House political involvement concerns the Immigration and Naturalization Service. We know in September 1995 a Democrat activist from Illinois wrote to the First Lady to alert her of an ``opportunity'' presented by a new Immigration and Naturalization Service policy to increase the pace of naturalization. Daniel Solis wrote, ``The people stuck in Chicago's naturalization bottleneck represent thousands of potential voters.'' He added that ``similar backlogs exist in politically important States'' like California and Texas. We know the Vice President's office initiated a program called Reinventing Citizenship USA. We know the Vice President's office became involved in this project. A senior advisor to Vice President Gore sent an e-mail to a gentleman by the name of Dough Farbrother, another Gore aide, in March of 1996. Mr. Farbrother, being another Vice Presidential aide, received the memo in 1996, and that memo stated, ``The President is sick of this and wants action.'' We know that in a later message to the Vice President, Mr. Farbrother said that the Immigration and Naturalization Service is not doing enough to ``produce a million new citizens before election day.'' He concluded that, ``Unless we blast INS headquarters loose from their grip on the front line managers, we are going to have way too many people still waiting for citizenship in November.'' We know that Mr. Farbrother later drafted a memo to President Clinton on behalf of Vice President Gore, which stated that ``if we are too aggressive in removing the roadblocks to success, we might be publicly criticized for running a pro-Democrat voter mill and even having Congress stop us.'' We know that as a result of these efforts 180,000 people were processed without criminal background checks. Clearly, the standards of citizenship were bent and broken for political purposes. Mr. President, in the middle of all this political activity at the White House, designed to influence the Presidential election, Vice President Gore made the following statement: ``The ethical standards established in this White House have been the highest in the history of the White House. You have a tougher code of ethics, tougher requirements, strictly abided by.'' When that statement was made last year, it was barely credible. Today, that statement is offensive and outrageous. Evidence piles upon evidence of legal and ethical wrongdoing in the Clinton administration. Mr. President, each day, it seems, either the New York Times, or the Washington Post, or the Wall Street Journal, or other major, credible investigative organizations, detail new improper or illegal activity, or both, coming out of this administration, related to the campaign financing operation run in the White House during the last election. As a consequence of this, I believe we are forced to three conclusions by this unfolding scandal. First, the White House, in preparation for the election, was turned into a political machine--more like Tammany Hall than the most ethical White House in history. The staff of the President, the staff of the Vice President, the First Lady, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and even the CIA were all involved. We are not sure exactly what the direct involvement was of the President. We know the Vice President, who was referred to as ``solicitor in chief,'' was a key player in all of this, in one way or another, Mr. President, with fundraising or increasing the number of Democrat voters. There was even use of the CIA in the operation to fund this election, which was conducted in an unprecedented and extraordinary and very disturbing way. Clearly, all the advantages of the executive branch were employed in the President's reelection effort. Mr. President, there is something deeply disturbing and inherently troubling about all of this. In a democracy, we prevent public officials from using their public office to improperly influence the outcome of elections because such practices are, perhaps, the most serious form of corruption in a democracy. The second conclusion from all of this is that the return of illegal money by the Democrat National Committee comes after the benefits that it bought, after the election is past and after the damage is done. In reality, the money raised by Johnny Huang and others cannot be returned because it has already been used. The DNC will simply raise new money, which is then refunded. We must not fool ourselves that returning illegal money is sufficient punishment, or any kind of punishment at all. It turns illegal funds into a campaign loan to be repaid after the votes are counted. And now it is unclear just when that loan will ever be repaid, because despite public announcements that the DNC is returning illegal contributions, not a penny--at least a reported penny--has yet been returned. Finally, this unfolding story of the White House improperly influencing the result of the national election is not politics as usual, as is so often alleged by the White House in response to each new allegation. This is something unique and something uniquely disturbing. This administration wants us to believe that its actions, if questionable, were normal practice, but we must never, Mr. President, become immune to illegality. This record of broken trust and broken rules does not primarily indicate the need for campaign finance reform; it indicates the need for further FBI investigation. It indicates the need for immediate firings in the White House. It may indicate the need for criminal prosecutions. It certainly indicates the need for independent counsel. Every time the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, or other publication reports a new aspect of this scandal, the same response comes back from the White House: ``Republicans are being partisan. This is just politics. We all do it, so let's clean up the mess together.'' No one at the White House, in any context, seems willing to take responsibility for ethical and legal violations. If the White House will not assume that responsibility, then it must be imposed. Senator Thompson's committee will doubtlessly do good work, but its results will almost certainly be attacked and discounted by the Clinton administration as simply ``partisan politics.'' I supported the effort to allow that committee to move forward in its investigation. But it is clear that the pattern of response from the White House now that whatever is said either by this Senator on this floor, or any Republican on this floor, or any Republican in a public statement, or conducted by any committee controlled by a Republican chairman--it's clear now that every question asked, every allegation made, and every statement offered is simply labeled as ``partisan politics.'' For that reason, it seems that in the end, we have no choice but to proceed with independent counsel. While far from perfect--and I have had my reservations about independent prosecutors--such a process, however, was designed to move questions of criminality outside the political process. And those questions of criminality in this case are serious questions--as serious as it gets--and may reach to the very highest levels of our Government. This administration has maintained its power, but has squandered its integrity. It has actively undermined the integrity of an American Presidential election. This is a breathtaking act of political arrogance. Yet, the President insists it was justified because, in his words, ``The direction of the country was at stake.'' I wonder what the public response would have been, Mr. President, if during the Watergate investigation of then President Nixon the response from the President, the response from the Vice President, and the response from the administration had been that all the means that we took, all the things that we engaged in were justified because our political agenda and the direction of our country was at stake. To overlook virtually every questionable, improper, illegal practice, and to overlook this 14 pages of what we know--who knows what we don't know?--and simply say that it was justified on the basis that the agenda of this administration was so important that any law could be violated, that any ethics rule could be overlooked, that any practice could be undertaken, simply to advance their political agenda for the future of America, puts this country in a dangerous, dangerous situation. The ends do not justify the means. While the President and his party feel strongly about what the agenda should be for this country, it is clear that there are opposing agendas that are debated every day on the Senate floor and in the Congress, and debated among the American people. It is political arrogance to suggest that one party's political agenda for the future of this country justifies the kinds of campaign practices that took place in the reelection effort of this President. The White House for years has chosen its own direction. That direction appears to be the corruption of the very democratic process itself. Mr. President, I believe this situation has become so serious and so potentially threatening, and damaging to the political process and to the office of the Presidency that an independent counsel is needed, and needed immediately. I, therefore, will join with many here in this body in a sense-of-the-Senate resolution calling upon the Attorney General to immediately name an independent counsel, someone who is above reproach, whose credibility is acceptable to the American people, whose integrity is unquestioned, to investigate the extraordinary serious allegations printed in major newspapers with great credibility. Just reading the quotes alone from memos obtained regarding some of these practices raises enough question I believe for the appointment of an independent counsel. I hope my colleagues will join me in this effort. Clearly the administration and the White House has decided to follow the course of labeling every charge as simply a partisan attack, equating campaign financing in the last congressional election with what took place at the White House--and they are leagues apart in terms of degree-- attempting to confuse the issue with phrases like ``Mistakes were made''; ``We promise we won't do it again, even though we are proud of what we have done.'' The phrases and comments that seem to indicate that we are all in the same pot together on this one; ``You guys did it. We did it. Let's put behind us what was done and move forward to clean up the system.'' I think it is time people began to take responsibility for their own actions. Since the White House refuses to do this, I think it is appropriate that we move forward with independent counsel. I will be supporting the resolution to be voted on tomorrow. Mr. President, if I have any time left, I yield that time. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. This coming Wednesday, Mr. President, March 19, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on the constitutionality of the Communications Decency Act. This act was passed by this Senate in the last Congress by an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of 84-16. The previous Senator talked of cooperation between parties, and there certainly was a significant degree of cooperation on this issue. We worked on a bipartisan basis, securing 84 votes for its passage. Eventually, Congress passed the act as part of the historic telecommunications reform legislation. The Communications Decency Act, passed by Congress by an overwhelming, bipartisan margin, and signed by the President, simply extends the principle that exists in every other medium of communication in our society, a principle which has been repeatedly upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court. Stated simply, this principle holds that it is the responsibility of the person who provides material deemed pornographic, that it is that person's responsibility to restrict access by minors to that material. The foundation of the principle is articulated clearly in the case New York versus Ferber, and I quote from that case: ``It is evident beyond the need for elaboration that the State's interest in `safeguarding the physical and psychological well-being of a minor' is compelling.'' Let me repeat that judicial decision again, New York versus Ferber. ``It is evident beyond the need for elaboration that the State's interest in `safeguarding the physical and psychological well-being of a minor' is compelling.'' This principle of compelling interest is the basis on which the Communications Decency Act was constructed. That is why we believe it is constitutional and the Court will hold it so after it hears the arguments next Wednesday. There is a long history of court decisions which recognize the interest of the State in safeguarding the psychological and physical well-being of minors. Mr. President, I have a copy of a brief in support of the Communications Decency Act. It was filed by a number of organizations: Enough is Enough, the Salvation Army, the National Political Congress of Black Women, the National Council of Catholic Women, Victims Assistance Legal Organization, Childhelp USA, Legal Pad Enterprises, Inc., Focus on the Family, the National Coalition for the Preservation of Family, Children and Family, Citizens for Family Friendly Libraries, Computer Power Corp., Help Us Regain the Children Organization--I am just reading some of these here--Mothers Against Sexual Abuse, National Association of Evangelicals, One Voice/American Coalition for Abuse Awareness, Religious Alliance Against Pornography, Lenore J. Weitzman, Ph.D., and so forth, a whole series of groups that have filed this brief. I commend these organizations for their leadership. I will be drawing on some of their comments in the brief during my remarks. Mr. President, it is now beyond question that exposure to pornography harms children. A child's sexual development occurs gradually throughout childhood. Exposure to pornography, particularly the type of hard-core pornography currently available on the Internet, distorts the natural sexual development of children. Essentially, pornography shapes children's sexual perspective by providing them distorted information on sexual activity. The type of information provided by pornography does not provide children with a normal sexual perspective. As stated in the brief, pornography portrays unhealthy or antisocial kinds of sexual activity such as sadomasochism, abuse, and humiliation of females, involvement of children, incest, voyeurism, bestiality, torture, objectification and is readily available on the Internet. The Communications Decency Act is designed, as I said, to employ the same restrictions that are currently employed, and have been held constitutional, in every other medium of communication. Why do we need these protections? Let me quote Ann Burgess, professor of nursing at the University of Pennsylvania, when she states that children generally do not have a natural sexual capacity until the ages of 10 or 12, but pornography unnaturally accelerates that development. By short-circuiting the normal development process and supplying misinformation about their own sexuality, pornography leaves children confused, changed, and damaged. Mr. President, this is not what the Congress wants. This is not what the American people want. We expressed that in our debate and in our vote in the last Congress. Surely we have not come to a point in our society where we find it tolerable that any pornographer with a computer and a modem can crawl inside our children's minds and distort and corrupt their sexual development? As if the psychological threat of pornography doesn't present a sufficient compelling interest, there is also a significant physical threat. As I have stated, pornography develops in children a distorted sexual perspective. It encourages irresponsible, dehumanized sexual behavior, conduct that presents a genuine physical threat to children. In the United States today, about one in four sexually active teenagers acquire a sexually transmitted disease every year, resulting in 3 million sexually transmitted disease cases. Infectious syphilis rates have more than doubled among teenagers since the mideighties. One million American teenage girls become pregnant each year. A report entitled ``Exposure to Pornography, Character and Sexual Deviance,'' concluded that as more and more children become exposed not only to soft-core pornography, but also to explicit deviant sexual material, society's youth will learn an extremely dangerous message: Sex without responsibility is acceptable. Mr. President, it is clear that early exposure to pornography presents a disturbing psychological threat to children and a disturbing physical threat. However, there is a darker and even more ominous threat, for research has established a direct link between exposure and consumption of pornography and sexual assault, rape, and molesting of children. As stated in a publication called, ``Aggressive Erotica and Violence Against Women,'' virtually all lab studies established a causal link between violent pornography and the commission of violence. This relationship is not seriously debated any longer in the research community. What is more, pedophiles will often use pornographic material to desensitize children to sexual activity, breaking down their resistance in order to sexually exploit them. A study by Victor Cline found that child molesters often use pornography to seduce their prey, to lower the inhibitions of the victim, and as an instruction manual. Further, a W.L. Marshal study found that ``87 percent of female child molesters and 77 percent of male child molesters studied admitted to regular use of hard-core pornography.'' Mr. President, all you have to do is pick up the telephone and call the FBI, ask their child exploitation task force about the volume of over-the-Internet attempts to seduce, abuse, and lure children into pornography and sexual exploitation. I could go on and on, Mr. President, citing these studies, but there is really no need to do that. The evidence is clear. The compelling interest of the Government in restricting children's access to pornography is beyond credible dispute, both morally and legally. The Communications Decency Act is a narrowly tailored law, designed to protect children from the pornography that is so widely available and easily accessed on the Internet. As I have said, it is a simple extension of the constitutional restrictions on such material that exist today in every other communications medium in our society. The Communications Decency Act provides for the prosecution of those who utilize an interactive computer device to send indecent material to a child or uses an interactive computer device to display indecent material in a manner easily accessible to a child. In addition, the Communications Decency Act encourages blocking software and other technologies by providing good-faith defenses designed to protect the good Samaritan attempting to block or screen pornographic material. However, ultimately, it preserves the constitutionally established principle that pornography should be walled off from our children. To overturn the Communications Decency Act would represent a fundamental shift in paradigm, throwing our children into a hostile sea of pornography that threatens their psychological and physical well-being. I am confident that the Court will not be so callous with the basic well-being of our children. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a list of organizations in support of this brief to the Supreme Court in the case of Janet Reno, et al. versus American Civil Liberties Union, et al. be printed in the Record.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I want to call the attention of the Senate to an article that appeared in the March 13 edition of the Washington Post, headlined, ``President Won't Back CPI Panel.'' This article discusses President Clinton's decision to not go forward with establishing an independent panel to examine the cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security and other Federal benefits. I think that is an unfortunate development because, clearly, there is bipartisan support for that effort. Members of both the Republican and Democrat Parties are on record and have made public statements saying that they believe this effort ought to go forward, whether it is an effort undertaken by a commission, or whether it is something that we engage in ourselves or ask the executive branch to do by Executive order. Clearly, we are faced with a situation where we have to step forward, to lead, to address one of the most fundamental of all structural reforms necessary to curb the unchecked growth of entitlements. Beginning with his State of the Union Address, the President has been telling the Congress and the American public of his desire to sit down and work out a solution to the coming entitlement crisis, and we have responded on our side by saying that we are willing to do this. In fact, in our budget last year, we recommended and voted for doing this. But now it seems obvious that, for some reason, the administration, the President and his party--and, frankly, a number of interest groups who have so much influence among those who oppose entitlement reform--plan to return to the same kind of rhetoric on Medicare and Social Security, and the same political tactics that serve to undermine the very health of the programs that they purport to protect. Well, we don't have to go very far, Mr. President, to find out what the intention of the President and his party is in this regard, thanks to a former assistant to the President, Mr. Harold Ickes. In a pile of documents that Mr. Ickes recently submitted to the House committee investigating illegal activities at the White House, there was a revealing memo. Rich Lowry, of the New Republic, recently reported that a February 1995 memo that Mr. Ickes sent to the President included ``a proposed direct mail appeal to be sent by the Democratic National Committee over [the chairman's] signature, focusing on the Republican proposal to recalculate the inflation rate, thereby reducing COLA payments on Social Security benefits.'' The memo then goes on to provide a draft of the proposed letter giving some insight into the scare tactics that have been the signature of the DNC, the President, and organizations like the AARP, which refers to the CPI fix as ``a cowardly, back-door political gimmick to take tens of billions of dollars out of the pockets of senior citizens.'' This is familiar verbiage and familiar rhetoric. We have seen it now in campaign after campaign over the last decade. We heard it in last year's Medicare reform debate. The letter goes on to say, ``If the Republicans can force the Federal Government to lower its estimate of inflation, then they can dramatically reduce the cost-of-living-adjustments received by every Social Security recipient in America.'' I ask, where is the bipartisanship in this statement? It is hardly a reference to what the President has been saying in terms of sitting down and working together to address a very real problem. And it is hardly an indication of how we had hoped to move forward addressing some of the serious problems in the Medicare trust fund and the Social Security system. One has to question how serious the President, and his party, really are about meaningful entitlement reform if they intend to continue to frighten seniors rather than honestly addressing the problem. Mr. Ickes' proposed fundraising letter goes on to state, ``We cannot remain silent while the new Congress finances another round of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans by reducing the hard-earned benefits received by older Americans.'' The letter provides a preprepared petition to be sent to the then majority leader, Bob Dole, and Speaker Newt Gingrich saying, ``I am outraged at the Republican plan to use phony inflation estimates to reduce the Social Security COLA's of America's senior citizens.'' So the question here is, Is the President of the United States willing to step apart from the recommendations and rhetoric of his own party? Is he willing to step forward and provide leadership, as I think any President should, particularly when not facing reelection, on one of the most fundamental problems that we have as a nation and agree to a bipartisan process to preserve Social Security and reform Medicare for the long run? In President Clinton's State of the Union Address to the Congress, the President said, ``We must agree to a bipartisan process to preserve Social Security and reform Medicare for the long run . . .'' And Republicans, who had just been hammered to death over proposing that very same concept a year before, said, ``Well, the problem is big enough that you are right. We ought to do that. Even though we may have a right to feel pretty bitter about how that effort was used against us electorally, we think it is important enough for this Nation that we ought to go ahead. So we will reach out in a bipartisan fashion.'' So it is extremely disappointing to read here--I hope it is wrong but I think it is correct--that the President has abandoned his efforts at providing leadership for structural reforms within the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. But the President is not alone in his cynical attempt to scare our senior citizens. I want to conclude my remarks by addressing another institution that has undermined our ability to accomplish what everybody knows we need to accomplish. No group has played a more destructive nor a more deceptive role in entitlement reform than the American Association of Retired Persons, known as the AARP. We know the AARP is that wonderful organization that only charges I think $8 to join once you reach the age of 50. I must admit I was a little shocked when I got my first mailing from the AARP. I think I was 45 when the first mailing came saying you are approaching senility here, and you had better join our group. I said, ``I am not old enough for this. I thought retirement was 65 and over.'' But the AARP has wisely, from a financial standpoint, reached down and convinced people that at the age of 50 and lower they can take advantage of the benefits offered to the AARP. I am not ready to concede that I am ready for those benefits, although they are pretty attractive. For that 8 bucks you get access to all kinds of things. But the problem is that on the issue most fundamental to the future of this country and to the future of senior citizens--Medicare and Social Security--the AARP takes a totally disingenuous, plays a totally deceptive role, a destructive role in terms of our ability to try to preserve those trust funds for future users and future beneficiaries. We know that a train wreck is coming on entitlements. How do we know that? We know that because the board of trustees that included, at the time, three members of the President's Cabinet told us that this train wreck was coming. They told us that there is an urgent problem that we need to address on a bipartisan basis. And they told us that we cannot be prey to the political ranting and raving of self-serving organizations like the AARP. Robert Rubin, the Secretary of the Treasury, Robert Reich, then Secretary of Labor, Donna Shalala, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Shirley Chater, the Commissioner of Social Security, and the Acting Principal Deputy Commissioner of Social Security, told us, ``Folks, there is a train wreck coming. You have your head in the sand. You are letting political demagoguery deter you from doing what you have to do. If you want to preserve Social Security, if you want to preserve Medicare and the benefits in Medicare, you have to get hold of this out-of-control entitlement process.'' We all know that. Medicare part A is scheduled to be bankrupt--bankrupt--by the year 2002. The Social Security trust fund will begin running a deficit at 2013 and collapse by 2029. That is not political rhetoric. Those are the conclusions of a distinguished panel of trustees that studied the system. And it comes out of this administration. It is not a group of Republican conservatives trying to kneecap the Social Security system. These are responsible people appointed by the President to serve on this panel. They are his own people. Yet, we go careening from election to election totally ignoring these warnings, knowing that somebody is going to have to pay an enormous price in the future, knowing that we are undermining the very system that we say we are trying to preserve. And the group that is most responsible for putting pressure on us, politically demagoging this issue, is the American Association of Retired Persons. They continue to tell their members that there is nothing wrong with Social Security, that there is nothing wrong with Medicare, that there is no crisis. They continue to press Congress to block any solution. The AARP, the second-largest nonprofit organization in America, second only to the Catholic church, has a staff of 1,700 people funded by the dues of 33 million members along with $191 million in profits earned through the sale of insurance policies, mutual funds, mail-order pharmaceuticals, automobile rentals, automobile club memberships, Visa and Mastercard credit cards, and hotel room discount packages, and so forth. That is OK. I am glad they are in that business. I am glad they are providing those benefits to the seniors. Their expressed purpose is to serve the needs and interests of our Nation's elderly. But, Mr. President, the only thing we hear up here from the AARP, other than requests for membership dues, is, if we dare even speak about addressing the problems of Medicare and Social Security, they are going to go after us politically. Now we have this looming disaster with Medicare and Social Security. Once again, the AARP is joining hands with those who oppose the system to terrorize our Nation's seniors. In a recent Insight magazine article, Horace Deets, the AARP's executive director, is quoted as saying: ``Social Security has worked well for 60 years, and there is no reason to believe that it is on the verge of bankruptcy . . . Social Security continues to work efficiently and effectively . . . Social Security does work.'' Where has Mr. Deets been? What does this man read? Has he read the trustees' report? Has he read this impressive document that has looked into this on an actuarially sound basis? Has he read the recommendations and conclusions that the whole thing is to come a cropper, that the very people he represents are going to be hurt badly unless we do something now, that we are heading for a train wreck? I think maybe Mr. Deets should spend less time trying to collect dues from people and take a little time to read the trustees report on the future of Social Security and join us in a responsible effort which the trustees say will hurt less if we do it now, but is going to hurt greatly if we wait until later. We cannot afford to wait. We cannot afford to pretend there is nothing wrong when everybody knows that is not the case. The changes we make now could be phased in over a period of time and would have minimal impact. But if we wait and follow Mr. Deets' advice, keep our head in the sand and pretend that there is no problem, it is going to come as a great shock and a great surprise to the 33 million people who rely on their AARP mailings when they find out that their own organization has led them down a blind ally, their own organization has sold them out, sold out to a political process that goes against the very best interests of their members. Mr. President, I am disappointed by the action of the President. I am disappointed but not surprised. As a recent Washington Post editorial stated, you believe this White House ``at your peril.'' With the AARP driving the politics and the decisions of the President and his party, I am sure we can anticipate even more fear mongering on entitlement reform. But ultimately we are going to have to find solutions to these problems. I fear that this difficult process will be made even more complicated by an unprincipled and a timid administration and a deceitful and self-serving American Association of Retired Persons. Mr. President, with that I yield the floor. Mr. CHAFEE addressed the Chair.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, there are two items I will address this morning. I will not be long. I know the distinguished Senator from Rhode Island is waiting to speak.