John Conyers

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler), a member of the Committee on the Judiciary who has been committed to this measure.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy).

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Baldwin); and I apologize to everyone in advance, especially the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Millender-McDonald), for the constriction in time that we are under.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) who has worked on this in committee and out of committee with the public organizations. (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Baldacci).

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds to support the observations of the gentleman from California (Mr. Berman) and to single out Alec French and Sampak Garg on our judiciary staff who were so excellent. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Berman), a very important member of the committee that worked on this legislation. He has been in this area for many years, and he did very important work in this area.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. My colleagues, this is a great day for musicians who create their own music and musicians that perform, and so I am pleased to rise in support as a cosponsor of H.R. 5107 because it strikes sound recordings from the definition of work made for hire in section 101 of the Copyright Act. The bill undoes an unfortunate amendment to the Copyright Act made last November which changed the act to treat sound recordings as ``works made for hire.'' Without the benefit of committee hearings or other debate, the change terminated any future interest that artists might have in their sound recordings and turned them over permanently to the record companies. We have since learned that we should never do business this way. After hearing testimony at the subcommittee level, all of the interested parties, I am glad to say, the subcommittee members, the recording artists and the recording industry itself, agreed that the provision was a substantive change in law and should be struck so that the law could be returned to the status quo ante. That is what brings us here today. Returning the law to where it was before November of 1999 will ensure that any and all artists' authorship rights are preserved. Fortunately, the recording industry has worked diligently with the recording artists for the past several months to arrive at mutually agreed language. While slightly awkward in its legislative construction, I nevertheless want to compliment both parties in their efforts to reach compromise. Now, the digital era lends to creators great opportunities for marketing their works of authorship and, at the same time, great perils of theft of those works. As we try in other legislative contexts to protect intellectual property rights in an open system of the Internet, we should not be changing the rules of such property rights in the middle of the night without hearings or proper committee consideration, as happened last year when this provision was first inserted. I express my appreciation that we are undoing this unwise change, and I thank all of my colleagues that participated in bringing this measure to the floor and ask all of the Members of the House to give an aye vote on this bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Kansas City, Missouri (Ms. McCarthy). No one has worked harder in the committee and in the negotiations than she. (Ms. McCARTHY of Missouri asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from California (Mr. Berman).

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 was touted as legislation that would control illegal immigration. It actually has many provisions that significantly affect American families, legal immigration and others seeking to enter the United States legally. Among other things, the 1996 law subjects long-time lawful permanent residents to deportation for minor offenses committed prior to the enactment of the 1996 law. H.R. 5062 is the product of negotiations between Representative Barney Frank, Henry Hyde and Bill McCollum: It applies only to eliminating mandatory deportation of legal permanent residents who committed offenses that were not deportable prior to enactment of the 1996 law. Mandatory deportation will not be required for persons who were convicted prior to September 30, 1996, of ``aggravated felonies'' that were not deportable offenses at the time of the conviction. Such persons will be eligible to apply for cancellation of removal. People who have already been deported under the retroactive provisions of this law will be allowed to apply for readmission to this country, thus providing an avenue for the reunification of families that were split apart by the retroactive impact of the 1996 law. A technical provision known as the ``stop-time rule'' also will be eliminated for those offenses committed on or before enactment of the 1996 law. This provision enables persons to take advantage of cancellation of removal. This bill is only a modest bill--merely a first step toward the reforms needed to address the injustices of the overly harsh 1996 law. With regard to retroactivity, persons who are deportable under the 1996 law remain deportable. Though they can apply for cancellation of removal, they may be ineligible for other benefits such as naturalization. Moreover, the bill applies only to convictions--rather than offenses--that occurred prior to the 1996 law. More broadly, the harshness of the 1996 immigration law must be mitigated in future bills as seen in Representative John Conyers' H.R. 4966 (Fix '96 bill). The 1996 law must be changed to restore judicial review and discretion to the Attorney General and the courts, eliminate mandatory detention, and revoke retroactive enforcement of the 1996 law on a more comprehensive basis.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, this bill is a product of the intense negotiations between the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank); the chairman of the committee, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde); the gentleman from Florida (Mr. McCollum); the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee), and is a product of how far we have been able to go with the Frank-Frost original legislation, the gentleman from Texas has been in this in a very important way. So we are proud of what we have been able to do in terms of deportable, minor offenses, which prior to the 1996 law, were pretty outrageous. Mr. Speaker, I think we have come a great distance. We have another larger bill on this list waiting to be dealt with, the Fix 96 bill, so I am hopeful that spirit of the negotiations that brought us to this point on H.R. 5062 will move forward.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt) for yielding me the time. This is a human rights issue of great moment to me. One of the worst practices that has come to the Congress' attention is this trafficking of women and children and the coercion and exploitation and violence that accompanies it. We are disappointed that the bill introduced formally by our colleagues the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith) and the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Gejdenson) has been narrowed in the Committee on the Judiciary, and we have put caps at 5,000 per year on the number of victims. As the gentleman from North Carolina has pointed out, this is arbitrary and beneath our dignity as a Nation. I am happy to say that many of the immigration and human rights organizations support us, and so I urge that this motion to instruct be given very careful attention by our colleagues. Mr. Speaker, I think the cap is arbitrary and does frankly a good disservice to our international image as a country concerned with human rights.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted now to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), the ranking subcommittee member that has handled this subject matter.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all of the Members that have participated in this debate, and particularly the floor manager, the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchinson). I think we have been exhaustive on this subject and have moved in a very important way. The reason this debate has been as long as it has is because we have had one motion to instruct, the Graham motion, which was turned away, and now we have mine, which I hope will be accepted. The reason is that it is unrefuted that many of the crimes with which we are concerned are never prosecuted. Sometimes it is because the State and local authorities do not have the resources, but other times it is because they do not have the will. But the bottom line is that these crimes often go unpunished. Today we are asking our colleagues to go on record as to whether or not they will support a Federal law to ensure that these crimes be prosecuted, but only when the State legal system breaks down. Many State officials have asked for Federal legislation so that they can get help from Federal authorities in handling these crimes because of the complexity of the cases and because many of the purveyors of hate operate across State lines. Many of us in the House have already been on record supporting Federal criminal laws that are based on discriminatory acts. My earlier bill of several years ago, the Church Arson Act, is just the most recent instance of what Members in this House have already voted for. This measure soon to come up, the hate crimes bill from the Senate, follows that same pattern. Mr. Speaker, with the equal protection promise of the reconstruction amendments in the 19th century, the Federal Government assumed the duty to ensure that all Americans are protected from violence aimed at them simply because of who they are or how they lead their lives. So this is not a usurpation of State authority. It is a backstop, and when the State system does not work, that is when this hate crimes law would kick in. Mr. Speaker, it is consistent with the rich civil rights tradition that goes all the way back to the 1930s when the late Dr. W.E.B. duBois and Ida B. Wells, an African American civil rights fighter before her time, supported the NAACP anti-lynching laws, which have now been extended through the Hate Crimes Act. We studied the 1938 Senate filibuster on anti-lynch laws which went down. It was defeated in the face of many of the same arguments that are being made today by opponents of this legislation.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct conferees on H.R. 4205.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to join my distinguished colleague from the Committee on the Judiciary on this matter. He has three positions with which he asks that we be instructed not to agree. One and three are false, and two I disagree with. First of all, it is not accurate to say in our bill that we preclude a person convicted of murder from being sentenced to death. While we do not have a death penalty, some States do. And so, wherever the State law applies, there would be a death penalty. In our bill, we do not have one. And so, I do not see where that is very important. He questions whether or not the Fourteenth Amendment, by guaranteeing all persons equal protection under the law, is a safeguard against the hate crimes bill. And that has no accuracy whatsoever. And so, I am a little baffled by the motion to instruct because he seems to suggest that the bipartisan legislation that the Senate has passed somehow violates the equal protection of the laws and affects the Federal Government's administration of the death penalty. We do not appear to be discussing the same bill. The Graham motion would instruct the conferees to reject provisions that fail to account for the fact that the Constitution guarantees all persons equal protection under the law. His motion is beside the point because his statement is, apparently, designed to create constitutional doubt where none exists. The Congress' authority to create new penalties for violent crimes involving bodily injury if motivated because of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, or even disability, does not depend on the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. What it rests on is the undisputed authority of the 13th amendment and on the commerce clause itself. So my friend, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), I guess is saying that by prohibiting hate crimes against individuals who have suffered historic discrimination on the basis of race and color or national origin or gender or sexual orientation or disability, that we are violating the constitutional rights of everyone else. Could that be what he is saying? Well, if it is true, then I have to raise a question of whether he thinks that any statute that prohibits discrimination and violence on the basis of these categories also violate the 14th amendment. Should they be repealed? Should we repeal the existing Federal criminal hate crimes law already on the books since 1968, which prohibits the intentional interference, with the enjoyment of Federal rights and benefits on the basis of, again, the victim's race, religion, national origin, or color? Should we repeal the Church Arson Act which prohibits the intentional destruction of religious property because of race, color, or ethnic characteristics of individuals who worship there? One cannot avoid race. These are the problems. One cannot avoid disability. One cannot avoid sexual orientation. Does the gentleman want to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment in public accommodations based on discrimination of race, color, religion, as usual? Do we want to repeal the Age Discrimination Employment Act of 1967? What about the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which prohibits housing discrimination on the basis, again, of the usual factors? Does he want to repeal the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990? We just celebrated it for a decade of progress, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability; and the rest. It goes on and on and on. So if this is a new historic challenge to raise a constitutional point that has never been thought of before, this is a great time to have that debate. If it turns out that the first instruction, part one, is not accurate, the second we disagree with, and the third is not accurate, then we should move quickly on to a motion to instruct the conferees on hate crimes that I have that will come up shortly. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays).

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I make a point of order.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Graham) has not yielded himself time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler), a member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), a member of the Committee on the Judiciary and a long-time State prosecutor.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee), a Member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Guam (Mr. Underwood). (Mr. UNDERWOOD asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)