John Conyers

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro]. Ms. DeLauro. Mr. Speaker, I would like to read a letter which I received yesterday from a constituent in Hamden, CT: Dear Congresswoman DeLauro: I am writing to implore you to vote against the bill banning late-term dilation and evacuation, more commonly known as ``partial-birth abortions''. The bill would ban this abortion when a mother's or the fetus' health is the reason for this choice. This is a very personal issue to me since I am one of the women who opted to undergo this procedure. We had been trying to conceive a child for more than a year and were in the process of undergoing infertility testing when, to our surprise and utter joy, we discovered that I was pregnant. I spent many hours talking and singing to my child, and dreaming of her future; dreams which all shattered when a routine blood test at 16 weeks revealed abnormalities. I was urged to undergo amnio- centesis and ultrasound. I found myself lying on that table praying. I knew in my heart that something was terribly wrong. The 2 weeks that followed were among the longest of my life. At one point I awakened from a nightmare sobbing. Ten days later, my husband came home early from work. He sat down on our bed and told me that our doctor had called him and the news was not good. He burst into tears. We met with our Rabbi and a genetics counselor from the hospital. Our baby had a very rare chromosomal abnormality, so rare it did not have a name. The genetic counselor came to our home with all the case studies she could find relating to this disorder, fewer than ten. Perhaps there were so few cases because most died young or died in utero. On December 7, 1992, I chose to end this much-desired and sought-after pregnancy. More than 4 years later I still mourn the loss of this child, a little girl. I know that our decision was the right one for all concerned and I am thankful that we have the right to make it. I feel certain that it was a decision that no woman wants to make, but one which in some situations is the least horrific of truly horrendous alternatives. After more struggles with infertility, we were finally blessed with a wonderful, happy baby girl. She turned 2 years old last month and has been an endless source of joy and comfort to us. . . . There really are extenuating circumstances that require truly horrible measures to be taken. Thank you. Please continue in your efforts to keep abortion legal, even late in a pregnancy.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Frank] the ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased now to yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York, Mrs. Nita Lowey, the former chair of the Congressional Woman's Caucus. (Mrs. LOWEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow the Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior will receive testimony on fiscal year 1998 appropriations for the National Endowment for the Arts. These are very important deliberations. I believe they will provide a very important barometer as to whether the 105th Congress will return this body to a course of bipartisan sanity and civility. I believe those who pursued a strategy of defunding and dismantling the NEA in the 104th Congress made a mistake. I believe those who seized upon a few questionable grants to attempt to undo what has been achieved in 31 years, with consistent bipartisan support, were misguided. I hope that this Congress will reverse that course and support the President's proposal to strengthen the NEA. I believe efforts to defund the NEA in the 104th were bad public policy. It was bad public policy because it was indiscriminate in its effort to correct a perceived wrong. If indeed the peer panel review system, in a few instances, made decisions of questionable taste with regard to what the American people would want to support with public funds, that was not a sufficient reason to reduce the NEA's appropriation by nearly 40 percent. When we reflect on what the arts mean to this society, I think we will all see that supporting the NEA is something on which we should all agree. We need to reflect on the power of the arts to bring the many ingredients of the American melting pot, or as Marc Morial, the mayor of New Orleans, recently called it, the American gumbo, together in savory harmony. This harmony is not always easy or obvious. Nevertheless, I can't think of anything else that is more in the national interest than the promotion of understanding and the exploration of the complexity of our identity. As the agency best equipped and most directly tasked to encourage the purposes of art, the NEA should be treated as a budgetary priority, not as a budgetary luxury. The NEA should not be viewed as expendable because it is, in fact, essential. Do we really want to jeopardize programs like the Mosaic Youth Theater of Detroit, an afterschool program that develops young theater talent in a multicultural setting? Through this program young people receive movement and voice training. They are instructed in scriptwriting and technical production. They create original works and apply what they have learned in performances at community centers, hospitals, and nursing homes. Through a 1-week residency at a college campus, these youth are exposed to university life. I submit to you that this program is far more typical of what the NEA supports than the handful of grants that were used to shock the 104th Congress into reducing support for that agency. The American people have made it clear that they want change, and that they expect this change to spring from bipartisan efforts. Americans want thoughtful change. In the 104th Congress, NEA funding came under indiscriminate attack. Fortunately, these attacks were moderated, and I look forward to working with my colleagues in the 105th Congress to further show our support for the arts. As a result of NEA funding cuts in the 104th Congress, my district, the 14th District of Michigan, received exactly zero in direct funds for fiscal year 1996. NEA funding for Michigan went from $697,000 in fiscal year 1995 to $520,000 in fiscal year 1996, a reduction of 25 percent. By the way, these levels of funding demonstrate just how specious the budget-busting argument is when applied to the NEA. One needs the most powerful of electron microscopes to find such amounts in a Federal budget that has topped $1.5 trillion in the last several fiscal years. As many of you know, I have had a longstanding and deep commitment to American music, especially jazz. The downsizing of the NEA, dictated by the 104th Congress, led to an elimination of the NEA's music program and of all individual grants to jazz artists, with the exception of the Jazz Masters Awards. How does that sound? The world's greatest democracy eradicates its music program? The world's greatest democracy eliminates funding for individuals who travel the globe as cultural ambassadors, demonstrating in their very art the superiority of the democratic form of government? I would say it sounds like the Nation's leading arts agency was forced to virtually abandon what the 100th Congress, in House Concurrent Resolution 57, which ``designated as a rare and valuable national American treasure * * *.'' I am sure that there are thousands of artists and creative workers of all disciplines who feel similarly abandoned. I hope that the 105th Congress will be remembered for many positive achievements, foremost among them, the restoration and strengthening of the NEA.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am attaching a copy of an important editorial appearing in last week's Wall Street Journal entitled ``Constitutional Boondoggle'' strongly opposing the balanced budget amendment. When a bastion of conservatism such as the Wall Street Journal refers to the balanced budget amendment as a ``flake-out'' and ``silly,'' I think it is time for all Members to look up and take notice. [From the Wall Street Journal, Feb. 4, 1997] Constitutional Boondoggle With President Clinton about to deliver his State of the Union Address and new budget, this is an apt moment to say that the President is right and the Republicans are wrong on item one of the GOP Congressional agenda. The balanced budget amendment is a flake-out. The notion of amending the Constitution to outlaw budget deficits is silly on any number of counts. Politically it's empty symbolism. Legally it clutters the Constitution with dubious prose. Today's lesson, though, concerns economics and accounting. You can't measure economic rectitude by any one number, let alone the ``deficit,'' however defined, let alone the deficit projections the proposals will inevitably involve in practice. The attempt to enshrine such a number in the Constitution is bound to prove a snare and a delusion. The proposal passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee says that outlays (``except for those for repayment of debt principal'') shall not exceed receipts (``except those derived from borrowing''). While this concept sounds simple, in fact it reflects neither accounting principles nor economic reality. If you can balance your family budget, the thinking goes, the government can balance the federal budget. But applying the budget amendment's principles to households would outlaw home mortgages, which have proved a boon to countless families and the general economy. What a family balances is its operating budget, a concept foreign to the federal accounts. In corporate accounting, similarly, the health of an enterprise is measured by careful distinctions such as accruals or depreciation. Even the balanced budget restraints of state and local governments exclude spending on capital improvements financed by bond issues approved by voters. The reality is that borrowing money is not a sin; it depends on how much money, and in particular on the uses of the borrowed funds. Even the amendment itself recognizes this by allowing Congress to waive the amendment by majority vote when war is declared or when a joint resolution declares ``a military conflict which causes an imminent and serious military threat to national security.'' Other emergencies would presumably be dealt through the provision that Congress could approve borrowing by a two-thirds vote. Republicans back the amendment because it scores well with focus group participants, who don't understand the difficulties, and with Ross Perot, who doesn't care. They also hope that limiting the government's power to borrow will force it to limit spending. Democrats seems pretty much to agree, and want to voice support for the amendment to appease focus groups while also killing it to avoid a spending straitjacket. We're not so sure. For one thing, we've observed how European politicians, even supposedly conservative ones, have been behaving toward the budget-deficit requirements they imposed on themselves in the Maastricht agreement. To get within the numerical criteria, the Italians are taking their railroads off and on budget; the French government, in return for an infusion of funds this year, assumed pension obligations running into the far future. Governmental accounting, you see, simply counts formal government debt; it ignores unfunded governmental promises. This is a loophole enormous enough that Rep. Fernand St Germain could drive half of the S&L crisis through it in one night in 1980, when he doubled deposit-insurance limits. Another enormous loophole is the government's ability to offload, or ``mandate,'' costs on corporations, individuals and state and local governments without running any receipts or outlays through the Washington books. And when the bill for Rep. St Germain's coup suddenly came due in 1989, would it really have been better to avoid borrowing and put the rest of the government through a temporary wringer? These imperfections might not matter if the amendment did no harm, but it's easy enough to imagine scenarios in which it would keep us from doing the economically right thing. Take the proposals by the most conservative bloc in the recent Social Security Commission. They would allow current taxpayers to personally invest part of what they owe in payroll tax, giving them a better return. But meeting obligations to those retiring before their benefits were funded would require a big issue of government debt. The new debt would merely formally recognize current obligations, and the privatization would dramatically reduce future obligations. Though this transaction would plainly improve the federal fisc, the balanced budget amendment would outlaw it. Or for that matter, take the Reagan defense build-up, which led to victory in the Cold War. The balanced budget amendment would have allowed a majority to vote for borrowing if fighting broke out, but not for expenditures to deter it. Is that what we want? And take the Reagan tax cuts, which in combination with Paul Volcker's tight money, led the country out of 1970s malaise, conquering inflation without an extended recession. Clearly deficit projections would have prevented the tax changes. Yes, this policy mix gave us deficit, but the 1980s deficits are themselves a large part of the reason we have a new concern with budget discipline today. Indeed, it seems to us that history argues that discipline comes from forcing governments to borrow, and pay interest--instead of raising taxes or making unfunded promises or issuing unfunded mandates. Yet in the form passed by the Finance Committee, the amendment says you need a majority to raise taxes, a majority to declare a military emergency, but two-thirds to borrow. What President Reagan understood is that if you limit taxes, spending will sooner or later have to follow. For permanent budget discipline, the best idea now on the table is Rep. Joe Barton's proposal, up for a vote in the House April 15, simply to require a two-thirds vote to raises taxes. If that should pass, nature will take its course. We do need to get the national debt declining as a per cent of economic output. We do need to restrain federal spending. We do need to solve the Medicare crisis, as Senator Phil Gramm notes alongside. We do need to look beyond the year 2002. But these battles have to be fought one by one, and can't be solved by amending the Constitution. The concept embodied in the proposed amendment measures nothing useful; it is at best a distraction, and at worst spreads confusion that will make the right things harder to do, not easier.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of House Joint Resolution 36, The International Family Planning Funds Release. This Resolution will right a wrong which Congress created in the high- politics of the fiscal year 1997 Omnibus Appropriations Act. It will also unquestionably help to save the lives of countless women and children world-wide. We have no choice but to support it. This resolution does nothing more than move forward the release date of international family planning funds from July 1, 1997 to March 1, 1997. This resolution does nothing less than save lives. Unfortunately, there are some among us who have chosen to turn this humble proposal into a battle-ground for one of the most controversial of all policy issues--abortion. It is true that abortion has a role in this resolution. That role can be found in the fact that family planning unequivocally reduces the use of abortion world-wide. The use of abortion is closely associated with the unmet need for contraception and with reliance on less effective methods. Therefore, abortion rates are lower in countries where more effective modern methods of contraception are used than in countries where less effective methods predominate. International family planning funds are used to provide women with access to these much needed alternatives. When women are provided with alternatives to abortion, they use abortion less. This fact has been shown again and again world-wide. In addition, as I am sure all of my colleagues are well-aware, the 1973 Helms amendment of the Foreign Assistance Act prohibits the use of any U.S. funds for abortion, or to motivate or coerce any person to practice abortion. Therefore, this resolution is about the reduction of abortion, not its funding. Most importantly, however, this resolution is about saving the lives of women and children through-out the developing world. According to CARE, family planning is as essential to saving the lives of infants as their programs in immunization, respiratory disease, diarrheal disease, and nutrition. They have also found the scientific evidence to be overwhelming that a woman's ability to space births and avoid births at the extremes of the reproductive years is critical to ensuring child survival. In fact, in many countries, birth spacing alone could prevent one in five infant deaths. Nearly 600,000 women die each year from pregnancy-related causes-- leaving thousand of motherless children behind. Another 18 million women suffer long-term reproductive health complications that are excruciatingly painful and often result in life-long disabilities. According to UNICEF, just meeting the existing demand for family planning in the developing world would reduce unintended pregnancies by one-fifth, which would be expected to prevent at least 100,000 of the 600,000 annual maternal deaths. Put simply, family planning saves lives. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to be on the side of life and vote in favor of House Joint Resolution 36. I can not imagine a better use of this institution's time. Thank you.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Sheila Jackson-Lee, one of our more distinguished members on the Committee on the Judiciary, a future chairperson. (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I would inquire of the gentleman if he has heard about the concept of self-limitation of terms that Members are beginning to impose upon themselves?

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to efforts to limit Representatives to a mere 6 years--or three terms--in office. The proposal, like all of the other State-inspired substitutes, would make it impossible to run this institution in an orderly and intelligent fashion. If a 6-year limit had been law, none of the leaders selected by the Republican Party--not Majority Leader Armey, not Speaker Gingrich, and indeed not a single Republican committee chair--would have been eligible for office, let alone to assume their leadership roles this Congress. And if 6-year limits are such a good idea, why didn't the Republicans choose any committee chairs from among those Members serving in their first three terms? I think the answer is obvious--a 6-year term limit does not make sense. It would severely distort and disfigure the legislative process and recast our two-century-old Constitution so significantly that its authors would no longer recognize the first branch of Government. The jockeying for power that would occur in this place under a three-term cap would be unprecedented. A six-year limit would create a Congress of lame ducks and lead to an even greater proliferation of wealthy candidates who could afford to abandon their business careers for a few years. And the few Members who were not independently wealthy would be forced to spend most of their time currying favor with special interests so that they could further their postcongressional career opportunities. This proposal would severely limit the Members' opportunity to garner the experience needed to master the many important substantive areas of Federal legislation. Issues relating to civil rights, intellectual property, Federal procurement, communications, intelligence, labor, and income tax policy--to name a few--are all highly complex and sensitive. A 6-year term limit would significantly diminish the ability and incentives for Members to understand and positively influence legislation in these areas. The Members would have no choice but to turn to career staffers and bureaucrats. The result would be a massive shift of power from elected officials to unelected legislative and executive branch staffers and lobbyists. I urge the Members to reject this ill-considered proposal.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. My colleagues, I think we have heard from one of the most thoughtful of our Members. The chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary sets an example of the kind of comity that he talks about, because he has reported out a bill that he may not agree with. He has done it expeditiously and on time. He has neither incurred the wrath nor stimulated the rancor of any member of the Committee on the Judiciary, and I think that the Record should reflect it from those of us who serve on the committee. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Frank], the distinguished ranking member of the subcommittee.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, is the gentleman suggesting in his recent discourse that most of the voters that want term limits would be unhappy with the immediacy provision that the Dingell amendment provides?

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, it's with great disappointment that we start the 105th Congress with an ill-conceived amendment to the Constitution to limit congressional terms. Term limits does nothing to create more jobs, nothing to increase our standard of living, and nothing to clean up the campaign finance laws. If Republicans were really interested in dealing with the advantages of incumbency, we would be voting on campaign finance reform, not term limits, as the very first measure we consider this Congress. I don't believe the proponents are as eager to pass this measure as they would have us believe. Although many Members advocate term limits, they oppose applying the limits immediately to themselves. As Chairman Hyde has so eloquently, stated this is like ``the famous prayer of St. Augustine who said, `Dear God, make me pure, but no now.'' When 94- year-old, 8-term Senator Strom Thurmond can claim to support term limits, you know we have a serious credibility gap on this issue within the Republican Party. And while this may be a radical idea, I continue to have faith in the scheme of Government laid out in our Constitution when the Founding Fathers rejected term limits. Alexander Hamilton got it right when he wrote term limits ``would be a diminution of the inducements to good behavior * * * [and deprive] the community of the advantages of * * * experience gained in office.'' I also continue to have faith in the fundamental good judgment of the American voters, who already have the power to impose term limits. Congressmen must face the voters every 2 years and Senators every 6 years. Denying these voters the right to elect the person they think best represents their interests turns the very principal of democracy on its head. I would also remind those who support term limits that the notion of a career Congress which they decry so vehemently is an absolute myth. Recent congressional turnover has been incredibly high, more than one- half of the current Members of the House were elected within the last 4 years. The best safeguard we have against rampant special interest abuse are Members who have been around long enough to know the ropes and know where the bodies are buried. If the voters understood that the effect of term limits would be massive transfer of power to congressional and executive branch staff as well as corporate and foreign lobbyist, they wouldn't be quite so enamored of the idea. Given a choice between an elected official beholden to the voters and an unelected bureaucrat or lobbyist, I think the voters would prefer to place their trust in the elected official every time. House Joint Resolution 2 trivializes the Constitution and belittles those who would serve their country by belonging to this body. I urge the Members to oppose this short-sighted constitutional amendment. I am attaching an article I have written recently describing my concern with term limits and other proposed amendments to the Constitution we are expected to vote on this Congress. [From the Nation; Feb. 24, 1997] Make No Amends (By John Conyers, Jr.) The 105th Congress is expected to consider as many as seven separate constitutional amendments, including proposals to prohibit flag burning, provide for victims' rights, eliminate automatic birthright citizenship, balance the budget, require a supermajority vote to increase taxes, limit Congressional terms and permit school prayer. Amending the Constitution is the most serious--and irreversible--action Congress can take. Before approving any constitutional revision, we should assure ourselves that the amendment is fully justified; will not have adverse, unintended consequences; is fully enforceable; and is consistent with our constitutional values. Unfortunately, the amendments being considered in this Congress are motivated more by partisan politics than by sound policy considerations. Advocates of a flag desecration amendment cannot point to outbreak of disrespect for the flag warranting constitutional action. Studies indicate that in all of American history, from the adoption of the U.S. flag in 1777 through the Supreme Court's first flag desecration decision in 1989, there have been fewer than forty-five reported incidents of flag burning. By propounding a constitutional amendment under these circumstances, we succeed only in trivializing the Constitution. Similarly, given that twenty-nine states have already amended their Constitutions to protect crime victims, there is no compelling justification for a federal victims' rights amendment. Although victims' rights groups argue that a constitutional remedy is necessary to overcome a supposed conflict between these state laws and a defendant's right to due process, to date no federal appellate court has found such inconsistency to exist. Repealing the Fourteenth Amendment's birthright citizenship clause illustrates the problem of unintended consequences. Tying the citizenship status of children to their parents creates a permanent underclass of people having no national allegiance; those born in the United States would be unable to report legal abuses for fear of deportation. It's no wonder that in her last official speech as chairwoman of the Immigration Commission, the late Barbara Jordan declared, ``To deny birthright citizenship would derail [the] engine of American liberty.'' Constitutional amendments requiring a balanced budget and two-thirds majority to increase taxes threaten to create constitutional ``rights'' with no meaningful remedy. It's impossible to identify which branch of government, if any, would be empowered to enforce the amendments. The amendments' meaning is also opaque: Would they apply to bills reducing tax revenues in some years but increasing them in others? What's the meaning of the supermajority tax amendment's exception for ``de minimis'' tax increases? The term limits amendment contradicts what is perhaps our most fundamental constitutional principle: majority rule. There is little difference between forcing citizens to vote for a particular candidate and denying them the ability to vote for that same person. Instead of giving us more responsive ``citizen legislators,'' term limits are more likely to result in a transfer of power from elected representatives to unelected Congressional staff, federal bureaucrats and corporate lobbyists. Finally, the school prayer amendment directly undermines the First Amendment's establishment clause. Although the amendment purports to prevent states from compelling students to join in prayer, it wouldn't limit the authority of the schools or teachers themselves, who could begin every day with the delivery of a sectarian prayer before a captive audience of children. Any student gathering could become a competitive ground for students to organize and protest their religious views, irreparably blurring the separation of church and state. Given these clear-cut policy problems, why is Congress contemplating the most far-reaching constitutional overhaul since the very first Congress approved the Bill of Rights? Proponents can only fall back on a series of polls indicating public support for these dubious propositions. But the polls inevitably fail to highlight the many difficulties inherent in the amendments. For example, support for a balanced budget amendment drops precipitously when the public is informed it will jeopardize our commitment to Social Security. And flag burning and school prayer amendments are far less popular when voters realize they would result in a first-ever modification of the First Amendment. At a time when a majority of the public believes Newt Gingrich should step down as Speaker, polls would seem to be a thin reed to justify these radical constitutional changes. Bumper-sticker politics aside, now is not the time to substitute poll-driven constitutional amendments for serious legislative deliberation. Nothing in any of the amendments being considered in this Congress would create a single job, prevent a single crime, educate a single child or clean up a single environmental waste site. The Constitution has provided us with the most enduring and successful democracy in history, and unless we're absolutely convinced of the need for change, we ought to give our current political system the benefit of the doubt.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, can the gentleman divulge to us, just between us, how many he plans to serve?

Mr. CONYERS. Well, wait a minute. That is wonderful, but does the gentleman plan to limit the number of terms he intends to serve?

Mr. CONYERS. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, the people in Missouri believe the gentleman, that he can do it, and we will be watching and waiting. Now, does the gentleman plan to impose self limits on his term of office? How does the gentleman look at this, regardless of what the body does here today?

Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I hope the Speaker is satisfied now. He promised that the first thing we would vote on would be this constitutional amendment. I trust he is satisfied that he has made us do that. And so now we gather here this evening, the only thing left is the McCollum amendment which would allow all of us to serve for almost two decades before it would take effect. And in an amazing act of inconsistency, the term limits supporters have just voted down the Dingell amendment, the only substitute, and with that vote said that term limits should not apply to any sitting Member for about 19 years. Great work. As it has been said eloquently so much by the chairman of Judiciary, like the famous prayer of St. Augustine who said, ``Dear God, make me pure, but not now.'' When an eight-term Member of the other body can claim to support term limits, I think we have a little problem about credibility. The proponents of this measure want it, but do not want it to apply to themselves. So we voted down, with the highest vote of the day, by 152 votes, the one unhypocritical amendment on this subject. But we have also voted down seven of the almost same identical amendments all day long. We have made a mockery of this process. The problem is that term limits are no longer an issue to the public. Do you not get it? Two-thirds of the Members here have not been here three terms. That is why it is not working here. That is why nobody is worried about it anywhere that used to be worried about it. In the last 6 years, we have had a nearly two-third turnover in the House. There is simply no remaining rationale for term limits. But term limits does not create jobs, increase our standard of living, deal with the campaign finance scandal. And so if the majority, if the Speaker were really interested in dealing with the advantages of incumbency, as he says he is, we would be voting on campaign finance reform, not term limits, as the very first measure that we consider in the Congress. I have not quoted Robert Novak recently, but he states that, you read it, ``This reveals the hypocrisy underscoring the avowed support of term limits by congressional Republicans. Like their Democratic counterparts who frankly and honestly oppose the limits, the Republicans are professional politicians who enjoy the good life in Washington.'' That is a quote. I am still bipartisan. This proposal has not been sincere from the beginning, with supporters of it not wanting to apply it as late as the year 2016 rather than right now. Now, me, I oppose hypocritical term limits and unhypocritical term limits. I oppose all term limits. And so I would ask that all of us here at the close of this debate join in finally rejecting the base bill that will now be voted on offered by my friend the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum].

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute and 15 seconds to inquire of my new freshman colleague, the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Hulshof], whose statement we welcome and whose presence we welcome to the Congress. Some arrogant career politicians said a freshman cannot accomplish anything in Congress. I presume that the gentleman has something to accomplish in this noble body, correct?

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, we have now come to a very curious part in the proceedings for today. All the term limits have been voted down overwhelmingly, and now this one is now presented by the Dean of the House, and we are told now that if Members are for term limits, then vote this one down too. The gentleman says, this one should go down because it is retroactive, but if I heard Chairman Dingell correctly, he said that it took effect immediately and is not retroactive. So I think that we should get this terminology straight now. Now, why is this amendment derailing to the process of the people that support term limits? Can somebody explain that to me? That because the Dingell amendment suggests that it take effect immediately, that that is thought to be in bad faith? Why? Perhaps, Mr. Chairman, the reason that the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady] suggests that this is a derailing amendment is that many of the people who are supporting the base amendment, their time will have expired. Is that the reason we are accusing this amendment as being in bad faith? I do not quite follow this. This amendment is, I think, issued in good faith. The only difference is that term limits would begin immediately, and not prospectively. I urge the Members' careful thinking and consideration.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds, and I ask my distinguished colleague from South Carolina, who serves on the Committee on the Judiciary, has he considered the proposition of self- limiting terms of Members? I think he is an example of that.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Scott], a distinguished colleague of mine from the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I have a growing list of people who are self-limiting their term, and I do not say the gentleman started this, but there are others that are doing it. We might want to consider this in the mix of proposals. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Watt], a distinguished member of the Committee on the Judiciary.