John Conyers

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I think we have to recognize that this amendment would simply add environmental crimes to those crimes against the children and the elderly that would receive enhanced penalties. Now, why is that critical? The reason is that environmental crimes, for example, the knowing pollution or contamination of our environment, tend to have a much more severe impact on our most vulnerable citizens, namely children and the elderly. For example, the severe impact environmental crimes can have is dramatically brought to bear in Woburn, MA, in the case where numerous children died of leukemia after drinking water where toxic waste was dumped by subsidiaries of two of our country's most influential, multinational corporations. If we are going to say crimes of violence against children and the elderly are deserving of more serious punishment, it is only fitting that we so treat environmental crimes, which have a disproportionate effect on children and the elderly and which can be equally or more deadly. A refusal to treat environmental crimes as seriously as crimes of violence really indicates that it is not really the effect of crime with which we are concerned, but the perpetrator. I see that as a serious mistake in the development of this criminal justice bill. Environmental crimes are generally committed by large corporations. In contrast, crimes of violence usually are created by less influential individuals. So it is important to treat all crimes that harm youngsters equally, to treat all crimes that have a significant adverse impact on children and the elderly with equal seriousness. I offer the amendment, and hope that the Members will join me in supporting this amendment. Another example of the kind of behavior that this amendment would speak to is several years ago two 9-year-old boys were killed by fumes from hazardous waste illegally disposed of in a dumpster. It was a clear case of criminal misconduct. The jury awarded the families $500 million in damages against the defendant, the largest wrongful death lawsuit in the history of the Nation, but they have not paid it because they declared bankruptcy. So far, the fine of the Federal court has not been paid either. The only way to punish the wrongdoers in a case like this is to subject the defendants in the corporation to significant jail time. Under current sentencing, under the guidelines, the perpetrators served a mere 27 months. It is fine to say you are tough on crime, but let us make sure we punish all the criminals who place the children and elderly at risk. A few month sentence for hazardous dumping that costs children their lives needlessly is simply not enough, and should be subject to the sentence enhancements that are going on in the several amendments underlying the Chrysler bill that is still on the floor. I urge Members to support this commonsense amendment. point of order

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I cannot understand why the distinguished chairman would want to raise a point of order against the amendment, because we have been given a bill which purports to protect children, women, and the elderly. They have allowed the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Frost] to offer what was clearly a non-germane amendment relating to sex offenses against children, and now, suddenly, when it comes to protecting the very same elderly against pervasive and damaging telemarketing fraud, we raise a technical objection. So I think this is a very misplaced sentiment in an attempt to allow white collar crime to continue to victimize seniors, while crimes of violence are all of a sudden made germane, even when an argument can be made against it. The amendment is germane, because the fundamental purpose of this bill is to enhance penalties for those crimes that target our most vulnerable citizens, the elderly and the young and women. For those reasons, I urge that the point of order be turned aside.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I do.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would merely add crimes of fraud and crimes of deception to those crimes against children and women and the elderly that would receive enhanced penalties. This amendment would add crimes of fraud and deception to those crimes against women, children, and the elderly that would receive enhanced penalties. The reason is that fraud against the elderly has become a significant problem, particularly telemarketing fraud. Law enforcement officials, the AARP research, and much anecdotal evidence from telemarketers confirm the belief that many older Americans are being wrongly targeted by telemarketing fraud. The Federal Bureau of Investigation recently documented this pattern of victimization in its recent telemarketing investigation, which used AARP members and others to obtain undercover tapes with fraudulent telemarketers. The investigation showed that 78 percent of the targeted victims were in fact older Americans. Given the expected growth in the Nation's elderly population, the number of consumers considered vulnerable to telemarketing fraud is quite likely to increase in the future. But telemarketing is not the sole source of the problem. The Internet, while not yet commonly used as a method of conducting fraudulent methods of transaction, is a growing source of concern. Although commonly believed to be a tool of the young, we are now finding many elderly people beginning to surf on the net. The National Consumers League and the National Fraud Information Center estimate that senior citizens lose at least half of the $60 billion annually that is lost due to fraud. Unfortunately, fraud strikes elderly victims the hardest. Many of these individuals are living on fixed incomes and are easy prey because they lack the defenses necessary to withstand smooth-talking promoters who sound and act like friends of the victims' families. Mr. Chairman, we need to treat fraud against the elderly not as isolated cases, but as a widespread social problem and a serious crime that must be addressed. I urge that we add this important provisions to protect our most vulnerable citizens from those who are continuing to prey on them through telemarketing, the Internet, and other white collar crimes. I urge the support of the amendment. point of order

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I just want to go back to my colleague from Michigan, Mr. Chrysler, and just point out to him that some of these ships are turning around gently in the evening, and we do not want to leave him out there dragging along and waiting for this measure to come up in a separate bill. I would urge that he look at the merits of this measure and join with us that are in a bipartisan spirit, with nothing personal, are going to follow the consistency and the logic of his provision which passed earlier, the Frost provision which passed right after that, and now we are talking about applying that same enhancement of penalties to vicious women crimes.

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

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I beg my colleagues to support the Slaughter amendment and not discriminate against women.

Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentlewoman from New York.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his candor. Mr. Chairman, if my colleagues loved Chrysler, if they liked Frost, what in the devil is wrong with Slaughter? I mean, are women subject to violent sex crimes? To second offenses? Are those criminals not to be given the enhanced penalties that have gone through this House like Ex- Lax? Now, Mr. Chairman, we get to women and we say: Well, wait a minute. Slow down. Let us study it. My dear colleague suggests it should go into another bill. The chairman of my subcommittee tells me that there is a constitutional problem seen in this measure. Look, we are either for toughening penalties against vicious repeat criminals against children and the elderly or we are not. Let us not exclude women.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I commend the gentleman's logic, because when we send it to the Sentencing Commission, they must send it back to us and then we can approve or then make any modifications we choose.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, that is a possibility. I thank the gentleman for his response. Does he additionally think it might be referred to the U.S. Sentencing Commission?

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, we have a difficulty here. We have passed the Chrysler amendment that enhanced the penalties for crimes against children and adults. We passed the Frost provision that increased penalties for sex offenses against children, and now we come to the amendment of the gentlewoman from New York [Ms. Slaughter] where repeat violent sex crimes against women are now being rejected on the basis that there is a constitutional problem. Give me a break. What constitutional problem? Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Chrysler], my wonderful colleague, to ask him to edify us on this provision. Can the gentleman join me in supporting the Slaughter amendment?

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. The Chairman may have heard the gentleman from North Carolina on hundreds of bills. I have heard the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary on thousands of bills and listened to him extensively and, believe me, he was politicizing this debate one bit when he attempted to characterize Democrats as being not as strong on crime as they are because we dare to raise the role of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, which we created out of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. CONYERS. OK. So the Sentencing Commission, as far as the gentleman is concerned, has no role in this process. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Watt].

Mr. CONYERS. Well, I want you to do the right thing, but if you do not do it against the background of an accurate understanding of what has happened, I mean, for example, if you want to blame the Sentencing Commission when the Sentencing Commission is not to blame, you might want to correct it. I have already confessed publicly that I want to make these crimes subject to greater penalties. But would you not agree with me that there is a procedure set up, yes, before you got here, but you are bound by the rules like everyone else, that the Sentencing Commission shall do this? In other words, what possessed you, of all the Members in the House, and you are one of our most valuable, but what possessed you to invent these new crime penalties without the benefit of the Committee on the Judiciary, without the benefit of the Sentencing Commission, without the benefit of what? I mean, it is a wonderful exercise when any one of us 435 Members can cruise down to the well and introduce a bill raising more penalties on anything we want, child molesters, violators of seniors. And, by the way, I notice you did not say much about the fraud that is being practiced on seniors that could be covered, and perhaps you might entertain a modification of your proposal to include that, or the environmental fraud that is committed on youngsters through pollution that corporations deal with. You might want to consider that while you are at it. But how do these great criminal justice notions occur to persons like yourself deeply concerned with this subject?

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

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. It is funny how memory comes and goes in the course of a busy congressional session. Our dear friend from Michigan Mr. Chrysler, thought this all took place in the 103d Congress. Now we have brought him back into reality. This took place in the Congress that he was in and a Member of. The problem with the analysis of the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum], which I largely agree with, the one thing that was omitted that I have to draw to his attention, we did not direct the Sentencing Commission to enhance the penalties. We told them to look at it and see if they could do some things with it to build it up. That is what they did. The gentleman from Michigan, my colleague in the Michigan delegation, would not know that. He is not on the committee. But you know it. And the reason we did not object when the directives from the Sentencing Commission came back was because they complied with what we had asked them to do, to enhance and make it tougher for people who commit crimes against young people and elders. The problem is, and we might as well confess it, the error may have been made in the Committee on the Judiciary and not in the sentencing. Because we gave them directions, they complied, and we accepted, unbeknownst to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Chrysler]. Here we are. He is assuming that the Sentencing Commission miserably failed.

Mr. CONYERS. I would say to the gentleman, Mr. Chairman, it was the 104th Congress, and he was a Member of it. Mr. Chairman, I find that my colleague and dear friend, the gentleman from Michigan, thought that this occurred in the 103d Congress. The fact of the matter is that it occurred in the Congress in which he was a Member. We were all here in November 1995, we were sober, it was in broad daylight, they sent it over from the Sentencing Commission. It came to the Subcommittee on Crime, chaired by the gentleman who wishes me to yield time for him to explain, and then we took it up to the full committee. It was accepted. That is the only way the Sentencing Commission's guideline directives can become law, sir. It cannot become law unless the Congress allows it. We permitted it. Nobody, including the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Chrysler], objected to it. The gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers] did not; the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde] did not; the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum] did not. Neither did the gentleman. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. No, sir.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield back to the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the 90th birthday of Clara Alston, a constituent and friend of mine. Clara was born in Demopolis, AL, on May 3, 1906, to parents Ernest and Daisy. Clara moved with her family to Detroit when she was 13, and met her husband, Spencer James Alston there in 1921. Clara married Spencer in 1924, and they raised five children in Detroit. They joined Hartford Avenue Baptist Church, where Clara is still a member today. Clara is the matriarch of a tremendous family in southeast Michigan. She today has over 50 grand, great grand, and great-great grand children. Mr. Speaker, today we do not hear enough news about the great things that are happening in families in America's big cities. We too often hear the stories of broken homes and failing families. That is why I am asking that we celebrate the 90th birthday of Clara Alston. She raised five children in Detroit. She has lived a long and productive life as mother, wife, grandmother, and as an artist and gardener. She is the first person in her family to reach 90 years of age, and she is the pride and joy of her large family. Mr. Speaker, on Saturday, May 4, Clara Alston's family and friends are getting together to celebrate her 90th birthday. I want to wish Clara a wonderful and beautiful day for her special birthday.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this is a bill that is not opposed in the House, but this is a bill that is opposed in the Senate. Oh yes, there is another body that has to say something about how a bill becomes law, and in the Senate this is not unanimously agreed to. Sorry to announce that, my colleagues. That just happens to be the case.