John Conyers

Mr. CONYERS

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

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose the previous question so that we can finally get a vote on the minimum wage--an issue on which Speaker Gingrich will not let the House speak its will. This despite repeated promises that the new GOP would let the House work the will of the people, and not bottle up legislation simply because they didn't like it. All we are asking for is a vote on the minimum wage. The facts are staggering when we look closely at the true value of our $4.25 per hour minimum wage: the current minimum wage is at its lowest value in 40 years and is 30 percent below its average level of the 1970's. Twelve million Americans earn less than $5.15 per hour, and 73 percent of minimum wage earners are adults and most are women. And it is estimated that one in five minimum wage earners live below the poverty line. It is clear that our minimum wage is too much minimum and not enough wage. The last time the minimum wage was increased was 1991--and its value has eroded 50 cents since then. That is why the President has proposed, and I support, a 90 cent increase over 2 years, bringing the wage to $5.15 per hour. During the two Government shutdowns, Members of Congress earned more than a minimum wage earner will make in an entire year. This Congress has spent the vast majority of its time trying to take away Medicare and other benefits from working Americans, while trying to find more tax breaks for the rich. Now we can't even have a vote on this most fundamental matter of basic decency and equity. This is an outrage to all Americans, and most importantly the 12 million Americans who live on subminimum wages now. I urge Members to defeat the previous question so that we can finally get a vote this issue which has been muzzled. And don't mistake it-- your vote to defeat the previous question will be viewed as your vote on the minimum wage issue. Americans who work full time should be able to earn a livable wage. A full-time worker should not be forced to live in poverty. Americans who work hard and play by the rules deserve the opportunity to create a better future for their children, and an increase to the minimum wage will do just that. I urge all of my colleagues to vote ``aye'' on the previous question so that we can finally give 12 million workers a raise this year.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this is a very important bill. It is a big deal. We are going to strip the President of the ability to appoint U.S. marshals. What are we going to do with it? We are going to give it to the Attorney General who is appointed, I think, by the President of the United States. So this is very heavy, Mr. Chairman. We ought to think carefully about this. The Attorney General is better positioned to know who should be a U.S. marshal than the President of the United States, for whom he or she works. Very heavy. Follow carefully. This is not a light matter. Do not throw this one away. U.S. marshals must be appointed by the Attorney General, not the President. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Schumer], ranking member of the Subcommittee on Crime of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, we are here today because this is an important bill. This bill is important because it takes politics out of U.S. marshals appointments. It takes politics out of the appointments by giving the appointments from the President to the Attorney General, so there are no more politics in the U.S. Marshals Service. That is why a number of Members of both sides of the aisle in the other body are not very enthusiastic about this measure. It may not be going anywhere, as logical, inevitable, as perfect, as improving as this will be to the Department of Justice. Mr. Chairman, I do not know, if I had my druthers, I like Presidents to make appointments. Mr. Chairman, by the way, why do we not have the Attorney General appoint the U.S. district attorneys, while we are at it, or whomever the Attorney General might be? I do not hear anybody talking about that. Would that not take the politics out of DOJ? Yes, no, maybe? Well, probably not, and probably not in this bill, either. Mr. Chairman, I do not see anything to crow about in this bill. The one thing I do agree with my friend, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum], about is that his subcommittee has taken out the ability of prisoners to write and complain about peanut butter sandwiches. The way he did that is have the judges dismiss those as frivolous suits, which they have been doing long before he became the chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, this is the first I heard of that, because everybody told me this was a done deal. It was so put together that we did not even need to close the rule up in the Committee on Rules. They gave us an open rule, as many amendments as we want on something that is going through unanimously, I guess. But, no, I understand that that may not be the case, and so I just want to remind everybody that this generous Committee on Rules that allowed us an open rule, as many amendments as we want, is the same Committee on Rules in the 104th Congress that on about 45 other occasions, when we begged them for an open rule on things that were slightly more important than this, there was no way we could get it because the Democrats on the committee were outvoted every single time. But now on this, how many amendments do we have? Not a single one. But it is an open rule, showing, I guess, that the chairman and the Republican dominated Committee on Rules is doing us a real big favor on May 1, 1996. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Rhode Island [Mr. Kennedy].

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California [Mr. Berman] who refused to sign the conference report. (Mr. BERMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Bobby Scott.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Waters] who only shortly ago was nominated by the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee to join the House Judiciary Committee.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from New York [Ms. Velazquez].

Mr. CONYERS. I will help the gentleman along the way. Now I will go to a quote of the gentleman's, and I am not picking on the gentleman. He is just my chairman on the wrong side of an important bill. When the issue came up during the hearings the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde] said: ``I don't really see the wisdom of revisiting the whole habeas argument again in this committee on this bill.'' Now it is the keystone of the antiterrorist legislation. I know the gentleman does not remember that either.

Mr. CONYERS. I know, I know, I know. Check the committee hearings. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Watt], one of the hardest working members of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Frank], the second- ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted now to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Idaho [Mrs. Chenoweth].

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 15 seconds to the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Watt].

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Schumer], the former chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime in the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Hawaii [Mr. Abercrombie].

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, this has been an important debate, and I think that it has become clear that this is a politically motivated bill, driven first by the National Rifle Association and Mr. Barr, and then finally by the 73 galloping freshmen Republicans who would not allow a deal to be made, and finally we were able to patch a little bit together. We are dealing with a bill now that started off with no habeas corpus, we do not need it. But then, because there was nothing in the bill, we needed it. So what do we have here? What we have is a bill that is missing, missing. Wiretaps for terrorist offenses, not in the antiterrorist conference report before this House. The current law allows for wiretaps for everything from fraud, embezzlement, destroying cars, numerous felonies, but the bill rejects on careful consideration the proposal that we be able to wiretap for crimes of terrorism and crimes where weapons of mass destruction are used. Are you serious that this is an antiterrorist bill? So while a Federal agent can get a wiretap if he believes a car is to be destroyed, he may not be able to get a wiretap if he believes an act of terror or mass destruction or murder is going to take out a building or someone is planning to gas the New York subway. How silly and how unserious. Similarly, while current law allows for emergency exceptions to the requirement of a court order for a wiretap in instances where the agent learns a criminal act is imminent, this bill refuses to extend that constitutionally permissible emergency circumstance exception to terrorism cases. So, there you have it. Taggants? Oh, well, we put it back in, but we exempted black and smokeless powder. I wonder why? Well, it does not take a scientist to figure that one out. So I guess you guys have proved your point. I mean, you are going to show that we got a terrorism bill on an anniversary and that, further, we put the President of the United States in a tremendously embarrassing position where he has to swallow a compromise of habeas corpus. Mr. Speaker, reject this bill and let us in Committee on the Judiciary go back and do it right.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, we are here to discuss this bill. We have received the quotations from President Clinton and former Presidents, but let us look at what the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde] is talking about. He is proud of the fact that we implement the convention on marketing plastic explosives that was noncontroversial. Restrictions on biological and chemical weapons, hooray, that was uncontroversial. We got in the bill mandatory victim restitution. Do you remember anybody ever quarreling with that? Not hardly. Mr. Speaker, now we come to all of the Barr provisions that were killed out of this bill by 246 votes, a majority. Remember that? That was not such a great day on the floor, because the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Barr] thought we should not strengthen the criminal alien deportation procedure, so he kicked it out and it won. The gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Barr] thought that we should not expedite the deportation of terrorists, and it won and we kicked it out. The gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Barr] thought that there should not be a ban on fundraising by terrorist groups, and he won and we kicked it out. Now in the conference we got pieces of it back in. I am very happy that the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary wishes that we had wiretap authority for terrorists, not for stealing cars, not for hijacking, not for simple felony crimes, but terrorism, this one thing that we are dealing with so completely here this afternoon. But we do not want wiretap authority extended. Oh, yes, we got it already, but we do not have enough and it is not directed at terrorists, of all people. What about identifying explosives, which could have stopped at least one bombing I know about? Well, we do not want to include powder and things that are used in great quantity around the country. We will exclude that. We will put in taggants, but we will leave out the two kinds of powder that are used most. What about cop killer bullets? Oh, do not bring that up. We will deal with that separately. Let us study the armor-piercing ability of the jackets that policemen wear. Do not worry about the bullet. Why not make it easier to sue foreign governments? Well, we do not want to get into that. That is foreign policy. What about cooperation with the Federal law and the U.S. military? Oh, no, let us not do that. So what we have is a bill that has taken out the guts of everything that should have been in it, and everything that could have been agreed on 1 year ago is in it and we are real proud of that. This is a gutless bill, and how dare those tough crime fighters suggest that this is going to stop something? Oh, yeah, and then we throw in habeas so that a suicide bomber is going to read the new habeas law and he will get executed quicker. I say to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde], he is willing to blow himself up. He does not need your law to help him get executed.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. Letter to Chairman Orrin Hatch, who has just distinguished us with his presence on the floor, from one of the surviving victims of the Oklahoma City bombing: ``I am sorry I missed you,''the writer says to the gentleman from Utah [Senator Hatch], when I was in Washington a couple of weeks ago. As the father of someone murdered by the Oklahoma City bomb, I write to urge you to reconsider the habeas corpus package in the bills you are being called into conference on. ``It utterly galls us as a family so devoted to my daughter that we and our loss should be used as a political football for politicians eager to posture themselves as tough on crime in order to reap some political advantage and to do the bidding of already powerful agencies who have demonstrated their inability to responsibly exercise enormous powers that they already possess. The habeas reform provisions in particular are not known or understood by the families who have used them to lobby on behalf of the bill. One family member even told me recently that she understood habeas corpus to be an antiterrorism investigation tool. Sincerely, Mr. Bud Welch.'' Now I ask the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde], yes or no, is not it true that only 1 percent of the habeas cases involve the death penalty. The answer the gentleman knows and I know.

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

Mr. CONYERS. The gentleman does not know. Ah, the chairman is not sure, or he is not even not sure. He just does not know.