John Conyers

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I join with the gentleman in that request.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is still prosecuting law on the side?

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I want to point out to my good friend from Missouri that they may not have invented laser sighting devices when he was a prosecutor.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy], an author of one of the en bloc amendments.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I take my time back. That is all the gentleman is getting. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde], chairman of the committee.

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

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, let me ask my friend, the gentleman from North Carolina, who told us that we ought to remember how color-blind the Constitution is and that the provision of the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Barr] does something good, tell me, why is the gentleman supporting the Barr amendment, just for the record?

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Schumer], former chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Watt].

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, that is all I wanted to know. The gentleman does not know, and neither do I, but it sounds great. I am telling the gentleman one thing: If we ever get somebody that fits this description in this amendment, they are going to really get it, because the death penalty as an aggravating factor, multiple killings or attempted killings, has nothing to do with terrorism, but that is really not that important. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Watt].

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I agree with the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde] every time I get a chance, but he has just witnessed what I have. Now, crying for the victims after this bill is gutted does not do a service to anybody connected with this measure. This is not an antiterrorist bill any longer. It is a low-grade crime bill that we could have gotten out any day in the week. It has a very sad and shaky future, and I am very disappointed that the gentleman from Missouri may not ask for a record vote. Anybody on this floor can ask for a record vote.

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

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Nadler], the cosponsor of the Conyers- Nadler substitute.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, given that we are so frequently confronted with the troubles and the travails of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, I would like to have the following uplifting article from the May 1995 issue of Management Review inserted into the Record. The article, by Anita Lienert, profiles Carol Jenifer, the first African-American woman to manage day-to-day operations in an INS district office. Ms. Jenifer is the District Director of the INS district office at the United States-Canada border located in my hometown of Detroit, MI. I hope and expect that the INS will continue to attract and promote individuals of Ms. Jenifer's caliber. Carol Jenifer does not look like a huggable person. She wears her hair in a Marine Corps-style buzz cut and shuns makeup and jewelry. Although she's six feet tall, she seems even taller, carrying herself with a military bearing that reflects her years as a police officer in Washington, D.C. She carries a gold badge that says ``District Director'' and has just ordered a Glock handgun to keep in her desk. To get inside her office at the U.S.-Canada border in Detroit, you need to get by a metal detector and armed employees. So when one of her clients leaps out of a seat in the waiting room at the Detroit branch of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and gives Jenifer a big hug, it seems somewhat out of place. ``Oh, Miss Jenifer,'' says Chadia Haidous, a Lebanese immigrant ``I just got sworn in today! I'm an American citizen! And now I don't have to worry about my daughter.'' Jenifer, 45, the first African-American woman to manage day-to-day operations at one of the 33 INS district offices in the United States, hugs her back and rejoices with the Haidous family. Moments later, loping up the back steps to her office that overlooks the Detroit River, Jenifer explains that little Alica Haidous, 11, who was born in Senegal, could have faced deportation because her mother was not a U.S. citizen. ``The family was afraid the daughter would have to go back to Senegal unescorted,'' Jenifer explains. ``I could have stuck to the book, but why? I made a heart decision and I made it in the name of family unity. I could have sent her back and had them petition for her, but I didn't. And now it won't happen because we don't treat our citizens like that.'' Jenifer, who oversees a hectic operation with a $14 million annual budget, considers herself one of the new breed of INS managers. While the southern bormost of the media attention, INS officials say the northern border has its share of illegal immigrants--they just don't talk about how many. Therefore, it's her mission to walk a tightrope to satisfy a number of different constituents, from American taxpayers who are disturbed by the lare disturbed by the large number of illegal aliens entering the country, to immigrants who complain about long lines and insensitive treatment at INS offices. One of Jenifer's first management decisions was to improve the atmosphere by installing brighter lights in the crowded waiting room. She is considering hiring a customer-service representative to handle complaints generated by the 48 million people who pass through INS checkpoints in her jurisdiction each year, including the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, the Ambassador Bridge and Detroit Metropolitan Airport. She is also determined to hire an inspector who is fluent in Arabic because her client base is 50 percent Middle Eastern and no one in the office is fluent in that language. Jenifer has made it a point to get to know the names--and personal details--of the 254 employees and one drug-sniffing dog who work with her in patrolling eight ports of entry along 804 miles of water boundary between the United States and Canada. So far, one of Jenfier's ``employee'' relations challenges has been communicating with the German shepherd: Gitta only responds to commands in German. Even so, Jenifer still knows how to work a room--whether it's full of customers or employees--in a charismatic style reminiscent of Ronald Reagan. She stops often to ask about sick wives or new husbands. But don't confuse her familiarity and warm-and- fuzzy approach with wimpiness. In reality, her management style is much closer to the tenets of Tough Love. After all, her office deported 1,249 people in 1994. And shortly after the heartwarming scene with the Haidous family, Jenifer stands firm on a $15,000 bond set by her deputy director earlier in the afternoon on a Jordanian immigrant whose wife had blurted out during his naturalization interview that she had been ``paid to marry him.'' He also had prior felony convictions and there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest. But to get a real feel for Jenifer, you need to see her in action at 7:30 a.m., as a single parent in Detroit getting her two daughters, Eboni and Kia, both 13, off to school, Jenifer skips breakfast and barks orders like ``Kia, did you finish those dishes?'' and ``Eboni, give me that assignment notebook to sign.'' While her girls scurry around, Jenifer straightens her simple black dress, snaps on a beeper and bundles up in a coat and scarf, stopping only to grab her ever-present black leather organizer. Outside, it's 20 degrees and still dark, with a light snowfall. Sounding like a typical mother, Jenifer grumbles that she can't get the girls to wear their ski caps to school and that they keep pestering her to buy a dog. ``When I applied for the job a year ago, I told my supervisors that the girls were a huge part of my life,'' Jenifer says in the car on the way to work. ``I told them I would have to limit travel because I attend games, go to parent conferences and pick them up after school. It didn't seem to hurt, because I think they wanted someone who could humanize the office.'' At work, her office is decorated with striking paintings of ``buffalo soldiers''--the all-black cavalry who fought and resettled the West. Jenifer explains that since taking the job last spring, she has been worried about every little detail, including whether or not she should have hung the artwork. ``I almost took the pictures down,'' she says. ``I didn't want to overwhelm people who couldn't relate to something like that. But after I thought about it, I realized I needed those men (in the pictures) to watch my back. Management has some pitfalls.'' In private, Jenifer admits that ``being a tall, black female has had its problems.'' Testifying before a congressional committee last fall on equal employment opportunity protection and employment practices at the INS, she described the low points of her career, beginning with her job interview 12 years ago for an INS analyst position. ``The interviewer seemed more surprised that I was articulate and a product of the D.C. public school system than in other qualifying factors,'' Jenifer told the committee. ``It was quite obvious that I did not fit whatever image this manager had regarding African-Americans. He later remarked that one day I would be his `boss' . . . There remains a perception that my advancement was due to connections and not based on merit.'' She says she had to struggle for every promotion at the federal agency, at one point hiring an attorney to present her concerns about lack of advancement to INS personnel officials. Despite those early challenges, Jenifer says the transition to her new $88,000-a-year position has been relatively smooth, due in part to her long INS experience that ranges from working as an officer in the detention-and-deportation branch to holding the post of second-in-command in Detroit before she got the director's job. Her boss, Carol Chasse, INS eastern region director, describes Jenifer as ``a shining star.'' ``She's got it,'' Chasse says. ``She's a practitioner of good human relations. Leadership in the '90s is about people skills and that's critical here because we deal with huge volumes of people.'' Although Jenifer grew up in Washington, D.C., she never dreamed of working for the INS. The daughter of a bookbinder at the Federal Bureau of Engraving wanted to be a firefighter. ``But back in those days, women didn't get to be firefighters,'' she says. ``I had to settle for police work.'' Her time on the D.C. force included a stint undercover on the prostitution detail. Jenifer later earned two master's degrees, one in counseling from the University of the District of Columbia and one in public administration for Southeastern University. She said the degrees helped her develop the discipline to manage efficiently. The first order of almost ever day is meeting with her top managers. Six out of seven of Jenifer's managers are women, which is notable considering there are no female border patrol chiefs in the United States and there are only two female district directors. On the day of the interview, Jenifer seems to be running later for her daily briefing, until she explains that she sets her office clock 15 minutes fast on purpose. She grabs a piece of hard candy from the jar on her desk and heads out right on time. The meeting is fast-paced and informal, and covers topics ranging from the need for air fresheners in the office bathrooms to a video for employees about avoiding sexual harassment. Jenifer insists that her managers keep their remarks to a minimum, and they give their daily reports in a sort of verbal shorthand that takes a total of 21 minutes. ``E-mail is negative,'' begins administrative officer Judy McCormack. ``No arrests yesterday,'' pipes up James Wellman, acting assistant district director for investigations. The issue of bathroom air fresheners prompts some discussion. ``I don't care what you get, as long as we get them in there,'' she says to her staff, slightly annoyed after being questioned about what type should be ordered. Jenifer is anxious to end the meeting and get down into the public waiting room for her daily ``walkaround'' with people who are here to take citizenships tests, file paperwork contesting deportations or apply for green cards. Although she speaks English only, she communicates well, sometimes with gestures or hand-holding or by repeating phrases over and over. Today, about 75 people are assembled by 9:30 a.m., under disconcerting signs that say things like Fingerprinting--Now Serving #823. Jenifer later explains that the signs record the number of people from January 1 to the present. Still, the signs just seems to magnify the ``Waiting for Godot'' atmosphere in the room. The Detroit office serves about 350 people a day and conducts about 1,300 naturalization interviews a month. Jenifer doesn't identify herself, but plunges into the crowd, smiling and joking. ``Where are you from?'' she asks one man. ``Nigeria,'' he replies tersely. ``What part?'' Jenifer continues. ``Africa,'' he says. ``I know it's Africa, silly,'' she chides him, laughing. ``I've been there. What part?'' By this time, the man and his companions are smiling. Everyone in the room is staring. ``Lagos,'' he says. ``Have you been there?'' She has been accused of working the crowd, but ``this is some of the most important work I do,'' she explains afterward. ``I got a real feel for front-line work when I worked for the INS processing refugees in Kenya a couple of years ago. It sure gives you a different perspective on naturalization. It makes you realize that these are peoples' lives you're making decisions about.'' Back in her office around 10:15 a.m., Jenifer sucks on another hard candy and meets with Harold Carter, an INS examiner who chairs a committee representing minorities in the Detroit district. ``Come on Harold, get comfortable,'' Jenifer coos as she scrabbles around on her desk looking for a pen. After Carter settles into a chair, she launches into her concerns: ``There are no Hispanics in investigations . . . We don't have any representative [minority] groups at Sault Ste. Marie. We have to show we've tried to reach parity. Can we get people to work up there? Carter laughs, noting it's pretty cold at the Soo, which is an INS port-of-entry located in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. But they get serious again quickly. After all, there is a class-action suit in Los Angeles about lack of advancement among black INS officers. After the meeting, she's off to the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, which runs underneath the Detroit River, but first stops to order Girl Scout cookies from a coworker. ``I should have ordered more,'' she muses. ``My kids know I hide them under my bed.'' Jenifer needs to see how work is progressing at the tunnel and Detroit's Ambassador Bridge--the largest commercial- vehicle entry port in the United States--on the ``Portpass'' program. Portpass allows pre-qualified drivers to use express lanes, which will speed up the flow of traffic. ``Traffic can be my worst nightmare,'' Jenifer says. ``We have a federal mandate to get people inspected here in less than 20 minutes--and we have to keep it moving or the complaints start backing up.'' The INS inspects people crossing the border, while U.S. Customs agents inspect things, but the two cross-train and work together. To the public, they are virtually indistinguishable. Touring the new tunnel Portpass office, Jenifer is complimentary about the countertops that will separate staff and customers. ``Good,'' she notes, ``I like them wide so nobody can reach across and grab our people.'' She's less sanguine, however, about the Portpass signs in the traffic lanes at the tunnel. ``The signs are too little,'' she complains. ``I don't know if people will be able to see them.'' At the bridge at noon, Jenifer is still obsessed with signage. She tells Norman Byron, port director for the bridge, that she's worried that people won't be able to see the express lane signs at night. He assures her that they will be well-lit. The two tour a trailer-type office set up at the foot of the bridge to accommodate the new program and staff. Jenifer checks out every closet and toilet and pushes back part of the wall paneling that has bowed out. She nearly slips coming down the steps in the snow and asks when skid strips will be put in. ``The skid strip for steps costs $3,000 a roll,'' Byron says. ``Some things we can't do until the weather gets warmer.'' Back in Byron's office, Jenifer banters with several INS agents and asks for their recommendations on good places to eat nearby. They direct her to a restaurant in Detroit's nearby Mexican Village that looks like a dive, but turns out to have decent food. Jenifer orders the quesadillas and chicken enchiladas and ends up taking home a doggie bag of most of the food for her kids. ``I'm a horrendous cook, so I love leftovers,'' She admits. By 1 p.m., she's on her way to Detroit's Metro airport to check on a request for more INS inspectors to accommodate a 60 percent increase in international passengers since 1993 due to airline mergers. It's a 45-minute drive to the airport, and on the way she talks about the mundane, yet important issues that face single parents, such as getting the laundry done and whether it's wise to hire a housekeeper. Stuck in rush-hour traffic with Jenifer, you find yourself sharing the problems of raising teenagers and getting along with men. She seems more like an old friend by mid-afternoon than an interview subject. But then, her staff has warned you that Jenifer often ``pulls an Oprah,'' or gets people to tell all unwittingly. At the INS section of the airport, Michael Freeman, the supervisory immigration inspector at the airport, prints up a computer list of how passengers have increased on each airline since 1989. Jenifer studies the printout and tells him she'll consider hiring 10 or 11 new inspectors to ease the crunch. Jenifer asks Freeman if he's lost weight. It's clear Freeman's busting to tell her something else and he finally does. ``I just found out my wife is having a baby,'' he says. They chat about children and health concerns. If Jenifer ever tires of the INS, she could probably have her own talk show. She makes it a point to shake hands with or speak to all 12 of the INS inspectors on duty that afternoon before heading back to her office. The new hires, whose desks are piled with books like The Art of Cross-Examination, stiffen when Jenifer walks in the room. But within minutes they are relaxed. Back at the office, Jenifer goes through the paperwork that has sprouted on her desk over the last few hours. Her secretary puts the most urgent notes on her chair. There are employee identification cards to sign, a quarterly meeting with immigration lawyers to arrange and an application for a bowling tournament with the heads of other federal agencies in Detroit, from the Secret Service to the FBI. ``Oh,'' Jenifer groans, ``I need a coach to help me bowl better. I bowled an 80 last time and have yet to live down the shame.'' By 4:45 p.m., Jenifer is walking out the door to pick up the girls. They are waiting for her in the school library, complaining about their eight-grade class pictures. Jenifer studies the photos as closely as she's looked at any paperwork today. ``Yes, I'm keeping these for blackmail purposes,'' she says. The three of them burst out laughing. By 5:15 p.m., the INS manager who insists that ``fair management and families'' are the cornerstones of her personal and professional life, is walking in the side door of her house holding the leftover chicken enchiladas in her free hand.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Traficant] and would ask the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Traficant] to close the debate.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I would not name that person yet. It is a surprise.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct conferees on the bill (H.R. 956) to establish legal standards and procedures for product liability litigation, and for other purposes.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. CONYERS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, this may be the last activity for the day and for the week, and so I will move with as much expedition as I can. We do not have a lot of speakers on the matter. I am very pleased to come before the House with a motion that will instruct our conferees on the subject of product liability reform in terms of a requirement that would insist that the foreign corporations in America do business the same as those that are domiciled in this country. As the senior member of the Committee on the Judiciary, I have brought this motion to instruct conferees to insist on a House-passed provision that ends special treatment for foreign corporations when it comes to civil litigation in the United States. In other words, this thoughtfully crafted amendment merely seeks to ensure that foreign manufacturers who sell products in the United States, that they play by the same legal rules that govern the conduct of other and all other American companies. We have supported this measure in the House, and we are merely instructing our conferees to stick with us. Section 107 of the House bill provides that Federal courts shall have jurisdiction over foreign manufacturers who knew or reasonably should have known that their product would enter the stream of commerce in the United States, and, second, that service of process may be served wherever the foreign manufacturer is located, has an agent or transacts business, and, third, any failure by such foreign corporation to comply with a court- approved discovery order shall be deemed an admission of fact to which the discovery order relates. As the record and history demonstrate, under current law, the foreign corporations legally can suppress the production of constitutional discovery information by hiding behind the protectionist shield of the Hague Convention or some other treaty. This, of course, runs counter to a basic premise of American jurisprudence; namely, that the person who causes an injury should be held legally accountable and has the ironic effort of causing all economic consequences to be borne by American consumers, insurance companies, employers, or the Government. There were 258 Members who voted for the original Conyers amendment, and my colleagues might want to check the March 19, 1995, Congressional Record to see if they were among those numbers. If foreign companies are permitted to reap profits from selling their products here, can it be more reasonable that they should be held to the same standard and legal procedures as our own companies? And certainly, in tragic cases where the American consumers are victimized by defective foreign products, foreign corporations should not be able to avoid responsibility for injuries suffered because of their products. We need a level playing field for American businesses, and rule of fairness for the American consumer victimized by defective foreign products is essential. As we know too well, the unlevel economic playing field caused by the various current foreign trade barriers is exacerbated when foreign companies can literally get away with murder here by shunning their legal responsibilities while pocketing profits for selling products in our own country. So we are asking not that we give American companies an upper hand, but that we take away the leverage, the advantage, the unfair edge that the foreign companies based in the United States have. We have supported this amendment. I trust that you will be kind enough to support the motion to instruct conferees. So I ask that members vote ``yes'' on the motion to instruct pending before the House. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume because my chairman has made an important reference to a millionaire running for President, and of course it could be, let us see, it could be Forbes, Buchanan. Wow, this is a pretty long list of their guys, millionaires running for President.

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

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield 5 minutes to my friend, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Dingell], the dean of the House of Representatives and dean of the Michigan delegation. (Mr. DINGELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. CONYERS. I have only one speaker remaining.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let the record show that we on this side respect our friends who may be in the United States and may not be citizens and who are welcome to our shores and are doing business inside our borders. They are complying with the law, and, therefore, they are considered friends of ours. They have chosen to come and do business among us, and they should be made welcome. They should not, however, be given favored treatment. My dear friend from California, who has been of such help on the Committee on Rules, has pointed out that the little barber from some other country here who concocts his own shaving cream somehow is going to be subject to the venomous provisions of the Product Liability Act that we have passed with this provision in it. That may be a little bit overstating the case because the American born, local neighborhood barber, who buys his Barbasol off the rack, would be subject to the exact same treatment, if it is conceivable in this hypothetical that anybody else would be. He would be treated the same under the amendment that we have adopted. By the way, this is not the idea of the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Dingell]. It is an idea that has gone through the committee process. We have had witnesses on it. It has been deliberated in the full House of this body. It has passed overwhelmingly. We now come to the point where we ask the conferees to ratify it. I am listening now to a huge outcry about why now the conferees should not be reminded of the work product we have already completed. It is a little bit amazing. Of course, the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary is not only one of the most articulate but one of the most learned men on the law in our body. I am pleased to serve with him in that regard. When he looks, again, over the weekend at the provisions of the 5th amendment and the 14th amendment of the Constitution, and then reminds himself of the State long-arm statutes, which allow any corporation, regardless of whether it is domestic or foreign, to be subject to the reaches of the very same provision, the long-arm statutes applied to domestic companies. We can reach out and get them, if they attempt to flee the jurisdiction in which the harm occurred, and we are only applying the same parallel to those corporations that might not otherwise be amenable to the process. What is the process? We have got to get jurisdiction. Then we can make service and then we can get discovery. But for goodness sakes, if you are located somewhere else on planet Earth, you cannot obtain jurisdiction. It is as simple as that. So for someone to suggest to me that the European Economic Community will be unhappy about the work product that we have done in making their companies subject to the same process as American companies, I find the common remark, too bad. I mean, those are the rules, level, even, applicable to one and all. So what I am saying to my colleagues is that under the Constitution and the long-arm statutes, a corporation, regardless of where it is domiciled, is subject to the jurisdiction of State courts, if they can foreseeably put products in the State stream of commerce. This just includes, this does not just mean foreign corporations, but it means the long-arm statutes apply to domestic corporations as well. Please, my colleagues, let us not get lost in rhetoric here. Let us have the little barber who has come from foreign shores and makes his own shaving cream, I guess somebody does that in the country, and the guy that takes his product off the shelf be subject to the same provisions.