John Conyers

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I began this discussion on an amendment to reinstate the Department of Justice's traditional review role when considering Bell entry into new lines of business by congratulating the chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde]. In the committee bill that the Committee on the Judiciary reported, we were able to come together and bring forward an amendment exactly like the one that is now being brought forward. I appreciate the chairman's role in this matter. The amendment is identical to the test approved by the Committee on the Judiciary, as I have said earlier this year, on a bipartisan basis. Everyone on the committee, with the exception of one vote, supported our amendment. It was named the Hyde-Conyers amendment. It received wide support, and I hope we continue to do that. It provides simply that the Justice Department disapprove any Bell request to enter long-distance business as long as there is a dangerous probability that such entry will substantially impede competition. Point No. 1: This amendment on the Department of Justice role is more modest than the same provision for a Department of Justice role in the Brooks-Dingell bill that passed the House on suspension by 430 to 5 last year. So, my colleagues, we are not starting new ground. This is not anything different. It has received wide scrutiny and wide support. It is a matter that should not be in contention and should never have been omitted from either bill and certainly not the manager's amendment. The Justice Department is the principal Government agency responsible for antitrust enforcement. Please understand that the 1984 consent decree has given the Department of Justice decades of expertise in telecommunications issues. By contrast, the FCC has no antitrust background whatsoever. Remember, we are taking the court completely out of the picture. So what we have is no more court reviews or waivers. We have a total deregulation of the business. Unless we put this amendment in, we will not have a modest antitrust responsibility in this huge, complex circumstance. Given this state of facts, it makes unquestionable sense to allow the antitrust division to continue to safeguard competition and preserve jobs. For the last 10 years the Justice Department has done an excellent job in keeping local prices, which have gone up, and long- distance rates, which have gone down. The amendment I'm offering will reinstate the Department of Justice's traditional review role when considering Bell entry into new lines of business. The amendment is identical to the test approved by the Judiciary Committee earlier this year on a bipartisan 29 to 1 basis. It provides that the Justice Department must disapprove a Bell request to enter the long-distance business so long as there is a dangerous probability that such entry will substantially impede competition. This should not even be a point of contention. The Justice Department is the principal Government agency responsible for antitrust enforcement. Its role in the 1984 AT&T consent decree has given it decades of expertise in telecommunications issues. The FCC by contrast has no antitrust background whatsoever. Many in this body have slated the FCC for extinction or significant downsizing. Given this state of facts it makes unquestionable sense to allow the Antitrust Division to continue to safeguard competition and preserve jobs. For the last 10 years the Justice Department has been given an independent role in reviewing Bell entry into new lines of business, and the result has been a 70-percent reduction in long-distance prices and an explosion in innovation. At a time when the Bells continue to control 99 percent of the local exchange market, I, for one, think we should have the Antitrust Division continue in this role. Don't be fooled by the FCC checklist-- the Bells could meet every single item on that list and still maintain monopoly control of the local exchange market. Last Congress this body approved--by an overwhelming 430 to 5 vote--a bill which provided the Justice Department with a far stronger review than my amendment does. It's no secret that I would have preferred to see this same review role given to the Justice Department this Congress. However, in the spirit of bipartisan compromise I agreed to a more lenient review role with Chairman Hyde when the Judiciary Committee considered telecommunications legislation. I was shocked when this very reasonable compromise test [[Page H 8463]] was completely ignored when the two committees sought to reconcile their legislation. Finally, I would note that the amendment has been revised to clarify that any determinations made by the Attorney General are fully subject to judicial review. It was never my intent to deny the Bells or any other party the right to appeal any adverse determination, so to accomplish this purpose I have borrowed the precise language from the Judiciary bill. I urge the Members to vote for this amendment which gives a real role to the Justice Department and goes a long way toward safeguarding a truly competitive telecommunications marketplace. In an industry that represents 15 percent of our economy, we owe it to our constituents to do everything possible to make sure we do not return to the days of monopoly abuses. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. (Mr. CONYERS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. CONYERS

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

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the able gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Scott].

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would like to just speak very directly to the problem of seven Bells going into long-distance, because there is a serious problem with the Bell entry into long-distance. The core rationale for the massive antitrust lawsuit by the Justice Department that began in the 1970's and settled in 1984 was that the Bell system was using its local exchange monopoly to impede competition in the long-distance business. Basically, the Bell system was cross-subsidizing and discriminating in favor of their long-distance business. This is the biggest antitrust suit tat has ever been brought. We are now dismissing the courts from it and deregulating at the same time; and, now, we suggest further that we defang the one regulator, the antitrust division of Justice, which, I think, is moving us in exactly the wrong direction to create business, to encourage diversity and to stimulate competition. Because of the concern that the seven baby Balls would continue the same anti-competitive behavior, Mr. Chairman, the consent decree barred them from entering the long-distance business unless they could prove that there was ``No substantial possibility'' they could use their monopoly position to impede competition. The truth is, Mr. Chairman, very little has changed since 1984. The Bells still have a firm monopoly over the local exchange market, and if they were allowed in long-distance without any antitrust review, they could use their monopoly control to impede competition and harm consumers. If we are to prevent this from occurring, we need to make sure that there is a Department of Justice antitrust review role, more of which will come on our amendment. Now, Mr. Chairman, the administration has already sent an advisory that this bill will sustain a veto in its present form because of, principally, the manager's amendment, some 20 to 30 changes strewn throughout the commerce product that came to the floor in the form that it is in now. What are we going to do, Mr. Chairman? Is there any way that we can get together? Does this have to be a train wreck? The President is going to veto the bill. Unless we make some sensible adjustments, I think that this is going to end up for naught, and we are going to be sent back to the drawing board. We did this once in the last Congress and now here we are doing it again. I urge, Mr. Chairman, that some consideration to these important amendments by given by the Members of the other side. I would like to thank, Mr. Chairman, my staff. They have played a very important role in this matter. My staff director, Julian Epstein, Perry Apelbaum, Melanie Sloan, and I do know the names of the other staff Members on the other side, and I salute them for their good work as well. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur], a very able Member of the House.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I will correct myself. Good morning, Members of the Congress and insomniacs in the Congress, particularly those of you who are present on the floor. I hope that you are enjoying this now because it is going to get a lot more expensive for those of us who are cable subscribers in this country. If this bill passes, cable rates are guaranteed to rise and rise substantially. That will be a blessing to some people who do watch us and listen to us with some regularity. Not only will it be more expensive to watch us, it will be more expensive to watch sports, movies, and even infomercials. You know all those telephone commercials arguing that their rates are lower? Well, forget it. As a result of this bill, long distance telephone rates will also rise along with cable rates. It is going to be a lot more expensive to call anybody from one end of this country to the other, and it is going to be expensive for your constituents, more expensive for your constituents to call you and me here in Washington. It is going to be more expensive to reach out and touch. When the Republican majority tells you this is good for you, I tell you that you had better read the fine print because this is a special interest bill. There are special interest politics that are at play here, not too much of a surprise at this point in time. Special interest politics always smiles in your face while it picks your pocket. For American consumers, this is one big sucker punch. The fact is that the Republican leadership knows all this, and that that is one big gift for the special interests. It is going to cost our constituents, the consumers, a bundle. That is why the bill is brought up in the middle of the night, after so many people are not watching and that many Members of Congress have also apparently gone to sleep. And worse, they are not only doing it in the middle of the night, but with a so-called manager's amendment that was arrived at without the processes of either of the committee chairmen, not to mention ranking chairmen, of the two committees that produced two bills. No one saw this, including the press, the public, Members of the Congress, until the final copy was issued yesterday. So I ask those who support this bill and the manager's amendment, what are you so afraid of and why must we do it under these processes? Fact: Long distance prices have gone down 70 percent since the breakup of AT&T in 1984. That is because the antitrust principles enforced by the Department of Justice drove that breakup. This bill is to get rid of those antitrust principles and send the Department of Justice to the showers. The problem is that your phone prices are very likely to increase as a result. Maybe it is because a number of Members here do not want the public to know that its cable prices are going to rise as a result of this bill. Maybe it is because many here do not want the public to know that all the media outlets in particular markets, television, radio, newspapers, will increasingly be owned by a very few, thereby drowning out the diversity of voices in our media outlets. Maybe it is because the leadership does not want everyone to know that the antitrust rules which have so successfully governed the telephone industry are now in the process of being chucked out of the window. So if you want it to cost more when your constituents flip on television or pick up the phone, you will vote for this measure tonight. If you want lower cable and telephone rates, then you are going to have to do something different. But I will say to my colleagues, this is one of the biggest consumer ripoffs that I have witnessed in my career in the Congress. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Good morning, Members of the Congress, insomniacs in the public, particularly those that are watching us on cable. I hope they are enjoying it now, because it is about to get a whole lot more expensive. announcement by the chairman

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Bryant]. (Mr. BRYANT of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I want to commend the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary for his comments about our work product in the committee, and his candor is always refreshing, as usual. I too believe it is a superior work product. But I would urge him not to be worried about the fact that the lobbyists may not like it and there is not a lot of reported support for it. Press on. If he is doing the right thing, more and more people will begin to recognize the inevitability of the logic and the truth and the fundamental correctness of his position. And I know my friend does not give up easily, and I cannot imagine the forces that may have overwhelmed him into the uncomfortable position that I imagine him to be in this morning. But even if we have used our bill as the base text with the manager's amendment, I still would not be able to come to the floor tonight to tell my colleagues that they ought to support this bill because the people who use telephones are going to end up paying $18 billion in rate increases during the first 4 years of this law's existence. That is projected by the International Communications Association. The people who subscribe to cable TV are going to find $5 to $7 per month average increases in their cable bill. That is according to the Consumer Federation of America. The people on fixed incomes, older Americans, will be put at particular risk by rising basic rates for phone and cable. So I cannot support the bill, the base bill, H.R. 1555. With 30 or 40 phantom changes in the manager's amendment, I think we should be rather embarrassed by what we are doing here, no matter what time it is in Hawaii. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Texas has worked assiduously on both committees. This is one of the few Members in the Congress who serve on both the Committee on Commerce and the Committee on the Judiciary. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the gentleman, is there any way that we can promote investment and competition at the same time that we promote concentrations of power and mergers? I mean are these concepts that can be reconciled at all?

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman from Georgia for yielding this time to me. My colleagues, I rise today in reluctant opposition to this bill which seeks to pile matches upon a smoldering tinderbox in the former Yugoslavia. I am a veteran of war, but if I am remembered for anything in this body, I hope this body will remember me as a champion of peace. At best, we will make a difficult choice in our policy toward Eastern Europe, and at worst, we will take the first step down a slippery slope to an involvement that we cannot get out of, and I would like to give my colleagues the three reasons that make me support a position of voting ``no'' on lifting the embargo. If the United Nations has to move out, the United States will have to deploy 25,000 ground troops to this volatile region to protect the withdrawal as part of President Clinton's commitment to the NATO evacuation plan, OPLAN 40104. So do not be deceived. This is an easy vote in some quarters, but a vote to lift the embargo is a vote to send in U.S. troops. Second, our best allies, Britain and France, have made clear that, if the embargo is lifted, the United Nations will pull out and no one will be there to feed the 3 million displaced people daily. This would dramatically exacerbate the refugee crisis and the civilian casualty rate, especially among Moslems. Let me skip the other two and quote Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows. One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends by peaceful means. So today I ask my colleagues not to overlook the common sense of this uncommon wisdom. Let us commit to a long-term policy that cuts off fuel and supplies to aggressors, allows the President to act in concert with the international community and seeks to wage peace rather than war.

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 inserted in the Record. The article profiles Carol Jenifer, the first African-American women 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. Can Business Still Survive in Our Cities? (By Anita Lienert) 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 border with Mexico draws most 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 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 Jenifer'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 close 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 felon 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 is counseling from the University of the District of Columbia and one in public administration from Southeastern University. She said the degrees helped her develop the discipline to manage efficiently. The first order of almost every 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 late for the 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 ``walk around'' with people who are here to take citizenship tests, file paperwork contesting deportations or apply for green cards. Although she speaks English only, she communicates well, sometimes with gestures or handholding 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 bout 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 difference 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 eighth-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 myself 4 minutes. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues, I rise as a patriotic American and a veteran today to debate under a very restricted rule the consideration of a constitutional amendment to outlaw the physical desecration of the flag of the United States. If adopted, this amendment would represent the first time in our Nation's history that we will have altered the Bill of Rights to limit freedom of expression. Along with other constitutional amendments being considered, this Congress, relating to the budget, to term limits, to school prayer, the flag desecration proposal can be viewed, in my view, as a broad-ranging effort by the Republican majority to alter our fundamental national charter and to unintentionally undermine our commitment to individual liberty. I deplore flag burning, but I am concerned by amending the Constitution we will be elevating a symbol of liberty over the liberty that it protects and provides itself. What I mean is that the true test of any nation's commitment to freedom, to freedom of expression, lies in its ability to protect unpopular expression such as flag desecration. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote as far back as 1929, the Constitution protests not only freedom for the thought and expression we agree with, but freedom from that thought that we hate. By limiting the scope of the first amendment's free speech protections, the supporters of the flag desecration amendment will be setting a most dangerous precedent. If we open the door to criminalizing constitutionally protected expression related to the flag, it will be difficult to limit further efforts to censor speech; certainly it would be hard to justify a constitution which bans flag burning but does not prohibit burning a cross or the Bible. Mr. Speaker, once we decide to limit freedom of speech, limitation of freedom of speech and religion will not be far behind. I quote former solicitor general Charles Free, who testified: Principles are not things that you can make an exception to just once. The man who says that you can make an exception to a principle may not know what a principle is, just as a man who says that only once let's make two plus two equal five does not know what it is to count. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from Utah [Mr. Orton]. (Mr. ORTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the most thoughtful gentlewoman from California [Ms. Waters].

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Engel].

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Oregon [Mr. DeFazio].

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Lewis], a distinguished civil rights proponent before he came to the Congress.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Dingell], the dean of the House. (Mr. DINGELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Skaggs], who has worked very, very energetically on the proposal before us.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Watt], one of the great new constitutionalists on the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. I would want to comment particularly with the gentleman's reference to Philadelphia elections because in Detroit we lost a city clerk as a result of problems, and we have been holding pretty good elections the whole time. May I just say that I agree with you. The Meek amendment to Goss is absolutely essential, and I am hoping that our Republican friends will understand what we are trying to do is give Haiti a chance. Let us not put them under an increasing burden. Their difficulties are much, much graver than some people think, and I want to give them a chance. Mr. Chairman, I rise in enthusiastic support of the amendment by the gentlelady from Florida. It is a much needed modification to the amendment by the gentleman from Florida. That amendment is deeply flawed in content and intent. Despite its seemingly harmless wording, it will curtail democracy in Haiti, where peaceful governance can ill afford such a setback. The gentlelady's amendment offers some simple but critical changes. Her amendment in its entirety reads: None of the funds appropriated in this Act may be made available to the Government of Haiti except when it is made known to the President that such Government is making continued progress in implementing democratic elections. Rather than tearing the carpet out from under Haiti's painful steps toward democracy, this amendment allows aid to that country as long as it is continuing those steps toward democracy. I have traveled to Haiti several times, and have witnessed myself the pain that this country had to bear in anticipation of peaceful enfranchisement and they are closer now than ever before. The absence of systemic fraud and organized violence in Haiti's elections this week showed that this nation is working diligently for democracy, even without an adequate transportation network to get people to the polls and extremely limited resources. Nevertheless, those who disagree with the results in favor of the ruling party such as the International Republican Institute have sought to impose the same standards on this infant democracy as they would in the United States. The truth of the matter about IRI is that it received nearly half a million United States taxpayer dollars to observe the elections in Haiti this spring. Have no illusions about IRI so-called non- partisanship. One IRI document for the electoral study states: ``IRI will conduct local leadership training exclusively for non-Lavalas centrist political party representatives from all 83 electoral districts.'' Lavalas is the opposition party. That's not observing democracy that's interfering with it. IRI is supporting political parties they happen to agree with. This organization also apparently has a crystal ball that allowed them to state in a fancy report the day before the elections that the elections were unfair. We should give democracy in Haiti a chance and not be in such a hurry to pass judgment, but instead continue to encourage this young democracy's growth. For the first time this week, voters could let their political voice be heard out of freedom and not out of fear. Democracy is a process and not a standing status. We have to maintain our commitment to Haiti at the early stages of its process now that it is on course. America's commitment to Haiti is an integral part of America's pledge to democracy and peace worldwide. Other nations of the world, who are still struggling under the bloody boot of oppression, have to see that peace and freedom can and must coexist. Without the gentlelady's modifications, the amendment is a vote of no confidence to this blossoming democracy and an endorsement of the IRI's delusions. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote for the amendment by the gentlelady from Florida in the name of a stable democracy and a real democracy.

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