John Conyers

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Bentsen]. (Mr. BENTSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Foglietta], creator of the urban caucus. (Mr. FOGLIETTA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to this gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Deal].

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Nadler], a member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama [Mr. Browder]. (Mr. BROWDER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee], a member of the Committee on the Judiciary. (Ms. JACKSON-LEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Engel].

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the Chair.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Becerra], a distinguished member of the Committee on the Judiciary. (Mr. BECERRA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Then, finally, on behalf of the Democratic leadership, I have been asked to confirm that the Democratic side will be assured of at least 20 1-minute speeches tomorrow morning preceding our activity.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Stenholm]. (Mr. STENHOLM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, balancing the budget is a good idea, but using our country's most precious and time-honored document, the Constitution, to do it is a bad idea. It is unnecessary. It would delay the budget balancing, and could impede rather than advance economic growth. And the 60-percent supermajority on budget matters, revenue, and public debt policy would mean the minority, not the majority, would control, and gridlock over our most important fiscal decisions would result. During the last Congress we adopted a budget to cut a record $500 billion from the deficit. Contrast that with the new Republican majority proposal to put off the budget balance in exchange for a promise in the Constitution to do it after 7 years and two presidential elections. And in fact, the new majority has steadfastly refused to put its budget-cutting numbers on the table. We know why. Our knees would buckle, the States' knees would buckle, but most importantly, the American citizens' knees would buckle.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, we must consider four questions if this is to be considered as a serious and compelling force to constitutionally bar cuts in Social Security benefits. First, is it true that Social Security is currently off budget? Answer: Yes. In 1991 the Budget Enforcement Act did that. Second, it is not true that the Balanced Budget Act puts the Social Security trust fund back on budget? Answer: True, it does. Third, is it not true that even with the Flanagan amendment, Congress could subsequently raid the trust fund to balance the budget under the Balanced Budget Act without penalty? Answer: True. Is it not true that the only ironclad protection for the Social Security trust fund is to write it into the balanced budget amendment, into the text, that Social Security would not be counted as either outlays or receipts? Unless we do that, Mr. Speaker, what we are doing here is merely a rhetorical exercise of stating good intentions that will lead us no further along this compelling question, in the resolution of it, than we were before this concurrent resolution was adopted. Please, Mr. Speaker, let us wait for the Gephardt amendment that would actually take care of this problem.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I would like to congratulate the new chairman of the committee that I chaired and served on so well, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Clinger], and to also congratulate the ranking minority member, the gentlewoman from Illinois [Mrs. Collins]. Mr. Chairman, the so-called unfunded mandates legislation before us today offers no real protection to the States or local units of government in the event a balanced budget constitutional amendment is adopted. Evidently, this is why the Republican leadership has resisted the efforts by Democrats on the Judiciary Committee and throughout the House to provide an explicit statement about unfunded mandates in the text of any proposed constitutional amendment to balance the budget. By keeping the constitutional amendment and the unfunded mandates statute on separate tracks, we have reached the height of obfuscation of true intent very early, indeed, in the new Congress. The balanced budget amendment approved by the Judiciary Committee last week places State and local taxpayers at severe risk by allowing State and local governments to bear the brunt of the costs of balancing the Nation's budget through increases in unfunded mandates. Further Congresses would find it much easier to simply override the legislation being considered today and increase unfunded mandates rather than to make painful cuts or increase taxes, the latter of which would require a three-fifths vote of Congress. It is because of these concerns that the National League of Cities testified in opposition to the balanced budget amendment at hearings last week. Mayor Jeffrey N. Wennberg of Rutland, VT, testified that ``any balanced budget amendment would almost certainly increased unfunded mandates on cities and towns as well as decrease what little Federal assistance currently remains to fund existing mandates.'' He also noted that the ``pressure to order State and local spending will grow geometrically under a balanced budget amendment unless an equally powerful restriction on [unfunded] mandates is enacted [in the Constitution].'' Mayor Wennberg's concerns have been echoed by representative Karen McCarthy, past president of the National Conference of State Legislatures, and Vermont Governor Howard Dean, chairman of the National Governor's Association. The projected impact of the balanced budget amendment on the States would indeed be staggering. A recent Treasury Department study concludes that in order to balance the budget by the year 2002, ``Federal grants to States would be cut by a total of $97.8 billion in fiscal 2002.'' Other Federal spending that directly benefits State residents would be cut by $242.2 billion in fiscal year 2002. My own State of Michigan would face a loss of $2.5 billion in Federal funding, which would require more than a 13-percent increase in State taxes. The only way to protect the State and local governments from the threat of increased unfunded mandates would have been to include a constitutional prohibition in the text of House Joint Resolution 1. Representative Frank sought to do precisely this at the committee markup, but his amendment was defeated by the Republicans in a 15 to 20 party-line vote. The Governors, the mayors, the police and other local officials should not be misled. Unfunded mandates legislation will not protect them when the Federal Government is forced to make draconian budget cuts to balance the budget. The only real safeguard would be to include such a prohibition in a constitutional amendment to balance the budget, because then, the States would have such a promise before them in determining whether to ratify such an amendment. But so far, that option has been blocked by the new Republican majority. While a clever ploy, that sleight-of-hand has already been seen for what it really is: A failure of resolve to descend from soaring rhetoric to making a real promise to the States and the American people.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing the Baseball Fans and Communities Protection Act of 1995. It is time that Congress finally steps up to the plate and ends baseball's antitrust exemption which is at the root of the current strike and which has hijacked the national pastime away from the fans and communities that have supported it for so long. Professional baseball is the only industry in the United States that is exempt from the antitrust laws without being subject to alternative regulatory supervision. There may have been a time when this unique treatment under our antitrust laws was a source of pride and distinction for the many who loved the game. But that time has ended. The continuing baseball strike of 1994--which ended the regular season, which ended the possibility of a World Series for the first time in 90 years and which has very nearly ended the love affair of the American people with their national pastime--has now become the Baseball strike of 1995. If Congress fails to take swift action in the 104th Congress, this lingering strike has the strong potential to destroy yet another season; and I, for one, am not going to stand by passively and watch that happen. I am proud that the House Judiciary Committee at the close of the last Congress voted to repeal the nonstatutory antitrust exemption created by an anomalous Supreme Court decision in 1922. That decision created the notion that baseball somehow did not involve ``interstate commerce'' and thus was beyond the reach of the Federal Antitrust laws. The committee acted to end this illusion, which has now spawned very real and devastating economic consequences for our citizens. The bill I am introducing responds to the current phase of the recurring labor crisis in baseball in a very limited, yet crucial, way: By subjecting the players' union and the owners to the Nation's antitrust laws in the event one party unilaterally imposes an anticompetitive term or condition of employment on the other. As introduced, the bill exempts minor league baseball from the scope of its coverage. It may be that the current situation will demand an even stronger response and a broader repeal. But, in my judgment, this is an appropriate starting point for developing a bipartisan consensus on the issue in the committee and in the full house. The end result of baseball's special treatment has been the perpetuation of a closed, cartelized industry in which the few, incumbent club owners possess inordinate economic power and every other party--players, fans, municipalities, minor league club owners, potential expansion investors--remain economically marginalized. In a very real sense, the competitive landscape of major league baseball in 1995 resembles the very type of business arrangements that spurred Congress to enact the antitrust laws in the 1890's. I am gratified by the bipartisan support received for this legislation in the last Congress, and the prospect that both sides of the aisle can work productively together to have swift are some who wish to concentrate solely on the provisions of the so- called ``contract with America'' in the first 3\1/2\ months of the new session, I would urge all of my colleagues to join with me in moving this to a high priority status so that spring training and the regulator season are not lost to the American people. We have the opportunity and ability to rescue the national pastime from its current dispiriting condition. Let's not allow this opportunity to pass by or be deferred. I urge all colleagues to join in the effort.