John Conyers

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1312) to expedite adjudication of employer petitions for aliens of extraordinary artistic ability, as amended.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, H.R. 1312 is a bipartisan measure intended to address the extended delays in visa processing faced by nonprofit arts organizations when they invite foreign artists to perform in the United States. Hosting a performance by a foreign artist or arts group requires, obviously, a great deal of planning. And the host organization has to calendar the event, advertise it, and sell tickets far in advance. And these efforts are made with the expectation that the visa petitions filed by the guest performers will be adjudicated in time for their arrival in the United States. If their adjudication is delayed, it causes a tremendous disruption and has led some arts organizations in the world to stop engaging foreign artists altogether because they can't risk the expensive canceling of performers. Performances by foreign artists give American audiences the opportunity to experience a variety of arts traditions. And when they're called off, it's not just the host organization and the audience that bears the cost, the cancelled show impacts the local economy as well. Current law requires the Department of Homeland Security to process petitions for O and P visas within 2 weeks of receipt of a completed petition. And the Department has implemented a premium 15-day processing for a $1,000 fee, but when a visa is required to be processed in 14 days, it seems particularly unreasonable to ask a nonprofit entity to pay $1,000 for a 15-day service. So, what we do in this measure is strike a balance by giving the Department 30 days, more than twice the current processing time, and if the visa is not processed in 30 days and the petitioner is a nonprofit organization, the bill requires the Department to provide premium processing for no additional fee. I'm happy to say that my colleagues, the former Judiciary Committee Chair, James Sensenbrenner, and the current ranking member, Lamar Smith of Texas, have tried and worked with us to arrive at a solution similar to the one laid out in this bill. At this point, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, although there is great support for this bill, I have no other requests for time. And in full confidence and trust of the other side, I return the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. I thank the gentleman, Steve King, for yielding to me. In other words, you're recommending that we should have had a two- tier system, because there are some aspiring jazz performers in Europe who want to come over, and they have considerably less than $2 billion in accumulated assets.

Mr. CONYERS. Well, it's so uncharacteristic of you to want to sock the rich and not just charge everybody the same amount.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, the measure before us calls attention to a critically important issue, the state of our Nation's criminal justice system. We do this by designating March as National Criminal Justice Month, because it will serve to raise awareness of the causes and consequences of crime, as well as our crime prevention efforts. It is a subject and an area that, for too long, we have not paid close attention to, and it is our feeling that this designation will have a great impact upon our work. Millions of Americans have been victimized by crimes, and many millions more pass through our criminal justice system. We have more than 2 million Americans behind bars, I am sad to say. This means that almost one out of every 100 Americans is incarcerated. Among African American men between the ages of 20 and 34, one in nine are behind bars. What a tragedy. What a waste of human life and potential. The New York Times observed, ``We have become a prison nation.'' [From the New York Times, Mar. 10, 2008] Prison Nation After three decades of explosive growth, the nation's prison population has reached some grim milestones: More than 1 in 100 American adults are behind bars. One in nine black men, ages 20 to 34, are serving time, as are 1 in 36 adult Hispanic men. Nationwide, the prison population hovers at almost 1.6 million, which surpasses all other countries for which there are reliable figures. The 50 states last year spent about $44 billion in tax dollars on corrections, up from nearly $11 billion in 1987. Vermont, Connecticut, Delaware, Michigan and Oregon devote as much money or more to corrections as they do to higher education. These statistics, contained in a new report from the Pew Center on the States, point to a terrible waste of money and lives. They underscore the urgent challenge facing the federal government and cash-strapped states to reduce their overreliance on incarceration without sacrificing public safety. The key, as some states are learning, is getting smarter about distinguishing between violent criminals and dangerous repeat offenders, who need a prison cell, and low- risk offenders, who can be handled with effective community supervision, electronic monitoring and mandatory drug treatment programs, combined in some cases with shorter sentences. Persuading public officials to adopt a more rational, cost- effective approach to prison policy is a daunting prospect, however, not least because building and running jailhouses has become a major industry. Criminal behavior partly explains the size of the prison population, but incarceration rates have continued to rise while crime rates have fallen. Any effort to reduce the prison population must consider the blunderbuss impact of get-tough sentencing laws adopted across the United States beginning in the 1970's. Many Americans have come to believe, wrongly, that keeping an outsized chunk of the population locked up is essential for sustaining a historic crime drop since the 1990's. In fact, the relationship between imprisonment and crime control is murky. Some portion of the decline is attributable to tough sentencing and release policies. But crime is also affected by things like economic trends and employment and drug-abuse rates. States that lagged behind the national average in rising incarceration rates during the 1990's actually experienced a steeper decline in crime rates than states above the national average, according to the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit group. A rising number of states are broadening their criminal sanctions with new options for low-risk offenders that are a lot cheaper than incarceration but still protect the public and hold offenders accountable. In New York, the crime rate has continued to drop despite efforts to reduce the number of nonviolent drug offenders in prison. The Pew report spotlights policy changes in Texas and Kansas that have started to reduce their outsized prison populations and address recidivism by investing in ways to improve the success rates for community supervision, expanding treatment and diversion programs, and increasing use of sanctions other than prison for minor parole and probation violations. Recently, the Supreme Court and the United States Sentencing Commission announced sensible changes in the application of harsh mandatory minimum drug sentences. These are signs that the country may finally be waking up to the fiscal and moral costs of bulging prisons. Each year, we on all of our criminal justice systems spend more than $200 billion. The Pew Center Report states that Connecticut, Delaware, my own State of Michigan, Oregon, and Vermont spend as much or more money on corrections as they do on higher education. I think this is a disgraceful circumstance, and the policies of simply incarcerating increasing numbers of Americans without real opportunities for rehabilitation fail those who go through the criminal justice system, but, more than that, it hurts and diminishes every American. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I only have a little bit more to add, and so I yield myself a little more time. This measure is a good one even though it comes a little late. Some may have noticed that this is for a celebration in March, and this is April. The reason is that we couldn't get it on the schedule before now, but there were many celebrations in connection with this matter that occurred. I want to commend the judge and distinguished member of the Judiciary Committee from Texas who is managing the bill for his personal comments that he has brought to this matter today. I can imagine the kinds of things that not only him but members of the judiciary across this country are seeing, heartbreaking incidents, circumstances and experiences. There are so many people that are incarcerated, they are in prison because of nonviolent offenses, of sentencing procedures that are really out of the hands of the court. People think of the unlimited powers of the judiciary. Many times they are restricted in terms of what it is they can do and how they can handle the matters that come before their courts. I am impressed that our colleague would tell us of some of the things that move him in his experience in the judiciary. Now I don't want to think that he was driven from the judiciary to the Congress because that is like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire; but I am happy that he serves on the committee with great distinction, and we always are pleased to be able to work together on these kinds of matters. In that spirit, I urge the support of H. Res. 945. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. I thank the Speaker, and I yield myself as much time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, this Friday, April 4, will mark the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination in 1968. I note that, once again, our distinguished colleague from Georgia, John Lewis, has introduced a bipartisan House Resolution calling upon all Americans, on this anniversary, to pause and remember the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and I'd like to acknowledge the many members of the Judiciary Committee supporting this resolution, Lamar Smith, Gerald Nadler, Zoe Lofgren, Bobby Scott, Keith Ellison, Steve Cohen and others. Dr. King was not only our greatest civil rights leader, but he was also the person that personally has given me the political, philosophical undergirding to attempt to transfer his belief system into some of the objectives of the United States through the Congress. What a leader he was. I shall be in Memphis this Friday celebrating, with the distinguished gentleman from New York, Harry Bellefonte, and many others, the work that he has done in trying to bring justice, understanding, full employment, an economic system, and end the war in this country and in this world. He addressed, on the night before his assassination, the sanitation workers in Memphis at the Mason Temple. And I don't know about you, but it seemed to me that he had a premonition that he was spending the last days of his life on earth in this cause. He seemed to have projected his understanding of how fleeting his life may have been. Of course, I'm also connected to Dr. King by his family, Coretta Scott King and their children, and of course, the unbelievably courageous Mrs. Rosa Parks, who later came to Detroit and honored my office by working there for many, many years. And so I'm very pleased to join in with this re-examination and remembrance of our great leader, to me, one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century. And so I'm proud to stand before you as the chairman of the Judiciary to bring this resolution forward. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. I thank the gentleman from Texas, the ranking member, Mr. Smith. I would like now to recognize Steve Cohen, our distinguished colleague from Memphis, Tennessee, for 2 minutes.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, it's now my high privilege to recognize the majority leader, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) who many years ago had me bring to one of his meetings Rosa Parks, and that was the beginning of a very important relationship between Mrs. Parks and Steny Hoyer and myself.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased now to recognize the distinguished gentleman from Georgia, Mr. David Scott, and I recognize him for 3 minutes.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased now to recognize the gentleman from Maryland, the Honorable Elijah Cummings, who is not only an attorney but a person of deep religious persuasions, a leader in the church. He has worked continually in the area of civil rights, voter activity, and I yield him as much time as he may consume.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1041, I call up the bill (H.R. 3773) to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to establish a procedure for authorizing certain acquisitions of foreign intelligence, and for other purposes, with a Senate amendment thereto, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Marshall, I couldn't put it any more appropriately myself.

Mr. CONYERS. I agree, as well.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler), a coauthor of the bill before us today and the chairman of the Constitution Committee.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Ladies and gentlemen of the House, we finally come to the point in time where we consider the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act amendments, and I am delighted to bring this measure to the floor. I begin by observing that there are few rights that are more fundamental to our democracy than the right to have protections against unreasonable search and seizure, and there are few responsibilities that are more important than the government's protecting us from foreign threats. I submit that the measure before us does both of those and regards them as the two most important acts that we can pursue as responsible Members of the Congress. That conflict or tension goes to the very core of who we are as a Nation. Now, for more than 30 years, we have relied on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to strike the appropriate balance between the government's need to protect our rights from foreign attack and our citizens' right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures and to have freedom of speech. The heart of that bargain was that the government could indeed use its awesome power of surveillance but only through independent court review. That's FISA since 1978. Now, a few years ago, the administration unilaterally chose to engage in warrantless surveillance of American citizens without court review. And last August, when this scheme appeared to be breaking down, this administration pushed through a law that it had caused to be drafted that essentially transferred the power of independent review from the courts to the Attorney General of the United States. Today, we will be voting on legislation to restore that proper balance. And so we present to you an uncomplicated consideration of a measure that has three titles. The first allows the government to obtain a single court order to approve surveillance against all members of any known terrorist group. It includes important safeguards to make sure that this power is not used to target innocent Americans. The chairman of the Intelligence Committee has a lot more to say about that. The second title deals with the difficult issue of how we make sure that those telecom carriers who assisted the government in the aftermath of the September 11 tragedy are not placed in a position where they cannot defend themselves in court. And then, finally, the last title provides an accounting of the highly controversial warrantless surveillance program. The administration tells us they have nothing to hide and the program was lawful in their program or its implementation. If that is the case, they should have nothing to fear from this blue ribbon commission that will be created by the enactment of the provision before us. Now, we learned only yesterday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was continuing to misuse the authorities that we granted it under the PATRIOT Act 6 years ago to unlawfully obtain information about law-abiding Americans. Just yesterday. We learned 4 days ago that the National Security Agency was using its massive power to create a nationwide database of American citizens. Four days ago. And so that's why I believe it important that we include the civil liberties safeguards set forth in the legislation today. We have been working very closely with the American Civil Liberties Union in that regard, and we have a half dozen other organizations that have fully endorsed the bill. The legislation before us gives the administration and the agencies every tool they need to protect our Nation against terrorism, while at the same time protecting our own citizens' civil rights and liberties. I urge that we carefully examine the proposition before us. And I will reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1041, I have a motion at the desk.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize Jim Marshall of Georgia, who has worked with us on this month in and month out, for 1\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. CONYERS. Of course.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, could I remind my two distinguished members of Judiciary, Mike Pence of Indianapolis and Steve Chabot of Ohio, that the reason we are not taking up the Senate provisions is that the House has a better idea, and we are coequal. They don't give us whatever they want. The Chair is pleased now to recognize Bobby Scott of Virginia, chairman of the Crime Committee, for 2 minutes.

Mr. CONYERS. I wanted my friend Judge Gohmert to know that the reason we didn't get the bipartisanship that the other body did is that you guys boycotted our meetings. Your ranking member or leader could have sent anybody to our meetings, but you didn't come. So now you are complaining. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to recognize Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a valuable member of our Judiciary Committee, for 1 minute.