Tom DeLay

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Solomon), the chairman of the Committee on Rules.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, the courts would not allow us to impose upon the President, even if this was a statute, impose upon the President the revealing of documents that would undermine national security. The gentleman is trying to change the subject. The subject is that, if the President wanted to reveal the truth to the American people, he could do so, and we want to send a message to the courts that are taking his appeal. I am not trying to change the subject at all. I believe that when we are dealing with something as nuanced and delicate and as important as this interrelationship between the executive branch and the legitimate investigative responsibilities of the legislative branch, we ought to proceed with due care. This seems to me to be, in its expansiveness, a little bit glib in the way it deals with a very, very important matter, and I think that the Members should take that seriously and not just dispense with it, because we know, of course, what this is really about.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman yield?

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding. It is a very good question, and I appreciate the gentleman asking it. First, let me answer it by saying this is a sense of Congress. This is not a binding law. This is expressing how the House feels about what the President has done in the executive privilege. That is number one. Number two is, of course, we are not saying, reveal all documents, especially those documents that may undermine the national security of this country. There is precedent that would allow the President to claim executive privilege based upon national security. But we all know what the intent is here. We are not stopping the President from revealing the truth to the American people.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this is very serious business. As I said weeks ago, and I wish my voice was clearer so that the American people would hear from me in a very clear way, I think this is very serious business. This is not partisan politics. The gentleman says, Mr. Speaker, that we are attempting to inflict lasting damage to the institution of the Presidency. We think this President has already inflicted that damage on the office of the Presidency by claiming executive privilege to cover up information of a personal wrongdoing or possible crimes in the White House, by stonewalling the American people when, on the one hand, months ago, the President said, ``I will tell the American people the truth in a very expeditious manner, in a timely manner'', and yet has hid behind lawyers and courts and attack dogs. I think this is very serious. I rise today because I believe the American people have a right to know the truth. That is what this is all about. The American people have a right to know the truth. Mr. Speaker, the list is very long and far from distinguished: Whitewater; the Travel Office Affair; the collection of classified FBI files; foreign campaign contributions to the DNC, the Democratic National Committee; Webster Hubbell; the appointment of numerous Independent Counsels to investigate Cabinet members; the transfer of sensitive missile technology to the Communist Chinese. Do the American people know the full truth about what happened in even one of these scandals after 4\1/2\ years? The answer, as we all too well know, is a resounding no. The lengths to which this administration has gone to hide from the light of day are breathtaking. Sadly, congressional Democrats have lent the administration a helping hand every misguided step of the way. They have made sure that every hearing, every investigation is met with a coordinated campaign of misinformation and stonewalling. The gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton), chairman; the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Leach), chairman; the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Clinger), chairman; Chairman Senator Thompson, Chairman Senator D'Amato, Special Counsel Starr, FBI Director Freeh, each has been the victim of relentless personal attacks and slander from this administration, the administration's hit men and Democrats from Congress. Why? Because the one thing the Democrats fear the most is that the American people will find out the truth. They will go to any length to stop that from happening. The only strategy left to them is to draw these investigations out as long as possible so that they will never have to answer these questions or any questions. The only people President Clinton and the Democrats have to blame for these investigations are themselves. The Democrats have chosen a new tool, executive privilege. Mr. Speaker, executive privilege is an essential constitutional safeguard in my mind. It is vital to the protection of our national security. Almost every President since George Washington has made use of executive privilege in one way or another. But this administration is the first since President Nixon and only the second in the history of our country, only the second presidency in the history of our country to withhold information under claims of executive privilege from a Grand Jury investigating allegations of personal wrongdoing and possible crimes in the White House. President Clinton is obliged to claim executive privilege if he is doing so to protect national security. But President Clinton has repeatedly claimed executive privilege to shield himself, the First Lady, and some of his aides from testifying in a criminal investigation. Nearly 25 years ago, in the United States versus Nixon, the Supreme Court wrote about President Nixon's use of executive privilege under similar circumstances. I quote: To read the constitutional powers of the President as providing an absolute privilege against subpoena essential to enforcement of criminal statutes on no more than a generalized claim of the public interests and confidentiality of nonmilitary and nondiplomatic discussions would upset the constitutional balance of a workable government. The Supreme Court. The Supreme Court could not have been more clear. Executive privilege may be used only to protect national security, not to shield information in a criminal proceeding. Less than 4 years ago, the President's own special counsel, Lloyd Cutler, had this to say, and I quote: In circumstances involving communications relating to investigations of personal wrongdoing by government officials, it is our practice not to assert executive privilege, either in judicial proceedings or in congressional investigations and hearings. That is President Clinton's own Special Counsel that wrote that. The New York Times, a surprising new member of the right-wing partisan conspiracy, had this to say about the President's use of executive privilege: To invoke that privilege in a broad and self-serving way, as the Clinton White House has done to shield itself from Kenneth Starr's inquiry, is to abuse it. But this White House is not easily embarrassed. It has tried to invoke the hallowed attorney/client privilege even when attorneys are servants of the public, not the President's private lawyers. All this legal inventiveness carries the implicit assertion that Mr. Clinton is somehow above the law and thus raises the kind of constitutional questions that ought to be exposed to public debate. The New York Times. Mr. Speaker, that is all we are asking here today, that the President be honest with the American people about his use of executive privilege. Like the American people, I want to believe President Clinton. But what are reasonable people to believe when the President will not even level with them? We are not asking that the President tell us the substance of private conversations with his lawyers, although that would be nice. No, we are simply asking the President to be honest with the American people, with the people of the United States. Just be honest. Just be honest. Mr. Speaker, I urge my friends and colleagues on the other side of the aisle to support this resolution and send a message to the Appeals Court. I urge you to go to the President and tell him, tell the American people what you are doing. It is so simple. If you have nothing to hide, come clean. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), the distinguished Chairman of the Republican Conference.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the right to close, and I have no other speakers, and I am working with the gentleman from Colorado on an amendment, so if the gentleman has no more speakers, I will close.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DeLAY. 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. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I think we just got---- Point of Order

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I hope the American people just saw that display, because what they saw is Big Brother on the prowl again, Big Brother government trying to stifle the American people once again, and they are not even satisfied with open and honest debate. They want the debate on their terms, voting up or down on their bills, and they do not want any amendments. Well, I look forward to having a vigorous and complete debate about the state of our campaign laws, the laws that the gentleman from California enacted around 1974. Some believe that the laws that govern our elections are in such desperate shape that we should erect a huge government bureaucracy and sharply limit the ability of our citizens to participate through further spending limits; others believe that things are so serious that we need to scrap the First Amendment to the Constitution, the premier political reform in human history, and start all over with a new First Amendment that restrains the exuberance of the American electorate; and the president uses campaign finance reform as a way to distract the American people from his own campaign's shameless abuse of the campaign laws. Well, Mr. Speaker, I do not think we need to throw the baby out with the bath water. We do not need to scrap the First Amendment simply because the Clinton campaign could not abide by our own current laws. Some of my colleagues, with very good intentions in their hearts, have crafted legislation that would make our Founding Fathers turn in their graves. The Shays-Meehan approach is a direct assault upon the First Amendment. The Hutchinson bill is only slightly less offensive. I contend that these two bills will erect a Byzantine set of laws that will gag citizens' speech, and, as the ACLU has warned, not exactly one of my best supporters, but they have warned that this barrier would inevitably be analogous to barbed wire fences. No individual or group would try to scale it, unless they were willing to become ensnared in a complicated set of laws, whose penalties would inflict serious pain. Now, attempts to regulate and to require disclosure of issue advocacy that has been talked about a lot here through statute and through FEC regulation have repeatedly been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and other lower Federal courts. The Court has always viewed issue advocacy as a form of speech that deserves the highest degree of protection, strict scrutiny under the First Amendment. And that Court has not only been supportive, has not only been supportive of issue advocacy, it has affirmatively stated that it is untroubled by the fact that issue advertisements may influence the outcome of an election. In fact, in Buckley v. Valeo the Justices stated, and I quote, and it is a wonderful quote, ``The First Amendment denies government the power,'' denies big brother the power, ``to determine that spending to promote one's political views is wasteful, excessive, or unwise. In a free society ordained by our Constitution, it is not the government, but the people, the people, individually, as citizens and candidates and collectively, the people as associations and political committees, they are the ones who must retain control over the quantity and the range of debate on public issues in a political campaign.'' Not this House, not some bureaucracy, not the FEC, not even you. The people, something we forget about in this Chamber a lot. Freedom of speech is the issue. My friends who support Shays and other bills to restrict freedom of speech will deny that any First Amendment issue is at stake. Well, Mr. Speaker, the First Amendment is not a loophole. Freedom and reform are not mutually exclusive principles. They go hand-in-hand. The First Amendment is not an idea that should be tossed aside like a piece of garbage. It is our first freedom. It is our most critical freedom. It is the First Amendment in America's premier political reform. We should be expanding freedom. We should be encouraging participation in the political process. Now, many campaign reform proposals go in the other direction. They clamp down on freedom, they gag citizens, they restrict freedom. I believe that there are things we can do to improve our campaign laws. We should have full disclosure so that the American people have quicker and better access to the information that they need to make informed decisions. And the proposal of the gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle) to require that all campaign contributions be posted on the Internet I think is an excellent way to get full disclosure. We should cut out the bureaucracy and the paperwork so that more of our citizens feel more comfortable about running for office. We should lift up campaign limits so that middle America can solicit the support that they need to run for office, not only rich people. We should oppose any effort to give welfare to politicians, and I urge my colleagues to stand for freedom and join with me in protecting the First Amendment from further attack.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, let me just say, in evaluating what we just witnessed from the gentlewoman from Connecticut, that I appreciate her passion for the issues that she thinks are important that we should bring to the floor. And we will carry out our obligations. Our committees are working. They are putting out legislation. We marked up a budget just this week. We will have the budget on the floor in a couple of weeks. Our appropriations process is working. The House is doing the people's business. But what we are seeing by what we just witnessed was an effort, a concerted effort, by Democrats of this House to change the subject. They do not want to talk about this subject. They will do anything to change the subject. They are very upset that we are bringing this to the floor and saying, what is the reason for bringing this to the floor? I say to my good friend, and I do have the utmost respect for the ranking member of the Committee on Rules, that when he cited that President Reagan invoked executive privilege three times, he is right, but mostly for national security reasons. But what he did not invoke executive privilege for was to withhold information under claims of executive privilege from a grand jury investigating allegations of personal wrongdoing and possible crimes in the White House. That is what we are talking about here. Another reason we want to bring this resolution to the floor, and I hope Members will vote for the rule, is that the President is hiding behind the courts, as I said earlier, and he knows very well that the courts are not going to uphold his claim of executive privilege to withhold information of personal wrongdoing. But if he engages in enough appeals process, we might get past November's election and he will think he will be home free because he will have only 2 years left of his term. But we want the next court that hears the appeal of the President's executive privilege claim to know how the people's House feel about executive privilege, and that is the reason I am bringing my resolution. The next court could be the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court. But they ought to know how the people's House feels about a President that invokes executive privilege for himself, the First Lady and his staff in order to withhold information from a grand jury investigating allegations of personal wrongdoing and possible crimes in the White House.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this motion to instruct, and I am instructed that the conferees, who would like to be out here to debate against this motion to instruct, but they are hard at work in the conference in order to turn out an excellent highway bill, but I am instructed to tell the House that the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure is against this motion to instruct. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DeLAY. I do, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, the First Amendment of the Constitution is the most famous and most effective campaign reform proposal in history. It has effectively protected the political freedoms of American citizens for over 200 years. If we leave it alone, it will protect the freedom of our citizens for the next 200 years. So why are some Members of this House so desperate to change the First Amendment? They want the government to have a greater role in determining how elections are financed and how campaigns are run. They want a bigger government bureaucracy, they want to sharply limit campaign contributions, and they want the taxpayers to finance political campaigns. Mr. Speaker, this kind of government intrusion into the election process would make Thomas Paine turn over in his grave. Now is the time for all good men to stand firm against Big Brother. Vote for free speech, and against amendments that take away free speech from our citizens.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, our opening prayer this morning was offered by my good friend and pastor of my church, Reverend Scott Rambo. Reverend Rambo has ministered to the spiritual needs of many of my constituents since 1995, when he became the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Sugar Land, Texas. Since becoming pastor of the first Baptist Church, Reverend Rambo has brought excitement and a sense of mission to our community. His message of faith and family has inspired many, as witnessed by the astronomic growth of the First Baptist Church of Sugar Land. Reverend Rambo is a graduate of the University of South Alabama and of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He started his career as the Minister of Evangelism at the Retta Baptist Church in Burleson, Texas. He became the youth minister at the Hillcrest Park Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, then moved to Dallas to take the job of Associate Youth Minister at the First Baptist Church of Dallas. He then left Texas for 3 years, serving as the Associate Pastor of the First Baptist Church in Bossier City, Louisiana. But, like all Texans, he could not leave Texas, he had to come home, so he returned back to Texas and started his current ministry in Sugar Land, Texas. Reverend Rambo, in my opinion, is a man that truly has a heart and a love for the Lord, and I want to thank Reverend Rambo for his inspirational words today and thank him for the inspirational work that he does in Sugar Land, Texas. So I want to welcome him to the House, and thank him for all his good work.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I have submitted to the House Committee on Rules the ``Gephardt Constitutional Amendment'' to amend the First Amendment for consideration by the House during debate on campaign reform. I have agreed to offer the amendment, not in the hope that it will pass, but in the hope that the House will bury this dangerous idea forever. The ``Gephardt Constitutional Amendment,'' would permit Congress and the states to enact laws regulating federal campaign expenditures and contributions. H.J. Res. 47 would challenge all pre-existing First Amendment jurisprudence and would give to Congress and the states unprecedented, sweeping and undefined authority to restrict speech protected by the First Amendment since 1791. Because it is vague and over-board, H.J. Res. 47 would give Congress a virtual ``blank check'' to enact any legislation that may abridge a vast array of free speech and free association rights that we now enjoy. I request that the Amendment be printed in the Record pursuant to the Rules Committee request prior to consideration by the full House. Joint Resolution Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to limit campaign spending Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification: ``Article--1 ``Section 1. To promote the fair and effective functioning of the democratic process, Congress, with respect to elections for Federal office, and States, for all other elections, including initiatives and referenda, may adopt reasonable regulations of funds expended, including contributions, to influence the outcome of elections, provided that such regulations do not impair the right of the public to a full and free discussion of all issues and do not prevent any candidate for elected office from amassing the resources necessary for effective advocacy. ``Section 2. Such governments may reasonably defined which expenditures are deemed to be for the purpose of influencing elections, so long as such definition does not interfere with the right of the people fully to debate issues. ``Section 3. No regulation adopted under this authority may regulate the content of any expression or communication.''. The Gephardt Amendment is nothing more than a direct attack on our First Amendment freedoms. It is my hope that the House considers this amendment, and buries it forever.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. I appreciate and say to my friend, the gentleman from New York, that I rise in opposition to his amendment although I can see where he would like to go with this amendment. And I would think that we could work something out if we had time to work something out. But I have to say that the gentleman's amendment guts this bill. It completely guts the intent of this bill. The whole intent is to provide some process by which we can bring to the light of day a visible opportunity to discuss the fact that what we do in this Chamber has a direct impact on the private sector of this country. That is what this is about. If we have a situation here where the gentleman's amendment became part of the bill, then there is no use of having debate, because we could play all kinds of shenanigans with a bill to try to put the House in the position of not implementing the intent of this bill, because all we have to do is pull the substantive stuff out of a bill, offer it as a committee substitute or as a manager's amendment, and we negate the whole reason for the bill. So I just hope that we can work with the gentleman. I think there is a way that we can work this out. I understand and sympathize with the gentleman from New York that he does not want to stifle debate. Nor do I. But I would say to the gentleman from New York that we could probably fashion an amendment that looks at, say, for instance, amendments that are not printed in the Record or amendments that are just brought to the floor ad hominem. But to exclude all amendments from a bill slows down and violates the spirit of debate.

Mr. DeLAY. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's support for the bill, but the way we read it, and certainly the way the Committee on Rules reads it and the Committee on Rules staff reads it, is that the gentleman's amendment is so broad and includes so much that it, in effect, does kill the entire intent of the bill and the whole reason for the bill. So unless we can work something out, I would urge our Members to vote against the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. DeLAY. Reclaiming my time, I understand, and appreciate the gentleman trying to work with us. I appreciate that offer. But there is also committee substitutes, where a committee would bring to the floor and the opportunity for a committee. I see the chairman of the Committee on Rules is coming to the floor. He understands what this does to the Committee on Rules and the ability to manage debate on a bill on the floor. The gentleman's amendment not only creates huge loopholes in this bill, we might as well not even have the bill. But if we could narrow it down to a specific type of amendment, then maybe we could work with the gentleman and even accept his amendment.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina for yielding me this time. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of my bill, H.R. 3718. This bill is simple. It ends forever the early release of violent felons and convicted drug dealers by judges who care more about the ACLU's prisoners rights wish-list than about the Constitution and the safety of our towns and communities and fellow citizens. Under the threat of Federal courts, states are being forced to prematurely release convicts because of what activist judges call ``prison overcrowding.'' In Philadelphia, for instance, Federal Judge Norma Shapiro has used complaints filed by individual inmates to gain control over the prison system and established a cap on the number of prisoners. To meet that cap, she ordered the release of 500 prisoners per week. In an 18 month period alone, 9,732 arrestees out on the streets of Philadelphia on pretrial release because of her prison caps were arrested on second charges, including 79 murders, 90 rapes, 701 burglaries, 959 robberies, 1,113 assaults, 2,215 drug offenses and 2,748 thefts. How does she sleep at night? Each one of these crimes was committed against a person with a family dreaming of a safe and peaceful future, a future that was snuffed out by a judge who has a perverted view of the Constitution. Of course, Judge Shapiro is not alone. There are many other examples. In a Texas case that dates back to 1972, Federal Judge William Wayne Justice took control of the Texas prison system and dictated changes in basic inmate disciplinary practices that wrested administrative authority from staff and resulted in rampant violence behind bars. Under the threats of Judge Justice, Texas was forced to adopt what is known as the ``nutty release'' law that mandates good time credit for prisoners. Murderers and drug dealers who should be behind bars are now walking the streets of our Texas neighborhoods, thanks to Judge Justice. Wesley Wayne Miller was convicted in 1982 of a brutal murder. He served only 9 years of a 25 year sentence for butchering a 18-year-old Fort Worth girl. Now, after another crime spree, he was rearrested. Huey Meaux was sentenced to 15 years for molesting a teenage girl. He was eligible for parole this September, after serving only 2 years in prison. Kenneth McDuff was on death row for murder when his sentence was commuted. He ended up murdering someone else. In addition to the cost to society of Judge Justice's activism, Texas is reeling from the financial impact of Judge Justice's sweeping order. I remember back when I was in the State legislature, the State of Texas spent about $8 per prisoner per day keeping prisoners. By 1994, when the full force of Judge Justice's edict was finally being felt, the State was spending more than $40 every day for each prisoner. Now, that is a five-fold increase over a period when the State's prison population barely doubled. The truth is, no matter how Congress and State legislatures try to get tough on crime, we will not be effective until we deal with the judicial activism. The courts have undone almost every major anti-crime initiative passed by the Legislative Branch. In the 1980's, as many states passed mandatory minimum sentencing laws, the judges checkmated the public by imposing prison caps. When this Congress mandated the end of consent decrees regarding prison overcrowding in 1995, some courts just ignored our mandate. There is an activist judge behind each of the most perverse failures of today's justice system: violent offenders serving barely 40 percent of their sentences; 3\1/2\ million criminals, most of them repeat offenders, on the streets, on probation or parole; 35 percent of all persons arrested for violent crime on probation, parole, or pretrial release at the time of their arrest. The Constitution of the United States gives us the power to take back our streets. Article III allows the Congress of the United States to set jurisdictional restraints on the courts, and my bill will set such restraints. I presume we will hear cries of court-stripping by opponents of my bill. These cries, however, will come from the same people who voted to limit the jurisdiction of Federal courts in the 1990 civil rights bill. Let us not forget the pleas of our current Chief Justice of the United States, William Rehnquist. In his 1997 year-end report on the Federal judiciary, he said, ``I therefore call on Congress to consider legislative proposals that would reduce the jurisdiction of Federal courts.'' We should heed Justice Rehnquist's call right here, right now, today. Madam Speaker, this bill is identical to the amendment that I offered several weeks ago to H.R. 1252, the Judicial Reform Act. My amendment passed at that time 367 to 52. That is right, 367 yeas and 52 nays. While that is an overwhelming victory, it is not enough. I am saddened, I am saddened that 52 Members of this body could so callously vote against protecting the families they represent. Despite the fact that the liberal legal establishment will fight against my bill and the families it will help protect, many of my liberal Democrat colleagues voted for my amendment, and I greatly appreciate their vote. They could not afford not to. How can any Member of this body go home to their district and face a mother whose son or daughter has been savagely beaten and killed by some violent felon, a felon let out of prison early to satisfy the legal community's liberal agenda, to satisfy prison overcrowding or prison conditions? Nothing in my bill takes away the ability to change prison overcrowding and prison conditions. We are just saying, one cannot use early release to satisfy that condition. Judicial activism threatens our safety and the safety of our children if, in the name of justice, murderers and rapists are allowed to prowl our streets before they serve their time. I say it is time to return some sanity to our justice system and keep violent offenders in jail. I strongly urge my colleagues, for the sake of the families they represent, to support my bill.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding me this time. This is really a sad day for the House, that we have to bring a resolution like this to the House, and I rise in strong support of the resolution. I wish we did not have to bring it. To some, bipartisan means as long as they buy into their partisanship, they will go along. To some, they think it is the chairman of the committee that is the problem. This has nothing to do with the chairman of the committee. What it has to do, and the American people have seen it, that if people really wanted to get to the truth, the revelations that came over the weekend, we would have known years ago, at least months ago. But the American people have seen this administration stonewalling and dragging their feet, hiding documents, hiding behind their lawyers. We have seen Members of the other party and the other body attacking Chairman Thompson, attacking Chairman D'Amato. And over here they attack the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Leach), they attack the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Klink), and now they are attacking the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton), all for one purpose; and that is they are scared to death to get to the truth. Well, if all the scandals surrounding the Clinton administration had not meant much to the American people in the last 3 months, the latest revelations coming about the White House prove that they matter now. According to press accounts, the White House accepted campaign contributions from officials of the Communist Chinese army and then later approved the shipment of sensitive defense technology to that country. Now, we do not know if there is a connection there or not. But the American people have the right to know the truth. And this was done over the objections of several foreign policy advisors in this administration. This technology has threatened the balance of power in Asia, giving India an excuse to test nuclear weapons, thereby threatening the security of every human being on earth. So, Mr. Speaker, where were the Democrats when we asked them for their cooperation earlier this year in finding out the facts about this serious situation? Where were the Democrats when the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight tried to interview witnesses who had important information about this national security crisis? Some of our friends on the other side of the aisle appear to be turning their backs on the truth because they want to play these partisan games. Well, Mr. Speaker, this is no time for partisan games. Our national security is threatened by this new Asian arms race, which has been unwittingly jump-started by the political hacks at the White House. Now, I hope that these latest revelations would give even the fiercest partisan a reason to seek the truth. My friends, these events have put into motion the greatest crisis the world has seen since the end of the Cold War. Now is the time for Congress to work together to find out the facts, and I urge my Democrat colleagues to join us now in investigating these allegations. The American people have a right to know the truth.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, today I submit for consideration of the House during the upcoming debate on campaign reform the constitutional amendment authored by House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt. I intend to offer the amendment if Mr. Gephardt chooses not to offer his legislation. I will offer the amendment, not in the hope of having it passed. I will offer it to demonstrate the truth--that reformers are trying to gut the First Amendment of the Constitution.