Tom DeLay

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. I will be glad to yield.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, we would like to have gone into recess a few minutes ago, but the staff of the House has convinced me otherwise. But we wanted to go into recess to give time for our Democrat colleagues to go down to the White House so that they could celebrate. And why are they celebrating? They are celebrating those Members of Congress who voted for the largest tax increase in the history of this country. We want to make sure they all were able to get down to the White House in a timely fashion. Included in that group are several former Members of Congress who lost because of that vote. I am not kidding. This is not April Fool's Day. This is actually happening down at the White House as we speak. Do not worry, though. There will not be any Republicans invited to the White House tonight because not one Republican voted for the largest tax increase in history and so none of us got an invitation. But down in my office right now we are having hot dogs and pizza to celebrate the fact that we voted for tax cuts last year. We are going to vote for tax cuts again this year. We are going to vote for tax cuts again next year. We will vote for tax cuts every year we are in the majority. And we will continue to want to cut taxes for America's working families. Because we understand that over 50 percent of a family's income goes to the Government. If you add up State, local and Federal taxes and the cost of regulation, 50 cents out of every hard-earned dollar that the American family makes today goes to the government. No wonder our families are in strain. No wonder it takes one parent to work for the Government while the other parent works for the family. But Democrats, on the other hand, love to raise taxes. One prominent Democrat admitted that Democrats just do not like to cut taxes, they like to raise taxes. They think cutting taxes is irresponsible. They think raising taxes is responsible. Can we remember the debates of 1995 and 1996? Everybody said we cannot cut taxes and balance the budget; that is irrelevant, and it is crazy. Well, we did it last year. We cut taxes on the American family. We had the first balanced budget agreement in I do not know how many years. But this is why they are usually responsible for increasing those taxes. Now, make no mistake about it, the Democrat budget not only increased taxes, it also increased spending and deepened the deficit. Now the Republican budget, the budget we passed in 1995, cut taxes and balanced the budget. So the lesson here is very simple. If we want higher taxes and more Washington spending and higher deficits, then the American people need to vote for the Democrats. If we want lower taxes and a balanced budget and sensible government spending, then they should vote for the Republicans. So I hope my friends are enjoying themselves down at the White House tonight. But their party's commitment to higher taxes is no party.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. I wish my colleague a very pleasant weekend. I hear the weather is nice in Michigan.

Mr. DeLAY. If the gentleman would yield. Certainly the gentleman is not talking about limiting the jurisdiction of judges, is he?

Mr. DeLAY. Anything in this body is in doubt, as the gentleman knows. We are working on it. We hope the committees to work on the bill and bring it to the floor as soon as we can.

Mr. DeLAY. And we hope to bring the campaign finance reform when it has had open and fair discussion sometime in May. Certainly, I would expect we would hope before the Memorial Day recess.

Mr. DeLAY. Well, as the gentleman knows, we are all excited about bringing campaign finance reform to the floor.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I would be glad to.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior), the distinguished Minority Whip, yielding to me. I am pleased to announce, Mr. Speaker, that we have concluded legislative business for the week. The House will next meet on Monday, April 27, for a pro forma session. There will be no legislative business and no votes that day. On Tuesday, April 28, the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for the morning hour and 2 p.m. for legislative business. On Tuesday, we will consider a number of bills under suspension of the rules, a list of which will be distributed to Members' offices. Members should note that we do not expect any recorded votes before 5:00 on Tuesday, April 28. On Wednesday, April 29, and Thursday, April 30, the House will meet at 10 a.m. to consider the following legislation: A bill to establish a prohibition regarding illegal drugs and the distribution of hypodermic needles; H.R. 6, the Higher Education Amendment of 1998; H.R. 1872, the Communications Satellite Competition and Privatization Act of 1997; H.R. 3546, the National Dialogue on Social Security Act of 1998; and S. 1502, the District of Columbia Student Opportunity Scholarship Act of 1997. Next week, we also hope to consider the conference report to the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act. Mr. Speaker, we hope to conclude legislative business for the week by 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 30. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the business in order under the Calendar Wednesday rule be dispensed with on Wednesday next.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns on Monday, April 27, 1998, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 28, 1998, for morning hour debates.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for all his hard work, and I appreciate being yielded this time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to instruct. The question today, frankly, is not whether you support the IMF. We will answer that question in due time. Instead, we have to ask whether this motion will speed up disaster assistance to the American people, or slow that assistance down. Clearly, if we pass this motion to instruct conferees, we will complicate the process of getting needed assistance to Americans who have faced disasters in the last year. When it comes to the IMF, many of us continue to have strongly held and competing opinions. Why would one want to mix that kind of understanding and confusion? Some believe that we should give more money to the IMF, no matter what the consequences. Others of us believe that the IMF is all too often not the solution, but rather the problem. Still others have opinions that fall somewhere in the middle. We all agree, however, that we should do our best to help Americans who have suffered from natural disasters. We also should all agree that our Armed Forces need the necessary funds to sustain them overseas. Mr. Chairman, I just urge my colleagues to keep the process as simple as possible. Let us vote against this motion to instruct, and let us make sure that the American people are taken care of first.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, first of all, I am not, in my amendment, stopping any other remedies, any other constitutional remedies or the rights of inmates that are being mistreated, overcrowded, or any other prison condition. That is not my amendment. My amendment basically is saying to judges, stop finding loopholes to continue your consent decrees, and we are going to eliminate the ``if'' part about early release of prisoners. We are not going to put these criminals back on the streets. They can have all the other remedies.

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

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman yielding. I understand the struggle that the gentleman is going through. I appreciate that. I just want to remind the gentleman that in 1995 we passed a law, signed by this President, dictating to these judges that they should vacate these consent decrees if they have no further constitutional grounds, and these judges have found loopholes by which they can continue.

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

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I agree with the gentleman, but disagree with his interpretation. I have the advantage of not having gone to law school. The advantage is such that nothing stops the inmates' rights to bring action against prison officials. All we are saying here is do not turn these felons out on the street.

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

Mr. DeLAY. I totally agree with the gentleman.

Mr. DeLAY. Madam Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman yielding. He must be reading a different amendment than I put in. This amendment does not affect any court action brought against prison officials that might violate the criminals' rights or even prison conditions. There are other kinds of remedies that can come into play here. What we are just saying is do not turn felons out, and surely the gentleman is not for turning felons out, including nonviolent felons like drug dealers, out on the street just because prison conditions may be overcrowded and they could put prisoners in tents.

Mr. DeLAY. Madam Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, the courts have undone almost every major anticrime initiative passed by the legislative branch. In the 1980's, as many States passed mandatory minimum sentencing laws that the American people wanted to see happen around the country to keep these criminals in jail, judges checkmated the public by imposing prison caps on the amount of population that we can hold in prisons. 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 most of the perverse failures of today's justice system, violent offenders serving barely 40 percent of their sentences. Three and a half million, 3\1/2\ million criminals, most of them repeat offenders, are on the streets today and are on probation or parole. Thirty-five percent of all persons arrested for violent crime were on probation, parole or pretrial release at the time of their arrest. Well, 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 amendment will set such restraints. I presume we will hear the cries of court stripping by the opponents of my amendment. These cries, however, will come from the same people who voted to limit the jurisdiction of Federal courts in the 1990 civil rights bill. Now 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 upon Congress to consider legislative proposals that will reduce the jurisdiction of the Federal courts.'' We should heed Justice Rehnquist's call right here, right now. The voters will be watching this vote. A vote against this amendment is a vote to put prisoners, convicts, drug dealers and rapists on the streets of my colleagues' congressional districts. Judicial activism threatens the very safety of our children and our constituents, if in the name of justice murderers and rapists are allowed to prowl on our streets before they serve their time. It is time to return some sanity to our justice system and keep violent offenders in jail, and I ask my colleagues to support my amendment.

Mr. DeLAY. Madam Chairman, I just wanted to say that this is a wonderful debate that we are having. It is great to be part of an institution that is actually trying to regain some of its authority and responsibility that the Founding Fathers envisioned in the Constitution of the United States, and I am offering an amendment with the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha) that is, I think, pretty 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 our 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, criminals, convicted criminals, to gain control over the prison system and establish a cap on the number of prisoners. Federal Judge Shapiro put a cap on the number of prisoners in Pennsylvania. To meet that cap she ordered the release of 500 prisoners a week, 500 prisoners a week. In a 18-month period alone, 9,732 arrestees were out on the streets of Philadelphia on pretrial release because of her prison cap. They 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 Judge Shapiro 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. We are seeing this all over the United States. There are many other examples. In Texas, my home State, a case that dates back all the way 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. And under the threats of Judge Justice, 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 walking the streets of our Texas neighborhoods as I speak, 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 an 18-year-old Fort Worth girl. Now, after another crime spree, he was rearrested. Huey Moe was sentenced to 15 years for molesting a teenaged girl. He is 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 somebody 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, 1979, the State of Texas spent about $8 per day per prisoner to keep these prisoners. By 1994, with the full force of Judge Justice's edict being felt in the State of Texas, the State is spending more than $40 every day for each prisoner. That is a fivefold increase over a period when the State's prison system barely doubled. All of that money comes out of our families' pocket. 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 judicial activism.

Mr. DeLAY. Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.