Tom DeLay

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Judges that violate the Constitution and their oath of office.

Mr. DeLAY. They just used the wrong word.

Mr. DeLAY. Will the gentleman yield again?

Mr. DeLAY. I am not looking to impeach activist judges. What I am looking for are judges that violate their oath of office and judges that violate the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. DeLAY. First of all, I did not write that.

Mr. DeLAY. I appreciate the gentleman giving me this opportunity.

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

Mr. DeLAY. Is the gentleman going to yield to me now?

Mr. DeLAY. I thought the list of candidates is what I was referring to. I have got plenty of candidates, yes. I am just looking for one that is particularly bad in violating the Constitution and his oath of office, yes.

Mr. DeLAY. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DeLAY. I will be glad to consult with the gentleman when I have a candidate that has violated his oath of office and the Constitution.

Mr. DeLAY. I got a list and it is growing, yes, sir.

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

Mr. DeLAY. The gentleman from Michigan is absolutely quoting me correctly.

Mr. DeLAY. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DeLAY. Does the gentleman believe that a judge should not be impeached that violates his oath of office and violates the Constitution?

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

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the Chairman for yielding. I want to commend the chairman of the subcommittee and the chairman of the full committee and the Members of the Committee on the Judiciary for their very hard work and effort in what I consider a much needed piece of legislation. The system of checks and balances so carefully crafted by our Founding Fathers is in serious disrepair and has been for years. This bill takes a very necessary step to bring the courts back into constitutional order. The Founding Fathers established a system of government in the United States that does not allow one branch to become too powerful at the expense of the other. I contend, quite frankly, if we read the Constitution as it originally was written and intended, the judiciary branch was supposed to be the weakest branch of the three created by the Constitution. Contrary to the opinion of the liberal legal establishment of this country, judicial power is not limitless. Judicial power does not equal legislative power. Judges apply the law. They are not to make the law. When judges go further and unilaterally impose legislative remedies, they exceed the legitimate limits of power given to them by the Constitution. When judges legislate, they usurp the power of Congress. When judges stray beyond the Constitution, they usurp the power of the people. For instance, under the Constitution, only Congress can lay and collect taxes. But that did not stop District Judge Russell Clark from ordering tax increases from the bench. That tax increase, and 2 billion tax dollars, turned the city school district into a spending orgy, complete with editing and animation labs, greenhouses, temperature-controlled art galleries, and a model United Nations that was wired for language translation. If that is not taxation without representation, I do not know what it is. Another example of a judge tossing aside the Constitution and supplanting his own personal biases was the decision of the District Court Judge, Thelton Henderson, prohibiting the State of California from implementing the California Civil Rights Initiative, the CCRI. The CCRI simply removed the opportunity for State officials to judge people by their race and their sex, a practice that I think most Americans consider repugnant. In a ruling that turned common sense and our Constitution on its head, Justice Henderson ruled that by adopting the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment, the voters of the State of California had violated that same 14th amendment. Although judicial taxation and Judge Henderson's circumvention of the Constitution are two extreme examples of judges breaching the separation of powers, there are, of course, many, many others. Judges have created the right to die. Judges have prohibited States from declaring English as an official language. Judges have extended the right of States to withhold taxpayer-funded services from illegal aliens, all without sound constitutional basis. Now, some Federal judges have even made themselves the sovereigns of the cell blocks, micromanaging our State prisons, and forcing changes in prison operations that have resulted in the early release each year of literally hundreds of thousands of violent and/or repeat criminals out on our streets and the streets to plague our families. In 1970, not a single prison system was operating under the sweeping court orders common today. By 1990, some 508 municipalities, and over 1,200 State prisons were operating under some judicial confinement order or some consent decree. In New York City, judges have forced prison officials to require that only licensed barbers cut the hair of the prisoners; that sweetened coffee may never be served at meals for the prisoners; and a court- appointed monitor must be given a city car within one grade of the prison commissioner's car. If it were not so appalling, it would be funny. But if that is not enough, the same activist judges have also imposed prison caps, mandating the release of violent felons and drug dealers before they have even served their time. Later today, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha) and I will offer an amendment that will end this travesty of justice caused by overactive judges. Our amendment will prohibit a Federal judge from ever releasing a felon from prison because of claims of prison overcrowding. The prisoners claim of overcrowding has become a get-out-of-jail-free card. And we say no longer. No longer will these prisoners plague our families, and our cities, and in our towns. I urge my colleagues to support the Hyde bill and the DeLay-Murtha amendment. The time has come to reestablish our system of checks and balances and to restore sanity to our criminal justice system.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I really appreciate the gentleman for taking this special order and allowing us to participate, and I really appreciate my Chief Deputy Whip for all the fine work that he has done on drug abuse. Everybody that has spoken, I greatly appreciate it. I want to just take a few minutes, if I could, to express my opinion about the drug war and the lack of emphasis that the White House is making. You know, when a mother sends her son off to a foreign war, she worries ceaselessly about his safety. Yet, every day, millions of mothers put their children on a school bus and send them off into a domestic drug war zone. Teen drug abuse has reached epidemic proportions. And few places, least of all the classroom, are safe havens from this insidious modern plague. Let us not mince any words here. Drugs are everywhere. They are in the lockers and bathrooms and playgrounds of America's children's schools and parks and on the streets of our towns. Their poison, no longer confined to the inner city, has burst the damn and flooded the suburbs. Marijuana and hard narcotics are no longer the province of beatniks, punks and gangsters. The new drug abusers look a lot like Beaver Cleaver. Truth is, drug users do not just look like your son or daughter, drug users may very well include your son or daughter. So, Mr. Speaker, the facts speak for themselves. Overall teenage drug use has nearly doubled, nearly doubled in the 1990's, and perhaps most frightening of all, nearly half of all 17-year-olds say that they could buy marijuana within an hour, and that is according to a survey by Columbia's highly respected Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse. For those under 18, marijuana has become as accessible as beer or cigarettes, and with the President who did not inhale and a generation of baby boom parents nostalgic about their own youthful drug use and who too often considered marijuana benign, our children have been getting mixed messages for years. It does matter, character does matter. That is not to say that President Clinton or any national figure can be held individually responsible for the drug habits of our children, but the Clinton administration has made the fight against drugs its last priority and then abandoned ship mid-storm. No wonder teen drug use is on the rise. Wherever American children turn, in the schools, in the neighborhoods, parties, movies, rock concerts, even at home where household products can double as inhalants, they will find drugs available. Children rate drugs their No. 1 problem, and every single child in America is at risk of falling prey, regardless of race, ethnicity or economic status. So where is our war on drugs? Where is our political courage? Where is our sense of responsibility? Where is our leadership? Where is our shame? Too often we find that people who should be leading us out of this crisis are leading us deeper and deeper into it. Just this week Bill Clinton, the President of the United States, publicly embraced the outrageous practice of supplying hypodermic needles to drug abusers. On the one hand he wants to take cigarettes away from teenagers, and on the other hand he wants to give them condoms and needles. What kind of anti-drug policy is that? Instead of providing those addicted to drugs with assistance in kicking their habits, Bill Clinton is actually promoting the practice of providing drug addicts with the necessary tools needed to sustain their addiction. The issue is not whether our children are going to be tossed into the sea of drugs; the issue is how we will teach them to swim while we drain the pool. But there is a solution, multiple solutions in fact. We wish to solve the drug crisis. We will start with the family. If we want to solve the drug crisis we will start with the family and the school and with our churches and synagogues. Teens with families that eat together, play together and pray together are the ones least likely to try drugs. Teens with parents who assume responsibility for their children and do not blame society at large, teens who have an active religious life, these are the teens least likely to use drugs. Now, unfortunately there is an ever-increasing minority of our children. If the battle against drug abuse is waged at home, the war is only half won. Parents and children must also demand that their schools and their communities be made drug-free and take the actions necessary to keep them that way. We need to encourage kids to report drug dealers to their teachers even when those drug dealers are their classmates. We need to empower teachers so that when they know who the drug dealers are there is actually something they can do about it, and we must demand absolute accountability and zero tolerance by principals for any drug use on school grounds whatsoever. Only when our teachers and principals are enlisted in the anti-drug effort can we make our schools truly drug- free. The good news is that our children seem ready to enlist. More than 80 percent say that if their classmates went along they would make a pledge promising not to smoke, drink or use illegal drugs at school. Now some communities should consider assigning a full-time police officer to each school. They could walk the hallways like they would walk the beat, passing lockers, checking the parking lot, becoming a presence in the cafeteria. It is happening in some places already and it is working. Officers are bonding with the students because the students know that the cops are there to help. The drugs are kept out of the school and the kids are kept out of harm's way. Now there is even a role for the Federal Government. We can be more aggressive in guarding our borders, we can be more proactive in helping our neighbors to the south with their anti-drug efforts, as the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) is so good at doing, and we can be more vigilant in our policing, arresting and prosecution of anyone, anyone who sells this poison to our children. But it is time for the policy-makers to acknowledge to parents and their children that while Washington must use the bully pulpit to set an example, the drug crisis cannot be solved here in Washington. It must be solved in an our homes, in our schools, in our neighborhoods, and in every other place where children make decisions about whether or not to use illegal drugs. It is time for parents to say, ``We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it any more.'' It is time for them to send their kids a unequivocal message that they do not want them to try marijuana or any other illegal drugs and they will not tolerate it if they do. There is nothing wrong with being judgmental when it comes to the lives of our children, and I call upon every parent, Mr. Speaker, every parent to be intolerant and judgmental when it comes to drug use. It is time for parents to exert tough love for their children before these children become a physical threat to themselves and society at large. And it is time for us to take a stand against those in the community that preach the life-threatening notion that drugs are harmless. Shame on the entertainment industry for glorifying drug abuse. Shame on the sports stars who use drugs and fail to live up to their responsibility as role models. Shame on the drug legalizers who profit from addicting innocent children and citizens. And, yes, I even say shame on us, the parents, the teachers, the principals and the politicians who have passed the buck and turned a blind eye for too long. For the sake of our children we cannot afford to be shy any longer about calling drug abuse what it is, a moral crisis that must be addressed both immediately and over the long term. Drug use is wrong because it is immoral, and it is immoral because it enslaves the mind and destroys the soul. People addicted to drugs neglect their duties, their family, their friends, their education, their jobs, everything important, noble and worthwhile in life. In the end the drug problem is nothing so much as a manifestation of weakness, weakened families, weakened communities, weakened institutions. People turn to drugs in an attempt to escape the realities of life with all its richness and suffering. Drugs may numb the pain, but they also flatten the world and cause it to lose all texture. The question that the drug crisis poses is no less than the question of our civilization's future. Can humanity survive freedom and influence? Can we meet the challenge of liberty or must we, absent political bonds, find a way to enslave ourselves chemically? I decline to accept the dim view that man cannot retain the old virtues, the old values in this modern age. I decline to accept the notion that humanity is not suited for freedom. America can overcome the drug problem, but it will not simply go away on its own. No, the cure for drugs lies in the hearts and the minds of America's families and communities. It is time for us to act. By combining national leadership with community activism, we can and we will save America, one child and one neighborhood at a time. Working together with the American values of family, faith and sacrifice close at hand, we can ensure that the lives of our children are safer, more productive and free of the drugs that cripple their minds and destroy their souls. They, our legacy, deserve nothing less. I appreciate the gentleman from Colorado taking this special order and the gentleman from Illinois for all the fine work that they have done in this regard. It is just a shame, as far as I am concerned, that our own President and our own administration seems to care less about what is happening to our children when it comes to drugs.

Mr. DELAY

Mr. DELAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for all his hard work. I am proud to call him a fellow Texan, and he has worked so hard on this constitutional amendment, along with the gentleman from Arizona and so many other people, just to get this amendment passed for the American people. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman clarifying what has been going on here. It will be tough to pass this legislation today, chiefly because of the efforts of liberal Democrats to kill it. We all know that. There has been a lot of talk about addiction these days: drug addiction, cigarette addiction, other things. Make no mistake about it, liberal Democrats are addicted to higher taxes. They want higher taxes so they can spend more money and expand the size of this government. We know that. That is the difference between the two parties. They are trying to defend it, though, by covering up the reality of what this bill actually does. The gentleman from Maryland was talking about the fact that we cannot close corporate loopholes for the rich. That is not true. What is in the amendment is, basically, if we want to close corporate loopholes, then cut taxes for somebody else and make it a tax-neutral bill, and we will not have to have the supermajority vote. That is covering up what is the truth here. He wants more taxes to expand the size of government. The gentleman from Maine was talking about the fact that, since 1982, there have been five bills introduced in this House to lower the deficit and balance the budget, each one of them to raise taxes by a majority vote. He is absolutely right. But the fact was, in every one of those bills, including the ones signed by Reagan and Bush, the size of government expanded, the taxes went up, and the deficits went up, too. There was no balanced budget. The only budget that is close to being balanced is the one that we passed last year that cut taxes and restricted spending and the growth of this government. The American people know that. They are not going to be fooled by all the rhetoric. Every proposal that has come out of this White House is a proposal that will be funded with higher taxes. The gentleman from Maryland said we are not going to raise taxes around here because we have a surplus. Has he not been listening to the White House? They want to raise cigarette taxes. They are talking about it almost every day, about raising cigarette taxes to $1 or $2 a pack. Every proposal that comes out of this White House will be funded by more taxes. In fact, later on this week, tomorrow, I understand, the White House is going to celebrate with those Members of Congress who voted for the largest tax increase in history in 1993. They are going to have a party over at the White House, imagine that, a celebration for those who voted for the largest tax increase in the history of this country. I have to tell the Members, many of those people that will be celebrating tomorrow at the White House are now former Members of Congress. The American people spoke in that last election that made them former Members. Mr. Speaker, clearly, clearly the White House, the President of the United States, liberal Democrats, are totally out of touch with the American people. If we look at the elections all across this country, their philosophy of higher taxes and bigger government is being rejected all across this country. The American people are overtaxed, they are overregulated, and they are overburdened by this Federal Government. I am not talking about the tax burden of 38 percent. Over 50 percent of the average family's income goes to pay for government, if we add up all the costs of government, local, State, and Federal taxes, and the cost of regulations. Fifty cents out of every one of Members' constituents' hard-earned dollars goes to the government today. No wonder America's families are under such strain, because it takes one parent who is forced to support the government while the other one works for the family in this country. We think that is immoral. We have got to stop this rampaging in the American family's pocketbook, Mr. Speaker. This amendment to the Constitution will make it more difficult to raise those taxes, and we should make it more difficult to raise taxes. That is why I support this legislation.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, according to press accounts, Vice President Al Gore has a new idea on how to raise taxpayer dollars. Apparently, he awoke from a very deep sleep at 3 in the morning and came up with this new innovation for the Internet. He wants to send up a satellite whose only job is to beam back pictures of Earth. Now, these pictures would be placed on the Internet so that people all across the world would always have access to the Earth. Now, imagine that, live pictures of the Earth turning on its little axis. This may sound like a great idea at 3 o'clock in the morning, Mr. Speaker, but it is a dumb idea during the rest of the day. The cost of this project would be about $50 million, and it already occupies the time of two NASA scientists. $50 million would buy 50,000 computers for our Nation's students. I have a better idea, Mr. Speaker. Let us give the Vice President some sleeping pills so that his nighttime dreams will not cost the taxpayers millions of dollars.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the call of the Private Calendar be postponed until 5 p.m. today.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment. BESTEA is a terrific bill. I salute Chairman Shuster and his committee for the many hours of hard work they put in on this bill over the last year. I thank the committee for including a very important provision which will exempt from federal DBE requirements any transit authorities that are under court order preventing them from complying with these requirements. This is a step in the right direction, but it doesn't quite go far enough. It is time to completely put an end to discrimination in the awarding of transportation contracts. Mr. Chairman, race-based discrimination is wrong. And gender-based discrimination is wrong. And it is wrong regardless of whether the victim is male, female, black, or white. The DBE program is a federally-mandated quota program that commands highway and transit contractors to discriminate based on race and gender. A federal court in Texas recognized that this kind of discrimination is wrong when it ordered the city of Houston's metro transit authority to cease awarding contracts based on race and gender. Houston METRO complied with this court order, and as a result, it went 18 months without its share of federal funding. The BESTEA bill prevents this kind of thing from happening again. It guarantees that transit agencies will not lose their funding when a court orders them not to discriminate. That's great. I support that. If we pass this amendment, we will take an even bigger step in rooting out discrimination. Getting rid of the DBE program will ensure that agencies continue to receive funding if they refuse to discriminate--even without a court order. I urge my colleagues to stomp out government-enforced discrimination. I urge them to vote yes on this amendment.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to finally get this bill to the floor. I rise in support of this bill. If the Nation's infrastructure is its circulatory system, then BESTEA keeps our Nation very healthy. I commend the Chairman and the Ranking Member for their yeoman efforts in putting this bill together; and, in particular, I would like to thank the Chairman for addressing the concerns of our Nation's donor States, whose taxpayers for years have been shortchanged when it comes to meeting their transportation needs. For nearly 2 years, I have lamented the lack of fairness and logic when it comes to how transportation dollars are allocated. Based on such outdated factors as the 1980 census, States like Texas have been receiving an average return of 76 cents on the dollar. As a result, only one out of every three projects of critical need has been able to be met in my own State of Texas. So I introduced the bill called Step 21 to streamline the transportation program and bring equity to funding formulas. While I did not get as much as I wanted in this bill in the way of streamlining, I am very pleased to note that BESTEA incorporates many of our formula recommendations. The most important element is that BESTEA guarantees States the 95 percent minimal allocation on all formula programs and highway projects, which works out to about a 90 percent minimum return. I am also extremely pleased with the creation of a national corridor program in this bill. This means we are finally on the road to completing I-69, a multi-State trade corridor of national and international significance, extending from Michigan's border with Canada all the way through Texas, where it connects to the Mexican highway system. I-69 corridor States are vital to international trade, as they carry 52 percent of the U.S. truck-borne trade with Mexico and 33 percent of U.S. truck-borne trade with Canada. Another issue I am deeply involved in is in the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program, which has been at the center of a lawsuit affecting the transit agency in my district, Houston Metro. Metro was prohibited from implementing its DBE program by Federal court order, and for some 18 months FTA cut off Federal funds that it had pledged to Metro as part of a full funding grant agreement. Metro was caught between two branches of the Federal Government. I am very pleased that this committee has recognized this problem and taken care of it. In conclusion, I just urge the committee to maintain these provisions in conference. I know it is tough being in conference with the Senate, but, in particular, it is vital that the conference report include a guaranteed rate of return that is no less than those included in this House bill. Donor States will not stand for another 6 years of funding inequity. I once again congratulate the Chairman and the Ranking Member, and say, just quickly, a job well done.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, since the election, the administration has amassed a team of 84 taxpayer-paid White House attorneys on the Federal payroll. That is 31 more lawyers than the entire squad on the Dallas Cowboy football team. Now, are these lawyers working on issues that affect the public good? Well, don't bet the farm on that. Since the newest rounds of scandals, the White House Counsel's Office has grown by 43 employees. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service recently reminded us that a Federal employee hired as an attorney is compensated from United States Treasury funds to provide legal advice and assistance or to litigate matters concerning the official business of the United States, its agencies, officers and employees, rather than concerning matters which are purely personal to the employee or to another Federal official. That is the law. The time has come for the administration to spend more time on the people's business and less time wasting taxpayer's money stonewalling and invoking executive privilege.