Christopher Dodd

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on ``Judicial Nominations'' on Tuesday, February 26, 2002, at 10 a.m., in Dirksen room 226. Tentative Witness List Panel I: Senators Ted Stevens; Arlen Specter; Frank Murkowski; Phil Gramm; Jon Kyl; Rick Santorum; and Congressman Ruben Hinojosa. Panel II: D. Brooks Smith to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Panel III: Ralph Beistline to be U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Alaska; David Charles Bury to be U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Arizona; and Randy Crane to be U.S. District Court Judge for the Southern District of Texas.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet on Tuesday, February 26, 2002, at 10 a.m., in room 106 of the Dirksen Senate Building to conduct an oversight hearing on the management of Indian trust funds.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet for a hearing on Gerald Reynolds, of Missouri, to be Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, Department of Education during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, February 26, 2002, at 3:30 p.m.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet on Tuesday, February 26, 2002, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing that will focus on S. 1961, the Water Investment Act, a bill to improve the financial and environmental sustainability of the water programs of the United States. The Committee will also receive testimony on the following legislation: S. 252: A bill to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to authorize appropriations for State water pollution control revolving funds, and for other purposes. S. 285: A bill to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to authorize the use of State revolving loan funds for construction of water conservation and quality improvements S. 503: A bill to amend the Safe Water Act to provide grants to small public drinking water system. S. 1044: A bill to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to provide assistance for nutrient removal technologies to States in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The hearing will be held in SD-406.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, February 26, 2002, at 10 a.m., to conduct an oversight hearing on ``Accounting and Investor Protection Issues Raised by Enron and Other Public Companies: Oversight of the Accounting Profession, Audit Quality and Independence, and Formulation of Accounting Principles.''

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on Tuesday, February 26, 2002, at 9:30 a.m., on the collapse of the Enron Corporation.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, we did a lot of work today. I know we are not done. I am hopeful by tomorrow we will complete this bill. We are working on a couple of amendments which I did not think could be worked out. It may be that we actually work out a couple of amendments that looked as if they clearly were headed for votes. We may have compromise language to accommodate Senators. Some Senators have withdrawn their amendments. Others have changed their amendments to studies, which the Senator from Kentucky and I are more than happy to bring into the fold and take a look at on the very important issues that have been raised. I think we are very close to final passage. I do not want to overstate the case. I know the leaders want to get to the energy bill. Last week there was an understanding we would get to the Schumer-Wyden proposal and give Senator Bond plenty of opportunity to contest that amendment and to consider maybe some compromise. I say that again to try and encourage them to resolve this issue. After the completion of the vote tomorrow, my hope is we can move to these remaining few amendments, go to third reading, and get to conference. We are not through, obviously. We have to get to conference with the House and work with the White House, obviously, to try to iron out any differences before we can bring back a conference report on election reform. Our work is hardly over, even with passage of this bill. That will be a major step forward. I thank all for their participation today. amendment no. 2865

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that both amendments be adopted.

Mr. DODD. I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendments be dispensed with.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I have two amendments that we have cleared on both sides which I am going to offer. One is by Senator Sarbanes and the other is an amendment by Senator Sessions. I think both may have other cosponsors. If they do, their names can be added later. I will briefly describe to the chair what these amendments do. Then I will call them up. Senator Sarbane's proposal was included already in the House-passed Hoyer bill. It establishes a program to encourage college students to participate in the election process in the country. Among other things, the students work as poll workers and the like. It is one that I think our colleagues would consider to be a very worthwhile proposal. It would encourage students enrolled at institutions of higher education, including community colleges, to assist State and local governments in the administration of elections by serving as nonpartisan poll workers or assistants, and to encourage State and local governments to use the services of the students participating in the program. In carrying out the program, the commission shall develop materials, sponsor seminars and workshops, engage in advertising targeted at students, make grants. The idea is to get as many young people involved in the election process as possible. It is a worthwhile amendment. Senator Sessions offers a similar approach--one that enjoys terrific support. I know one of the major newspapers in my State every year strongly advocates mock elections. Others, I know, around the country have called for them. We have actually authorized this program under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The problem has been that while we have authorized the funds, we have never appropriated any money for it. So the program has been sitting over at the Department of Education and never getting the backing at the local level to support this effort. Senator Sessions moves that program from the Department of Education to the new permanent commission we will be establishing with his bill. It becomes an obligation of the commission to see to it that we get these mock elections that Senator Sessions has called for. The National Student/Parent Mock Election is the proper title of the amendment. It would include simulated national elections at least 5 days before the actual election that permit participation by students and parents from each of the 50 States in the United States, its territories, the District of Columbia, and United States schools overseas, and consist of school forums and local cable call-in shows on the national issues to be voted upon in an ``issues forum''; speeches and debates before students and parents by local candidates. This is a very laudable and it is regrettable we haven't done more with this. We need to do everything we can early on in education to involve young people in this process. Despite the efforts of those who preceded us in this institution, who fought very hard to adopt the constitutional amendment that gave the right to vote to 18-year-olds, we all know that the weakest group of participants in the election process are younger voters. There are a lot of reasons for that. There has been a lot of discussion. I am not suggesting these two amendments are going to be the complete answer, but I think they go a long way, to the extent we are willing to commit resources to do everything we can to engage people in the excitement of debate. I am told after the debacle, if you will, of last year, of the 2000 election and the news accounts, the one positive that came out of all that was a heightened degree of interest of young people in the election process. Many became interested because of the nightly news stories. I commend Senator Sarbanes and Senator Sessions, cosponsors of these two amendments. I think they are worthwhile and add considerably to this product. I thank Senator McConnell and others for agreeing to accept both of these proposals. Mr. President, I send both amendments to the desk. I ask unanimous consent they be considered en bloc.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, first, let me thank our friend and colleague from New Hampshire for showing patience, first of all, and for staying around this evening. I appreciate that immensely. It will help us move the final product along tomorrow because he has taken time this evening to discuss it. I, for one, have not seen the tape. I will look for it. I haven't been in my office for so many days because I have been working on election reform. Let me suggest that what the Senator has raised in this particular fact situation is not the first time. I recall, going back to 1980, there were concerns when there were exit polls that came out to the media reported before Western States had actually voted. There were colleagues of the U.S. Senate who allegedly lost reelections because the word was that the Presidential race was over. Even before Pacific coast time when literally thousands of people standing in lines walked out of line and didn't vote because they were going to vote for the Presidential race and decided not to show up. As a result of that, according to many--I am not suggesting this is absolutely the case--many students of previous elections claimed that the decision to announce that exit polls had closed caused other races from local legislative races, gubernatorial races and Senate races, to be adversely affected. There are other suggestions dealing with the exit polls, making announcements about how States are likely to vote based on exit polls in the afternoon. A number of issues were raised about how the media can more properly conduct themselves during the election process. The Senator from New Hampshire, I think, rightly points out the reason that you have these competitive juices in these control rooms. The media are watching what their competitors are saying and nobody wants to be left behind. I suspect in some cases they took what otherwise would have been reliable models and jumped ahead and found themselves saying, as in Jeff Greenfield's properly entitled book, ``Oh, Waiter, One Order of Crow.'' We are not going to vote tonight. I suggest this to my colleague because he brought up a very valuable point. I understand he has attempted to address the constitutional issue. This is a very important issue he raised. Thanks to Senator McConnell, we are going to have a permanent election commission established in this country. My hope would be--because I have heard at least from the major media outlets that they understand they went over the top on these issues the Senator has raised. We might talk about a way, in the very early consideration for the Election Administration Commission, to work out some agreements. There will also be potential challenges in courts. The point he is driving home is we need to come up with an response. I think my colleague felt the answer, however arrived at, would be that we never again see what happened in Florida, where you have time zones--and he has been going through it, where person after person after person announcing the vote where polls were closed. I don't have any doubt that had some effect on the outcome of those areas. We might explore ways in which to avoid the obvious litigation that may ensue about whether or not we can require media outlets to do certain things or make it a violation of law to do it. I just raise that as a thought. I would like to be supportive of something that this Commission could come back to us, with the media, and say here are the things we are concerned about and these are the things that will never happen again because we have made certain changes. I thank the Senator for staying around this evening to offer the amendment. If I can, we have a couple amendments we are going to agree to, so we will temporarily lay the Senator's amendment aside. I encourage my staff to meet with Senator Smith's staff to see if we might work on language that will give this issue he raised a prominent position in the bill. We will seek a way to accept it in a bipartisan fashion and see if we can achieve an important issue that needs to be addressed. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we temporarily lay aside the Smith amendment.

Mr. DODD. Will my colleague wait for a minute or so? Then I will be glad to turn to him.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DODD. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. DODD. I urge the Senator to withdraw it temporarily so it is not hanging out here, so we can try to work on it.

Mr. DODD. Could I urge my colleague, on this one, because there is going to be objection raised by the Senator from Vermont, among others--we have the Senator from Georgia waiting to offer an amendment. This is going to take some work. So I would urge my colleague to maybe withdraw the amendment temporarily.

Mr. DODD. Is this the amendment on the----

Mr. DODD. Just one moment.

Mr. DODD. Madam President, as I understand my colleague--I appreciate his points about what we have tried to do in this legislation, obviously. There are some minimum requirements in the area of access, to make it possible for millions of disabled Americans who have never been able to cast a vote in private, independently, to be able to do so; the anti-fraud provisions of statewide voter registration; and provisional voting. Those are the three minimum requirements here--and fully fund it. I agree with my colleague from Utah. I happen to believe when there are mandates such as this, minimum requirements, no matter how minimum they may be, we ought to have the resources to make it possible for our States to do those things. I have committed to my friend and colleague from Utah that we are going to do everything possible to see to it that is the case. So, in terms of the language of this amendment, I inquire of my friend from Utah whether or not the understanding is we are going to see to it--the President has already put $1.2 billion in his budget as a kind of indication of the administration's good faith on this issue. I found that to be a remarkable commitment in light of the fact the bill has not been adopted yet. Obviously, we don't have the power to appropriate as an authorizing committee. But because my friend from Kentucky, the Senator from Missouri, and the Senator from Illinois--all of whom are principal sponsors of this bill--sit on the Appropriations Committee, along with conversations with others, we feel very confident that the resources are going to be there on a bipartisan basis. Amendment No. 2934, As Modified

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DODD. I think we have done some good work. I thank Senator McConnell and his staff. We are going to be breaking for the weekly luncheons by both caucuses. I think we have adopted some six amendments this morning, debated the Harkin amendment, and modified that. We are getting this list down. I am beginning to think we might actually be in a position to adopt this legislation by this evening. We are going to be talking over lunch to see if we can't work out these amendments. Staffs will meet over the luncheon period to see if we can resolve some of the differences. But I thank the individual Senators for their cooperation. Senator McConnell and I are grateful for their cooperation. When we come back, there will be a special order period between 2:15 and 3:15, but after that we will be back on this bill--I believe that is the case--in which case we will try to line up some amendments to be debated at that time so we can move the product along a little further. I see my friend and colleague from Arkansas who is here, I believe, not just to listen to the Senator from Connecticut but he may have something to say. I yield the floor.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Madam President, I thank the junior Senator from Massachusetts for orchestrating this event this afternoon on behalf of our fellow New Englander and friend and colleague. I can't help but think of that wonderful story written by Mark Twain about Tom Sawyer who, on the reports of his demise, crawled up into the choir loft and listened to the eulogies being given to him. I can't help but think my friend from Massachusetts may think he is participating. He is alive and well, let me report to those tuning in. There is a lot of kick left in the senior Senator from Massachusetts. I fully expect there will be many more years of his contribution to this body. Our friendship goes back a long way. I don't want to remind him of this, but I was dressed in a white shirt and blue pants sitting on the steps of the Democratic side as a page in the Senate about the time that my friend from Massachusetts entered this body. He had years of service with my own father in the Senate, serving about 8 years with my father; he served with him on the Judiciary Committee back in those days. He liked to tease me all the time that he deeply resented the fact that someone would get elected to public office on the basis of their last name. I return that favor to him today. This is a wonderful relationship. We share a common heritage of deep affection for our Irish roots, our beloved New England, the coastline of that part of the country. Today is Vicki Kennedy's birthday, as has been mentioned by Senator Hatch but deserves repeating. This has been a great source of light and joy and love in our friend's life, as have his wonderful children as well: Ted Kennedy, Jr. is my constituent living in Connecticut and has become a friend of mine outside of my friendship with his father; Kara Kennedy, their children, Ted's grandchildren; Patrick, who is a wonderful public servant, a great source of pride to his father, who follows him in public life and serves in the House and represents so ably the State of Rhode Island. Then there are his sisters: Eunice, Pat, and Jean, each one of whom makes their own unique contribution to the well-being of this country. On Sunday afternoon I participated in a Special Olympics event in the State of Connecticut. About 600 people gathered together to watch young children with disabilities win gold, silver, and bronze medals. I had my 5-month-old daughter Grace with me presenting little flowers to each of the winners. I was thinking of Eunice Kennedy in the backyard of her home in Maryland years ago with four or five children beginning what was then the genesis of Special Olympics. Obviously, his brothers: Jack Kennedy, our beloved President; Robert Kennedy; Joe, his sister Kathleen, all these people, and his father and mother who have contributed. He will be the first to say no one individual accomplishes what they do in their own right. We are a product of our family and friends, our experiences in life. I join with so many eloquent words spoken, from the majority leader's words to my friend and colleague from Georgia, obviously the Senator from Massachusetts. A couple last points. I identify with and certainly support all that has been said about the Senator's contributions. I bear the responsibility right now of selecting the faces of the caricatures of Senators who have been recognized for their contributions. Ironically, it was the junior Senator from Massachusetts, Jack Kennedy, who was asked a number of years ago to assume the same responsibility when the names of Calhoun, Clay, Webster, Taft, and La Follette were chosen as the pictures in the waiting room of the five great Senators of the 19th and early 20th century. We have just chosen two more: Senator Wagner and Senator Vandenberg, and have two small ovals. It will not be our responsibility--that will come to a future generation--to choose the figures of the latter part of the 20th century that might inhabit unpainted ovals in the reception room. I hope that Senators, 50 or 75 years from now, might look back on this record today as a source of some guidance as to how contemporaries felt about one of their own. And whether you are talking to Senator Byrd who, of course, has more than 50 years of service in the Congress, or those who have arrived only a few short months ago, there is a common thread you will hear; that is, that our friend Ted Kennedy certainly deserves to be on any short list of a future generation that makes the decision on who ought to be considered the greatest of those who served in the latter part of the 20th century. It is because he is a great legislator. We don't cherish or celebrate enough legislators. Most of us run for public office promising that we will be our own people, that we will be nobody's man but yours, that somehow we are going to come here and act as if we were an executive rather than legislator. Senator Kennedy, regardless of party, embodies the qualities of a legislator. He fights harder than anyone I know for what he believes. But he also knows at the end of the day in a Democratic process, in the greatest deliberative body in the history of mankind, you end up having to work with people with whom you have disagreements. It is more than about giving speeches or introducing bills. It is producing at the end of the day a product that improves the quality of life. It may only be an inch. It may not be the miles you intended. But you know that if you can move it an inch forward this year and an inch maybe next year, a little bit further the following year, at the end of a career you can make a huge difference. Because he enjoys and understands the process of legislating, not only has this body been enriched but, as others have said, the quality of life for people who may never know his name, do not know who he is today because his contribution is not confined to the boundaries of this Nation, but there are people in Latin America and Africa and Asia, people who have never heard the name Kennedy, don't know what you are talking about, whose lives today have been enriched and improved because this one individual has been involved. He defies the notion that one person cannot make a difference. Lastly, I have been raised to believe that character is about what people do in private, not in public. There are not Members who have served with him who have not been the beneficiary of the private moment, of that unexpected phone call, knock on the door, and you open it up and there is our friend from Massachusetts. On every single level, I have often said this is one of my best friends. I am proud to call him such and happy to celebrate with him this great birthday. I yield the floor.