Russell Feingold

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, Mr. Sommers heard the remarks of the Senator from Alabama last week in opposition to my amendment. He writes: The statement was made that landlords always prevail in automatic stay motions. This is not correct. In my personal experience, I doubt that landlords have prevailed in even 20% of the cases. in most of the other cases, the family paid the rent and the motion was either withdrawn or denied. Mr. Sommers goes on to state: The more important point is that in most cases no motion is brought by the landlord. The automatic say does what it is intended to do. In these cases, the family that was facing eviction cures the rent arrears and remains in its apartment. The landlord is made whole, and the family is permitted the time necessary to reorganize its finances. Mr. Sommers also discusses my amendment. To the extent there are abuses in the current system, your amendment will provide prompt and efficient relief by giving landlords a streamlined procedure that could be pursued quickly and without an attorney. That's a crucial point, Mr. President, because one of the concerns expressed by the Senator from Alabama is the expense and inconvenience of the relief from stay process for landlords under current law. Mr. Sommers concludes: Your amendment would make it impossible to obtain significant delay simply by filing a bankruptcy petition, as can occur today. But it would not hurt the innocent family, struggling to get its finances together, that is able to begin making rent payments and cure its rent default. That is really the crucial point Mr. President. We are talking about real people here. People who are very vulnerable. The Senator from Alabama argued yesterday that a landlord may have another tenant lined up to move into an apartment. And he said that if my amendment were adopted, and I'm quoting here, ``that tenant's life may be disrupted if the landlord can't deliver the premises.'' Well, Mr. President, what about the life of the current tenant, very possibly a single mother with children? For months she's been trying to make ends meet, but the child support she is owned by her ex-husband has not been coming. She misses a few rent payments as she tries to make sure her children are fed and their home is heated. The landlord starts eviction proceedings. And she is forced to file for bankruptcy. Now once the bankruptcy is filed, and her other creditors are temporarily at bay, she can pay her rent. On time and in full. What about disruption to her life if we put her and her children out on the street? Do we not care about that? If the landlord is not economically harmed, why wouldn't we allow her to stay in her apartment for a few months more? Why can't we maintain the breathing room that the automatic stay under current law provides? What is so terrible about that? Mr. President, this is the situation I am concerned about. I want to respond in a reasonable way to the abuses that section 311 is supposedly designed to address. But I don't want to cause undue hardship to people who are able to pay their rent while their bankruptcy case is pending. In the spirit of compromise, I have proposed a few other changes to the amendment to the Senator from Alabama, in response to some of the concerns he and his staff have raised. We are trying to listen very carefully to the points that the Senator from Alabama is making. First, I am willing to have the stay lifted not only in cases where the lease has expired and the landlord wants to move into the property, but also in cases where the landlord wants to let a member of his or her immediate family to occupy the premises. I will expand the language in my amendment to cover that situation. I will also expand the language to cover a situation where the lease has expired and the landlord has entered into a signed and enforceable agreement with another tenant before the bankruptcy petition is filed. That is the situation that the Senator from Alabama has suggested creates an unbearable hardship for the new tenant. So if a new lease has been made before the debtor files for bankruptcy, the landlord can apply for expedited relief from the stay. Finally, Mr. President, it has been suggested that some debtors will try to game the system by filing for bankruptcy the day after a rent payment is due, thus giving themselves almost a free month in the apartment before my amendment would apply. I am willing to try to stop this kind of abuse by requiring debtors to pay any rent that comes due up to 10 days before the filing of the petition. Mr. President, I am trying to be reasonable. I am going to make these changes in a second degree amendment and I hope the Senator from Alabama will accept the amendment. I want my colleagues to understand that this amendment is designed to address the abuses that the Senator from Alabama has identified, but do it in a much more reasonable way, so that we can protect some very vulnerable people from being thrown out on the streets at a very difficult time in their lives. Amendment No. 2779 to Amendment No. 2748

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I call for the regular order with respect to amendment No. 2748. I wish to speak on the landlord-tenant amendment I offered last week and, in particular, take a few minutes to respond to some of the arguments made against it by the Senator from Alabama. This amendment is designed to lessen the harsh consequences of section 311 of the bill with respect to tenants while at the same time protecting the legitimate financial interests of landlords. Just to review, current law provides for an automatic stay of eviction proceedings upon the filing of a bankruptcy case. Landlords may apply for relief at that stage so the eviction can proceed. But it is a process that often takes a few months. Section 311 of Senate bill 625, the bill we are considering, eliminates the stay in all landlord-tenant cases so that an eviction can proceed immediately. In essence, my amendment would allow tenants to remain in their apartments while trying to sort out the difficult consequences of bankruptcy if, and only if, they are willing to pay the rent that comes due after they file for bankruptcy. If the tenant fails to pay the rent, the stay can be lifted 15 days after the landlord provides notice to the court that the rent has not been paid. If the reason for eviction is drug use or property damage, the stay can also be lifted after 15 days. Finally, if the lease has actually expired by its terms--in other words, if there is no more time on the lease and the landlord plans to move into the property--then, again, after 15 days notice the eviction can proceed. This 15-day notice period does not apply if the tenant has filed for bankruptcy previously. In other words, in cases of repeat filings, the stay never takes effect, just as under section 311 in this bill. So we are all clear on why this whole issue came up in the first place, the main abuse that has been alleged is in Los Angeles County, where unscrupulous bankruptcy petition preparers advertise filing bankruptcy as a way to live rent free. Under my amendment, first of all, you could never live rent free. The debtor must pay rent after filing for bankruptcy. If the debtor misses a rent payment, the stay will be lifted 15 days later. Second of all, the automatic stay does not take effect if the tenant is a repeat filer. So we take care of this problem of the repeat filer, which is exactly what the Senator from Alabama and others portrayed in committee as the reason this provision is needed. So my amendment gets at the abuse, and it protects the rights and economic interests of the landlord. What it eliminates, though, is the punitive aspect of this amendment and the possibility that tenants who are willing and able to pay rent once they get a little breathing room from their other creditors will instead be put out on the street. I am, frankly, disappointed that my colleague from Alabama insists on the harsh aspects of section 311 when my amendment would get at the problem he has identified just as well. The Senator from Alabama argued yesterday that somehow my amendment changes current law and moves us in the direction of litigation and delay. On the contrary, my amendment leaves intact the current law that allows landlords to get relief from the automatic stay. Let me be very clear about that. My amendment does not eliminate the ability of landlords to apply for relief from the stay under current law. The law now gives debtors some breathing room in legal proceedings, including eviction proceedings. But landlords can apply for relief from the stay. It is not an abuse of the law to take advantage of the automatic stay to get your affairs in order. Some tenants use that time to work out a payment schedule for their back rent so they can avoid eviction. Most landlords don't want to throw people out on the street. They just want to be paid. My amendment requires that they be paid once bankruptcy is filed, or the eviction can proceed immediately. But even if the rent is paid while the bankruptcy case is pending, if a landlord can still seek relief from stay under the normal procedures and press forward with the eviction. I frankly think that most landlords will be happy to let a tenant stay as long as the rent is being paid. Who knows, if the bankruptcy is successful, especially if it is a Chapter 13, the tenant may be able to pay the past due rent. That certainly is not going to happen if the tenant is evicted. But if the landlord really doesn't want the tenant to stay, the landlord can seek relief. So my amendment doesn't allow a tenant to stay in the apartment indefinitely by resuming payment of rent. By no means does this amendment permit a tenant to stay in an apartment indefinitely without a lease. And any suggestion to the contrary is just wrong. It doesn't do that at all. It just covers the few months after the bankruptcy petition is filed when the debtor is most vulnerable and the debtor is most in need of a roof over his or her head. Now let me address one of the frequent refrains of the Senator from Alabama when he talks about this provision. He seems to be very offended by the idea that people are staying in their apartments after the term of their lease has expired. Those who are familiar with landlord-tenant law know that this is commonplace in the rental market. Many, many leases are for a term of one year but convert to a month to month lease when the year is up. The contract essentially remains in force, but the term has expired. There is nothing wrong with that. It is perfectly legitimate. Typically, the conversion to month-to-month tenancy is provided for in standard lease language. This is not an abuse. It is the way many leases proceed in this country on a day-to-day basis. Furthermore, the language of section 311 doesn't lift the stay when the term of a lease has expired but rather in cases where ``a rental agreement has terminated under the lease agreement or applicable state law.'' Well, most rental agreements ``terminate'' when a rent payment is missed. So section 311 applies in all landlord-tenant cases, not just those where the lease term has expired. I want to remind my colleagues that both the bill we passed last year, and the conference report had a form of the protection that my amendment provides for debtors. Section 311 of the bill that we are working on now is harsher on tenant debtor than the conference report from last year and than the House bill that passed earlier this year. Now let me respond to what I think is the core of Senator Sessions' objection to my amendment. He said last week that the automatic stay is always lifted, that the tenant never wins. So why not just get rid of the stay. It's just a waste of time and money for the landlord. Mr. President, I have a letter here from a debtor's attorney named Henry Sommer. Mr. Sommer is an expert in consumer bankruptcy cases. He is the author of the widely used treatise Consumer Bankruptcy Law and Practice, which is published by the National Consumer Law Center. He indicates in his letter that has represented thousands of low-income consumer debtors over the past 25 years. I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Sommer's letter be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I thank my senior colleague, Senator Kohl, for his efforts to fight for Wisconsin dairy farmers. We have worked long and hard together on this. We are determined to see this through. For 60 years, dairy farmers across America have been steadily driven out of business and disadvantaged by the current Federal dairy policy. It is hard to believe this, but in 1950 Wisconsin had over 143,000 dairy farms; after nearly 50 years of the current dairy policy, Wisconsin is left with only 23,000 dairy farms. Let me repeat that: from 143,000 to 23,000 during this time period. Why would anyone seek to revive a dairy policy that has destroyed over 110,000 dairy farms in a single State? That is more than five out of six farms in the last half century. This devastation has not been limited to Wisconsin. Since 1950, America has lost over 3 million dairy farms, and this trend is accelerating. Since 1958, America has lost over half of its dairy producers. Day after day, season after season, we are losing dairy farms at an alarming rate. While the operations disappear, we are seeing the emergence of larger dairy farms. The trend toward large dairy operations is mirrored in States throughout the Nation. The economic losses associated with the reduction of small farms goes well beyond the impact of individual farm families who have been forced off the land. It is much broader than that. The loss of these farms has devastated rural communities where small, family-owned dairy farms are the key to economic stability. As Senator Kohl has alluded to during the consideration of the 1996 farm bill, Congress did seek to make changes in the unjust Federal pricing system by phasing out the milk price support program and to finally reduce the inequities between the regions. Unfortunately, that is not what happened at all. It didn't work. Because of the back-door politicking during the eleventh hour of the conference committee, America's dairy farmers were stuck with the devastatingly harmful Northeast Dairy Compact. Although it is painful and difficult for everyone, we in the Upper Midwest cannot stand for that or any change that further disadvantages our dairy farms--the ones who are left, not the tens of thousands who are gone but the less than 25,000 who remain. We are determined to keep them in business. The Northeast Dairy Compact accentuates the current system's equities by authorizing six Northeastern States to establish a minimum price for fluid milk, higher even than those established under the Federal milk marketing order, which are already pretty high and, frankly, much higher than our folks get. The compact not only allows the six States to set artificially high prices for producers but permits them to block the entry of lower-priced milk from competing States. Further distorting the market are subsidies given to processors in these six States to export their higher-priced milk to noncompact States. Despite what some argue, the Northeastern Dairy Compact has not even helped small Northeastern farmers. Since the Northeast first implemented the compact in 1997, small dairy farms in the Northeast, which are supposed to have been helped, have gone out of business at a rate of 41 percent higher than they had in the previous 2 years. It is not even working for the limited purposes it was supposed to serve. Compacts often amount to a transfer of wealth to large farms by affording large farms a per farm subsidy that is actually 20 times greater than the meager subsidy given to small farmers. As my senior colleague has indicated, we need to support the moderate reforms of the USDA and reject the harmful dairy rider and let our dairy farmers get a fair price for their milk. I know as we go through the coming days this may mean substantial delays. We all want to go home to our States as early as possible. However, Senator Kohl and I are determined to do our best to fight for the remaining Wisconsin dairy farmers. Some of those steps may be necessary in order to achieve that goal. I yield the floor.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I be allowed to speak for 10 minutes on the subject of the dairy issue.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that morning business be extended for 5 minutes.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am on the floor today principally to continue to battle for our Wisconsin dairy industry and Wisconsin dairy farmers. As I was here today, I had a chance to reflect on something else about Wisconsin that we will be bragging about today. I come here as a proud alumnus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Of course, I am talking about the new career rushing record in college football just set by one of the greatest Badgers of all time, Ron Dayne. Ron Dayne rushed his way into football glory on Saturday. After rushing for an incredible 6,181 yards in his career, he needed only 99 yards to break the record set last year by Texas's Ricky Williams. Short runs throughout the first half brought him within yards of the record and helped his team build an early lead. Then, with 5 minutes left in the second quarter, he broke the record on a 31-yard sprint and went on to rush a total of 216 yards to help catapult the Badgers--with my apologies to my colleagues from the Hawkeye State--to a crushing 41- 3 victory against Iowa. I quote from Matt Bowen, a leading tackler for the University of Iowa, on the difficulty of stopping University of Wisconsin running back Ron Dayne. Matt said: ``It's like trying to catch a couch as it tumbles down a few flights of stairs.'' With this achievement, Ron Dayne has rushed his way into the front of a pack of Heisman hopefuls, and he has helped guarantee his team another trip to Pasadena on New Year's day as the undisputed champions of the Big 10. Through it all, Ron Dayne has been a model person as well as a model team player, exhibiting a modesty and dedication that make him a Badger hero for the ages. On Saturday, as jubilant Badger football fans waved their souvenir Dayne towels in the air at Camp Randall Stadium and chanted Ron Dayne's name, they celebrated a great victory for Wisconsin, and above all they celebrated a player who does honor to his school, to himself, and to the game he has taken to a new level of excellence. The Great Dayne, as we all him in Wisconsin, finishes his regular season career with a phenomenal record of 6,397 rushing yards. He has secured himself a lofty place in the history of college football, and a permanent place in the hearts of every Wisconsin Badger fan. As Ron Dayne said about his incredible run into the record books, ``It's kind of sinking in now. This is the best.'' As a Wisconsinite and a dedicated Badger fan, I can tell you that it truly is the best, and that Ron Dayne, the best all-time rusher in college football, is a true Badger hero. Mr. President, On Wisconsin! I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FEINGOLD

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

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on the Federal Death Penalty Abolition Act of 1999, a bill I introduced last Wednesday. This bill will put an immediate halt to executions and forbid the imposition of the death penalty as a sentence for violations of Federal law. Since the beginning of this year, this Chamber has echoed with debate on violence in America. We have heard about violence in our schools and neighborhoods. But I am not so sure that we in Government don't contribute to this casual attitude we sometimes see toward killing and death. With each new death penalty statute enacted and each execution carried out, our executive, judicial and legislative branches, at both the State and Federal level, add to a culture of violence and killing. With each person executed, we are teaching our children that the way to settle scores is through violence, even to the point of taking a human life. Those who favor the death penalty should be pressed to explain why fallible human beings should presume to use the power of the state to extinguish the life of a fellow human being on our collective behalf. Those who oppose the death penalty should demand that explanation adamantly, and at every turn. But only a zealous few try. We should do better. And we should use this moment to do better as we step not only into a new century but also a new millennium, the first such landmark since the depths of the Middle Ages. Across the globe, with every American who is executed, the entire world watches and asks, How can the Americans, the champions of human rights, compromise their own professed beliefs in this way? A majority of nations have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice. Even Russia and South Africa--nations that for years were symbols of egregious violations of basic human rights and liberties--have seen the error of the use of the death penalty. Next month, Italy and other European nations--nations with which the United States enjoys its closest relationships--are expected to introduce a resolution in the U.N. General Assembly calling for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty. So why does the United States remain one of the nations in the distinct minority to use the death penalty? Some argue that the death penalty is a proper punishment because it is a deterrent. But they are sadly, sadly mistaken. The Federal Government and most States in the United States have a death penalty, while our European counterparts do not. Following the logic of death penalty supporters who believe it is a deterrent, you would think that our European allies, who don't use the death penalty, would have a much higher murder rate than we do in the United States. Yet, they don't; and it is not even close. In fact, the murder rate in the United States is six times higher than the murder rate in Britain, seven times higher than in France, five times higher than in Australia, and five times higher than in Sweden. But we don't even need to look across the Atlantic to see that capital punishment has no deterrent effect on crime. Let's compare Wisconsin and Texas. I am proud of the fact that my great State, Wisconsin, was the first State in this Nation to abolish the death penalty completely, when it did so in 1853. So Wisconsin has been death penalty-free for nearly 150 years. In contrast, Texas is the most prodigious user of the death penalty, having executed 192 people since 1976. So let's look at the murder rate in Wisconsin and in Texas. During the period from 1995 to 1998, Texas has had a murder rate that is nearly double the murder rate in Wisconsin. This data alone calls into question the argument that the death penalty is a deterrent to murder. I want to be clear. I believe murderers and other violent offenders should be severely punished. I am not seeking to open the prison doors and let murderers come rushing out into our communities. I don't want to free them. But the question is, Should the death penalty be a means of punishment in our society? The fact that our society relies on killing as punishment is disturbing enough. Even more disturbing, however, is the fact that the States' and the Federal Government's use of the death penalty is often not consistent with the principles of due process, fairness and justice. It just cannot be disputed that we are sending innocent people to death. Since the modern death penalty was reinstated in the 1970s, we have released 82 men and women from death row. Why? Because they were innocent. That's one death row inmate found innocent for every seven executed. One in seven! That's a pretty poor performance for American justice. Another reason we need to abolish the death penalty is the specter of racism in our criminal justice system. Even though our nation has abandoned slavery and segregation, we unfortunately are still living with vestiges of institutional racism. In some cases, racism can be found at every stage of a capital trial--in the selection of jurors, during the presentation of evidence, and sometimes during jury deliberations. After the 1976 Supreme Court Gregg decision upholding the use of the death penalty, the death penalty was first enacted as a sentence at the federal level with passage of the Drug Kingpin Statute in 1988. Since that time, numerous additional federal crimes have become death penalty-eligible, bringing the total to about 60 statutes today. At the federal level, 21 people have been sentenced to death. Of those 21 on the federal government's death row, 14 are black and only 5 are white. One defendant is Hispanic and another Asian. That means 16 of the 21 people on federal death row are minorities. That's just over 75%. And the numbers are worse on the military's death row. Seven of the eight men, or 87.5%, on military death row are minorities. One thing is clear: no matter how hard we try, we cannot overcome the inevitable fallibility of being human. That fallibility means that we will not be able to apply the death penalty in a fair and just manner. At the end of 1999, at the end of a remarkable century and millennium of progress, I cannot help but believe that our progress has been tarnished with our nation's not only continuing, but increasing use of the death penalty. As of today, the United States has executed 585 people since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. In those 23 years, there has been a sharp rise in the number of executions. This year the United States has already set a record for the most executions in our country in one year, 85--the latest execution being that of Ricky Drayton, who was executed by lethal injection just last Friday by the state of South Carolina. And the year isn't even over yet. We are on track to hit close to 100 executions this year. This is astounding and it is embarrassing. We are a nation that prides itself on the fundamental principles of justice, liberty, equality and due process. We are a nation that scrutinizes the human rights records of other nations. We are one of the first nations to speak out against torture and killings by foreign governments. It is time for us to look in the mirror. Two former Supreme Court justices did just that. In 1994, Justice Harry Blackmun penned the following eloquent dissent: From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. For more than 20 years I have endeavored--indeed, I have struggled--along with a majority of this Court, to develop procedural and substantive rules that would lend more than the mere appearance of fairness to the death penalty endeavor. Rather than continue to coddle the Court's delusion that the desired level of fairness has been achieved and the need for regulation eviscerated, I feel morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed. It is virtually self-evident to me now that no combination of procedural rules or substantive regulations ever can save the death penalty from its inherent constitutional deficiencies. Similarly, after supporting Supreme Court decisions upholding the death penalty, Justice Lewis Powell in 1991 told his biographer that he now thought capital punishment should be abolished. After sitting on our nation's highest court for over 20 years, Justices Blackmun and Powell came to understand the randomness and unfairness of the death penalty. It is time for our nation to follow the lead of these distinguished jurists. The death penalty is at odds with our best traditions. It is wrong and it is immoral. The adage ``two wrongs do not make a right,'' could not be more appropriate here. Our nation has long ago done away with other barbaric punishments like whipping and cutting off the ears of suspected criminals. Just as our nation did away with these punishments as contrary to our humanity and ideals, it is time to abolish the death penalty as we enter the next century. The continued viability of our justice system as a truly just system requires that we do so. I ask my colleagues to join me in taking the first step in abolishing the death penalty in our great nation. Last week, I introduced a bill that abolishes the death penalty at the federal level. I call on all states that have the death penalty to also cease this practice. Let us step away from the culture of violence and restore fairness and integrity to our criminal justice system. As we head into the next millennium, let us leave this archaic practice behind. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 15 minutes.

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

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Federal Death Penalty Abolition Act of 1999. This bill will abolish the death penalty at the federal level. It will put an immediate halt to executions and forbid the imposition of the death penalty as a sentence for violations of federal law. Since the beginning of this year, this Chamber has echoed with debate on violence in America. We've heard about violence in our schools and neighborhoods. Some say it's because of the availability of guns to minors. Some say Hollywood has contributed to a culture of violence. Others argue that the roots of the problem are far deeper and more complex. Whatever the causes, a culture of violence has certainly infected our nation. As schoolhouse killings have shown, our children now can be reached by that culture of violence. And they aren't just casual observers; some of them are active participants and many have been victims. But, Mr. President, I'm not so sure that we in government don't contribute to this casual attitude we sometimes see toward killing and death. With each new death penalty statute enacted and each execution carried out, our executive, judicial and legislative branches, at both the state and federal level, add to a culture of violence and killing. With each person executed, we're teaching our children that the way to settle scores is through violence, even to the point of taking a human life. At the same time, the public debate on the death penalty, which was an intense national debate not very long ago, is muted. As the online magazine Slate recently noted, with crime rates down and incomes up, ``unspeakable crimes are no longer spoken of, murder is what happens to your portfolio on a bad day, `family values' are debated through the Internal Revenue code, and the `death penalty' is [often used as a term for] a tax issue.'' What has happened to our nation's sense of striving to do what we know to be the right thing? Those who favor the death penalty should be pressed to explain why fallible human beings should presume to use the power of the state to extinguish the life of a fellow human being on our collective behalf. Those who oppose the death penalty should demand that explanation adamantly, and at every turn. But only a zealous few try. Our nation is a great nation. We have the strongest democracy in the world. We have expended blood and treasure to protect so many fundamental human rights at home and abroad and not always for only our own interests. But we can do better. Mr. President, we should do better. And we should use this moment to do better as we step not only into a new century but also a new millennium, the first such landmark since the depths of the Middle Ages. Courtesy of the Internet and CNN International, the world observes, perplexed and sometimes horrified, the violence in our nation. When the Littleton tragedy erupted, newspapers all over the world marveled at how readily available guns are to American children. And across the globe, with every American who is executed, the entire world watches and asks how can the Americans, the champions of human rights, compromise their own professed beliefs in this way. Religious groups and leaders express their revulsion at the continued practice of capital punishment. Pope John Paul II frequently appeals to American governors when a death row inmate is about to die. I am pleased that in a recent case, involving an inmate on death row in Missouri, the Missouri governor heeded the good advice of the pontiff and commuted the killer's sentence to life without parole. That case generated a lot of press--but only as a political issue, rather than a moral question or a human rights challenge. But the Pope is not standing alone against the death penalty. He is joined by the chorus of voices of various people of faith who abhor the death penalty. Religious groups from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Mennonites, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and so many more people of faith have proclaimed their opposition to capital punishment. And, I might add, even conservative Pat Robertson protested the execution in 1998 of Karla Faye Tucker, a born-again Christian on Texas death row. Mr. President, I would like to see the commutation of sentences to life without parole for all death row inmates--whether they are Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, or some other faith, or no faith at all. The United States' casual imposition of capital punishment is abhorrent not only to many people of faith. Our use of the death penalty also stands in stark contrast to the majority of nations that have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. Even Russia and South Africa--nations that for years were symbols of egregious violations of basic human rights and liberties--have seen the error of the use of the death penalty. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights has called for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the death penalty. And soon, Italy and other European nations are expected to introduce a resolution in the UN General Assembly calling for a worldwide moratorium. The European Union denies membership in their alliance to those nations that use the death penalty. In fact, the European Union recently warned Turkey that if it executes the Kurdish leader, Abdullah Ocalan, Turkey would jeopardize its membership application. Just this past December, the European Union actually passed a resolution calling for the immediate and unconditional global abolition of the death penalty, and it specifically called on all states within the United States to abolish the death penalty. This is significant because it reflects the unanimous view of the nations with which the United States enjoys its closest relationships--nations that so often follow our lead. Mr. President, what is even more troubling in the international context is that the United States is now one of only six countries that imposes the death penalty for crimes committed by children. I'll repeat that because it is remarkable. We are one of only six nations on this earth that puts to death people who were under 18 years of age when they committed their crimes. The others are Iran, Pakistan, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. These are countries that are often criticized for human rights abuses. And let's look at the numbers. Since 1990, the United States has executed ten child offenders. That's more than any one of these five other countries and equal to all five countries combined. Even China --the country that many members of Congress, including myself, have criticized for its human rights violations-- apparently has the decency not to execute its children. This is embarrassing. Is this the kind of company we want to keep? Is this the kind of world leader we want to be? But these are the facts for this past decade, 1990 to the present. Now, let's look at the last two years. In the last two years, the United States has been the only nation in the world to put to death people who were minors when they committed their crimes. We have executed four child offenders during the last two years. Today, over 70 child offenders remain on death row. No one, Mr. President, no one can reasonably argue that based on this data, executing child offenders is a normal or acceptable practice in the world community. And I don't think we should be proud of the fact that the United States is the world leader in the execution of child offenders. Is the death penalty a deterrent for our children's conduct, as well as that of adult Americans? For those who believe capital punishment is a deterrent, they are sadly, sadly mistaken. The federal government and most states in the U.S. have a death penalty, while our European counterparts do not. Following the logic of death penalty supporters who believe it's a deterrent, you would think that our European allies, who don't use the death penalty, would have a higher murder rate than the United States. Yet, they don't and it's not even close. In fact, the murder rate in the U.S. is six times higher than the murder rate in Britain, seven times higher than in France, five times higher than in Australia, and five times higher than in Sweden. But we don't even need to look across the Atlantic to see that capital punishment has no deterrent effect on crime. Let's compare Wisconsin and Texas. I'm proud of the fact that my great state, Wisconsin, was the first state in this nation to abolish the death penalty completely, when it did so in 1853. Wisconsin has been death penalty-free for nearly 150 years. In contrast, Texas is the most prodigious user of the death penalty, having executed 192 people since 1976. Let's look at the murder rate in Wisconsin and Texas. During the period 1995 to 1998, Texas has had a murder rate that is nearly double the murder rate in Wisconsin. This data alone calls into question the argument that the death penalty is a deterrent to murder. In fact, according to a 1995 Hart Research poll, the majority of our nation's police chiefs do not believe the death penalty is a particularly effective law enforcement tool. When asked to rank the various factors in reducing crime, police chiefs ranked the death penalty last. Rather, the police chiefs --the people who deal with hardened criminals day in and day out --cite reducing drug abuse as the primary factor in reducing crime, along with a better economy and jobs, simplifying court rules, longer prison sentences, more police officers, and reducing guns. It looks like most police chiefs recognize what our European allies and a few states like Wisconsin have known all along: the death penalty is not an effective deterrent. Mr. President, let me be clear. I believe murderers and other violent offenders should be severely punished. I'm not seeking to open the prison doors and let murderers come rushing out into our communities. I don't want to free them. The question is: should the death penalty be a means of punishment in our society? One of the most frequent refrains from death penalty supporters is the claim that the majority of Americans support the death penalty. It's repeated so often, everybody assumes it's true. Mr. President, the facts do not support this claim. Survey after survey, from around the country, shows that when offered sentencing alternatives, more Americans prefer life without parole plus restitution for the victim's family over the death penalty. For example, a 1993 national poll found that when offered alternatives to the death penalty, 44% of Americans supported the alternative of life without parole plus restitution over the death penalty. Only 41% preferred the death penalty and 15% were unsure. This is remarkable. Sure, if you ask Americans the simple, isolated question of whether they support the death penalty, a majority of Americans will agree. But if you ask them whether they support the death penalty or a realistic, practical alternative sentence like life without parole plus restitution, support for the death penalty falls dramatically to below 50%. More Americans support the alternative sentence than Americans who support the death penalty. The fact that our society relies on killing as punishment is disturbing enough. Even more disturbing, however, is the fact that the States' and federal use of the death penalty is often not consistent with principles of due process, fairness and justice. These principles are the foundation of our criminal justice system and, in a broader sense, the stability of our nation. It is clearer than ever before that we have put innocent people on death row. In addition, those States that have the death penalty are more likely to put people to death for killing white victims than for killing black victims. Mr. President, are we certain that innocent persons are not being executed? Obviously not. Are we certain that racial bias is not infecting the criminal justice system and the administration of the death penalty? I doubt it. It simply cannot be disputed that we are sending innocent people to death. Since the modern death penalty was reinstated in the 1970s, we have released 79 men and women from death row. Why? Because they were innocent. Seventy-nine men and women sitting on death row, awaiting a firing squad, lethal injection or electrocution, but later found innocent. That's one death row inmate found innocent for every seven executed. One in seven! That's a pretty poor performance for American justice. A wrong conviction means that the real killer may have gotten away. The real killer may still be on the loose and a threat to society. What an injustice that the victims' loved ones cannot rest because the killer is still not caught. What an injustice that an innocent man or woman has to spend even one day in jail. What a staggering injustice that innocent people are sentenced to death for crimes they did not commit. What a disgrace when we carry out those sentences, actually taking the lives of innocent people in the name of justice. I call my colleagues' attention to the recent example of an Illinois death row inmate, Ronald Jones, who had been sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a Chicago woman. After a lengthy interrogation in which Mr. Jones was beaten by police, he signed a confession. As a class assignment, a group of Northwestern University journalism students researched the case of Ronald Jones. What did they learn? They learned that Mr. Jones was clearly innocent and not for some technical reason--he just didn't do it. As a result of the students' efforts, Mr. Jones was later exonerated based on DNA evidence. Mr. President, our criminal justice system sent an innocent man to death row. Mr. Jones was tried and convicted in a justice system that is sometimes far from just and that sometimes just gets it wrong. And Mr. Jones is not alone. In Illinois alone, three death row inmates so far this year have been proven innocent. Since 1987, Illinois has freed 12 inmates from death row because they were later found innocent. Innocent, Mr. President, and they were sitting on death row. Innocent, and yet they were about to be killed. Why? Because our criminal justice system is sometimes far from fair and far from just. We can all agree that it is profoundly wrong to convict and condemn innocent people to death. But sadly, that's what's happening. With the greater accuracy and sophistication of DNA testing available today compared to even a couple of years ago, states like Illinois are finding that people sitting on death row did not commit the crimes to which earlier, less accurate DNA tests appeared to link them. This DNA technology should be further reviewed and compared to other tests. We should consider the role of DNA tests in all those committed to death row. Some argue that the discovery of the innocence of a death row inmate proves that the system works. This is absurd. How can you say the criminal justice system works when a group of students--not lawyers or investigators but students with no special powers, who were very much outside the system--discover that a man about to be executed was in fact innocent? That's what happened in Illinois to Ronald Jones. The system doesn't work. It has failed us. A primary reason why justice has been less than just is a series of Supreme Court decisions that seem to fail to grasp the significance and responsibility of their task when a human life is at stake. The Supreme Court has been narrowly focused on procedural technicalities, ignoring the fact that the death penalty is a unique punishment that cannot be undone to correct mistakes. One disturbing decision was issued by the Supreme Court just a few months ago. In Jones v. United States, which involved an inmate on death row in Texas and the interpretation of the 1994 Federal Death Penalty Act, the judge refused to tell the jury that if they deadlocked on the sentence, the law required the judge to impose a sentence of life without possibility of parole. As a result, some jurors were under the grave misunderstanding that lack of unanimity would mean the judge could give a sentence where the defendant might one day go free. The Supreme Court, however, upheld the lower court's imposition of the death penalty. And one more person will lose a life, when a simple correction of a misunderstanding could have resulted in a severe yet morally correct sentence of life without parole. As legal scholar Ronald Dworkin recently observed, ``[t]he Supreme Court has become impatient, and super due process has turned into due process-lite. Its impatience is understandable, but is also unacceptable.'' Mr. President, America's impatience with the protracted appeals of death row inmates is understandable. But this impatience is unacceptable. The rush to judgment is unacceptable. And the rush to execute men, women and children who might well be innocent is horrifying. The discovery of the innocence of death row inmates and misguided Supreme Court decisions disallowing potentially dispositive exculpatory evidence, however, aren't the only reasons we need to abolish the death penalty. Another reason we need to abolish the death penalty is the continuing racism in our criminal justice system. Our nation is facing a crucial test. A test of moral and political will. We have come a long way through this nation's history, and especially in this century, to dismantle state-sponsored and societal racism. Brown v. Board of Education, ensuring the right to equal educational opportunities for whites and blacks, was decided only 45 years ago. Unfortunately, however, we are still living with vestiges of institutional racism. In some cases, racism can be found at every stage of a capital trial--in the selection of jurors, during the presentation of evidence, when the prosecutor contrasts the race of the victim and defendant to appeal to the prejudice of the jury, and sometimes during jury deliberations. After the 1976 Supreme Court Gregg decision upholding the use of the death penalty, the death penalty was first enacted as a sentence at the federal level with passage of the Drug Kingpin Statute in 1988. Since that time, numerous additional federal crimes have become death penalty-eligible, bringing the total to about 60 statutes today. At the federal level, 21 people have been sentenced to death. Another eight men sit on the military's death row. Of those 21 defendants on the federal government's death row, 14 are black and only 5 are white. One defendant is Hispanic and another Asian. That means 16 of the 21 people on federal death row are minorities. That's just over 75%. And the numbers are worse on the military's death row. Seven of the eight, or 87.5%, on military death row are minorities. Some of my colleagues may remember the debates of the late 1980's and early 1990's, when Congress considered the Racial Justice Act and other attempts to eradicate racism in the use of capital punishment. A noted study evaluating the role of race in death penalty cases was frequently discussed. This was the study by David Baldus, a professor at the University of Iowa College of Law. The Baldus study found that defendants who kill white victims are more than four times more likely to be sent to death row than defendants who kill black victims. An argument against the Baldus study was made by some opponents of the Racial Justice Act. They argued that we just needed to ``level up'' the playing field. In other words, send all the defendants who killed black victims to death row, too. They argued that legislative remedies were not needed, just tell prosecutors and judges to go after perpetrators of black homicide as strongly as against perpetrators of white homicide. In theory, this may sound reasonable but one thing is clear: no matter how hard we try, we cannot overcome the inevitable fallibility of being human. That fallibility means that we will not be able to apply the death penalty in a fair and just manner. We will always run the risk that we will condemn innocent people to death. Mr. President, let's restore some certainty, fairness, and justice to our criminal justice system. Let's have the courage to recognize our human fallibilities. Let's put a halt to capital punishment. The American Bar Association agrees. In 1997, the American Bar Association called for a moratorium on the death penalty because it found that the application of the death penalty raises fairness and due process concerns. Several states are finally beginning to recognize the great injustice when the ultimate punishment is carried out in a biased and unfair way. Moratoriums have been considered by the legislatures of at least ten states over the last several months. The legislatures of Illinois and Nebraska have made the most progress. They actually passed moratorium measures earlier this year. I am glad to see that some states are finally taking steps to correct the practice of legalized killing that was again unleashed by the Supreme Court's Gregg decision in 1976. The first post-Gregg execution took place in 1977 in Utah, when Gary Gilmore did not challenge and instead aggressively sought his execution by a firing squad. The first post-Gregg involuntary execution took place on May 25, 1979. I vividly remember that day. I had just finished my last law school exam that morning. Later that day, I recall turning on the television and watching the news report that Florida had just executed John Spenkelink. I was overcome with a sickening feeling. Here I was, fresh out of law school and firm in my belief that our legal system was advancing through the latter quarter of the twentieth century. Instead, to my great dismay, I was witnessing a throwback to the electric chair, the gallows, and the routine executions of our nation's earlier history. Mr. President, I haven't forgotten that experience or what I thought and felt on that day. At the end of 1999, at the end of a remarkable century and millennium of progress, I cannot help but believe that our progress has been tarnished with our nation's not only continuing, but increasing use of the death penalty. As of today, the United States has executed 584 people since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. In those 23 years, there has been a sharp rise in the number of executions. This year the United States has already set a record for the most executions in our country in one year, 84--the latest execution being that of Thomas Lee Royal, Jr., who was executed by lethal injection just last night by the state of Virginia. And the year isn't even over yet. We are on track to hit close to 100 executions this year. This is astounding and it is embarrassing. We are a nation that prides itself on the fundamental principles of justice, liberty, equality and due process. We are a nation that scrutinizes the human rights records of other nations. We are one of the first nations to speak out against torture and killings by foreign governments. It is time for us to look in the mirror. Two former Supreme Court justices did just that. Justice Harry Blackmun penned the following eloquent dissent in 1994: From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. For more than 20 years I have endeavored--indeed, I have struggled--along with a majority of this Court, to develop procedural and substantive rules that would lend more than the mere appearance of fairness to the death penalty endeavor. Rather than continue to coddle the Court's delusion that the desired level of fairness has been achieved and the need for regulation eviscerated, I feel morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed. It is virtually self-evident to me now that no combination of procedural rules or substantive regulations ever can save the death penalty from its inherent constitutional deficiencies. The basic question--does the system accurately and consistently determine which defendants ``deserve'' to die?--cannot be answered in the affirmative. . . . The problem is that the inevitability of factual, legal, and moral error gives us a system that we know must wrongly kill some defendants, a system that fails to deliver the fair, consistent, and reliable sentences of death required by the Constitution. Justice Lewis Powell also had a similar change of mind. Justice Powell dissented from the Furman decision in 1972, which struck down the death penalty as a form of cruel and unusual punishment. He also wrote the decision in McCleskey v. Kemp in 1987, which denied a challenge to the death penalty on the grounds that it was applied in a discriminatory manner against African Americans. In 1991, however, Justice Powell told his biographer that he had decided that capital punishment should be abolished. After sitting on our nation's highest court for over 20 years, Justices Blackmun and Powell came to understand the randomness and unfairness of the death penalty. Mr. President, it is time for our nation to follow the lead of these two distinguished jurists and re-visit its support for this form of punishment. At the end of 1999, as we enter a new millennium, our society is still far from fully just. The continued use of the death penalty demeans us. The death penalty is at odds with our best traditions. It is wrong and it is immoral. The adage ``two wrongs do not make a right,'' could not be more appropriate here. Our nation has long ago done away with other barbaric punishments like whipping and cutting off the ears of suspected criminals. Just as our nation did away with these punishments as contrary to our humanity and ideals, it is time to abolish the death penalty as we enter the next century. And it's not just a matter of morality. Mr. President, the continued viability of our justice system as a truly just system requires that we do so. And in the world's eyes, the ability of our nation to say truthfully that we are the leader and defender of freedom, liberty and equality demands that we do so. I ask my colleagues to join me in taking the first step in abolishing the death penalty in our great nation. Today, I introduce a bill that abolishes the death penalty at the federal level. I call on all states that have the death penalty to also cease this practice. Let us step away from the culture of violence and restore fairness and integrity to our criminal justice system. I close with this reminder to my colleagues. Where would our nation be if members of Congress were followers, not leaders, of public opinion? We, of course, would still be living with slavery, segregation and without a woman's right to vote. Like abolishing slavery and segregation and establishing a woman's right to vote, abolishing the death penalty will not be an easy task. It will take patience, persistence and courage. As we head into the next millennium, let us leave this archaic practice behind. Mr. President, I ask that the text of the bill be printed in the Record. The bill follows:

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Federal Death Penalty Abolition Act of 1999. This bill will abolish the death penalty at the federal level. It will put an immediate halt to executions and forbid the imposition of the death penalty as a sentence for violations of federal law. Since the beginning of this year, this Chamber has echoed with debate on violence in America. We've heard about violence in our schools and neighborhoods. Some say it's because of the availability of guns to minors. Some say Hollywood has contributed to a culture of violence. Others argue that the roots of the problem are far deeper and more complex. Whatever the causes, a culture of violence has certainly infected our nation. As schoolhouse killings have shown, our children now can be reached by that culture of violence. And they aren't just casual observers; some of them are active participants and many have been victims. But, Mr. President, I'm not so sure that we in government don't contribute to this casual attitude we sometimes see toward killing and death. With each new death penalty statute enacted and each execution carried out, our executive, judicial and legislative branches, at both the state and federal level, add to a culture of violence and killing. With each person executed, we're teaching our children that the way to settle scores is through violence, even to the point of taking a human life. At the same time, the public debate on the death penalty, which was an intense national debate not very long ago, is muted. As the online magazine Slate recently noted, with crime rates down and incomes up, ``unspeakable crimes are no longer spoken of, murder is what happens to your portfolio on a bad day, `family values' are debated through the Internal Revenue code, and the `death penalty' is [often used as a term for] a tax issue.'' What has happened to our nation's sense of striving to do what we know to be the right thing? Those who favor the death penalty should be pressed to explain why fallible human beings should presume to use the power of the state to extinguish the life of a fellow human being on our collective behalf. Those who oppose the death penalty should demand that explanation adamantly, and at every turn. But only a zealous few try. Our nation is a great nation. We have the strongest democracy in the world. We have expended blood and treasure to protect so many fundamental human rights at home and abroad and not always for only our own interests. But we can do better. Mr. President, we should do better. And we should use this moment to do better as we step not only into a new century but also a new millennium, the first such landmark since the depths of the Middle Ages. Courtesy of the Internet and CNN International, the world observes, perplexed and sometimes horrified, the violence in our nation. When the Littleton tragedy erupted, newspapers all over the world marveled at how readily available guns are to American children. And across the globe, with every American who is executed, the entire world watches and asks how can the Americans, the champions of human rights, compromise their own professed beliefs in this way. Religious groups and leaders express their revulsion at the continued practice of capital punishment. Pope John Paul II frequently appeals to American governors when a death row inmate is about to die. I am pleased that in a recent case, involving an inmate on death row in Missouri, the Missouri governor heeded the good advice of the pontiff and commuted the killer's sentence to life without parole. That case generated a lot of press--but only as a political issue, rather than a moral question or a human rights challenge. But the Pope is not standing alone against the death penalty. He is joined by the chorus of voices of various people of faith who abhor the death penalty. Religious groups from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Mennonites, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and so many more people of faith have proclaimed their opposition to capital punishment. And, I might add, even conservative Pat Robertson protested the execution in 1998 of Karla Faye Tucker, a born-again Christian on Texas death row. Mr. President, I would like to see the commutation of sentences to life without parole for all death row inmates--whether they are Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, or some other faith, or no faith at all. The United States' casual imposition of capital punishment is abhorrent not only to many people of faith. Our use of the death penalty also stands in stark contrast to the majority of nations that have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. Even Russia and South Africa--nations that for years were symbols of egregious violations of basic human rights and liberties--have seen the error of the use of the death penalty. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights has called for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the death penalty. And soon, Italy and other European nations are expected to introduce a resolution in the UN General Assembly calling for a worldwide moratorium. The European Union denies membership in their alliance to those nations that use the death penalty. In fact, the European Union recently warned Turkey that if it executes the Kurdish leader, Abdullah Ocalan, Turkey would jeopardize its membership application. Just this past December, the European Union actually passed a resolution calling for the immediate and unconditional global abolition of the death penalty, and it specifically called on all states within the United States to abolish the death penalty. This is significant because it reflects the unanimous view of the nations with which the United States enjoys its closest relationships--nations that so often follow our lead. Mr. President, what is even more troubling in the international context is that the United States is now one of only six countries that imposes the death penalty for crimes committed by children. I'll repeat that because it is remarkable. We are one of only six nations on this earth that puts to death people who were under 18 years of age when they committed their crimes. The others are Iran, Pakistan, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. These are countries that are often criticized for human rights abuses. And let's look at the numbers. Since 1990, the United States has executed ten child offenders. That's more than any one of these five other countries and equal to all five countries combined. Even China --the country that many members of Congress, including myself, have criticized for its human rights violations-- apparently has the decency not to execute its children. This is embarrassing. Is this the kind of company we want to keep? Is this the kind of world leader we want to be? But these are the facts for this past decade, 1990 to the present. Now, let's look at the last two years. In the last two years, the United States has been the only nation in the world to put to death people who were minors when they committed their crimes. We have executed four child offenders during the last two years. Today, over 70 child offenders remain on death row. No one, Mr. President, no one can reasonably argue that based on this data, executing child offenders is a normal or acceptable practice in the world community. And I don't think we should be proud of the fact that the United States is the world leader in the execution of child offenders. Is the death penalty a deterrent for our children's conduct, as well as that of adult Americans? For those who believe capital punishment is a deterrent, they are sadly, sadly mistaken. The federal government and most states in the U.S. have a death penalty, while our European counterparts do not. Following the logic of death penalty supporters who believe it's a deterrent, you would think that our European allies, who don't use the death penalty, would have a higher murder rate than the United States. Yet, they don't and it's not even close. In fact, the murder rate in the U.S. is six times higher than the murder rate in Britain, seven times higher than in France, five times higher than in Australia, and five times higher than in Sweden. But we don't even need to look across the Atlantic to see that capital punishment has no deterrent effect on crime. Let's compare Wisconsin and Texas. I'm proud of the fact that my great state, Wisconsin, was the first state in this nation to abolish the death penalty completely, when it did so in 1853. Wisconsin has been death penalty-free for nearly 150 years. In contrast, Texas is the most prodigious user of the death penalty, having executed 192 people since 1976. Let's look at the murder rate in Wisconsin and Texas. During the period 1995 to 1998, Texas has had a murder rate that is nearly double the murder rate in Wisconsin. This data alone calls into question the argument that the death penalty is a deterrent to murder. In fact, according to a 1995 Hart Research poll, the majority of our nation's police chiefs do not believe the death penalty is a particularly effective law enforcement tool. When asked to rank the various factors in reducing crime, police chiefs ranked the death penalty last. Rather, the police chiefs --the people who deal with hardened criminals day in and day out --cite reducing drug abuse as the primary factor in reducing crime, along with a better economy and jobs, simplifying court rules, longer prison sentences, more police officers, and reducing guns. It looks like most police chiefs recognize what our European allies and a few states like Wisconsin have known all along: the death penalty is not an effective deterrent. Mr. President, let me be clear. I believe murderers and other violent offenders should be severely punished. I'm not seeking to open the prison doors and let murderers come rushing out into our communities. I don't want to free them. The question is: should the death penalty be a means of punishment in our society? One of the most frequent refrains from death penalty supporters is the claim that the majority of Americans support the death penalty. It's repeated so often, everybody assumes it's true. Mr. President, the facts do not support this claim. Survey after survey, from around the country, shows that when offered sentencing alternatives, more Americans prefer life without parole plus restitution for the victim's family over the death penalty. For example, a 1993 national poll found that when offered alternatives to the death penalty, 44% of Americans supported the alternative of life without parole plus restitution over the death penalty. Only 41% preferred the death penalty and 15% were unsure. This is remarkable. Sure, if you ask Americans the simple, isolated question of whether they support the death penalty, a majority of Americans will agree. But if you ask them whether they support the death penalty or a realistic, practical alternative sentence like life without parole plus restitution, support for the death penalty falls dramatically to below 50%. More Americans support the alternative sentence than Americans who support the death penalty. The fact that our society relies on killing as punishment is disturbing enough. Even more disturbing, however, is the fact that the States' and federal use of the death penalty is often not consistent with principles of due process, fairness and justice. These principles are the foundation of our criminal justice system and, in a broader sense, the stability of our nation. It is clearer than ever before that we have put innocent people on death row. In addition, those States that have the death penalty are more likely to put people to death for killing white victims than for killing black victims. Mr. President, are we certain that innocent persons are not being executed? Obviously not. Are we certain that racial bias is not infecting the criminal justice system and the administration of the death penalty? I doubt it. It simply cannot be disputed that we are sending innocent people to death. Since the modern death penalty was reinstated in the 1970s, we have released 79 men and women from death row. Why? Because they were innocent. Seventy-nine men and women sitting on death row, awaiting a firing squad, lethal injection or electrocution, but later found innocent. That's one death row inmate found innocent for every seven executed. One in seven! That's a pretty poor performance for American justice. A wrong conviction means that the real killer may have gotten away. The real killer may still be on the loose and a threat to society. What an injustice that the victims' loved ones cannot rest because the killer is still not caught. What an injustice that an innocent man or woman has to spend even one day in jail. What a staggering injustice that innocent people are sentenced to death for crimes they did not commit. What a disgrace when we carry out those sentences, actually taking the lives of innocent people in the name of justice. I call my colleagues' attention to the recent example of an Illinois death row inmate, Ronald Jones, who had been sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a Chicago woman. After a lengthy interrogation in which Mr. Jones was beaten by police, he signed a confession. As a class assignment, a group of Northwestern University journalism students researched the case of Ronald Jones. What did they learn? They learned that Mr. Jones was clearly innocent and not for some technical reason--he just didn't do it. As a result of the students' efforts, Mr. Jones was later exonerated based on DNA evidence. Mr. President, our criminal justice system sent an innocent man to death row. Mr. Jones was tried and convicted in a justice system that is sometimes far from just and that sometimes just gets it wrong. And Mr. Jones is not alone. In Illinois alone, three death row inmates so far this year have been proven innocent. Since 1987, Illinois has freed 12 inmates from death row because they were later found innocent. Innocent, Mr. President, and they were sitting on death row. Innocent, and yet they were about to be killed. Why? Because our criminal justice system is sometimes far from fair and far from just. We can all agree that it is profoundly wrong to convict and condemn innocent people to death. But sadly, that's what's happening. With the greater accuracy and sophistication of DNA testing available today compared to even a couple of years ago, states like Illinois are finding that people sitting on death row did not commit the crimes to which earlier, less accurate DNA tests appeared to link them. This DNA technology should be further reviewed and compared to other tests. We should consider the role of DNA tests in all those committed to death row. Some argue that the discovery of the innocence of a death row inmate proves that the system works. This is absurd. How can you say the criminal justice system works when a group of students--not lawyers or investigators but students with no special powers, who were very much outside the system--discover that a man about to be executed was in fact innocent? That's what happened in Illinois to Ronald Jones. The system doesn't work. It has failed us. A primary reason why justice has been less than just is a series of Supreme Court decisions that seem to fail to grasp the significance and responsibility of their task when a human life is at stake. The Supreme Court has been narrowly focused on procedural technicalities, ignoring the fact that the death penalty is a unique punishment that cannot be undone to correct mistakes. One disturbing decision was issued by the Supreme Court just a few months ago. In Jones v. United States, which involved an inmate on death row in Texas and the interpretation of the 1994 Federal Death Penalty Act, the judge refused to tell the jury that if they deadlocked on the sentence, the law required the judge to impose a sentence of life without possibility of parole. As a result, some jurors were under the grave misunderstanding that lack of unanimity would mean the judge could give a sentence where the defendant might one day go free. The Supreme Court, however, upheld the lower court's imposition of the death penalty. And one more person will lose a life, when a simple correction of a misunderstanding could have resulted in a severe yet morally correct sentence of life without parole. As legal scholar Ronald Dworkin recently observed, ``[t]he Supreme Court has become impatient, and super due process has turned into due process-lite. Its impatience is understandable, but is also unacceptable.'' Mr. President, America's impatience with the protracted appeals of death row inmates is understandable. But this impatience is unacceptable. The rush to judgment is unacceptable. And the rush to execute men, women and children who might well be innocent is horrifying. The discovery of the innocence of death row inmates and misguided Supreme Court decisions disallowing potentially dispositive exculpatory evidence, however, aren't the only reasons we need to abolish the death penalty. Another reason we need to abolish the death penalty is the continuing racism in our criminal justice system. Our nation is facing a crucial test. A test of moral and political will. We have come a long way through this nation's history, and especially in this century, to dismantle state-sponsored and societal racism. Brown v. Board of Education, ensuring the right to equal educational opportunities for whites and blacks, was decided only 45 years ago. Unfortunately, however, we are still living with vestiges of institutional racism. In some cases, racism can be found at every stage of a capital trial--in the selection of jurors, during the presentation of evidence, when the prosecutor contrasts the race of the victim and defendant to appeal to the prejudice of the jury, and sometimes during jury deliberations. After the 1976 Supreme Court Gregg decision upholding the use of the death penalty, the death penalty was first enacted as a sentence at the federal level with passage of the Drug Kingpin Statute in 1988. Since that time, numerous additional federal crimes have become death penalty-eligible, bringing the total to about 60 statutes today. At the federal level, 21 people have been sentenced to death. Another eight men sit on the military's death row. Of those 21 defendants on the federal government's death row, 14 are black and only 5 are white. One defendant is Hispanic and another Asian. That means 16 of the 21 people on federal death row are minorities. That's just over 75%. And the numbers are worse on the military's death row. Seven of the eight, or 87.5%, on military death row are minorities. Some of my colleagues may remember the debates of the late 1980's and early 1990's, when Congress considered the Racial Justice Act and other attempts to eradicate racism in the use of capital punishment. A noted study evaluating the role of race in death penalty cases was frequently discussed. This was the study by David Baldus, a professor at the University of Iowa College of Law. The Baldus study found that defendants who kill white victims are more than four times more likely to be sent to death row than defendants who kill black victims. An argument against the Baldus study was made by some opponents of the Racial Justice Act. They argued that we just needed to ``level up'' the playing field. In other words, send all the defendants who killed black victims to death row, too. They argued that legislative remedies were not needed, just tell prosecutors and judges to go after perpetrators of black homicide as strongly as against perpetrators of white homicide. In theory, this may sound reasonable but one thing is clear: no matter how hard we try, we cannot overcome the inevitable fallibility of being human. That fallibility means that we will not be able to apply the death penalty in a fair and just manner. We will always run the risk that we will condemn innocent people to death. Mr. President, let's restore some certainty, fairness, and justice to our criminal justice system. Let's have the courage to recognize our human fallibilities. Let's put a halt to capital punishment. The American Bar Association agrees. In 1997, the American Bar Association called for a moratorium on the death penalty because it found that the application of the death penalty raises fairness and due process concerns. Several states are finally beginning to recognize the great injustice when the ultimate punishment is carried out in a biased and unfair way. Moratoriums have been considered by the legislatures of at least ten states over the last several months. The legislatures of Illinois and Nebraska have made the most progress. They actually passed moratorium measures earlier this year. I am glad to see that some states are finally taking steps to correct the practice of legalized killing that was again unleashed by the Supreme Court's Gregg decision in 1976. The first post-Gregg execution took place in 1977 in Utah, when Gary Gilmore did not challenge and instead aggressively sought his execution by a firing squad. The first post-Gregg involuntary execution took place on May 25, 1979. I vividly remember that day. I had just finished my last law school exam that morning. Later that day, I recall turning on the television and watching the news report that Florida had just executed John Spenkelink. I was overcome with a sickening feeling. Here I was, fresh out of law school and firm in my belief that our legal system was advancing through the latter quarter of the twentieth century. Instead, to my great dismay, I was witnessing a throwback to the electric chair, the gallows, and the routine executions of our nation's earlier history. Mr. President, I haven't forgotten that experience or what I thought and felt on that day. At the end of 1999, at the end of a remarkable century and millennium of progress, I cannot help but believe that our progress has been tarnished with our nation's not only continuing, but increasing use of the death penalty. As of today, the United States has executed 584 people since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. In those 23 years, there has been a sharp rise in the number of executions. This year the United States has already set a record for the most executions in our country in one year, 84--the latest execution being that of Thomas Lee Royal, Jr., who was executed by lethal injection just last night by the state of Virginia. And the year isn't even over yet. We are on track to hit close to 100 executions this year. This is astounding and it is embarrassing. We are a nation that prides itself on the fundamental principles of justice, liberty, equality and due process. We are a nation that scrutinizes the human rights records of other nations. We are one of the first nations to speak out against torture and killings by foreign governments. It is time for us to look in the mirror. Two former Supreme Court justices did just that. Justice Harry Blackmun penned the following eloquent dissent in 1994: From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. For more than 20 years I have endeavored--indeed, I have struggled--along with a majority of this Court, to develop procedural and substantive rules that would lend more than the mere appearance of fairness to the death penalty endeavor. Rather than continue to coddle the Court's delusion that the desired level of fairness has been achieved and the need for regulation eviscerated, I feel morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed. It is virtually self-evident to me now that no combination of procedural rules or substantive regulations ever can save the death penalty from its inherent constitutional deficiencies. The basic question--does the system accurately and consistently determine which defendants ``deserve'' to die?--cannot be answered in the affirmative. . . . The problem is that the inevitability of factual, legal, and moral error gives us a system that we know must wrongly kill some defendants, a system that fails to deliver the fair, consistent, and reliable sentences of death required by the Constitution. Justice Lewis Powell also had a similar change of mind. Justice Powell dissented from the Furman decision in 1972, which struck down the death penalty as a form of cruel and unusual punishment. He also wrote the decision in McCleskey v. Kemp in 1987, which denied a challenge to the death penalty on the grounds that it was applied in a discriminatory manner against African Americans. In 1991, however, Justice Powell told his biographer that he had decided that capital punishment should be abolished. After sitting on our nation's highest court for over 20 years, Justices Blackmun and Powell came to understand the randomness and unfairness of the death penalty. Mr. President, it is time for our nation to follow the lead of these two distinguished jurists and re-visit its support for this form of punishment. At the end of 1999, as we enter a new millennium, our society is still far from fully just. The continued use of the death penalty demeans us. The death penalty is at odds with our best traditions. It is wrong and it is immoral. The adage ``two wrongs do not make a right,'' could not be more appropriate here. Our nation has long ago done away with other barbaric punishments like whipping and cutting off the ears of suspected criminals. Just as our nation did away with these punishments as contrary to our humanity and ideals, it is time to abolish the death penalty as we enter the next century. And it's not just a matter of morality. Mr. President, the continued viability of our justice system as a truly just system requires that we do so. And in the world's eyes, the ability of our nation to say truthfully that we are the leader and defender of freedom, liberty and equality demands that we do so. I ask my colleagues to join me in taking the first step in abolishing the death penalty in our great nation. Today, I introduce a bill that abolishes the death penalty at the federal level. I call on all states that have the death penalty to also cease this practice. Let us step away from the culture of violence and restore fairness and integrity to our criminal justice system. I close with this reminder to my colleagues. Where would our nation be if members of Congress were followers, not leaders, of public opinion? We, of course, would still be living with slavery, segregation and without a woman's right to vote. Like abolishing slavery and segregation and establishing a woman's right to vote, abolishing the death penalty will not be an easy task. It will take patience, persistence and courage. As we head into the next millennium, let us leave this archaic practice behind. Mr. President, I ask that the text of the bill be printed in the Record. The bill follows:

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today to oppose the drug amendment to the bankruptcy reform bill introduced by my distinguished colleague from Utah, Senator Hatch. S. 486, the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act of 1999, has been drastically altered to give us the amendment we are now debating. I was a proud cosponsor of that bipartisan bill. It would provide needed law enforcement training and resources to combat meth, as well as prevention and treatment resources for meth users, to my state, Wisconsin, and all states in the Midwest that have been overrun by this horrible drug. The Judiciary Committee explored the extent of the meth problem and the urgent need for federal resources and support to fight the spread of meth. Hearings and a mark-up of the Methamphetamine Anti- Proliferation Act were held. The bill was reported out of the Judiciary Committee only after extensive negotiations between members from both sides of the aisle. Now, as we debate bankruptcy reform, I am greatly troubled to see that this well-crafted bill has been contorted into a bill with all sorts of provisions that have nothing to do with methamphetamine and are bad policy, pure and simple. First, the bill has been saddled with the Powder Cocaine Sentencing Act. The powder cocaine bill is objectionable because it raises powder cocaine penalties to extremely high levels--ensuring further prison overcrowding without offering any concrete effort to promote cocaine use prevention and treatment. The powder cocaine bill has been attached to this amendment, even though it has not been considered by the Judiciary Committee. The Committee hasn't even had a hearing this year on the bill. Second, the drug amendment is bad policy because it includes a voucher provision that would provide federal funding for some children to attend private school at taxpayer expense, without providing any resources to improve the overall quality of education for the children who remain in our public schools. As a result, I cannot support the drug amendment to the bankruptcy reform bill. I want to be clear. I am committed to fighting the spread of meth in Wisconsin and across the country. But I cannot support an amendment that will do harm to our nation's schools and to our effort to punish cocaine offenders fairly. If the drug amendment passes, I urge the conferees on this bill to remove the troubling provisions relating to powder cocaine and school vouchers. I yield the floor. Amendment No. 2655 (Purpose: To provide for enhanced consumer credit protection, and for other purposes)

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, my amendment would limit the reach of section 311 of the bill, which I believe is far too broad. I think it is too harsh a solution for the limited abuse that its sponsors say they are trying to address. Since the Bankruptcy Code was enacted, the automatic stay that becomes effective upon the filing of a bankruptcy petition has always prohibited a landlord from evicting a tenant unless the landlord obtains permission from the bankruptcy court--what is called ``relief from the stay.'' The stay serves several purposes. In chapter 13, a tenant has a right to assume a lease and to cure a default by paying the accumulated back rent. In chapter 7, the stay was intended to provide the debtor a short ``breathing spell.'' Breathing room is especially helpful to debtors who want to remain in their homes. In many cases, when a chapter 7 debtor is relieved of other debts, he or she can use this brief period to catch up on the rent and avoid eviction. The right to avoid eviction by filing bankruptcy is obviously of great importance to tenants who at the very point when they have undertaken the difficult and draining bankruptcy experience would otherwise suffer the additional hardships of moving and having to find new housing. And then you have tenants in rent-controlled or rent- stabilized apartments, who lose valuable property rights if they are evicted. Of course, an eviction would normally doom any hope of the tenant completing a chapter 13 repayment plan or getting much benefit from the fresh start bankruptcy is intended to provide. I understand that the applicability of the automatic stay to eviction proceedings has come under attack because of abuses. This is primarily due to the practice of debtors in a few cities, especially Los Angeles, of filing bankruptcy cases, sometimes repeatedly, solely for the purpose of delaying eviction and, in effect, ``living rent free.'' these debtors are often aided by nonattorney bankruptcy petition preparers and file pro se. I have seen the advertisements by some of these unscrupulous individuals, and I deplore this kind of abuse as much as anyone does. But to address this limited problem of abuse, what S. 625 does is totally eliminate the automatic stay for tenants. In fact, the bill contains an even more sweeping provision than the language adopted in the conference report last year and contained in the House bill this year. The problem of abusive bankruptcy filings by tenants in a few jurisdictions can be addressed by more limited, carefully targeted provisions. First, we can cut a whole area of abuse by simply lifting the stay in cases where there are repeat bankruptcy filings. My amendment includes that. These abuses inspired this amendment and they also point to its underlying goal: to eliminate the possibility that debtors can use the bankruptcy law to live ``recent free'' after they file. I agree that we should not let tenants take advantage of the bankruptcy laws to live ``rent free.'' But if a debtor is able to put together enough money to pay rent during the pendency of the bankruptcy, that goal is satisfied. Certainly, the landlord is not losing anything financially by allowing the tenant to stay. If the landlord again begins collecting rent on the apartment after a bankruptcy filing, it is in the same position as it would be if it evicted the debtor and began collecting rent from a new tenant. So under my amendment, relief from the automatic stay is only available if the debtor fails to pay rent that comes due after the bankruptcy filing. I also believe that it is important to keep the bankruptcy court involved and aware of the lifting of the stay as it is under current law when a landlord applies for relief from the stay. There does seems to be good reason, however, to provide expedited relief from the stay if the debtor does not pay rent while the proceeding is pending. So my amendment creates a simple and straightforward process. Once a debtor misses a rent payment after filing for bankruptcy, the landlord can immediately file a certification with the court that the payment has not been received. It must also serve a copy of the certification on the debtor, to make sure that the debtor is aware that the landlord intends to seek to have the stay lifted. After that certification is filed and served, the debtor has 15 days to cure the default. The exemption from the stay will become effective 15 days after the certification is filed and served, unless the court orders otherwise. And one reason for the court to order otherwise is that the rent has been paid. This certification and expedited exemption process also applies to evictions based on property damage or illegal drug use. By giving discretion to the court to delay or stop the eviction proceeding from going forward, the amendment protects against these provisions being abused by landlords. We don't want landlords alleging property damage for the most minor scratches on the wall in order to take advantage of these expedited procedures. The expedited procedures also apply to one other situation, which the Senator from Alabama raised during our consideration of this amendment in the Judiciary Committee. The Senator from Alabama sketched out a hypothetical situation where a landlord who has rented his or her own house or apartment to someone wants to move back in after the expiration of the lease. Under the amendment that I offered in committee, the landlord could theoretically be prevented from moving back in to his or her own house if the tenant files for bankruptcy and keeps paying rent. I think the Senator from Alabama raised a good point in committee, so I have addressed it in this amendment. Again, the underlying goal is to allow tenants the benefits of the automatic stay as long as landlords are no worse off. In the usual case of a landlord who would simply rent to someone else after an eviction, renewed and continuous payment of rent after the bankruptcy filing protects the financial interests of the landlord. But in the case sketched out by the Senator from Alabama, landlords have other rights, namely the right to reoccupy their own homes, that we need to protect as well. So my amendment contains an additional circumstance in which a landlord can seek expedited relief from the stay--when the lease has expired according to its terms and the landlord intends to occupy the property after the eviction. Once again, the landlord must simply certify that these circumstances exist and 15 days later, the stay is lifted, unless the tenant demonstrates to the court that the certification is erroneous. It should be remembered that this amendment does not effect the landlord's ability to seek relief from the stay under the procedures provided by current law. Expedited procedures are available for nonpayment of rent after filing for bankruptcy, for evictions based on property damage or drug use, or when a lease has expired and the landlord wishes to reoccupy the property. For all other types of evictions, the landlord may continue to pursue remedies under current law. As in so many parts of our debate on this bill, the main issue is balance. To the extent there are abuses they should be addressed, but the solutions should be narrowly targeted so that they do not eliminate the rights of honest debtors who need the fresh start that bankruptcy is designed to provide. In this case, I truly believe that the solution is S. 625 for the problem that landlords say they are concerned about goes too far. I am not comfortable with provisions that would kick people out of their apartments even if they can pay rent during the time that they are trying to get their financial house in order. To me that is not constructive, it is punitive. It is not really helping landlords, it is just punishing people who may be trying their very best to keep their heads above water. Shame on us, if we can't see that. I hope my colleagues will support this modest and balanced amendment. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 2748 be laid aside.

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

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I would be happy to do that. I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendments so I may call up amendment No. 2748.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, in a few minutes I will offer amendment No. 2748. This amendment concerns section 311 of the bill, which provides a complete exemption from the automatic stay for eviction of proceedings.

Mr. FEINGOLD. That is correct.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, the managers have asked Members to offer amendments. I am trying to offer an amendment. I need 11 minutes in order to present the amendment. I am trying to facilitate the progress on the bill. I thought this would be a good opportunity. It is a total of 11 minutes. The conferences don't really begin in earnest until 1 o'clock anyway. I renew my request to be granted 12 minutes total.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, as part of the request of the Senator from Missouri, I be allowed to speak for up to 12 minutes. At the conclusion of the 12 minutes, I will call up an amendment.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I thank the managers for offering and accepting the bipartisan amendment that would allow courts to waive the filing fee for chapter 7 filers who cannot afford to pay. This is similar to an amendment that Senator Specter and I successfully offered on the floor in the last Congress. I am certain we could have repeated that success on this bill, but I did not think it was necessary this year to have a rollcall vote since the House-passed bankruptcy bill includes a similar provision. It is unbelievable to me that bankruptcy is the only Federal civil proceeding in which a poor person cannot file in forma pauperis. That means that in any other federal civil proceeding you can file a case without paying the filing fee if the court determines that you are unable to afford the fee, but in bankruptcy you either pay the filing fee or you are denied access to the system. That doesn't make any sense. The bankruptcy system, is by definition designed to assist those who have fallen on hard times, but because there is no allowance for in forma pauperis filing, the system is unavailable to the poorest of the poor. This prohibition against debtors filing in forma pauperis is a clear obstacle to the poor gaining access to justice. Currently the filing fee for consumer bankruptcy is $175, and it may well be increased in this bill. That's roughly the weekly take home pay of an employee working a 40-hour week at the minimum wage. It is unreasonable and unrealistic to expect the indigent--people who barely get by from week to week, the very people who truly need the protection afforded by the bankruptcy system the most--to save money to raise such a fee simply to enter the system. Congress has already acknowledged that the bankruptcy system may need an in forma pauperis proceeding by enacting a three year pilot program in six judical districts across the country. The Federal Judicial Center recently submitted a comprehensive report to Congress analyzing this pilot program in which it found that: A fee waiver application was filed in only 3.4 percent of all chapter 7 cases, and the large majority of these waivers were granted. Indeed, the U.S. Trustees Office filed objections to less than 1 percent of the applications. In other words, only those very few individuals who really needed the fee-waiver applied for it. The fee-waiver program enhanced access to the bankruptcy system for indigent single women above and beyond any other group. We cannot strike another blow against single mothers and their children by denying them access to the bankruptcy system because they cannot even afford the filing fee. The nature of the debt for those who filed for the fee-waiver differed from that of other debtors in that their debts related more to basic subsistence--education, health, utility services, and housing. Moreover, 63 percent of the housing-related debts of those who filed for the fee-waiver owed their debts to public housing authorities. Therefore, these indigent debtors were not filing bankruptcy to escape paying for their boats, or their fancy entertainment systems. They were filing bankruptcy merely to subsist. Often times the bankruptcy system was the only thing that stood between these unfortunate people and homelessness. There was only a minimal increase in the number of filings and there was no indication that debtors filed for chapter 7 rather than chapter 13 just to obtain the benefit of the fee-waiver program. Simply stated, the debtors did not abuse the system. In sum, this amendment would build upon the strong foundation established in the pilot program and direct the Judicial Center to create a nation-wide in forma pauperis program for the bankruptcy system, thus, establishing some fairness in the bankruptcy filing process for the most financially strapped debtors. We have made one modification in the amendment to make sure that in forma pauperis filing status is only available to truly indigent people, namely those with an annual income of below 125% of the poverty level. That is the same income qualification required for people to receive free legal assistance from the Legal Service Corporation. Obviously, we don't intend for the bankruptcy filing fee to be waived for people who aren't really poor. So I was happy to agree to this modification. The expenditure of funds required by this amendment is clearly justified. We made the decision long ago in this country that our judicial system would be open to everyone--those who can pay, and those who cannot--and we decided that as a nation, we would absorb the cost of allowing those who could not pay to receive the same access as those who could. If you are poor, and you cannot afford the fee to file for divorce, we absorb the cost. If someone does you wrong and you cannot afford the filing fee to sue, we absorb the cost. Likewise, if you are in such financial difficulty that you must file for bankruptcy, and you cannot afford the filing fee, now, because of this amendment, we must also absorb the cost. In this bill, where we are giving such advantages to the well-heeled landlords and credit companies, I am pleased that we will take this small step to ensure that the poorest of the poor are not shut out of this very important part of our system of justice. Again, I thank the managers for agreeing to this amendment.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to support efforts to increase the federal minimum wage by adopting the amendment offered by the Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy, the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 1999. This important amendment will provide American laborers with a 50-cent increase to the minimum wage on January 1, 2000, and a second 50-cent increase on January 1, 2001. This modest increase, which would raise the minimum wage to $6.15 per hour, will help more than 11 million lower income Americans. Our country's economy is growing. Its economic vitality and the changes wrought by welfare reform have resulted in a better life for many working people--unless those workers are minimum wage workers, anchored to the bottom of the wage scale. The truth is, even though the economy is roaring, wages at the bottom are stagnant, and hard-working people are still living in poverty. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, in the mid- 1990s, there were 89,000 working poor families with children in Wisconsin. Seventy-four percent of those families had at least one working parent. And sixty-nine percent of these families had at least one working parent and still required some form of public assistance. In this time of a booming economy and low unemployment, these statistics are very troubling. Mr. President, the majority of the poor people of our country are working--the problem is that many of them are holding down low-paying jobs with stagnant wages that do not allow them to finally break free from poverty. Despite successes in the welfare to work initiative, a 1998 U.S. Conference of Mayors study, entitled ``A Status Report on Hunger and Homelessness in American Cities,'' indicates that seventy-eight percent of the 30 major U.S. cities surveyed reported an increased demand for emergency food assistance. Thirty-seven percent of those people seeking food at soup kitchens and shelters in 1998 were employed. City officials surveyed listed low-paying jobs as the top cause of hunger in their cities. It is an undeniable disgrace that, in many cases, minimum wage workers cannot afford to feed themselves or their families. Mr. President, no hard working American should have to worry about affording groceries, shoes for their kids, or medicines. The people this amendment will help are not people who spend their money frivolously. These are the families who scrimp and save to provide their children with the necessities of life: a decent place to live, enough to eat, clothes on their back, a decent education, and some hope for a better future. The study, ``The State of Working Wisconsin--1998,'' by the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, contains some troubling news regarding wages. The Wisconsin median hourly wage is still eight-point-four percent below its 1979 level. Since 1979, Wisconsin's median wage has declined fifty percent faster than the five-point-three percent national decline over the same period. These numbers are, sadly, not unique to Wisconsin. This is the situation all over the country. And this is the situation that the Kennedy amendment will help to address. According to the Economic Policy Institute, more than 205,000 workers in my home state of Wisconsin, or fifteen-point-one percent of Wisconsin's workforce, will benefit from the modest increase in this amendment. Those are real people, Mr. President. Real people who deserve this modest raise in pay for the work they do to support their families and to keep the American economy moving. Opponents of this increase argue that it will hurt the economy. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the 1996 and 1997 raises in the minimum wage had a positive impact on the economy. Unemployment has dropped to four-point-one percent, the lowest mark in three decades. Nine-point-one million new jobs have been created. And there is no reason to believe that this proposed increase will not have the same result. In fact, history shows that minimum wage increases have not had a negative impact on unemployment. This modest increase of 50 cents per year is really not a hike at all after inflation--over the next two years it will simply restore the real value of the minimum wage to its 1982 level. So by the time the second installment of this proposed increase would go into effect, the buying power of workers scraping by on the minimum wage will be only what is was when Ronald Reagan was a new president. Meanwhile, wages at the high levels have been climbing steadily while the real value of the minimum wage has eroded. I urge my colleagues to begin to restore some respect for the dignity of work to the federal minimum wage. The lowest paid workers in America's labor force deserve a chance to earn a decent living and we need to give them the tools. I urge every Senator to support the Kennedy amendment. It is a vote to reward work and to support every American worker.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.