Barney Frank

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to control the time of the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaFalce).

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that at this late date we are still able to move this bill forward. I would like to make a point that sometimes escapes our friends in the press and the rest of the press, which may be the majority. The House is continuing to function, as will the other body. We will pass important legislation. There is this assumption among headline writers and some others that when there are major differences of opinion between the parties, somehow that means paralysis of the whole institution. This is one further example of the fallacy of that viewpoint. We are capable of strong disagreement on some important issues and at the same time being able to work together on nonideological matters that advance the public interest. This is an example. There have probably been few times in our country's history when there has been a greater partisan division over some important subjects; that does not prevent this committee, and this House and, ultimately, this Congress from moving forward with an important piece of legislation that was more important than people will know, because it is not controversial. We do have a journalistic tendency to equate controversy with importance, and if Members are not yelling at each other, nobody knows about it. This is a very significant piece of legislation that will advance important housing interests, and it will be done in this kind of fashion. There are some very important specifics. The manufactured housing piece has been alluded to. I want to acknowledge that the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer), who sits here and who will be speaking later, did an enormous amount of work with me and others in persuading us of the importance of sticking with it. We had some disagreements. I do not think everything in this is perfect. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Leach), chairman of the Committee on Banking and Financial Services, because he and I had a colloquy on the manufactured housing piece in the last discussion of this bill. And I would just like to incorporate it by reference and ask the gentleman if he agrees that our previous colloquy should stand with regard to this bill.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer), who did so much to make sure that we address the manufactured housing issues in this bill.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, Sid Yates was an exemplary democrat. I have never met anyone who did a better job of helping the citizens of this country govern ourselves. Sid Yates belied the view that passion about issues and civility towards people were somehow inconsistent. He cared deeply about a broad range of issues, and knew a good deal about all of them because he was a man of deep learning and high intelligence. But he never let either his knowledge or his commitment interfere with the respect he showed to others, and his interaction with his Congressional colleagues was, as I have said, a model of how government should be carried out in a democracy. Others will be describing his extraordinarily effective advocacy of the arts, an advocacy that meant so much because it came from someone who was himself deeply appreciative of the value of culture to the quality of human life. We knew him as well as a dedicated defender of our common natural heritage, embodied in our parks, and of his fierce defense of civil liberties and racial fairness. I want to talk here about one particularly important aspect of his work that did not get a great deal of publicity, because he did not want it to, but which was of great significance in this nation. For all of the years that I served in Congress until he retired. Sid Yates was the senior Jewish Member of the House in point of service--as well as in other ways of an intangable sort. He presided regularly over an informal Caucus of Jewish Members on issues that were of particular importance and often of great sensitivity. During the period that Sid performed this role, there were efforts in our society to drive wedges between Jewish and African American Members of the House, as people sought to drive those wedges between our two communities elsewhere. Many of us on both sides worked hard to prevent this from happening, and no one was more important in our success in this regard than Sid Yates. Sometimes the important accomplishments of a person are the things that he or she kept from happening, as much as the things he or she caused to happen. In Sid Yates' case, among the towering monuments that this great man left us is his leadership role in frustrating the efforts of those who would have set Jewish and African American Members of Congress quarreling over the fate of negotiations in the Middle East, over the foreign aid bill, over affirmative action and other important issues. I am very proud that throughout my service we have remained largely united in defense of important steps towards justice in our nation and in the world, and Sid Yates' important role in this should be acknowledged. Mr. Speaker there are people whom one admires, but whom one does not necessarily want as a seatmate on a long plane ride. Sid Yates was a wonderful man who did great things for society, and was a delight to be with, listen to and learn from. We miss him greatly.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, sometimes we can get wisdom from the ages. I am not a fan of Oliver Cromwell. His semi-genocidal attacks on the Irish was certainly one of the low points in history. But even he occasionally got something right. During the 1650s, there was a Parliament in England which could not seem to find a way to leave London. Oliver Cromwell decided they needed some encouragement. Some of what he said in his gentle way, waiving a sword seems to me to be not entirely inappropriate. So I would, therefore, like to read some excerpts from Oliver Cromwell's speech to what was called ``The Long Parliament.'' It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place . . . ``Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. You were deputed here to get grievances redressed; are not yourselves become the greatest the grievance? Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse the Augean stable by putting a final period to your . . . proceedings in this house and which by God's help and the strength he has given me I am now come to do. I commend ye therefore upon the peril of your lives to depart immediately out of this place. . . Go and get out, make haste ye venal slaves be gone. So take away that shining bauble there and lock up the doors.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, it has been my distinct honor over the years to take note of the extraordinary valuable work done by Rofeh International, in conjunction with the New England Chassidic Center led by Grand Rabbi Levi Horowitz. Grand Rabbi Horowitz, the Bostoner Rebbe as he is known, is a very distinguished scholar in the field of medical ethics, in addition to his eminence as a scholar of Judaism. Rofeh facilitates making the superb medical treatment that is available in Boston to people from all over the world, and if it were not for Rofeh, a large number of people who have benefitted from this medical treatment would not have been able to do so. As part of their effort, Rofeh and the New England Chassidic Center have an annual dinner, at which they honor people who have been particularly distinguished in their service to this wonderful cause. This year Rofeh will honor two men. Arnold Zaltas and Tatsuo Hirose. Dr. Hirose was born in Japan, and graduated from Kanazawa University School of Medicine there in 1961. His initial visit to the United States was 1965 when he was awarded with the Fulbright Fellowship, which allowed him to study clinical electrophysiology in vision at the Department of Ophthalmology, Cornell Medical School in New York. This happened when he was in the third year in the Postdoctoral School in Medicine in Kanazawa University. After spending three years in Cornell, he went back to Kanazawa and finished Postdoctoral School in Ophthalmology at Kanazawa University where he was awarded Doctor of Medical Science in 1969. He came to the Schepens Retina Associates, Retina Foundation (now called Schepens Eye Research Institute) and Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary for training and studying the surgery of the retina in the spring of 1969. He became a member of Schepens Retina Associates in 1973 at the same time he continued conducting research in studying functions of the retina at the Schepens Eye Institute, Harvard Medical School. He has been specializing in difficult complex retinal detachments, such as surgical failures in adults and children. He is particularly interested in infant and children's retinal detachment particularly in premature born babies. He published more than 140 papers in scientific medical journals, edited two books, including the most recent one: Schepens Retinal detachment and allied diseases. He contributed 23 book chapters. He received a Research to Prevent Blindness award, honor award of American Academy of Opthalmology, Senior Honor Award of American Academy of Ophthalmology, The Paul Kayser International Award of Merit in Retina Research. He has been selected in the Best Doctors in America 1996-1997, and Boston's Best Doctors in Boston Magazine, 1999. At present, he is a Clinical professor in ophthalmology, Harvard Medical School, senior Clinical Scientist as Schepens Eye Research Institutes, and Surgeon at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. Arnold I. Zaltas is a partner in the Natick firm of Zaltas, Medoff & Raider, where he concentrates in estate planning, real estate and banking law. He is a Trustee and General Counsel to the Middlesex Savings Bank, and serves as a Director of the Natick Visiting Nurse Association. He has served as Trustee of the Leonard Morse Hospital. Mr. Zaltas is a graduate of the Boston University School of Law, is past President of the Boston University Law School Alumni Association, and a recipient of the School of Law's Silver Shingle Award in recognition of outstanding service to the School. He is a Trustee of Temple Israel of Natick, where he was the recipient of the Maurice Geshelin Humanitarian Award. Arnold is a long-time resident of Natick, where he resides with his wife, Brenda. They have three children: A. David Zaltas, an attorney, Mandi M. Kunen, an ophthalmologist, Marjorie Rubin, an attorney, and three grandchildren. Arnold Zaltas and Tatsuo Hirose deserve hearty congratulations for the excellent work they do. Being recognized by Project Rofeh is a great honor, and I am pleased to take this opportunity to salute the work of this important organization of these two men.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the chairman. That would have been a terrible anticlimax had he not. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation. It is a product of the legislative process, and it is a product of a legislative process in a democracy, which means it is a good bill with some imperfections. Personally, I would like to see some changes in the manufactured housing section. I want to talk about manufactured housing briefly. Manufactured housing is a very important housing resource, particularly for people of limited income. It has not been given the respect it deserves in our law. This legislation, on the whole, with regard to the regulation of manufactured housing, the ability of the manufactured housing industry to produce the housing, and the rights of the people who live in it, improves the law in this area. It does not improve it enough, in my judgment; but I believe that taken overall, the provisions in this legislation are better than existing law. It will be my intention to work in the future to try to further improve it. But I do want to stress that this is, in part, a recognition of the importance of manufactured housing as a housing resource, particularly for people of moderate incomes; and it also improves the situation insufficiently, but improvement is better than the alternative. And I, therefore, support the bill. I appreciate the chairman's acknowledging, particularly in this colloquy, that we do intend to give HUD some flexibility in carrying this out. There are other important provisions in the bill. There are provisions that do not on the whole commit new resources to housing. Let me say, I regret that we were not able to work that out. There were in many quarters, both here and in the other body, people willing to add some funds for the production of housing. But in the constraints of the legislative process, we did not get the unanimity that we needed for that. I want to express my appreciation to those on both sides of the aisle and both sides of the building who were interested in that. I hope that no matter who is in control of this place next year and no matter who is the President, we will address the important issue of housing production. We have a housing crisis in this country. We have an economy that is booming and has helped many people. But it does not help everybody equally, and some people are not helped at all. There are many people in this country who are living in areas where some have prospered in this new economy and they have not, and the result has been an exacerbation of a housing crisis from which they suffer. I think we have an obligation morally, and it makes sense economically, to help with the production of housing. Indeed, many parts of the country, including the one I represent, the high cost of housing and lack of affordability becomes a problem in trying to employ public employees. One of the things we have in this bill is an effort to deal with the stress that has been placed financially on public employees who are expected to live in a certain community but cannot afford to live there because of these trends. It also becomes a problem for employers. It becomes a problem in trying to get a rational distribution of employees. So I again note that this bill has some good things in it, but the thing that it has in it involves flexibility in the use of existing resources. Those are important, and I am glad to be supportive of the bill that provides them, but they leave undone the important task of getting into a production program. And I look forward to our being able to do that next year. I was pleased in the conversations that went on around the appropriations bill and this bill to see a number of people agreeing that it is time to get back into a flexible and thoughtful housing production program to help with the affordability crisis, and I look forward to us being able to work on that together next year. There are provisions in this bill that also deal with the problems of people who live in subsidized housing and whose owners use provisions of the law that have been put in years ago that were pretty dumb provisions, but none of us here voted for them and so we were stuck with them. It allows people who owned housing and who benefited from Federal subsidies, now as the economy has changed and as the areas that they have their housing has changed, to throw out in effect the subsidized tenants, to turn affordable housing into unaffordable housing. This bill has some provisions that further help the tenant. Unfortunately, we will lose some of those units eventually when the tenants move out or move on. But this bill does do something to help. And, therefore, overall, despite the gaps, it is very much worth supporting.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin with a colloquy with the chairman of the full committee. Mr. Chairman, as I read this bill, the manufactured housing legislation would require the Secretary to ensure that separate and independent contractors are retained to carry out monitoring and inspection work and any other work that may be delegated to a contractor. While the goal of the legislation is to require HUD Secretaries to use multiple contractors for various program functions, would the gentleman agree that any HUD Secretary should not be prevented from consolidating or reconfiguring contracts, in the event insufficient or inadequate bids are received by HUD, in order to carry out its regulatory functions?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from Iowa.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I note with dismay but unfortunately not with surprise that the hate crimes bill which got a majority vote in both houses is absent from this bill. Let me say we have seen this scenario before, Mr. Speaker. A majority vote, according to the rules, for a certain result and the people in power blatantly ignore the wishes of the majority. Now, that describes two recent situations: the Serbian presidential election and the conference committee on the defense bill. In the case of the Serbian election, when the Milosevic regime refused to pay attention to majority rule, the people found a way to remedy it. Here, a majority in both houses voted, a significant majority, for the hate crimes bill. Yet the people in power, emulating Milosevic, have decided to repudiate the results of the election. I hope a similar result will ensue.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, I am here to express my disagreement with the decision of the President of the United States to have the United States abstain on a resolution that was unfairly critical of the State of Israel in the U.N. Security Council. I recognize that the administration worked hard using the threat of a veto to make that resolution less obnoxious, but it was still mistaken, and I want to express why I think so. It was mistaken on two levels. First of all, on its own terms it was unfair. Yes, Israeli forces and Jewish residents of Israel have in this terrible turmoil, some of them, done things they should not have done. Violence is not easily controllable. But there have also been terrible acts of violence, unjustified and provoked, on the part of the Palestinians, and, in Lebanon, on the part of Hezbollah, and a resolution which puts all the blame on one side when there are mistakes made on both sides is wrong. But it is even more inaccurate and inadequate because it focuses too much on the tactical and not on the central point. The central point is that the government of Israel has been for the past year engaged in the most forthcoming peace offers in the history of the Middle East, and the tragedy is that this outreach on the part of the Israeli government to make peace on several fronts has been so overwhelmingly rejected. We had the spectacle of an Israeli withdrawal in Lebanon which the Arab states had long called for being treated almost as if it were a further error by Israel. The effort by Israel to be conciliatory there brought the worst kind of brutal reaction. With regard to the Palestinians, let us be clear what the situation is. Fifty-two years ago, when the U.N. declared that there should be two states in the area, a Jewish state and a Palestinian state, the overwhelming reaction of the Arabs was to reject that and to seek to destroy the Jewish state. Over the ensuing years, Israel was forced time and again to defend itself. In the course of that effort, it grew. It grew to try to get more defensible borders; but in every case, it was acting in self-defense. What then happened was the government of Prime Minister Barak decided to build on previous peacemaking efforts of the government of Begin and of others and tried to make an ultimate agreement with the Palestinians, and the Barak government went further in its offer than anyone thought it was possible for the Israeli society to support. Israel is a democracy, and you need public support. But they obviously felt, those in power in Israel, and I commend them for it, that it was worth some extra push to try to get peace. Unfortunately, the result apparently was not simply a rejection of the specific offer with the wholly unrealistic demand that a democratically elected government of Israel give up physical and legal sovereignty over parts of Jerusalem, an impossibility, but also now with an assault on the government of Israel by the Palestinians, which we are told is motivated by a distrust of the peace process, by a denial of Israel's legitimacy. We are not here talking about tactical issues. We are not talking about a reaction by the decision of Ariel Sharon to be provocative, and I wish he had not decided to be provocative, but he had a legal right to do that, and certainly the reaction to it is not now a reaction to Ariel Sharon's visit; it is a manifestation of great hostility on the part of much of the Arab world to the very existence of Israel, and that is the ultimate tragedy. Some in Israel and elsewhere thought the Barak government went too far in its efforts. I think the current situation vindicates them in this sense: it may well be that what we are seeing is an outburst of hostility towards the very existence of Israel as a Jewish state that was there and was going to come in any case. Had it come a couple of years ago, there would have been people saying, well, the Israelis should have been willing to try to make peace. When it comes now, with the Barak government having been so forthcoming, so conciliatory, and, remember, we are talking here about a state which was forced to defend itself in a war, which gained some territory in those self-defense wars, and is now voluntarily giving up much of that territory, I do not think there is an example in history of a nation forced to defend itself and picking up adjacent territory being as conciliatory as the Israelis have been. And if in fact this approach, such a willingness to make peace, is so bitterly rejected, if in fact what we are seeing, and we are told this is not just anger over Sharon, anger over a particular this or that or the settlement, but a frustration and a rejection of the whole notion of peace, then that is a sad lesson we have to draw. I think the policy of the United States government ought to be very clear: Israel has a right to exist. It has a right to make policies in the peacemaking process that leave it defensible and that protect its right to maintain control and sovereignty in Jerusalem; and, if in fact, as good a settlement as Barak offered is met with this sort of rejection, our response should be to be totally supportive of the government of Israel's position.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her helpful efforts in bringing this bill to the floor. I want to thank a number of members of the committee on both sides of the aisle, particularly the chairman of the full committee who put a lot into mediating this. It is an important step forward. I want to say at the outset, I intend, if I am back here next year, and the early polls are good, to push for more changes than we now have. But this represents what we were able to agree on this late in this session, and while it is not everything I would like to see, it is a very significant improvement very worth passing. I hope that this bill does become law and that we are able to work with the other body and with the administration to put these provisions into law. Some people have been puzzled and have asked me, well, how come there was retroactivity they thought constitutionally we could not do that, and I think it is an important point for people to understand. One cannot, under our Constitution, pass what the Constitution calls an ex post facto law if one is increasing the criminal penalty. But the right of a noncitizen with regard to deportation is not of the same constitutional order. So this is a policy judgment by the Congress to say that with regard to deportation, there should not be a difference, even though it would be constitutionally permissible of a retroactive sort. This leaves the effect of this bill on people who committed crimes on or after the date of enactment. That is one of the subjects that I hope we will address next year. However, what this bill says that if one committed an offense on or before the date of the enactment of this bill, essentially one will now be treated as if the old law was in effect and there will be no element of retroactivity. One of the things we should stress is, none of the offenses here affected now become nondeportable. We are not talking about people not being subject to deportation if, in a particular case, they ought to be deported. It increases the amount of discretion. It reduces the extent to which there was kind of an automaticity, but it does not say that people cannot be deported. Not every offense is covered. I will be urging the Immigration Service, if we pass this, to read the intent of Congress here and in the discretion which they have and Members of this body had to recall to them the fact that no matter what, there is still prosecutorial discretion, that they will be guided by the spirit here of nonretroactivity in their administration of the bill and, in fact, focus on people who are genuinely dangerous and a threat to the community as they have the authority to do. But fundamentally, this is a time to feel good about making something better. There are just two other points I want to make. One, I do want to stress, and I appreciate the gentleman from Texas including this and the gentleman from Illinois and others on the majority side; this is retroactively doing away with retroactivity, to some extent. That is, there are people who are already deported. Under this bill, people who are already deported will be able, because we instruct the Immigration Service to set up a procedure whereby they can apply to come back. The criteria I assume would be, to the extent that it can be reconstructed, if they would not have been deported in the first place, they should not be deported. It does not mean that everybody who is deported automatically comes back. There is a process, and they will have to show that if it was not for this change in the law, they would not have been deported. The last point I want to make is this, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the indulgence of my colleagues. It is a general point, not about this bill. We hear much too much today from people who are critics of our political system who tell us that only big money dominates politics, who tell us that we cannot get anything done in Congress unless there are huge campaign contributions. Is this a very significant piece of legislation. This is an acknowledgment that a piece of legislation in 1996 had some flaws, it is a correction of those flaws. It will mean a great deal to many people; and to my knowledge, there are not a lot of campaign contributors among them. The people who have been victimized by this who, on the whole, have been people of limited economic circumstances. So for those who are quick to kind of argue that political participation by citizens is worthless, that only big money counts, I would ask them to look at the example of this bill. This is a bill that has come to the floor today because of broad support by average citizens, most of whom, as I said, are not people of enormous economic wealth. No campaign contributions brought this bill to the floor. This bill was lobbied by citizens all across the country. Members from Sacramento and San Diego and Texas and Massachusetts and Florida, all over the country came together, because we all had constituents who were caught in a device that maybe nobody intended, maybe they did, but it was clearly working out more harshly than we thought appropriate. So I am very grateful to the majority for bringing this bill forward. I do want to stress again, this is an example of how citizens can get together and use their rights as citizens to get legislation changed.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that, but the point is, as I read the instruction, if that is an accurate repeat of the language in the Senate bill, it does not allow for an exception where the parents want to. So it goes from saying the parents are not involved at all on both sides. I would say one other thing, and I see the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter) is coming, and I am prepared to yield the time to him, but I am struck, when we discuss the question of abortion and those who make it illegal talk about an unborn child, I think we ought to be clear when we are talking now about a morning after bill, because we are often told there is a heartbeat, there are feet, there are various representations of that unborn child. We are clearly here talking about a situation where there is no physical manifestation of the unborn child of the sort we have seen, there are no feet, there is no heartbeat. This is a philosophical objection. This is an effort to make illegal something which is philosophically expressed opposition to a form of birth control. It is very different than the kinds of representations we get. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to yield the remainder of the time that was allocated to me to the gentleman from Wisconsin, the ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations, for purposes of control.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I ask, as we await some other Members who are a little better informed on this than I, I did have some questions for the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn). As I read the instruction, and I am not totally familiar with the Senate language, he said this was to protect the rights of parents. As written, the instruction would say that that was a prohibition, even if the parents consented. Is that the gentleman's intent that even if the parents consented this would not be allowed?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I asked the gentleman a question.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I did not yield to the gentleman. I am being asked to give back the time. I yielded to the gentleman to ask him a question. If he was going to ask me the same question back, I would not have taken other people's time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I do not have the exact number, but I will respond to the gentleman's assertion. He says he cannot believe, apparently, that anywhere in this country there would be bias on the part of local law enforcement that would lead to unequal prosecution. I wish we lived in that country. I believe most law enforcement people do the right thing. I gave them two specific cases, one in Oklahoma, where people were beaten and the district attorney did not intervene, and one in Pennsylvania where a bar was being terrorized and there was not local intervention. I would say this, this concern about Federal intervention puzzles me coming from someone who has generally voted with the committee majority to federalize a number of crimes. Carjacking, is it that there are State prosecutors who somehow have a soft spot in their heart for carjackers? Why did the majority federalize carjacking? I do not think that they did that because there was some soft spot; they felt there was some particular pattern that had to be responded to. There have been other cases, where we have in this body, I sometimes voted no, made Federal crimes out of things that were also State crimes. But the gentleman's point I want to focus on, this statute assumes that prosecution at the Federal level will be the exception. In fact, much of the statute that we are asking people to vote for says let us help local people with the prosecution, let us help State prosecutors; but for him to argue that it is unthinkable that anywhere in the country members of a particular insular group might be the victims, people of an unpopular religion, transgendered people, people of a particular race, and they might be of the majority race in some parts, but the minority race in other parts. The notion that American history yields us no pattern ever of local law enforcement people withholding equal treatment because of prejudice is very puzzling to me. We have not heard it before. Church arson, is there some pattern? Maybe the gentleman wants to repeal the Church Arson Act, but the Church Arson Act does talk about going in there in these circumstances, and I did not previously hear these arguments.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Reclaiming my time, let me respond, I am going to respond, first of all, the gentleman asked me to prove that the gentleman is biased?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, there has to be a prior physical criminal assault on someone else. Then when you get to the sentencing and you get to the decision about punishment, you can take into account motive. Yes, I would agree with the gentleman, you can take into account motive and motives that are sometimes constitutional when they are part of a crime can be punished.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I want to return to the allegation that this criminalizes thought. Here is the operative phrase which controls any new crime, whoever willfully causes bodily injury to any person or through the use of fire, a firearm or an explosive or incendiary device attempts to cause bodily injury to any person. Absent that phrase, there is no crime committed, so this only applies by its explicit language to actual injury or attempts to injure with a fire or firearm or an explosive or incendiary device.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, first, I want to congratulate the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hulshof) and, finally, finding someone to come, give him a little relief. He was looking awfully lonely. The relief falls a little short. First, the gentleman from Missouri said, we are criminalizing abhorrent thought, no not anything in here comes remotely close to criminalizing thought, nothing is criminal under this bill, unless you hit somebody, shot somebody, stabbed somebody, there is nothing in this bill that criminalizes thought, the right to burn crosses and engage in hate speech, first amendment protected, remains totally undiminished. Secondly, the gentleman said, I mentioned places where there are prosecutors and police who are not fully enforcing the law, fortunately a small minority against particular groups, and he says focus on them. Kill this bill and you cannot focus on them. That is what the bill does. This bill does not generalize a Federal criminal presence. It gives the Attorney General the right in a restricted set of circumstances to enter into prosecutions, and we envision the circumstance would be where a vulnerable group was being victimized and was not getting the protection. So without this legislation, we cannot do what the gentleman from Missouri says we should do, focus on those situations.