Barney Frank

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Let me take back my time to announce to the Members, and let me do the color. My colleagues have now heard the play by play. This means we are ahead because we wanted to go to a vote now, but the gentleman, as the whip, has got some work to do. So we are not going to be able to vote on this tonight so the whip can do some whipping, and I say to my colleagues, ``If you go home early, you won't be whipped. I just want you to understand that.'' So, Mr. Chairman, now that people understand the state of play, we will come back tomorrow morning and vote on the 20 percent.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Let me address the majority leader. It was my understanding that in order to do that, it would require a waiver of the 3-day layover rule. Is the majority leader asking for that permission?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I have never thought that waiving the 3-day rule was a big deal, like my friends on the other side. I am glad to welcome them to the position that occasionally waiving that rule is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. I think the gentleman for doing it explicitly. I does seem a bad idea to me to waive it implicitly. But since this is also cleared with the minority and since this precedent of waiving a 3-day rule when it is inconvenient is not such a bad one, Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, one of the gravest errors that the Republican majority is in the process of making is to increase military spending over what we have already voted while it proposes serious cuts in important domestic programs. And for those who do not share my sense that these programs should be preserved, the increase in defense spending can be seen as a threat to further deficit reduction, or even to tax reductions for those who prefer that course. In any case, spending money that we do not need on the military at a time when we are short of resources is an error. For this reason, I will from time to time be sharing with my colleagues knowledgeable commentary from national security experts who are pointing out that it is a grave error to increase military spending, and that in fact, given the collapse of the Soviet Union, the severe weaknesses of the Russian military, the untapped ability of our Western European and East Asian allies to do far more in the area of military spending, we in fact can afford to make further reductions in the military without in any way endangering national security or the well-being of the men and women who have so gallantly volunteered to defend us. Recently, one of the most distinguished experts in the national security field, former Director of Central Intelligence William Colby, wrote an article in the Hill on February 22 pointing out how unwise it is to increase--and even maintain--the current level of military spending. Mr. Colby's tenure as Director of Central Intelligence began in the Nixon administration and extended into the administration of Gerald Ford, so he can hardly be dismissed as the voice of Democratic liberalism. His hard-headed, persuasive argument for military spending reductions is an important contribution to our budget debate and I ask that it be printed here. Which is Greater Security Threat: Red Army or Red Ink? (By William E. Colby) The Cold War is over, but you wouldn't know it from America's defense budget or from Republican calls for more defense spending. The once fearsome Red Army no longer threatens Europe at the Fulda Gap in North Germany. Instead, it hardly is able to enter a medium sized Chechnya city against lightly-armed partisans, even with the advantage of air power and heavy artillery. But the U.S. defense budget still siphons off some $250 billion from the national economy as political leaders talk about a balanced budget (but don't act to produce), promise middle income tax cuts instead of building savings, and vie to cut domestic and foreign programs. U.S. defense expenditures still amount of well over twice the $121 billion spent by the eight other nations that conveivably could pose a threat to U.S. national interests, and over three times what Russia spends on its reduced, rusting and hapless military. One would think that an intelligence assessment of dangers for the U.S. in the years ahead, and a strategic review of how we should respond, would focus on some of the obvious threats looming ahead in the economic field, which has now replaced military competition as the main arena of conflict in the post-Cold War world. The most obvious danger is the national debt and its servicing costs, which threaten the economy and will crush almost all discretionary spending unless economically depressing and politically unpalatable new taxes are imposed. Similarly, the inexorable march of the Cold-War-era baby boomers toward senior-citizen status clearly threatens the Social Security system and will mean a generational conflict with a younger generation saddled with the bills. The sloshing of trillions of panicky dollars through global electronic markets, as just occurred with Mexico, is spreading to other emerging economies is today's real threat to the nation's economy--and security. And it is not that the defense budget is beyond challenge, for need or for specifics. Former Secretary of Defense Les Aspin's ``bottom up review'' assumed two regional wars on the scale of the Gulf War, conducted up period and with rotation capability for a long engagement--an obvious gold-plated invitation to the ``bottom'' of the military to plan forces at about the current levels. A bit of top-down guidance might have insisted on a more realistic scenario. The review did not question some of the sacred cows of current planning: another attack submarine (against which fleet?); a better attack fighter (when our present ones are the best in the world); the Cold War B-2 bomber when modernized B-52's were the main muscle used in the Persian Gulf; a surfeit of aircraft carriers to ``show the flag'' when Aegis cruisers demonstrated their capability to hit an office complex in Baghdad from the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf; continued land and sea-based nuclear missiles aimed at the open ocean in numbers far above the 100 or so that respected defense experts agree is sufficient for deterrence. If to these are added 20 more B-2's designed to penetrate Soviet airspace after a nuclear exchange, six huge C-17 airlifters when C-5's can carry what needs to go by air and heavy tanks should go by sea or be prepositioned to be available in real quantity, and new Trident submarine- launched strategic missiles, one can see that the mindset of the planners is clearly to continue to prepare for and deter the now-outdated massive threat from the Soviet Union. At least 24 budget conscious Republican congressmen deeped sixed the SDI, recognizing that the more proximate threat of a nuclear weapon arriving in the U.S. would we in the hold of a nondescript freighter. The real post-Cold War world calls for the deployment of new kinds of ``secret weapons'' such as the diplomatic efforts of former President Jimmy Carter, who has already averted violence in Haiti and North Korea and at least has tried in Bosnia. It calls for programs to reduce the population growth bomb which is already exploding in Asia and Africa. And it calls for carefully planned and conducted anti-terrorist operations with formerly hostile nations and services. It also calls for more ``competition'' between the expenditures to fight a Cold War better and the need to keep our nation's economy strong and targeted on the real threats--and opportunities--of the future.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, once again I would acknowledge that this was discussed with the minority. The minority has no objection. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I just want to concur that these are the lists of committees that the minority was consulted on, and we have no objection. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. If the gentleman will continue to yield, Mr. Speaker, first, my understanding was last year votes did not come out of that time, so there was some control. Second, I am, again, struck by every time the gentleman is questioned about living up to the promises that were made, the answer is ``We are doing the same as you did.'' It seems to me that there ought to be a time limit on how often you can have it both ways. Either you are bringing a new openness to the House, or you are following the old rules. Maybe the gentleman can decide 1 day it will be one and 1 day it will be the other, but there ought to be a rule you cannot make both arguments in the same day, so once again we get the argument ``We are just doing what you did.'' I do not think we always did what was right. As far as the gentleman agreeing to limit rules, let me be very clear. The minority last year, when they were in the minority, and before that, very often they supported closed rules whenever they did not want to see amendments. That is very clear. gentleman describes it is anything but an open rule process, and maybe I hallucinated. Maybe the gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Bereuter] was not there a few minutes ago saying ``I had an amendment that I was kept from offering.'' I could have sworn he was. I will have to check C- SPAN, because I do not think he could have been clipped out. The fact is that Members here time and time again have been prevented from offering amendments. Again, I do not remember this situation where the rollcalls all came out of that, so people had an extended rollcalls. By the way, even if that is what we did, even if that is what we did, I think you should feel free to change it. Please let me say to my friends on the other side. Do not feel bound by our example. If in fact experience has shown that people like the gentleman from Nebraska cannot offer an amendment, improve on us. Strive to be better. Do not limit yourselves by history. At the same time, I have to say if the explanation is always going to be that you are just doing what we did, please stop insisting that you are doing it very different. The fact is that on issue after issue that has come up under your supposed open rule, we have not been able to get to amendments. I would say one final thing as a member of the Committee on the Judiciary. The Committee on the Judiciary, under the gun, has done away with subcommittee markups. Maybe other committees have. We have not had extensive hearings. So in fact bills are coming to the floor under this period less prepared with less work than previously. The chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary has time and time said, ``Well, We'll make sure you can offer that amendment on the floor. I will fight for your right to offer the amendment on the floor.'' And because of this restrictive 10-hour provision, subject as it is to manipulation and abuse, that has not been the case. So we have hasty legislation without subcommittee markups rushed to the floor with previous questions ordered in committee and then the 10-hour rule which with all that comes out of it is rarely as much as 5 or 6 hours of genuine debate, and on issue after issue after issue fundamental amendments have not been allowed to be presented. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I want to make a suggestion, since my friends on the other side have told us that our example is more important to them than I had previously realized. Let me give them one that they apparently overlooked in their study of us. We have in the past done rules in two parts. It would be entirely possible on a Monday to bring out a rule which provided for general debate. We could then have the rule voted unanimously, have the two hours of general debate, then go into the other part. If you were in fact motivated by a desire to accommodate that point of view and not lose any time, you could have a two-part rule. You could have a rule that provided for general debate and then go into the other rule which would provide for debate beyond that. That is something we often did. An agreement to do a two-part rule which puts general debate up in the noncontroversial procedure and then has a more controversial one would accommodate this.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. Mr. Speaker, I want to explain why there may be a problem here. If we are talking about a genuinely open rule, as those that have been historically understood here, there would not be a problem. My understanding is that we are talking not about an open rule, which I had always understood to be anyone could get up until the conclusion of people's interest and offer amendments, but a rule with one of these 10-hour limitations. I know we have not yet made English the national language by some legislation, but I had thought English was still the language of these debates, though. An open rule is not one where there is a 10-hour limit. In fact, we just heard one of the very distinguished Members on the other side, the gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Bereuter], pointing out that during one of the crime bills he stood around for 7 hours and was not able to offer an amendment. A rule in which the leading Member of the House is unable to offer an amendment is not an open rule. It is, frankly, mislabeling in the extreme to call one of these 10-hour limits an open rule, especially since we done some compilation on the four 10-hour bills that I have seen, and anywhere from 2 hours and 40 minutes to 3\1/2\ hours has gone just for voting. Obviously, voting is important. we have had people call rollcalls on unanimous votes, in one case, 405 to nothing, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Clinger], and that came out of the 10 hours. So if we were talking about an open rule, with the possibility after 3 or 4 days or 2 days of closing it down, that would be a different story. However, when we are talking about one of these 10-hour rules, where when the House is unruly, that comes out of the debate time; when there is a point of order, that comes out of the debate time; when we are talking about that kind of restriction, where many, many Members have been prevented from offering amendments, it is not an open rule, and that is why there might be a vote.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, the Fall River Herald News is a newspaper closely attuned to the needs of the community in which it is located, and surrounding communities. It is a nonpartisan newspaper with an editorial policy that reflects its honest assessment of what is best for the people in its circulation area. I was therefore very pleased--although not surprised--to see a strong editorial in the February 14 issue of the Herald News which strongly opposes the pending Republican legislation which would undo the law we passed last year providing police officers for our local communities. As the Herald News notes, ``the GOP's efforts to rewrite the crime bill amount to little more than a petulant and misguided attempt to deny Clinton and the Democrats any credit for the war on crime. How childish.'' Mr. Speaker, this editorial makes an excellent contribution to this current debate and for that reason I ask that it be reprinted here. [From the Fall River Herald News, Feb. 14, 1995] Don't Cut COPS FAST Grants Politics is a truly unique game. We all know the rules: If a member of the opposition party gets caught in some kind of scandal, you cry foul. If a member of your own party gets caught in a scandal, you look the other way. Sadly, the game is played the same way when it comes to legislating. An idea, a piece of legislation, is never worthy of consideration unless your own party thought of it first. Just ask the Republicans. The crime bill pushed by President Clinton last fall was hardly free of controversy. Some gun owners objected to the ban on assault weapons, while liberals objected to the expansion of the death penalty. But one thing just about everyone seemed to agree on was the idea of providing funds to thousands of small towns around the nation to hire more police officers. The idea of beefing up local officers on the street has enormous support among the public. But then again, that bill was passed last fall, when Democrats still controlled Congress. After the November election, Republicans won a majority in both the House and Senate. And the crime bill became an immediate target for them. Republicans and Democrats have some clear ideological differences on the issue of crime. Republicans want to change federal laws to allow prosecutors to use evidence gathered in violation of the Constitution's Fourth Amendment protections against illegal searches, if it is determined that police acted in good faith. Republicans also want to impose a one- year limit for death row inmates to file federal appeals of their sentences. Democrats worry that both measures would violate civil liberties and hurt the individual's ability to get a fair trial. These controversial issues can legitimately be debated by both sides. But what seems far less controversial are the COPS FAST grants, which cover three years to help pay for the salary and benefits of additional police officers. In this region, it provided the Dartmouth Police Department with $128,524 to hire two new officers, while several other communities got money to hire one officer each, including Berkley, Dighton, Freetown, Rehoboth, Seekonk and Swansea. Outside of drug dealers and other criminals, who's complaining about having more police on the streets? The GOP is. They say the COPS FAST money should be eliminated and turned into block grants that would be made available to cities and counties. The GOP would allow local officials to decide how to spend the money, rather than ``require'' communities to spend the funds on new police officers. But so far, few police chiefs have complained about getting money to hire new officers. As the old saying goes, if it's not broke, don't fix it. The GOP's efforts to rewrite the crime bill amount to little more than a petulant and misguided attempt to deny Clinton and the Democrats any credit for the war on crime. How childish.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Is all this dead time coming out of the 10 hours for which we have to debate this important issue?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I have a parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I am espousing neither as a philosophical principle. The inconsistency is wholly on the gentleman's side. Members on our side have not claimed to be all for States' rights. And I appreciate the gentleman's acknowledging the inconsistency here. We have said we will make policy according to what we think is the best public policy. And we do believe, and this is the key point, when police officers have been authorized and have been hired and when this program is at work and going forward to come in now and disrupt this process and to say to communities, I know you have hired police officers, but too bad, because there has been a partisan change and we are going to disrupt that ongoing process, we are not content to do a new program and then we will call it States rights to make ourselves feel better.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I thank the gentleman. I was razzle- dazzled there for a minute.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, reserving my right to object, I am not going to object, except I hope that after this display with the very able gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Bereuter] being shut out, and others, no one will ever again describe this cockamamie 10- hour thing as an open rule.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. The words to live by include the one the gentleman from Illinois so conveniently forgot to mention, ``if'', as the gentleman first read it. It said, if we are going to block grant it, I want to do it for you. Saying ``if we block grant it, I want to do it his way'' is not saying ``I want to block grant it.'' The gentleman has, of course, testified to the importance of that ``if'' by quite consciously and deliberately leaving it out. So what we have is the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Gephardt] saying if we block grant it, we give it to the mayors. And what we still have is a partisan effort to disrupt an ongoing program with a transparently inconsistent obeisance to States rights which the Republicans will be violating tomorrow.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I continue to yield to Abe Lincoln.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois to turn it on.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. The gentleman rests his case because it is Tuesday. But last week, he was dictating to the States. And tomorrow he will be dictating to the States. In fact, he has a quote of the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Gephardt], although he does say, ``if'' we are going to block grant it. I am going to finish my response to the gentleman. He said, ``if'' we block grant it. If means maybe we will and maybe we will not. First let me say, I also have a quotation, though, which is much more to the point, from the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Gingrich], which takes exactly the opposite position. We have Mr. Gingrich saying: If we have to choose between paying for directed purposes, such as building prisons, I can defend that. What I cannot defend is sending a blank check to local politicians across the country for them to decide how to spend it. So you have a conditional statement from the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Gephardt]. I have a flat statement from the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Gingrich]. I think in the trade the gentleman owes me an inconsistency to be named later. The point is that the Republican position on this is wholly inconsistent. It was one thing on prisons. It is another with regard to liability and tort law. And the gentleman will be bringing to this floor a bill which flatly says it preempts State law with regard to punitive damages. It preempts State law with regard to joint and several liability. It preempts State law with regard to statutes of repose, because the busiest community wants them to preempt State law. That is a reasonable position. But when they are about to preempt 200 years of State commercial law involving product liability, please do not put on your Thomas Jefferson outfit and say ``Oh, but I am great believer in States' rights.'' Say what you want to say, which is, you do not want to see the program that we adopted last year go forward and so you will take a very inconsistent position from what you are doing on the rest of your program in this regard.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, at the appropriate time I will enter into the Record an editorial from the Fall River Herald News, a city which I represent in part. They are a very independent paper, and they make an excellent point in the editorial. In my district, as in districts all across the country, police officers have already been hired by local governments which took the word of the Federal Government that funds would be available for hiring police officers. What this bill would do would be to disrupt a process of hiring police officers that is already underway. I think the approach that we have in the current bill is better than this one, but that is not even the issue we are talking about. We are not here deciding between two variants of how to approach this. We have a program underway. It was passed last year. The Republican Party tried very hard to stop it, but it passed. President Clinton and the Justice Department have been Communities came to plea and said this bill says we can have the police officers in 3 years. We are worried about that. Is that good? I said I cannot believe Congress will disrupt that. Well, I underestimated the extent to which my colleagues on the other side were prepared to put partisanship ahead of sensible law enforcement. Because their bill will undeniably disrupt that process. There is no logical match between the distribution formula in this bill and the one under which police are being hired. There is no way at all to guarantee that the communities which in good faith have already hired police officers will be able to maintain those commitments. Now, if we were starting from scratch, if this were a new bill, I would understand their preference, although we ought to be very clear, the Republican Party in this House is for States rights on Tuesday and Thursday. But they are for Federal dictation on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Because when it comes to telling the States what product liability law should be, they are eager to preempt hundreds of years of State jurisprudence. When it comes to telling States how to sentence criminals, members in the Committee on the Judiciary said, the States do not have the courage to do the right things. We better tell them. So I am not pretending one way or the other to be motivated by a general preference for the State or a general preference for the Federal Government. It is my colleagues on the other side who have decided that States rights is a water faucet, and they can turn it on sometimes and they can turn it off the other.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentlewoman yielding to me, and I appreciate the honesty of the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde]. He has made it very clear that he thinks people should defeat this because he detests abortion, dislikes very much what happens in abortion clinics, disagrees that it should be legal, and therefore resists offering them this protection. We are not singling out clinics in this bill, in the first place. The bill that the gentleman's committee brought forward singled out some places. Schools, he mentioned, they are already mentioned; drug courts are singled out; other places are singled out. We are not here doing anything differently than is already done in the bill. Then the question is, if some things are going to be singled out, why should clinics where abortions are performed be singled out? The reason is not to elevate them above other places but to elevate them to the level that other places now occupy, because of all the places in our society that have been the victims of violence, abortion clinics have been the least protected because in many, many areas it is controversial to do it. The rhetoric of the gentleman from Illinois proves the point. You do not have people when they talk about protecting schools, protecting hospitals, protecting courtrooms, denouncing and vilifying the people to be protected. The gentleman concedes they should be protected, but he vilifies them and denounces them. In fact, in other places by people less sophisticated then the gentleman from Illinois, that becomes an argument against doing it. The fact is if we follow the gentleman from Illinois and defeat this amendment because he says it is too pro-abortion, we then create a situation where we send an ambivalent message to local law enforcement, we will create a situation in which local people will find this controversial. We will create a situation in which there will be people arguing, ``Well, the Congress said terrible things happen in abortion clinics. Don't elevate them.'' Abortion clinics are singled out, not in this bill but by those who commit violence against them. There is an organized interstate national campaign of some crazy and vicious people to go after the clinics. Many people oppose that, on both sides of the issue of abortion. But there is an undeniably consistent attack. In my own home district, two people murdered, police officers under strain. What we are saying is we want no uncertainty. We do not want people who share the gentleman's detestation of abortion to say, unlike him because he makes distinctions as a distinguished lawyer, ``Well, maybe they shouldn't get it. Maybe Congress didn't want it.'' If you had come with a clean block grant bill, you would have a consistent argument. But having done these exceptions yourselves, the only argument for not including the clinics now, which is the subject of violence, is the argument made by the gentleman from Illinois, which is a dislike of what happens. The point is very clear: If you want to ensure maximum protection for innocent providers, then it is important to put this into the bill.