T. Gorton

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, on this subject, it is obvious that between my friend, the Senator from Vermont, and myself there is a great gulf to fix. I note just a couple of his phrases. One was ``carte blanche.'' The other was the necessity for ``guidance from above.'' It is the view of the Senator from Vermont that without ``guidance from above,'' our teachers, our school board members, our principals won't know what to do, that they will be clueless about the education of our children for our 21st century world, and that unless they are told by us, right here in this body, U.S. Senators, what their priorities are, how they are going to meet those priorities, and unless we let a group of bureaucrats in the Department of Education, right to the tiniest detail, dictate how Federal money is going to be spent, our teachers, school board members, principals and parents won't have the slightest idea of how to meet these challenges, and they will waste all of this money, it will go for nothing. Well, my golly, if we had been able to show by tests that we have been overwhelmingly successful, that everyone was doing well, I don't suppose I would be out here now. But one of the other features we are almost certain to authorize, with my conditional approval at least, is to come up with a rational way in which to test our students at various levels with respect to their knowledge about the most important of the academic subjects they are in school to learn. My reservations on that is, I have grave fear that national testing may actually drive out more rigid State testing in a number of places across the country. If it encourages even stronger standards, then it seems to me that it is a very, very good idea. It is one thing to test, but it is another thing to tell every teacher, ``Here's who you have to teach and here is how you have to teach and, by the way, here are all the forms you have to fill out at some point or another during your school day to make absolutely certain you didn't teach the wrong student and, therefore, disqualify our school district for some of its title I money.'' Obviously, every Member of this body who believes that he or she knows more about educational priorities than do his school board members, his teachers, his or her parents should certainly vote against an amendment like this. If Members are content, Mr. President, with between 700 and 760 different education programs coming out of probably five or six different Departments of the U.S. Government, each with its own requirement and its own forms to fill out, if they believe that is a satisfactory way to do things, fine, they should vote for the status quo. I have more trust in the American people. I have more trust in the people who give up their time without compensation to serve on school boards and in parent-teachers associations. I have more trust in the teachers that we have in the schools themselves. I think they will do a better job with the money. I think we will get better education. Of course, anyone can have a quarrel with the formula for distribution, which is a rough formula giving slightly more money to poor States or school districts in poor States than it does to school districts in wealthy States. But I believe I can make this representation, Mr. President. It will be difficult to find a school district anywhere in the United States that doesn't have more money for the actual education of its students under this formula than it does at the present time. Why? Because at the present time, a whole bunch of this money, hundreds of millions of dollars, gets taken out right here in Washington, DC, by the bureaucracy. More hundreds of millions of dollars get taken out by the State educational entities, and tremendous burdens, nonteaching burdens, are imposed on local schools, school districts and teachers in keeping track of all of it and filling out the forms. So the most disfavored school districts under this formula will actually get more money to put into the education of their students than they do at the present time. I will be the first to admit, Mr. President, that on the floor of the Senate, this is a brand new and a radical proposal. I would be surprised if it became law as a part of this appropriations bill. But, Mr. President, we are 10 years past due in discussing this subject. It is time we did here what we say we want to do when we are at home. I can't speak for every other Senator, but I know that one of the most popular statements I can make at a town meeting or to any group in the State of Washington is, ``I believe you, through your schools right here, should have more say as to how you spend the money that goes into educating your children.'' Principals approve of it, school board members approve of it, teachers approve of it, parents approve of it, the taxpaying public approves of it. I would be willing to make a small wager that, in general terms, almost every Member of this body makes the same speech under appropriate circumstances in his or her own State when he or she is asked about that question. ``Yes, I believe in local control of schools. Yes, I believe in locally elected school boards. Yes, I believe decisions can be made better close to the student, but * * *'' Usually they don't articulate the ``but.'' ``But'' comes back here when they actually vote in a manner totally contrary to the way in which they speak at home. So this provides a simple opportunity, Mr. President, an opportunity to say whether you really do believe that educational policy, that money for education is likely to be spent more wisely and more effectively by those who are in the field doing it professionally, meeting with their students every day, or whether, in the phrase of the Senator from Vermont, they need ``guidance from above,'' guidance from right here in these seats, because otherwise, a carte blanche will result in educational disaster. I hope Members will give serious consideration to this philosophy. This may be the first time we have discussed this in the form of an amendment like this in a number of years, but I do not think, Mr. President, it is going to be the last time. I believe we will discuss the general philosophy of this proposal, at least, increasingly until the time that we are willing in fact to place a degree of trust in local educational authorities that we all say we have in theory. I yield the floor. Mr. JEFFORDS addressed the Chair.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, for the benefit of the Senator from Vermont, the modification strikes all references to any departments other than those going through the Department of Education, and there is a modification with respect to the distribution formula for the States of Alaska and Hawaii, States that have artificially high income levels which do not necessarily reflect the standard of living in those two very expensive States, and adds one additional minor exception to the scope of the bill. Fundamentally, Mr. President, this amendment is based on the philosophy that the school board members, the administrators, the teachers and the parents in communities all across the United States are better able to set their educational priorities and to meet their educational goals than is the Congress of the United States or bureaucrats of the Department of Education. You can't make a telephone call because we tried to call the Congressional Research Service and ask how many programs there are that support the education of our children between kindergarten and 12th grade. Instead, they can identify a few programs, large programs, which are devoted exclusively to that purpose, but there are hundreds of others which do so in part that they cannot identify. Congressman Hoekstra of Michigan, in the House, has identified approximately 760 programs funded by the Federal Government directly or indirectly affecting the education of our children between kindergarten and the 12th grade. No one can say how much of this money actually gets into teaching children as against paying for bureaucrats at the Federal level, the State level, the school district level, or the time it takes the teachers to fill out all of the forms necessary to meet the auditor's requirements of each of these individual programs. The Cato Institute has determined that of the roughly $15 billion going from the Department of Education for K through 12 programs only about $13 billion gets to local education, but it does not and cannot reflect how much the local education agencies have to spend on the administrative requirements of these 760 education programs. So what this bill says is that with certain exceptions, the largest and most notable of which are the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act that was debated earlier this year, and impact aid, which goes to school districts with a large Federal presence, for 1 year at least we are going to ignore all of these hundreds of programs and their specific requirements and all of the bureaucracy in the Department of Education and simply take the exact number of dollars that are included for those programs in this bill and to distribute them on a per student basis to every school district in the United States. To the best of our ability to do so--and I must confess that in dealing with this number of programs, we may have missed some--we are speaking of a little bit more than $11 billion of the appropriations in this bill. We are going to say, instead of our deciding how they ought to be spent, instead of our saying that every school district in the country has to meet exactly the same requirements for getting this money, let us accept the novel idea to which almost all of us give lip service when we are at home that maybe the men and women who are dedicated enough to run for positions on local school boards, maybe the teachers who are in the classroom every day, perhaps the principals and administrators there can use that $11 billion plus to provide more in the way of educational services than are being provided at the present time. Almost without exception our debates in this Chamber on education policy, when we deal with budget resolutions, when we deal with reconciliation bills, when we deal with this appropriations bill, have to do with how much money we are going to spend on education. It is the firm view of Members of this body and most of the general public that the more money we spend the better the results will be. And yet we are all convinced that the results are not very good. We are disturbed enough about it so that we want to create national standards and national tests. I just had a discussion on that subject with the distinguished Senator from North Dakota [Mr. Dorgan]. At the same time I shared with the body the pioneering work my own State of Washington is doing in setting standards and testing students against those standards and the highly disappointing results of the first of those sets of tests this year, that only 22 percent of our fourth grade students meet those standards in mathematics. I am convinced that we ought to talk about quality as well as quantity; that simply adding dollars to programs, the net result of which are test results like these and like the others we deprecate all across the country, is not the wisest course of action. Last year, the Congress in its wisdom did something that Congresses rarely do. We decided that we did not know an awful lot about welfare and that maybe 30 years of an increasing nationalization of welfare policy, the net result of which was worsening almost every social pathology welfare was designed to cure, was not the right course of action. And so in essence we said perhaps we should not set all the requirements ourselves. Perhaps we should let 50 States experiment broadly with welfare policy and maybe all of us will learn more about what works and what does not work. This amendment gives the Senate the opportunity to do just exactly that with our education policies in kindergarten through 12th grade. Curiously enough, we seem to have largely accepted that policy with respect to higher education. The great bulk of our higher education programs go directly to students--guaranteed student loans, Pell grants, other means tested aid to students go to the customer, the user of educational services rather than to some huge bureaucracy that is given the power to say what colleges and universities can teach and how they teach it. Now, we know that there are higher educational institutions that do not do a very good job, but our cure has not been to cut off students and stop allowing them to make choices. We do allow them to make those choices. Why don't we try in this particular case--this is not a debate on vouchers and giving money directly to parents, as much as I may favor that. This is a debate about giving the money directly to school districts, to the professionals who work in the classrooms, to the amateurs in almost all cases who run for and are elected to school boards all across the United States. It is difficult for me to imagine, with three Senators in the Chamber, that the priorities of the school districts in Rutland, VT, and Portland, OR, and Bellevue, WA, are going to be identical. It is impossible for me to justify the amount of paperwork that must go into justifying the expenditure of the money for these hundreds and hundreds of programs that go to K through 12 education at the present time, right from the level of the classroom on up through the individual school, to school district, to the State education agency, to the U.S. Department of Education. Let's take a page out of what we hope will be a successful decentralization of our welfare policy and decentralize decisionmaking in our schools. Let our parents through their PTA's, our teachers, our school board members, our principals, decide how to use this $11 billion to educate kids. And then if we can devise it, we can in fact come up with some tests, some standards that they ought to meet and test them against those standards. What we know now is that the money is not being spent very well, at least it is not being spent very successfully. Let's try temporarily to let someone else make those decisions and see whether we cannot do better. I am convinced that we will do a great deal better. Mr. JEFFORDS addressed the Chair.

Mr. GORTON. I will explain the whole amendment, as modified.

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

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I send a modification of that amendment to the desk.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up an amendment that I introduced yesterday to provide certain educational funding directly to local educational agencies.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. He certainly would.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I want to say to the Senator from North Dakota that I have listened with great care to his remarks and with a strong degree of sympathy and support for all that he has to say. I do want to add two cautions or questions that I know he will consider very thoughtfully in this connection, however. I am here on the floor to speak to an amendment I introduced last night that would take dozens, perhaps hundreds, of categoric programs for education and consolidate them and distribute them on a formula basis to each school district, with a firm belief that our school board members and teachers in various schools throughout the country can make a better determination as to how to use that money than can bureaucrats here in Washington, DC. But a part of my talk in a few moments will relate to this very question of achievement. I agree with the Senator from North Dakota, but the two caveats I have are these. Will we have a set of national standards or national tests that truly measure learning, knowledge, as we wish it to be? There is great suspicion that anything sponsored by the Federal Department of Education will be of questionable validity in the real world in showing where our students are. And will a set of national tests drive out more sophisticated and better quality State and/or local tests? Will school districts and State superintendents of public instruction across the country say, fine, we have these national tests now, we don't need to do anything other than to teach to those tests-- the very modest one subject in fourth grade and one subject in eighth grade? I say that because, in preparing for my other comments, I have here the results of the first experimental year of a new set of tests given in the State of Washington to a wide number of students in more than 250 school districts and some private schools throughout the State. Now, these tests are far more sophisticated and far deeper than anything we are talking about here on a national level. Starting in the fourth grade but to be extended up to the tenth grade in the future, students were tested in listening, reading, writing, and mathematics. In other words, four sets of tests, rather than the one called for in the President's proposal. Moreover, they were tested for their actual mastery of the subjects, rather than just on some sliding scale: Are you in the fiftieth percentile of all the people who took the test, either in the State or across the country? The State of Washington does use the current national tests in some of these areas, which are simply true, false, or a fill-in-the-blank-with-a-pencil kind of test. These new tests, however, in a number of the areas, include essay examinations as well as true, false, or multiple choice tests. This is what some of the national organizations or experts have to say about this. I am quoting from last Thursday's Seattle Times. Washington's new test gets high marks from experts familiar with similar assessments in other States. Most say it will take time for students to meet the new standard and that these kinds of tests, called performance-based assessments, are more demanding than the fill-in-the-bubbles tests most parents and students are used to. The problem with standardized tests is that they hold schools accountable not for how students do in relation to a fixed standard, but rather in relation to how other students do --``a fuzzy concept,'' said Dr. Philip Daro of the New Standards Project, a consortium of States and urban districts creating education-reform models. ``Performance-based tests are more realistic, more practical, more like people evaluated in the workplace,'' Daro said. The American Federation of Teachers said Washington's standards in English and science meet its criteria for being strong, coherent and useful to teachers and parents. The State's math standards are borderline and its social-studies standards are considered below par, with too little attention given to that history. Under those consensuses, one of the reasons for the criticism of mathematics is that even in the Washington State tests, among students who rank very high in National College Board examinations and the like, you can get a perfect score in the fourth grade mathematics test even though you have the wrong answer. Some of the SAT questions give a perfect score in this test if you get the reasoning right even if you come up with the wrong answer. That is not going to please the real world, or a potential employer is not going to be comforted by having an employee who may think logically but reaches the wrong answer in a mathematical computation. Given that, however, Mr. President, it is breathtaking and disappointing to report that in these four areas 62 percent of the fourth graders who took the test in my State exceeded the standard for listening, 48 percent for reading, 32 percent for writing, and 22 percent for mathematics even with the possibility of getting a perfect score on some of the tests on some of the questions in the test without getting the right answer. Twenty-six percent of our fourth grade students flunked all four, or failed to meet the standard in all four, and only 14 percent met the standards in all four. I was very disturbed by the fact that our State superintendent of public instruction, who is new, and, may I say, said, ``We must not be discouraged by results of the assessment, or try to hammer children and teachers.'' I think we should be discouraged by those results. I don't think we should hammer children and teachers. And I will speak in a few minutes on the proposition that I think they ought to get more direct aid from ourselves, and fewer bureaucrats telling them what to do and how to do it. But these are very disappointing results. I guess my fear and my only reservation is about the remark on national standards, with which in theory I certainly agree, in connection with the talk by the Senator from North Dakota is that I would hate to see a set of national standards that we work down to rather than up from. The same article said that only one State, Iowa, is not engaged in some kind of testing at the present time. So my real question on this is how do we see to it that a set of so- called ``national standards'' don't end up depreciating, or making less demanding, the requirement to meet certain standards that many States have now and others like my own are moving toward with great rapidity? I simply have that as a question.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. I am not yet prepared to enter into a time agreement on the amendment.

Mr. GORTON. Madam President, my colleague from the State of Washington and I have worked diligently on behalf of what we consider to be equity to our State and to two or three other States as well. It had been our firm contention and our fond hope that we would be able to secure the passage of this amendment by unanimous consent. It is quite obvious that we cannot. Each of us disagrees with the rationale presented by the other side on the amendment. But our preference is to try to live and fight this issue another day, and for that reason I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, it is difficult for me to express my disappointment in the position taken by my friend from West Virginia, although across party lines we have become so close personally to one another in a longtime, longstanding debate of great importance, that it always seems to me emotionally at least that we are likely to agree on other issues as well. I am greatly disappointed that we don't on this one. He tells me that he had hoped to go and visit with the Governor of West Virginia on this subject today. Yet, the position he takes here is that while West Virginia should be--and I agree with him should be-- entitled to an incentive for all of the new children who become eligible for Kidcare because their families' incomes are not more than 200 percent of the poverty line, that not only should the State of Washington be deprived of that incentive for children in exactly the same position who receive Kidcare through the State at the present time but that we shouldn't even be able to get the incentive for those who do not yet receive it who are in precisely the position of the children in West Virginia for whose circumstances he so eloquently speaks. I find it is hard to see that anyone could justify a situation such as that. But that is the situation in the bill as it was passed, not the situation as it was written here in the Senate. We had the Senate version--Senator Murray and I. With this amendment it would have been unnecessary. The Senator expresses apprehension that if this amendment passes there will be many more States with requests. But I simply say to the Senator that we already have an agreement on the amendments that are going to be considered on this bill. Someone may do it someday in the future in some other set of circumstances but not on the bill that deals with Medicaid and Medicare for the whole next year. In any event, the idea that you can't do something that is right because it might create a precedent in the future to do something that is wrong is not a form of argument that seems to me to be especially persuasive. Since it is impossible for that to happen in connection with this bill, it perhaps has even less weight. Obviously, there are differences with respect to this amendment. I regret that I have fought, and we worked diligently to see whether or not we couldn't come up with something that simply could be agreed to, as many other amendments on this bill have--we have not obviously been able to do that. I greatly regret it. But I greatly regret the position on the part of other Senators that, we have ours, it is tough on you, you don't need it. With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. ROCKEFELLER addressed the Chair.

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

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, just a few short weeks ago, Congress and the President of the United States agreed to provide $48 billion over the course of the next 10 years as an incentive to States to provide health care coverage to uninsured, low-income children. To receive this incentive, States must expand eligibility levels to children living in families whose incomes are up to 200 percent of the Federal poverty level. Mr. President, this provided a real anomaly, a true injustice, with respect to the State of Washington, and to varying extents to the States of Hawaii, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Vermont as well. In the case of each of these States, though I must speak most specifically to my own, State legislatures had already expanded the eligibility for Medicare to children in families with incomes up to roughly 200 percent of the poverty level. Most of the other States, the States that were designed to be incentivized, have mandatory levels of 100 to 133 percent of the poverty level in incomes and, therefore, in many cases would get these incentives for a very significant expansion of Medicare eligible children for these Kidcare programs. The net result, however, was that for States like the State of Washington, the fact that they had been more generous, more progressive, more liberal, whatever one wishes to call it on their own, resulted in a dramatic penalty. Our taxpayers, of course, will contribute to this expansion. We will, of course, be providing Kidcare to exactly the same group of children that all other States will be providing under the Kidcare amendment, but we will not be eligible for the incentive. Mr. President, if that were allowed to stand, it would be a dramatic lesson to every 1 of the 50 States of the United States in dealing with every program for which there is Federal assistance--every program--the expansion of which is debated here, to make absolutely certain that they did not expand those programs themselves, because if they just waited, they would get more money from the Federal Government to do so; and if they went ahead on their own, they would be penalized. That is exactly what has happened to us here. Our argument for more equitable treatment met with the approval of Members of the Senate when we were debating this issue, and our States were at least in part compensated for the work that they had already done. With the exception I think of a single State in the group of five that I have named, that benefit disappeared in the ultimate conference committee report. Justice would require, it seems to me, Mr. President, that each of these States be made whole, receive the same Federal subsidy for all of its children who live in families between the previous Federal requirement at 100 to 133 percent and the 200 percent. Because of opposition, however, we do not ask that in this amendment. All this amendment does is to say that the allocation that is made to all States, on the basis of the number of eligible children, be available for the State of Washington and for these other States to use to the extent that we have children living in families at less than 200 percent of the poverty level who are of course eligible under our law but did not avail themselves of the opportunity to become insured. In other words, like the other States, we will get the incentive only for children who are not eligible now and who take advantage of the availability of such insurance in the future. Because allocations are made by the Federal Government on the basis of eligibility and not this precise use, and you just drawdown on the use, this amendment will not affect--I want to make this absolutely clear to every Member of the Senate--will not affect the allocations and the ability to use this program by any other State in the United States. We are not raiding anyone else's money. The eligibility is created by what amounts to at least the State entitlement will only be using the allocation that we already get in theory but cannot use in practice. No one else will lose anything as a result. Just to make certain that Members do not say this is simply a statement by the Senator from Washington without any basis, I ask unanimous consent a memorandum addressed to me from the Congressional Research Service dated yesterday expressing exactly the same view be printed in the Record at this point.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, what is the subject matter before the Senate?

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. I am delighted to yield.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I want to thank profusely my friend from New Mexico, Senator Domenici, for his remarks and for introducing this amendment on my behalf. I was able to get here just in time to second his remarks. I believe this amendment is going to give us an opportunity to debate an issue of great importance to the people of the United States with respect to the education of their children. More and more, our local school boards, our teachers, and our local schools are being suffocated by a tide of papers, forms, and programs, each of which have a good purpose, at least in theory, but the net result of which is to make it difficult to set priorities in each of the many varied school districts in the United States as to what will best serve the students of those districts. I am firmly of the belief, and I know my friend from New Mexico shares this belief with me, that elected school board members in cities and towns through the State of New Mexico, through the State of Washington, through the State of Colorado and all across the country, are dedicated to providing the best possible education for those schoolchildren that they possibly can and that they are better able to make decisions about what is best for their students than our bureaucrats in the Department of Education in Washington, DC, or than are Members of Congress. It is almost unspeakably arrogant of us here in this body that we set detailed requirements for very specific education programs all across the United States with the great variety of people, attitudes, and challenges that we have. So this amendment is designed to consolidate, for this year at least, the great bulk of all of the dozens or more programs fitting in the narrow categories going to school districts of the United States; to set up a reasonably fair formula which benefits the poorer States slightly more than it does the wealthy States, but with the exception of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, Impact Aid, and a number of other very high profile programs; that each school district should be allowed to take the money that we appropriate in this bill for the education of our children from kindergarten through 12th grade, and each school district should set its own priorities for the spending of that money on that education, trusting they can do a better job than we can or than the bureaucrats can. Not the least of the benefits of an amendment of this sort, Mr. President, is the fact that we will not have to take 10 percent, 20 percent, or 30 percent off the top for administering the program, for filling out the forms, for all of the activities which chew up money but are not reflected in education at all. Mr. President, I present this as a significant amendment to this bill. I hope for a significant debate on this issue here in this body. We all, when we are at home, laud local control of our schools, with elected school board members and hands-on education, but all too much of the time we take exactly the opposite view in the programs we actually create and vote for here. This amendment will be discussed at considerably greater length tomorrow by a wide variety of people. I cannot possibly express my delight at having my friend from New Mexico as a cosponsor of this amendment. I suspect, Mr. President, there will be a number of other cosponsors as we go through the debate on the amendment tomorrow.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to modify amendment No. 1076, which I have sent to the desk.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, while I have the floor I ask unanimous consent to set the pending amendment aside and call up amendment No. 1076.

Mr. GORTON. The Senator from New Mexico is, of course, entirely correct. The total amount of the appropriation in this bill for education is not reduced by a single dollar. On the other hand, the total amount of money that gets to the classroom will be considerably greater because so much less will get lost in the gears of administration at two, three, or four different levels between here and the classroom. We hope that we will be able to get much more for the same amount of money fundamentally because we will actually be spending more on direct educational expenditures.

Mr. GORTON. Well, my friend, the Senator from New Mexico, whose views are so thoughtful and so carefully enunciated on a wide variety of subjects, is, I am afraid, more eloquent on my own amendment than I am myself. Yes, I say to my friend from New Mexico, that is exactly what this is about. Earlier this year, during the course of the debate over the budget, there was a request by the President that we increase the amount of money going to our common schools. That received wide support from both Republicans and Democrats in this body and in the House of Representatives. The Senator from New Mexico is entirely correct, there is nothing in this bill except more money. There is nothing in this bill about a different approach. There is nothing in this bill about getting more in the way of a 21st century education for our children. It is just more of the same stuff we have already been doing. I think I can say this amendment may, to a certain extent, be analogous to the welfare reform bill that we passed more than a year ago. What we decided then, I say to my friend from New Mexico, was that maybe we did not know everything there was to know about welfare here in Washington, DC. Maybe there was not just one welfare system, to be run out of Washington, DC, that was going to work. In fact, it worked so poorly that almost every condition it was designed to alleviate it made worse. What we did a year ago with welfare was to say we are not all that smart. Governors and legislators of 50 States, you try it. We will give you broad discretion in welfare programs. We suspect some of you will do really well, but regrettably some of you will do not so well, but we will learn more about what can get people back to work and out of a welfare mentality. Now, I think this amendment is a little bit like that, I say to my friend. What we are doing here is something we do not like doing very much in the Senate, admitting that somebody else may know a little bit more than we do about a subject. Here we are saying we think perhaps that wisdom lies right down in individual school districts with teachers in the classroom, with principals in the schools, with school board members who, almost without exception, are public-spirited citizens who have run for election for a job that does not pay, but that they know something maybe that we do not know, and if we give them more freedom to use these billions of dollars we come up with, we will get better education for our kids. That is, of course, the whole goal of the exercise.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, just a few weeks ago, Congress and the President agreed to provide $48 billion over the next 10 years as an incentive to States to provide health care coverage to uninsured, low- income children. To receive this money, States must expand eligibility levels to children living in families with incomes up to 200 percent of the Federal poverty level. Three years ago, Washington State decided to do what Congress and the President have now required other States to do. In 1994, my State expanded children's health care coverage to children through age 18 who live in families up to 200 percent of the Federal poverty level. Under the budget agreement, Washington State, like every other State will receive an allotment, a portion of the money the Federal Government makes available for children's health care each year. The budget agreement provides an ``enhanced Federal match'' to States to encourage them to raise eligibility levels. That incentive is available to States which cover kids at the current mandatory levels of 100 percent to 133 percent of poverty depending on the age group, if they expand up to the new 200-percent-of-poverty threshold. However, for the few States which already meet this requirement, these States must expand their eligibility levels an additional 50 percentage points before being able to tap into the money available under the Children's Health Initiative. Unfortunately, the budget provisions essentially penalize Washington because of the State's progressive policies on children's health care. First, Washington and a few States which have done these broad expansions, will essentially pay more than every other State to cover this population of kids. Second, the budget agreement actually provides more incentive to cover kids in families with higher discretionary income than it does for children living in poorer families. In Washington 100,000 kids under 200 percent of poverty are still uninsured in spite of the success of enrolling kids over the last 3 years, while somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 kids between 200 and 250 percent of poverty are uninsured. Clearly the need is at lower income levels, I expect this holds true for most other States. Yet my State receives more Federal money to cover kids in this higher income bracket. Finally, the budget agreement provides no incentive to the State legislature to further expand coverage to kids. After all, Washington already did what Congress is now asking other States to do and instead of being recognized for doing a good job of covering kids, my State is penalized. If I were a State legislator I would argue that we should simply wait for the Feds to mandate further coverage for children, then we would receive the same contribution from the Federal Government as other States. For example, Washington currently receives a 50-percent Federal match for kids covered under Medicaid. Another State which also gets a 50- percent Federal match but has not already expanded eligibility levels for kids, will receive an enhanced match as an incentive to cover this new population. In a nonexpansion State for a child living in a family with an income of 150 percent the State would receive an increased Federal match level. However, under the budget agreement in a State like Washington, for that same child the State would only be reimbursed at the current rate. Even if the child is currently uninsured. Proportionately more money will come out of Washington State revenues to cover kids below 200 percent of the poverty than in other States which have not expanded coverage to kids at this level. Thus taxpayers in my State will pay more to cover the same population of kids than taxpayers in other States that did not choose to expand eligibility to kids before Congress did it for them. The spirit of the legislation is to provide health insurance coverage for uninsured, low-income children first. In Washington we have 100,000 kids that are uninsured below the 200 percent FPL threshold and only 10,000 to 30,000 between 200 percent and 250 percent FPL. For States with high eligibility thresholds, the Child Health Initiative provides more incentive--a higher Federal match rate--to cover kids at higher income levels than it does for kids living in families with lower incomes. With an enhanced match for new kids below 200 percent of FPL brought into the State health program, the State can target a bigger pool of low-income, uninsured kids, more expediently producing the results intended by the legislation. My amendment stays within the spirit of the Child Health Initiative, it focuses Federal money on providing health care coverage to new, uninsured children at low income levels first. It does not take money from any other State, but merely allows Washington to draw on its own allotment. Staff discussions with CBO and CRS confirm that the amendment does not change the amount other States will receive. CRS is in the process of developing an official memo to that effect. A progressive think tank, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities also states that the amendment would not alter State allocations. The amendment allows States which have already expanded eligibility levels to 200 percent to receive an ``enhanced Federal match'' if it provides health care coverage to uninsured kids between the current mandatory levels and the new level of 200 percent set in the budget agreement. Additionally, my State would be required to maintain its current effort. Washington must spend the same amount on children's health care that it does in fiscal year 1997, in subsequent years before it can receive any money provided for under the Child Health Initiative. The proposal does not take money from other States nor does it provide additional Federal subsidies for children the State is now covering, it simply allows Washington and the other few expansion States to continue to do the good work they have already started.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, on October 25, 1994, Jered Gamache lost his life, and his brother, Andy, was seriously injured on their way home from school when a Yakama tribal police officer, driving at 68 miles per hour, ran through a red light and crashed into their truck. Jered was 18 and Andy was 16. Despite the loss of Jered's life and the injuries to Andrew, the Gamache family has been totally unable to seek damages against the Yakama tribal government for the actions of its police officer. Now, let us compare this situation, Mr. President, to the case of Abner Louima, the Haitian immigrant who was brutalized a few weeks ago by New York City police officers. According to the New York Times, in addition to the ongoing criminal investigation, Mr. Louima's attorneys are planning to file a $465 million civil damage suit against New York City. Now, Mr. President, what makes the case of Jered and Andy Gamache different from the case of Abner Louima? The answer is simple: Tribal sovereign immunity. Unlike New York City, the Yakama tribal government can claim immunity from any civil lawsuit, including suits involving public safety and bodily harm, in both State and Federal courts. As a consequence, the lawyers retained by the Gamache family have told them it is pointless to bring any kind of lawsuit. They have no recourse. New York City does not have sovereign immunity, and thus, of course, is subject to a lawsuit in any amount of money on the part of victims of malfeasance, on the part of members of its police department. A few weeks ago, up until the present time, the New York Times has run articles and editorials showcasing the Louima case as an example of police brutality and the need for permanent reform. While that case has sparked outrage from editorialists in New York and elsewhere, last Sunday the New York Times vilified my efforts to provide exactly the same avenue for relief to the Gamache family as the New York Times eloquently advocates for Mr. Louima. The New York Times has decided that while it is unacceptable for New York City to brutalize a person, it rejects non-Indians' right to bring similar claims against tribal police agencies in the U.S. courts. So we have 18- and 16-year-old victims who have no recourse. Enormous injustices can be done whenever a technical claim can prevent the adjudication of a just claim on the part of an individual against a government. It is for exactly that reason that the doctrine of sovereign immunity was long ago dropped by the Federal Government and the State government in cases of this nature. Let us consider another case, Mr. President, the case of Sally Matsch. When she was fired from an American Indian casino in Minnesota she felt that she was a victim of age discrimination, so she sued the Prairie Island Indian Tribe. The tribe, however, invoked its sovereign immunity against lawsuits in State or Federal courts, and her case was heard by an Indian court on the second floor of the casino and was dismissed amid the sounds of slot machines by a judge who served at the pleasure of the tribal council that ran the casino. Seventeen years ago I was attorney general of the State of Washington. I brought a lawsuit that asserted the right of the State of Washington to tax the sale of cigarettes in Indian smoke shops to non- Indians. The Supreme Court of the United States upheld our position that those sales were taxable. For all practical purposes, however, in the 17 years since that time, States have been unable to enforce a right that the Supreme Court of the United States said they had because they cannot sue the tribe or the tribal business entities in order to collect those taxes or to enforce their collection. Why? Tribal sovereign immunity. Barbara Lindsey, Mr. President, is president of an organization of Puget Sound beach property owners in Washington State. In 1989, 16 Indian tribes sued those property owners in the State of Washington claiming that ``treaty rights'' gave them the right to enter private property to remove clams and oysters. A Federal district court in large measure has accepted that claim, but Barbara Lindsey and the thousands of property owners she represents, Mr. President, cannot sue the Indian tribes for violations of their property rights, even in cases when those violations are obvious and open. The problem? Tribal sovereign immunity. So, Mr. President, this body will debate next week when it debates the Interior appropriations bill a provision that for a period of 1 year, as a rider on the appropriations bill, requires the waiver of tribal sovereign immunity on the part of those tribes--and I believe it is all of them--whose governmental entities, whose police forces, are being funded by money appropriated by the Congress out of the taxes collected from all of the American people. The proposal does not change any substantive laws. It simply says if, in fact, the law has been violated, there should be a remedy in a neutral Federal court--we have not extended it to State courts--but in a neutral Federal court. Is it fair to prevent a family from seeking justice for the wrongful death of their son? Is it fair that a claim of age discrimination cannot be made or decided in a neutral court? Is it fair that a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States on taxes cannot effectively be enforced? It is not, Mr. President, and claims that sovereignty is somehow undercut by saying that the sovereign is subject to the laws is simply not the case. The claim of those who believe we should make no change is a claim that an Indian tribe can act in a totally lawless fashion and not be held responsible in any court of the United States for those lawless actions. It can be dressed up in whatever fancy language about sovereignty that one may propose, but it comes right down to that proposition: Is it fair that if you are injured by a New York City policeman you can sue New York City, but if you are injured by a Yakama tribal police officer, you may not sue its tribe. The doctrine is one that stems from the kings of England. It is an anachronism in today's world. Under constitutional guarantees of due process to every American citizen, every American citizen should be granted the opportunity to bring his or her case in a neutral court and get an answer as to whether or not crimes have, in fact, been committed. The only issue that will be involved in this case is, Should any government be permitted to act in an entirely lawless fashion and not be called to account for its acts? The answer to that question is ``no''. We should not be involved in that kind of action, and the only body with constitutional authority to make that decision across this United States is the Congress of the United States. The buck stops here.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I am dismayed by the decision made Monday by the Mexican Government to impose a 101.1 percent tariff on U.S. Red Delicious and Golden Delicious apples effective September 1. This tariff increase has been imposed in response to an antidumping claim filed by Chihuahua apple growers against U.S. growers earlier this year. Ignoring significant evidence to the contrary, the Mexican Government has issued a preliminary determination that U.S. growers are selling apples in Mexico at half their fair price. The Mexican Government's determination is wrong. U.S. apple growers have not engaged in dumping. It appears that Mexican officials have virtually ignored the documentation submitted by the U.S. apple industry proving that U.S. apple growers are exporting apples at a fair price. The allegations made by Mexico are ludicrous and the tariff increase unjustified. As many of my colleagues know, my home State of Washington is the Nation's largest apple producer, and Mexico is the largest market for our apples. This drastic tariff increase will devastate the United States apple industry while allowing Mexican growers, with no competition, to charge exceedingly high prices for their apples. Together with my colleagues from Oregon and Idaho, I call on the administration to take immediate action on this issue. We cannot allow Mexico to undermine the United States apple industry with these unfair, protectionist trade practices.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I want to recognize an Explorer Scout whose bravery and quick thinking saved the life of his friend. On July 3, 1997, a group of friends went swimming near Sunset Falls in Yacolt, WA. Recent flooding had altered the depth of the water where the friends chose to go diving. Not recognizing the change in depth, Kade Vance dove from a rock into the natural pool below. Moments later, he surfaced in a dead man's float, bleeding from his head. Robby Loomis, a trained Explorer Scout, immediately swam to his friend's aid and turned him on his back to allow him to breathe. Robby conversed with Kade, making sure he remained conscious. Kade indicated he could not feel his legs and that his strength was quickly deteriorating. For more than 40 minutes, Robby kept Kade afloat in water that was only 60 degrees. Despite his dropping temperature and diminishing strength, Robby helped move Kade closer to shore where the emergency medical team could reach them. Robby used his own body as a shield to protect his injured friend from further damage by rocks near the shoreline. As a result of Robby Loomis' courageous efforts, and due to his Explorer Scout training, Kade Vance's life was saved. I would like to recognize the bravery and heroism displayed by Robby Loomis and congratulate him on his valiant efforts.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I rise today to address a provision in the reconciliation bill that deals with spectrum. In an ill-advised concession, the Senate accepted a partial waiver of the duopoly and newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership restrictions that will allow broadcasters and newspaper owners in cities with populations over 400,000 to bid for the returned ``analog'' spectrum in those markets. I believe this simply is bad policy. As plainly explained in the report, the Senate, like the House--that originally sought an even broader waiver--put revenue concerns first. First, and ahead of what I believe to be graver concerns for the intellectual wealth and benefits that accrue from a diversity of voices and opinions in a marketplace. Fortunately, although we have, in my view, compromised unacceptably, we have not done so unqualifiedly. The final bill provides for a waiver of the duopoly and newspaper-broadcaster cross ownership ban only in cases of cities of over 400,000. Moreover, the bill provides only a one-time waiver, only in large markets, which are likely to have more (and more diverse) media, and only under circumstances (the auction of ``duplicate'' spectrum) in which the number of broadcast voices could double.