Phil Gramm

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, the argument against this amendment is very simple. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration is not, nor has it ever been, authorized. There is no offset in this amendment because it is picking up excessive authority under another amendment. I think, in terms of the budget that we face in this bill, this is not something we ought to be spending money on. As a result I oppose the amendment.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I would simply like to add to that that there be no amendment in order as a second-degree amendment to the Kerrey amendment--so we are sure we are going to go to a vote--prior to a motion to table.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I did not hear the motion. I am sorry.

Mr. GRAMM. If there is no debate, I am ready to move to table the Biden amendment.

Mr. GRAMM. And the Biden amendment has been modified?

Mr. GRAMM. I object. What is the pending business?

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

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, it had been my determination to continue to fight this amendment if it did not have the 60 votes in order to get cloture. Needless to say, I am disappointed. I think we are making a mistake here, but it is clear to me, as a member of the Appropriations Committee, I am never going to be able to eliminate the Legal Services Corporation. Since this is my last day as a member of this committee, I will allow Senator Domenici to proceed with a voice vote. Having a recorded vote, I assume, would produce the same result, would simply tie up the Senate's time, and as a result I ask unanimous consent to vitiate the requested rollcall vote on the amendment.

Mr. GRAMM. Let me try to sort out the facts from the fiction. First of all, there is no authorization for the Legal Services Corporation, period; nor has it been authorized since 1980. This is a program that Congress has consistently refused to authorize, but every year we have appropriated for. Now, we are getting a lot of gamesmanship on these numbers because in reality the proponents of this amendment want to act as if it is free to give $340 million to the Legal Services Corporation. It is not free. Under the bill that is before the Senate, we are providing $10 million less for general legal activities in the Justice Department than President Clinton asked for. The Domenici amendment will cut that funding $25 million further. What does that mean? That means eliminating 200 prosecutors and litigators that are prosecuting organized crime, major drug traffickers, child pornography, major fraud against the taxpayers, terrorism, and espionage cases. Now, the question is, you can jimmy the numbers however you want. Would you rather spend $25 million prosecuting organized crime, drug traffickers, child pornographers, fraud against the taxpayers, terrorism, and espionage, or fund a Federal legal services corporation? That is the question. This bill will provide 55 fewer assistant U.S. attorneys, 55 fewer support personnel than the bill that is before the Senate, in order to fund the Legal Services Corporation. Would you rather have 55 more assistant U.S. attorneys to prosecute people selling drugs at every junior high school in America, or would you rather fund the Legal Services Corporation? Finally, in terms of the FBI, Senator Domenici constantly confuses two projects. One, a technical support center which he cuts; but another which is the upgrade of the FBI Academy, a project that we do have plans for, a project that is desperately needed. In order to fund a Federal legal services corporation, the Domenici amendment cuts the FBI by $49 million, denies the upgraded facilities at the FBI Academy, which is the most important law enforcement training center on the planet. Now, the question is this: Is it worth it to you to have a Federal legal services corporation; and is it worth taking $49 million away from the FBI and the FBI Academy to fund it? I think the answer to that is no. We have in the committee bill a block grant of legal services. Our colleagues say you cannot block grant legal services because the States will not do it right. Why do we trust them to do aid to families with dependent children? Is having the ability to get legal representation when you are drug dealing in public housing, to keep them from kicking you out, more important than eating? Why do we trust them to administer Medicaid? Is getting medical care less important than getting a lawyer? I do not think so. [[Page S 14617]] I think what we are seeing here is a commitment to a program which is the most abused program of any program that was developed in the great society. Not even the proponents of maintaining the Federal program will defend its record. I believe this program should be block granted. I believe we should not cut law enforcement to fund the Legal Services Corporation. Mr. President, under the previous order I move to table the Domenici amendment. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, let me go back, because we have had a lot said, a lot of intellectual sparring, from people who spoke with passion on both sides of the issue. This is an important issue, because you have busy people who are in the process of debating it. But let me remind my colleagues of how we got to this point. First of all, we adopted a budget that set out a goal of balancing the Federal budget in 7 years, and in that budget, we set out a target number, not binding but set out as a guideline, to fund Legal Services Corporation at $278 million. In the allocation of funds to the Commerce, State, Justice Subcommittee, we were given $3.4 billion less money than President Clinton had to write his budget; we were given $1.2 billion less than the comparable committee in the House. And in spreading that reduction in spending, I reduced the funding level for Legal Services Corporation proportionately to $210 million. Senator Domenici is proposing raising the funding level to $340 million. I think there are a lot of issues that are important here. Let me just go through each of them. The first issue has to do with offsets. In order to increase the level of funding for Legal Services Corporation to $340 million, Senator Domenici has to cut other programs in order to make that possible. I think it is important my colleagues decide not whether or not they want to fund the Legal Services Corporation, but whether or not it is worth it to take the money away from other programs in order to pay for it. I want to ask my colleagues look at those other programs. In order to fund the Legal Services Corporation, a corporation that Senator Domenici, in his own amendment, says needs to be dramatically changed, its actions need to be reined in--I submitted for the Record letters from everybody, from the Farm Bureau to Citizens Against Government Waste, letters from outside groups that would like to eliminate or dramatically reduce funding for legal services. But quite aside, the question is, is it worth taking money away from those things that Senator Domenici proposes taking money away from in order to fund the program? Let me review a few of those proposed offsets. In order to fund a Federal Legal Services Corporation, Senator Domenici proposes to reduce general legal activities in the Justice Department by $25 million. I remind my colleagues that we are already $10 million below the President's request. This will take us to $35 million below the President's request, and this will eliminate roughly 200 prosecutors in the following areas: Prosecutors in the area of organized crime, major drug trafficking, child pornography, major fraud against the taxpayer, terrorism and espionage, and other types of activities that fall within the Federal jurisdiction. The first question I would like to ask is, is it important enough to you to fund Legal Services Corporation above the level set out in the budget that we adopted in the U.S. Senate; is it important enough that we ought to take 200 prosecutors away from prosecuting organized crime, child pornography, major drug trafficking, major fraud against the taxpayer, terrorism and espionage? I think that is the first question. The second question is, in order to fund a Federal Legal Services Corporation at a level above the level that we set out in the budget that we adopted, the Domenici amendment cuts the U.S. Attorney's Office by $11 million. That means that with the adoption of this amendment, we will have 55 fewer assistant U.S. attorneys and 55 fewer support personnel than we will have if the amendment is not adopted. So the relevant question is not do you want to give the Legal Services Corporation more money, but do you want the U.S. Attorney's Office to have more prosecutors to prosecute people who are selling drugs at the door of every junior high school in America? The Domenici amendment to fund the Legal Services Corporation at a level above the level contemplated in the budget that we adopted in the U.S. Senate proposes cutting the FBI by $49 million. These funds will largely come out of the FBI Academy at Quantico, VA. This academy is the most important training facility for law enforcement in the United States of America. This project was endorsed by 91 Senators who voted for the Comprehensive Terrorism Prevention Act of 1995. The question is not do you want to give more money to legal services, not do you want to fund legal services at a level above the level we contemplated in the budget we adopted in the Senate, [[Page S 14615]] but are you willing to take $49 million away from the FBI, away from the principal construction project at the FBI Academy which, each year, funds the training of 1,225 of the most outstanding law enforcement officials in America. The Domenici amendment, in order to fund the legal services Corporation at a level above the level contemplated in our budget, cuts the Federal judiciary by $25 million. Let me put that into people. That is 400 probation officers, who could supervise convicted felons who are out on the street under supervised parole. That is 400 probation officers who, in conjunction with the overall program, could carry out the mandatory drug testing of all released convicts to assure that they are not on drugs. I could go on, Mr. President, but the basic point is that the Domenici amendment is cutting prosecutors, courts, the FBI, and probation officers in order to fund the Legal Services Corporation. What does the bill that Senator Domenici would amend do? What it does is it funds Legal Services Corporation at $210 million. It block grants that money back to the States exactly as we block grant AFDC, exactly as we are going to block grant Medicaid, and it allows the States to set up a system to contract with attorneys to represent poor people. It eliminates a superstructure, which is largely responsible for the use of this agency to promote a political agenda which is largely not the agenda of the American people. Senator Domenici claims in his amendment to tighten up on what the agency can do with this money, but the restrictions imposed are less restrictive than the provisions that are actually in the bill now. And in several areas, they simply have major loopholes. For example, the Domenici amendment says legal services is banned from legislative lobbying. But there is a major loophole, section 14B, that allows funds to be used to lobby for more funds and for fewer restrictions. The Domenici amendment prohibits the use of money for legal services for filing lawsuits having to do with congressional and legislative redistricting. As I pointed out, that is the law of the land. In 1990, when the Texas Rural Legal Aid filed a lawsuit against redistricting in Texas and the Bush-appointed Legal Services Corporation Board attempted to cut their funding, they filed a lawsuit; the funding continued, and when President Clinton's Legal Services Board took office, they settled the suit out of court, and the funding continues for Texas legal aid. The problem is that this is an agency which has not carried out the will of Congress, and despite the fact that literally a dozen times we have tried to rein in the Federal superstructure of this agency, we have never been successful in doing it. The proposal that I made--the language that is in the bill--is taking the funds, giving the funds to the State, cutting out this bureaucracy and this Federal infrastructure and letting the funds be used to represent poor people who need legal assistance. I think this is an amendment that should be defeated. I know that there is strong support for a Federal Legal Services Corporation. I personally do not share the philosophy or the views of those who are for it. But I ask my colleagues--even those who are for it--to look at the cuts that are instituted to pay for it and ask themselves: Do we want more prosecutors? Do we want more funding for FBI? Do we want more courts? Or do we want to give more money to a Federal program that has probably been more abused than any other Federal program that was born in the Great Society era? I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. GRAMM. I will be happy to yield.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I thank you for your recognition.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I object. Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.

Mr. GRAMM. Well, the problem is--I do not have to have unanimous consent, Mr. President, to move to table the Domenici amendment. I was simply trying to tell my colleagues what the procedure was going to be, to try to bring a little order to it. It is not my intention to see the Domenici amendment withdrawn prior to my motion to table that amendment at 3 p.m. We have another amendment that is the pending business, a Kerrey amendment. We have a Biden amendment. So I think the best thing for us to do is to try to finish the debate on the Domenici amendment, have a vote to table it, see where we are on that amendment. And at that time, if it is tabled, we will revert back to these other amendments. If the people who have offered them want to proceed with them at that point, they have standing to do so. If they would be willing to step aside and allow the Senator from Pennsylvania to get the floor, set aside their amendments, and offer his amendment, if that is something he can work out with them, then I would certainly be happy to see that happen. The problem is we have a whole bunch of people who have been waiting for an opportunity to offer their amendments. We do not have an agreed-to time schedule set. So basically that is where we are. So let me renew my unanimous consent request. If there is an objection, I would just notify my colleagues that at 3 p.m., or as near to that as I can get the floor, I will move to table the Domenici amendment. But to try to convenience our colleagues, I would like to ask again unanimous consent that at the hour of 3 p.m., I be recognized to make a motion to table the Domenici amendment No. 2819 and that the time between now and 3 p.m. be equally divided between Senator Domenici and myself.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, let me remind my colleagues, in addition to the Domenici amendment, we have the Kerrey amendment which is pending and we have a Biden amendment which is pending.

Mr. GRAMM. Well, Mr. President, I have asked unanimous consent to try to expedite matters by being recognized to make a motion to table the Domenici amendment at 3 p.m. I do believe that Senator Domenici is going to want to restate his case, and it is a case that needs restating many times if it is to be persuasive.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I have had an opportunity now to review some of the restrictions on the Federal Legal Services Corporation and its national bureaucracy that would be imposed under the Domenici amendment. As I said earlier, I believe these provisions are far less restrictive than those that are in the bill, but there are several that I want to comment on and, I think, in commenting really make the point that as long as you have this national superstructure, you are not going to curb these abuses. One of the restrictions in the Domenici amendment is to limit the ability of the Legal Services Corporation to file lawsuits that have to do with redistricting; that is, lawsuits that have to do with deciding where lines are drawn in terms of State legislatures and in terms of congressional redistricting. The only problem with this restriction is it is already the law of the land. We currently have a ban on the ability of Legal Services Corporation to engage in lawsuits that relate to representation and to redistricting in legislatures and in Congress. But a perfect example of how this fails is that this restriction was in place in 1990 when the Texas Rural Legal Aid, which is funded by the Legal Services Corporation, challenged a redistricting plan in Texas in that year, in what the Bush administration saw as a violation of the congressional prohibition on lawsuits involving redistricting. When the Bush-appointed Legal Services Board attempted to discipline the Texas Rural Legal Aid by reducing their funds, the Texas Rural Legal Aid sued the Legal Services Corporation. As a result, funds continued to be provided to the Texas Rural Legal Aid for the remainder of the Bush administration, when the new Clinton board was seated, they settled the case out of court. So here is a perfect case in point where there has been a violation of a restriction on legal services funding. They clearly violated the rules in 1990, and when the Legal Services Board, appointed by President Bush, tried to step in and penalize them for violating the rules they went to court and continued to receive funds. Then the Clinton Legal Services Board settled the case out of court. That is a perfect example of where we already have the restriction and, yet, with a Federal bureaucratic overlay on this program, we are unable to enforce the intent of Congress. A second provision I look at is a prohibition against legislative lobbying, but there is a major loophole in the Domenici amendment on this issue as well. The major loophole is subsection 14(b) where funds are allowed to be used to lobby for more money and for fewer restrictions. I am not sure what else they would lobby for, but I think that is exactly what most people have in mind when you say that you are limiting their ability to lobby. If they can lobby to get more money and to get fewer restrictions, then they are clearly free to lobby. The Domenici amendment has a requirement that there be timekeeping, that there be separate accounting, that there be monitoring, that there be no attorney-client waiver. And yet, routinely, these provisions are circumvented from monitoring on the grounds of the attorney-client privilege. I think it is a legitimate concern of whether we are going to be able overcome the assertion of that privilege when the Legal Services Corporation does not want to abide by the rules and when its client does not want to abide by the rules. I would like to have some assurances that, in fact, the rule is going to be abided by. Another major problem has to do with public housing. In the list of abusive cases by Legal Services Corporation, probably no list is longer of those that I had included in the Record than the list of cases that involves public housing. The Domenici amendment would prohibit legal services from defending a tenant who was charged with drug violations. But I want to remind my colleagues that often the tenant who has the contract with the public housing project is not the person who is charged. Often, they are simply abetting the crime by allowing a friend or children to use their unit of public housing for that purpose. As I read the amendment, if they are charged with shooting and killing someone, there is no provision prohibiting a legal services defense. We deal only with drugs, not with guns, and not with violence. But I think, again, when you start looking at each one of these things, you find how very difficult it is to enforce these provisions, so long as there is a governing entity that basically wants the Legal Services Corporation to do these things. I think these are very real concerns, and I think that these are concerns that need to be dealt with. Finally, I just want to make note, I did not mention it before, and not that I expect that anybody is going to be greatly moved by it, but when we adopted a budget in the Senate and in the House we called for Legal Services Corporation funding at $278 million. The Domenici amendment would raise that funding level to $340 million. While it is not technically a violation of our budget, it is interesting to note that we are being called upon here to cut Federal prosecutors, to reduce Federal courts, to reduce funding for U.S. attorneys, to reduce FBI funding for construction at the FBI Academy in order to fund a level for the Legal Services Corporation which is above the level which was called for in the budget that was adopted in the U.S. Senate. I yield the floor. Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.

Mr. GRAMM. That is correct. As far as I am aware, this is the first time a special provision has ever been made for Native Americans.

Mr. GRAMM. That is a correct statement. States that have substantial Indian population will receive 140 percent of what would be their normal allocation. This was the amendment offered in committee by Senator Stevens, aimed specifically at dealing with this problem.

Mr. GRAMM. All I know is that the head of the FBI asked me both in testimony and in a letter, to provide the funds because he said it was needed. I think the Senator is talking about the technical support center. I am talking about the FBI Academy. As I read the amendment, it is cutting the academy and not the technical support center. In any case, our infrastructure and our effort to fight violent crime and drugs is getting old. When we had testimony before the subcommittee, the head of the FBI said that one of his top priorities was to try to upgrade the training facilities, which is desperately needed. I think that is a priority item. Look, it is a matter of choice. You may want a Federal Legal Services Corporation more than you want to modernize the training of the FBI Academy. That is a perfectly legitimate choice. But it is a choice, this is not a free amendment. This amendment will mean fewer prosecutors and fewer convictions. It will mean facilities that will not be modernized as rapidly. It will mean a lower quality of training. It will mean fewer people will get trained. That is the choice that you are making and it is not a choice that can be wished away. Now, you can say, well, we still would be doing more than we were doing last year. But the point is, we will not be doing as much as we are capable of doing. In terms of the Farm Bureau, I would be happy to call in the Farm Bureau and ask Senator Domenici, if they do not support his position, if they would rather do it my way, if he would pull his amendment down. My feeling is that they would rather eliminate this Federal superstructure, which basically has, since the beginning of the Legal Services Corporation, pursued a political agenda, a political agenda that we are trying to deal with right here in this very amendment. This amendment is not as strong in dealing with this agenda as we are in the committee bill, which is why I want to preserve the committee bill. I yield the floor. Mr. INOUYE addressed the Chair.

Mr. GRAMM. I believe the Senator said they just will not be able to build a new facility as soon.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, let me respond to the points Senator Domenici has made. First of all, the committee bill does not eliminate legal services. It eliminates the Federal entity, the Federal bureaucracy, but gives funds to the States with stricter prohibitions than the Domenici amendment, so that the funds can be used through State-run programs, without this overarching Federal bureaucracy and its political agenda, so that the funds available can truly go to help poor people with real legal needs. So the suggestion that the alternative is the Domenici way or no way, simply does not bear up under scrutiny. Now, with regard to the gimmick used when we are talking about funding, the question is not do we have more prosecutors than we had last year after the Domenici cuts are made. The question is, Do we have more prosecutors than we need? The point is, for example, in the general legal activities of the Justice Department, we have provided $10 million less than Bill Clinton says we need to prosecute organized crime and major drug traffickers and child pornography and major fraud against the taxpayer and terrorism and espionage. We have provided $10 million less than the President says we need. The Domenici amendment would take away $25 million more, eliminating 200 prosecutors from the Justice Department. Now, those are 200 additional prosecutors who would have been there were we not maintaining the Federal Legal Services Corporation. That is the choice. Do you want them there or not? Senator Domenici says, well, look, they were not there last year, were you not happy without them? No. The American people want more prosecutors. The American people want to go after organized crime and drug traffickers and child pornographers and fraud against the taxpayers and terrorism and espionage. So the question is: Do you want 200 more prosecutors doing these things, or do you want a Federal Legal Services Corporation? That is the question. Senator Domenici says, well, you will end up with more U.S. attorneys under the bill even with his cut. That is true, but it is not very relevant. The point is, the American people want to grab criminals by the throat and not let them go in order to get a better grip. The American people, I believe, given a choice of spending $11 million so they can have 55 more assistant U.S. attorneys and 55 more support personnel to go after people selling drugs at every junior high school in America, I think given that option, they would choose to have them there. In terms of the FBI Academy, the argument made is that they do not need new facilities. Well, everybody associated with the FBI says they do. They say that the infrastructure is becoming antiquated.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I am sure there will be others who want to debate this amendment, and so let me summarize my arguments and then yield the floor so that we can continue the debate. Legislating is about choosing. Legislating is about deciding what is worth doing and what is not worth doing. Although it sometimes appears that the same laws of economics do not apply to the Federal Government that apply to families and businesses. Every day families have to say no. Seldom does Government say no. One of the reasons that families have to say no so often is because Government cannot; $1 out of every $4 earned by the average American family with two children now goes to Washington so that Government can say yes so often. However, even in the Federal Government, we have to make choices. The Domenici amendment asks us to choose. It asks us to choose between funding legal services and providing funds for the prosecution of organized crime, drug trafficking, child pornography, fraud against the Government, terrorism, and espionage. It asks us to choose between funding the Legal Services Corporation over funding 55 U.S. attorneys and 55 support personnel that in each of the judicial districts in America could use to make our streets safer, that could be prosecuting people who have preyed on innocent men and women, who could be prosecuting people who are selling drugs at the door of every junior high school in America. The Domenici amendment asks us to choose. It asks us to choose a federally funded Legal Services Corporation over funding for an FBI Academy at Quantico, VA, which is critically important to maintaining our ability to train 1,225 State and local police officers every year. Let me remind my colleagues that the highlight of a law enforcement career in America is coming to the FBI Academy. My proposal would allow each and every one of these 1,225 people, who are chosen because they are the finest America has in law enforcement, to come to the FBI Academy, to be trained so they can go back and train other State and local law enforcement officials, in things that are critical--when to use deadly force and when not to, how to exercise judgment, how to carry out their function. They need this sort of training so that when some brutal predator criminal kills one of our neighbors, we are able to apprehend them, convict them, and hopefully, if they are richly deserving, put them to death. And, Mr. President, this is not a priority that just I as a Member of the Senate have set; 91 Members of the U.S. Senate, including the authors of this amendment which would cut this program, voted for the Comprehensive Terrorism Prevention Act of 1995, which authorized us to begin to upgrade the infrastructure of the FBI Academy. I do not believe that reasonable working Americans would choose to spend $49 million on the Legal Services Corporation over spending that money to upgrade the FBI Academy, thereby allowing us to train more and better law enforcement officials for America. I do not believe, Mr. President, that the average working American family would support taking $25 million away from our Federal courts, money that could be spent on 400 probation officers to supervise convicted felons who are walking the streets, in order to fund a Federal legal services program. We all heard of this case--one of the cases, in fact, that President Clinton ran a TV ad on--about a brutal murder that occurred. What he did not tell us was that this brutal murderer had been convicted of a violent crime, was in prison, had been released, and was being supervised by a parole officer. He had to meet with the parole officer once a year--once a year he had to show up for a meeting. And he went out and killed somebody. And the President tells us as a result of that we ought to ban guns. But the point is, we do not have so many probation officers that we can simply afford a cut that would lead to 400 fewer. This is a critically important area, and I urge my colleagues in their zeal to preserve the Legal Services Corporation as a Federal program to ask themselves, not would you want it if it were free, but are you willing to cut funding for the Federal judiciary by $25 million knowing that with $25 million we could fund 400 more probation officers, that we could have funding that is needed for such programs as mandatory drug testing of criminals that are on release walking the streets of America? Those are the choices that we have to make and these are the questions we must ask. Now, I have not gone into great lengths in talking about the Legal Services Corporation. Many of the areas that they are engaged in are those in which the public perceives to be an abuse of power, whether you are talking about suing every State in the Union that has tried to reform welfare--the provisions in our bill, in allocating a block grant to the States to provide legal services, have very, very stringent limits that say, if you take any of this money for legal services, you cannot use it, nor any other money in this bill, to try to block welfare reform in America. The Domenici language is not as strong as our language in terms of limiting the action or the use of legal services funding. It is a step in the right direction, but why not give this program back to the States? What is it about this program, other than the political base that it enjoys, that is so different from aid to families with dependent children? Can we trust the States with seeing that poor people are fed cannot we trust the States to see that legal services are provided? What is it about this program that makes it so different than Medicaid? I assume that those who support this amendment, at least some of them, will support block granting Medicaid. We called for it in our budget and I assume we have the votes to do it. That has to do with people's health, with their access to medical care. How is it that can we trust the States to run Medicaid but yet we cannot trust them to administer funds for legal services? Well, let me say this, Mr. President. I believe the Legal Services Corporation is a renegade agency which has spent a tremendous amount of resources promoting a political agenda. I think the superstructure of the agency which will be preserved by the Domenici amendment is engaged in an activity which is the right of every free citizen. Every free citizen has a right to advocate their views, no matter how extreme someone else may feel they are. And I defend that right. But they do not have the right to do it with taxpayers' money. If they object to reforming welfare, let them run for the legislature and explain to people that they do not want welfare recipients to have to work. But [[Page S 14598]] they should not be able to take taxpayer money to file those lawsuits. If they believe that the Government ought to be involved in elections, or they believe the Government ought to be involved in other areas, let them get out and engage in the public policy debate, but not with the taxpayers' money. I do not believe that we are going to be able to solve these problems if we keep this infrastructure in place. I think that the only thing that is going to change the focus of the Legal Services Corporation to the legal needs of poor people is to eliminate the Federal superstructure, a superstructure and bureaucracy which has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that it has a social and political agenda. I oppose its agenda. It has a right to an agenda, but not at the taxpayers' expense. I believe we can meet the legitimate legal needs of the poor by setting up a block grant which was supported by the subcommittee and by the full committee. That block grant will give the money back to States and, within the guidelines which will say that no entity taking this money can file lawsuits to block welfare reform, keep drug dealers in public housing, or any of all the other things that this agency is famous, or infamous, for. It would be administered by the States, with greater supervision and control, where people in an area who are outraged about an action cannot just write their two Senators and their one Congressman, but actually get the legislature and the Governor to make a change. Is that not logical reform? Is that not what the Contract With America was about? Is that not what the party I represent stands for? I think it is. I think this is a clear-cut choice. And I want our colleagues to look very closely at these offsets and understand the damage we are doing to law enforcement, to our anticrime and anti-violence efforts by providing this funding level to the Legal Services Corporation. The $340 million that would be provided under the Domenici amendment is taken away from programs that, not only in my opinion, but I would assert in the opinion of virtually any reasonable working American, are of much greater importance. I hope my colleagues will reject this amendment. I yield the floor. Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I also have another letter by a former Legal Service Corporation president, Terry Wear, explaining why in his experienced opinion the Legal Services Corporation cannot be reformed and should either be turned over to the States or be eliminated entirely. Frankly, he recommends that it be eliminated. I ask unanimous consent that this comprehensive letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. GRAMM. That is correct.