Kay Hutchison

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to speak for up to 5 minutes on an amendment that has just passed.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I just want to speak for a few moments.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to thank the Senator from Washington for allowing me to use some time because I think there are a couple of other Senators who will be speaking on her side very shortly. Mr. President, I commend Senator Hatch for his commitment to ensuring protection of private property rights as required by our Constitution and for trying to do everything we can to assure the private property provision of our Constitution is adhered to. People seem to overlook the fifth amendment sometimes, which says that: No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation. In spite of this unequivocal protection of private property in the Bill of Rights, the Federal Government has often adopted laws that violate these important rights. One law, for example, which has been implemented to the detriment of private property rights in Texas is the Endangered Species Act. In the Texas Panhandle, the Endangered Species Act has been used to protect a bait fish called the Arkansas River shiner. To protect the fish in Texas, even though it thrives in New Mexico, the water supply for cities such as Amarillo and agriculture in the area are put in jeopardy. In Travis County, families who purchased residentially zoned lots in good faith to build their homes are being penalized. In addition to the cost of their lots, they are forced to pay $1,500 as an added fee to protect habitat for the golden-cheeked warbler, in an area where 20,000 acres already are set aside for that purpose. There are many other examples like this that demonstrate how laws can be used to actually violate constitutional rights. For this reason, I support property rights protections. We tried in the 103d Congress and in the 104th Congress, to guarantee compensation to landowners whose private property was devalued due to government regulations. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful in adopting these reforms. Today, we are trying a new approach. Senator Hatch has put forward a new approach that adjusts our legal process to assure that constitutional rights are secured for the private property owners of our country. Now, what Senator Hatch is doing is really mostly technical in nature. It is giving people the right to have their cases heard. I don't think Americans should have to spend all of their money just seeking to challenge the violation of rights that are guaranteed to them under the Constitution. I don't think that is due process. So I commend this bill because I do think it will take one step in the right direction toward protecting private property rights and helping private property owners at least have their cases adjudicated in court. The bill does not speak to the real issue which is how we can accommodate environmental laws in a way that also protects the rights of private property owners. I hope this Congress will address the basic issue soon. In the meantime, this bill at least will take us a step toward allowing people due process to protect their private property rights. I think it is time that the American people who own property have the ability to fully protect their rights guaranteed by the Constitution. I hope that we will all support this bill. I thank the Senator from Washington. I yield the floor.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. It is an additional request.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for up to 4 minutes on behalf of the bill.

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

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I want to thank Senator Bond very much for allowing me to be in the summation. Because of a family emergency I just arrived. Mr. President, I do admire the tenacity of the Senator from Arkansas, for he has tried 15 straight times to submarine the space station, in a mixed metaphor. But I do think the Senator is wrong. I think the Senate will rise above his arguments, which would have the world's greatest superpower saying to all of the other nations that have put their money into this project, we are going to walk away from an experimental project, 90 percent complete. This project is succeeding. What we are going to be able to do has already begun to be tested in the early stages, and that is use microgravity conditions to grow tissue, which you can't do on Earth. You can't simulate this procedure on Earth. It means we will be able to take defective tissues, without harming the patient, and experimenting without harming the patient. It is biomedical research. We have partners--the United States, Canada, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Spain, France, Germany, the UK, Japan, and Russia--in this project. Yes, the Russians are having trouble. We know that. Does that mean we will walk away from all of our other international partners? The United States has been the leader in technical advances. It is why we have been able to get all of the benefits that we have seen from space research, because we have been willing to take the risk. Experiments are not precise. You make mistakes when you are the first one out there. You can't draw the budget for the first time and say you have to stay within this budget. Yes, it may take a couple more years. But if we can find a cure for ovarian cancer, for breast cancer, for osteoporosis, then I think a couple of years or 3 years working this out together, perhaps getting new partners, which is what we ought to be doing, instead of saying let's walk away, 90 percent into a project, with all of the other countries that have depended on us. We are the world's greatest superpower. We are not going to walk away from our partnership. We are not going to walk away from the leadership, at least that is not the country I represent. Most certainly, I don't think the Senate would do something so narrow.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to commend an extraordinarily successful collaboration between NASA and the JASON Project, a private foundation which is working to engage middle school students in grades 5-8 in science and technology. Each year, JASON electronically takes hundreds of thousands of our students on real scientific expeditions with world class scientists, researchers and explorers to work together with them on projects of discovery. NASA participates through three of its research centers and the expertise of many of its scientists. This collaboration is bringing real science to many students and teachers in the US and abroad, and I wanted to commend NASA's work with JASON as a model for public/private partnerships and educational leadership.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I thank the Senator from Virginia. I think when you look at these other potential necessary points of U.S. defense callings, we have to look at our budget, our defense dollars, our modernization, our technology and our will along with the morale of our troops, and we have got to say that there is a red flag out there, and if we do not do something about the priorities, we are going to have a hollow force at a time when we really need it. And I think that is the responsibility of this Senate to address and to make sure that it does not happen on our watch. I appreciate what the Senator from Virginia has said. I appreciate the leadership he has shown, along with Senator Thurmond and all of those. I think we all have the same goal. I just hope that we can all as a group of 100 independent operators come together and realize that because we are so diverse, we cannot allow ourselves to be inept in action, in doing the right thing that all of us, I think, are seeking to do. That is what happens in a legislative body. It is not an easy, clear direction that you can point a legislative body to. But nevertheless, I hope we can overcome the inherent problems in dealing in a legislative body and do something strong and courageous and decisive and fulfill our responsibility under the Constitution for our country, for those who are serving our country in the military, and for our future generations. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I thank the Senator. I would just say to the distinguished Senator from Virginia that we have had benchmarks that are clearly not achievable in any lifetime that we are going to have. We have had deadlines that have failed to be met. I think it is time that Congress stand up and say we are looking at the facts. The facts are we are having a harder time recruiting for the military. We are having a harder time funding the modernization and the technology. We haven't even addressed missile defense systems. And yet we know now that two more countries have joined the nuclear club; that we are talking to troops--at least I am--who are very low in morale, and people who not only are not coming into the service, but our experienced people are leaving, and I think it is time that Congress take the responsibility to address these concerns. One of them is a mission with no exit strategy, which is, I think, an ill-defined mission, and no clear policy that shows our enemies or our allies where we would go in the future. Kosovo is another issue. There are problems erupting in India and Pakistan. Certainly, Iraq is still on the horizon, not to mention Korea. The United States has the unique responsibility in the world to provide a security umbrella in a lot of places, and I want to make sure that we are going to be strong enough to respond when there is a threat to U.S. security. And if we continue to sit back and let deadline after deadline and benchmarks that do not hold water go forward, I think we are abdicating our responsibility.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I did not yield the floor.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I will yield for a question.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Thank you. Mr. President, first, let me say I thank the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, because he and I have worked together. We have introduced a bill--the Byrd-Hutchison bill--which would produce a downsizing of our commitment in Bosnia in, I think, a reasonable timeframe, taking into account the safety of our troops. I will talk about that in a few minutes. He has been a leader in this effort, and he is a member of the Armed Services Committee. He has provided a lot of input into this debate and certainly a background that none of us can match because of his years in the Senate and his scholarly pursuits in Senate history. I also want to thank Senator Thurmond, Senator Levin, and Senator Coats for putting forward this amendment. I think this sense of the Senate is a good start. It certainly sends the signal to the President and the administration from Congress that Congress is very concerned about the policy. I think it is very clear from the recent debate that many of us do not consider that the exit strategy put forward, in response to our question, from the President is a serious exit strategy. It cannot be considered a serious exit strategy, because I think when General Clark comes back with a timetable, it is going to be totally unacceptable, and I think everybody on this floor agrees that it is too nebulous to be in any way dubbed a concrete and clear benchmark. I want to respond because Senator Byrd and I have spoken on this subject and we feel, I think, very strongly about the role of Congress and the importance that Congress exercise its responsibility under the Constitution. That is why we have been active in this area and why I think it is important that we take this first step with the Thurmond- Levin-Coats amendment, and that we eventually go further in making sure that Congress is a part of any effort by the President to have a long- term commitment of our troops in a foreign land. In fact, that is what the Constitution envisioned. It is very clear if you read the Federalist Papers, if you study the Constitution, if you read the debate, that our founders had an example. The example was a king, a monarchy--a monarchy in which the king not only declared war for his country, Great Britain, but the king also paid for it, implemented it, did the strategy. It was all a power of the monarch. As the founders of our country were debating what they wanted, they said they wanted it to be hard to declare war. In fact, in the debate, I will quote from James Wilson, the delegate from Pennsylvania, who said: We must have a system of checks and balances in this area that will not hurry us into war. It is calculated to guard against it. It will not be in the power of a single man or a single body of men to involve us in such distress, for the important power of declaring war is vested in the legislature at large. Mr. President, we have a situation here in which there is no declaration of war. So we have a shift of power toward the President, putting our troops into combat positions, or into peacekeeping positions, certainly into harm's way--however you would like to describe it--unilaterally. Congress has since World War II, I think it can be fairly said, continued to allow the President to encroach more and more on the responsibility that was clearly given in the Constitution to Congress, because, in fact, it should be hard to declare war. It should be hard to put our troops into harm's way except in an emergency, which I think all of us would agree is within the power of the President to address. So now we have a situation where more and more the President is going forward on his own and Congress is stepping back and allowing the President to take the power without our input, and even when we disagree with the President, unfortunately, I think we have been timid about standing up. I believe it was this timidity that caused the extended Vietnam war. I think we extended it by not exercising the responsibility of Congress, which clearly knew that this was not a war in which we should be, and most certainly not one in which so much American blood should have been shed. Mr. President, here we are now with an exit strategy given to Congress by the President that is not realizable--an exit strategy that many States of the United States couldn't meet as benchmarks. On the effect of the judicial reform program, police in both entities are restructured, retrained, and equipped in accordance with democratic standards; media-regulated in accordance with democratic standards; independent alternative media available; free market reforms; functioning privatization; banking laws; an IMF program in place. Mr. President, these are worthy goals. They are worthy benchmarks, and I hope we work toward them. But this is not an exit strategy for U.S. forces. I am pleased that so many Members of Congress agree with that, and are beginning to take first steps that would say to the President you don't have carte blanche to watch our military move into a dangerously hollow force while you are spending $10 billion of taxpayer money on this kind of effort with no exit strategy. That is what is happening. I am pleased that we are going to begin to take the first steps to say to the President we want an exit strategy; we want an exit strategy that is reasonable, and we want an exit strategy that is responsible as an ally. Everything that Senator Byrd and I have done has been to try to work with our allies as a responsible ally, not to exit totally from Bosnia as a requirement, but to say we want to do our fair share, and we want our allies to work with us to allow us to continue to have a military that is capable of responding in the only way that America can respond, and that is with our unique capabilities, our unique technology, our unique modernized equipment, and our uniquely trained forces, which are the best in the world. We don't need our best fighting forces to do the police-keeping mission that we are doing in Bosnia, which can ably be done by many other of our allies. So my goal is going to be to support this very good beginning, but to say that we must be willing to stand up and force this issue because we are going in the wrong direction. We are allowing our military to become hollow because we are in unending missions. Our troop morale is suffering. We are losing experienced people, because they are gone from home so much on missions that they do not see as essential. If you talk to military people, as I have, that is what you will hear. They will be there when they see that it is a U.S. security interest. They have always been. But they do not understand continuous deployments when there is no emergency, as they see it, and when they see no exit strategy. I am very pleased that the Senator from West Virginia made the specific point of trying to determine what the mission is. Is it a clear mission? He asked what the benchmarks for the exit strategy were. I think it became very clear to anyone who listened that the benchmarks are no exit strategy at all. They are worthy goals. But they will not be met in our lifetime. And, indeed, many countries of Europe do not meet them today. I hope the Senate will take the first step. But I hope the Senate will not be timid about its responsibility under the Constitution, and take further steps along the way. We are going to continue to have other amendments to other bills that will provide the United States an opportunity to speak to our allies to determine how we can work together to downsize the U.S. commitment, to help our allies in every possible way within the bounds of reason, because we do have other commitments. We must respond, if there is a real security threat to our country, or to any of our forces in the field, and we are losing our edge. Mr. President, I hope that this is a first step, not a last step. I hope the President will hear what the Senate is saying with this sense- of-the-Senate resolution. It is a good resolution. The President should work with NATO allies to withdraw U.S. ground combat forces from Bosnia within a reasonable period of time. That is the resolution. I agree with that--that a NATO-led force without the participation of the U.S. ground combat forces in Bosnia might be suitable for a follow-on; that we, the taxpayers of the United States, have spent $9.5 billion over the last 6 years at a time when our military is telling us that we are dropping in modernization; that we are dropping in our recruitment. We are losing experienced people. We must as responsible Members of the Senate question the priorities in spending for an operation that has no exit strategy. We want to take this first step. I certainly do. But I want the U.S. Senate to remember our part of the Constitution. If we fail to keep our part of the Constitution working, we are failing in our duty and our responsibility to the people of our country, and most certainly to those combat forces who are putting their lives on the line every day. We would never jeopardize troop safety in anything we do. I want to say that Senator Byrd's and my two bills that have been put forward both exempt totally the troops that are necessary for the safety of the troops that are on the ground. We want a responsible exit. We want to be responsible allies. We are not walking away from our responsibility to our allies. But we do not think it is fair for the United States to continue to bear the lion's share of the burden in Bosnia. We are now twice as many troops as our nearest ally, and I do not think that is a fair allocation. So, Mr. President, I think this is a good first step. I think the United States is taking a necessary first step. I hope the President will listen to the concerns that have been raised in this very good resolution, and I hope the Senate will be willing to continue to work on legitimate, responsible parameters around this Bosnia mission. And just one more response to the Senator from Virginia. I think that this must be separated from Kosovo for many reasons. One is Kosovo is an independent country and requires a different set of references. We have been in Bosnia for 6 years, really more. We have been working on the Bosnia issue. Kosovo, we have yet to take the definitive action, and I do support the President for getting his emissaries in and trying to bring these people to the peace table. I want to be shown to support that effort, and I hope that it works. I think the Bosnia issue is much different, and I think we have worked toward coming to some sort of clear mission and clear exit strategy in Bosnia for many years, since I have been in Congress, and I think now is the time for us to exercise our responsibility under the Constitution and become more firm in how long we will be in a mission in which our troops will be engaged, will be in harm's way, and for which there is no congressional approval as I think is required by the Constitution in spirit if not in actual terms. I thank the Chair.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I would like to ask a question of the Senator from West Virginia. I did not intend to speak before the distinguished Senator from West Virginia. If it is his desire to speak first, I am happy to wait.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Without the support of a major U.S. force.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Well, I would like to ask the question, if the Senator will yield, and that is, I appreciate your interpretation of this because I certainly agree with you that these benchmarks are not achievable in a reasonable length of time. But I would just like to ask you the question, What is the next step? The President has said this is an exit strategy, that these 10 benchmarks could be--would be reached without the necessity of major support from the United States. That is what is on this page. The Senator from Michigan has asked General Clark, What would be the timetable to achieve these 10 benchmarks, which I think we all now have a consensus are going to be very difficult to quantify? What is the next step? If General Clark comes back and says, well, effective judicial reform would be maybe 50 years, or 30 years, the civil Dayton goals, the reestablishment of minority homeowners in each area of Bosnia, the media regulation, these will take 60 years or 40 years or 25 years, what then is the next step? If we have the benchmarks in a report from the President, which we are now asking, ``OK, you, Mr. President, have said the exit strategy is that these will be achieved without the requirement of a major U.S. presence,'' we get the timetable back, we think it is unrealistic to have a major U.S. presence for 50 years, and do all of the other responsibilities of the U.S. military, what is the next step?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. That is the exit strategy for the United States.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, reading from the report that the distinguished Senator from West Virginia refers to, in the report the President says: The exit strategy for U.S. troops engaged in such deployment-- And then he notes: The goal of the military presence is to establish the conditions under which Dayton implementation can continue without the support of a major NATO-led military force. And begins to list the concrete benchmarks that the Senator from Michigan has just read. I don't exactly know how you can refer to them as concrete, because I think that they are not concrete. I think the police re-integration, the effective judicial reform, and media regulation is a giant leap, and I think the Senator from Michigan probably has already said that he also sees that these could be limitless. But, in fact, that is the exit strategy that has been put forward by the President, and that is exactly why I think the Senator from West Virginia is on point to question what is the exit strategy. If these are clear benchmarks--the State of Texas doesn't have effective judicial reform yet--there are countries in the European Union that can't meet the economic test that is set out in this exit strategy for Bosnia. I think the Senator from Indiana and the Senator from West Virginia and the Senator from Michigan are all beginning to agree that we are looking at an exit strategy from which there is not an exit in the foreseeable future, and I hope that we will be able to clarify this as we go down the road. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Since we are on this point, I would like to add that the sentence above that, ``The exit strategy for U.S. forces engaged in such deployment,'' that is the question that was asked by Congress for the President to respond to. In response to the question, What is the exit strategy? he lists these 10 benchmarks that we have been discussing. So----

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Will the Senator yield?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Will the Senator from West Virginia yield?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Will the Senator from West Virginia yield for 1 second? I do have the report, and I know exactly what he is trying to say. I would like to read him exactly what it says.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank Senator Coverdell for bringing some creativity into our public education system. If you talk to parents and teachers in America, it is clear that many of them are frustrated, because they are not satisfied with the education children are getting in our public schools. So we can take one of two approaches to address this problem. We can take the approach that we will continue to just go along as we have been year after year after year while the money spent on education goes up and up at the same time that test scores go down and our nation's children are increasingly unable to compete. We can do that. But we don't have to. We have today an opportunity to bring some innovation into our public school system. We can give parents and their children more options and more opportunity at success. That is what the Coverdell bill does, and I thank the senator for his leadership in shepherding this bill through Congress. This bill adds options--options for parents to give their kids a better chance at success. Under the Coverdell A+ bill, parents will be able to save after-tax dollars and use those funds on a tax-free basis for a whole variety of K-through-college education expenses. Even grandparents can contribute to these education savings accounts. As the cost of college in particular continues to climb, this added savings tool for parents will become essential for more and more American families. But in addition to enhancing the ability of families to save for college, the bill also addresses the need all parents have of supporting their children's elementary and high school education. I heard Senator Bingaman talk about the dropout rate among Hispanics. I am alarmed at that statistic. But I don't understand, knowing that we have this problem, why we can't go forward and say what will take innovative steps to help make our kids more motivated and more able to succeed in school. What can we do? The Coverdell bill gives families options they do not presently have. It allows parents to set aside an extra amount of money, up to $2,000 each year, to enhance their elementary and secondary education opportunities for their children. One option they will have is to then use that money, tax-free, for private or parochial school, if they feel that is the atmosphere that will be best for their children. Parents would also have the option of adding tools to enhance their child's education in public school, like buying the child a computer. That would be allowed in the Coverdell bill, and buying a child extra books so that the child can go beyond just what is in the classroom and enhance his or her knowledge; even buying band uniforms, because we know that children who participate in extracurricular activities are the ones most likely to stay in school, to be interested and to do better in school. In fact, we have seen that children who have arts classes do better in the other classes as well. So buying school- related art supplies would be another option that is conceivably allowed under the Coverdell bill. So as we witness the continued underperformance of our public school system, we are offering through this bill originality and creativity that will save children who might otherwise be lost in the present system. I am particularly pleased that the conference committee kept my amendment that passed on the Senate floor by a 69 to 29 vote to allow the option of public, single-sex schools and classrooms. This is not a mandate, of course. But many parents try to send their children to single-sex private schools because they think they will have a better chance in that environment. In fact, many studies show that for some children, single-sex education is their best chance at academic and life-long success. In a single-sex environment, hundreds of thousands of America's children have reported that they are allowed to excel, flourish, and grow, because they are not hampered by the distractions and disruptions that are found in many coed environments. I am pleased that we have in our education budget an innovative education reform program. It is called title VI. Title VI funds a wide variety of education reform projects, almost anything a school, community, or state feels will be in the best interests of their children and will help improve students' academic performance. And the Department of Education can give grants for these innovative programs. What my amendment and this bill will do is specifically include single-sex schools and classrooms as one of the innovative education approaches that can be funded under Title VI. We have an example that has gotten wide notoriety of late. It is the Young Women's Leadership School in East Harlem, in the New York City public schools. This is an elementary school. This school has a 90- percent attendance rate, one of the highest in the New York City public schools. They are well above the average in test scores in both math and English. When interviewed, the girls who go to this school say they love going to school; they feel safe there. And they are excelling. This is a success story. However, the bad news is the ACLU and the National Organization of Women are suing to close this school, and have filed a complaint with the U.S. Education Department to cut off all the school's federal funding. They say the school violates the constitutional equal protection clause and Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments Act. In addition to the obvious question of why in the world anyone would want to close this school down when it does so much good for the young girls who attend it, these groups' legal arguments are absolutely wrong. Title IX and the equal protection clause were intended to be protection against discrimination, not against educational enhancements for students who choose to learn in an environment where they can excel. In fact, in the amendment that is in the bill before us, it specifically states that one can offer options of single-sex classes or schools only if comparable opportunities are given for the other sex. That standard is fair, and that standard will protect against any possible discrimination against one sex or the other. In fact, that is why the state of Virginia lost in its defense of the previously all-male Virginia Military Institute, because the state did not offer a comparable educational opportunity for women. Time after time we have seen the courts uphold single-sex schools. What we want is for every parent in our country to have the same option that a parent who can afford a private school has. The parent who can afford a private school can choose among all the options-- single-sex private schools, single-sex parochial schools, coeducation at parochial schools or private schools. They have these options. Parents of public school students do not. This bill and my amendment will allow every family to make these choices and do what is best for their children. Mr. President, I am very proud that I am a product of public education. I think free, public education is what makes this country different from every other country in the world, because we open our educational system to every child. Why not offer even more opportunity to every child and thereby improve every child's chance to achieve the American dream? That is what the bill before us does, and that is why I strongly support this bill. I hope it will pass by an overwhelming margin, and I hope the President will see that the bill's benefits to America's families are so great that he could not possibly veto this legislation and halt this historic opportunity to give parents and their children more and better education options. I thank the Chair. I thank Senator Coverdell. Mr. TORRICELLI addressed the Chair.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I believe the Senate should act on legislation to address the problem of teen tobacco addiction, but am troubled by the tax and spend aspects of the legislation as it now stands. I support an approach that is closer to the agreement reached by the states attorneys-general a year ago this week. That agreement combined tough restrictions on advertising and a commitment by the states to address teen tobacco use. I have worked with Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah and other Senators to co-sponsor legislation codifying the attorneys-general agreement. Our legislation is a responsible and credible effort to achieve the goal we all share: ending smoking by underage youth. If we cut off debate on the McCain tobacco legislation, the rules of the Senate would prevent debate on the Hatch bill or any other responsible alternative. I cannot support that. Therefore, I will vote against cloture. We will have other opportunities during the 105th Congress to consider alternatives to the McCain bill. I intend to work hard to pass legislation that includes voluntary restrictions on industry advertising to young people and a substantial commitment to smoking cessation programs for minors.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I want to read the resolution because I think the Senate is taking a step that is very important, and I want to speak for a few minutes on the great honor I had this weekend to attend the services for one of my constituents, Mr. James Byrd, Jr. The resolution condemns the brutal killing of Mr. James Byrd Jr., and it commends the community of Jasper, TX, and Jasper County, TX, for the manner in which it has come together in response to this brutal killing. The findings are as follows: Mr. James Byrd, Jr., of Jasper, TX, was brutally murdered on June 6, 1998. Since this heinous tragedy, the citizens of Jasper, from all segments of the community, have come together to condemn the killing and honor the memory of Mr. Byrd. The sheriff of Jasper County, Billy Rowles, spoke for the community when he appealed that the Nation not ``label us because of this random, brutal act.'' Mr. and Mrs. James Byrd, Sr., called for ``justice and peace,'' asking that ``we * * * get this over and put it behind us.'' The community's response reflects the spirit that other communities across the Nation have shown in the face of recent incidents of random and senseless violence. The Senate condemns the actions which occurred in Jasper, TX, as horrific and intolerable, to be rejected by all Americans. The Senate expresses its deepest condolences to the Byrd family for their loss and the pain it caused. The Senate notes the strong religious faith of the Byrd family, under the inspired leadership of James, Sr., and Stella Byrd, and the Reverend Kenneth Lyons, Pastor of the Greater New Bethel Baptist Church, that has helped the family through this most trying time. The Senate sees in the Byrd family reaction to this tragedy the inspiration for hope, peace and justice in Jasper and throughout the United States. The Senate commends the leadership shown by Jasper County sheriff, Billy Rowles, City of Jasper Mayor R.C. Horn, and other community leaders in responding to this tragedy. The Senate urges that law enforcement officials at all appropriate levels continue with the full and fair investigation into all of the facts of this case. The Senate urges prosecutors to proceed with a fair and speedy trial to bring the perpetrators of this outrageous crime to justice. Mr. President, I had an experience that I will never forget this weekend when I attended the funeral service for Mr. Byrd. I saw a community coming together in confronting a tragedy that was unspeakable and yet they handled it in a way in which I think all of us could learn. They said unanimously in that little community, ``There is no hate here; there is only love.'' I want to say that the Byrd family reminds me of something that Senator Gramm has said before, and that is the greatness of our country is that ordinary people do extraordinary things. I have seen the spirit of America in Mr. and Mrs. James Byrd, Sr., in James Byrd, Jr.'s sisters, and in his children. They endure the pain of knowing how their loved one died and yet can say to all the world, ``There is no hate here, there is no hate in our home, there is no hate in our church; there is love.'' I walked through that church and I saw a woman who goes to that church every Sunday. She had on four yellow ribbons. The yellow ribbons were displayed all over the community of Jasper, showing that the community was coming together in memory of James Byrd, Jr. This woman had on four ribbons, and she knew James Byrd, Jr. She said, ``I have four ribbons. I have one ribbon for James Byrd, Jr., and I have three ribbons for the three who are accused of killing him.'' That said everything about the way this community is handling this terrible tragedy. I think the leadership that is given to us by the Byrd family, by Mayor Horn, by Sheriff Rowles, and by Rev. Kenneth Lyons is something that all of us will be able to say has enriched us. I was enriched this weekend by seeing that community. I was enriched when Sheriff Rowles told me that he was trying to make sure that everyone stayed together, that everyone had their say, and he was even giving the same courtesy and respect even to the Black Panthers who came and did not talk about unity at all. Nevertheless, Sheriff Rowles recognized their freedom of speech. I saw a community that said we are proud that we have been able to grow up in loving homes with Christian backgrounds. So I think that Abraham Lincoln's call to the ``better angels of our nature'' was personified by the Byrd family during this past week. All of us are better because we have seen the Byrd family endure a tragedy that we pray none of us will ever have to endure, and we saw them rise above it and counsel justice and prayer, not hate and despair. It is their leadership that will make me a follower, and I hope all Americans will follow their message--that love is what is important for our country, not hate. So I commend them, and that is why I introduced this resolution with Senator Gramm tonight and why the Senate is, I hope, going to unanimously pass this resolution in just a few minutes, because I want to follow the Byrd family's example and talk about love, not hate; prayer, not despair. That is how we can come together as a country and learn from the worst of tragedies, and, by the very nature of its horror, resolve that we are going to fight harder for equality and justice in this country for our children and grandchildren. That will be the memory of James Byrd, Jr., that we will all come out of this stronger because of the horror that he endured. I also want to say that the Reverend Jesse Jackson was a healer this week, that Kweisi Mfume was a healer this week, that Rodney Slater, representing the President of the United States, was a healer this week, that Congresswoman Maxine Waters was a healer this week. All of them came together with the same message that the Byrd family gave to us. And I was touched by what I saw in Jasper, TX, this week. I think we will all be better because of the leadership of the Byrd family of Jasper, TX. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that S. Res. 248 be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.