Jim Leach

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Lazio).

Mr. LEACH. In that regard, I share some of the concerns of both the gentleman from Minnesota and the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. LEACH. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the Senate bill (S. 318) to require automatic cancellation and notice of cancellation rights with respect to private mortgage insurance which is required as a condition for entering into a residential mortgage transaction, to abolish the Thrift Depositor Protection Oversight Board, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen), the author of this bill and our good friend and great leader on this subject. (Mr. HANSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle).

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of S. 318, the Homeowners Protection Act. This legislation is about saving money for America's homeowners by ensuring that they do not overpay for private mortgage insurance, or PMI. Private mortgage insurance, although paid by the homeowner, is designed to protect lenders from mortgage default risk, and it is usually required when the homeowner has less than 20 percent equity in his or her home. While most industry standards allow for cancellation of PMI once the 20 percent equity level is achieved, homeowners are not always aware of how it can be terminated. It is estimated that some borrowers are paying $240 to $1,200 annually for mortgage insurance that is no longer needed. By requiring that automatic termination of PMI when insurance is no longer necessary and by requiring mortgage companies and other financial institutions to provide homeowners with information on the terms and conditions of this insurance and how it can be canceled, S. 318 protects homeowners from paying for PMI after all parties in the mortgage process agree that it is no longer needed. Over the last 30 years, the mortgage financial markets have evolved with innovative products that leverage private sector resources in a manner that facilitates and expands affordable home ownership opportunities. In fact, the United States home ownership rate is at a record level today, with 66 percent of Americans owning their own home. The Senate bill, S. 318, will further enhance home ownership opportunities by making home ownership less expensive and by providing the industry with clear and certain Federal rules on when and how mortgage insurance can be canceled. The bill before us, which represents a compromise agreed to by the Senate Committee on Banking, is based on legislation originally introduced by the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen). The gentleman's firsthand difficulties in canceling PMI and the mortgage secured by his condominium led him to introduce legislation, H.R. 607, on this subject. The Committee on Banking and Financial Services reported out the Hansen bill on March 20, 1997, and the full House approved by a vote of 421 to 7 on April 16, 1997. The Senate followed suit last fall in approving its version of PMI legislation, which is before the House today. The homeowner protections contained in this bill cover owners of condominiums and cooperatives as well as owners of single-family detached homes. Under S. 318, the PMI disclosure and cancellation mandates cover residential mortgages and mortgage transactions for single-family dwellings. In the context of this legislation, the term ``single-family dwellings'' applies to condominium and cooperative home ownership arrangements. In closing, I would like to thank my colleague, the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen), for his perseverance in his fight for the average homeowner, and the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Roukema), the gentleman from New York (Mr. Lazio), the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaFalce), the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Vento), the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Kennedy), the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters), the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) and other members of this committee who have been such constructive participants in crafting the legislation before the House today. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute simply to offer a clarification. On the two-year provision, let me just clarify that States that have laws can further modify these laws during a two-year period, but the laws will stay in effect as long as the State wants to keep those laws in effect. So it is not a cancellation of the law itself.

Mr. LEACH. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 242, I was inadvertently detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 243, I was inadvertently detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Chairman, first I want to reflect great respect for the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan) for their leadership on this issue. Secondly, let me just say that over my time in the United States Congress we have seen a number of changes that have occurred in the American political system. One that has become ever apparent is that as the political system becomes more and more hallmarked by the need for financing, candidates become increasingly tied to those who make the largest campaign contributions. The system is in need of reform. One aspect of this relates to an old-fashioned word used in the 19th century, not much in the 20th, and that is the word ``oligarchy.'' As systems of governance become based upon a few influencing the many, they are called oligarchies and they are not democracies. Democracy is what is at issue today. The second trend that is extraordinary is that our Founding Fathers thought of a system of governance in which people would be elected from various parts of the country and bring to Washington the background of that part of the country. But as campaign giving is nationalized, attitudes are nationalized, and what we are seeing is the nationalization of elections. Instead of people becoming first and foremost accountable to the people in their districts, they are becoming first and foremost accountable to the people that influence the people in their districts. Shays-Meehan, in my judgment, represents a first small but substantive step to put the people back in power.

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this bill. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today in support of H.R. 3156, a bill to present a congressional gold medal to one of the towering figures of the 20th century, Nelson Mandela. President Mandela is one of the most remarkable individuals of our time. His extraordinary personal devotion and sacrifice on behalf of multi-racial democracy in South Africa is an inspiration not only to the people of South Africa, but the United States and the world. President Mandela is a powerful symbol of courage, determination, hope, and perhaps above all, the uplifting power and majesty of mankind's enduring search for right in a world too often overwhelmed by wrongs. As many Members recall, the struggle for a free South Africa presented a troubling philosophical dilemma for two conservative administrations in Washington. While the first Republican presidency chose to risk war rather than compromise principles to end extremist apartheid--slavery--the last two Republican administrations preferred to work with rather than against the former white-led government in Pretoria in an effort to help abolish apartheid in as civil and bloodless a way as possible. Fortunately, Washington found in F.W. de Klerk an establishment leader with the courage to change and in Nelson Mandela a uniquely martyred aspirant. Together in competitive combination they produced a unusually civilized political phenomenon-- evolutionary revolution. While economic sanctions seldom work, it was my view and that of our former colleague Ron Dellums and others that the U.S. had no ethical or political alternative except to embrace sanctions. Ending apartheid in this century was as great a moral imperative as ending slavery was in the last. Nonetheless, too often we forget the distinction between governments and their people, and too often sanctions aimed at punishing governments punish people. One of the important models of U.S. policy is thus to understand why sanctions were not only appropriate but proved workable in South Africa. The key, it seems to me, is that they were overwhelmingly supported by the majority of the South African populace and their leaders such as Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela led a revolution from prison, and, to the astonishment of the world, succeeded without irreparable violence. For a victim of racism to champion multiculturalism rather than reverse racism reflects a largeness of spirit that merits the appreciation not only of his country but the community of nations, most particularly this one. I therefore urge support for this very symbolic legislation.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker. I rise today in support of H.R. 3156, a bill to present a congressional gold medal to one of the towering figures of the 20th century, Nelson Mandela. President Mandela is one of the most remarkable individuals of our time. His extraordinary personal devotion and sacrifice on behalf of multi-racial democracy in South Africa is an inspiration not only to the people of South Africa, but the United States and the world. President Mandela is a powerful symbol of courage, determination, hope, and perhaps above all, the uplifting power and majesty of mankind's enduring search for right in a world too often overwhelmed by wrongs. As many Members recall, the struggle for a free South Africa presented a troubling philosophical dilemma for two conservative administrations in Washington. While the first Republican presidency chose to risk war rather than compromise principles to end extremist apartheid--slavery--the last two Republican administrations preferred to work with rather than against the former white-led government in Pretoria in an effort to help abolish apartheid in as civil and bloodless a way as possible. Fortunately, Washington found in F.W. de Klerk an establishment leader with the courage to change and in Nelson Mandela a uniquely martyred aspirant. Together in competitive combination they produced an unusually civilized political phenomenon-- evolutionary revolution. While economic sanctions seldom work, it was my view and that of our former colleague Ron Dellums and other leaders outside Congress such as Randall Robinson that the U.S. had no ethical or political alternative except to embrace sanctions. Ending apartheid in this century was as great a moral imperative as ending slavery was in the last. Nonetheless, too often we forget the distinction between governments and their people, and too often sanctions aimed at punishing governments punish people. One of the most important models of U.S. policy is thus to understand why sanctions were not only appropriate but proved workable in South Africa. The key, it seems to me, is that they were overwhelmingly supported by the majority of the South African populace and their legitimate though unelected leaders such as Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela led a revolution from prison and, to the astonishment of the world, succeeded without unleashing either irreparable violence or counter-productive retribution. For a victim of racism to champion multiculturalism rather than reverse racism reflects a largeness of spirit that merits the appreciation not only his country but the community of nations, most particularly this one. I therefore urge support for this very symbolic legislation.

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, over the past several years, financial engineers in our great banks and securities houses have come up with scores of new products that have kept the United States far in the lead as the world's preeminent financial market place. None of these new-age products has been more successful than derivative financial instruments, which, as the name suggests, derive their value from the worth of an underlying product, such as a precious metal, the interest rate of a government bond or stock index. Derivatives enable banks, corporations, mutual funds, pension funds-- indeed, anyone with a substantial portfolio--to mitigate risks from volatility in interest rates, commodity prices and equity values. There is hardly anyone in America today who has physically touched, but who has not been indirectly touched by financial derivative instruments. Banks pioneered the over-the-counter derivatives markets and, though other important financial institutions have followed suit, banks still account for more than two thirds of the business in swaps and other O- T-C instruments. That market today has a so-called notional value of several trillion dollars, and the American share of it has added to the health of our financial services sector. Our fragmented and antiquated financial laws and regulations, however, threaten American leadership in that sector of the industry. The fact that new financial products don't easily fit definitions that were written long before these products were invented has produced legal uncertainty in some critical areas like swap contracts and trades in hybrid instruments--uncertainty that some regulators may have exacerbated by a drive to enlarge bureaucratic turf. As a result, some of this home-grown financial business has moved out of our great financial centers--to place like London, where counterparties to a swap agreement can be certain that the sanctity of their contract is secure and not, as it might be here, vulnerable to the whims of a regulator insufficiently apprised that people don't like to do business in markets where the sanctity of their contracts may be in doubt. Technology has transformed the financial services industry in the last few years, and the onrush of change continues. If the gaps and ambiguities in our statutes are not corrected, and corrected soon, our financial markets may lose even more business. There must be consistency, coordination and clarity in our regulations of derivative instruments. Our laws and regulations must be harmonized so that regulatory turf battles can be lessened and regulatory arbitrage eliminated. I have not been impressed with the activities of our current coordinating bodies, like the President's Working Group of Financial Markets, which are supposed to sort out conflicts among financial regulators and produce decisions balancing public and private interests. In Congressional testimony last week, Chairman Brooksley Born of the CFTC said the President's Working Group simply doesn't do much, and that it's up to each agency to act within its own statutory authority. But I'm not impressed either by the efforts of one agency unilaterally to gain control of over-the-counter markets. Effective regulation of derivatives markets has profound consequences on consumers and industry alike. The public needs fair and efficient markets, markets in which it can have complete confidence. Financial institutions need sensible regulation that will neither impair its ability to innovate nor burden it with onerous requirements. And both public and industry need regulations and regulators who can keep up with the pace of technological change without driving market participants to less prudential foreign markets. The bill I am introducing today would create a study group to bring the laws and regulations of over-the-counter markets up to date. The Working Group on Financial Derivatives will be chaired by the Secretary of the Treasury and include the principal banking and financial market overseers. They will be asked to devise changes that will clarify and, I hope, simplify and rationalize our current crazy quilt of regulations and regulators. They will have one year to make their recommendations to Congress. Mr. Speaker, it isn't only the United States which needs clarity in financial regulation. The financial business is a global business, and it can, and does, shift from one market to another almost on a moment's notice in response to regulatory pressure. If we are to end regulatory arbitrage--the practice in which business moves to the most lightly regulated markets, and regulators compete for business by offering the lightest regulations--we must approach this multinationally. My bill would ask the Administration to enter into negotiations with the objective of establishing comparable regulation in the world's principal financial centers. Markets here and abroad should be efficient, transparent, and fair to their customers. The safety and soundness of the world financial system depends on it. Below is the financial derivatives bill:

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3662) to establish a commission to examine issues pertaining to the disposition of Holocaust-era assets in the United States before, during, and after World War II, and to make recommendations to the President on further action, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, let me just say in conclusion that I want to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaFalce), my good friend, for his co- leadership of this issue and my two distinguished friends who have spoken today.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Foley), who has worked so hard, particularly on related insurance issues and is an author of a principal part of this bill.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table the Senate bill (S. 1900) to establish a commission to examine the issues pertaining to the disposition of Holocaust-era assets in the United States before, during, and after World War II, and to make recommendations to the President on further action, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 3662, the United States Holocaust Assets Commission Act. The legislation enjoys broad bipartisan support, as well as the endorsement of the administration. For nearly 3 years Congress and the administration have sought answers to questions about Nazi transactions and holdings in Switzerland and other neutral or occupied countries during World War II. The Committee on Banking and Financial Services has held a series of comprehensive hearings, really historical inquiries, on these issues. The research, including two interagency reports on U.S. and allied efforts to recover Nazi-plundered gold and other assets, revealed a broad pattern of neglect and denial of the truth. The latest hearing, held last week, included thoughtful testimony from Under Secretary of State Stuart Eizenstat on the second of these interagency reports, which further documented the role of certain neutral countries in World War II. Neutrality in the face of evil and on a personal and collective level is worthy of review by citizens of any age, particularly this one, where human relations had become complicated by unprecedentedly inventive instruments of war. If we as legislators are to discharge our public duties responsibly, we must develop an understanding of the evil of the Holocaust, and how many countries, including our own, responded at a time civilization was so violently challenged. In the process of preparing reports on others, the United States has an obligation to look at its own record during the war. We have reason to take pride in the great sacrifices of American Armed Forces in combatting the Wehrmacht, but we also must remember that we did not open our doors to Jewish refugees during the war, even after our leadership had learned that Hitler had marked European Jews for extermination. We accepted only 21,000 Jewish refugees during the war, fewer than Switzerland in absolute terms, and fewer per capita than most other neutral countries. In this context, one of the issues which remains unresolved and which H.R. 3662 is specifically designed to address is that of assets of Holocaust victims which may have been located in the United States. In the years following World War II, Congress recognized that some of the assets held in this country under nominal German or Swiss ownership may, in fact, have belonged to Jewish victims of the Holocaust who sent their assets abroad for safekeeping. For that reason Congress, 35 years ago, authorized up to $3 million in claims for such heirless assets to provide relief and rehabilitation for needy Holocaust survivors. However, the political difficulties associated with such a commitment led Congress ultimately to settle on a $500,000 contribution. Although the document record and asset ownership was and still is sparse, it is likely that heirless assets in the U.S. were worth more than the 1962 settlement figure. Today we have the opportunity to approve legislation which will resolve this question. It is fitting for the United States to undertake this task and practice what it preaches to others. To date, more than a dozen countries, including Switzerland, have formed historical committees or commissions to study their role and attitudes during the war period. H.R. 3662 would bring the United States into parity with other nations by creating a similar body. The commission proposed under this bill would be composed of 21 individuals, including 8 Members of the House and Senate. Their mandate and responsibility would be to research and determine what happened to any Holocaust victims' assets that came under Federal Government control after January 30, 1933, the day Hitler came to power in Germany. The assets would be defined broadly to include everything from bank accounts and securities to real estate and rare books. The commission would report its findings to the President and the Congress no later than December 31, 1999, with a goal as we enter the new millennium of helping to bring one of the darkest chapters in human history to a compassionate closure. Moral quandaries are central to restitution issues. As one of our hearing witnesses, Professor Leora Baznitzky, noted, the Nazis robbed Holocaust victims not only of their possessions and lives, but also their memories of their existence on this earth. Another witness, Professor Mark Larrimore, underlined this point. The map, he observed, with the help of which we try to orient ourselves as human beings, trying to live good and decent lives, is a map with Auschwitz on it. Inquiries into the nature of evil and how to behave in the face of it are not the normal stuff of governmental review. In this case, however, such questions are relevant not only to the behavior of all countries involved in World War II, including our own, but to the question of establishing retrospective justice, and the broader responsibility of each generation of leadership to learn from the past. Our century has been indelibly marked by the Holocaust, and our perception of human nature has been profoundly altered by it. It is imperative that every credible review effort be undertaken, of which this is one. Accordingly, I urge my colleagues to give this legislation broad bipartisan support. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to my good friend, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman), a distinguished cosponsor of this particular bill. (Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. LEACHh asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the bill just passed.

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, few issues are more difficult for a legislative body to deal with than those that affect religion. At issue today is the question of whether the First Amendment to the Constitution should, in effect, be modified. The approach brought forward today represents an attempt to ensure that the faith which founds our lives as individuals and the religious values that bind us together as a society can have free expression. This is an honorable and most worthy motive and the only credible grounds for opposition must be based on the assumption that the First Amendment to the Constitution crafted by Jefferson and Madison is a greater protection of prayer and worship than the approach brought before us today. The question this House must answer is thus whether expressions of faith in America will be freer with or without this proposed amendment. My view is that the Constitution as it currently is written, which carries with it certain court decisions which at times are perplexing, nevertheless better protects freedom of religion than the well-meaning but potentially counterproductive language of the proposed amendment. I reach this conclusion reluctantly, because I realize this amendment is championed by individuals and groups which have the well-being of our children, families, and Nation at heart. I also realize we are considering this amendment at a time when a seeming epidemic of lethal violence perpetrated in some instances by children against children has led to deeply troubling questions as to how and even whether the faith and values that have sustained this country for over two centuries can be transmitted to the next generation of Americans. Yet I am convinced that faith will be freer and thus more meaningful under the Constitution as it is now crafted than under the strictures under consideration today. Nowhere more than in the First Amendment is the genius of our Nation's founders more clearly revealed. Its sixteen words--``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof''--establish for the first time in human history that coercion would be replaced with persuasion in the religious life of a people. The founders understood that citizens derive their values from faith, but that faith should be practiced willingly, not on demand. Proselytizing under the Constitution can only occur with permission, not compulsion. I believe Congress would be wise to validate the appropriateness of moments of silent prayer or meditation in public schools, but for all its good intentions, the amendment before us opens the door to the authorization of majority-crafted spoken prayer in public schools. To say that children need not participate and would, for example, be free to leave the room is to deny the coercive power of peer pressure on young people. As a Member of Congress, I frequently visit schools. When the prayer in school issue is raised, students are generally divided. But to the question: ``Assuming prayer is required, would you prefer spoken prayer or a moment of silence?'' every class I have spoken to has overwhelmingly indicated a preference for silent prayer or meditation. ``Group prayer,'' one 9th grader told me, ``would embarrass too many of my friends . . . It would be unfair.'' My advice to the students I talk to is to pray at home, pray in church, pray in school and on the playground, but pray in your way, alone with God, and don't forget to pray for tolerance and those of differing faiths. Moreover, no matter how carefully and sincerely stated, any prayer, especially if written by an official or arm of the State--i.e., teacher, principal or school board--can too easily offend members of one or another Christian denomination. For some, a ``non- denominational'' prayer that makes no mention of Jesus Christ would lack depth. For Protestants and Roman Catholics, the difference regarding the status of Mary and the saints and the role of the church hierarchy is profound. For Jews and Christians, piety takes very different expressions. For Muslims, prayer involves turning toward Mecca and prostrating one's self. For Islam prayer is adoration of Allah, involving no requests and asking no blessings, as most Christian prayers do. For the son or daughter of Vietnamese-American Buddhists a ``voluntary'' prayer satisfactory to Southern Baptists or the Eastern Orthodox is likely to be unintelligible. James Shannon, one of the most thoughtful theologians of our times, points out that in both the Hebraic and Christian traditions, specific modes of prayer, going back to Mosaic and early Christian times, distinctly demarcate the prayer lives of scripturally oriented Jews and Christians. The name of God, Shannon notes, is so sacred in the Mosaic code that it is to be used seldom in prayer or speech. Hence the preference in Hebraic prayers for alternative expressions that praise the majesty and other attributes of God without specifically mentioning the sacred name of Yahweh. For Jews there are right and wrong ways to conduct a conversation with God, and it is unlikely a public school board is a competent institutional forum for developing modes of prayer inoffensive to Jewish students. At the same time, because prayer is the most intimate expression of the human mind and heart, anything prepared with the specific intent of being inoffensive to all would be form without substance, not prayer in any genuinely spiritual sense. Such an empty effort would be demeaning to sincerely religious individuals and run the risk of leading children to view religion as just another expression of the hypocrisy they already see in so much of the adult world. On a more mundane level, the amendment before us would permit--or by some readings even require--the government to fund religious activities on the same basis it does secular activities. This would violate the constitutional principle that taxpayers not be forced to support religious institutions. It would also open the door to an unseemly and contentious competition between religious groups for public funds. More importantly, government funding inexorably leads to government regulation, which would precipitate a most pernicious unintended consequence. Government regulation would undermine the autonomy of religious organizations and in the process rob churches, synagogues, mosques and temples of the vital prophetic role they play in America's national life. In the United States there is no state ``Church.'' But by recent count there are thousands of organized religious groups which provide solace and inspiration to the individual believers who belong to them. Without intending to do so the amendment before us could undermine the ability of these institutions to serve as independent, vibrant witnesses to our nation on behalf of the values on which they are founded. Our founding fathers established a Nation ``under God,'' one in which revolution against British authority was premised upon ``self-evident'' individual rights and an appeal to a higher law of conscience which precedes the more mundane civil laws of society. But in appealing to conscience to justify a revolutionary government, America's first citizens labored carefully to construct, in Jefferson's terms, a wall between church and state. When erecting this Constitutional barrier between church and state, the crafters of the Bill of Rights looked inward to well as outward and turned a wary eye to the American as well as European experience. They fully understood that it was religious authoritarianism in Europe that drew many of the early settlers to our shores, but that upon arriving in the New World, some like the Puritans invoked a rather exclusionary discipline of their own, with witchcraft trials and stocks and pillories used to coerce alleged nonbelievers. ``Who does not see,'' Madison warned, ``the same authority which can establish Christianity in exclusion of all other religions may establish, with the same care, any particular sect of Christians in exclusion of all other sects?'' The strength of the haven we have provided for oppressed people the world over comes from a tolerance for diversity rather than an enforced conformity. It is sometimes suggested by politicians that God has been excluded from the public schools and that we must amend the Constitution to put God back into our schools. Is this not blasphemy? Just as the Supreme Court cannot keep God out of our schools, Congress cannot put Him back in. God is not an object like a bicycle or candy bar. He is the Creator of Heaven and Earth, and anyone--adult or child--may speak to Him from the heart whenever and wherever they are moved to do so. As long as human tribulations exist--whether caused by a math test or unreturned glance--prayer will not be locked out of schools. Twenty years ago, in the seminal decision of the Supreme Court banning group prayer in public school, Justice Hugo Black wrote that the Establishment Clause ``stands as an expression of principle on the part of the Founders of our Constitution that religion is too personal, too sacred, too holy, to permit its `unhallowed perversion' by a civil magistrate,'' Justice Black went on to say of the faith in the power of prayer which animated so many of the authors of the Constitution: These men knew that the First Amendment, which tried to put an end to government control of religion and of prayer, was not written to destroy either. They knew rather that it was written to quiet well-justified fears which nearly all of them felt arising out of an awareness that governments of the past had shackled men's tongues to make them speak only the religious thoughts that government wanted them to speak and to pray only to the God that government wanted them to pray to. It is neither sacrilegious nor antireligious to say that each separate government in this county should stay out of the business of writing or sanctioning official prayers and leave that purely religious function to the people themselves and to those the people choose to look to for religious guidance. Rather than stifling prayer or religious worship, the principal purpose of the First Amendment is to preserve religion in the United States from the inevitably corrupting influence of secular authorities. Finally, that individual to whom Christians look first for religious guidance, Jesus of Nazareth, warns in the Sermon on the Mount to ``beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them.'' He goes on to say in Matthew 6:6, ``When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.'' Prayer is an expression of the individual soul's longing for God as the source of all that is true, good, and beautiful. As such, it is far too central a part of life to be tampered with by any government body, be it a local school board or the Congress of the United States. While the arguments of those who would tamper with our Bill of Rights are not persuasive to this Member, the premise of their arguments cannot be lightly dismissed. America is indeed in need of a spiritual awakening. Evidence mounts every day of the breaking down of family bonds and governmental ethics. But to transfer to the state responsibilities that historically have been the province of the church and family is the ultimate in welfare statism. Americans must come to understand that there are no easy panaceas to moral challenges and no public substitutes for the inculcation of personal values at home. As for public life, the best reflection of faith is that of example. There is no substitute.