John Linder

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I do not have any other speakers at this time, and I will reserve the right to close the debate.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Ganske].

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon], the chairman of the committee.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Cox], the author of the amendment for which we bent the rule.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Bilirakis].

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Schiff].

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I offer an amendment.

Mr. LINDER. Yes, Mr. Speaker. amendment offered by mr. linder

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, the amendment is at the desk, it has been made available to the minority side, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 109 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. LINDER. I yield to the gentleman from New York. (Mr. SOLOMON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon], chairman of the committee.

Mr. LINDER. I yield to the gentlewoman from Colorado.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Frost], pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 108 provides for 2 hours of general debate on H.R. 956, the Common Sense Legal Standards Reform Act. Such time is to be divided equally between the chairmen and the ranking minority members of the Judiciary and Commerce committees, after which time the Committee will rise without motion. Mr. Speaker, this is a rather simple rule which will not require a great amount of discussion. The House has completed 3 days of dialog on the first two components of legal reform, and House Resolution 108 simply assures a full discussion of H.R. 956. This rule is designed to allow the House to continue this week's historic discussion over how to restore sanity to our Nation's legal system. These critical reforms will benefit virtually of general debate provides ample time to discuss these reforms that will limit the devastating legal costs on the U.S. economy and the American work force. The Committee on Rules had delayed reporting the second component of this rule until earlier this afternoon in order to provide more time to consult with the minority and the leadership. It has been our intention to present the minority with every opportunity to offer and vote on amendments to the principal sections of this bill, and the Rules Committee wanted to guarantee an additional day of discussions to provide Members on both sides of the aisle with this opportunity. The majority has supported, these measures in the past, and I am pleased that House Resolution 108 was reported favorably from the Rules Committee yesterday by voice vote. I urge my colleagues to support this rule, and I look forward to a thoughtful and deliberative debate on all of the significant issues raised by this bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules I call up House Resolution 108 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde]. (Mr. HYDE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Dreier]. (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hoke].

Mr. LINDER. The language the gentlewoman used, that this is taking away the right to sue, has an Alice-in-Wonderland quality about it. The gentleman from Michigan who says this is the most egregious rule he has ever seen has a very short memory, because less than a year ago on the assault weapons ban, no amendments were allowed from either side at any time, a totally closed rule, an up-or-down vote. As a matter of fact, this is not a 6-hour debate, this is a 12-hour debate. We have taken out the time for voting which your side has consistently asked us to do in the Committee on Rules. Six hours of actual debating on amendments. Let me just say that the gentleman from Michigan was debating not this rule. This rule is about 2 hours of general debate. He was debating tomorrow's rule. Tomorrow's rule, he was speaking about with the time frames. As a matter of fact, tomorrow's rule has eight amendments in order from Democrats, six from Republicans and one bipartisan. I think it was just about March or May of last year when we were given the choice of voting up or down on the assault weapons ban with no opportunities for amendments. I think this is hardly more egregious than that. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Heineman].

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, for the purposes of debate only, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Goss]. (Mr. GOSS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of our time. Mr. Speaker, I realize that it is fun and interesting to debate the bill while discussing the rule, and tonight we debated tomorrow's rule instead of tonight's rule about which I will make just a couple of references. It is a fact that the minority was offered an opportunity to prioritize their amendments and tell us which ones, in their judgment, were most important. They did not do that. It is also true that of the 82 amendments that were printed on our desks for roughly 2 days both during the hearing and during the markup of this bill, there were eight to nine substantive idea differences. We had many amendments offered changing the cap, abolishing the cap; we had many amendments offered changing joint and several. We made a sincere effort to find in each of the areas where there were substantive differences and ideas to find the amendment to be voted on at that time, to debate it and vote on that idea. If the amendments that are put forth, the 14 amendments or 15 amendments, 8 Democrat, 6 Republican, and 1 bipartisan, if they pass, it will dramatically alter this bill if it passes and goes to the Senate. The changes are substantive. They are sincere, and they are real. The debate will be long tomorrow and the next day on the substance of the amendments. The opportunity for the amendments to be voted on is rather unique, in my experience here, because we did not have opportunities in the last Congress to offer many amendments at all. I urge my colleagues to remember just this: The rule we are voting on tonight says this, tonight there will be 2 hours of general debate on the bill, divided between the ranking members and the chairmen of the two committees, Judiciary and Commerce. That is it. That is hardly, hardly a difficult rule to take, and I urge my colleagues to support the rule.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. In response to the gentlewoman's comment that we are taking away the right to sue, only in Alice in Wonderland does that kind of language suffice. It reminds me of the character in one of those Alice-in- Wonderland stories that said, ``When I use a word, it means exactly what I want it to mean.''

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, there are corporate fat cat contributors on both sides of this, I suspect. The trial lawyers contributed $2 million to the folks on the other side. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Coble].

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Madam Speaker, this past week in a press conference with the President's Presidential press secretary, we heard him say that, ``Prime Minister Rabin is calling. I think it is fair for us to say because he is upset and alarmed by the action taken in the House of Representatives to cut back on funding in the fiscal year 1995 supplemental bill for debt forgiveness for Jordan.'' While he said that, we do not know if that is why Prime Minister Rabin was calling. We have learned that very often what this White House says has no relation to the facts, but that is what he said. He further said the President told the Prime Minister in candor that we face a very tough audience on Capitol Hill. ``This is an example of the tilt toward isolation that you now see in the Republican-dominated Congress.'' That is vintage Bill Clinton, blame the other guy, ``I didn't do it, I am trying to help you, the devil made me do it, the dog ate my lunch, the dog ate my homework.'' Madam Speaker, the President's entrance into the Middle East is to first make it partisan and to politicize foreign affairs. It is most shameful that it is done in one of the most troubled areas of the world. Why does he do this? Because for 2\1/2\ years this Nation has lacked a coherent global vision, a global view. What are our U.S. national security interests? When I look across world, I see our friends in NATO, the former Soviet bloc, it is absolutely in the interests of the United States that the former Soviet-bloc nations discover that capitalism and freedom work. I see our increasingly important trading partners on the Pacific rim and, of course, the tinderbox for the world, the Middle East. And where are our troops that are supposed to be the shield of the Republic and the shield of our foreign affairs? Our troops are in Rwanda, Somalia, Haiti, Cambodia, Macedonia, northern Iraq, hardly a reflection of a coherent world view. The peace process today in the Middle East has been carried out without United States leadership. This is the first administration of the last four that has shown no interest in leadership in the Middle East peace process. The PLO agreement was reached, not in the United States, but in Oslo. Of course, the great handshake took place on the south lawn, but we were not involved until after the agreement had been reached. The Jordanian-Israeli agreements were bilateral. The agreements were signed on the south lawn, but we were not there in the leadership. But lacking any domestic agenda this year, the President has decided to weigh in on the Middle East and has done so by politicizing it and making it partisan. He can do something about this right in his own administration. Israel is a nation that is in a defensive posture, with armed aggressors all around her, and is building a defensive ARROW missile system for protection to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles. We now have an Arms Control and Disarmament Agency that has been in effect since 1972--and an ABM agreement--that is negotiating further agreements with former Soviet-bloc nations for reasons that absolutely escape me. We are the only Nation that can add to the technology required for a bullet to intercept a bullet. We have done that with the ERINT missile, called the PAC-3, built by Rockwell. But this administration, under what I presume to be simply bureaucratic inertia, has chosen to limit further technological advances in this intercept missile technology to 3 kilometers per second, precisely what we have now. I do not know why we would want to limit any future technology, since there is not a nation in the world competing with us in this technology, why would we ask them to agree with us to limit what we can do? Mr. President, if you want to do something about the Middle East and for the future safety of this very vulnerable friend in this troubled part of the world, abolish the Arms Control protect herself.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, Georgia's Governor Zell Miller favors the Republican school lunch plan. Nineteen of the Nation's governors want the money and the flexibility to feed the children of their State. It does not take a straight A student to conclude that if we do not feed the Federal bureaucrats we can feed many more children. Republican trust local leaders to make better spending decisions than the Federal Government. The creativity of the Governors, State legislatures and parents will be critical to our block grant programs. They will decide where their money is spent. Imagine that. Individuals and localities, not the Federal Government, will decide how to spend their own money. That is what the November revolution was all about. This is the kind of change that we promised and it truly frightens the pencil-pushers in Washington. Money is power, and the Republicans aim to return that money and power to the States and the people. Governor Miller--a Democrat--said it best, ``Give us the money. We can use it more effectively and efficiently than any Federal bureaucrat.''