Trent Lott

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. I yield the floor, Mr. President. Mr. BURNS addressed the Chair.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I would like to make a brief statement to explain my vote that I will cast later on today. I know we are having interesting discussion, and this is one that has been a long time coming, getting this judgeship to the floor of the Senate for a vote. Obviously, there has been support for this nominee by Senator Hatch and by Senator Specter and others. Senator Leahy has been pushing to get these judges voted on. This is the first one of the year. I presume this is a celebratory event.

Mr. LOTT. I yield the floor.

Mr. LOTT. But now maybe I can comment just briefly on why it has taken so long. There were a lot of factors involved. I will vote not to confirm Merrick Garland to be a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals judge. I have no opposition to Mr. Garland himself. I think he is qualified. I think he has experience that would be helpful. And I think his disposition is acceptable, too. In fact, based on all the reports that I have heard about him, I think he more than likely would be a much more acceptable nominee to this court as compared to many of the other nominees we have considered or may be considering in the future. It is my belief that this court of appeals is more than adequately staffed based on the number of cases pending on the court's docket, the filings per judge at this court as it is currently staffed for the year ending September, 1996, with the trend of such filings over the last several years, and in comparison to other workloads of circuit courts of appeal around the country. It is very small. I think as compared to others certainly they have more judges than they need. I am looking at this chart over here. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals is at the bottom end of the caseload, and yet you have other circuit courts across the country--my own circuit, the fifth, is about in the middle. The eleventh circuit obviously has a high caseload as compared to this particular court. So I really do not think this confirmation is needed. Even if it does get through, I want to say right now that regardless of the next nominee, unless this caseload is dramatically turned around, I hope it would never even be considered regardless of how qualified the nominee may be, he or she, in a Democratic administration. I recognize that some circuits do have tremendous caseloads, but this is certainly not the case in this circuit, and therefore I will vote against the nomination based on that. In fact, I just do not think an additional judge is needed in this district court of appeals. I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record a list of the filings per judge in 1996 and the total appeals docket in 1995 per judge that shows as compared to other circuits this judge is not needed.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I am delighted to take part in introducing the first bipartisan family tax relief bill of the 105th Congress--the Estate Tax Relief for the American Family Act. Today, the Government can confiscate up to 55 percent of an estate in tax when a person dies. This tax is a grotesque relic of an earlier era when some people believed it was the Government's job to determine who should be allowed to keep what they earn. They believed it was the Federal Government's job to confiscate the hard-earned dollars of working Americans when they died. The estate tax is a monster that must be exterminated. If it were up to me, we would simply repeal the estate tax in its entirety. Unfortunately, our budget process does not allow us to completely repeal this tax all at once. We must do it in stages. Therefore, the bill we are introducing today will increase the amount of every estate that will be exempt from estate tax. When fully phased in, up to $1 million will be automatically excluded from every estate before imposition of the estate tax. The bill also creates a new category of excludable assets for family- owned businesses that are passed on to succeeding generations. No longer will small business owners be forced to sell part or all of their business assets merely to feed the voracious tax appetite of the Federal Government. Our bill allows an exclusion of $1.5 million of the assets of a family-owned business from the estate tax, and 50 percent of the next $8.5 million. For many small businesses this will make the difference between staying viable and closing their doors. It will preserve jobs, give many communities around the country stability and certainty, and encourage entrepreneurship. It is the right thing to do for our farmers, for our ranchers, for every American who owns a small business that he or she wishes to keep in the family. These businesses are, after all, the engines of prosperity in communities across America, and we must help them to remain so. This bill is the first step. The tax on death should be zero, and that is what we will continue to work for. I want to thank Senator Grassley for his leadership on this bill, and Senator Baucus and Senator Breaux as well for joining in this bipartisan effort to reduce the crushing tax load on all Americans.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Will the Senator yield? As further evidence, if I could, I gave the Democratic leader yesterday and members of our conference--and I presume it was given to the Democratic caucus--a list of items that we anticipate we will consider prior to the Memorial Day recess. It includes nuclear waste, supplemental appropriations, the TEAM Act, comptime, flextime, legislation regarding chemical weapons, the Chemical Weapons Convention treaty, and others. It is on our list of things that we anticipate will be considered before we come back.

Mr. LOTT. As the distinguished Senator knows, if he will yield, Mr. President, the scheduling does to a large degree rest in the hands of the majority leader. But it is usually done in coordination with both sides of the aisle. Like on the Mexico certification, or decertification, issue, quite often it can be objected to. I mean that, if I today proceeded to call up the House-passed version with the idea of offering a bipartisan substitute to it, we would have to get agreement to do that. The other option is to just call up decertification, which we could do, and start the 10-hour process running. The point, though, is that you have to work with a lot of different parties. And I intend to do that. I think the decision will come up in April, and we will work in the direction to say that we can get it up by a date certain. Once again, I think it might raise expectations beyond what is achievable. But we are continuing to work on that, and we are going to do it this very day.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, one thing is that I do not want to mislead the Senator with regard to the probability of hearings. I assume that was a possibility. I do not think it needs long hearings. But I think a day or two--and I have not asked for those or called for them, and the chairman may or may not feel that they are needed. So I may have mislead when I was indicating that we are talking about another whole round of hearings. I agree with the Senator. I do not think a lot of hearings need to be done again. But I wanted to clarify that point. I didn't mean to infer that we were going through a long list or that a decision has been made. But it is something that I have asked: Is there going to be a need for a hearing on a day or so before action could occur? It could. There is another point. I want to commend the Senator from Arizona, Senator Kyl, who has spent a lot of time and has worked on these issues when he was in the House Armed Services Committee and continues to be very interested in them. He is very knowledgeable when you talk about article X, article XI, and all of the ramifications. He knows what is in this convention. He has very legitimate concerns, some of which have been addressed in a way that I think the Senator from Massachusetts would agree with and find acceptable. Others are still open, and there is time to work on those. I want to recognize the work of Senator Kyl. He may want to respond or comment on some of what has been said here today. I just wanted to make that one clarification.

Mr. LOTT. As the Senator from Massachusetts recalls, this issue was reported by the committee in the last Congress, and I made a commitment in connection with other bills that we would bring it to a vote. In fact, I believe it was scheduled for a vote, or we were moving toward a vote. But for a variety of reasons--and there is no use rehashing the history of it--the Secretary of State called and asked that we pull it back and not force it to a vote last year. We honored that request. This year, there have been a number of discussions. The President did call and ask that we meet with his Director of the NSC, Sandy Berger, to talk about how we could bring it to a conclusion. At his request, I did meet with him, and Senator Helms met with him. Other Senators that are interested have been talking with the President's representative. And we continue to work on that. I think some good progress has been made as a result of those meetings. Some conditionalities have been more or less agreed to. Of course, until it is final, it is never final. Some have been agreed to, some are still being discussed, and some probably will have to have amendments or votes on them when it comes to the floor of the Senate. The Senator is absolutely right. We have made a decision to destroy our chemical weapons. That is a fact. We are doing that. He is also right that a number of countries have ratified that treaty; some very important ones have not. Not only the United States has not, but neither has Russia. The indications are that they may or may not. Of course, neither has Iran. There are some real questions that are legitimate questions on both sides of this issue. One of them is, of course, the verification question. How do you verify what some of the rogue countries may or may not be doing? How do you deal with some of the questions about things like the poison gas that we have seen in Japan? How do you deal with an issue like tear gas being used in our country? Also, there are very important questions like constitutional questions with regard to search and seizure in our country. The administration representative indicated, yes, that is an area where there is concern, and we need to work on that. Work has been done, and we continue to work on it. This week, I met with the chairman of the committee and talked through where we are and how we can continue to proceed on this matter. I have talked to other Senators on both sides of the aisle and both sides of the issue, as to how we can move it forward. I talked to Mr. Berger again and I urged him to do a couple things. One of those things is to seriously address, with the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, some very important parallel issues. Although they are not necessarily tied together on a parallel basis, they are related and of great concern. The State Department reauthorization. In the previous year, I think the State Department kind of indicated, no, we don't want to do anything. That is not a tenable position. I don't think that is the administration's position. I think the new Secretary of State has indicated that she understands and wants to do some of these things and has been talking to the chairman about that. I am hoping that additional conversations are occurring on that today between the Secretary of State and the chairman of the committee. In another parallel issue, for this very afternoon I have been able to call together a meeting of the key players, Democrats and Republicans, House and Senate, on the U.N. reform matters. We met once with the Secretary of State. We are meeting today with the new U.N. Ambassador, and we are getting a process to see how we deal with the United Nations reforms and, of course, the money that the U.N. would like to have from the United States. So, again, that is a parallel. A lot of people are involved. None of these issues are easily resolved. All of them are very important--what we do about chemical weapons, about the State Department reauthorization, U.N. reform, and with regard to what happens processwise. I know what you are asking there. It is our hope that we will be able to get this issue up in April. It probably would involve some hearings in the committee. But action early on, when we come back, to get it to the floor in a way where everybody will be comfortable with what amendments will be offered. There is a possibility that a statute may be offered, or a regular bill, to be considered in conjunction with the Chemical Weapons Convention. I have given a long answer, but I am saying this to make it clear to you that I am working aggressively to address the concerns on all sides of this issue. I will continue to do so. I know you are concerned, and other concerns are concerned. You may feel that you have to do more. But I have learned over the years that as long as everybody is talking, you are probably making progress, and we are talking. I have also learned that when you have a chairman that has legitimate concerns, you have to give that chairman time to deal with those concerns. We are trying to do that.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, if the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts will yield, I would be glad to respond.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. LOTT. Closure.

Mr. LOTT. I am aware that when you have a treaty issue, there are actions that occur after the treaty that could take time. We will have to--at some point we could have a full debate about what that drop-dead date is. That is the point here. It is not a specific date in terms of having to take up the treaty to get the work done, but it is a fact if you assume some action must be taken, you have to back off that in order to get the work done.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I move to table Senate Joint Resolution 23 and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. I thank the Chair.

Mr. LOTT. On my time. Do I have any time left or has all time on this side expired?

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield 1 second.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, today after months of media exposes and the American people asking questions about exactly what is going on here, I think the question that we are trying to answer today is, ``Why hasn't Attorney General Reno appointed an independent counsel to investigate these matters?'' Members of both parties, Democrats as well as Republicans, have asked that question, and they can't get a satisfactory answer. They have called on the Attorney General under the law involving the independent counsel to appoint an independent counsel. Senator Moynihan, Senator Feingold, and I think others in both parties have said this is the way that we should proceed, and this independent counsel should be appointed. That is why we brought before the Senate Senate Joint Resesolution 22 to express the sense of this body ``that the Attorney General should make application to the Special Division of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia for the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate allegations of illegal fundraising in the 1996 Presidential election campaign.'' I cannot understand how anyone who is familiar with the language of the independent counsel statute can disagree with this resolution. And I have gone back and read it and reread it. I have been around when this statute has been passed, and modified and passed again. Frankly, I have always had some reservations about it. But it is on the books, and it is clear when it should be activated. That statute sets two thresholds for the process of appointing an independent counsel. The first is whether there have been credible and serious allegations of illegal acts by high officials. And it defines who these high officials may be. That doesn't mean anyone has to be presumed guilty. As long as the allegations are credible and serious, the statute requires the Attorney General to take action. Clearly, that first threshold has been met by what we already know from news reports about illegal foreign donations and the use of White House facilities for campaign fundraising. I need not repeat all the instances others have cited during this debate. One expose has followed another. One admission has followed another. One explanation or excuse is followed by another. Without judging anyone involved, it is as clear as can be that the first threshold of the independent counsel statute has already been met. But if anyone disagrees with that assertion let them consider the second threshold of the law, the second set of circumstances that permits the Attorney General to take action. That second threshold is the existence of a perceived conflict of interest on the part of an Attorney General who is appointed by the President and confronted with possible illegal activities involving the White House. This provision was put in the independent counsel statute in 1978 in order to extricate Attorneys General from serious situations just like the one in which the Attorney General finds herself now. Confronted by myriad allegations of wrongdoing within the administration, of which she is a part, it is not her role to pass judgment on them, and it should not be. Under the law, it is her responsibility to trigger the court process by which an independent counsel takes over the role and does the job which the law deliberately takes out of her hands. Listen to the Attorney General herself on this point when she testified, just 4 years ago, on the reenactment of the independent counsel statute: It is absolutely essential for the public to have confidence in the system, and you cannot do that when there is a conflict or an appearance of conflict in the person who is, in effect, the chief prosecutor. In other words, the Attorney General herself. Who did deny that this second threshold for applying the independent counsel has been more than met? Through no fault of her own, Attorney General Reno is caught in an excruciating conflict of interest. If she were to aggressively investigate charges of misconduct by senior administration officials, she could be accused of excess zeal to protect her own reputation for integrity. If, on the other hand, she does not uncover wrongdoing, she would be accused of letting the guilty escape because of political considerations. To shield the Attorney General--any Attorney General--from that predicament, and to protect the integrity of the entire Department of Justice, is the essential and primary purpose of the independent counsel statute. If that is all so obvious, why then, the question might be asked, is the Senate considering this resolution today? The answer is that we are compelled to take this step, formally expressing the sense of this institution, for two reasons. First--it is quite common, and, in fact, almost always when there are serious issues being debated that don't necessarily require a law to be passed--the Senate expresses its collective sense on the issue of national import. If we do not do that with regard to this matter, I think we will be slighting our duty. Second, this resolution is a result of our rising frustration with what seems to be determined inaction on the part of the Attorney General to appoint, or start the process to appoint, an independent counsel. Like the American people, we must wonder what it will take to jar the Department of Justice to activate the independent counsel law. After all, the Department is not dealing with one or two frivolous allegations. It is dealing with a steady drip, drip, drip of revelations over a period of several months that has now become a tainted stream of suspicion. There is only one way to clean it up, and that is through the appointment of an independent counsel. Let me remind my colleagues that the purpose of such an appointment is not just to prosecute the guilty but to clear the innocent. In neither case should that be seen as a partisan endeavor. Nonetheless, many of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle find fault with this resolution. They say it ought to apply to the Congress as well. But the independent counsel statute already does apply to Members of Congress. If the Attorney General has received credible and serious allegations of illegal activity by one or more Members of Congress, she is already fully empowered to ask the Federal court to name an independent counsel. And it has been done in the past. Believe me, it has been done. The conflict is not between the administration and the Congress. The Attorney General can take that action. The perceived conflict of interest is when you have the Attorney General of the same party of the people in control of the White House where allegations are being made. I respectfully suggest that the effort being made here to include the Congress in this resolution is, once again, just a distraction. That is as polite a term as I can find for something that is irrelevant to the Nation's concern about what we have seen happening. But what has been the modus operandi? Every time another new, serious allegation comes out, the alternative by the Democrats has been to attack the people who are going to be in critical positions. Senator Fred Thompson, who is chairman of Governmental Affairs, his motives were impugned when we were moving through with setting up the investigation for Governmental Affairs. Insinuations, well, this has 2,000 ramifications. And now today Dan Burton, the chairman of the committee in the House who has a job to do, yes, attack him. That has been the way it has been done for the last 4 years. Anytime you get accused by somebody or somebody has a job to do, go after them. That is what is at stake here--distraction, obfuscation, say, well, they do it, too. No. So much of what has happened here is not normal; it is not the way it has always been done. That campaign is the heart of matter. The campaign has been the focus and the forum on other issues whereas what we are trying to get at is a very serious matter here, illegal foreign contributions. I mean even the word espionage has been suggested in all this. We are talking about staggering sums of money that have been raised and in unusual ways. That campaign continues to generate media allegations about improper--we voted on that last week--as well as illegal conduct. If anyone is tempted to take the position of a pox on both houses, I have news for them. It is not true that everybody in politics per se behaves alike or ignores the law or pushes the limits of legality. There are clearly things in the law that may be debatable, but they are legal and they are appropriate. If we want to go back and have a debate--and we will have a debate this year on campaign finance reform, but before we start trying to reform the law, I think we need to look at how do we find out what happened. Who did what? What has gone on here? If anyone is tempted to take that position, I think they need to reconsider. We do not all do it, and I do not think that it is going to work to just try to shove it off by trying to drag the Congress into it. We are trying to get at what has happened. The independent counsel, by the way, is not necessarily going to be a slap at the President. In fact, that is the way to quiet this thing down, have the process go forward, have an appropriate investigation, find out what happened, who did what, by an independent counsel. As a matter of fact, I am going to presume that it may not reach to the President. I do not think all of these things involve the President. They may not come to that conclusion in the end. But this is the way to get at the bottom of what really has happened. So I urge my colleagues here today do not be distracted. We have a very clear resolution here that just says it is the sense of the Senate that the thresholds have been met to provide for an independent counsel and that we should do that, make it very clear what our position is and go on with the substantive business that we have to do around here. Some people say, how are you going to deal with the budget, less taxes, less spending, less Washington, more freedom if you are going to be fighting on these other things? As a matter of fact, maybe now we are in a position to move on. We have a committee that has been funded. They can do their investigation, their hearings. If we have an independent counsel appointed, which clearly I think the law has provided for, and the threshold has been met, then we can go on about our other business. I urge my colleagues to vote for Senate Joint Resolution 22, I believe it is, and then vote to table the other resolution that is pending, because it is no more than a distraction because the law already provides for that coverage. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that immediately following the stacked votes today that there be a period of morning business until the hour of 3 p.m. today, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 5 minutes each with the exception of the following: Senator Daschle, or his designee, in control of up to 60 minutes; Senator Bennett, or his designee, in control of up to 30 minutes; Senator Brownback for up to 10 minutes; and, Senator Cleland for up to 15 minutes.

Mr. LOTT

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

Mr. LOTT

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

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. For the information of all Senators, this agreement would call for two rollcall votes on the independent counsel issue. However, the votes have not been ordered by consent yet. I hope to discuss further with the Democratic leader today exactly when that will occur so that we can schedule those two votes. I should note that we have one Senator who had a death in the family. We want to make sure that he is able to be back here for that vote. In light of this agreement, there will be no further votes after the 2:45 vote today. Members should be prepared to vote tomorrow around 10 o'clock on the independent counsel issue. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. I yield the floor.

Mr. LOTT. If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I now ask the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order, following the remarks of the distinguished Democratic leader, Senator Daschle.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate immediately proceed to executive session to consider the following nomination on the Executive Calendar: Calendar No. 42, the nomination of Keith Hall, to be Assistant Secretary of the Air Force. I further ask unanimous consent that the nomination be confirmed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, that any statements relating to the nomination appear at this point in the Record, that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that the Senate then return to legislative session.