Marty Meehan

Mr. MEEHAN

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, opponents of campaign finance reform have told us that we must protect free speech. But when they say free speech, they mean big money, because the fact is that the Shays-Meehan bill does not ban any type of communication. It merely reins in those campaign advertisements that have been masquerading as so-called issue advocacy. According to the United States Supreme Court, communications that expressly advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate can be subject to regulation. So the question is not whether the Government should regulate campaign advertisement; it already does. The real question is whether or not the current test adequately identifies campaign advertisement; and for that, there is a simple answer: no, it does not. Let us pass Shays-Meehan.

Mr. MEEHAN. Reserving the right to object, Mr. Chairman, I would ask the gentleman what this is going to be.

Mr. MEEHAN. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. MEEHAN

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney), a cosponsor and an author of the clean elections bill himself.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones), again, one of the leaders on campaign finance reform.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Baldwin), a truly outstanding member of the freshman class and a member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Minge).

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, in many ways, the debate on this substitute is a debate that I think crystallizes the differences of opinion of what we are doing. Many of the substitutes and many of the amendments are really designed to cloud the issue, are really designed to fool the public. That is not the case with this substitute. This is a case of a difference of opinion. The gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle), and I respect his honesty, would like to repeal all contribution limits. He wants to end the presidential system of public financing, which is an incentive to get the presidential candidates to limit how much money they spend. Yes, in fact, I think this amendment crystallizes the difference between those who think we should have more money in the election process in this country and those of us who believe we should try to lessen the influence of money in American politics. I have to say, I think the American people are with those of us who want to lessen the influence. Two out of three Americans think that money has an excessive influence on elections and government policy. According to the Committee of Economic Development, a group of CEOs, two-thirds of the public think that their own representative in Congress would listen to the views of outsiders who made large political contributions before a constituent's views, and 92 percent of the people think that too much money is being spent on political campaigns in our country. So this is a clear choice. Whether one wants to have more money spent, more wealthy individuals spending unlimited amounts of money so that somehow elections become we are going to compete with soap suds or Coca Cola or Pepsi, or whether or not we are going to reform this system, let us defeat this substitute and pass Shays-Meehan tonight.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee). (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 90 seconds to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee), a leader in campaign finance reform. (Mr. INSLEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, we enact campaign finance reform once in a generation. The last time we enacted meaningful, comprehensive campaign finance reform was in the post-Watergate era. For a while that system worked pretty well. But over a period of the last 20 to 25 years, loopholes have developed in the law, loopholes being that incredible amounts of soft money, over and above the legal limits, are being spent to influence elections in our country. An incredible amount, millions of dollars in sham issue ads are being spent to influence elections in our country. So we now have a unique opportunity to pass comprehensive campaign finance reform. We have to make sure that when we pass this bill, we do not pass a bill that already has loopholes in it. The Hutchinson amendment fails to close the soft money loophole because it enables the insurance companies and the tobacco companies and all of these special interests to circumvent the Federal parties and influence Federal campaigns by going to the States. Many of these States do not even have disclosure requirements of this money. It is too big of a loophole. It does not do anything about reining in sham issue ads. It is too big of a loophole. We have to deal with both of these problems. That is why we have to pass this bill. Finally, a majority of the Members of the Senate have supported this legislation. The only reason it has not passed is we have not gotten the 60 votes over there to break a filibuster. We are going to be able to do it because eventually the public will win this argument. Vote for Shays-Meehan.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. It has been a long evening. In fact, it has been a long battle going back over the last few years. We have been able to work, Democrats and Republicans, to form a bipartisan coalition, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank so many of the Members of this House who have made it possible. I think back to the debate last year, when many of the Members had the Commission bill, and how cooperative they were to join with the sponsors of Shays-Meehan to unite our effort to add the Commission bill to the Shays-Meehan bill. I think of how critical it was when the Democratic leadership, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior), the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), and others, joined with this effort and have whipped so effectively the Democratic Members of this House. I want to thank them for their efforts. I want to thank the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays), the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp), the gentlewoman from New Jersey (Mrs. Roukema), and all of the Members of the Republican party who have worked so diligently. I thank all of them, as well. The hour is late. I think it is clear from the way the votes have been going that the Members of this House are ready to take the extraordinary step to pass bipartisan, bicameral campaign finance reform. As I said earlier, it only happens once in a generation. It is an extremely difficult issue to get Members of both sides of the aisle to work together on, but we have done it. The gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) has a substitute that, frankly, we could pass in a suspension on Monday or Tuesday of next week. It is not real campaign finance reform, but under the rule, if Members vote for this, it will kill our opportunity, our golden opportunity, this evening. So I think it is clear to the membership that they have to vote no on the Thomas substitute, and if the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) and others are willing, we should take it up at a later date, pass it under a suspension. I am sure it would get 350 to 420 votes. But now is the time, the hour is late, to pass campaign finance reform. I thank all of the Members who have been involved in this debate. I thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) for his leadership on the committee. I again thank the Members for their extraordinary effort on this historic vote for real, comprehensive campaign finance reform.

Mr. MEEHAN

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I rise tonight in support of the Moakley amendment to prohibit funding for the School of the Americas. No one has come to this floor to say that every graduate of the School of the Americas has been a murderer or has committed murders. But no one can deny, if the School of the Americas had a class reunion this weekend, it would be a gathering of some of the most unsavory thugs in the history of the Western Hemisphere. Mr. Chairman, the Cold War is long over. The primary objective of the United States foreign policies have changed as a result. Our focus in Latin America has shifted from combatting Communist insurgencies to supporting promising developments in democratic and civilian rule, and encouraging respect for human rights. We must adjust our policies accordingly to reflect this transition. Although the administrators of the School of the Americas claim that their curriculum has been modified to satisfy our new policy objectives, their arguments fail to convince me. Administrators are quick to point out that they have added courses solely devoted to teaching human rights. What their promotional literature fails to mention, however, is that in the 3 years since the course has been offered, not a single student has taken it. The School of the Americas claims it is instrumental in the war against drugs. How instrumental can their graduates be when, in 1997, less than 8 percent of the students took the course on counternarcotics. Four years ago, I traveled to Fort Benning, Georgia to tour the school myself. I was hoping to disprove the School of the Americas' critics. Unfortunately, I left the school unconvinced. Four years later, significant changes have yet to occur. Four years later, reports on human rights abuses in Latin America continue to implicate School of the Americas' graduates. In February of this year, the Guatemalan Truth Commission Report concluded that School of the Americas' counterinsurgency training contributed significantly to human rights abuses in that country. Moreover, a recently released U.S. State Department Report on Human Rights in Columbia links School of the Americas' graduates to abuses that include the July 1997 Mapiripan massacre of 30 peasants, as well as numerous targeted killings of civilians. Enough is enough. We have heard these same arguments year after year. We have listened to excuses and denials, yet nothing has changed. The time has come to close this chapter of history and move on. Surely, there are better ways to foster cooperative relationships with our peers in Latin America. The United States has an obligation to prove it stands for human rights and not coercion or repression. I urge all of my colleagues to vote in support of the Moakley amendment and close the School of the Americas.

Mr. MEEHAN

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak against the rule and against the procedure that has governed the debate of this juvenile justice legislation. I am a cosponsor of H.R. 1501, the underlying juvenile justice bill. In fact, every member of the Subcommittee on Crime is a cosponsor of the underlying 1501 legislation. From time to time, people across America say, why can Democrats and Republicans not work together on major pieces of legislation? This was an opportunity where the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. McCollum) got together and worked for months on a compromise juvenile justice bill. We urged within the subcommittee, within the committee, to get this bill debated on the floor right away, with bipartisan consensus. But why did we not do it? We did not do it because the Republican leadership had to figure out a way to deal with the tricky issue of guns and violence in schools. They capitulated and delayed and played games because they did not have the courage to just report this bill to the floor and allow an open discussion about guns. The next time people in America are looking for an opportunity to vote on bipartisan legislation, they will look to the crime bill and what the Republican leadership did with this bill. This bill should have been passed before Memorial Day.

Mr. MEEHAN

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the ranking member for having yielded this time to me. I rise in opposition to the McCollum amendment to H.R. 1501. I think this amendment undermines the bipartisan consensus reached on this bill, a bill that was cosponsored by every single member of the Subcommittee on Crime and reported unanimously to the full committee where unfortunately we never considered this bill. Can my colleagues imagine the Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime meets, all the Members cosponsor a bill, report it out unanimously, and we cannot get a vote in the full committee. It is kind of puzzling why this would happen, but rather than leave this very good piece of juvenile justice legislation alone, the Republicans have taken the opportunity to introduce poison pill amendments to guarantee its defeat, and I must admit that I find this strategy frustrating. If the bill was good enough 8 months ago when it was first drafted by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. McCollum) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), then why is it suddenly not good enough now? Why do we need to ruin a good bipartisan bill that includes the right amount of prevention dollars for the States while not attaching too many conditions to the States' use of that money? In a momentary fit of bipartisanship did the Republicans forget to include all of their mean-spirited, counterproductive, juvenile justice measures now that they want to add to the bill? First, this bill transfers too many juveniles to adult court even though studies have shown that transferring juveniles to adult court can increase juvenile crime. Now a 1996 study in Florida found that youth transferred to adult prisons re-offended approximately 30 percent more frequently than youth who stayed in the juvenile justice system. So if the goal is to move more juveniles to adult prisons and it is to target violent offenders, then studies prove that this has not worked. More juveniles are transferred for nonviolent offenses than for violent offenses, and that is exactly the wrong outcome. If we can see that at least some of the nonviolent juvenile offenders can be rehabilitated, then placing more of them in adult prisons is standing logic on its head. In addition, holding juveniles in adult facilities is dangerous. Children in adult facilities are five times more likely to be sexually assaulted, twice as likely to be beaten by staff and 50 percent more likely to be attacked with a weapon and eight times more likely to commit suicide than juveniles in a juvenile facility. There are too many examples of horrible results by locking up kids with adults, but I will provide just one example. Seventeen-year-old Christopher Peterman was held in an adult jail in Boise, Idaho, for failing to pay $73 in traffic fine. For over 14 days he was tortured and finally murdered by other prisoners, a death penalty for $73 in traffic tickets. We can do better than this, we have got to treat kids appropriately. This amendment should be defeated.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this amendment expands the youth crime gun interdiction initiative to 75 cities and county law enforcement agencies throughout the country. The ATF's youth crime gun interdiction initiative is a cutting edge strategy to disrupt the illegal supply of guns to juveniles. Following the example of the fantastic successes of the Boston gun project led by Professor David Kennedy, local law enforcement officials in 27 cities are employing ATF's expertise and resources to trace firearms used in crimes. This number of participating cities is currently slated to grow to 37 cities and counties by the end of Fiscal Year 2000. Now the Boston gun project, also known as operation cease-fire, is aimed at preventing youth homicide. It combines Federal efforts with those State and local law enforcement authorities to crack down on the illegal guns supplied, those officials who identify sources and patterns of illegal firearm trafficking and develop law enforcement strategies to reduce the flow of weapons to the youngest members of our society. Once we know how the kids are getting the guns, and from whom they are getting the guns, and where those guns are coming from, we will be far more likely to be able to prevent the kids from getting guns in the first place. For example, through gun tracing the Boston Police Department discovered that the guns being used by gang members in one particular neighborhood were purchased by one individual in Mississippi and then transported to Boston. Now after that individual was arrested, shootings in that neighborhood declined dramatically. The connection between guns and juvenile crime is well known. Virtually all of the striking rise and the homicide rate between 1987 and 1994 was associated with guns. Now the Senate included an expansion of the youth gun control interdiction initiative in their version of the juvenile justifies legislation. In fact, the other body passed this legislation and expands the programs to 250 cities or counties by October 1, the year 2003. As time goes on and this program continues to demonstrate success, we can add cities to the list. My amendment is not gun control legislation, but rather it is a proven effective crime control. It simply keeps illegal guns out of the hands of those kids who use them to commit crimes and seeks out and punishes those who provide guns to kids. I was disappointed that this program was not included in the gentleman from Illinois' juvenile justice bill, especially in light of the fact that it has proven so successful. Trafficking of guns drives the worst kind of violent crime. We can address this problem with the youth gun interdiction initiative that has already started to do just that. Mr. Chairman, keeping guns out of the hands of children is not a new debate. Over 30 years ago Robert Kennedy spoke about the dangers of kids and guns in words that have proven unfortunately timeless. We have a responsibility to the victims of crime and violence, Robert Kennedy said. It is a responsibility to think not only of our own convenience but of the tragedy of sudden death. It is a responsibility to put away childish things to make the possession and use of firearms a matter undertaken only by serious people who will use them with the restraint and maturity that their dangerous nature deserves and demands. Let us end kids' access to guns once and for all. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers).

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I thank the ranking member, and I would say that there are success stories in cities across the country; in Boston, I mentioned, and in my hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts where the police department is initiating similar goals and objectives. I thank the gentleman for his support. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MEEHAN

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to pay tribute to one of the nation's finest newspaper editors, Dan Warner, who is retiring after 44 years in the news business and 27 years as Editor of The Eagle-Tribune, in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Under the leadership of publishers Irving E. Rogers Jr., who passed away last year, and Irving E. ``Chip'' Rogers Ill, who is steering the business into the new millennium, Dan has guided one of the last independent, local, family-owned newspapers in America through a period of unprecedented growth, change and success. As editor and in his Sunday columns, Dan was always a tireless advocate for Eagle-Tribune readers, the community and the people and institutions of the Merrimack Valley. He believed in the intrinsic value of factual reporting and its ability to provoke and inspire readers to get more involved in their community. He created an ethic among reporters that their solemn duty to both readers and subjects was to cover the news fairly and aggressively and always to present the human dimension of a story. Dan also was a pioneer in the use of bright colors, bold graphics and innovative design to deliver the news in a more attractive and reader-friendly package. He leaves his successor, Steve Lambert, a publication that has been recognized as one of the best regional newspapers in the United States. Under Dan Warner's stewardship, The Eagle-Tribune received the highest honor in journalism, the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for general news reporting for its probe of the Massachusetts prison furlough program. He also led the newspaper to be honored twice as a Pulitzer Prize finalist for exposing corrupation in international hockey and telling the story of the tragic fire that nearly destroyed Malden Mills in the heart of Lawrence's poorest neighborhood, and the heroic effort to rebuild the business. Dan also guided The Eagle-Tribune to 11 awards as New England Newspaper of the Year and scores of prizes for exemplary reporting, photography, commentary, design and public service. Born and raised in Ohio, Dan adopted the Merrimack Valley as his home 30 years ago and displays the love and caring for the region of a native born citizen. He is a devoted friend and dedicated family man. Even when he disagrees with you, as I have experienced more than once, Dan always gives you a fair hearing to present your point of view. Mr. Speaker, Dan Warner is a man who prodded leaders of government, industry and community to do better, and always remembered that the people he spoke for did not always have a voice in the corridors of power. On behalf of the people of the Merrimack Valley, I wish him a happy retirement with his wife, Janet, his two children and his beloved little dog, Rewrite.

Mr. MEEHAN

Mr. MEEHAN. Madam Speaker, there is no doubt about it, money talks on Capitol Hill. And for the Republican leadership, no money talks louder than gun money. The National Rifle Association has been the largest political donor to Members of Congress throughout the decade. In fact, the NRA soft money contributions to the Republican Party grew exponentially when the Republicans took over the House in 1994. So it should come as a surprise to absolutely no one that the Republican leadership turned to the NRA to write their so-called ``gun control'' legislation, a proposal that is rife with loopholes. The truth of the matter is that big money talks louder than kids' lives on Capitol Hill. Enormous soft money contributions have blinded the Republican leadership to 13 children who die every day in America in gun-related violence. Let us stop the madness. Let us start saving our children's lives by passing real gun control legislation, and let us pass campaign finance reform to cut the ties between gun money and Congress once and for all.