Jerrold Nadler

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time I have left, please.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise once again in opposition to this bill. We have been through this debate often enough to know that we will not find the term partial-birth abortion in any medical textbooks. There are procedures that we will find in medical textbooks, but the authors of this legislation would prefer to use the language of propaganda rather than the language of medical science. This bill, as written, fails every test the Supreme Court has laid down for what might or might not be a constitutional regulation on abortion. It reads almost as if the authors went through the Supreme Court's recent decision in Stenberg v. Carhart and went out of their way to thumb their noses at the Supreme Court, and especially at Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who is generally viewed as a swing vote on such matters and who wrote a concurring opinion stating specifically what would be needed to uphold a statute. Unless the authors think that when the court has made repeated and clear statements over the years of what the Constitution requires in this area they were just pulling our leg, this bill has to be facially and obviously unconstitutional. Now, if people wanted to write a bill that said we are going to ban late-term abortions, which this bill is sometimes referred to, although incorrectly, if they wanted to write a bill that said we are going to ban late-term abortions after viability, and we are going to include in the bill an exception for when the abortion is necessary for the life or health of the mother, they could do that. It would be a constitutional bill and Members could debate it in good conscience. But they have chosen not to do that. They have chosen to write a facially unconstitutional bill that they know perfectly well is unconstitutional, despite all the nonsense we have heard today; that they know will never see the light of day because it is unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court has given us a specific precise recipe of what a constitutional bill would look like. So this bill is political propaganda. It gives people something to go home and talk about, but falsely talk about, because it is clearly unconstitutional. The bill does not contain a life and health exception, which the Supreme Court has repeatedly said is necessary throughout pregnancy, even post viability. I know that some of my colleagues may not like this rule. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot) talked about why he did not like a health exception. But there it is in the Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court, whether we like it or not. We have to put it in a bill if we want the bill to be constitutional. Even the Ashcroft Justice Department, in its brief defending a similar Ohio statute, has recently acknowledged that a health exception is required by the Constitution. I may disagree with Mr. Ashcroft's Justice Department on whether the Ohio statute adequately protects women's health, at least Attorney General Ashcroft and his Department acknowledge that the law requires a health exception, requires that protection if it is not going to be factually unconstitutional. This bill purports to solve this problem with findings; 15 of the 18 pages of the bill are findings, congressional findings of fact. Congressional findings of medical fact, as if we are expert doctors here, all of us. If there is one thing that this activist Supreme Court that we have now has made clear, it is that it is not very deferential to Congress' findings of fact. Congress can declare anything it wants. It can declare the moon is made of green cheese, but it does not make it factual and it does not make the courts bound to accept anything that we say at face value simply because we say so. While I realize that many of the proponents of this bill view all abortions as tantamount to infanticide, that is their view. It is not a mainstream view, and it is not the view of the Supreme Court of the United States. If the proponents of this bill wanted to deal with post- viability abortions where a woman's life and health are not in jeopardy, they could write a bill dealing with that issue. Forty-one States have such laws, including my own State of New York. Members should know better than to believe that this activist conservative Supreme Court that we now have, we should know that they do not feel any particular need to defer to Congress. Members should know what comes of Congress ignoring the will of the Supreme Court. Whatever power Congress had under section 5 of the 14th amendment to effectuate the purposes of 14th amendment as a result of Katzenbach v. Morgan, which was cited by the proponents of the bill, and is cited copiously in the bill's findings, I think the more recent Boerne decision of the Supreme Court vastly undercuts those powers. And even if Katzenbach was still fully good law, as I personally wish it were for other reasons, that case empowered Congress only to expand rights under the 14th amendment, not to curtail rights under the 14th amendment. The Supreme Court has held that the right to choose to have an abortion is a woman's right under the 14th amendment, with some limits that the Supreme Court has recognized; and the Katzenbach decision says those rights can be expanded, but not curtail them. This bill aims to curtail those rights. Mr. Speaker, we are told that the Supreme Court must defer to congressional fact-finding even if Congress' so-called facts conflict with the preponderance of evidence in litigation before the Court. But the drafters of this bill are wrong. First, it is one of the fundamental tenets of our constitutional structure which establishes three separate branches of the Federal Government that Congress can enact laws, but it cannot decide whether those laws are constitutional. That is exclusively the Supreme Court's role. I realize that one of the members of the Committee on the Judiciary said that the Supreme Court wrongly decided Marbury v. Madison, but for 200 years that has been the law of the land. Second, the Supreme Court is not required to defer to our fact- finding. The Court has the power and duty to independently assess the evidence that is presented to it as it did in the Carhart decision. In the Carhart decision, the Supreme Court also specifically rejected the argument made by the bill's sponsors that the legislation need not contain the health exception because intact dilation and extraction, so-called intact D&E or D&Ex, is never necessary for a woman's health. That statement is right in the bill. The Supreme Court stated a law like H.R. 4965 that altogether forbids D&Ex creates a significant health risk and is, therefore, unconstitutional. Mr. Speaker, this bill is not a serious attempt to deal with a problem, any problem. This bill is an attempt to fool the people of the United States into thinking that they are trying to deal with a problem. If the sponsors of this bill wanted to deal with the problem, they know how to do it. Justice O'Connor told them specifically. They do not want a bill that would ban late-term abortions with an exception for when the health or life of the mother is threatened. They do not want that. If they wanted that, they would write it, we would pass it, and it would be constitutional. What they want is a charade, a bill that is flatly unconstitutional, will accomplish nothing, will not see the light of day in the Senate; and, frankly, it is a charade, and the time of the House should not be wasted on charades like this when we cannot find time to do a lot of things that the welfare of this country demand that we do. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson).

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I represent the district that had perhaps the most impact here. The World Trade Center used to stand in the middle of it, and the catastrophe that was visited on my district and on the entire country represented, among other things, a monumental and catastrophic failure of intelligence. When such a thing happens, I think it behooves us to take a complete and fresh look at it. Look at every aspect of it. Look at every aspect of every establishment that we have to deal with that, and that includes, frankly, the way this Congress and its intelligence and other committees that are relevant deal with it. That is why I support the Roemer amendment for an independent blue ribbon commission. Now, maybe we have not spent enough on intelligence. I have joined in the past in voting for amendments to cut the intelligence budget. Maybe we were wrong. Maybe, on the other hand, we have spent enough but we have not spent it properly. Maybe we spent too much on electronic intelligence and not enough on human intelligence. Maybe people were not talking to each other who should have been. Maybe the analytical capability was neglected in favor of just collecting huge amounts of information which could not then be analyzed in time. I do not know. Maybe the Permanent Select Committees on Intelligence of this Congress have functioned perfectly and wonderfully, and maybe they have not, and maybe there are changes we could make in our own establishment and how we set up things. That is why we need a totally new and outside and independent look and why I support the Roemer amendment. Let me also say one word in opposition to the amendment by the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith). There are plenty of survivors and family members of victims in my district, and they certainly have a very great interest in all of this. I have supported the role of victims in commissions and on committees and so forth in determining the type of memorial to be erected in New York and the rebuilding and so forth. But the fact that someone is a relative of someone who died in the World Trade Center does not make that person an expert on intelligence, does not make that person an expert on the military; and, frankly, this commission ought to be not a commission of people who we put there sentimentally because we sympathize with their loss. It ought to be a commission of people who are experts in the things that have to be examined, experts determined by the President, by the leadership of the House and the Senate, the other body, and so forth. So I urge Members, do not add sentimentality to this commission which will not really accomplish anything, but do approve the Roemer amendment.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to support this conference report. This conference report funds the war on terrorism, but it also helps to make as whole as possible my district in New York where the World Trade Center stood before the attack last year. This conference report fulfills the congressional part of the President's pledge to appropriate $20 billion to help New York recover from the attack. We still have some problems with FEMA doling out the money; but I want to commend the chairman of the committee, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), and the ranking member, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Obey), and especially the New York members of the Committee on Appropriations who worked so hard to ensure that New York would not be forgotten and that we now have this $21.4 billion appropriated. I want to also express my support for the $200 million in aid to Israel included in this legislation. Israel is our only true ally in the Middle East, and our only true friend in the fight against terrorism. It is only right that we support Israel in its fight against terrorism. I also want to say that the $200 million appropriated for fighting AIDS in Africa is a good first step, but we must increase it because it does not meet the scale of the catastrophe in Africa, and the United States should step up to the plate more. But this is a very good first step. So I want to congratulate the members of the Committee on Appropriations and the leadership of the Committee on Appropriations, and I support this bill.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I was unable to be present for rollcall votes 296 through 318. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on rollcall votes 296, 297, 298, 299, 300, 301, 304, 308, 309, 310, 311, 312, 313, 315, 316 and 318. I would have voted ``no'' on rollcall votes 302, 303, 305, 306, 307, 314 and 317.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Slaughter, Dicks, Horn, Johnson amendment. Funding for the arts is one of the best investments our government makes. In purely economic terms, it generates a return that would make any Wall Street investor jealous. For just a fraction of one percent of the entire federal budget, the National Endowment for the Arts supports a thriving non-profit arts industry which generates more than $134 billion annually, nearly 5 million full-time jobs and returns $10.5 billion in federal taxes each year. With grants that touch nearly every Congressional district in the country, the NEA supports educational programs that teach children valuable life-long skills; allows new and innovative art to find an audience; helps bring the arts to under-served communities; enables organizations to share their exhibitions and performances with the rest of the nation through national tours; and most important, provides crucial seed money for organizations to leverage private donations. Yet the NEA continues to suffer from the shortsighted decision by Congress to slash its funding back in 1996, after attempting outright elimination. It has been forced to do more with less and despite consistent under-funding, it has been an efficient and productive agency. However, we should at least restore the NEA to its pre-1996 levels and we should be considering an increase over that level, not the paltry funding it has had since then. Only through increased public support can the arts continue to be so vibrant throughout the nation. The NEH, too, is a crucial agency but without additional funding, the important work of interpreting and preserving our nation's heritage will go unrealized. The NEH is at the forefront of preserving endangered recordings of folk music, jazz and blues; bringing Shakespeare to inner-city youth; promoting research into immigrant life and culture; and helping disseminate this information into communities through technology with the Internet and CD-Rom. The arts and humanities also provide the emotional and spiritual lift that we have all needed since September, helping us heal in profound ways. In the wake of the attacks on our nation, people flocked to theaters, music halls, and museums for a sense of community and emotional release. The arts and humanities are also a critical tool in promoting cultural understanding, something that is sorely needed in the world today. In the wake of September 11th, I convened a discussion of the many arts organizations in lower Manhattan that had been devastated after the attacks. At that meeting, an artist named Brookie Maxwell gave a powerful testament to why additional arts funding is needed. She said, ``We need funding for the arts so we can process what happened. Art addresses the meaning between the words, and it addresses the mystery of life.'' Mr. Chairman, I can think of no better words to sum up why this amendment is so sorely needed and I urge my colleagues to adopt it.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, what we have on the floor today is a pitiful, pathetic, puny, pretend plan; a pretend plan that pretends to offer seniors prescription drug care, prescription drugs; but what it really does is gives a lot of money to the insurance companies and says please, we hope you will do something for our seniors, maybe. That is all it is. They are too something, I will not say what because my words might be taken down, but they will not permit the Democratic plan, which is a straight plan for Medicare to pay for 80 percent of the cost of prescription drugs, to be offered on this floor because they do not have confidence that they could win the debate. They will not permit the two plans to be offered on this floor to be debated because they are afraid in the light of day if the American people see it, they would say, We want a plan. We want what they call the Soviet-style plan, which is what they characterize Medicare as for the last 40 years. They did not want it then. They still do not want it. And they certainly do not want Medicare coverage for prescription drugs. They want to give more money to the insurance companies and say we hope they will provide it. Fat chance.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the Moses and Aaron Foundation for its commitment to special children and their families. I recognize with gratitude the Foundation's significant and enduring humanitarian efforts and applaud all those who have given of themselves to fulfill its mission. The Moses and Aaron Foundation ``Special Fund for Children'' is dedicated to assisting children with disabilities and their families with a wide range of programs including social, physical, financial and wheelchair assistance, as well as counseling and guidance. It also provides scholarship funding to educational institutions, collects, purchases, and distributes clothing for children in need, and remembers them with presents at holiday time or when they are hospitalized. This past year, the Foundation provided hundred of toys to the children of New York City's Police and Fire Department's fallen heroes. In cooperation with Bally Fitness Centers and under the direction of its President Rabbi Yaacov Kaploun, and Executive Vice President Yehuda Kaploun, the Foundation has been able to establish 22 physical fitness and therapy centers and has arranged for sound and musical equipment in other institutions. In conjunction with Downtown Film Productions, The Moses and Aaron Foundation produced ``Chazak--A Testament of Strength'', an award winning documentary highlighting the effect of music on special children. This monumental documentary serves as a vehicle to sensitize and educate the entire community on the needs of its special and outstanding citizens. On Saturday night, July 20, 2002 at the Monticello Raceway in Monticello, New York, the Moses and Aaron Foundation under the Honorary Chairmanship of Nobel Laureate Eli Weisel, will sponsor its sixth Summer ``Chazak--Strength'' Concert paying tribute to special children. The guests of honor will be the special children, some of whom will perform with the entertainers on stage. A tribute will also be held in memory of the fallen heroes of the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center. The corporate and individual sponsors of the Moses and Aaron Foundation include Mr. David Buntzman, Mr. Jonathan Fleisig, Mr. Robert Gans, Mrs. Richard Gans, Mr. Avi and Dr. Laura Greenbaum, Mr. and Mrs. David Hirsch, Mr. and Mra. Ira Rennert, Mr. Charles Rosenay, Dr. Steven Stowe, and Mr. Eli Rothman. I recognize the late Phyllis Cohen for her support of the Foundation, contributing to the improvement in the quality of life of special children. I also recognize the support given to the Moses and Aaron Foundation by Steve and Shirley Slesinger, who have brought happiness and smiles to the faces of millions of America's youth by bringing Winnie the Pooh and other characters to the screen and printed world, with particular credit to Shirley Slesinger Lasswell for creating and cultivating one of the best loved bear in history. The Moses and Aaron Foundation was founded in memory of Rabbi Dr. Maurice I. Hecht and Aaron Kaploun, both of whom led lives of exemplary community service. It is in this sentiment of communal dedication that the Moses and Aaron Foundation has devoted itself to serving the needs of a unique group in the community. I urge my colleagues to join me in honoring the Moses and Aaron Foundation. Their work has truly made a difference in the lives of thousands.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, this debate is an exercise in surrealism. The Supreme Court recently handed down a decision directly on point. What the sponsors of this bill are trying to do is to overturn a Supreme Court decision that they do not like by statute. We know we cannot do that. Congress cannot overturn a Supreme Court decision. Now, it is elementary that the first amendment says that one can say, write, draw, or photograph and distribute whatever one wants. The Supreme Court has made one exception to that, or a number of exceptions. One exception is obscenity. If it is obscene, one cannot ban it. There is another exception: where, to protect children from exploitation, we can stop the distribution of child pornography, defined as pornography that shows children. Why? To protect the children who are exploited in making it. Now, if the material is itself obscene, we can ban it anyway; but if it is not in itself obscene, it has to be real children, because those are the people we are protecting. The Court clearly said the government cannot criminalize images which are not obscene unless the product involved actual children, because if it does not, the images do not fall outside the protection of the first amendment. Now we are told by the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus) and by the government that the possibility of producing images by using computer imaging, and I am quoting directly from the Supreme Court decision, ``makes it very difficult to prosecute those who produce pornography by using real children. Experts, we are told, may have difficulty in saying whether the pictures were made by using real children or by using computer imaging. ``The necessary solution, the argument runs,'' and the Court may just as well have been quoting the gentleman from Alabama, ``is to prohibit both kinds of images. In order to enable prosecution of the real thing, you should be able to prosecute the virtual images.'' The Court continues, the Supreme Court of the United States, ``The argument, in essence, is that protected speech may be banned as a means to ban unprotected speech. This analysis turns the first amendment upside down. The government may not suppress lawful speech as a means to suppress unlawful speech.'' So it is very clear. This bill is clearly unconstitutional. It is an exercise in pure politics. It is simply going to get the Supreme Court to rule again, when it has already told us on exactly the same point. The attempt by the bill to slightly narrow the definition does not matter. Either it is obscene or it is not. If it is not obscene, it is protected, unless real children were used in the production of it; and if they were not, it is still protected speech, period. That is the Court's analysis. If we want to change that, we cannot do it by a law passed here, so we are wasting our time and misleading the public, who think that we are doing something, because we cannot overturn a Supreme Court decision, one I happen to think is correct, but that is beside the point. We cannot overturn a Supreme Court interpretation of the Constitution of the United States by a bill in Congress.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, there were many heroes on September 11th, and many more in the months that have followed. I rise today to pay tribute to the engineers of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, each of whom could tell you a different story about the difficult days and arduous work following September 11th. I would like to tell you a little about one Port Authority engineer, Peter Rinaldi, who joined his fellow New Yorkers in the tremendous rescue and recovery effort at Ground Zero. The following excerpt is from ``American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center,'' by William Langewiesche, published in the July/August 2002 edition of Atlantic Monthly. At age fifty-two, Rinaldi was an inconspicuous olive- skinned man with graying hair and a moustache, who observed the world through oversized glasses and had a quirky way of suddenly raising his eyebrows, not in surprise but as a prompt or in suggestion. He had grown up in the Bronx as the son of a New York cop, had gone to college there, and had married a girl he had met in high school. Though he and his wife had moved to the suburbs of Westchester County to raise their three sons, he had never cut his connection to the city, or quite shed his native accent. For twenty-eight years he had commuted to the World Trade Center, to offices in the North Tower, where he worked for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, deep within its paternal embrace and completely secure in his existence. There was an early warning in the terrorist bombing of 1993, which caught him in an elevator. Nonetheless, he was wholly unprepared for the destruction that followed in 2001. During the days after the attack, when to New York City officials the Port Authority seemed to have disappeared, it was hunkered down across the river in its New Jersey offices, suffering through a collective emptiness so severe that people themselves felt hollowed out. Peter Rinaldi felt it too, though he was far away at the time of the attack, vacationing with his wife, Audrey, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Back in New York . . . Rinaldi was assigned to New York City's recovery team . . . [and] given the job of supervising the consultants who had been brought in for the specialized belowground engineering. The underground, beneath the pile, was a wilderness of ruins, a short walk from the city but as far removed from life there as any place could be. It burned until January, and because it contained voids and weakened structures, it collapsed progressively until the spring. The job of mapping the chaos fell to a small team of about six engineers who did some of the riskiest work at the site, climbing through the crevices of a strange and unstable netherworld, calmly charting its conditions, and returning without complaint after major collapses had occurred. By mid-November only one important underground area remained to be explored--a place people called ``the final frontier,'' located deep under the center of the ruins, at the foot of the former North Tower. It was the main chiller plant, one of the world's largest air-conditioning facilities--a two-acre chamber three stories high that contained seven interconnected refrigeration units, each the size of a locomotive and capable of holding up to 24,000 pounds of dangerous Freon gas. With the huge quantities potentially involved here, a sudden leak would fill the voids underground and spread across the surface of the pile, suffocating perhaps hundreds of workers caught out on the rough terrain and unable to move fast. To make matters worse, if the Freon cloud came into contact with open flames, of which there were plenty here, it would turn into airborne forms of hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acids and also phosgene gas, related to the mustard gas used during World War 1. Then it would go drifting. People accepted the danger. The standard advice, ``Just run like hell,'' was delivered with a little shrug. Everyone knew that if the Freon came hunting for you at the center of the pile, you would succumb. Of all the people setting out now for the chiller plant, twenty men redefined by these ruins, the one who would have the greatest influence on the unfolding story was an obscure engineer, a lifelong New Yorker named Peter Rinaldi. For twenty-eight years the World Trade Center was a second home to Peter Rinaldi. After its destruction, he and his fellow Port Authority employees worked ``seven days a week, often fifteen hours a day'' to make sure that those involved in the recovery effort would be safe, and to restore needed services, such as subway and commuter train service, to those returning to live and work in lower Manhattan. His leadership in the days following September 11th took him, on that day in November, into the debris of the World Trade Center, where it was determined that the Freon had vented and the recovery work could continue in relative safety. Today, nine months after that horrible day, as we celebrate the lives of those we have lost and commemorate their heroism and bravery, we thank those who have given so much of themselves to the recovery of our great city. I would like to extend my thanks to the employees of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, each of whom has come to embody the spirit of public service to the city they have served so admirably.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this amendment, if passed, would contravene the fundamental principle of American democracy which is that majority rules. The gentleman from Ohio pointed out earlier that the principle supermajorities, meaning a minority can block something, is not a radical proposal. It may not be, but it is a fundamentally undemocratic proposal.

Mr. NADLER. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. I simply want to point out that there have been no hearings on this resolution this year, no committee hearings, no committee markup. This came straight to the floor from I am not sure where, and this is a very cavalier way to treat amending the Constitution. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers).

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Before I begin my statement on the constitutional amendment, I just have one factual correction for the distinguished chairman. The 2000 election was not the closest race in American history. In 1960, John Kennedy beat Richard Nixon by 118,000 votes. In 2000, Al Gore got 556,000 votes more than George Bush. It was, in fact, close in the Electoral College. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this proposed constitutional amendment for the seventh time in as many years. As the ranking Democrat member of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, I would urge my colleagues not to treat the Constitution as if it were some derelict warehouse on which people could plaster their political posters. The Constitution is the fundamental document of our Nation which sets the rules of government to protect our democracy and the rights of individuals. Yet, week after week, year after year, we come to the floor of the House to consider proposed constitutional amendments that are in fact little more than glorified press releases. This constitutional graffiti has become so commonplace, so much part of the ritual of this House, so much of the way we all mark the passing of the seasons, that it has become something of an inside joke among the people who work here and the people who report on our work. This is the seventh time since 1995 that the House has been subjected to this supermajority proposal. We will waste a couple of hours debating this before it is voted down yet again. We have also considered amendments concerning the nonexistent epidemic of flag- burning, victims' rights, and anything else that Republican pollsters think might play well in the 30-second campaign ads. The core flaw of this amendment is that it requires a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress to raise taxes. This is profoundly anti- democratic in that it enables a one-third minority to overrule almost two-thirds. That includes any tax reform measure that would eliminate special interest loopholes, such as the loophole that allows American industries to incorporate in Bermuda and avoid paying taxes in the United States, or any of a number of multi-million dollar favorites that fill the thousands of pages in the Internal Revenue Code. If this amendment were to be adopted, a small minority could block the elimination of these outrageous and unfair tax loopholes, but a simple majority could put new loopholes into law. In fact, it would be a one-way rachet. A majority elected by the American people could establish new tax loopholes for large corporations, or for anyone else. And if the American people, as is the process in our democracy, became very angry at this and threw out the rascals and elected a different majority to Congress next year, they could not change it because they would need a two-thirds majority to change what a simple majority did the year before. It is a one-way rachet. That is an absurd constitutional anomaly. The gentleman spoke of making it necessary to have a two-thirds, a bipartisan consensus, to change tax policy. That is not what this amendment does. It requires a two-thirds consensus, a bipartisan consensus, to change taxes in one direction, but a simple majority in the other. So a majority in Congress one year can reduce taxes, can get elected on a slogan of let us reduce taxes by $100 billion, and then it turns out that what they did reduces taxes by $1 trillion. Then the American people think it is more important not to clobber Social Security so they elect a different majority next year and say, restore the taxes up to the $100 billion they said they were going to cut. But no, that means a two-thirds majority. If Members want the Tax Code to become even more unfair, even more slanted towards the special interests, even more complex than it now is, then this amendment is the best chance to do so. This amendment would tie Congress' hands in economic emergencies unrelated to war, and it would tie Congress' ability to protect Social Security or Medicare, to respond to financial crises, or to the next fiscally irresponsible President. That makes no sense. Now, is there any special reason we need this constitutional amendment? The courage shown by the first President Bush and by President Clinton eliminated what many had considered permanent deficits. This was accomplished by cuts in spending and targeted tax increases. Many of my Republican colleagues blamed President Bush and demanded the head of his OMB director. Many of those same colleagues denounced and opposed President Clinton's budgets. Well, the discipline imposed by the majority in Congress and President Bush I and President Clinton, worked, and we got rid of huge budget deficits and we finally got budget surpluses to show for it. We were able to start paying down the national debt. What has happened since then? In little more than a year, the current President Bush and his supporters in Congress have managed to undo the work, the hard work, of more than a decade. We are running deficits, an over $230 billion deficit this year into the foreseeable future, and will continue to do so even without such needed reforms, which will cost money, such as a prescription drug benefit under Medicare, which most people here claim to support. We will continue to raid the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. That is not because of a flaw in the Constitution, it is because of a failure of leadership, and a failure, a lack of courage to make tough decisions. This sort of fiscal crack-up is what happens when Members of Congress try to promise the American people something for nothing. The first President Bush in 1980 called candidate Reagan's promise to slash taxes, increase spending, and balance the budget all at the same time voodoo economics. That was a slander against voodoo. Now instead of sound fiscal policies, we get this constitutional amendment, again designed to take our attention away from what is going on. The American people do not need symbolic politics. They need real leadership. Supermajorities, Mr. Speaker, are anathema to the democratic system of government. That is why the Framers of the Constitution limited them to a very few areas, such as the impeachment of an elected President or amending the Constitution, the fundamental document of our government, itself. And let me add one thing. We today have a given philosophy or most people have a given philosophy: it is good to reduce tax; it is bad to increase them. Maybe the majority of opinion of the American people agree with that. Maybe not. That is what elections are about. But even assuming that most people think that today, maybe our grandchildren 50 years hence will not think that. Maybe 50 years hence our grandchildren will think, or the majority will, that it is a good idea to increase taxes in order to pay them for Social Security or for whatever will seem necessary for them at that time. Who are we today to tie their hands and say that our grandchildren and our children, that a minority shall rule in their day? Who are we to say because we have a particular opinion on an issue that 50 years from now our grandchildren shall be bound by our opinion on that issue, that if they want to increase taxes in 50 years to pay for what they think is more important than a lower tax rate, we will tell them no, you need a two-thirds vote, one-third can block it? That is saying that we are writing a particular opinion about a particular issue into the Constitution, and we should never do that. The Constitution is a guide to process. It distributes power to different agencies of the government. It reserves the right of people against government to free speech and so forth. It does not enact particular ideas, particular economic doctrines, or it should not at any rate. Just how small a minority could hold this Nation hostage under this amendment? A group of Senators representing one-tenth of the population of the United States, those from the smaller States, could block any effort to raise revenues, to reform the Tax Code, to improve law enforcement, to exercise fiscal discipline, to balance the budget or do anything else that the remaining 90 percent of the Nation believes is absolutely necessary. Is this what the Members of this House really want? In Federalist Number 58, James Madison, perhaps the Father of our Constitution, argues as follows. He said: It has been said that more than a majority ought to have been required . . . in particular cases, if not in all . . . for a decision. That some advantages might have resulted from such a precaution cannot be denied. It might have been an additional shield to some particular interests, and other obstacle generally to hasty and partial measures. But these considerations are outweighed by the inconveniences in the opposite scale. In all cases where justice or the general good might require new laws to be passed, or active measures to be pursued, the fundamental principle of free government would be reversed. It would be no longer the majority that would rule: this power would be transferred to the minority. Were the defensive privilege limited to particular cases, an interested minority might take advantage of it to screen themselves from equitable sacrifices to the general weal, or, in particular emergencies, to extort unreasonable indulgences. And that of course is exactly what this amendment would do. It would say that in time of economic crisis or of real necessity where the majority felt it necessary to increase taxes to pay for whatever it was they thought it necessary to pay for, a minority, a one-third minority, could say no or could say okay, but only if you change the abortion laws in one way or another. The one-third minority would be able to blackmail the majority of the Nation. We are now in a time of crisis, and the very real possibility that, as we seek to meet the challenges of the future, economic as well as military, a determined minority may be able to blackmail the Nation, is truly terrifying. This debate is not about a particular tax rate. It is, as Madison rightly pointed out, about the very fabric of our democracy. We should not be considering this nonsense. We just did it last year. I know there is nothing I can do to dissuade the majority. I thank my colleagues for their indulgence. Thank goodness like April 15, this preposterous notion comes up only once a year.

Mr. NADLER. Yes, I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. NADLER. Yes, essentially I do. I do believe it is a waste of time and that it is a ridiculous proposal. We have rejected it six times in 6 years. We are going to reject it again. The gentleman knows that, and we ought to be debating the appropriations bills. We ought to be debating the reorganization of our homeland security. We ought to be debating a prescription drug bill for Medicare. We ought to be debating Social Security. We do not have time for all that, we are told. We have time for this.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), the distinguished ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. NADLER. Reclaiming my time, if we had scheduled something else for this time now instead of just going home for dinner, I would be happy to do that. But since the leadership of the House has decided this is more important than anything else and nothing else is available, that would not serve. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this uncontroversial bill. The bill was prepared, as the distinguished chairman mentioned, by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel as part of the program required by statute to prepare and submit to the Committee on the Judiciary a complete compilation restatement and revision of the general and permanent laws of the United States, one title at a time. The bill makes no substantive changes in the law. Rather, the bill removes ambiguities, contradictions, and other imperfections from the existing law and repeals obsolete, superfluous, and superceded provisions. The Law Revision Counsel indicates that he is satisfied that there are no substantive changes in the existing law contained in this bill. Therefore, no additional cost to the government would be incurred as a result of the enactment of H.R. 2068. In addition, I would note that the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary have co-sponsored this bill. I therefore encourage members to support this legislation. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3297, the Mychal Judge Police and Fire Chaplains Public Safety Officers' Benefit Act of 2002. I worked closely with the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Manzullo) on this bill to extend the Public Safety Officers Program, PSOP, to chaplains; and I want to thank him, as well as the gentleman from Wisconsin (Chairman Sensenbrenner), the ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), and the House leadership for bringing this bill to the floor. Father Mychal Judge was the pastor of the Church of St. Francis of Assisi on West 31st Street in Manhattan and the official chaplain of the New York City Fire Department. On September 11 of last year when the first plane hit Tower 1 of the World Trade Center, Father Mike, as he was known, joined his fellow firefighters by rushing to the scene. New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani later said he saw the chaplain at the World Trade Center and asked him to pray for us. Father Judge was selflessly doing his duty when he was killed by falling pieces of the Trade Center Tower. Today is the 9-month anniversary of the attack, and I think it quite fitting that today we honor Father Michael Judge and the many other public safety officers who made the ultimate sacrifice that fateful day in September. Clearly, Father Judge provided heroic service to our Nation and ought to be eligible for the PSOP program. As you know, the PSOP program provides financial assistance, counseling and the recognition of a grateful Nation to the spouses, children or parents of public safety officers killed or permanently injured or those permanently or totally disabled as a result of traumatic injuries sustained in the line of duty. Father Judge is one of several chaplains who have died in the line of duty since the PSOP program was created. This bill would acknowledge their service to our country by clarifying their eligibility in the PSOP program and by enabling the designated beneficiaries to access the benefits provided by the program. These changes would help individuals, like Father Judge, who as a Franciscan Brother could not have a spouse and child, but who did leave two sisters. Under current law, siblings are not eligible. Similarly, this legislation would help other heroes who perished in the line of duty on September 11 and left behind loved ones, for example fiances, who are not covered by the existing law. This legislation passed the House Committee on the Judiciary and the full Senate unanimously and without controversy. It is endorsed by the National Association of Police Organizations, the International Association of Fire Fighters, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Again I want to thank the gentleman from Wisconsin (Chairman Sensenbrenner); the ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers); the majority leader, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey); the minority leader, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt); and, of course, my colleague, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Manzullo), for working so tirelessly to bring this bill to the floor. I also want to thank my colleague, the gentleman from Queens, New York (Mr. Crowley), for bringing this problem to our attention way back in September and for his steadfast support of our firefighters in New York. I also would like to thank Senator Leahy for championing the companion bill in the Senate, as well as the NAPO, the IAFF and AFSCME for advocating this legislation on behalf of public safety officers all across this country. I urge all my colleagues to support this necessary and important legislation. It is a fitting tribute to Father Mychal Judge and the more than 400 public safety officers who gave their lives protecting American citizens during the worst attack ever on American soil.