Jerrold Nadler

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. I do, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, this is a very, very important debate. I want to commend the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) for bringing this resolution before the House. I would direct my remarks particularly to my friend, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), the distinguished chairman of the Committee on International Relations. There are two texts that are key here. One is the provision in article 6 of the Constitution that the gentleman from Ohio read a few minutes ago: ``The Constitution and the laws of the United States, which should be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made or which shall be made under the authority of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land.'' A treaty is a law, in exactly the same sense as any other law made pursuant to the Constitution of the United States. It is treated exactly the same. That is the first point. The gentleman from Illinois read from the ABM treaty, and he read a sentence that says, and I do not have the exact words, and the gentleman from Illinois may wish to give me the exact words, but the parties shall have the authority to withdraw from the treaty. I think that is what the gentleman read, that the ``parties'' shall have the authority to withdraw from the treaty. But who are the parties? The party is the United States, not the President. Indeed, the President, who signed it, Richard Nixon, I think, would we say that only Richard Nixon has the authority to withdraw from the treaty, or Richard Nixon's successors? No, the parties to the treaty are a country. The United States signs the treaty. Someone may sign on behalf of the United States, but the United States is the party to a treaty; so the United States may, according to its constitutional processes, whatever they may be, and that is what we are discussing here, withdraw from a treaty. So that language in the treaty is not particularized to the President. The question is: How does the United States withdraw from a treaty? I submit this is a very important debate and should not be ruled out of order. It may be the resolution, it may be that we need further study of this. Maybe one could make a case, I do not think so, but maybe one could make a case that rather than a vote of both Houses to withdraw from the treaty, we should need a two-thirds vote of the Senate, because that is how we got into it. I would not think so, but it may be. But the fact is, it is the law. The Constitution in article 6 says that the treaty which shall be made under the authority of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land. We cannot permit, in a democratic society, the President by himself or any other person by himself to repeal a law. That is not our system. It is, frankly, puzzling to me, it has been puzzling for a long time, and I think this opens a number of questions, that we have various trade treaties which do not get two-thirds votes in the Senate and require votes in the House and Senate. I do not understand why they are not treaties. There are provisions in the Constitution that we seem to have conveniently forgotten about. I think that this provision is very clear: a treaty is a law, exactly the same as any other law. It can be repealed in the same way, and the language of the gentleman from Illinois, that the distinguished chairman cited in the treaty itself, simply says the parties may withdraw from the treaty; but the party in this case is the United States. The parties it refers to are the United States and Russia and China; China did not sign it, but France, and whoever else signed the treaty. A party to a treaty has always been held in law to be the country, not the individual who signed on behalf of the country.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to thank the President, the Speaker, Chairman Young, Ranking Member Obey and every Member of this House for fulfilling the commitment that was made to New York in the wake of 9/ 11. While there are many controversial issues in this supplemental, the funding for New York is not one of them. This bill fulfills President Bush's commitment to spend a minimum of $20 billion in New York to help my City recover from the devastating attack of September 11th , and for that I say thank you. This disaster is like no other in our nations history. An urban area has been devastated due to an act of terrorism. Many federal agencies have stepped in to help New York recover including FEMA, HUD, Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Justice. And while we appreciate all they have done, I must ask the Members of this House to continue to stand with New York to ensure that the EPA does a proper environmental clean-up of indoor air and that FEMA continues to exercise maximum flexibility to help the individuals, families and institutions that continue to suffer as a result of 9/11. I must ask this House to be patient if the New York delegation needs to return in the coming months and years to ask that the money in this bill is reprogrammed or redirected to ensure it has a positive impact on New York. I must ask this House to understand that we are grateful for your support, for your generosity, and for your compassion, but please help us finish the job in a proper, efficient, and as cost- effective manner as possible. Again, thank you to every Member of this House--New Yorkers look forward to your continued support.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, today, I would like to recognize the distinguished service of one of the nation's foremost leaders in higher education, Dr. George Rupp, who is retiring after nine years as the President of Columbia University, my alma mater. His stewardship of this world-renowned institution has been truly commendable, He has enhanced the University's already extraordinary level of achievement across all of its mission areas: in teaching; in research; and in service. Columbia is poised to celebrate its 250th anniversary in 2004 as a leading light in the renaissance of American higher education and as an exemplary model of the creation and spread of knowledge in the service of humanity. Through the initiatives Dr. Rupp oversaw, Columbia has become one of the most sought after universities in the world, for scholars seeking to join its world class faculty, for recent graduates seeking to enter one of its many leading graduate and professional programs, and for high school students hoping to be amongst the one in seven applicants gaining admission to Columbia College. Some of this vitality can be seen in the physical environment of the University, which has benefitted from a revitalization effort widely praised for its sensitivity to the architectural history of Columbia's campuses and to the needs of their surrounding communities. But in my opinion, Dr. Rupp's true achievement is less immediately visible. He has helped not just to assemble one of the most distinguished groups of scholars and researchers and one of the most gifted student bodies in the world; his has been one of the foremost voices reminding us that the strength of America's institutions of higher education stems from the connections they enable, between ideas and between ideas and applications. At Columbia, he has helped build the linkages that make the University a whole that is more than the sum of its parts. A hallmark of Dr. Rupp's leadership has been the creation of innovative structures to meet the challenges posed by the increasingly multidisciplinary and interdependent nature of scientific research. In recent years, Columbia has drawn together scholars from different departments, schools and even outside institutions to develop new ways to organize the search for knowledge. These new centers include The Earth Institute, The Columbia Genome Center, The Center for Biomedical Engineering, The International Research Institute for Climate Prediction, and The Center for New Media Teaching and Learning. Such efforts will certainly further Columbia's already major role in a strong and successful partnership between the federal government and university-based research. Under Dr. Rupp's tenure, Columbia's remarkable pool of talent and resources has been increasingly directed to the service of good citizenship. The University, the third largest employer in New York City, has been active in helping foster economic growth in its neighboring communities. For instance, Columbia helped develop the proposal for the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone (UMEZ), provided ongoing technical support to the UMEZ and opened the first biomedical research and development park in New York City. The University also established a program that hires and helps train community residents, and offers ``forgivable'' loans to employees as an incentive for home- buying within the Empowerment Zone. Columbia also administers academic, professional and service programs that assist thousands of upper Manhattan residents, school children and businesses. The son of German immigrants, Dr. Rupp has also emphasized the global dimension of Columbia's work and sought to develop its role in international education and research. A number of new academic programs have been created with institutions abroad including the Law School's faculty exchange program with Tokyo University and its four-year double-degree program with the University of Paris; the first American undergraduate program with the Free University of Berlin; and the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation's programs with universities in Brazil, Indonesia and Belize. Dr. Rupp's retirement closes 25 years of service as dean or president at a major university. Before assuming the presidency of Columbia in 1993, he led Rice University for eight years of successful growth, a period which saw the tripling of applications for admissions and a doubling of federal research support. Earlier, Dr. Rupp was the John Lord O'Brian Professor of Divinity and dean of the Harvard Divinity School. Under his leadership, the School's curriculum was revised to address more directly the pluralistic character of contemporary religious life. Further developments included new programs in women's studies and religion, Jewish-Christian relations, and religion and medicine. Dr. Rupp's accomplishments place him in the company of such other illustrious presidents of Columbia as Nicholas Murray Butler and Dwight Eisenhower. As a Columbia alumnus, I feel a heightened pride in my alma mater. As a New Yorker, I applaud Columbia's role in the cultural, intellectual and economic life of my city. I thank George Rupp for his masterful and dedicated service to one of the greatest institutions of one of the greatest cities of the world.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support of Representative Sanchez's amendment. This amendment is about recognizing the rights and dignity of our women in the armed forces. It grants those serving overseas and their dependents access to appropriate reproductive health care. It is really a very limited amendment to correct a policy that never should have been enacted in the first place. This amendment does not impose Department of Defense funding for abortion. Rather, it simply allows women to obtain safe abortion services using their own funds in U.S. military hospitals outside of the United States. The current ban increases women's health risks and denies women their basic constitutional right to privacy. It requires a woman to inform her superiors of her need for abortion and wait until there is space available on a military flight back to the United States. This delay puts women's lives in jeopardy. Furthermore, women serving our country today depend on their military base hospital for medical care in areas where local health care facilities may be inadequate or unavailable. The health of a servicewoman is threatened when she has to look outside of the base for a safe provider of the medical attention she needs. The current policy may even force a woman to seek back alley or unsafe abortion when facing a crisis pregnancy. In addition, the ban discriminates against the women serving our country overseas. This amendment would ensure equal access to comprehensive reproductive health care for all U.S. servicewoman and dependents, regardless of where they are stationed. We should provide the best possible medical attention to our military personnel, and that includes reproductive health services. We ought to pass this amendment now. We owe it to the women in our armed services who risk their lives everyday to protect liberty and fight for our freedom. They work hard every day to promote our safety, lets act today to protect their safety. I urge my colleagues to vote for the Sanchez amendment.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, Israel, like every other nation, has the right to self-defense. This resolution expresses our solidarity with Israel as she defends herself against the barbaric campaign of terrorism and expresses our determination that the violence must end. We are told the resolution is not balanced, but we should not be balanced between Palestinian terrorists and Israeli victims; between an Israel that offered breathtaking concessions for peace, and Arafat, who walked away from the table and deliberately started a war. We should not be balanced between the Palestinian Authority, whose method of negotiation is to murder as many Israeli civilians as possible in restaurants and pizza parlors and Passover seders, and Israel which exercises its right to defend its people by attacking terrorists and gunmen, not innocent civilians. We all want peace, but to attain peace we must stand in solidarity with Israel so Israel can feel secure in seeking peace. We can and should be an even-handed broker during negotiations, but we must stand forthrightly with Israel now against the terrorists if there are ever to be again real negotiations.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with much disappointment that the animal protection provisions once included in the Farm Bill were stripped out during conference committee. As a long-time champion of animal rights, I have been a cosponsor of The Downed Animal Protection Act, The Bear Protection Act, the ban on cockfighting, and similar pieces of legislation since my early days in Congress. And with each year that they are introduced and re- introduced, the House comes closer and closer to passing them, but yet we always fall short. The Farm Bill was the best vehicle in recent memory for finally having these protections signed into law. But, alas, we find ourselves back at square one. Despite this missed opportunity, I ultimately decided to support the Farm Bill because it contains several positive provisions that will greatly benefit many of my constituents. The Nutritional Title within the bill is one of the most important pieces of food stamp legislation in 25 years. It invests almost $7 billion over ten years in crucial improvements in the program, including a restoration of benefits to all documented immigrant children and to immigrant adults who have resided in the country for five years. The bill also provides families with transitional food stamps as they leave welfare and move into jobs, making the difficult transition much more stable. In addition, the Farm Bill includes $275 million for the Watershed Rehabilitation Program which will provide much-needed resources to protect and preserve the New York City Watershed. The bill also contains provisions that will be beneficial for fruit and vegetable growers and dairy farmers in Upstate New York. While I am pleased that the Farm Bill made vital improvements in the Food Stamp Program and invested in important agriculture initiatives, I do not approve of the conferee's decision to strip out the animal rights protections. It is my sincere hope that Congress will quickly revisit and implement these crucial protections that have been put off for far too long.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, in 1994, Congress passed the Violence against Women Act, which has had great success in reducing violence against women and domestic violence generally. One of the things that act did was to create the Violence Against Women Office in the Justice Department. That office has been instrumental in directing the efforts against domestic violence. But the office has lost influence and is in danger of losing its role or much of its role in the pending reorganization within the Department of Justice. With the strong bipartisan support, the House and the Senate have both passed provisions in the appropriations authorization bill to make the office permanent and statutory, but it is critical that the statutory creation of this office reflect the essential components of the office. The office cannot serve as the leader in promoting the changes needed to effectively serve victims of domestic violence, sexual stalking and trafficking if it is merely a check-writing office, as it is often regarded today. The office needs the authority to create policy regarding violence against women and needs to have a presidentially- appointed, Senate-confirmed director in order to ensure that these issues continue to have a high profile at local, State, Federal and international events. This motion to instruct will accomplish these purposes, and that is why I rise in support of the motion to instruct. I commend the gentlewoman for offering it.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to ask my colleagues just one question. As we consider reauthorizing our Nation's welfare program, what do we want to accomplish, a temporary fix, or a comprehensive solution to poverty? If we truly want a comprehensive solution, we would allow TANF recipients to count education as a work activity so that they can move into living-wage jobs and not end up back on TANF 6 months after they leave. If we want a comprehensive solution, we would invest in quality child care so parents could go to work to ensure their children will be safe in a nurturing environment that is preparing them for success in school and beyond. If we want a comprehensive solution, we would recognize the typical immigrant worker pays $80,000 more in taxes than they receive in government benefits over a lifetime, and we would restore the safety net for them. We would do all of this if we wanted a comprehensive solution. But the Republican proposal does not embody this common sense. What is in their bills is a program that sets low-income people up for failure. Dead-end workfare jobs with no opportunity to pursue further education and escape is a vicious cycle of poverty. I challenge my colleagues to make good their election year pledges to help America's working families and make these improvements in TANF this year.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to close for our side. Mr. Speaker, there really are, I suppose, in summation, two things to say about this bill: one is that parental consent bills in general, although the providence of the States, in our opinion, are very ill- advised, because although we all would wish that young women who are pregnant and are contemplating an abortion would consult with their parents, and certainly most do and should, there are those situations where a young woman feels she cannot, where she is afraid of the violent reaction the parent might have, where a parent may have been abusive to her, where the pregnancy may be the result of rape or incest on the part of the parent, and we should recognize reality and understand that a parental consent and notification bill in no circumstances makes no sense, and it is certainly not in the best interests of the young woman; but that is a matter for the State legislatures. The second thing to say about this bill is that none of that, none of the question of the validity or the intelligence or the desirability of a parental consent and notification bill, is before us. Those are State legislative decisions, and quite a few legislatures have passed those decisions, have passed such bills; and others have refused to do so. The bill before us has nothing to do with that. The bill before us has to do with trying to criminalize someone who accompanies a young woman from one State to another, knowing that she is going to get an abortion legally in that State. The proponents of this bill are trying to use the power of the Federal Government to impose the laws of one State in the jurisdiction of the other State. The proponents of this bill are trying to place on the back of a young woman from one State the burden of the law of that State, to carry it around wherever she goes, to another State where the law is different. We do not have the constitutional power to do that. In a Federal system we do not have the right to do that. I referred earlier to the Fugitive Slave Act because it was the last major attempt in this country to do that, where some of the Southern States said if a slave flees or goes to a State which does not recognize slavery, that person still is a slave, despite the laws of that State, and the Federal Government will enable the State to exercise its long arm and bring him back to bondage in the State that allows slavery. Here this bill says that the Federal Government will use its jurisdiction to try to prevent a young woman from doing a perfectly legal act, because the State she came from does not regard it as a legal act; to force that young woman to carry the burden of the law she disagrees with from her home State to another State. This bill is unconstitutional for that reason and obnoxious for that reason. This bill also would send grandmothers and ministers to jail, grandmothers and ministers who know the situation, who judge that the young woman cannot, as she judges, go to the parent, because they know there has been a rape, they know there has been incest, or they know there is family violence involved, they know the situation of the family. In plenty of families it is perfectly fine to have parental consent. But by drawing a bill that says all families, no matter what, you are plainly putting many young women at risk of injury or death. But, again, that is a State legislative matter. What this bill says is that ministers and grandmothers and brothers and sisters of a young woman whose life would be at risk perhaps, they cannot help her when she needs help on penalty of going to jail. This bill will not bring families together; but it may, in such circumstances, tear them apart. On all these grounds, Mr. Speaker, I say, let the States make these decisions, as they are allowed to do under the Constitution. Let us not butt in the Federal Government, as we are not permitted to do under the Constitution, and as good judgment should indicate we should not do in any event. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. No, would the person sitting in the seat next to them holding their hand be responsible?

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman makes a nonsensical point. In that case, if the vicar had not traveled with the young woman, she would have traveled alone and gotten the abortion. That would have been preferable? In this case, the school nurse called in the vicar because the young woman had told her that she feared for her life or that she would run away from home if she had, that she could not under any circumstances, would not under any circumstances tell her parents but she would get the abortion. So she called in the vicar, the vicar spoke with her, counseled her, and rather than let her go alone, helped her. This is not praying on the young woman. This is giving pastoral guidance and helping her. Mr. Speaker, we are told that this bill is somehow constitutional, but the Supreme Court has clearly and consistently held that States cannot prohibit the lawful out of State conduct of their citizens if its lawful out of State nor may they impose criminal sanctions on this behavior as this bill does. The court reaffirmed its principles in its landmark right to travel decision Saenz versus Roe. In its decision, the court held that even with congressional approval, California's attempt to impose on recently arrived residents the welfare laws of their former States of residence was an unconstitutional penalty upon their rights to interstate travel. The decision also reaffirmed that the constitutional right to travel under the privileges and immunity clause of Article IV of the Constitution provides a similar type of protection to a nonresident who enters a State with the intent eventually to return to her home State. This principle applies to minor's rights to seek an abortion on nondiscriminatory terms as well as through welfare benefits. In Saenz, the court specifically referred to Doe v. Bolton, the companion case to Roe v. Wade, which established the right to abortion which held that under Article IV of the Constitution, a State may not restrict the ability of visiting nonresidents to obtain abortions on the same terms and conditions under which they are made available to lawful State residents. ``The Privileges and Immunities Clause, Constitutional Article IV, section 2, protects persons who enter a State seeking the medical services that are available there.'' It is also clear that such protections will flow to minors given that Planned Parenthood v. Danforth, a 1976 decision, held that pregnant minors have a constitutional right to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy. Mr. Speaker, it is clear this bill is unconstitutional as well as unwarranted as well as cruel. September 5, 2001. To: United States House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Constitution From: Laurence H. Tribe, Tyler Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard University Peter J. Rubin, Associate Professor of Law, Georgetown University Re: H.R. 476 and Constitutional Principles of Federalism Introduction We have been asked to submit our assessment of whether H.R. 476, now pending before the House, is consistent with constitutional principles of federalism. It is our considered view that the proposed statute violates those principles, principles that are fundamental to our constitutional order. That statute violates the rights of states to enact and enforce their own laws governing conduct within their territorial boundaries, and the rights of the residents of each of the United States and of the District of Columbia to travel to and from any state of the Union for lawful purposes, a right strongly reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in its recent landmark decision in Saenz v. Roe, 526 U.S. 489 (1999). We have therefore concluded that the proposed law would, if enacted, violate the Constitution of the United States. H.R. 476 would provide criminal and civil penalties, including imprisonment for up to one year, for any person who knowingly transports an individual who has not attained the age of 18 years across a State line, with the intent that such individual obtain an abortion. . . [if] an abortion is performed on the individual, in a State other than the State where the individual resides, without the parental consent or notification, or the judicial authorization, that would have been required by that law in the State where the individual resides. H.R. 476, Sec. 2 (a) (proposed 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2431(a)(1) and (2)). In other words, this law makes it a federal crime to assist a pregnant minor to obtain a lawful abortion. The criminal penalties kick in if the abortion the young woman seeks would be performed in a state other than her state of residence, and in accord with the less restrictive laws of that state, unless she complies with the more severe restrictions her home state imposes upon abortions performed upon minors within its territorial limits. The law contains no exceptions for situations where the young woman's home state purports to disclaim any such extraterritorial effect for its parental consultation rules, or where it is a pregnant young woman's close friend, or her aunt or grandmother, or a member of the clergy, who accompanies her ``across a State line'' on this frightening journey, even where she would have obtained the abortion anyway, whether lawfully in another state after a more perilous trip alone, or illegally (and less safely) in her home state because she is too frightened to seek a judicial bypass or too terrified of physical abuse to notify a parent or legal guardian who may, indeed, be the cause of her pregnancy. It does not exempt health care providers, including doctors, from possible criminal or civil penalties. Nor does it uniformly apply home-state laws on pregnant minors who obtain out-of-state abortions. The law applies only where the young woman seeks to go from a state with a more restrictive regime into a state with a less restrictive one. This amounts to a statutory attempt to force this most vulnerable class of young women to carry the restrictive laws of their home states strapped to their backs, bearing the great weight of those laws like the bars of a prison that follows them wherever they go (unless they are willing to go alone). Such a law violates the basic premises upon which our federal system is constructed, and therefore violates the Constitution of the United States. Analysis The essence of federalism is that the several states have not only different physical territories and different topographies but also different political and legal regimes. Crossing the border into another state, which every citizen has a right to do, may perhaps not permit the traveler to escape all tax or other fiscal or recordkeeping duties owed to the state as a condition of remaining a resident and thus a citizen of that state, but necessarily permits the traveler temporarily to shed her home state's regime of laws regulating primary conduct in favor of the legal regime of the state she has chosen to visit. Whether cast in terms of the destination state's authority to enact laws effective throughout its domain without having to make exceptions for travelers from other states, or cast in terms of the individual's right to travel--which would almost certainly be deterred and would in any event be rendered virtually meaningless if the traveler could not shake the conduct- constraining laws of her home state--the proposition that a state may not project its laws into other states by following its citizens there is bedrock in our federal system. One need reflect only briefly on what rejecting that proposition would mean in order to understand how axiomatic it is to the structure of federalism. Suppose that your home state or Congress could lock you into the legal regime of your home state as you travel across the country. This would mean that the speed limits, marriage regulations, restrictions on adoption, rules about assisted suicide, firearms regulations, and all other controls over behavior enacted by the state you sought to leave behind, either temporarily or permanently, would in fact follow you into all 49 of the other states as you traveled the length and breadth of the nation in search of more hospitable ``rules of the road.'' If your search was for a more favorable legal environment in which to make your home, you might as well just look up the laws of distant states on the internet rather than roaming about in a futile effort at sampling them, since you will not actually experience those laws by traveling there. And if your search was for a less hostile legal environment in which to attend college or spend a summer vacation or obtain a medical procedure, you might as well skip even the internet, since the theoretically less hostile laws of other jurisdictions will mean nothing to you so long as your state of residence remains unchanged. Unless the right to travel interstate means nothing more than the right to change the scenery, opting for the open fields of Kansas or the mountains of Colorado or the beaches of Florida but all the while living under the legal regime of whichever state you call home, telling you that the laws governing your behavior will remain constant as you cross from one state into another and then another is tantamount to telling you that you may in truth be compelled to remain at home--although you may, of course, engage in a simulacrum of interstate travel, with an experience much like that of the visitor to a virtual reality arcade who is strapped into special equipment that provides the look and feel of alternative physical environments--from sea to shining sea-- but that does not alter the political and legal environment one iota. And, of course, if home-state legislation, or congressional legislation, may saddle the home state's citizens with that state's abortion regulation regime, then it may saddle them with their home state's adoption and marriage regimes as well, and with piece after piece of the home state's legal fabric until the home state's citizens are all safely and tightly wrapped in the straitjacket of the home state's entire legal regime. There are no constitutional scissors that can cut this process short, no principled metric that can supply a stopping point. The principle underlying H.R. 476 is nothing less, therefore, than the principle that individuals may indeed be tightly bound by the legal regimes of their home states even as they traverse the nation by traveling to other states with very different regimes of law. It follows, therefore, that--unless the right to engage in interstate travel that is so central to our federal system is indeed only a right to change the surrounding scenery--H.R. 476 rests on a principle that obliterates that right completely. It is irrelevant to the federalism analysis that the proposed federal statute does not literally prohibit the minor herself from obtaining an out-of-state abortion without complying with the parental consent or notification laws of her home state, criminalizing instead only the conduct of assisting such a young woman by transporting her across state lines. The manifest and indeed avowed purpose of the statute is to prevent the pregnant minor from crossing state lines to obtain an abortion that is lawful in her state of destination whenever it would have violated her home state's law to obtain an abortion there because the pregnant woman has not fully complied with her home state's requirements for parental consent or notification. The means used to achieve this end do not alter the constitutional calculus. Prohibiting assistance in crossing state lines in the manner of this proposed statute suffers the same infirmity with respect to our federal structure as would a direct ban on traveling across state lines to obtain an abortion that complies with all the laws of the state where it is performed without first complying also with the laws that would apply to obtaining an abortion in one's home state. The federalism principle we have described operates routinely in our national life. Indeed, it is so commonplace it is taken for granted. Thus, for example, neither Virginia nor Congress could prohibit residents of Virginia, where casino gambling is illegal, from traveling interstate to gamble in a casino in Nevada. (Indeed, the economy of Nevada essentially depends upon this aspect of federalism for its continued vitality.) People who like to hunt cannot be prohibited from traveling to states where hunting is legal in order to avail themselves of those pro-hunting laws just because such hunting may be illegal in their home state. And citizens of every state must be free, for example, to read and watch material, even constitutionally unprotected material, in New York City the distribution of which might be unlawful in their own states, but which New York has chosen not to forbid. To call interstate travel for such purposes an ``evasion'' or ``circumvention'' of one's home-state laws--as H.R. 476 purports to do, see H.R. 476, Sec. 2(a) (heading of the proposed 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2431) (``Transportation of minors in circumvention of certain laws relating to abortion'')-- is to misunderstand the basic premise of federalism: one is entitled to avoid those laws by traveling interstate. Doing so amounts to neither evasion nor circumvention. Put simply, you may not be compelled to abandon your citizenship in your home state as a condition of voting with your feet for the legal and political regime of whatever other state you wish to visit. The fact that you intend to return home cannot undercut your right, while in another state, to be governed by its rules of primary conduct rather than by the rules of primary conduct of the state from which you came and to which you will return. When in Rome, perhaps you will not do as the Romans do, but you are entitled--if this figurative Rome is within the United States--to be governed as the Romans are. If something is lawful for one of them to do, it must be lawful for you as well. The fact that each state is free, notwithstanding Article IV, to make certain benefits available on a preferential basis to its own citizens does not mean that a state's criminal laws may be replaced with stricter ones for the visiting citizen from another state, whether by that state's own choice or by virtue of the law of the visitor's state or by virtue of a congressional enactment. To be sure, a state need not treat the travels of its citizens to other states as suddenly lifting otherwise applicable restrictions when they return home. Thus, a state that bans the possession of gambling equipment, of specific kinds of weapons, of liquor, or of obscene material may certainly enforce such bans against anyone who would bring the contraband items into the jurisdiction, including its own residents returning from a gambling state, a hunting state, a drinking state, or a state that chooses not to outlaw obscenity. But that is a far cry from projecting one state's restrictive gambling, firearms, alcohol, or obscenity laws into another state whenever citizens of the first state venture there. Thus states cannot prohibit the lawful out-of-state conduct of their citizens, nor may they impose criminal-law-backed burdens--as H.R. 476 would do--upon those lawfully engaged in business or other activity within their sister states. Indeed, this principle is so fundamental that it runs through the Supreme Court's jurisprudence in cases that are nominally about provisions and rights as diverse as the Commerce Clause, the Due Process Clause, and the right to travel, which is itself derived from several distinct constitutional sources. See, e.g., Healy v. Beer Institute, 491 U.S. 324, 336 n. 13 (1989) (Commerce Clause decision quoting Edgar v. Mite Corp. 457 U.S. 624, 643 (1982) (plurality opinion), which in turn quoted the Court's Due Process decision in Shaffer v. Heitner, 433, U.S. 186, (1977)) (``The limits on a State's power to enact substantive legislation are similar to the limits on the jurisdiction of state courts. In either case, `any attempt ``directly'' to assert extraterritorial jurisdiction over persons or property would offend sister States and exceed the inherent limit of the State's power.' ''). The Supreme Court recently reaffirmed this fundamental principle in its landmark right to travel decision, Saenz v. Roe, 526 U.S. 489 (1999). There the Court held that, even with congressional approval, the State of California was powerless to carve out an exception to its otherwise- applicable legal regime by providing recently-arrived residents with only the welfare benefits that they would have been entitled to receive under the laws of their former states of residence. This attempt to saddle these interstate travelers with the laws of their former home states--even if only the welfare laws, laws that would operate far less directly and less powerfully than would a special criminal- law restriction on primary conduct--was held to impose an unconstitutional penalty upon their right to interstate travel, which, the Court held, is guaranteed them by the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Saenz, 526 U.S. at 503-504. Although Saenz concerned new residents of a state, the decision also reaffirmed that the constitutional right to travel under the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV, Section 2, provides a similar type of protection to a non-resident who enters a state not to settle, but with an intent eventually to return to her home state: [B]y virtue of a person's state citizenship, a citizen of one State who travels in other States, intending to return home at the end of his journey, is entitled to enjoy the ``Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States'' that he visits. This provision removes ``from the citizens of each State the disabilities of alienage in the other States.'' Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall. 168, 180 (1869). It provides important protections for nonresidents who enter a State whether to obtain employment Hicklin v. Orbeck, 437 U.S. 518 (1978), to procure medical services, Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179, 200 (1973), or even to engage in commercial shrimp fishing, Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U.S. 385 (1948). Sanez, 526 U.S. at 501-502 (footnotes and parenthetical omitted). Indeed, Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179 (1973), which was decided over a quarter century ago, and to which the Saenz court referred, specifically held that, under Article IV of the Constitution, a state may not restrict the ability of visiting non-residents to obtain abortions on the same terms and conditions under which they are made available by law to state residents. ``[T]he Privileges and Immunities Clause, Const. Art. IV, Sec. 2, protects persons . . . who enter [a state] seeking the medical services that are available there.'' Id. at 200. Thus, in terms of protection from being hobbled by the laws of one's home state wherever one travels, nothing turns on whether the interstate traveler intends to remain permanently in her destination state, or to return to her state of origin. Combined with the Court's holding that, like the states, Congress may not contravene the principles of federalism that are sometimes described under the ``right to travel'' label, Saenz reinforces the conclusion, if it were not clear before, that even if enacted by Congress, a law like H.R. 476 that attempts by reference to state's own laws to control that state's resident's out-of-state conduct on pains of criminal punishment, whether of that resident or of whoever might assist her to travel interstate, would violate the federal Constitution. See also Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 629-630 (1969) (invalidating an Act of Congress mandating a durational residency requirement for recently- arrived District of Columbia residents seeking to obtain welfare assistance). In 1999, this Committee heard testimony from Professor Lino Graglia of the University of Texas School of Law. An opponent of constitutional abortion rights, he candidly conceded that the proposed law would ``make it . . . more dangerous for young women to exercise their constitutional right to obtain a safe and legal abortion.'' Testimony of Lino A. Graglia on H.R. 1218 before the Constitution Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives, May 27, 1999 at 1. He also concluded, however, that ``the Act furthers the principle of federalism to the extent that it reinforces or makes effective the very small amount of policymaking authority on the abortion issue that the Supreme Court, an arm of the national government, has permitted to remain with the States,'' Id. at 2. He testified that he suppor6ted the bill because he would support ``anything Congress can do to move control of the issue back into the hands of the States.'' Id. at 1. Of course, as the description of H.R. 476 we have given above demonstrates, that proposed statute would do nothing to move ``back'' into the hands of the states any of the control over abortion that was precluded by Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), and its progeny. The several states already have their own distinctive regimes for regulating the provision of abortion services to pregnant minors, regimes that are permitted under the Supreme Court's abortion rulings. That, indeed, is the very premise of this proposed law. But, rather than respecting federalism by permitting each state's law to operate within its own sphere, the proposed federal statute would contravene that essential principle of federalism by saddling the abortion-seeking young woman with the restrictive law of her home state wherever she may travel within the United States unless she travels unaided. Indeed, it would add insult to this federalism injury by imposing its regime regardless of the wishes of her home state, whose legislature might recoil from the prospect of transforming its parental notification laws, enacted ostensibly to encourage the provision of loving support and advice to distraught young women, into an obstacle to the most desperate of these young women, compelling them in the moment of their greatest despair to choose between, on the one hand, telling someone close to them of their situation and perhaps exposing this loved one to criminal punishment, and, on the other, going to the back alleys or on an unaccompanied trip to another, possibly distant state. This federal statute would therefore violate rather than reinforce basic constitutional principles of federalism. The fact that the proposed law applies only to those assisting the interstate travel of minors seeking abortions may make the federalism-based constitutional infirmity somewhat less obvious--while at the same time rendering the law more vulnerable to constitutional challenge because of the danger in which it will place the class of frightened, perhaps desperate young women least able to travel safely on their own. The importance of protecting the relationship between parents and their minor children cannot be gainsaid. But in the end, the fact that the proposed statute involves the interstate travel only of minors does not alter our conclusion. No less than the right to end a pregnancy, the constitutional right to travel interstate and to take advantage of the laws of other states exists even for those citizens who are not yet eighteen. ``Constitutional rights do not mature and come into being magically only when one attains the state-defined age of majority. Minors, as well as adults, are protected by the Constitution and possess constitutional rights.'' Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52, 74 (1976). Nonetheless, the Court has held that, in furtherance of the minors' best interests, government may in some circumstances have more leeway to regulate where minors are concerned. Thus, whereas a law that sought, for example, to burden adult women with their home state's constitutionally acceptable waiting periods for abortion (or with their home state's constitutionally permissible medical regulations that may make abortion more costly) even when they traveled out of state to avoid those waiting periods (or other regulations) would obviously be unconstitutional, it might be argued that a law like the proposed one, which seeks to force a young woman to comply with her home state's parental consent laws regardless of her circumstances, is, because of its focus on minors, somehow saved from constitutional invalidity. It is not, for at least two reasons. First, the importance of the constitutional right in question for the pregnant minor too desperate even to seek judicial approval for abortion in her home state--either because of its futility there, or because of her terror at a judicial proceeding held to discuss her pregnancy and personal circumstances--means that government's power to burden that choice is severely restricted. As Justice Powell wrote over two decades ago: The pregnant minor's options are much different from those facing a minor in other situations, such as deciding whether to marry . . . A pregnant adolescent . . . cannot preserve for long the possibility of aborting, which effectively expires in a matter of weeks from the onset of pregnancy. Moreover, the potentially severe detriment facing a pregnant woman is not mitigated by her minority. Indeed, considering her probable education, employment skills, financial resources, and emotional maturity, unwanted motherhood may be exceptionally burdensome for a minor. In addition, the fact of having a child brings with it adult legal responsibility, for parenthood, like attainment of the age of majority, is one of the traditional criteria for the termination of the legal disabilities of minority. In sum, there are few situations in which denying a minor the right to make an important decision will have consequences so grave and indelible. Bellotti v. Baird (Bellotti II), 443 U.S. 622, 642 (1979) (plurality opinion) (citations omitted). Second, the fact that the penalties on travel out of state by minors who do not first seek parental consent or judicial bypass are triggered only by intent to obtain a lawful abortion and only if the minor's home state has more stringent ``minor protection'' provisions in the form of parental involvement rules than the state of destination, renders any protection-of-minors exception to the basic rule of federalism unavailable. To begin with, the proposed law, unlike one that evenhandedly defers to each state's determination of what will best protect the emotional health and physical safety of its pregnant minors who seek to terminate their pregnancies, simply defers to states with strict parental control laws and subordinates the interests of states that have decided that legally-mandated consent or notification is not a sound means of protecting pregnant minors. The law does not purport to impose a uniform nationwide requirement that all pregnant young women should be subject to the abortion laws of their home states and only those abortion laws wherever they may travel. Thus, under H.R. 476, a pregnant minor whose parents believe that it would be both destructive and profoundly disrespectful to their mature, sexually active daughter to require her by law to obtain their consent before having an abortion, and who live in a state whose laws reflect that view, would, despite the judgment expressed in the laws of her home state, still be required to obtain parental consent should she seek an abortion in a neighboring state with a stricter parental involvement law--something she might do, for example, because that is where the nearest abortion provider is located. This substantively slanted way in which H.R. 476 would operate fatally undermines any argument that might otherwise be available that principles of federalism must give way because this law seeks to ensure that the health and safety of pregnant minors are protected in the way their home states have decided would be best. In addition, the proposed law, again unlike one protecting parental involvement generally, selectively targets one form of control: control with respect to the constitutionally protected procedure of terminating a pregnancy before viability. The proposed law does not do a thing for parental control if the minor is being assisted into another state (or, where the relevant regulation is local, into another city or county) for the purpose of obtaining a tattoo, or endoscopic surgery to correct a foot problem, or laser surgery for an eye defect. The law is activated only when the medical procedure being obtained in another state is the termination of a pregnancy. It is as though Congress proposed to assist parents in controlling their children when, and only when, those children wish to buy constitutionally protected but sexually explicit books about methods of birth control and abortion in states where the sale of such books to these minors is entirely lawful. The basic constitutional principle that such laws overlook is that the greater power does not necessarily include the lesser. Thus, for example, even though so-called ``fighting words'' may be banned altogether despite the First Amendment, it is unconstitutional, the Supreme Court held in 1992, for government selectively to ban those fighting words that are racist or anti-semitic in character. See R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 391-392 (1992). To take another example, Congress could not make it a crime to assist a minor who has had an abortion in the past to cross a state line in order to obtain a lawful form of cosmetic surgery elsewhere if that minor has not complied with her state's valid parental involvement law for such surgery. Even though Congress might enact a broader law that would cover all the minors in the class described, it could not enact a law aimed only at those who have had abortions. Such a law would impermissibly single out abortion for special burdens. The proposed law does so as well. Thus, even if a law that were properly drawn to protect minors could constitutionally displace one of the basic rules of federalism, the proposed statute can not. Lastly, in oral testimony given in 1999 before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Professor John Harrison of the University of Virginia, while conceding that ordinarily a law such as this, which purported to impose upon an individual her home state's laws in order to prevent her from engaging in lawful conduct in one of the other states, would be constitutionally ``doubtful,'' argued that the constitutionality of this law is resolved by the fact that it relates to ``domestic relations,'' a sphere in which, according to Professor Harrison, ``the state with the primary jurisdiction over the rights and responsibilities of parties to the domestic relations is the state of residence . . . and not the state where the conduct'' at issue occurs. See transcript of the Hearing of the Constitution Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee on the Child Custody Protection Act, May 27, 1999. This ``domestic relations exception'' to principles of federalism described by Professor Harrison, however, does not exist, at least not in any context relevant to the constitutionality of H.R. 476. To be sure, acting pursuant to Article IV, Sec. 1, Congress has prescribed special state obligations to accord full faith and credit to judgments in the domestic relations context--for example, to child custody determinations and child support orders. 28 U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 1738A, 1738B. These provisions also establish choice of law principles governing modification of domestic relations orders. In addition, in a controversial provision whose constitutionality is open to question, Congress has said that states are not required to accord full faith and credit to same-sex marriages. Id. at Sec. 1738C. But the special measures adopted by Congress in the domestic relations context can provide no justification for H.R. 476. There is a world of difference between provisions like Sec. Sec. 1738A and 1738B, which prescribe the full faith and credit to which state judicial decrees and judgments are entitled, and proposed H.R. 476, which in effect gives states statutes extraterritorial operation--by purporting to impose criminal liability for interstate travel undertaken to engage in conduct lawful within the territorial jurisdiction of the state in which the conduct is to occur, based solely upon the laws in effect in the state of residence of the individual who seeks to travel to a state where she can engage in that conduct lawfully. The Supreme Court has always differentiated ``the credit owed to laws (legislative measures and common laws) and to judgments.'' Baker v. General Motors Corp., 522 U.S. 222, 232 (1998). For example, while a state may not decline on public policy grounds to give full faith and credit to a judicial judgment from another state, see, e.g., Fauntleroy v. Lum, 210 U.S. 230, 237 (1908), a forum state has always been free to consider its own public policies in declining to follow the legislative enactments of other states. See Nevada v. Hall, 440 U.S. 410, 421-24 (1979). In short, under the Full Faith and Credit Clause, a state has never been compelled ``to substitute the statutes of other states for its own statutes dealing with a subject matter concerning which it is competent to legislate.'' Pacific Employers Ins. Co. v. Industrial Accident Comm'n, 306 U.S. 493, 501 (1939). In fact, the Full Faith and Credit Clause was meant to prevent ``parochial entrenchment on the interests of other States.'' Thomas v. Washington Gas Light Co., 448 U.S. 261, 272 (1980) (plurality opinion). A state is under no obligation to enforce another state's statute with which it disagrees. But H.R. 476 would run afoul of that principle. It imposes the restrictive laws of a woman's home state wherever she travels, in derogation of the usual rules regarding choice of law and full faith and credit. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman states his views of abortion. There are clearly differing views. We are not going to settle them in this debate today. He thinks it is a cruel procedure. Some of us think it is a procedure which in many cases is unavoidable. But in any event, the Supreme Court of the United States says it is the right of a woman to choose if she wishes, and she should be counseled as to the consequences and so forth; but it is her choice. But this bill before us has nothing to do with that, except for the fact it is simply another step in the attempt to in any way possible reduce abortions in any way possible to hamstring the exercise of the constitutional right of women to choose within the limits of what the Supreme Court has said. The real interest in this bill is not to protect young women who may be helped by a grandfather or a brother or a sister or a clergy person in doing something which she is determined to do. In the case we talked about before, she would have done it anyway; but at least she had someone to help her along and give her counseling and hold her hand. The intent of this bill is to try to stop her from having an abortion because the people in this House have determined that they are right and she is wrong and she should not be able to have an abortion. Forgetting that question, the real question in this bill is: Can the Congress of the United States say to a young woman, she is the property of the State in which she lives, and she must carry around on her back the law which it enacted which tells her that she cannot do something even if she goes to another State where she can do it? The plain meaning of the Constitution, and the Supreme Court has reaffirmed that, is that Congress cannot do that. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States. That was enacted after the Civil War because of the Fugitive Slave Act, because South Carolina should not be entitled to tell an escaped slave in New York, although New York does not permanent slavery, South Carolina's laws do, and we are going to extend our law here and drag the slave back and force the slave into our laws of slavery. Mr. Speaker, Congress cannot do the same thing. Congress cannot say to a young woman that we are going to force her to obey the law of her own State, we are going to criminalize someone who attempts to help do something that is perfectly legal in New York or some other State because it is not legal where she came from; and I cited the Supreme Court decisions before, which are recent Supreme Court decisions. We cannot look at the interstate commerce clause. Women are not objects of commerce. I hope the majority is not telling us that women are objects of commerce under the meaning of the interstate commerce clause, that Congress can regulate interstate commerce. Women are citizens of the United States and people, not subjects of commerce. We said in the Norris-LaGuardia Act that labor is not to be considered a commodity in Congress, nor should women be, nor will the Supreme Court support that, nor is this bill constitutional. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, cigarettes are harmful to one's health and may kill one. They are certainly much more harmful than marijuana or some of the other drugs which are prohibited by law; and maybe cigarettes ought to be prohibited by law, and certainly that kind of advertising should be prohibited by law. Abortions are not in the same category. Abortions will not kill the woman. They are not generally harmful to her health. In fact, the statistics are that it is more dangerous to carry a pregnancy to term than it is to have an abortion because a larger percentage of women die from complications of child birth than from complications from abortion. I am certainly not arguing for abortions for that reason, but I am saying that we cannot say that abortions are life threatening, although demagogues do say that.

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

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I would not agree that it is wrong. An abortion is a legal medical service, and in some States it is legal to do without parental consent. And there are some young women, some young women, who fear for their lives if they have to tell their parents, and cannot tell their parents, and desperately need an abortion, and will get the abortion by coat hanger at this risk to their life. It is better in that case to know that they can get a safe abortion in a safe medical procedure across State lines rather than resorting to the coat hangers. Mr. Speaker, many speakers on the other side have talked about people who prey on young women, who have an ideological desire to promote abortions. I do not know of anybody who has an ideological desire to promote abortions. I know of people who have ideological desires to let women have abortions if they want to. I do not know of anybody who desires to promote abortions as a good thing, in and of themselves. Putting aside, we are talking about evil people who will prey upon young women and take them across State lines for the reason of getting an abortion for some nefarious motive. If that is the true purpose of this bill, I would want to know, on their time, why the majority would not permit amendments on the floor to exempt the grandparent or the sibling, the brother or sister. What are they afraid of? Are they afraid that the logic of that amendment is so strong even for people who might support this bill that it might pass? Why would they not even permit amendments in committee? Why was it so necessary to call a halt by moving the previous question before Members had returned to the committee from a vote on the floor? What are they afraid of, a little logic and common sense? Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would simply point out that in such cases, those people, those males, can be prosecuted for statutory rape, and probably should be. This bill does not add or detract anything from them.

Mr. NADLER. I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the imagery used by speakers in favor of this bill, indeed the language of the bill itself prohibiting someone from transporting a minor across State lines, evokes the image of a helpless young child being dragged against her will or being taken to another State. The fact is that a young woman old enough to get pregnant is in her teens, with a very few exceptions, and in this situation, one would hope that she would ask her parents' permission, and I am sure the daughter of the previous speaker would, and that the decision would be made between the two of them. But I do not think a woman of 16 or 17 years old, who is pregnant, who for whatever reason, because she was made pregnant by her father or her stepfather, because she is terrified, for whatever reason cannot, refuses to tell them, and gets her, even a boyfriend or a clergy person or her brother or sister, a grandmother, that is not an exploitative thing. They are helping her. She would probably or might very well do it herself, alone. Even the wording of the bill ``transport.'' Someone sitting and holding her hand as she drives the car is not transporting her. They are giving her moral help in a difficult procedure. People may not like abortions. They may think it is a terrible thing. They are entitled to their opinions. But a young woman may be terrified of giving birth. She may be terrified of the responsibility of a child. She may have her reasons and the Supreme Court says the Constitution gives her the absolute right to choose. This bill simply tries to make that right to choose impractical insofar as possible and therefore it is not only unconstitutional, it is wrong. This bill would criminalize the acts of persons who might be exploitative, but it would also criminalize the acts of people who are simply trying to be helpful and supportive of a young woman in distress, and that is wrong. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Yes.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The protestations of people on the other side about strangers transporting minors across State lines would be somewhat better heard if they had not refused amendments to exempt nonstrangers. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Barcia).

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the gentleman from Ohio is not answering the question. Forget the knowledge question. Let us assume he has the knowledge. Transport. If the young 17-year-old woman who has a driver's license who wants to get an abortion asks her friend or her uncle or her aunt or her grandparent to accompany her, and she is driving, are they ``transporting'' her, under the meaning of this bill?

Mr. NADLER. The 17-year-old who wants the abortion.

Mr. NADLER. So, in other words, the person, if a 17-year-old minor who wants to get an abortion asks her grandfather or her uncle or her brother or her friend who is 18 to accompany her across the State line to get the abortion, but she is driving, nobody has committed a crime? Is that what the gentleman is saying?