Dana Rohrabacher

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. How many prosecutors have been prosecuted? Almost none, is that right? Instead, like in the case of the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. McDade), they get promotions.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object. We have a lot of Members right here, right now. We have already debated this issue, it is in everybody's mind, and I do not see any reason why we should not vote on this and then go forward with the rest of the evening with time with our families. We have just debated this, we are right here, let us vote on it now.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I got all the prosecutors mad at me earlier; I might as well get everybody else mad at me. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to my good friend, and he is my good friend, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Hefley). We probably have a voting record that is so equivalent that we almost never disagree, but I do disagree with him on this amendment. I do so because, after close examination, I have determined that the Clinton Executive Order, 13087, will not lead to quotas or affirmative action plans for homosexuality; nor will this Executive Order give homosexuals any special rights or a protected status under the Civil Rights Act. Some of the others who spoke earlier, who tried to indicate that, did not know what they were talking about, and they should read what we are referring to here. It simply states that the Federal Government, this Executive Order, will not consider sexual orientation when making hiring, firing and promotion decisions. And homosexuals are taxpayers, too, and deserve an even break in terms of fairness in employment in a Federal Government that they pay taxes to. There is no reason for the Federal Government to discriminate for or against individuals of whatever sexual preference in civilian employment. In fact, the Federal Government has no need to inquire into this aspect of a Federal employee's private life. Mr. Chairman, I am firmly committed to protecting the rights of those with strong moral or religious objections to homosexuality, and I resent some of the statements made here earlier that people who believe or who are against homosexuality for religious reasons are some kind of bigots or whatever. They have every right to those religious and moral beliefs and they should not be forced or pressured to accept something that they believe is immoral. That is the reason I supported the Riggs amendment to the VA-HUD appropriations bill that is using Federal funds to threaten these people into accepting that a local domestic partner law was wrong, just as adding sexual orientation as a category to civil rights is wrong. That is not what this amendment is all about, however. In short, the government should neither persecute homosexuals nor promote homosexuality. That is a fair and honest standard, and that is why I oppose the Hefley amendment.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

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

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join the gentleman from New York (Mr. Solomon) in support of denying this waiver. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, this resolution is about disapproving the waiving of the Jackson-Vanik restrictions which the President would like to do of the 1974 trade act. The fact that he is asking us to waive the restrictions of Jackson-Vanik mean that the communist Vietnamese are not meeting the moral standards that we set. So all of this talk about all the progress that we have heard about going on in communist Vietnam is so much baloney. The President himself is acknowledging that they are not doing that because he has asked us to waive those standards. What is the purpose behind waiving the standards, the standards we put in place in face of the persecution of Jews in Russia that we wanted to deal with back in the 1970s? Why he is doing this? Why are we replacing those standards? So that our businessmen can go over, with government guarantees and government subsidies, meaning our taxpayer dollars, and invest in this dictatorship and make a profit and then export their goods to the United States and put our own people out of work. That is what this is all about. I ask the American people to determine if you tried to set up a business, if you are trying to pay your mortgage, do you get a loan guarantee or a subsidy from the taxpayers? No. This is what the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) said it is. This is corporate welfare for communists at its very worst because we are lowering our standards in order to do so. By the way, all this talk about MIA and POWs, I hope Members listened to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson) and all this talk about Pete Peterson whom I respect and admire and served with in this House. The communist government of Vietnam has not given us the records of the prison that the gentleman from Texas was kept in or the prison that Pete Peterson himself was incarcerated in for 6 years. We requested that and they have denied even giving us those records because if we got the records, we would know that they have not come clean on the MIA/POW issue. That is why almost all of the veterans organizations are asking support of my resolution because they want to keep faith with those people who fought for freedom and keep faith with our principles of democracy.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Ben Gilman), the distinguished chairman of the Committee on International Relations. (Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from San Diego, CA (Mr. Hunter) a Vietnam veteran and a man whose standards are very much respected in this body.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I ask my colleagues to support this disapproval of a waiver of the Jackson-Vanik requirements of the 1974 Trade Act. What were the Jackson-Vanik requirements in that 1974 Trade Act? They clearly stated that we have concerns in this House dealing with human rights, things like freedom of religion and freedom of emigration, and this President of the United States, consistent with what he has done in many other cases around the world, has decided they do not count, they do not count at all. Those requirements that were laid down by former Congresses, much less our Founding Fathers, they do not count, because human rights does not count for this administration. I would hope that my colleagues would today join us in affirming that human rights and those principles that our country stands for do count for something, and that we do not believe in just waiving them. What are we waiving them for? The President is waiving the Jackson- Vanik requirements in order to extend American tax dollars, our tax dollars to subsidize or insure private corporations who want to do business in Vietnam, who want to make money by investing in a Communist dictatorship. This is a moral travesty, as well as bad business. Six months ago when the President first issued this Jackson-Vanik waiver, we basically have been looking at what Vietnam has been doing since then. There has been no liberalization, no opening up of their political system. There has been no major release of political prisoners. Human rights and religious rights continue to be trampled upon by those who hold power in Vietnam. But what about the business end of it? Just this week I received a briefing by the GAO on the Vietnamese economy. People are jumping out of Vietnam because it is so corrupt. They showed me, the GAO showed me a 1998 report by the United Nations Development Program that shows that both the U.N., the IMF, the World Bank, and our own State Department is convinced that Vietnam has a lack of integrity and transparency in their economic dealings, and so businesses are pulling out. Is this a time for us then to waive the human rights requirements so that businesses can go in with U.S. taxpayer guarantees and invest in Communist Vietnam? This is exactly the wrong time. They are going in the wrong direction economically, and they have not taken a step forward in terms of politically and morally. No, what we are going to be doing is spending tax dollars with this waiver to guarantee American businessmen to go in and use cheap slave labor under a dictatorship to manufacture goods to export to the United States to put our own people out of work. That is immoral, and it does not work politically, and it does not work economically, because we are going to lose that investment money and the taxpayers will have to make up for it unless, of course, those big businessmen make a profit with the slave labor and then they will take all of that profit for themselves at our expense.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson) who served as a prisoner of war in Vietnam and knows that they are not cooperating on the MIA/POW issue, just to back up what the distinguished gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Traficant) just stated. (Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), chairman of the Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights of the Committee on International Relations, who is respected throughout this body for his commitment to human rights.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce), the father of Radio Free Europe.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Davis), who knows we are not talking about the Vietnamese paying the bill. We are paying the bill. (Mr. DAVIS of Virginia asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Of course, anyone listening to this debate must wonder what bill we are really discussing after listening to that last statement. The purpose of this bill, as we have heard from the authors of this bill, is to reduce the avenues of money coming into political campaigns. Let us restrict it. What I am saying is that today, with an unintended consequence of similar legislation in the past, we have given a tremendous advantage to rich people. Both of our parties are going out enlisting very wealthy Americans, rich people, in order to run for office, and more and more millionaires are coming here, because we are restricting the avenues in which ordinary Americans can raise money for political campaigns. My amendment would correct that unintended consequence of this legislation. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Obviously, if we just listen very closely to what is being said here, these gentlemen are trying to cut off other avenues for ordinary Americans to raise money for their campaigns, leaving the political arena in the control of such wealthy Americans that every Member of this body who is not rich shudders at the thought of having a wealthy candidate in their district step forward and pump so much money in that he or she will be eliminated just because they just cannot raise the money in small increments. The Shays-Meehan supposed reform is making this problem worse, and by not accepting this amendment, I am afraid that they are disclosing themselves at just how effective they think their own bill is going to be Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I hope everyone is listening very closely to this argument. Supposedly, this will kill the whole purpose of this bill. That is a lot of baloney. If we are talking about campaign finance reform and we are going to leave the whole campaign arena to rich people, what good is that reform? In fact, without my amendment, the good work of the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) is going to do nothing but further give very wealthy Americans the leverage to take control of the political process in America. So what is all this reform about if we are not going to handle that problem? Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, how much time is remaining?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, today I rise to introduce a nonpartisan amendment that will level the campaign playing field. Currently, the campaign playing field is heavily weighted to the advantage of wealthy Americans. By lifting the $1,000 limit a candidate may raise when a candidate is being faced with a wealthy opponent, this cap will be raised, which will make it possible to match the amount his or her wealthy opponent contributes to his or her own campaign. In other words, and I know this sounds a little complicated, if my amendment passes, if my wealthy competitor writes a $1 million check to his or her own campaign, I will no longer be faced with the impossible task of raising the same amount of money that my opponent has donated to his or her campaign in $1,000 increments. Instead, the cap will be lifted so that it is possible for me to match the amount that my own opponent has spent on his or her own campaign. As current campaign law stands, wealthy candidates can spend an unlimited amount of their own money, while their unfortunate opponents are stuck with raising small amounts of money in order to match that amount that their wealthy opponent has contributed to their own campaign. This has given the wealthy a tremendous advantage over their opponents. It is the most glaring inequity of our current campaign finance system, and it has resulted in a spectacle that no one would have predicted. It is the unintended consequence of limiting contributions to political campaigns. Instead of opening up our elections to the American people, today politics is becoming the arena of the rich, rich candidates who have nonwealthy opponents at a tremendous disadvantage. The rich pour resources into their own campaigns. This means most of us are in a position of getting steamrolled by a wealthy opponent. So I urge my colleagues to level the campaign playing field and to update our campaign finance laws and give nonwealthy Americans a chance to be elected to Congress. Rather than having to worry and have the parties out always recruiting wealthy people, let us level this field so that if someone is wealthy and pumps $1 million into their campaign, a nonwealthy opponent can raise an equal amount to have an equal race. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Obviously we would like to be fair to all Americans, and that is not what this bill is all about, if we prevent nonwealthy Americans from raising the funds they need to deter these attacks on wealthy citizens trying to steal these elections for themselves. Let us make sure we open up the system, make sure there is more money available to all candidates, not just to the rich.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. First and foremost, this does not permit unlimited contributions, the gentleman is absolutely wrong, and I hope people are paying attention to the debate. The unlimited contributions that we are setting is the limit which a wealthy person puts into his or her own campaign. That is stated very clearly. There is a limit. Why should we permit wealthy Americans to buy these seats because we have not given a fair chance for nonwealthy Americans to have a shot at the election process? This is not fair, and that is what we are trying to do. I thought that is what this bill was all about. I guess it is not. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I have in my hands a 5-minute speech praising the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis) who has done a terrific job this year in cooperating with the authorizers. We have had such a good relationship that I wanted to praise him in this speech. I also in this 5-minute speech talk about the NASA budget, but instead I will include this in the Record. Mr. Chairman, today the Appropriations Committee has brought before the House a bill which, a bill which, among other things, funds our nation's civilian space agency, NASA, for fiscal year 1999. As chairman of the authorizing subcommittee for NASA, I think it's fair to say that there has not always been perfect agreement between the authorizers and appropriators on the priorities for NASA's budget. But this year I cannot say enough to praise the FY99 NASA appropriation in H.R. 4194 that my good friend from California Mr. Lewis and my friend from Ohio, Mr. Stokes, have brought to the floor today. Many of the top priorities of the Science Committee, as expressed in H.R. 1275, the bipartisan Civilian Space Authorization Act which this House passed last year, have been honored and emphasized in H.R. 4194. Let me just mention a few: First, the Committee has sent a clear message to NASA that there is a limit to how much money we can spend on the International Space Station. I think the cut of $170 million from the ISS budget in this bill, made possible due to predicted carryover funding of $400-500 million from FY98, is the best argument against the proposed amendment by my colleague Mr. Roemer of Indiana. The Appropriations Committee's report language on the ISS program shows that they have now joined with Chairman Sensenbrenner, Mr. Brown, and the rest of the authorizers in imposing standards on this Administration's performance on the Space Station. Together we are saying that the White House must fix the broken policy of its partnership with Russia, and that NASA must fix its financial and technical management of the program. Second, the report on H.R. 4194 endorses the idea that greater commercial participation in the Station and Space Shuttle programs can both reduce and help defray many of the cost overruns in the Space Station program, and for this I am personally grateful to Chairman Lewis. Third, the report specifically tracks with H.R. 1275 in directing that NASA's Life and Microgravity Science office manage Space Station research, instead of the Station program office. The scientists who will use our national laboratory in space should manage their research funding, not the engineers that are building the lab. Next, the report provides additional funding for two important science and technology projects in NASA. H.R. 4194 increases by $20 million NASA's planned $5 million funding level for Space Solar Power research, and provides an additional $1.6 million for the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking program. Finally, the Committee's report provides an increase of $30 million for the program that NASA Administrator Dan Goldin declared was his top priority for additional funding above the President's request. This money is for Future-X, a program of additional experimental launch vehicles to carry on the progress we are making with the X-33 and X-34 projects. Mr. Chairman, reducing the high cost of space transportation has been my top space priority since I joined the Congress and the Space subcommittee in 1989. By providing full funding for the X-33 and X-34 programs, and this funding increase for the Future-X program, we are taking steps to ensuring that there will be a continuing stream of improved technologies to both our commercial space industry and to our military. I am particularly gratified that the Committee directs that half of the Future-X budget is to be spent in cooperation with the Air Force's military spaceplane program. This honors the President's Space Transportation Policy and Administrator Goldin's testimony to my subcommittee that NASA would develop new space transportation technologies for and in cooperation with the Air Force. I must admit that there is one small item in the Committee report which gives me some pause, and that is the $10 million for Liquid Flyback Booster studies. Over the past year or so I have found that the Liquid Flyback Booster concept is not so much an upgrade of the Space Shuttle as it is a stalking horse for a mission to send astronauts to Mars. Well, this Congress has no intention of approving the hundreds of billions it could cost to send astronauts to Mars. Nor, would we want to spend taxpayer dollars to prolong a NASA-owned and-operated Space Shuttle if there are lower cost commercial alternatives, including a privatized Shuttle system. Finally, I would point out that the Launch Services Purchase Act of 1990 proscribes NASA from building and owning any additional launch systems, and this report language on Liquid Flyback Boosters would seem to go in that direction. I would hope that in conference the Chairman of the Subcommittee might work to specify that any funding for studies of Liquid Flyback Boosters could come from the $20 million NASA has requested for Space Transportation Architecture Studies, and not from critical technology efforts like X- 33 and Future-X. But let me once again state my strong support for the rest of the NASA appropriation. In summary, H.R. 4194 sends the Senate and the Administration a unified, two-part message from the House Authorizers and Appropriators. We both support Mr. Goldin's emphasis on scientific research, his interest in space commercialization, and his leadership on space transportation technology. But we are also united in saying that the Space Station program must be fixed, and fixed now.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. (Mr. ROHRABACHER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)