Paul Sarbanes

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. If it is related to addressing an imminent and serious military threat, it would be relevant.

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I thought the Vice President's vote would no longer count.

Mr. SARBANES. Assuming none of those factors were met, I take it that this vote, then, under this amendment we would have a different outcome than we had at the time?

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, the crux of the problem was the Senator's comments that we just assume that we would fund these items. I do not know how we can make that assumption when one can show that there had been close votes in the past which would not meet the requirement of the amendment and, in fact, would give the opposite result from what occurred in situations in which I think it can be argued very reasonably there were important national security interests at stake.

Mr. SARBANES. Will the Senator yield for one further question?

Mr. SARBANES. Let us assume that two Members of the Senate are in the hospital. We take a vote on this waiver and the vote is 50 to 48 in favor of making an expenditure to address a national security threat. So a clear majority of those present and voting have voted to do it. That does not meet the standard in this article; is that correct?

Mr. SARBANES. And, therefore, that effort would fall, even though a majority were in favor of it. I have difficulty with understanding how one can be so quick to dismiss that possibility. I have seen many close votes on the floor of the Senate. I have seen instances in which Members have been absent because they are in the hospital, or for other good reasons, in which the sentiment is very closely divided and you get a majority in favor of a position but it does not rise to the level of a majority of the whole number of a House. I think the problem is even more pressing in the House of Representatives where you often have votes when all Members are not present. In fact, if a seat is empty that, in effect, is a vote against. Let me ask the Senator this question: Is the majority of the whole number reduced if there are absent seats? There are occasions in the House of Representatives where you may have three, four, five seats that are not filled at one time. That happens on occasion. Is the majority to get reduced from the 218, or does the number stay at 218 even though there may be 4 or 5 empty seats in the House?

Mr. SARBANES. Because Congress was never required to produce a majority of the whole number. All we had to produce in order to do that was a majority of those present and voting.

Mr. SARBANES. The Nation could do that. But the Nation could not then fund the war which it has declared on the basis of a tie-breaking vote by the Vice President?

Mr. SARBANES. Could the Nation go to war with a declaration of war on the basis of a tie-breaking vote by the Vice President?

Mr. SARBANES. I am looking at the report for votes dealing with the SDI. This was a motion to table an amendment which would have cut the amount of money for SDI, so the tabling motion in effect would have kept the higher figure for the SDI Program. I do not want to argue the substance of the SDI Program. As I recall, the Senator was in favor of it when he was in the House. I want to get at the point of the close votes and the assumption that there is no problem. That vote was 50-50. The Vice President voted ``yea'' to break the tie. In other words, he voted to table this amendment which would have cut the SDI. He wanted the higher SDI figure. This was Vice President Bush at the time. Now, I take it, under your provision, that would not work. We would have had a different outcome, correct, under this amendment?

Mr. SARBANES. Would the Senator yield for a question, Mr. President?

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, if we go back through the Vietnam experience, there were instances in which the funding was carried through, but the vote by which it was done represented a majority of those present and voting, but that number did not represent a majority of the whole number of the House.

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise today to draw to the attention of the Senate my concern about declines in recent decades in voter participation in local and national elections. In the 1988 election, only about half of those citizens eligible to vote went to the polls. While turnout improved during the last Presidential election, voter participation remains low in this country compared to other advanced democratic countries. According to the Congressional Research Service, only 61 percent of U.S. citizens eligible to vote are registered. While there are many reasons why people do not vote, studies indicate that the major reason is that they are not registered. In fact, the Bureau of Census reports that voter turnout of registered voters in Presidential elections typically exceeds 85 percent. Recognizing the need to establish uniform national voter registration procedures to allow greater opportunities for all eligible citizens to participate in the electoral process, the U.S. Congress adopted the National Voter Registration Act early in the 103d Congress, legislation I was proud to support. The National Voter Registration Act, also known as the motor-voter bill, provides greater opportunities for all eligible citizens to participate in the electoral process. The methods for voter registration established by the legislation--by mail, as part of drivers license renewal, and when visiting Government agencies--are well tested and successful methods for registering voters. And, in fact, States which have implemented the motor-voter provisions have experienced significant increases in voter registration. About 3,700 voters were registered in Washington State within the first 7 days of motor-voter operation. Florida has been averaging more than 3,000 new voter registrations per day from people obtaining drivers licenses. The successes continue to be documented in other States such as Georgia, where more than 18,000 people have been registered under the new procedures since January 1, 1995, and in Kentucky where 10,000 new voters were registered in the first 10 days of implementation. In my own State of Maryland, approximately 90,000 people have been registered through the Motor Vehicle Administration in 1995 alone, and Maryland election officials expect an additional 900,000 citizens to register under the new system. While some critics of this legislation have charged that by making voter registration easier, there may be increased opportunities for fraud, the bill includes important safeguards to prevent such fraud. The mail registration form requires a statement of eligibility to vote, an attestation that the applicant meets each requirement of eligibility to vote, and the signature of the applicant under penalty of perjury. Mr. President, there are further misconceptions surrounding this bill that should be clarified. First, though agencies are required to provide registrants with assistance when requested, the National Voter Registration Act does not require agency personnel to fill out registration forms--it is the applicant who fills out the form. Second, the legislation requires that an applicant be informed that the quality and quantity of Government assistance they receive will not be effected by their willingness or refusal to register. Third, the legislation protects the privacy of the applicant by restricting the use of voter registration information. An applicant has the option of completing the form at home and returning it by mail, and agency employees may not force an individual to register or attempt to persuade an applicant to join a particular political party. I understand that concerns have also been raised about potential additional costs for State and local governments to implement this legislation. I would simply note that any increased costs for a State to comply with the uniform voter registration standards provided by this legislation would be relatively small, particularly in those States, such as Maryland, that have already taken steps to increase the opportunity for citizens to register to vote. In addition, the legislation provides relief to all States in the form of a postal rate reduction for State and local election officials which will save State and local governments more than $4 million per year. There are also expected to be savings through the use of uniform registration forms in those States that have not yet adopted uniformity between jurisdictions and because voter registration is now likely to be spread out over the year as people renew drivers licenses. Consequently, there will be less need to hire additional registrars to handle the higher volume of registration that typically occurs in some States before registration deadlines. Mr. President, it is my strongly held view that we must be careful about attaching price tags to civil rights. Imagine if we had decided not to extend the right to vote to 18-year-olds, women, or other minorities because it would place a burden on the States due to an increased workload or the purchasing of new voting machines. The National Voter Registration Act is already making it easier for citizens to exercise one of the most fundamental rights of a democracy--the right to vote. A healthy democracy thrives on the active participation of the governed. This important new law is clearly working and should not be repealed nor should its implementation be delayed as some have proposed.

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Would the Senator address the second question? Let us move beyond the declaration of war. What is your understanding of the second sentence? This is not a declaration of war in which the United States is engaged in military conflict, so declared by a joint resolution. Would we have to get a joint resolution the following year?

Mr. SARBANES. Let us make it a trio.

Mr. SARBANES. If the Senator will yield, can I be included in that duo, to make it a trio of people who take the Constitution seriously?

Mr. SARBANES. I was just seeing a way where you could get where you want to go.

Mr. SARBANES. Why could the Senator not--if the request was 2 hours equally divided and the Senator's suggestion is that the Senator from West Virginia have 1 hour and he have 15 minutes, why would the Senator not agree to the 2 hours and not use all his time if it was not necessary in the debate? I mean, give the Senator from West Virginia time to debate at the time, and you might discover on that occasion that you might need more than 15 minutes. You can always yield back your time.

Mr. SARBANES. I just make this observation to my friend. You must be desperate about the 1993 legislation to be so driven that you want to deny the Vice President of the United States his tie- breaking power to cast a vote which has been in the Constitution from the very beginning. Now, I know Members on the other side are unhappy about that legislation, but it seems to me it is carrying your differences over the substance of a piece of legislation much too far when you start tinkering, really assaulting, the Constitution of the United States in this fashion. We end up getting two completely differing interpretations of the application of this provision as interpreted by the lead House Republican sponsor of this measure and by the answers that I am now receiving in the Chamber of the Senate.

Mr. SARBANES. That does not answer the question. That just makes a statement. The whole number of each House is intended to be consistent with the phrase ``the whole number of Senators'' in the 12th amendment to the Constitution * * * But that does not answer my question, since the 12th amendment to the Constitution was a situation in which there was no Vice President. It addresses a situation in which you are choosing a Vice President, not the situation after which the Vice President has been chosen. And once the Vice President is chosen under article I, section 3, clause 4 of the Constitution, he has a vote in an equally divided situation. So what the Senator from Pennsylvania is doing is drawing an analogy from a situation that governs circumstances in which a Vice President has not been picked and you are picking a Vice President. It does not then answer the question of the vote-casting power of the Vice President once he has been chosen.

Mr. SARBANES. What is the reference in the committee report to which the Senator is referring?

Mr. SARBANES. That is absolutely wrong. That is absolutely wrong. The Constitution is very specific in describing how, in terms of the process, decisions will be made. It is not specific about the substance of the decision to be made, but it is very specific about how we are to do our business. The Framers were very careful about that. They spelled out what would be a quorum, then a majority of the quorum could pass the legislation. It is all laid out. I want to give you a real-life situation. A bill is before this body. It is a controversial, closely fought bill. We take a vote on it. The vote is 50-50, and the Vice President is sitting in the chair. Now, it is very clear under current procedure in that circumstance, the Vice President can cast a tie-breaking vote. It does not have to be 50-50, it can be 48-48, whatever. And I have been in this body when that has happened, not only on the 1993 deficit reduction bill, but on other measures as well. I have seen the Vice President in the chair casting a tie-breaking vote. What is the outcome in that situation? Let me read to you what Congressman Schaefer says the outcome would be. This is the Republican lead sponsor on the House side: This language is not intended to preclude the Vice President in his or her constitutional capacity as President of the Senate from casting a tie-breaking vote that will produce a 51-to-50 result. This is consistent with article I, section 3, clause 4 which states: ``The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate but shall have no vote unless they be equally divided.'' Nothing in section 4 of the substitute takes away the Vice President's right to vote under such circumstances. The Senator, I take it, has told us that he disagrees with that; is that correct? That is not his view of the meaning of article 4.

Mr. SARBANES. Will the Senator yield on that very point?

Mr. SARBANES. He is making an extremely important point. Suppose one Congress comes along and passes implementing legislation saying that the Vice President cannot cast a tie-breaking vote. Then a new Congress comes in and they pass implementing legislation saying the Vice President can cast a tie-breaking vote. I say to the Senator from Pennsylvania, I do not see how this particular provision can bounce back and forth with the implementing legislation. I just do not understand how that could happen. It is obvious that a court would have to come in to decide it if it is not decided here, and we have directly conflicting views. Let me just read you--I do not know whether the Senator is acquainted with what Congressman Schaefer on the House side said about this.