Bobby Scott

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, if you are going to have any review, I think it ought to be a full review: sentencing, conviction, and otherwise. I would hope that we would not make the bill any worse than it is, and the underlying provision is bad enough.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, in the recent case of Free Speech Coalition v. Ashcroft, the Supreme Court indicated that if the material is not obscene it cannot be prohibited unless real children are involved. This amendment prohibits simulated conduct, digital images that may have been produced without real children being involved. If real children are not involved, the material has to be technically obscene to be prohibited. The Supreme Court indicated in the decision that the fact that this material may whet someone's appetite or the nature of the case caused problems for law enforcement, those could not be the grounds for violating the Constitution in having material that is not obscene being prohibited. The case, whether you like it or not, and bringing it up as a floor amendment means we cannot try to conform the language to the Supreme Court decision, so the only thing we can do is to vote against it if we believe in the Constitution and if we read Free Speech Coalition v. Ashcroft.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment, and I yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), the ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I join in support of the amendment. It is money that will be extremely well spent and actually deals with the problem. I thank the gentleman for introducing the amendment.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment and would just point out that this requirement for a driver's license just adds another little ``gotcha'' for which someone could be subjected to a 5-year mandatory minimum and, therefore, would oppose the amendment.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I would incorporate by reference the comments I have made on mandatory minimums, and I think it would apply to this amendment.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to consider amendments No. 4 and 7, preprinted in the Congressional Record, when we call up title III. These amendments primarily affect title III. However, there is a little portion that affects title I.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. During the last few minutes, we have heard a lot of praise of mandatory minimums. I just want to remind the House that the Judicial Conference writes us frequently and reminds us that mandatory minimums violate common sense. That is because if the offense requires the mandatory minimum and that makes common sense, it can be applied; but if it makes no sense, mandatory minimums require us to impose that sentence anyway. Many of the provisions of the bill are crimes which we do not think would be subject to 5- or 10-year mandatory minimums. There is a provision in the bill that says that felonious assaults against a juvenile, which could be two juveniles having a fist fight in the school yard, if it gets into a big fight, that that is a 10-year mandatory minimum if no injury occurs. Now, of course, if an injury occurs in the fight, then you are talking about 20 years. I think common sense should prevail and a more appropriate sentence could be given. This entire registration program that requires people to register has not been shown to reduce the incidence of child molestation. For someone who commits a crime, even as a juvenile, they will be subject to lifetime registration. There is no suggestion and there is no evidence that that reduces crime. It may actually increase crime. We know that 90 percent of the offenses against children were people that would not be covered by the legislation, and 3.3 percent of those covered by the legislation might offend. We have other ways of dealing with that in such a way that we can actually reduce that 3.3 as much as 50 percent. We ought to be focused on that. Mr. Chairman, we need to focus on the things that will actually reduce crime. This bill, many of the provisions of it, obviously, do not; and I would hope that we would focus appropriately to actually protect the children.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, are we in title III?

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers).

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 7 minutes. Mr. Chairman, we all abhor the horrific cases of child murders or sex offenses committed by those who are referenced in the bill. But the question before us is whether what we are doing in the bill will actually reduce the incidence of child molestation or actually increase it. We should certainly seek to avoid enacting legislation that expends scarce resources in a manner that is not cost effective or that exacerbates the problem. It is clear that having police supervision and police awareness of the location and identification information about sex offenders is appropriate and helpful. But it is not clear that putting that information indiscriminately on the Internet, regardless of the dangerousness of the individual, with no guidance or restriction of what people should do with the information, it is unclear whether that is helpful or harmful. There have been incidents of vigilantes and other activities where offenders have actually been driven underground, so you actually do not know where they are. That is certainly not good for children. And try to sell your home when a sex offender moves a few blocks away. Are children actually helped by that? That would be a necessary problem; but there is no evidence that putting that information on the Internet actually reduces the incidence of child molestation, so the real estate prices all over the neighborhood go down. Now, research shows that 90 percent of sex offenses against children involve either family members or someone well known to the victim. So when you put names and addresses on the Internet, 90 percent of the offenses are not even covered. We also have the situation where those on the Internet are ostracized and subjected to public notoriety, embarrassment, ridicule, and harassment. In one actual case, a teacher was reading the names of offenders to grade school students in an apparent effort to protect them, when one student blurted out the question to another student: ``Is that not your father?'' This victimizes the victim twice and may well discourage offense reporting that is already considered very low in these situations. Many offenders identified on the Internet will not only become unemployed and unemployable because of that notoriety, but they may also have to leave their home to avoid embarrassment or other consequences to themselves and their families, and having done that, may just go underground and not bother to register again. Where an offender clearly represents a threat to the public, perhaps the consequences to the victims and their family members cannot be avoided; but where the individual clearly does not present a threat to the public, informing the general public may do more harm than good. Law enforcement and child-serving authorities should have access to the information. Until they have reliable information to show that the impact of the Internet will actually reduce the incidence of child molestation, we should be circumspect on how we use this information. Now, we have taken a step in the right direction in the bill by encouraging those States and localities that are not already doing so to consider whether there are offenders who should be required to register, but may not have to be put on the Internet. I am pleased, Mr. Chairman, that the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) has indicated his willingness as the bill moves towards conference to continue to look for ways we might support the States and localities who are already making such assessments while encouraging those who are not making those assessments to do so. There are effective things we can do, and hopefully we will have amendments that will deal with this. Because research has shown that intensive, therapeutic sexual offender treatment cuts sexual offense recidivism in half. Fortunately, the evidence is that, even without the treatment, recidivism is low amongst sexual offenders of children. This is not what the legend is, but the facts are that a recent study by the Department of Justice showed that the rearrest rate among child molesters is 3.3 percent, much less than the recidivism rate of other criminals. Any recidivism rate is too high, so I am pleased that we are working together to fashion a provision that will assure that all sex offenders in the Federal system will receive appropriate, effective treatment prior to their release; and I hope that we can continue to work together to provide a similar system for State offenders where we could significantly reduce child victimization by assuring access to effective treatment for all. Now there are provisions in this legislation that are not based on research or sound reasoning like the death penalty, mandatory minimums, both of which have been studied and shown not to have any effect on crime. We also have the anomaly in this because it is Federal legislation that because Indian reservations, their sole access to courts is the Federal system, they will all be under the Federal system but most others will not. So it will have a disproportionate effect against Native Americans. Now, day by day we are seeing more and more evidence that the death penalty administration is fraught with mistake, racial discrimination and it is applied in an arbitrary way. We have also seen the mandatory minimums have been shown to waste the taxpayers' money, been racially discriminatory, and the Judicial Conference reminds us every time we have a mandatory minimum for consideration that mandatory minimums violate common sense compared to traditional sentencing approaches. This bill includes a 5-year mandatory minimum for any technical violation involved in registration. For example, if you are already registered and you attend the local community college but forgot to recognize that the community college is in a different jurisdiction and you should have registered there, too, well, that offense is subject to a 5-year mandatory minimum. Notwithstanding the fact that the original offense was 15 years ago, was a misdemeanor for which no time was imposed, it is a 5-year mandatory minimum for the technical violation of not registering correctly. Another provision that is in the bill that will not have much effect on reducing child molestation is eliminating the access to habeas corpus. That will not reduce sex crimes. All of these are good, politically appealing sound bites that will help politicians get elected but which have no evidence that they will actually reduce the incidence of child molestation. This bill will cost over $500 million over the next few years. We need to make sure that when we spend that kind of money that we actually do something constructive. Here we have a bill with mandatory minimums, death penalties that have been shown that have nothing to do with reducing crime, it is primarily focused on Native Americans, and I would hope that we would support amendments to eliminate such extraneous matters on the bill so we can concentrate the $500 million on effective crime-reducing approaches. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Cramer).

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy).

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, this did not go through committee, so I just had a question for the chairman of the committee, if the chairman would respond. My question is what impact this will have on someone minding their own business, sitting at a stoplight, that gets rear-ended by someone headed to New Orleans in an automobile accident, simple negligence, with insurance. Does the innocent party now have to pay their own medical bills, or is there some provision in the bill that allows the insurance to still be available to pay the medical bills?

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, in this case, if the volunteer is hit and has an automobile accident, fully insured, you lose the insurance, the innocent victim is now subject to pay his own medical bills. Where, ordinarily, there would be compensation for the automobile accident, that is lost. These are people who could be in States not even affected, just sitting at a stoplight. Usually, when we have these immunity bills, we provide that the insurance in an automobile accident, the insurance would apply. This would exempt the insurance. I think it is one of the problems of bringing bills like this to the floor without going through committee. I think we could have fixed that.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. One of the problems we are going to have during this debate is the fact we are here under a closed rule. We will not have the ability to highlight or fix the shortcomings of the bill, so we will go back and forth on sound bites. We have already heard that this has been described as a proconsumer bill, notwithstanding the fact that I am not aware of any recognized consumer group that is supporting it. Mr. Speaker, we say we have lost doctors because of the malpractice crisis, but we did not say anything about the reimbursement rates for some specialties, who are not getting paid as much, nor is there a suggestion that tort reform has actually produced more doctors. Because we have the same list of ineffectual initiatives that we have had in other tort reform bills, reducing victims' rights without doing anything with malpractice rates, we will try to discuss the provisions of the bill. First, the rule rejected the alternative offered by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) that would have actually reduced malpractice costs and helped underserved areas without going overboard in helping and relieving from liability the HMOs and pharmaceutical companies, which means that the doctors will have to pay more of the responsibility for malpractice. We cannot consider that. But let us come to the specifics. This legislation preempts State law. The National Conference of State Legislators has already considered this bill, and they have rejected it. Their opinion, the National Conference of State Legislators, have suggested this bill will make matters worse. We have caps on damages, not on damages for wages and things like that, but for elderly, for children, for those who are without lost wages, they will be hurt. Incredibly, the cap on damages has not been shown to do anything about malpractice premiums. Those States with caps are paying the same malpractice premiums as those without caps. We have heard about this fair share provision that says everybody just pays their fair share or more. Mr. Speaker, what we are talking about here is a group with insurance, and which insurance company will pay. Some States have dealt with this and said if a doctor is at least 60 percent responsible, he can be held fully responsible, but for others, maybe you can have a fair share. This says everybody involved. In other words, you have to go after each and every physician, with a separate case against each and every one for every 1 or 2 percent responsibility they have. We have had the problem of having to sue so many doctors. Well, this requires you to sue each and every doctor. We have heard about the collateral source rule; that if you have insurance, and listen up small businesses, if you are providing health care for your employees, and you have an employee who gets into a malpractice-induced coma, and somebody has to pay it, and your employee has gotten a recovery from the malpractice insurance, if the small business is paying the responsibility, the physician, the guilty party, will get credit for all of your health insurance, and you are going to have to continue to pay under that health insurance. We limit attorneys' fees in this legislation, which will do nothing to reduce malpractice premiums. We have different statutes of limitations, which will confuse people, and lawyers will miss the filing deadlines because of all this confusion. We need insurance reform which will reduce premiums, not just attack victims. We need worthwhile legislation that will reduce the premiums. This will not do it. We need to defeat the bill.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Zoe Lofgren), a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds. Mr. Chairman, just to acknowledge that as the chairman has indicated, some of these roving wiretaps do put us into the 21st century with the use of cell phones and disposable cell phones. So the roving wiretap is necessary. But it needs oversight. And I think this amendment will go a long way to making sure that that process is not abused. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Boswell).

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Chairman, this involves a roving wiretap, and I think you have to put these in perspective. You can get one of these roving wiretaps under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act without any probable cause that a crime has been committed. You are just getting foreign intelligence. It does not have to be a crime. It does not have to be terrorism. It could be negotiations on a trade deal, anything that will help foreign intelligence, you can get one of these roving wiretaps. So you are starting off without probable cause of a crime. And also, you can start off without it being the primary purpose of the wiretap, which suggests if it is not the primary purpose, what is the primary purpose? So there is a lot of flexibility and potential for abuse in these things. There are also some gaps. You can get one of these roving wiretaps against a person, or in some cases, if you know which phone people are using, you can get a John Doe warrant. And there are actually gaps in it where you are not sure which phone, you are not sure which person, you kind of get authority to just kind of wiretap in the area. And so this kind of reporting I think is extremely important. We have, for example, asked several people, if you get a roving wiretap and foreign intelligence was not the primary purpose, what was the primary purpose? We have had high officials suggest, well, running a criminal investigation would be the primary purpose, which means you are running a criminal investigation without probable cause of a crime being committed. And you get these roving wiretaps. You put a roving wiretap. I have had amendments that have been defeated in committee which would require what is called ascertainment. When you put the bug there you have got to ascertain that the target is actually there doing the talking, not somebody else using the same phone. Those amendments have been defeated. And so we need some oversight. And these reports will go a long way in making sure that you are not abusing, you are not listening in on the wrong people, you are not putting these bugs where they do not need to be. You started off with no probable cause. You are not abusing the roving aspect, putting wiretaps everywhere where they do not need to be. I think this kind of review can go a long way in reducing the potential of abuse, using the FISA wiretaps for criminal investigations without probable cause, listening in to the wrong people and a lot of other problems that can occur with the roving wiretaps. And I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa). Although it does not solve all of the problems, it solves a lot of them and I thank the gentleman for offering the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition, although I will not oppose the amendment.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, there are a lot of problems with section 215. This amendment does not take care of many of them; but by requiring the FBI Director to personally approve the warrant, that will significantly reduce the chance that there will be abuses. So far as the ability to contest these, it is very unlikely that someone receiving one of these warrants will go through the cost of actually contesting it for someone else's rights. There are no attorneys' fees allowed in these proceedings, and it is just more likely that they will just give up somebody's information. This requirement will reduce the chances that there will be abuses; and although it does not solve all the problems, it will reduce the abuses, and, therefore, I will be voting for it.