Bobby Scott

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler), a cosponsor of the amendment.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, we are revisiting the civil rights laws. There has been no discrimination since 1965, and that is exactly what we are revisiting. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), the ranking member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), a cosponsor of the amendment.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), a cosponsor of the amendment.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey), a cosponsor of the amendment.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman I yield myself 1 minute and 15 seconds. Mr. Chairman, I made a previous statement on this amendment during the consideration of the rule, so let me just say that this amendment is offered along with my colleagues, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey), the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) in order to preserve and maintain civil rights protections as they currently appear in job training law. Current law prohibits sponsors of job training programs from discriminating in hiring based on race or religion. This amendment will keep the law the way it has been since 1965. We have heard some comments about title VII. Title VII gives the religious organization an exemption to discriminate with its own money. It was never intended to apply to Federal money. In any event, there has been no discrimination in job training programs with Federal money, whether it is faith-based sponsored or otherwise since 1965. Speakers have suggested that religious organizations have barriers to participation. They do not say what the barrier is. The barrier is that you cannot discriminate in employment with the Federal money. Any program that can get funded under this new language in the bill could be funded anyway under the traditional funding, no discrimination, if the sponsor would agree not to discriminate in employment. That has been the rule since 1965. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I have a point of order. If it is true that they cannot discriminate with the Federal money, but can discriminate with the church money, is the statement that the gentleman mentioned, true or not?

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, this amendment does not propose any new initiative. The adoption of this amendment will simply keep the law the way it has been in job training programs since 1965. Much has been said about court cases. None of those court cases involved Federal money. They involve church money and what the church can do with its church money; and whether it is religious or secular activities, it is still the church's money, not Federal money. Since 1965 there has been no discrimination with Federal money, at least until these faith-based initiatives came along. In fact, since 1941 there has been no discrimination in defense contracts, without exception. So if you want to sell the Army some rifles, if you discriminate in employment, the Army will not buy those rifles from you. Mr. Chairman, a lot has been said about the Clinton administration. Let me say I will be introducing into the Record statements made at the signing of those bills outlining the interpretation of the Clinton administration, outlining why there would be no discrimination in employment under the Clinton administration, notwithstanding the language in those various bills. There has been no discrimination against faith-based organizations. Speakers have suggested that they cannot get contracts. The fact of the matter is that they can get contracts. In fact, anybody that can get funded under the underlying bill could be funded if the organization would simply agree not to discriminate in employment. In 1964, a gentleman during the debate on the floor said in terms of whether or not you can get the money, ``Stop the discrimination, get the money; continue the discrimination, do not get the money.'' That is what we are talking about here. Telling somebody that they are not qualified for a federally paid-for job because of religion is wrong. Adopt my amendment and we will keep the law the way it has been since 1965. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Chairman, we keep hearing that we are discriminating against religious organizations in terms of participation in government contracts. That is not true. The fact is that they can participate. When you talk about a barrier, say what the barrier is. The barrier is, there is a level playing field; you cannot discriminate. We have also heard a lot about the 1964 Civil Rights Act. What has not been said is since 1965 there has been a specific prohibition against discrimination in Federal contracts. You have not been able to discriminate in a job training program since 1965. In fact, for defense contracts, you have not been able to discriminate since 1941. We also heard, Mr. Chairman, about the hiring for Planned Parenthood, I believe, and what your position is on abortion or gun control or something. In the 1960s, Mr. Chairman, we passed civil rights laws to respond to our sorry history of bigotry, and we designated specific protected classes where you could not discriminate in employment, race, color, creed, national origin and sex; and you cannot discriminate against those protected classes. There is a difference between telling somebody they cannot get a job because I do not like your position on gun control and we do not hire blacks or Jews. Race and religion are protected classes; positions on gun control and abortion are not, and there is a difference. Mr. Chairman, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot about the amendment I will be offering. I will be offering it in conjunction with the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey), the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards), and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) in order to preserve and maintain civil rights protections as they currently appear in the job training laws. Current law prohibits sponsors of job training programs from discriminating based on race or religion, and that policy goes back decades. For decades, our country has prohibited discrimination in hiring with Federal funds. In 1941, President Roosevelt ordered a prohibition against discrimination in all defense contracts. In other words, since 1941, our national policy has been that even if you can build better and cheaper rifles, the Army will not buy them from you if you discriminate in employment. The Civil Rights Act passed in 1964, and it prohibited discrimination; but it included an exception for religious organizations, but that exception was limited to the context of the religious organizations using their own money. In 1965, President Johnson banned discrimination in all government contracts without exception. In job training programs specifically, this Congress passed in 1982 the Job Training Partnership Act with bipartisan support. In that Act, Congress included a nondiscrimination clause without exception, and that remains the statutory requirement in job training requirement programs today. That policy will change and discrimination will be allowed if my amendment is not adopted. So let us be clear. This is not a debate about religious organizations having the right to participate in job training programs. They already do. As the current law stands, and my amendment would keep that law intact, Catholic, Jewish, Lutheran, Baptist, and other religious organizations already get hundreds of millions dollars today to run job training and other federally funded programs. Religious organizations do not need Section 129 in the bill to sponsor federally funded job training programs. They need that section in order to discriminate in hiring with Federal dollars. My amendment would delete Section 129 and maintain the law against discrimination. Moreover, Mr. Speaker, when the government refuses to prohibit discrimination based on religion, it cannot effectively enforce laws against discrimination based on race or national origin. Many churches are all virtually white; others virtually all black. So if they restrict hiring based on their religious organization, they can effectively discriminate based on race. And if we do not enforce discrimination laws in Federal contracts with secular programs, where is our moral authority to tell private employers who may be devoutly religious that they cannot discriminate with their private money? Mr. Speaker, for 40 years, if an employer had a problem hiring the best qualified applicant because of discrimination based on race or religion, that employer had a problem because the weight of the Federal Government was behind the victim of discrimination. The underlying, without my amendment, proposes to shift the weight of the Federal Government from supporting the victim of discrimination to supporting some so-called right to discriminate with Federal funds. That is a profound change in civil rights protection. Mr. Speaker, we have heard the majority try to defend the discrimination with misleading and poll-tested rhetoric. For example, I read in a Dear Colleague that the bill is one that would ``restore hiring protections for faith-based organizations participating in federal job training programs.'' Mr. Speaker, Section 129 does not restore anything. People have not been able to discriminate in Federal contracts since 1965 and specifically not in any job training program since 1982. If anything is being restored, it is the ugly practice of discrimination that existed before the 1960s. The Dear Colleague went on to say that Congress needs to ``continue to uphold the basic civil right of America's religious organizations to hire the staff they judge to be best qualified to carry out their programs and missions when they provide job training assistance.'' Mr. Speaker, the language fails to say that they can hire whoever they want to promote their religious missions with the church money. But with the Federal money, they have got to hire the best qualified for the Federal mission the tax dollars were appropriated to promote without discrimination. Funds appropriated under this bill are not gifts or grants to churches. They are contracts for government services, and we should honor the tradition begun in 1941, which prohibits discrimination. And, finally, Mr. Speaker, Dear Colleague talks about barriers that exist to prevent faith-based organizations from fully participating in government-sponsored programs, but it does not say what the barrier is. In fact, the only barrier is one cannot discriminate. Any program that can get funded under the underlying bill could be funded without Section 129 if the sponsoring organization would agree not to discriminate in employment. As a representative said during the debate on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he said, ``Stop the discrimination, get the money; continue the discrimination, do not get the money.'' Employment discrimination is ugly. We can put lipstick on a pick, but we cannot pass it off as a beauty queen, and we cannot dress up ``we do not hire Catholics and Jews'' with poll-tested semantics and euphemisms and pass it off as anything other than ugly discrimination. Mr. Speaker, religious organizations actively supported the Civil Rights Act 40 years ago. Today they support the nondiscrimination provision in the Workforce Investment Act the way it is and they oppose Section 129. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose the bill unless traditional civil rights protections are included.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, we hear all this hoopla about these coupon settlements, but we do not hear any suggestion as to what to do about them. There are a lot of situations where corporations are ripping people off for small amounts of money. For example, if a person at a checkout counter calibrates the machine to just cheat one out of a few cents, what is one's recovery in that case? Just a few cents. And the only way one can stop that is with a class action. But they would suggest there is no point in bringing the class action; as long as they did not rip them off for too much, they ought to get away with it. Furthermore, a lot of these coupon settlements are in Federal courts anyway, so there is not going to be much change. But some of these coupon cases are the only way that we can rein in corporate abuse. But this bill just increases complications in a gratuitous way. It took a half an hour for the proponents to explain when it is a class action and when it is not a class action. In normal cases they file it in State court. Either they certify it or not, and then one goes forward. There is not much complication. But this invites mischief. Whether it is really a class action or not, remove it anyway, and let the Federal courts mess around with it and mess around with it and mess around with it. They may never get their day in court. And if they do not certify it, what happens to one's case? They may not be able to get back to State court. So the fact that they did not certify a class action will deny one the right to even have their day in court. This complicates venue. They do not know where the case is going to be heard. It could be that an injury happens in one State, they have corporations in that State involved, they have State plaintiffs, and here one has to go chasing around, trying to figure out where they are going to be. The Attorneys General across the States, 47 Attorneys General in States and territories, have come out against the bill because it puts the Attorneys General in the same crack. They do not know where the case is going to be heard. If they bring a State action in State court, they may get removed. Some of the States have better wage laws, civil rights laws, sometimes consumer protections, and if the Attorneys General want to come in to protect their own citizens in their own States, they ought to have that right and not get jerked around to Federal court. Finally, Mr. Speaker, some Federal courts are more clogged up than State courts. Some in the same area, the State courts are more clogged up than the Federal courts. Why do we have to always go into Federal court on these cases rather than have some kind of choice? Every time we have a criminal case, it will take preference over the civil cases. And in some cases where we have some terrorist cases or a backlog of Federal cases, one may never get to hear their case in Federal court. If we want consumers to get timely justice, we need to defeat this bill, and I hope that is what we do.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the substitute. One of the problems with the substitute is you have to debate all of the different issues all at once. If we had the opportunity to introduce individual amendments, we could have discussed them one at a time and had a much more coherent discussion. As it has been said, the underlying bill does not extinguish the right to get to court but it does gratuitously complicate the litigation. It does not fix coupons, it just moves them from State court to Federal courts. It adds procedural hurdles, and this substitute removes many of those hurdles. The main thing it does is it carves out many of the different cases that belong in State court or at least ought to have the opportunity in the State court. It also fixes the yo-yo effect where you start off in State court, get removed to Federal court, Federal court does not certify the class, and then what happens? I guess you come back to State court or, I do not know, you might not be able to get back to State court. You may end up in a procedural trap where you have lost your case just in the time it takes to get over there and try to get back. This amendment fixes that quagmire. It also carves out, as has been said, the State civil rights cases where some States have civil rights laws that are stronger and cover different people, different classes than the Federal laws. Wage and hour laws, some States have better laws than the Federal court. Mass torts where you have not class actions per se, but a lot of different litigants all in the same State. It fixes the problem with Attorneys General in bringing a case in State court on behalf of not only members of their State, but if the injury has occurred to a lot of other people, the Attorney General might want to bring that case. I have a letter, Mr. Speaker, signed on this specific issue by 47 Attorneys General. It also denies benefits under the bill for tax traitors, those who move their corporate headquarters off shore to avoid corporate taxes; and it also provides a limitation on sealed settlements that the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) has been very active in making sure that cases that are settled cannot be sealed beyond public view, unless if such a sealing would violate public health or other important considerations. This is a well-reasoned substitute. It eliminates many but not all of the problems in the underlying bill, and I would hope that the House would adopt the substitute. National Association of Attorneys General, Washington, DC, February 7, 2005. Hon. Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader, U.S. Senate, Dirksen Building, Washington, DC. Hon. Harry Reid, Senate Minority Leader, U.S. Senate, Hart Building, Washington, DC. Dear Senate Majority Leader Frist and Senate Minority Leader Reid: We, the undersigned State Attorneys General, write to express our concern regarding one limited aspect of pending Senate Bill 5, the ``Class Action Fairness Act,'' or any similar legislation. We take no position on the Act as a general matter and, indeed, there are differing views among us on the policy judgments reflected in the Act. We join together, however, in a bipartisan request for support of Senator Mark Pryor's potential amendment to S. 5, or any similar legislation, clarifying that the Act does not apply to, and would have no effect on, actions brought by any State Attorney General on behalf of his or her respective state or its citizens. As Attorneys General, we frequently investigate and bring actions against defendants who have caused harm to our citizens. These cases are usually brought pursuant to the Attorney General's parens patriae authority under our respective consumer protection and antitrust statutes. In some instances, such actions have been brought with the Attorney General acting as the class representative for the consumers of the state. It is our concern that certain provisions of S. 5 might be misinterpreted to hamper the ability of the Attorneys General to bring such actions, thereby impeding one means of protecting our citizens from unlawful activity and its resulting harm. The Attorneys General have been very successful in litigation initiated to protect the rights of our consumers. For example, in the pharmaceutical industry, the States have recently brought enforcement actions on behalf of consumers against large, often foreign-owned, drug companies for overcharges and market manipulations that illegally raised the costs of certain prescription drugs. Such cases have resulted in recoveries of approximately 235 million dollars, the majority of which is earmarked for consumer restitution. In several instances, the States' recoveries provided one hundred percent reimbursement directly to individual consumers of the overcharges they suffered as a result of the illegal activities of the defendants. This often meant several hundred dollars going back into the pockets of those consumers who can least afford to be victimized by illegal trade practices, senior citizens living on fixed incomes and the working poor who cannot afford insurance. We encourage you to support the aforementioned amendment exempting all actions brought by State Attorneys General from the provisions of S. 5, or any similar legislation. It is important to all of our constituents, but especially to the poor, elderly and disabled, that the provisions of the Act not be misconstrued and that we maintain the enforcement authority needed to protect them from illegal practices. We respectfully submit that the overall purposes of the legislation would not be impaired by such an amendment that merely clarifies the existing authority of our respective States. Thank you for your consideration of this very important matter. Please contact any of us if you have questions or comments. Sincerely, Mike Beebee, Attorney General, Arkansas. Gregg Renkes, Attorney General, Alaska. Mark Shurtleff, Attorney General, Utah. Fiti Sunia, Attorney General, American Samoa. Terry Goddard, Attorney General, Arizona. John Suthers, Attorney General, Colorado. Jane Brady, Attorney General, Delaware. Charlie Crist, Attorney General, Florida. Mark Bennett, Attorney General, Hawaii. Stephen Carter, Attorney General, Indiana. Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, California. Richard Blumenthal, Attorney General, Connecticut. Robert Spagnoletti, Attorney General, District of Columbia. Thurbert Baker, Attorney General, Georgia. Lawrence Wasden, Attorney General, Idaho. Tom Miller, Attorney General, Iowa. Greg Stumbo, Attorney General, Kentucky. Steven Rowe, Attorney General, Maine. Tom Reilly, Attorney General, Massachusetts. Mike Hatch, Attorney General, Minnesota. Jay Nixon, Attorney General, Missouri. Jon Bruning, Attorney General, Nebraska. Kelly Ayotte, Attorney General, New Hampshire. Charles Foti, Attorney General, Louisiana. Joseph Curran, Attorney General, Maryland. Mike Cox, Attorney General, Michigan. Jim Hood, Attorney General, Mississippi. Mike McGrath, Attorney General, Montana. Brian Sandoval, Attorney General, Nevada. Peter Harvey, Attorney General, New Jersey. Eliot Spitzer, Attorney General, New York. Wayne Stenehjem, Attorney General, North Dakota. Jim Petro, Attorney General, Ohio. Hardy Myers, Attorney General, Oregon. Roberto Sanchez Ramos, Attorney General, Puerto Rico. Henry McMaster, Attorney General, South Carolina. Roy Cooper, Attorney General, North Carolina. Pamela Brown, Attorney General, N. Mariana Islands. W.A. Drew Edmondson, Attorney General, Oklahoma. Tom Corbett, Attorney General, Pennsylvania. Patrick Lynch, Attorney General, Rhode Island. Lawrence Long, Attorney General, South Dakota. Paul Summers, Attorney General, Tennessee. Darrell McGraw, Attorney General, West Virginia. Patrick Crank, Attorney General, Wyoming. Rob McKenna, Attorney General, Washington. Peg Lautenschlager, Attorney General, Wisconsin.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, interestingly enough, I remember when President Clinton left office that we expected to pay off the national debt held by the public by 2008, in which case we would be paying zero interest on the national debt. Here you show in 2010 a $300 billion interest expense. Is it not true that with $300 billion at $30,000 each, you could hire 10 million Americans? That is even more than the number of people unemployed today.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, when we have all that interest on the national debt, that means that NASA will not have any money. NASA-Langley in my district is suffering cutbacks, laying off people. Shipbuilding, we would not be able to build the number of Navy ships, we are particularly trying to cut back on aircraft carriers. Pell grants are not going up with inflation. We are cutting back veterans health care. We are not keeping up with inflation to maintain present services and veterans health care in the middle of the war. Is that not the kind of thing that happens?

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I had just one other question. On the first chart that the gentleman had up there, on the other side, the first chart the gentleman had, I remember we had something called pay- go during the Clinton years. Can the gentleman explain how that helped us keep the trend up, and then what happened?

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. So during those years, we had fiscal responsibility. We could not spend money unless we paid for it; we could not cut taxes unless we cut spending; and maintaining that fiscal responsibility kept that line going up. And, at the top of that line, we stopped pay-go and we passed tax cuts without spending cuts, and we passed spending increases without paying for them; is that right?

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. And that graph shows what happens.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, on this chart the gentleman shows the blue line as to the President's promise to cut the deficit in half within 5 years. Cutting the deficit in half within 5 years is certainly a modest goal. Is it not true that the projected surpluses that we started off this administration with would have created $5 trillion in surplus? Yet according to the first chart you had, we are very much in debt, and we come up with a promise to cut the deficit in half in 5 years. What kind of goal is that? Why are we not talking about returning to surplus, where we were, and not having all of these deficits? Is cutting the deficit in half not somewhat of a bizarre goal?

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman that one of the things when you run up all this deficit, you have to pay interest on the national debt every year. The interest on the national debt, you have a chart that shows what we spent in 2004, what we are going to have to spend.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I think we need to put the budget into perspective to see where we are with the budget as we discuss the priorities. This chart just shows where we are starting with the first Bush administration ending with a $290 billion deficit. The 8 years of the Clinton administration, each year better than the previous year, up to a $236 billion surplus, with surpluses increasing as far as the eye could see. The first year of the Bush administration we used up all of the surplus and ended up just with the Social Security and Medicare surplus, and each year worse than the year before. This year we expect a $427 billion deficit. Last year we ended up with a $412 billion deficit. When President Clinton left office, we had expected a surplus of $400 billion, a swing of over $800 billion. That is significant, Mr. Speaker, because if you look at what we get from the individual income tax, everybody's individual income tax, it is less than $800 billion. That was the swing just in 1 year.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. We should have a surplus. And you will notice if we adopt these policies we will not even come close. I mentioned Social Security. It is hard to take the Social Security plan seriously because this green line shows that we will be able to pay full benefits until 2042. If we adopt the President's plan to solve the problem, because after 2042 we will have a deficit, the President's plan goes bankrupt 11 years earlier. So if that is the solution to the problem, it is just very difficult to take that very seriously. Furthermore, there was not that much of a problem. In fact, the Social Security shortfall was about $3.7 trillion. If we do not make the tax cuts permanent for the top 1 percent, that is enough to just about cover the entire shortfall. Making the tax cuts permanent, $11.6 trillion, is much more than the Social Security shortfalls. So when you talk about your priorities, there is a priority, tax cuts for the top 1 percent first. Worry about Social Security second. I think we should worry about Social Security first and then tax cuts second. If you look at the other kinds of priorities, look at the criminal justice priorities. I serve on the Committee on the Judiciary, and the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt) mentioned some of the disparities in the criminal justice system. There is a good part of the budget. There is more money in residential drug treatment and drug courts, but unfortunately it appears to be at the expense of other good programs in the substance abuse area. There is more money for offender reentry, $5.6 million for a total of $15 million; but we have hundreds of thousands of prisoners coming out of prison, so that is woefully inadequate. But, unfortunately, they are severe cuts, not only in education but in prevention programs, like Safe and Drug Free Schools, Weed and Seed and other prevention programs, the COPS program which will actually reduce crime. There is more money for prisons, building two new prisons. Unfortunately, that only exacerbates the disparities there are now. For every 100,000 whites in America, 366 are in jail today. But for every 100,000 blacks, 2,209 are in jail today. We need to be putting more money into prevention and less money into prisons. And if we put it into prevention, we will not need the additional prisons.