Bobby Scott

Mr. SCOTT

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I yield to the gentleman from Florida to explain the purpose of his request.

Mr. SCOTT

Mr. SCOTT. I thank the gentleman from Maryland for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 4907, legislation to establish the Jamestown 400th Commemoration Commission. Mr. Speaker, this bill was introduced by our late colleague, Herb Bateman, who represented Jamestown. Jamestown is located in the First Congressional District of Virginia, and since we are talking about Jamestown, I think it is appropriate to note that Herb always called his district America's first district. This bill authorizes the Jamestown Commemoration Commission that will head up the preparations for the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, which will be celebrated in 2007. Jamestown was not only the first permanent English colony but it also became the first capital of Virginia. The first legislative assembly was held in Jamestown; and it was there that the idea of common law, common customs, and common language began and continues to this day. Mr. Speaker, planning for the 400th anniversary has been under way for several years and establishment of a national commission will complement the ongoing State efforts as well as extend national and international significance to this historic anniversary. The State has been conducting roundtables throughout Virginia to get citizen input to design a statewide commemoration. Efforts are also being taken to continue the rebuilding of ships which brought the 1607 colonists and which were originally reconstructed for the 350th anniversary, as well as rebuilding the Jamestown fort and the Native American village. Mr. Speaker, passage of this measure will ensure that the 400th anniversary of Jamestown is recognized at a national level for its historic significance and contributions to the founding of our country. It is also a fitting manner in which to honor our late colleague, Herb Bateman. Before yielding back the balance of my time, I want to commend the Members of the staff of Virginia's First Congressional District for their tireless efforts in making sure this bill moved forward. The constituents of the First Congressional District have been well represented by the staff since the untimely loss of Herb Bateman, and it is in large part because of their efforts that this bill is before us today. Mr. Speaker, I urge the passage of this measure.

Mr. SCOTT

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. 3164, the Protecting Seniors From Fraud Act. I would have preferred to have seen the bill developed through the normal legislative process of hearings and markups at the committee level so that we could have judged more fully the need that we are seeking to address. However, I am prepared to support the bill since its primary function is to reauthorize funding for the TRIAD program, a proven community policing program that partners law enforcement agencies with senior volunteers to reduce crime and fraud amongst the elderly. The TRIAD program operates in 47 States and 725 counties and assists over 16 million seniors nationwide. The bill also creates a clearinghouse for information to educate seniors about the dangers of fraud, including telemarketing and sweepstakes fraud. It requires the U.S. Attorney General to conduct a study of crimes against seniors. The bill requires the inclusion of seniors in the National Crime Victims Survey, and it encourages State and local governments to fully incorporate fraud avoidance information in their aging services programs. Seniors are often the target of telemarketing and sweepstakes fraud. There are over 140,000 telemarketing firms operating in the United States. The AARP estimates that about 10 percent of them, fully 14,000 firms, use fraudulent practices. The FBI estimates that consumers lose about $40 billion a year to telemarketing fraud. The AARP estimates that while seniors make up about 27 percent of the United States population, they incur about 37 percent of the $40 billion loss. Despite considerable efforts to address these issues in recent years, many seniors are still not aware of these problems and of their rights and protections against them. According to the AARP, Americans over 65 are the least likely to know about Federal protections from fraud. Adopting this bill will allow us to continue the partnerships and cooperative efforts with seniors and with State and local governments to prevent and address senior fraud. I want to thank the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus) for his leadership on this bill. I urge my colleagues to support the bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the Birmingham Pledge recognizes the role that each of us can play in advancing the cause of racial harmony and tolerance in our society. Birmingham occupies an important place in the history of civil rights in America. At one time, when we thought of Birmingham, what came to mind were police dogs, fire hoses, racial strife, and Dr. Martin Luther King's letter from a Birmingham jail. Given the history of Birmingham and the great strides made by that community since the outburst of racial violence in the 1960s, it is all together appropriate that this Congress acknowledge the contributions of those who have played a role in creating and promoting the Pledge. The Birmingham Pledge was authored by Birmingham attorney James Rotch and has been promoted by a cross-section of the Birmingham community. I would like to particularly take note of the leadership played by the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus) and the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Hilliard), who introduced the measure in the House and helped shepherd its passage. To date, I understand that more than 70,000 individuals have taken the Birmingham Pledge, including the President, First Lady, and numerous elected officials and civil rights leaders. It is through small steps like these that we can combat discrimination and increase racial tolerance. I commend the citizens of Birmingham who have crafted the Birmingham Pledge to create more positive associations with Birmingham and civil rights, and I urge my colleagues to accept the Senate amendments. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker, I wish to pay tribute to a good friend and colleague, Congressman William ``Bill'' Clay. I have had the pleasure of serving with Bill on the Education and Workforce Committee since my election in 1992. Throughout his service, Bill Clay has been a fighter--a fighter for the hard working Americans who have made our country a global economic leader, a fighter for the disadvantaged, a fighter for public education but most of all a fighter for social justice. Looking back over his career as Chairman of the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service to the Committee on House Administration, to his current membership as Ranking Member on the Committee on Education and the Workforce, we find his imprimatur on numerous initiatives. He stewarded the landmark Family and Medical Leave Act into law, the Hatch Act reform bill which allows federal employees to participate in the political process, legislation prohibiting age-based discrimination in employee benefits, legislation providing federal loan guarantees for construction projects at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Bill Clay's penchant for being a fighter has served his constituents, this Congress and especially the Democrats on the Education and Workforce Committee well. For those of us who served with him on the Education Committee, his leadership was crucial at a time when we were in the Minority. Under Bill Clay's leadership we turned back radical efforts to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, defeated school voucher proposals, and championed meaningful education reforms and programs, like Class Size Reduction and School Modernization, that help the many, not just the few. As an original founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, Bill Clay started us on the path to where we are today, a highly respected body that is on the front lines championing the causes of the African American community in the legislative process. I have no doubts that Bill will continue the good fight after he leaves Congress. I look forward to his continued leadership.

Mr. SCOTT

Mr. SCOTT. I yield to the gentleman from Arkansas.

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I ask the distinguished gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchinson) to explain the purpose of his request.

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker, with that explanation, I support the bill. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. SCOTT

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I would ask the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble) to explain the procedure and what he is offering.

Mr. SCOTT. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker, with that explanation, I support the bill. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. SCOTT

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I would ask the gentleman to explain the purpose of his request and the amendments that are being proposed.

Mr. SCOTT. I yield to the gentleman from Arkansas.

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker, based on the explanation, particularly in light of the disagreement to Senate amendments numbered 2 and 4, and the other amendments I do agree with, I support their concurrence. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. SCOTT

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this important bipartisan measure that acknowledges the indignities and discriminations suffered by Italian Americans during World War II. I thank the gentlewoman from California for her leadership, particularly on this very special day. Of course, I will always remember the vital role that America's greatest generation played in defeating the threats to democracy and freedom abroad during World War II. At the same time, we must never forget that in its zeal to defeat foreign tyrants, the United States Government did a great disservice to democracy by violating the civil rights and civil liberties of hundreds of thousands of Italian-born immigrants here at home. Simply because of their nationality, Italian Americans were labeled ``enemy aliens.'' More than 600,000 of these citizens were forced to carry identification cards, had their personal property seized, and their freedom of travel restricted. Tens of thousands of other Italian Americans were forced from their homes, placed under curfews, and prohibited from entering coastal areas of our country, and many others were arrested and even interned in military camps. Unfortunately, most Americans today are not even aware of this tragic chapter in our history. This is why the legislation is so important, because it will allow a full airing of the story of the treatment of Italian Americans during World War II to be told. In telling the story, the legislation would require the Attorney General to conduct a comprehensive review of the government's treatment of Italian Americans that would identify by name those Italian Americans who were innocent victims of discrimination. They are the grandparents, the parents, and cousins of millions of Italian Americans in America today. We must learn from our history, even when that history shows our national government failed to uphold values underpinning our democracy, so that we do not subject future generations of Americans to senseless and unlawful deprivations of their civil liberties in the name of national security. However, this legislation has another important purpose. It also provides an opportunity for the United States Government, through the President, to officially acknowledge that discrimination against Italian Americans during World War II represented a fundamental injustice toward Italian Americans. Such an acknowledgment will follow other historic and important acts of official contrition, such as President Clinton's official apology for this Nation's role in the African slave trade and our treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Part of fulfilling the promise of our democracy requires owning up to our past. By passing this bill, we tell Italian Americans and, by extension, all Americans, that equality under the law includes honesty about our history. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this important legislation. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Baird) be permitted to manage the time allocated to this side.

Mr. SCOTT

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Baird) be permitted to manage the time allotted to this side.

Mr. SCOTT

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Res. 605 which would express the sense of the House of Representatives that communities should implement the Amber Plan to expedite the recovery of abducted children. The Amber Plan provides for community law enforcement, radio and television stations to work together to alert the public of child abductions. Under the plan, the law enforcement alerts the media which interrupt programs to broadcast notices seeking help from the public when child abductions are reported and confirmed. The Amber Plan was created in December 1996 in memory of 9-year-old Amber Hagerman who was kidnapped and murdered in Arlington, Texas. Since its creation, the system has become a powerful tool, especially in the early hours of an abduction investigation, and is credited with saving the lives of at least nine children nationwide. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a respected organization dedicated to assisting families in recovering missing children, has endorsed the Amber Plan and is directing its expansion. Versions of the plan have been adopted in several cities already, including Kansas City, Missouri; Memphis, Tennessee; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Cincinnati, Ohio. Mr. Speaker, the Amber Plan deserves our wholehearted support. It provides for a partnership between law enforcement, the media, and the community which can mean the difference between life and death for a child. I commend those who developed the plan and urge my colleagues to vote for this resolution.

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

Mr. SCOTT

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

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. 1865. This bill will amend the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 to authorize the Attorney General to make grants to States and localities and to Indian tribal governments to establish what is referred to as the mental health court programs. Such court programs would be similar to the successful drug courts and ASAP, the alcohol safety action programs, for substance abusers. While I am in support of this bill as one of the neediest programs that are available, because we did not have committee hearings and markups on the measure I am unable to have really the full confidence that I would like to have that it is drafted in such a way to best meet the needs of the public, the mental health, and the criminal justice systems. However, the Subcommittee on Crime did conduct a hearing on ``the impact of the mentally ill in the criminal justice system'' earlier this fall. The testimony at that hearing revealed, among other things, that our criminal justice system is serving as a primary caregiver for the mentally ill and that mental health courts have proven to be a useful tool for several communities that have such programs. Additionally, this is a pilot program, not a nationwide initiative, so we will have the opportunity to see these programs and measure their effectiveness and have the opportunity to evaluate them in the context of other approaches to addressing mental health illnesses in the criminal justice system. The program funded under the bill provides not only for a special court program but also for the continued judicial supervision of qualified offenders with mental illness, as well as grants for coordinated delivery of services. The coordinated services for which the grants would authorize funding include, among other things, specialized training for law enforcement and judicial personnel to identify and address the unique needs of mentally ill offenders, and the voluntary outpatient and inpatient treatment that carries with it the possibility of dismissal of charges or a reduced sentence upon successful completion of treatment and other activities. The bill authorizes $10 million each year for the fiscal years 2001 through 2004 to carry out the provisions of the legislation. Since the 1960s, the State mental health hospitals have increasingly reduced their population of mentally ill individuals in response to a nationwide and appropriate call for deinstitutionalization. The movement toward deinstitutionalization has been based upon the fact that mentally ill individuals are constitutionally entitled to refuse treatment or at least have it provided in the least restrictive environment. Unfortunately, community mental health treatment centers have not been created at the rate necessary to meet the needs created by deinstitutionalization. A recent study by the Department of Justice suggests that the criminal justice system has become, by default, the primary caregiver of the most seriously mentally ill. More specifically, the Department of Justice reported last July that at least 16 percent of the United States prison population is seriously mentally ill. The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill reports that on any given day, at least 284,000 seriously mentally ill individuals are incarcerated, while only 187,000 are in mental health facilities. The bill before us would provide the grant money to help divert from the criminal justice system those who are mentally ill who would benefit more from treatment than by incarceration, and help law enforcement and correctional administrators provide appropriate services to offenders with mental illness. Since this is a pilot program, the information it develops can be used to develop a full- fledged program available to communities throughout the country. Such an approach is not only the right thing to do but it will ultimately reduce crime. I want to particularly thank the delegation from Ohio, particularly the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot), serving on the Committee on the Judiciary, and the other gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) for their leadership on this bill. Accordingly, Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to vote for the bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), a leader on this bill who brought it to the committee's attention.

Mr. SCOTT

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me time. I want to thank my colleague, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers), for his work on this important issue, improving math and science education in this country. We know that our economic competitiveness as a Nation depends on our ability to compete in the area of education. Unfortunately, in Virginia there are tens of thousands of jobs going vacant because we cannot find the qualified workers in the area of technology. Businesses cannot therefore expand until they find the qualified workers, and localities trying to recruit businesses cannot recruit those businesses because of the shortage of technologically qualified workers. So, Mr. Speaker, while I think this bill goes in the right direction because it improves science, math and technological education in our schools, I, too, am concerned about section 4 in the bill involving master teachers. That section directs the National Science Foundation to give direct grants to entities, including private schools, to hire master teachers. This provision is not only constitutionally suspect, but also provides for a dangerous precedent for Federal education programs. Under current law, private schools can now participate in professional development activities and may participate in consortia or partnerships that receive Federal grants. But we have never given them direct grants to hire teachers. Direct grants are even more constitutionally suspect than vouchers, because this bill allows direct funding to private religious schools. Now, some of the voucher programs pretend to have the benefit going to the student, not to the school; but there is not that fiction in this bill. This money goes directly to private religious schools. It should be noted that private religious schools would be able to discriminate on the basis of religion when they hire teachers with Federal funds, and that is particularly absurd on a science bill, to think that a private school could fire a master teacher, hired with Federal funds, because that master teacher it was found believed in evolution, if teaching evolution is inconsistent with the teaching and tenets of the private religious school. Now, although we do not make the constitutional determinations as Members of Congress, I would remind our Members when we were sworn in, we did swear to uphold the Constitution. Even more of a concern is the precedence this provision sets for other Federal education programs. Should we give money to private schools to hire teachers to reduce their class size, to modernize their schools or to run after-school programs, when those initiatives are woefully underfunded in the public area? Mr. Speaker, public funds should benefit public schools, where more than 90 percent of our students go; and, therefore, I urge the defeat of this legislation. I would also in response to the constitutional arguments include for the Record a memorandum dated October 24, 2000, from the Congressional Research Service. Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, Washington, DC, October 24, 2000. memorandum To: House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Attention: Alex Nock From: David M. Ackerman, Legislative Attorney, American Law Division Subject: Establishment Clause Issues Raised by Master Teacher Grant Program in H.R. 4271 This is in response to your request regarding the constitutional implications of the ``Master Teacher Grant Program'' that would be authorized by H.R. 4271. More specifically, you asked for a brief analysis of the program's implications under the establishment of religion clause of the First Amendment. Time limitations prevent an exhaustive analysis, but it is hoped the following may be helpful. H.R. 4271 would, inter alia, authorize $50 million for each of the next three fiscal years for a master teacher program conducted by the National Science Foundation. Under that program the NSF could make grants to state or local educational agencies, a private elementary or middle school, or a consortium of any combination of those entities for the purpose of hiring a master teacher whose responsibilities could include (1) development or implementation of science, math, engineering, or technology curricula; (2) providing in- classroom assistance; (3) managing materials, equipment, and supplies; (4) mentoring other teachers; and (5) developing and implementing professional development programs for teachers, including other master teachers. Thus, a private sectarian elementary or middle school could receive a grant to hire a master teacher. The program may raise a constitutional question under the establishment of religion clause. Several Supreme Court decisions have addressed the constitutionality of public subsidies of teachers in sectarian elementary and secondary schools. Most pertinent, perhaps, is Lemon v. Kurtzman. In that case the Court held unconstitutional, 7-1, two state programs subsidizing teachers of secular subjects in sectarian elementary and secondary schools. One program provided a salary supplement of up to 15 percent of the salary of teachers of secular subjects in private elementary schools. The other program reimbursed private elementary and secondary schools for the salaries of teachers of math, modern foreign languages, physical science, and physical education. The Court analyzed the programs' constitutionality under what is now known as the Lemon test: First, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion . . .; finally, the statute must not foster ``an excessive entanglement with religion.'' The Court found the programs to have legitimate secular purposes but, without deciding the primary effect question, held them to foster an ``excessive entanglement between government and religion'' and thus to be unconstitutional under the establishment clause. It stressed that the schools that benefited from the subsidies had a ``significant religious mission and that a substantial portion of their activities is religiously oriented.'' The schools were all located near parish churches, all displayed numerous religious symbols, all were administered by religious authorities, and two-thirds of the teachers were nuns of various religious orders. As a consequence, the Court said, there was a substantial risk that the subsidized teachers would engage in religious indoctrination: We need not and do not assume that teachers in parochial schools will be guilty of bad faith or any conscious design to evade the limitations imposed by the statute and the First Amendment. We simply recognize that a dedicated religious person, teaching in a school affiliated with his or her faith and operated to include its tenets, will inevitably experience great difficulty in remaining religiously neutral. . . . With the best of intentions such a teacher would find it hard to make a total separation between secular teaching and religious doctrine. Because of the ``potential for impermissible fostering of religion,'' the Court held that the states would have to engage in an intrusive monitoring of the teachers' performance: The . . . Legislature has not, and could not, provide state aid on the basis of a mere assumption that secular teachers under religious discipline can avoid conflicts. The State must be certain, given the Religion Clauses, that subsidized teachers do not inculcate religion. . . . A comprehensive, discriminating, and continuing state surveillance will inevitably be required to ensure that [this] restriction [is] obeyed and the First Amendment otherwise respected. . . . These prophylactic contacts will involve excessive and enduring entanglement between state and church. The Court saw an added danger in the program reimbursing private sectarian schools for the salaries of teachers of specified secular subjects: The Pennsylvania statute . . . has the further defect of providing state financial aid directly to the church-related school. . . . The history of government grants of a continuing cash subsidy indicates that such programs have almost always been accompanied by varying measures of control and surveillance. The government cash grants before us now provide no basis for predicting that comprehensive measures of surveillance and control will not follow. In particular, the government's post-audit power to inspect and evaluate a church-related school's financial records and to determine which expenditures are religious and which are secular creates an intimate and continuing relationship between church and state. Lemon concerned the public subsidy of sectarian school teachers. In 1975 in Meek v. Pittenger the Court extended its reasoning to a program in which public school teachers provided ``auxiliary services'' to sectarian school students on the premises of the sectarian schools they attended. The Court again stressed the religion-pervasive nature of sectarian elementary and secondary schools and found that even public school teachers might engage in the fostering of religion in such an atmosphere. It said: ``To be sure, auxiliary services personnel, because not employed by the nonpublic schools, are not directly subject to the discipline of a religious authority. But they are performing important educational services in schools in which education is an integral part of the dominant sectarian mission and in which an atmosphere dedicated to the advancement of religious belief is constantly maintained. The potential for impermissible fostering of religion under these circumstances, although somewhat reduced, is nonetheless present. To be certain that auxiliary teachers remain religiously neutral, as the Constitution demands, the State would have to impose limitations on the activities of auxiliary personnel and then engage in some form of continuing surveillance to ensure that those restrictions were being followed. Thus, by a margin of 6-3, the Court held the program to violate the establishment clause. A decade later the Court reaffirmed these views. In Aguilar v. Felton the Court held unconstitutional, 5-4, New York City's implementation of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Under the program public school teachers provided remedial and enrichment educational services to eligible children in private elementary and secondary schools on the premises of those schools. The City had set up a system to monitor the teachers' performance to ensure that they did not engage in religious teaching. But the Court, again stressing the religion-pervasive nature of the schools, found that the monitoring system itself to create excessive entanglement between the City and the religious schools: . . . [T]he supervisory system established by the City of New York inevitably results in the excessive entanglement of church and state. . . . In the related case of City of Grand Rapids v. Ball the Court also struck down two teacher-subsidy programs operated in Grand Rapids. In the Shared Time program public school teachers provided remedial and enrichment instruction to children in sectarian elementary schools on the premises of those schools, while in the Community Education program teachers who were otherwise employed by the parochial schools were hired on a part-time basis to provide after-school extracurricular courses to the students attending those schools. The Court held both programs to satisfy the secular purpose aspect of the Lemon test but to violate its primary effect prong, but margins of 5-4 and 7-2, respectively. The Court said the programs ``impermissibly'' advanced religion in three ways: First, the teachers participating in the programs may become involved in intentionally or inadvertently inculcating particular religious tenets or beliefs. Second, the programs may provide a crucial symbolic link between government and religion, thereby enlisting--at least in the eyes of impressionable youngsters--the powers of government to the support of the religious denomination operating the school. Third, the programs may have the effect of directly promoting religion by impermissibly providing a subsidy to the primary religious mission of the institutions attended. Thus, after Ball the Court viewed programs subsidizing teachers of secular subjects on the premises of sectarian schools to violate both the primary effect and excessive entanglement prongs of the Lemon test. More recently, however, the Court has begun to retreat from these rulings. In Agostini v. Felron in 1997 the Court specifically rejected the conclusions and reasoning of Aguilar, Ball, and Meek with respect to programs in which public school teachers provide remedial and enrichment services to eligible children in sectarian elementary and secondary schools on the premises of those schools. Agostini again involved New York City's implementation on the Title I program, but this time the Court held on-premises instruction by public school personnel to be constitutional, 5-4. The Court said the assumptions on which Aguilar, Ball, and Meek were based had been ``undermined'' by its more recent church- state jurisprudence. Specifically, the Court said it had ``abandoned the presumption . . . That the placement of public employees on parochial school grounds inevitably results in the impermissible effect of state-sponsored indoctrination or constitutes a symbolic union between government and religion.'' the Court further said it had ``departed from the rule . . . That all government aid that directly assists the educational function of religious schools is invalid.'' Finally, the Court states that because it no longer adhered to the view that ``property instructed public employees will fail to discharge their duties faithfully'' and be tempted to inculcate religion while on parochial school grounds, it also ``discard[ed] the assumption that pervasive monitoring of Title I teachers is required. There is no suggestion in the record before us that unannounced monthly visits of public supervisors are insufficient to detect inculcation of religion by public employees. Moreover, we have not found excessive entanglement in cases in which States imposed far more onerous burdens on religious institutions than the monitoring system at issue here.'' Most recently, the court further revised its jurisprudence concerning public aid to sectarian elementary and secondary schools, although the case did not involve teacher subsidies. In Mitchell v. Helms the Court upheld, 6-3, a program providing instructional materials and equipment to public and private schools alike and in so doing overturned parts of its prior opinions in Meek v. Pittenger, supra, and Wolman v. Walter. The Court could agree on no majority opinion. A plurality opinion by Justice Thomas, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Scalia and Kennedy, stated that programs providing aid directly to sectarian schools are constitutional so long as the aid is also made available on a neutral basis to public schools and is secular in nature. The opinion by Justice O'Connor, joined by Justice Breyer, averred that the aid also had to be limited to secular use by the schools after it was received. But she eschewed the notion that an intrusive monitoring system was constitutionally necessary to ensure that such a restriction was honored. She stated: ``. . . Agostini and the cases on which it relied have undermined the assumptions underlying Meek and Wolman. To be sure, Agostini only addressed the specific presumption that public-school employees teaching on the premises of religious schools would inevitably inculcate religion. Nevertheless, I believe that our definitive rejection of that presumption also stood for--or at least strongly pointed to--the broader proposition that such presumptions of religious indoctrination are normally inappropriate when evaluating neutral school-aid programs under the Establishment Clause. . . . [T]he Court's willingness to assume that religious-school instructors will inculcate religion has not caused us to presume also that such instructors will be unable to follow secular use restrictions on the use of textbooks. I would similarly reject any such presumption regarding the use of instructional materials and equipment.'' But Justice O'Connor also took pains to re-emphasize her position in Ball that ``the religious-school teacher who works throughout the day to advance the school's religious mission would also do so, at least to some extent, during the supplemental classes provided at the end of the day.'' Thus, it seems clear that the Court's church-state jurisprudence is evolving. More specifically, the Court has abandoned the assumptions that aid to sectarian schools inevitably has a primary effect of advancing the schools' religious mission and that public school teachers will inevitably be tempted to inculcate religion when they offer instructional services on the premises of such schools. But it has not yet abandoned the presumption that was key to its decision in Lemon v. Kurtzman, supra, that the teachers hired by the sectarian schools themselves would inevitably engage in such instruction and that a constitutionally entangling surveillance of such teachers would be essential if they were publicly subsidized. Lemon v. Kurtzman, supra, in other words, appears still to be good law. Moreover, it may also be material to note that all of the Justices in their various opinions in Mitchell v. Helms, supra, emphasized the constitutional dangers that were inherent in direct grants of money to sectarian schools. As a consequence, the Master Teacher program that would be authorized by H.R. 4271 appears to raise a constitutional question. I hope the foregoing is responsive to your request. If we may be of additional assistance, please call on us. I would just read part of it. Lemon v. Kurtzman was mentioned. CRS suggests that that still appears to be good law. Moreover, it may be material to note that all of the justices in their various opinions in Mitchell v. Helms emphasized the constitutional dangers that were inherent in direct grants of money to sectarian schools. As a consequence, the master teacher program that would be authorized by H.R. 4271 appears to raise constitutional questions. I think they should be considered and that provision should be taken out of the bill, so other good portions could go forward.

Mr. SCOTT

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Lampson), who is the chairman and founder of the Congressional Caucus for Missing and Exploited Children and a leading supporter of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Myrick) for her leadership on this issue and also the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Lampson) for his leadership. I would also like to take the opportunity to say a word about the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Canady), with whom I served as ranking member of the Subcommittee on the Constitution for 2 years. We considered a lot of very contentious and controversial issues. And we did not agree very often, but as we disagreed we were able to do that, I think, in a constructive and conscientious way of being able to disagree without being disagreeable. I know the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Canady) is not seeking reelection, and I wanted to wish him well in the future. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.