Bobby Scott

Mr. SCOTT

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers). (Mr. CONYERS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt).

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment to the amendment. The Clerk will designate the amendment to the amendment.

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of the time to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, I would just notify the chair that I would like to introduce the amendment at the end of the debate. Mr. Chairman, I yield 10 seconds to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings).

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment that has been made in order by the rule to the McCollum amendment. Do I have to offer that before the time runs out?

Mr. SCOTT. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the Hyde-McCollum amendment before us and to offer an amendment to strike a major portion of it. Unfortunately, the underlying amendment to the Hyde-McCollum amendment seeks to amend a bill containing only sound bipartisan juvenile justice policy by adding policies that have been shown to actually increase crime and violence against the public and the youth involved in policies which were specifically rejected by the sponsors of the amendment when we were working together to put together H.R. 1501. One of the problems with the underlying amendment is that it provides for trying more juveniles as adults without any judicial review. Under current law, a judge must decide whether the public interest requires a child to be tried as an adult, with just very limited exceptions. Now, there are numerous studies which indicate that trying more juveniles as adults will probably result in them being treated more leniently in an adult court and all of those studies show that the crime rate will increase with new crimes being committed sooner and more likely to be violent. Now, the judge in adult court is confined to two options. He can put the person on probation or he can lock that person up with adult murderers, robbers, and drug dealers. Juvenile court judges have other options, and that is why the juveniles coming out of the juvenile system are much less likely to commit crime. If they treat a juvenile as an adult for trial, if they are incarcerated, they will be locked up with adults. And it does not take a brain surgeon to know that they will not only be endangered but they will be more likely to commit a crime when it is all over. Mr. Chairman, in March we had hearings on what we need to do to reduce juvenile crime and delinquency. And H.R. 1501, without the Hyde- McCollum amendment, was the result. No one presented any coherent information to lead us to believe that trying more juveniles as adults was a responsible action. Now, one of the other problems this underlying amendment needs to be struck by my amendment is that, without my amendment, we will be federalizing juvenile crime. Now, Chief Justice Rehnquist has talked for years about the problem of federalizing crime. And I am sure he would look at this bill and say, there they go again. Obviously, if we had pursued the regular order, the provision that federalizes juvenile crime would not have been in the underlying bill. Mr. Chairman, the underlying bill also contains numerous mandatory minimum sentences. Mandatory minimum sentences have been studied. In fact, the Rand study considered mandatory minimums, regular sentences, and drug treatment. And for every $1 million that they would spend, they could reduce crime by 13 with mandatory minimums. The $1 million could reduce crime by 27 with traditional law enforcement. Or they could reduce crime by 100 if they used drug treatment. Obviously, mandatory minimums came up last and almost a waste of money and, therefore, would not have survived the regular legislative process. H.R. 1501, without the Hyde-McCollum amendment, constitutes responsible, effective juvenile justice legislation, the product of extensive hearings and thoughtful deliberations within the Subcommittee on Crime of the House Committee on the Judiciary. It is legislation which is unique because it was responsive to the problems and concerns of all of the experts who testified and enjoys the full support of all of the subcommittee members. Mr. Chairman, remember we began this process with two bipartisan bills, one in Judiciary, one in Education. Both bills were drafted as a result of extensive hearings, and now we are in the middle of participating in a political charade where we consider slogans and sound bites which might score well in political polls but never would have made it through the regular legislative process. Now in the wake of Littleton, Colorado, and Conyers, Georgia, this sudden change in approach is both a spectacle and an embarrassment. For these reasons, Mr. Chairman, I believe that the committee should reject the underlying Hyde-McCollum amendment so we do not counteract the effective, sensible and proven policies in H.R. 1501 and replace them with counterproductive proposals in the pending Hyde-McCollum amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. DeGette).

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/4\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt).

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, how much time do we have remaining?

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren).

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt).

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire how much time is remaining on both sides?

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, following the gentleman from Florida (Mr. McCollum), this amendment I think if we had had an opportunity to consider it in committee, although we did not have an opportunity but had we had an opportunity, I think it certainly would have been included because this kind of activity was anticipated to be covered by the bill. I thank the gentleman for offering it and only wish that we had had an opportunity to consider it in committee, but we did not have a full committee consideration so the gentleman had to introduce it on the floor, and I thank him for that.

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is certainly consistent with the underlying bill, especially one of the amendments that will be presented later, which would incorporate H.R. 1150. The localities would do a plan and determine whether or not this particular program would fit into their plan, if they have determined they need this kind of program. It would certainly be eligible under that portion of the bill. It is forward-thinking, and I would urge its adoption.

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

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, I would like to point out that 1501 was actually cosponsored by all of the members of the subcommittee, both Democratic and Republican, and it came through a deliberative process. We had hearings and discussions about what needed to be done to reduce juvenile crime. We had hearings, and in one hearing judges and advocates and researchers pointed out that graduated sanctions would be very helpful to judges in helping with the reducing of juvenile crime. What they said was that many judges are relegated to a choice between incarceration and probation with very little in between, and what they needed were other services and punishments that could be individualized. In the bill it says that drug rehabilitation and counseling and community services and other punishments could be used and funded through this bill, and that the punishment or additional services had to be individualized for the particular child. That is the bill. That is what went through the regular order of hearings and subcommittee markup, and it was unanimously adopted. Now look at where we are. We are considering additional amendments that did not go through the regular process. And the reason they could not have made it through the regular process is they could not have withstood scrutiny. Look at the idea that we are going to try more juveniles as adults. That is in one of the amendments. It ignores the studies. We have many studies that show that the adult time that they would get in adult court would actually be shorter than the juvenile time. All of the studies show that the crime rate will go up if we treat for juveniles as adults. We could not have gone through a regular process with that, because it would have been defeated in the committee. But if we are out here just slinging sound bites at each other, then obviously there is a chance of getting that provision through. Like mandatory minimums. We could not get that through a regular process because we would have to defend against the studies, like the RAND study that showed that mandatory minimums are a waste of the taxpayers' money. There is a lot we can do with the taxpayers' money other than mandatory minimums if our goal is to reduce crime. Also, that attacks the very foundation of what we heard in subcommittee, and that is that the punishment must be individualized to the particular child. Mandatory minimum is a one-size-fits-all. This is what everybody gets regardless of the particular needs. Then we add on to that all the constitutional amendments posing as amendments to a bill that have significant speech and religious implications. None of those received deliberation. We ought not consider this kind of legislation; sound bites going back and forth without any deliberation. We started out and ought to go back to the original bill, 1501, and after that the bipartisan bill that was reported out of the education subcommittee, 1150, and stick with those rather than this process that is totally out of control.

Mr. SCOTT. I do, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SCOTT. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, it would have been nice to have had this explained to the committee where we might have been able to consider it in a deliberative fashion. We have been denied that. And so we are just guessing. It might be a good idea. It might not. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I am sure it would probably pass. I just wanted to know what we were doing. Apparently we will not find out.

Mr. SCOTT. I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Kelly), and ask if she would give us an idea of how much time was given in each of those cases that she mentioned. It would be helpful.

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling). (Mr. GOODLING asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SCOTT

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker, I think we ought to start off with a discussion of how this process started. It started with two bipartisan bills, one in the Committee on Education, one on the Committee on the Judiciary that were based on deliberation and research, both were reported from subcommittee without opposition. That process has now degenerated into a political charade with dozens of amendments, many of which have severe constitutional implications and none of which have gone through the committee process. If we are serious about crime, we should reject that rule and send all of these amendments back to the Committee on the Judiciary where they may receive appropriate consideration. Otherwise we are going to spend the next two days slinging sound bites at each other without any serious attempt in reducing juvenile crime. Mr. Speaker, that is a sorry response to the events in Littleton, Colorado and Conyers, Georgia. I would hope that we would reject the rule and go back to a deliberative process where we can do something about juvenile crime.