José Serrano

Mr. SERRANO

Mr. SERRANO. I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky.

Mr. SERRANO. And secondly, does the gentleman from Kentucky know if we could save any more time? Are there any of these amendments that the gentleman is willing to accept from our side without any further debate?

Mr. SERRANO. Time is what I had in mind, and saving even more. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. SERRANO

Mr. SERRANO. I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, and I ask unanimous consent to yield that time to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Vento) and have him control that time.

Mr. SERRANO

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the chairman for his colloquy, and I want to thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis) for his fine presentation. This is something that concerns me, and I am glad to hear that the chairman is willing to join the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis) in this effort. I want to be very much a part of this effort and make sure that this is something that we deal with. Mr. Chairman, I have often said, my greatest concern is, throughout all of my years growing up in the Bronx, I always saw the older folks in my community very supportive of the police. Now I see a lot of those folks upset, terrified, nervous about the police. That in itself is a sign to me that we have to do something to make sure that we regain that confidence that we have lost. So we are on the side of law enforcement. That is why we are doing what we are doing. I am glad that we can join together.

Mr. SERRANO

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for the work she has done on this issue and to tell her that I agree with her, as I do with other Members, that this is a serious issue. If we really want to talk about emergency in this country, we have come a long way in race relations and in understanding each other, but we have a long way to go; and it seems that now, when we are having the better economic times, this whole issue seems to come back to haunt us, and it is time we did something about it, and I commend her on this work. That legislation with all those cosponsors should come to the floor. We should address this issue and not run away from it any longer.

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I also want to join the gentleman in thanking and congratulating the Chair. I have done that in the past, and hope to do it in the future, by the way, but I sat there in the past and know how it is. I also want to thank him for a very liberal stop watch. I think the word ``liberal'' is fitting at this point. To you, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for setting the tone for the debate the last 2 days. They have been long hours, a lot of amendments, a lot of discussion, but I think your opening remarks kind of set the tone for the behavior. I want to join the gentleman in thanking the staff on both sides and thanking the staffs in our offices, who only got to see us on TV and have not seen us for the last 2 days. Once again, I want to thank you, sir, for the respect you show me and the courtesy you show me. No matter what the end vote is tonight, as we move on to conference and to the work we have to do, I look forward to working with you in the same friendship and amity that we have shared for all this time.

Mr. SERRANO

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dooley). (Mr. DOOLEY of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the remainder of the time. Mr. Chairman, let me first say that I understand that there have been some concerns about the offsets to pay for this change. Whenever we have a bill that is as difficult as this one, it is very difficult to come up with offsets. I certainly understand the concern about those offsets. However, those offsets, as we know, are not cast in stone right now. I commit myself to all of those Members, especially my ranking member, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), that I will continue to work with the chairman to make sure that the offsets later on and in conference are acceptable to as many people as possible. But I repeat, it is very difficult to come up with this kind of a change, this kind of an amendment and, at the same time, be able to come up with offsets that will make people happy. Having said that, let me just say that so many of the speakers today have spoken the truth; that, if there is a program, if there is an agency, if there is a concept that speaks to the core of who we are as a Nation, it is the Legal Services Corporation. To suggest that someone under our system of law and our system of government cannot get the proper help, the proper representation simply because they are poor, that is outrageous, should not be tolerated, and should never be brought up at all. Sure, there have been problems with that agency at times. There have been problems with every single agency. But we have not decided to get rid of all agencies we have problems with. My God, there have been problems with Congress, and no one would suggest getting rid of Congress. Although there are some people who suggest getting rid of Congress, but we are not going to pay attention to them. My point is that what we do best in our society, in my opinion, is to help those who find it difficult to help themselves. All of us want to take care of the middle class. All of us want to keep our economy growing so that people at the top can hopefully generate some wealth for the rest of the Nation. But if one cannot walk into court with proper representation because one is too poor to do so, and this Congress is somehow responsible for that happening to that person, then we have a lot to be ashamed of. This is an issue that comes up every year; and every year, people on that side of the aisle try to destroy this program. This program should not have been funded at this level. I should have been able to find $50 million more, maybe $100 million more to cover the people that are needed. But story after story after story indicates that this is a program that serves the have-nots in our society. They are the people that we have to protect. As I look at the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole, and I see behind him our flag, I realize how many times we get up on this floor on amendments to protect the physical well-being of the flag. Well, I suspect that the flag stands for more than itself. It stands for taking care of all Americans. I think if that flag could speak to us today, it would tell us that we need to take care of the poor. In this case, that is what we are doing. That is why I think my colleagues should support this amendment, and this amendment should not be about a partisan fight. It should be a bipartisan effort. Let us do what is right. Let us support the amendment and give us a very strong vote.

Mr. SERRANO

Mr. SERRANO. Reclaiming my time, I think we have to be careful about the issue of cooking the books because we might have to throw the whole bill out the window. With that we have to be careful.

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SERRANO. I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma.

Mr. SERRANO. Reclaiming my time, as the gentleman from Kentucky knows, we may disagree on the emergency issue, but we certainly agree that the one place to come and attack with no reason other than just to attack would be the census. On that, we agree.

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I support the gentleman in his request. I just want to remind my colleagues that I have been trying to accomplish something which is easier to accomplish, and that is I have a concern that the 4 million American citizens who live in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico are never included in any of the data that the census puts forth. This year Puerto Rico will be counted with the same form that is being used throughout the 50 States. What I am hopeful will come out of some conversations I am having with the chairman and with the chairman of the census subcommittee, is that when we look at figures concerning the 50 States that we take one step further and say this census is not only to count the people within the States, it is to count all American citizens. Because how ironic it is, Mr. Chairman, that there will be people in New York State, in my district, counted in this census who are not American citizens. Some will be counted, and it is fine with me, who are not legally in the country, and yet Puerto Ricans who live on the island, American citizens, will not be included in the census data products. Mr. Chairman, that is what I am trying to accomplish, and I hope that is part of this overall conversation.

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Barrett).

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).

Mr. SERRANO. I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky.

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, this is a very interesting amendment, interesting in the sense that if there was one thing that both sides agreed on in this bill, it was the inclusion of the year 2000 census, fully funded. Now, let me explain that once again. There are people on this side who have very serious problems with this bill. There are also people on this side who are voting for this bill, like yours truly, specifically because the census was well taken care of. So if there is a unifying force at all within this bill and on this bill in this House, it is the census. Now, to single out the census as the one that is going to take this kind of a hit is first of all undoing any possibility of working at all towards a resolution of this bill in the future, a bill that has a veto threat hanging over it. Secondly, I have to join and echo the comments of the chairman. If they do not want a census, if they do not want to conduct a census, and if they think the Y2K issue is a problem, just wait to see what will happen if we do not have a census. If they do not want a census, then vote for this amendment. If they do not want a census, vote for this amendment. Now, I take it a step further. I continue to see this as part of a plan by some people to go after those items in the budget that are supposed to take care of some problems within certain communities. I know the census is for the whole Nation. But the fact is, if the prior decennial census had a problem, it was that it undercounted some people. We tried to address that by providing the proper dollars to make sure it works. So in my way of thinking, whether it is correct or not, this is as direct an attack on certain communities as not funding Legal Services Corporation was that we had to deal with before. But the bigger issue here, and it has to be repeated over and over again, is that the census was the one issue where we worked jointly, where we made agreements where we reached some conclusions. Now we stand forward here ready to deal with all of the other issues that have not been resolved in the hope that we can reach agreement, but going straight ahead with this proper census as should be taken, and now we have this amendment cutting this kind of money from it. Not to mention the fact, and I hate to deal with technicalities, but it has been called to my attention that if we look at the way these items are funded, this amendment talks about cutting the top amount, the overall amount; but it does not talk about where that is going to come from in the different frameworks. So if we leave the amendment this way, and I am sure the gentleman will correct that, and I should not be helping them on this, the breakouts will sum up to more than the amount that will be left to run the total census. And that is a problem. But, please, I would hope that on this one we could join together in a bipartisan fashion to defeat this amendment.

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I want to agree with the gentleman from Kentucky (Chairman Rogers). I want to do everything in my power to ensure that the funding for the clearinghouse is in the final bill. We will work with the gentleman to make that happen.

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, what time is remaining on each side and who has the right to close?

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I understand that and I respect the gentleman's comments, but that is precisely the reason why Congress established an independent, nonpartisan Office of Special Counsel. I think that one of the things we have to decide around here is if we are going to take their work seriously. I would hope that, while the gentleman and his committee, sir, have the right to look at this, that we allow for this Special Counsel to first tell us not only about this case, but in general what is going on so that we can all take action together. I am sure that the gentleman will not be alone if this is not as it should be.