Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, when the Senate convenes at 9 a.m., the Senate will immediately resume debate on the reconciliation conference report. Under the order, there are 30 minutes of debate remaining, with a vote to occur at approximately 9:30 a.m. The leader has announced that the 9:30 a.m. vote will be the only vote of the day. Following the vote, the Senate will begin consideration of the energy and water appropriations bill. Amendments will be in order, and those Senators who intend to offer amendments to the bill should contact the bill managers as soon as possible. Any votes ordered with respect to the energy and water appropriations bill will be stacked to occur at a time to be determined Monday.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate immediately proceed to executive session to consider the following nomination on the Executive Calendar: No. 624, Norman Y. Mineta, to be Secretary of Commerce. I further ask unanimous consent the nomination be confirmed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then return to legislative session.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I now ask unanimous consent the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until the hour of 9 a.m. on Friday, July 21. I further ask consent that on Friday, immediately following the prayer, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate then resume consideration of a conference report to accompany H.R. 4810, the reconciliation bill.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, this amendment will provide $500,000, for Satsuma Orange research at Auburn University in Alabama. These funds will be used to conduct research on developing technologies that reduce freeze damage, necessary for consistent production and industry expansion for the Satsuma Orange in the United States. These funds will be used specifically for studies to reduce damage by fall and winter freezes suffered by the Satsuma Orange trees; studies evaluating micro sprinkler irrigation systems as a means of protecting the crop against freezes; evaluations for cold hardiness, cropping, harvest time, and fruit quality; and studies to determine critical temperatures that kill the crop and the factors that affect cold hardiness. amendment no. 4005 At the appropriate place in title VII insert the following: ``None of the funds appropriated by this act to the U.S. Department of Agriculture may be used to implement or administer the final rule issued in Docket Number 97-110, at 65 Federal Register 37608-37669 until such time as USDA completes an independent peer review of the rule and the risk assessment underlying the rule.''.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, the Marriage Tax Relief Act that passed in the Senate previously and that has now come back to us from conference is a piece of legislation of historic importance. I would like to share a few thoughts with this body concerning why I think it is so important. Not long ago a Harvard president wrote a book about the beginning of our Republic--the first 150 years. He said every piece of legislation that was considered and passed was debated on the principle of whether or not it would make the American people better as individual people, as human beings. It would encourage their self-reliance, their discipline, and their work ethic. It would encourage them to educate themselves and their families. It would make them more law abiding. We know that public policy does, indeed, affect social policy and that actions have consequences. We know that a tax is a penalty. A tax is a detriment. When you tax something, you get less of it. In fact, that is why we tax cigarettes and beer more than we do food and medicine. We believe you can reduce certain activities to some degree by a tax. We now know if you subsidize an event, you get more of it. Those are principles that I think are undisputed. How much I don't know. How much it affects any one single event in the life of a nation I don't know. But when you have over 200 million people making thousands and thousands and hundreds of thousands of decisions every day, every week, and every month of the year, penalties on one type of decisionmaking and a subsidy on another type of decisionmaking can affect what happens. We are in the position that this great Nation through inadvertence, I suppose, has created a system that actually penalizes marriage. It, indeed, can be said to subsidize divorce. I know a friend who got a divorce in January. I was told had they divorced in December it would have saved them $1,600 in tax dollars; the Federal Government would be prepared to subsidize that divorce. But had they married in December, it would have cost them on their tax return an additional $1,600; $1,600 is a lot of money. The average family who pays this marriage tax penalty according to the best estimates pays around $1,400 more per year in taxes. That is $100 a month. That is real money for American families. I want to say how excited I am that I believe we are on the verge of passing and sending to the President a bill that I trust he will feel quite comfortable signing--a bill to eliminate this bizarre penalty. How much has it impacted marriage and families in America? I don't know. But we know this: Marriage and family is a good institution. It strengthens America through families. Traditions, stability, and education are ways of getting along in the world and transmitted partnerships occur. People live longer who are married, for the most part. It is a good institution. It is the institution that raises our next generation, trains them, and prepares them for the world. It is such a delight and a thrill to know that we will, tomorrow, I am quite confident, vote to eliminate this penalty on one of America's most valuable institutions, the family. What a good day that is going to be. I look forward to it. I am going to celebrate it when it is signed, as I am confident the President will do. We will have made a major step in this body to strengthening one of America's greatest institutions, and that is the family.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I join all of my colleagues, the staff of the Senate, the people of Georgia, citizens across America and around the world in morning the death of Paul Coverdell. A thoroughly decent human being, he worked long and hard for what he thought was right. His career reflected the combination of principle and effective leadership that were characteristic of the way he did business. In his quite way, he managed to navigate some very difficult waters, keeping his equanimity and dignity intact, while gaining not only his goal, but the respect of all who associated with him. Many in the Senate can claim friendships with him that extend to several decades. I met him only after he was elected to the Senate in 1992, but from the first, I was impressed by the same things his friends loved and admired in him--his kindness, his sense of humor, and his work ethic. A skilled legislator, he was often asked by the leadership to help move matters along. He did this in concert with colleagues on both sides of the aisle, always managing to ``disagree without being disagreeable.'' He was a public servant of the highest order. His family, friends, staff, constituents, and colleagues certainly know what has been lost for we know what he was and what he did with his life. He will be missed in so many circles, but his influence and his good works will continue.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Oklahoma for his comments. We celebrate the wonderful life of Paul Coverdell. I have a heavy heart, and I miss him. He was a great Senator. He contributed to this Nation in extraordinary ways. He was a good friend to me, and a good friend to many others. Yes, he was modest, self-effacing, encouraging, positive, and unifying--all of those things. But he was a courageous and positive leader for values that this Nation holds dear. He advocated them with such a winsome and effective way. We will miss him. I will miss him. I say to the family and to Nancy particularly how sorry we are, and I express my sympathy. Maybe next week I will be better able to express my admiration and feelings for Paul Coverdell. I feel his loss deeply. So many of us do. I wanted to share those thoughts at this time. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would like to share a few thoughts on the marriage penalty tax and why I believe it is long past time to remove that tax from our body politic. I would also like to share a few thoughts on my excitement and thrill about seeing the vote earlier today in which we joined the overwhelming vote of the House of Representatives in eliminating the death tax. I believe it is a tax that causes an extraordinary burden on the American economy. It disrupts the small, closely-held businesses in America. It actually impedes smaller, growing, profitable businesses that are reaching the levels to compete with a Wal-Mart, or a Home Depot, or a Car Quest store--the companies that are doing so well locally. Then 10, 15, or 20 years down the road, bam, the leading stockholder dies and the corporation owes $6 million, $8 million, $10 million, $12 million, or $30 million in estate taxes. They either have to sell off their corporation, go into debt, or do whatever to pay it. People do not understand it. If you start an auto parts store chain, and I know of an example of this, and build up to 27 stores, and the senior man who owns the business dies, they evaluate every single store, every part on every counter in those stores as if it is for sale. Say it is worth $50 million and the family has been investing, every day, all of the profits, basically in expanding the business, and the tax they owe, 55 percent, is on the entire value of the corporation? So where do they get the money? What I know happened in a company as I am describing, the family faced a major decision. What did they decide to do? They sold out to Car Quest, a national corporation. There is nothing wrong with it, it is a fine company, but instead of being a competitor to Car Quest and Auto Zone and the other big dealers, they were out of business. The customers lost. The hometown distribution center in Alabama, where that company was, closed down and they had the Car Quest distribution center in another part of the State. We are chopping off the heads of growing, vibrant corporations, just as they get to the point to compete with the big multinational and national corporations worth billions of dollars. We ought not to be doing that. It is not good public policy. It brings in very little money. I don't think we ought to be afraid about projections of how much it would cost. It is certainly not going to cost much in the next 10 years. At the rate of growth of this economy, we will be more than able to pay for it, and these numbers do not include the strength and aid the elimination of this tax will give to the American economy. But the power to tax is a major power of our National Government. When you take money from individual American citizens, you take their wealth from them, as we do in the Government every day when we collect taxes. We take their autonomy, their freedom, their independence, and their power over the things they have earned. It is a diminishment of the strength and independence and autonomy of a citizen, when you increase taxes. It is an increase in the power, the strength, the domination of the Government who takes that tax. When we have a time in this Nation that we are growing and vibrant and we have some extra money coming in, we have a choice. Are we going to keep taking that money or are we going to allow it to go back to the American people? I have seen the studies from the Office of Management and Budget that show, as a percentage of the total gross domestic product, the Government is taking more money today than at any time since the height of World War II. In 1992, when President Clinton took office, the percentage of the gross domestic product, the total of all goods and services produced in our Nation going to the Federal Government, was 17.6 percent. It is now hitting about 20.9 percent, the largest in history since the peak of World War II when we had a life- and-death struggle going on in the world. I am, first of all, a supporter of tax cuts because I believe they restore and move us in the direction we ought to head, and that is our heritage as Americans. I spent some time recently in Europe. We were stunned to find the Europeans are paying, on average, 67 percent of their income to the government. Their economies are not nearly what ours is. We have much lower unemployment. The highest growth rate in gross domestic product in the world last year, among industrial nations, was the United States. I remember reading an article in USA Today, and they interviewed three businessmen--one each from Germany, Japan, and England. They asked them why our economy was better than theirs. They said unanimously it is because the United States had less taxes, less regulation, and a greater commitment to the free market. I asked Chairman Alan Greenspan, the architect, many say, of this growth economy we are in, did he agree with that. He immediately looked up at me and he said: I absolutely agree with that. So my concern, my drive, is not to try to see if I can get votes by promising people we are going to reduce their taxes. What I want to see is our Nation establish its heritage of private sector development and growth that is allowing us to lead the world, without doubt, economically, industrially, environmentally, and scientifically. When you talk to people in Europe, they take it as a given that our economy is stronger than theirs. They do not even discuss the subject. They try to say why they chose a different path, but they acknowledge the strength of our American economy. I have one more prefatory statement. A tax is a penalty. A gift of money is a subsidy. Things you penalize, you get less of. Things you subsidize, you get more of. I think that is a fundamental law of human nature and of the economy, little to be disputed at this point. So the next tax we need to be talking about is a tax on marriage. In this Nation, we impose a tax on the institution of marriage. As we all know, marriage is the cornerstone of strength in any society. We have seen study after study, ever since Dan Quayle raised the issue and Atlantic Monthly wrote an article that Dan Quayle was right, that the marriage breakup is damaging to our country. We have created a tax policy in this country that penalizes the institution of marriage and subsidizes singleness. I had a staff person make a statement to me a couple of years ago that stunned me. She said: Jeff, you know we were divorced in January. We got a $1,600 improvement on our taxes by being divorced. If we had been smart enough to have divorced in December, we would have saved $1,600 both years. We are in the business now in this country of paying people a tax bonus for divorce. We are causing them to suffer a tax penalty, on average of $1,400, if they get married. That is not good public policy. It is wrong. It is unfair. It should not continue. The President has indicated in his State of the Union Address it ought to be eliminated. I do not know who would be against that. It is time to end it now, and this Senate is going to do so. We are going to do it. I expect the President will sign it. I certainly hope so. We have a surplus now of record proportions, of $1 trillion outside Social Security. I hear a number of my fellow Members of the Senate on the other side of the aisle who express concern if we have a few tax cuts that represent only a small part of the $1 trillion in the non- Social Security surplus we are going to have in the next 10 years, over $1 trillion in non-Social Security surplus applying every dime of the Social Security surplus to the Social Security fund, that somehow we are going to be disrupting and spending all that surplus. The tax cuts proposed are not going to use all of the surplus. Not only will we pay down the debt with the Social Security surplus, we will be paying down debt with the other surplus we have, unless we go into a spending frenzy--which I reject. We will also have money to expand spending programs. Our spending is up this year. But every time we get an estimate of the surplus we are looking at over the next decade, those estimates are higher than before. Our economy continues to be strong, and allowing people to keep their money will help keep the economy vibrant and strong. I am excited about this vote we will be undertaking soon to eliminate the penalty on a very important institution in this country, and that is marriage. We did make progress 2\1/2\ years ago, when we passed a child tax credit. A family of three would be able to receive $1,500, if their income is not too high, in tax rebates for those three children; over $100 a month that they can use for shoes, or to fix the muffler on the car, to buy a set of tires, let the child go to camp for the summer, or maybe take a vacation together. It is real money for real families. Some think Government is not working if we allow families to spend the money as they see fit; that we are somehow unconcerned about children; we are somehow unconcerned about families if we do not take the money from them and give it back to them and tell them how to spend it. That proves we are concerned? I say baloney. If you respect American families and you respect American people, free and independent citizens that we are, you let them keep as much of the money you can, to spend as they wish, and they will use it wisely. I am excited about this vote and this debate. I welcome it. The American people are going to understand the absolute insanity of a tax on the institution of marriage and reject it. We will allow the American people to keep some money that they can spend as they choose on the things that are important to them. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I rise today on behalf of myself and Senators Hatch, Leahy, Thurmond, Torricelli, and Grassley, to introduce the Magistrate Judge Improvement Act of 2000. We are introducing this legislation because we believe that the modest reforms it seeks to make will greatly enhance the efficiencies and effectiveness of the Federal court system. In fact, the changes proposed by this legislation are based on recommendations made by the Judicial Conference and the Magistrate Judges Association, and this legislation has the strong support of both organizations. I do not believe that this legislation is controversial, and I encourage my colleagues to join in support of this initiative. Over the years, Congress has repeatedly recognized the important role that magistrate judges have in helping to ensure the smooth and efficient functioning of the federal judicial system. For example, Congress has deemed it appropriate to allow magistrate judges to have final disposition authority, with the consent of the parties, in civil and misdemeanor cases pending before a district court. This was done, in part, to help federal district courts better manage their dockets by providing litigants with a viable alternative that they could utilize in the resolution of their claims. Despite the fact that magistrate judges have been asked to play a greater role in adjudicating cases that had traditionally been tried before district courts, magistrates have not been granted the same powers that district courts enjoy to enforce their oral and written orders or even to maintain order in their courtrooms. The Magistrate Judge Improvement Act of 2000 seeks to correct this imbalance, while also making additional reforms that will greatly enhance the efficiencies provided by magistrate courts. In particular, this legislation will make three important, and common- sense reforms. First: The bill will grant magistrate judges limited contempt authority in criminal and civil cases. Under current law, magistrate judges do not have any contempt authority at all, and are required to certify any instances of improper behavior to a district court judge for resolution. This lack of authority undermines the magistrate judges ability to ensure compliance with their orders, and to control disorderly behavior in their courtroom. By giving magistrate judges contempt authority, Congress will greatly enhance their ability to assist district courts in the application of federal law. Second: The bill will improve district court efficiency by empowering magistrate judges to handle all petty offense cases without the consent of the defendant. Current law already allows magistrate judges to try Class B misdemeanors charging a motor vehicle offense and all Class C misdemeanors and infractions without the consent of the defendant. By expanding this authority to encompass all Class B misdemeanors, instead of just those involving motor vehicle offenses, we will help reduce the dockets of the district courts as they will no longer be the primary forum for resolving a wide variety of relatively minor offenses. Third: The bill will grant magistrate judges the ability to enter sentences of incarceration in juvenile misdemeanor cases. Under current law, magistrate judges are empowered to try and sentence juvenile defendants accused of Class B and Class C misdemeanor offenses; however, they are precluded from entering sentences of imprisonment. This is an unusual lack of authority because magistrates are empowered under current law to order the pretrial detention of juvenile defendants who have committed felonies. This legislation remedies this situation by granting magistrate judges the ability to enter minimal sentences of incarceration in the misdemeanor cases they adjudicate. In addition, the legislation extends the scope of magistrate judge authority to ensure that they are empowered to preside over all classes of misdemeanor offenses, including Class A misdemeanors. As you can see, these are all sensible and reasonable reforms and their enactment into law will go a long way towards strengthening an important component of our Federal Judiciary. I urge my colleagues to join in support of this legislation, and I look forward to working with them in the hopes of getting this bill passed before Congress adjourns for the year. I ask that a copy of this bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I offer amendment No. 3790 to the Interior appropriations bill. It will prevent the Secretary of the Interior from utilizing regulations that he has issued which would grant him the authority to approve class III casino gambling for Indian tribes in States throughout the United States in which class III gambling compacts between the State and a tribe have not been entered. This amendment had been adopted in the past several years. An identical amendment was accepted last year by voice vote. The original cosponsors already this year are: Senators Graham, Reid, Bayh, Grams, Enzi, Lugar, Voinovich, and Inhofe. Others are signing on. Essentially, this amendment will prevent any 2001 funds allocated to the Department of the Interior from being spent on the publication of gaming procedures under the regulations found under part 291 of title 25 of the Code of Federal Regulations, which by now is probably 100,000 pages of regulations issued by the different Secretaries. The intent of this funding restriction is to render these regulations inoperative next year only so the Department can take no action under the regulations until a case brought by the States of Alabama and Florida concerning the legality of these regulations is first resolved. In fact, Secretary Babbitt himself has expressed on numerous occasions his desire for the Alabama-Florida case to be decided first. This amendment simply seeks to place the Secretary's public commitments in law to ensure that a Federal court has the opportunity to rule on the validity of these regulations prior to any departmental action next year. This is an important and timely amendment. I urge anyone who is concerned about local control and freedom and concerned about bureaucracy and the spread of gambling within this country to join me in support of this amendment. I want to take a moment to provide some background. In April of 1999, Secretary Babbitt promulgated final regulations which empower him to resolve gambling controversies between federally recognized Indian tribes seeking to open a class III gambling operation--that is generally casinos--in a State which has not agreed with him to enter into a compact with the tribe or has not agreed to waive its 11th amendment right to exert sovereign immunity from suit. As a result, tribes located within certain States, such as Alabama and Florida, would be able to use these regulations to obtain class III gambling facilities by negotiating directly with the Secretary of the Interior in Washington, DC, even if the people of the State itself remained opposed to the spread of such gambling or even if the types of gambling sought were illegal under State law. In my opinion--and the Attorneys General Association of the United States has written us in opposition to this Babbitt rule and regulation and in support of this amendment--in my opinion, these regulations turn the statutory system created under IGRA, the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, on its ear because they undercut a State's ability to negotiate with tribes and because it places the gambling decisions in the hands of an unelected bureaucrat who, as a matter of law, also happens to stand in a trust relationship with the Indian tribes, not an unbiased arbiter. Not only do these regulations offend my notions of federalism, but they also promote an impermissible conflict of interest between the tribes who are asking for a class III gambling license and the Secretary of the Interior who enjoys a special relationship with them. He is not a neutral arbitrator and was never given this power to arbitrate these acts by the Congress. I do not believe these regulations are a valid extension of his regulatory power. It is breathtaking to me, in fact, and it is another example we in Congress are seeing of unelected, appointed officials, through the power of the Code of Federal Regulations, implanting policies that may be strongly opposed by a majority of citizens. Indeed, none of these people is elected. My concerns about these gambling regulations were shared by the attorneys general of Alabama and Florida who filed a suit in Federal district court in Florida to challenge the validity. This lawsuit is currently working its way through a Federal court, and its resolution will provide an important initial reading as to whether these regulations are, in fact, legal and constitutional. Allow me to share some of the legal questions raised in the suits. The States point out that the regulations effectively and improperly amend the Indian Gaming and Regulatory Act because: . . . under IGRA, an Indian tribe is entitled to nothing other than an expectation that a State will negotiate in good faith. If an impasse is reached in good faith under the statute, the tribe has no alternative but to go back to the negotiating table and work out a deal. The rules significantly change this---- That is, the rules by Secretary Babbitt-- by removing any necessity for a finding that a State has failed to negotiate in good faith. Further, the lawsuit points out: The rules at issue here arrogate to the Secretary the power to decide factual and legal disputes between States and Indian tribes related to those rights. Pursuant to 25 U.S.C., section 2 and section 9, the Secretary of the Interior stands in a trust relationship to the Indian tribes of this Nation. The rules set up the Secretary, who is the tribes' trustee and therefore has an irreconcilable conflict of interest as the judge of these disputes-- Between a tribe and a State. Therefore the rules, on their face, deny the States their due process and are invalid. I think the concerns raised by the States are legitimate, that these rules are, in fact, seriously flawed. But do not take my word for it alone. In fact, even Secretary Babbitt admits that the test of legality should be passed first. On October 12, 1999, the Secretary contacted Senator Gorton--who is managing this bill, and doing an excellent job of it in every way--and wrote him: If (a) I determine that a Tribe is eligible for procedures under those regulations, (b) I approve procedures for that tribe, and (c) a State seeks judicial review of that decision, I will not publish the procedures in the Federal Register (a step that is required to make them effective) until a federal court has ruled on the lawfulness of my action. Similarly, on June 14 of this year, the Secretary wrote Representative Regula, the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies, to further clarify his position on these regulations. He offered these thoughts: I feel it is very important for the court to clarify and settle the Secretary's authority in this area. I anticipate that the court ruling in the Florida case will be favorable of the Secretary's authority to promulgate the regulation. I disagree. But he goes on: However the Department will defer from publishing the procedures in the Federal Register until a final judgment is issued in the Florida case, whether by the District Court or on appeal. I have written the Secretary to ask him to write me a similar letter and have not yet heard from him. All the amendment I am offering would do is to back up those public statements with the force of law, by ensuring that the Department could not spend funds to publish these procedures until a Federal appellate court had finally ruled on them. They would not seek to repeal the regulations, nor would they affect any existing compacts with States that wish to negotiate a compact with a tribe. Personally, I would support an outright repeal of the regulations, but for now I am content to make the Secretary's own words binding because I believe that legal review of these regulations is needed and proper, and that he should not be allowed to take action until such time as a court has made a final ruling on the merits of these regulations, which are, indeed, breathtaking. Make no mistake about it, it is an important issue in my State. As I speak, there are reports in the local papers that Alabama's lone federally recognized tribe--we have one tribe--is in the process of finalizing a deal with Harrods, which would result in the future construction of a casino on land operated within the small town of Wetumpka, AL, not far from Montgomery. No Indians now live on this land. It is land they simply own. It is about 180 miles from the small tribe lands that exist there. Because Alabama has not entered into a compact with the tribe, to allow them to put a casino there, they have gone to the Secretary of the Interior and had him issue regulations that would give them the power to override the State of Alabama's decision not to have casinos anywhere in the State. They have a power to compact. They have a power to say no on certain things. Alabama does have a dog track. The Indians would be entitled to a dog track. They have bingo and related activities at the Indian tribal lands further to the south in the State, but they are not being allowed, under the State's negotiating position, to have a casino, a position that I would support. Allow me to quote a few of the public comments that were made concerning this effort. The office of the Governor of Alabama, Governor Siegelman, has stated: The governor is ``adamantly opposed'' to casino gambling in any form within the state and will take whatever steps are necessary to stop it. That is a Democratic Governor. Attorney General Pryor, a Republican, has stated that the Attorney General: . . . will take whatever action necessary to prevent illegal gambling by any Indian tribe in the State of Alabama [because Attorney General Pryor] believes Babbitt has no authority to allow gambling by Indians in states where such gambling is prohibited by law. Representatives Everett and Riley oppose any future casino development. Mayor Jo Glenn of Wetumpka--I think everybody in the city council has written me about it--has expressed her strong opposition to the presence of a casino in her town and wrote me: Our infrastructure and police and fire departments could not cope with the burdens this type of activity would bring. The demand for greater social services that comes to areas around gambling facilities could not be adequately funded. Please once again convey to the Secretary our City's strong and adamant opposition to the establishment of an Indian Gambling facility here. The Secretary does not have to live with the community whose nature is changed overnight by a major Harrods gambling facility. He does not live in that community. He is not elected. He is not answerable to anybody. Yet he thinks he has the power to tell them what they have to do and dramatically change the nature of that town and the lives of the people who live there. No, sir. The Montgomery Advertiser wrote: Direct Federal negotiations with tribes without State involvement would be an unjustifiably heavy handed imposition of authority on Alabama. The decision whether to allow gambling here is too significant a decision economically, politically, socially to be made in the absence of extensive State involvement. A casino in Wetumpka--not to mention the others that would undoubtedly follow in other parts of the State--has implications far too great to allow the critical decisions to be reached in Washington. Alabama has to have a hand in this high stakes game. Unelected and unaccountable, the Secretary of the Interior has issued regulations that would completely change the nature of beautiful Wetumpka, a bedroom community to Montgomery, AL, and a historic community in its own right, against its will. It is a shocking and amazing event, in my view. Clearly, the unmistakable sentiments of the Alabama public can be heard through these diverse voices. Not only would the regulations allow the tribe to obtain permission to engage in activity that is currently illegal under Alabama law, but the actual placement of the casino itself would result in the destruction of an important archaeological site that is listed on both the National Register of Historic Places and the Alabama Historical Commission and the Alabama Preservation Alliance's list of historic ``Places in Peril.'' The site that is most frequently mentioned for development is known as Hickory Ground, and it is an important historical site that served as the capital of the National Council of the Creek Indians, and was visited by Andrew Jackson, and which contains graves and other important subsurface features. The site is, in fact, revered by other Creek Indian groups within the State and the Nation, as represented by the comments of Chief Erma Lois Davenport of the Star Clan of Muscogee Creeks in Goshen in Pike County who stated: Developers' bulldozers should not be allowed to destroy the archaeological resources at the Creek site. What is ironic about the choice of this site by the tribe is that the land was acquired by the tribe in 1980 in the name of historic preservation in an attempt to prevent the previous landowner from developing the site for commercial purposes. In fact, the tribal owners of this site once wrote: The property will serve as a valuable resource for the cultural enrichment of the Creek people. The site can serve as a place where classes of Creek culture may be held. The Creek people in Oklahoma have pride in heritage, and ties to original homeland can only be enhanced. There is still an existing Hickory Ground tribal town in Oklahoma. They will be pleased to know their home in Alabama is being preserved. As you can see, should the tribe receive the ability to conduct class III gambling and construct a casino, Alabama will run the very real risk of losing an important part of its cultural heritage, as will Creek peoples throughout the country. It is for these reasons I am offering this amendment. We should not allow these gaming regulations to go into effect until we have had a final ruling of the court. We should not allow the Secretary of Interior to promulgate these regulations when he has an untenable conflict of interest. I think it is appropriate to put a 1-year moratorium on it. I am glad to have broad bipartisan support from Senators Graham, Reid, Bayh, Grams, Inhofe, Voinovich, Lugar, and Enzi. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Mack be added as a cosponsor of the amendment.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, that is correct. First, we are asking today in this amendment basically what the Secretary has agreed to. He has agreed, to the House but not to us, that he would hold off until after the appeal, and this 1-year delay would cover the circumstance in which we are likely to have a new Secretary come January--whether President Bush or Gore is elected. This may not be binding on the new one. It will guarantee the status quo until we get a court ruling. In light of that and the discussions I have had, I vitiate my request for the yeas and nays and ask for a voice vote.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I just have a minute and then I will yield to Senator Campbell. Mr. President, Alabama has one very small tribe of a few hundred people down at the south end of the State, near my home of Mobile. This land is around Montgomery, 150 miles further north, and there are no Indians living on it, where they want to build this casino. The tribe is a group of the finest people I know. The chief tribal administrator, Eddie Tullis, is a long time friend of mine. I admire him. I admire what they have done. They have a bingo parlor that has been successful and is doing well. They have a motel and a restaurant that I eat at frequently. I love the people who are there. I care about them. Eddie Tullis recently said in the paper: Jeff is OK. He is just letting his morality get in the way of his good judgment. I didn't know whether I should take that as a compliment, or what. But my view is simply this: I don't think IGRA would have passed if the people in the Senate and the House thought that if a State said to the tribe: You can have horse racing, you can have dog racing, you can have bingo, as we have in Alabama, but we are not going to remove casino gambling from the State. That is the question I have. The Secretary of Interior is talking about stepping into this dispute and taking the position that he alone can decide what is done. I care about the fine Indian people who are members of the Poarch Band in Atmore, AL. I have visited that area many times. I know quite a number of them personally. This isn't a personal thing. I think they understand it. It is matter of law. I was former Attorney General of the State of Alabama. I don't believe this is good policy. We ought to pass this amendment. I see Senator Campbell, whom I respect highly. I know he wants to speak on the matter. I yield to Senator Campbell.

Mr. SESSIONS. I would set this amendment aside, but I have to go. I could come back, I suppose.

Mr. SESSIONS. I had an amendment I did want to talk on tonight. I wanted to take 2 minutes on one other subject, to thank the distinguished floor leader of the bill. I could do one of those, if Senator Bryan is ahead of me. I have been here longer than he has, I think.

Mr. SESSIONS. This is an important matter, Mr. President. I care about it. I believe it is important from a governmental point of view. The Chair understands, as a former Governor, the importance of protecting the interest of the State to make decisions the people of the State care about and not have them undermined or overruled by unelected bureaucrats in Washington. I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record a letter to me from the Attorney General of the State of Florida, Robert Butterworth, and a letter from the Attorney General of the State of Alabama detailing eloquently their objections to the Babbitt regulations.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Washington for his understanding and support, accepting an amendment I offered involving the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery, AL. Last year, about this time, Senator Abraham and I submitted a bill to give a Congressional Gold Medal to Rosa Parks. That bill was passed in the Senate and the House, and the President presented it to her last summer in the Rotunda of the Capitol in a most remarkable ceremony. Rosa Parks, as most people know, was a native of Alabama, Tuskegee. She moved to Montgomery. She was a seamstress. She was riding on a bus one day, the bus was full and she was tired, and simply because of the color of her skin she was asked to go to the back of the bus and she refused and was arrested. That arrest commenced the Montgomery Alabama bus boycott over that rule, leading to a Federal court lawsuit that went to the Supreme Court, in which the Supreme Court held that kind of segregated public transportation was not legal and could not continue. The leader of that boycott turned out to be a young minister at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church by the name of Martin Luther King, Jr. The Federal judge who originally heard the case was Frank M. Johnson, Jr., one of the great Federal judges in civil rights in American history, as far as I am concerned. Fred Gray was an attorney involved. Mr. Fred Gray, one of the first black attorneys in Montgomery, told the story in his book ``Bus Ride To Justice.'' How little did they know that the events they started on that day in 1955 would commence a movement that has reverberated, not only in Montgomery, in Alabama, but throughout the United States and, in fact, throughout the world, to a claim for rights and freedom and equality--great ideals. Troy State University in Montgomery, a 3,000-student university, is building a museum and library on the very spot of this arrest. These funds will help create in that building a museum to Rosa Parks with an interactive video friendly to visitors and children about the story of what happened on that day and the importance of it. I thank the distinguished Senator from Washington for supporting us in this effort. I see Senator Bryan. Mr. President, I say to him, I had 15 minutes on an amendment I called up earlier. Would it be all right for me to go ahead? I have a time crisis.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would like to call up amendment No. 3790.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to call up my amendment and to then debate it at a later time.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the debate on this amendment be set aside pending the time that Senator Campbell and others would be here to debate.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair.

Mr. SESSIONS. I want to speak on another subject, so I will yield to the Senator from Illinois.