Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, from time to time, those of us in Congress hear complaints about governmental literature, brochures, pamphlets, and booklets paid for by the taxpayers who believe there is contained within them messages, content, material, tendencies, and philosophies that they believe are unjustified. It is not possible, frankly, for us to manage that, as probably most people think we do. Particularly, this juvenile crime bill will produce about $1 billion in new spending for juvenile crime, and over half of that will be for prevention. Much of it will then be used, as part of the prevention effort, to produce certain literature that will be used in schools and other organizations. So the question is: What do we do about it? Someone suggested that, well, you need to pass a law that prohibits them from spending money which says things that may offend me. I am not sure how we could write a law that would say that. I am not sure we even ought to attempt to do that. But there is a problem, a disquiet, an unease in America about some of the material getting printed at taxpayers' expense. Both liberals and conservatives sometimes are not happy with material. So I thought this would be a suggestion that we might try with regard to the funds expended under this juvenile offender accountability grant program that we have. There would be a disclaimer, language placed on all literature funded by this bill. It would simply say this: ``These materials are printed at Government expense.'' In addition, it would have these words: ``If you object to the accuracy of the material, the completeness of the material, the representations in the material, including objections to the material's characterizations of persons' religious beliefs, you are encouraged to direct your comments to the Office of the Attorney General of the United States.'' It directs the Attorney General to designate an office. There is an address that will be put on the literature to receive the material and to periodically, every 6 months, send a summary to the Congress of what the comments received were, because we are funding these materials. When we send a grant to a certain community to do a drug treatment program, a mental health program, or an antiviolence program, the Members of this body may not know what was in that material. Oftentimes people get it and they do not like it. They think it is inaccurate or unfair. I think they ought to have a chance to express that. I do not know how anybody could believe this would be an objectionable thing. If the Government is going to fund the literature, people ought to be told that they can object and where they can send their objection. If there are numerous objections, we can take a look at them. If it is inaccurate or discriminates against a particular group, then we ought to be prepared to ask questions in our oversight capacity in Congress. As chairman of the Youth Violence Subcommittee, we have oversight over the Office of Juvenile Justice programs. We look at Office of Juvenile Justice programs. So if we are getting a lot of complaints about the material, we can raise that with them and make sure they are exercising legitimate supervision over those materials. It is a simple amendment. I do not think it would cost anything. The Attorney General could certainly be able to receive these materials, assemble them, and summarize them for the Congress. They could be maintained so that if anybody wanted to, they could go read the complaints. I think it would result in high-quality literature. In fact, I think that if a person knows when they are producing literature that it is required to put on it information concerning complaints and writing the Attorney General of the United States, they are probably going to take more care to see that the material is produced accurately and fairly. Those are the comments I have on that at this time. On the other matter regarding gun shows, I think that what is frustrating the people that I am hearing from, and that I think most of us are hearing from, is that people who go to gun shows are good people. A gun show is a traditional thing. Has my time expired?

Mr. SESSIONS. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, is there a time agreement on this debate?

Mr. SESSIONS. I have been traveling in my State and talking with educators. I have never had any issue that is of more concern to them than the problems of enforcing discipline caused by the IDEA Act. What we are doing in our schools today is not required by the Constitution. And sooner or later the people are going to rise up and put an end to it. Let me just share this thought with you. Taking a gun to school by a youngster is a Federal crime. What if they are put in jail, do they have to be sent back to the school? That is just the point. Let me read this letter I received just a few weeks ago from one of Alabama's most experienced attorneys general: He has been a leader in the State Attorney General Association. Dear Jeff: I am writing you this letter concerning my general outrage over the laws of the Federal Government and how they are being administered in relation to school violence. I had already been having meetings with our Superintendent of Education concerning new rules and interpretations of rules based on what I believe to be the Federal Disabilities Act. The general thrust of the matter is that violent children are being kept in school because of the Federal Rules relative to disabilities. I can point to at least seven to nine occasions in Baldwin County-- His county---- in which I believe expulsion was called for, but could not be accomplished because of the interpretation of the Disabilities Act. I realize that mental disorders can be a disability, but the primary concern should be the safety of the children who are not causing any difficulties. Our schools simply do not have sufficient resources for one on one education and I would hope that you and other members of Alabama's delegation would review this problem which I believe to be epidemic throughout this Country. Here is an editorial in the Mobile Press Register about a 14-year-old student classified as ``EC,'' emotionally conflicted. He had to be assigned an aide to go to school, to go to class with him. One aide to this one student because of his problems, an aide assigned to him during school hours and during bus rides to and from school. The student was accused of assaulting his aide while the aide tried to stop him from trying to wreck the schoolbus. These are the kinds of things that have happened all over America. This bill does not go far enough, in my opinion. It only says, if you bring a deadly weapon to school, and in violation of Federal law, you have to be treated like everybody else, and you do not get special protections because you are emotionally conflicted. In fact, emotionally conflicted kids may often be the most dangerous ones, the ones most likely to come back in, say, 6 months from now and kill some innocent child in a classroom or shoot their teacher. This is a good step forward. I would like to, if I could, be listed as a cosponsor of the legislation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership on so many matters of education. I just wanted to share those remarks.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from New Mexico.

Mr. SESSIONS. I am sorry that I took so much time. I defer to Senator Kerry.

Mr. SESSIONS. I yield to the Senator from Massachusetts.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank Senator Lautenberg for his work on this. He is committed to it very strongly. We just have different views on a number of issues about guns. I wish it weren't so. But we do have some differences. With regard to the gun shows, I think a lot of progress has been made since the Lautenberg bill has made some movement toward a more centrist position, but I believe--and I know Senator Hatch shares the belief deeply--that it still does not go far enough in being a reasonable restriction on the historic event of gun shows in America. They continue around the country. These are honest and law-abiding citizens, overwhelmingly, who attend. People collect antique weapons and so forth. We simply can't have these long delays before you can close a transaction, because the show will be gone by then. This does not have qualified immunity. It gives the ATF the ability to in effect impose a new tax. There are some things that we just are not able to accept.

Mr. SESSIONS. I sure would be happy to yield.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator from Massachusetts. I think, in fundamental principles, we are in accord on the efficacy. The virtual elimination of guns in America, we cannot be together on. I think the second amendment provides for that. But tough law enforcement, as the Senator said, tough gun control--I would say, tough gun prosecutions--and prevention do work. The Boston project is a good model for America. One of my staff members has been there to try to analyze how it is they have achieved their successes. One of the reasons is they really enforce the law. They go out and deal with these young gang members. If they have them on probation, they monitor them. They talk to them. They say: You are supposed to be at home at 7 o'clock at night. The probation officers do not work from 9 to 5 in Boston. They will work from 1 until 10 o'clock at night, and they will go out with police officers and actually verify whether or not those young people are complying with the probation and parole requirements placed on them. What is happening in America is our court systems are so overwhelmed with juvenile crime that they have not been able to even carry out their mandates. If you give them probation, you need to make sure they honor and comply with the terms of the probation. One possibility is to do drug testing, so that they are not getting back on drugs which may be driving them to crime. Another possibility is by going to school on time; or if they have a job, showing up on time for it; if they have a curfew placed on them, being home in their bed and not running the streets at night. These are the kinds of things in which Boston has invested. We asked: Well, what happens when a young person in Boston does not do what they say--for example, they have been caught in a burglary, have been released on probation, and have been running around with a gang. The judge says: Don't hang around with that gang anymore; be in at 7 o'clock; and be at school on time. What happens if they do not go to school, and continue being a truant? What happens if they do not come home at night when they are supposed to or otherwise do not comply with the judge's order? In most cities, unfortunately, nothing happens. If you care about children, you will make sure something happens, because we want to intervene early in their lives in order to direct them on a new and healthy path. If we love these children, and really care about them, we will not have this revolving-door justice that goes on in America. There was a night watchman killed by three young people in Alabama just 3 years ago when I was the attorney general of Alabama. I called the chief of police and asked the chief: Chief, what is the criminal record on these three youngsters? They were out loose. One of them had 5 prior arrests, another one had 5 prior arrests, and one had 15 prior arrests. That is the pattern in America. Fox Butterfield, who has written on this subject numerous times for the New York Times, did a study of the Chicago juvenile court system. He found they spend 5 minutes per case. These children are not being confronted effectively by the court system when they are beginning to get in trouble. We need to make that first brush with the law their last. And it does include tough law enforcement. You have to be able to discipline children who refuse to take advantage of the opportunities that have been given them. So we do have money in here that would allow for alternative schools to be built, for drug treatment programs, for mental health and counseling to occur, and for drug testing to find out whether young people are on drugs. All of those funding programs, and many more, are here to help strengthen juvenile justice. I say to those who care about juvenile justice in America today, go down and talk to your judges, your district attorneys, and your chiefs of police. Ask them what is needed in their local juvenile court system in order to make them better able to intervene and change the lives of young people who are getting in trouble. You will find that those judges will have a list of things they wish they could have. This bill would fund virtually every one of them. It would give matching funds to expand detention facilities. It would give more money for drug treatment and other activities of this kind. It would allow each community to make application for funds to fill the missing blanks in their system so that they can have a comprehensive, coordinated effort against crime. I think we can make progress in that regard. I hope we can go on and move this bill to final passage. I see the Senator from New York would like to comment. I yield the floor. Mr. SCHUMER addressed the Chair.

Mr. SESSIONS. They are getting tired of being blamed. These are good people. The murder rate in Washington, DC, is one of the highest in America. Who suggests that the guns criminals have here come from gun shows? That is not where guns used in crime are coming from. What I am hearing is, let us prosecute the criminals with the guns. That is why General Reno's comments are, to me, frustrating, almost irritating, because during her watch we have seen a collapse of the prosecution of criminals with guns, a 40-percent decline. At the same time, we want to shift burdens on people who are not committing crimes. That is what is causing the tension here. Senator Hatch has worked very hard with the Members of the Democratic Party to try to reach an agreement in which we can maintain accurate controls over guns that are sold in gun shows and so forth but, at the same time, not burden excessively innocent people. I thank the Chair.

Mr. SESSIONS. We are not against laws that rationally and effectively prevent people from having weapons they shouldn't possess. We added in this bill a prohibition on what I think was a loophole on assault weapons, dealing with teenagers. Other violations of that kind are in that bill, and that bill can provide more restrictions. To me, it is a bizarre event that we are talking about a 3,000- prosecution decline and about passing this arcane law dealing with gun shows which may have some positive effect in reducing illegal gun sales. So we are working with Members on that. We have probably five or more gun restriction provisions in this legislation. That is not going to solve the fundamental problem if we are not going to have those laws in force nor if we don't have a commitment from the Attorney General to do that. We heard from her own U.S. attorney in Richmond. They have adopted a program very similar to Project Triggerlock under President Bush. She called it Project Triggerlock with Steroids. They were aggressively prosecuting individuals who utilized guns illegally, and the President's own U.S. attorney attributed their aggressive prosecution of current gun laws for a 40-percent reduction in murder and a 21- percent reduction in violent crime. I thought that was a stunning statistic. The President indicated he wanted to see that done nationwide in a radio address. Two days before, we had a hearing on it. He had a radio address on this very subject, in effect, dealing with the massive decline in prosecutions that have occurred under his administration, and said he was directing his U.S. attorneys in the Department of Justice and the Department of Treasury, of which ATF is a part, to increase their prosecutions. Yet when we had Attorney General Reno testify just this month before the Judiciary Committee, she said we are not making any big commitment on that. She has a study going on and it has to be done individually and we are just not going to do what they did in Richmond. The clear impression was that not only was she not in accord with what I believe the law of the United States requires, but that she wasn't even really in accord with the wishes of the President of the United States.

Mr. SESSIONS. Yes.

Mr. SESSIONS. If a child is emotionally conflicted and brought a gun to school on one occasion, why do we think he might not do that on another occasion, even some months later? It is a safety question for the school. This is a modest step in the sense that it doesn't say you can do anything if he beats up another student; it just says that if he brings a deadly weapon to the school, he can be treated like any other student and be removed. I think that is a good step and support the amendment.

Mr. SESSIONS. All I would say is the district attorney, David Whetstone, is a reasonable man. He is very concerned. I am hearing repeatedly from school superintendents and principals that no matter what we say about, in theory, how this law works, in practicality, it is endangering the lives of students, disrupting classrooms, causing teachers to quit, and costing untold amounts of money. In fact, the superintendent from Vermont did testify that 20 percent of his county's budget goes to special education students. Somehow we have gotten out of sync here. We need to move back to a more modest ground, I say.

Mr. SESSIONS. You have been a champion of that, but even then our goal is to do 40 percent, not 100 percent.

Mr. SESSIONS. We haven't even honored our commitment to do 40 percent. But even then, 60 percent of it would be carried by the local school system.

Mr. SESSIONS. When I finish I will be glad to yield. This is a very important question to me. We are trying to improve gun laws, and I am prepared to strengthen substantially the situation involving gun shows. I know Chairman Hatch is. I am filling in for him at this moment. Is this just show? Is this all for debate, for TV and media and politics? It seems to me that it is since after we pass the law, no one ever gets prosecuted for it. Only ten cases out of 6,000 in America last year were prosecuted. What does that say about what we are going through here? This bill has a number of changes in gun law. If a young person, a teenager, is convicted as a juvenile for a crime of violence, he or she will not be able to possess a firearm later when they become an adult. Under current law that is not so. If a teenager commits a violent crime at age 17, he is treated as a youthful offender or juvenile in juvenile court, and when he becomes an adult he can still possess a firearm. But an adult, if convicted at age 18 of a felony, cannot possess a gun. We closed that loophole to make sure that we are focusing on people who have a proven record of dangerous use of guns, rather than focusing over and over again on innocent people who use firearms.

Mr. SESSIONS. I would certainly agree that the amendment as proposed has listened to some of the concerns that made it unacceptable to begin with, and it moved in a more moderate position. But I would still suggest that this amendment is unacceptable for a number of different reasons. One of them is an additional tax and fee that can be imposed by the ATF on a transaction that previously was not taxed. It does not provide the kind of qualified immunity that would induce people to do the background checks and could, in fact, cause more black market sales of guns. The bill as written, the Hatch-Craig amendment, would be mandatorily stronger than it was originally. And of course there were some typographical errors in that first Hatch-Craig amendment, unfortunately, that I know Senator Lautenberg enjoyed railing about for a long time. But that was admitted and has been corrected. I believe the managers of the Hatch-Craig amendment answered the questions that Attorney General Reno raised in her comments that were made before some of these changes were made. But let me say this. I have been a prosecutor for 17 years, 15 as a Federal prosecutor, and I prosecuted gun cases aggressively; it was a high priority. Under this Project Triggerlock proposal, I sent out a newsletter on guns called ``Triggerlock News,'' to the local sheriffs and chiefs of police explaining to them what the Federal laws were. Federal laws against guns are very strong. If you carry a gun during a drug offense or a burglary, it is 5 years without parole consecutive to any punishment you get on the underlying offense. In Federal court you have the Speedy Trial Act. People have to be tried promptly. In Federal court when you have a speedy trial and the individual is already out on bail or parole, the judge usually will deny them bail. So you could have a case where oftentimes these violent criminals are denied bail, then they are tried within 60 days, and removed from the community for 5 years and more. That was a high priority with me. This administration under Attorney General Reno has allowed those prosecutions. I was a U.S. attorney appointed by President Bush. And President Clinton has now appointed all 93 U.S. attorneys around the country. His U.S. attorneys have allowed gun prosecutions to decline 40 percent, from 7,000 to 3,800. And, more than that, they have gone forward with this idea that the way to fight violent crime and keep people from using guns illegally is to pass more laws. But they are not enforcing the laws they pass. For example, there were 6,000 incidents of firearms carried on school grounds last year, according to the President. And within the last several years this Congress, at the request of the President, passed a law to make it a Federal crime to carry a firearm on school grounds. Yet out of 6,000 incidents, fewer than 10 cases were prosecuted each of those 2 years. It is a Federal crime in America to deliver a firearm to a teenager under most circumstances. That Federal crime, that Federal law, was passed several years ago at the request of the President. Yet his Department of Justice, Attorney General Janet Reno, prosecuted less than 10 of those in each of the last 2 years. The assault weapons ban that was raised had less than 10 prosecutions.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I will briefly make some comments concerning the Wellstone-Kennedy amendment and share some thoughts on this situation with which we are wrestling. Right across the street on the marble of the U.S. Supreme Court are the words ``Equal Justice Under Law.'' That is a cornerstone of American thought. It is a cornerstone of our belief of who we are as a people. It is critical that we maintain that in our juvenile and adult court systems, and that in all aspects of our American court system we recognize that people who come before the court must be treated equally, regardless of their station, regardless of their race, regardless of their sex, and regardless of their religion. That is so basic to who we are as a people. We have not always been perfect in that. In fact, we have made a number of errors over the years. Less than an hour ago, I met in my office with Dr. Glenda Curry, who is the president of Troy State University in Montgomery. She is completing work on the Rosa Parks Museum. Rosa Parks was a victim of an unfair system, and when asked to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, AL, in the 1950s, she said no. She refused to move, and she challenged an unjust law and was able to overturn that. To say we have never had problems or we do not have problems in the fairness of law is not accurate. This Nation has made tremendous progress. We are moving well to eliminating those kinds of things. They are just not showing that. I will tell our concerns which are so troubling. Under the previous legislation, that Senators Wellstone and Kennedy proposed to use again in this bill, the law required, before a State can receive money, they have to submit a plan and their plan shall ``address efforts to reduce''--reduce--``the proportion of juveniles detained or confined in secure detention facilities, secure correctional facilities, jails, and lockups who are members of minority groups if such proportion exceeds the proportion such groups represent in the general population.'' It says the numbers have to be reduced based on race. We need to strive to make sure that nobody is incarcerated who is not guilty of a crime, but we ought not be passing a law requiring the reduction of the proportion of juveniles confined if it simply does not meet a perfect numerical percentage. I believe, as a result of my study of the Supreme Court decision in Adarand as well as other cases, that this is unconstitutional, and it is certainly bad policy. Under the leadership of Senator Hatch, who is a scholar on these issues and who has held hearings on what to do about quotas and affirmative action, the Judiciary Committee developed and passed this legislation with this language, and we changed it slightly. This plan, which the States have to submit to be eligible for funding shall, ``to the extent that segments of the juvenile population are shown to be detained or confined in secure detention facilities, secure correctional facilities, jails and lockups, to a greater extent than the proportion of these groups in the general juvenile population, address prevention efforts designed to reduce such disproportionate confinement, without requiring the release or the failure to detain any such individual.'' In other words, this focuses on the problem more directly. It says that when you have $1 billion of prevention money in this juvenile justice bill, that prevention money needs to be directed to try to prevent crime. But it also suggests that that prevention effort ought to be directed to those kids if they are in a minority population that exceeds the number in the general population in the juvenile court system. So I think this is a reasonable and constitutional provision. I think it is a right step. I simply and reluctantly must say I have to oppose this amendment. I just do not believe it can be justified under what I understand to be a legitimate constitutional law. I yield the floor. Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Hatch and the managers of this bill, I would like to make a few remarks at this time on the time of Senator Hatch. Senator Domenici, I thank you very much for your willingness to become engaged in this issue, to confront some of these problems. I, like you, do not believe the airways and all this country are necessarily free for every use piped into our homes, for our children, when people are not ready to deal with it. I wonder if you remember the time when the Pope came to Hollywood, 10 or 12 years ago, and met with movie moguls--at least a decade ago I suppose. I have a vivid recollection of members coming out of that meeting. He had all the Hollywood titans and moguls there. He talked to them about the need for them to improve the entertainment they were putting out. He urged them to do better. The Hollywood titans came out and they were interviewed on the television. They said: He made some very good points. We have to consider that. We have to do better. I remember Charlton Heston came out at the very end and they said: Mr. Heston, do you think anything is going to change? He looked right in the camera and said: They wouldn't change if the Lord himself spoke to them. They are after ratings and the almighty dollar. If we do not have power under the first amendment to constrain some of this, I think it is quite appropriate that they be taken to task and they be urged, in the name of decency and humanity, to clean up their act. If you have to make money, do you have to make it at this low a level? I wonder if the Senator has a comment on that.

Mr. SESSIONS. The Senator from Missouri is here, and when he is ready, I will yield to him. Mr. President, I am not hearing every day that what we need as a No. 1 priority of schools in America is more counselors. There are a lot of needs in schools. Maybe we need to expand Head Start, maybe we need other programs, maybe we need computers, or mentoring programs, some of which work well. We have not had hearings on it. This is an issue that ought to be raised in the Senator's Education Committee, and it ought not to be part of a crime bill at this time.

Mr. SESSIONS. Object. Reserving the right to object, we have been using time. On what subject?

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Utah for his leadership. He raises a good question about statistics and how they can be misleading. I had, of course, served as attorney general of Alabama, and I have a brief here that was submitted on statistics involving whites and blacks on death row in Alabama. Now, 52 percent of those on death row in Alabama are white; 46 percent are black. But that percentage of the black population is substantially higher on death row than in the State. But the study goes on to show that the percentage of homicides committed in Alabama by blacks was 71 percent; yet, they represented only 46 percent of the people on death row. So I don't know what any of those numbers mean. I am not sure they are very beneficial to anybody. But if you look at it one way, it looks like it is unfair. If you look at it another way, it looks like it is not unfair. So the Senator is correct that we need to have proof of individual wrongs instead of passing a law that is going to require the reduction of people in prison based on a statistical study. I yield the floor.