Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Yes, sir, I will.

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

Mr. SESSIONS. I ask unanimous consent, notwithstanding the pendency of the motion to proceed, to offer this amendment on Senator Ashcroft's behalf.

Mr. SESSIONS. Did the Chair say we were on the Y2K?

Mr. SESSIONS. I will not yield at this point on that subject.

Mr. SESSIONS. I would like about 10 minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator from Utah for his leadership on crime issues of all kinds for quite a number of years. In particular, I have had the honor to work with him on this juvenile crime bill. He is a skilled legislator. He understands the criminal justice system in America and contributes significantly to it. He is also an outstanding spokesman on behalf of a rational and well-thought-out system of criminal justice in America. Mr. President, I have an amendment that I believe will be accepted which is very important and can be an effective step in improving juvenile justice. It deals with a juvenile hotline. A number of years ago, when I was a U.S. attorney in Alabama, 7or 8 years ago, not too long, we had a conference about young people carrying guns and committing crimes and what we could do about it. We came up with a plan--the chief of police, the district attorney, the probation officer, the Coalition for a Drug Free Mobile, and other groups--to encourage people who saw children in trouble or in danger to call. The police worked out their 911 number, and it can be boiled down to a bumper sticker. It said: ``Kid with gun, call 911.'' The idea was to get people involved in that kind of program. Just recently, the State of Alabama developed a program to call a statewide 1-800 number hotline. They have had some remarkable successes with that. I would like to introduce as one of the permissible uses of the funds in this bill a program we call the CRISIS grant program. It is a confidential reporting of individuals suspected of imminent school violence. I will introduce this amendment to S. 254. Hotlines are violence prevention tools. The establishment of confidential hotlines that parents, students, and teachers would call to alert State and local enforcement entities of threats of imminent school violence or other suspicious criminal acts is an important prevention tool that can save kids' lives and prevent other wrongdoing. Early identification of and intervention with potentially violent juveniles before they commit a violent act is certainly to be supported. This amendment will allow the States to use this CRISIS grant money to support both the independent State development and State operation of hotline programs. It will ensure that State personnel who will be answering those calls are trained properly. It will allow the State to acquire technology necessary to enhance the hotline's effectiveness, including Internet web pages perhaps, enhance State efforts to offer appropriate counseling services to individuals who call the hotline threatening to do themselves or others harm, and to further State efforts to publicize the service so that people will know about it and will be encouraged to use it. No additional funds will be expended out of this program, but it will utilize funds that have already been considered part of our juvenile crime bill. So this would be a program under the State, not Federal control. State governments are, I think, anxious in considering just these kinds of projects. I believe it will be something every State should give the most serious consideration to. Let me tell you a recent Alabama example, really in response to the Littleton tragedy. People asked themselves, what could we do? How could we avoid that? Is there a communication problem? How can we respond to it? Alabama established this confidential free hotline. The program has the support of Alabama's Democratic Governor and Republican Attorney General. In the first 2 weeks of operation, the Department of Public Safety reports receiving over 800 phone calls from communities, large and small, urban and rural, throughout the State in Alabama. Each of these incidents reported to the hotline are forwarded to the appropriate local law enforcement for investigation and followup. The program grades these calls in terms of severity of threat. Of the 800 calls that came in to the hotline, almost 50 percent were classified as an imminent threat, a possible threat, or a drug threat-- the three most severe categories. Calls made in these threat categories are referred immediately to local law enforcement for investigation. In addition to law enforcement, Alabama has someone available from the State Mental Health Department to counsel or refer individuals who call in who are threatening suicide or to hurt someone else. It will help States achieve both the goals of enhancing law enforcement and provide appropriate counseling to individual callers. Additionally, the majority of the calls made to the State hotline occurred during the hours of 4 to 9 p.m. each day, and they came predominantly from parents of schoolchildren who are repeating or passing on things they heard from their children, perhaps some at the supper table. Parents are serving as filters of information. They are not likely to call in if they do not think there is any possibility of a problem. Usually most of the calls are deemed to have been credible that are being received by the hotline. It allows for the identification of individuals who may have multiple complaints. So multiple calls about a particular individual could lead to a positive law enforcement response. The Huntsville Times editorialized in favor of this and wrote an article about an incident in which five students at a junior high school in Russell County were charged with planning to bomb their school and who had created a hit list of teachers and administrators. In addition to the hit list, some witnesses reported seeing a detailed map of the school. It is the kind of information that could be brought in through a hotline. I will quote from that editorial. Because of the Columbine shooting spree, we will never again be sure if threats are threats or merely false alarms . . . We don't recommend panic or paranoia. But if the threats come, they must be investigated. And if the evidence is found, it can't be ignored or assumed to be a prank. I believe this is a good program. I thank Senator Hatch for his interest in supporting this. If I am not mistaken, I believe that Members on the other side are perhaps prepared to accept this as an amendment to our bill. I am pleased to note that.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I will leave my remarks at this time. I am hopeful the managers will make that part of a managers' amendment. Amendment No. 357 (Purpose: Relating to the placement of a disclaimer on materials produced, procured or disseminated as a result of funds made available under this Act)

Mr. SESSIONS. I did want to offer at this time another amendment, without objection, a disclaimer amendment.

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

Mr. SESSIONS. I think those are matters of great importance. How many counselors? Is that the best way to spend money for our school systems? Having wrestled with this bill for over 2 years, in my view those are matters that need to come out of the education bill because they are dealing with education problems that may lead to crime later. We have tried to focus, as much as possible, on the crimes and with those children who are already in trouble, and how to fix and change their lifestyle. I am just showing my colleague the theory of our bill. The amendment of the Senator may be worthwhile, but it simply goes beyond what we have had hearings on, and really should come out of the Education Committee. That would be my comment, with all due respect, because I know how deeply the Senator believes in these issues.

Mr. SESSIONS. I am saying we are here to try to pass out of the Judiciary Committee a juvenile crime bill. And you are suggesting some sort of massive, national program to have more guidance counselors. I suggest to you, the greatest way to keep kids from becoming adult career criminals is to intervene effectively in the juvenile court system when they are first arrested; maybe that first brush with the law will be their last. If we care about them, we will intervene. If we don't care about them, we will continue the way we are now. In Chicago, they spend 5 minutes per case, according to a front page analysis by the New York Times. This is a system that is overwhelmed. Young people with serious multiple offenses simply walk through a revolving door. It is not good for them. If you care about them, you will do something about them. Now, briefly, I will--I see the Senator perhaps wants to ask something else, but I do want to go on to another subject.

Mr. SESSIONS. I will.

Mr. SESSIONS. I understand the Senator's deep feelings. I just say, if you talk to judges, juvenile judges, who care about kids, too, juvenile probation officers, who have given their lives to kids, those people tell me--and will tell you, if you ask them--they have insufficient capacity to confront them. I have visited superior juvenile court systems. They have schools, boot camps, detention facilities, work programs, and so forth; and this bill would support all of those. (Ms. COLLINS assumed the Chair.)

Mr. SESSIONS. I am perfectly prepared, in response to the Senator, to think seriously about what we might do at earlier stages. I think perhaps in your committee, in the Education Committee, we ought to be talking about that--Head Start programs, can they be improved; or even other kinds of programs connected to mental health, or what other issues might be good. But our legislation isn't designed to fix the whole world. We cannot fix everything in every piece of legislation that comes down. We have $1 billion here, and a lot of it can be used for those very things you ask for. In fact, I would say, 55 percent of it could be used for programs very much consistent with what you favor.

Mr. SESSIONS. It came out of the Judiciary Committee last year with a bipartisan vote and could not be brought up in the close of the session. It was brought up this year without additional hearings; although the ranking member of the Juvenile Violence Subcommittee, which I Chair, Senator Biden, had obtained a significant amendment to have even 20 percent more money for the program for prevention that Senator Hatch and Senator Biden worked out together, and even moved further. But we did not have additional hearings this year.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I would like to raise again and discuss the frustrations I have of where we are today, that, to me, are incomprehensible. I think I know why. We are talking about politics and money too often. We have a number of amendments in this bill and provisions that deal with improving the culture that our children grow up in. I do not think there is anyone that disagrees that violence on television and in movies exacerbates tendencies of violence in young people. Now, our President has gone out to Hollywood, after scolding them a bit a few days ago, to meet with the leaders out there and raise a little money--$2 million. This is what the Washington Times reported this morning: President Clinton told the makers of violent films and video games over the weekend that they are not ``bad'' people as they showered him with $2 million. He assured them they had no personal responsibility in the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colo. Instead of blaming Hollywood for making violent films, he said, the real blame lies with the theaters and video stores that show and sell them to minors. The president told the audience of stars and studio moguls that they should not blame the gun manufacturers, either, but blame instead the Republican members of Congress who won't enact stringent gun-control laws. Every year we pass more gun laws. I am going to talk about that in a minute. This administration has gutted the prosecution of gun laws in America, and I will show the numbers to prove it. The president gingerly suggested at a Saturday-night fund- raiser in Beverly Hills that that sustained exposure ``to indiscriminate violence through various media outlets'' can push vulnerable children ``into destructive behavior.'' I think that is universally agreed. But, he quickly added, the producers, directors and actors who ponied up $25,000 per couple are not at fault. ``Now, that doesn't make anybody who makes any movie or any video game or any television program a bad person or personally responsible with one show for a disastrous outcome,'' Mr. Clinton said. ``There's no call for finger- pointing here.'' The article goes on: Although Mr. Clinton had resolved earlier to nudge Hollywood away from some of its violent excesses, he appeared reluctant to broach the sensitive subject during remarks to the entertainment executives who included Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, founders of Dreamworks SKG Studio. ``You've helped me through thick and thin for all these long years,'' the president said. ``The people of California were very good to me and Al Gore and to our families. . . And I am very, very grateful.'' He said he was ``having a good time in Los Angeles.'' Although the president complained that underage children are often allowed to rent or view movies that are PG-13 or R, he was careful to exempt Hollywood glitterati from this criticism. ``There's a lot of evidence that these ratings are regularly ignored--not by you, but by the people who actually sell or rent videotapes or the video games or run the movie theaters,'' Mr. Clinton said. The president reserved his strongest criticism for congressional Republicans, who last week voted against legislation that would have required background checks of those seeking to purchase guns as gun shows. That is incorrect. We voted last week to substantially increase and step up the enforcement of laws at gun shows. He said he has ``been to a lot of these gun shows. . .'' Now, the minority leader of the House of Representatives, Richard Gephardt, and Senate minority leader, Tom Daschle, were also present, and they gave speeches to the guests, according to the article, ``who noshed on baked coconut clusters and chocolate-dipped strawberries, prepared by Wolfgang Puck, caterer to the stars. The Democratic congressional leaders, staying away from the subject of Hollywood violence, lashed out at Republicans as extremists who unfairly impeached the president and must be deposed from power in Congress next year. This is what the minority leader in the House of Representatives said: The group that controls the Senate and the House is extreme, almost radical, in their views on all of the issues that I suspect you care about. That is what Mr. Gephardt said. I take offense at that. Mr. Daschle emphasized that Democrats comprised the party that best represents the views of Hollywood. Probably so. I won't dispute that. That was the Washington Times. This is what the Associated Press reported in a national story. Sandra Sobieraj of the Associated Press: President Clinton slipped his right hand into his pants pockets and his voice eased into a conversational tone: ``Let's talk about the entertainment issue.'' The eyes on him, from a small stone patio overlooking the lights of Los Angeles, belonged to Hollywood's hottest-- Jeffrey Katzenberg, David Geffen, Rob Reiner, Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Dennis Quaid, Steven Spielberg, whom Clinton called ``Steve.'' All had just paid the Democratic Party between $25,000 and $100,000 for a Wolfgang Puck-catered dinner with the President. ``You've helped me through thick and thin all these long years,'' the President told the intimate assembly. What does he mean, ``You've helped me through thick and thin''? Well, the Clinton legal defense fund, when he had himself in a fix and had impeachment charges against him, started raising money to defend him. Here are some of the contributions: Kate Capshaw-Spielberg, $10,000; David Geffen, $10,000; Norman and Lyn Lear, $10,000; Steven Spielberg, $10,000; Barbra Streisand, $10,000. Yes, they have been with him through thick and thin. Continuing with the AP report of this event: So it was that Clinton, pushing a national campaign against the kind of youth violence seen in the Colorado school shootings, only gently took entertainment types to task for movies and TV shows that glorify violence. He softly prodded changes in their ads and ratings. ``There's no call for finger-pointing here. We are determined to do this as a family,'' he said. Hollywood and Mr. Clinton are in the same family. He spoke Saturday at Greystone Mansion, a city-owned landmark. Hawn, squeezing past the reporters to sneak a smoke with Kurt Russell, ignored questions about the president's challenge to Hollywood. Lisa Kudrow, of TV's ``Friends,'' played dumb: ``What? I haven't spoken to him,'' she said. I don't suppose he raised the question of the showing of smoking in movies and TV now or questioned whether Goldie Hawn ought to be out smoking. The article goes on to note that: Dinner with the President: $25,000 to $100,000 per couple. Shoes optional. Hawn padded around the elegant and Gothic-styled Greystone Mansion in a halter top and bare feet, picking at her rat's nest hairdo. That is what the AP said. Spielberg and Geffen wore white sneakers. Russell sported cowboy boots. Quaid was in T-shirts, jeans and bomber jacket. Looking ahead, Clinton said he was consulting on his Little Rock, Ark., presidential library with Spielberg. ``We were talking about whether we could have some virtual reality effects in my library in the museum, you know,'' he said. ``Sometimes I feel like I'm living in virtual reality, so I'm highly interested in this.'' Sometimes I think I am living in some sort of unreal reality. The President of the United States has made some statements about juvenile justice, and I want to talk about them in just a minute. They strike me as being very unreal. This is the Washington Post article right here, a staff writer covering the same event, John Harris: President's Message on Movies Undergoes a Change of Address. Here in Washington he was fussing about the movies. President Clinton let Hollywood have it Saturday night. Ever . . . so . . . gently. ``There's no call for finger-pointing here,'' Clinton said during a Democratic fund-raiser in Beverly Hills, a glittering evening attended by some of the most potent names in Hollywood. Just hours earlier Clinton had broadcast a radio address in which he bluntly challenged purveyors of violent movies and video games to accept a share of responsibility for tragedies such as the Columbine High School massacre--

Mr. SESSIONS. Yes, I yield for a question.

Mr. SESSIONS. Yes.

Mr. SESSIONS. I don't expect to take more than 10, 15 minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS. So, at this event, the Washington Post staff writer had noted: Just hours earlier Clinton had broadcast a radio address [nationwide] in which he bluntly challenged purveyors of violent movies and video games to accept a share of responsibility for tragedies such as the Columbine High School massacre, based on evidence that some young people become ``desensitized'' by, and more prone to emulate, what they see on-screen. I think there is a universal belief that a violent tendency can be exacerbated by seeing graphic violence in a movie, particularly in a way that shows anger being carried out and vented, which disturbs me most about some of these scenes. The article goes on: As luck would have it, Clinton had a chance to deliver that same message in person thanks to a fund-raiser for Democrats (up to $100,000 per couple) catered by Wolfgang Puck's Spago and hosted by DreamWorks Studio titans David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg. There were many stars in the audience, including Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan, Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, and Rob Reiner. But this time, Clinton made his point with all the force of a down pillow. To be sure, some young people will be pushed over the edge by violent imagery, he acknowledged. But that ``doesn't make anybody who makes any movie or any video game or any television program a bad person or personally responsible with one show for a disastrous outcome,'' Clinton said. And he allowed that ``for most kids it won't make any difference'' what sort of bloody gore they are exposed to. He said Hollywood should recognize that ``all these things go together'' and that their movies can lead to bad results, when combined with . . . guns.'' Clinton said he didn't want to lecture, and praised the entertainment industry for working with him and Vice President Gore to craft . . . ratings. ``We are determined to do this as a family,'' he said. . . . All in all, it was a sermon so polite in its message, and so tentative in delivery, that it will no doubt hearten critics in the Republican fold who will point out how difficult it is to enjoy duck potstickers with ponzu and wild mushroom ravioli in one moment, then rise up the next to tell the friends you're sharing the meal with some of their work is a form of cultural pollution. I think we do have a problem. I think the President is too close to Hollywood. I don't think he is capable of carrying through a policy that can improve what has happened. It is sad. I wish it weren't so. I think it is accurate, though. Which do you think they are going to believe? The radio address he made for politics? They understand this. That is a radio address for politics. But when he comes out and talks with them one-on-one, eyeball-to-eyeball, they know he is really not serious because he told them that. I have a problem with leadership when it is not consistent and firm and doesn't mean what it says. The article goes on to note: In his radio address, for example, Clinton issued ``three specific challenges'' for the entertainment industry to clean up its act. Saturday night, the word ``challenges'' was dropped in favor of ``other things,'' that Clinton presented as humble suggestions. * * * * * Clinton's politesse was understandable. Hollywood actors and studio executives, overwhelmingly Democratic and financially generous, are famously sensitive about their craft. Several have publicly bridled at widespread commentary in recent weeks that the Columbine killings and other murderous incidents involving young people might have been spurred by entertainment celebrating violence. In any event, Clinton is personal friends with many people in Hollywood. In fact, before leaving for San Diego for yet another fund-raiser, his motorcade made an unannounced stop in Malibu. Clinton hopped out for breakfast with Barbara Streisand. Well, I say that because I am here, and I have been working to have a good crime bill that will help reduce juvenile violence in America, based on what my experience tells me and my friendships and conversations over a career, a lifetime of prosecuting tells me it is important. I know many juvenile probation officers personally. I know many juvenile judges personally. I have visited the court systems in Alabama and in Ohio with Senator DeWine, and we have talked about it. I have talked with many prosecutors. I have known them for years. I know assistant district attorneys who prosecute juvenile cases and probation officers who work with them, and people who manage juvenile detention facilities. Some have probably heard that this bill just puts everyone in prison. ``You just want to lock them up,'' they say. I don't want to lock up young people. I don't believe Alabama is far different than most. A juvenile judge tells me they have a point system for the State juvenile detention center, and it takes four prior burglary convictions before they will take a young person, because that is how serious a crime has to be. We had a murder in Montgomery, AL, where a night watchman was killed by three young people. I called the police chief, who I have known for years, and asked him what kind of prior records they had. They were 16 and 15 years old. One had 5 prior arrests, another had 5 prior arrests, and the third one had 15 prior arrests. Talk to your police officers, talk to your juvenile judges. They will tell you that the juvenile court system in America is overwhelmed. We have had very little increase in the last 15 or 20 years in juvenile detention space because--I guess it is the liberals who always say: You just want to lock up kids, and people recoil from that. But we have, in this last 15, 20 years, more than a doubling, maybe tripling or quadrupling, of serious crime, the kind of crime you can do something about. I am talking about armed robberies, assault with intent to murder, murders, and rapes. What are you going to do when a 16-year-old commits an armed robbery? You have to have something to be done. I suggest we ought to do like Mobile, AL, has, and Judge Grossman has in Ohio, a system where he brings that child in, they will do drug testing to see if they are strung out on drugs, they will bring their family in for counseling, and if it is appropriate, he will be detained for either a short period or perhaps sent through a boot camp that has an intensive supervision with a school. We have learned that boot camps are not the cure-all we thought they were. So now any good boot camp has a very intensive follow-up. When they go back into the community, they appear to be changed. But if they go back to the same friends and the same neighborhood, they tend to drift back into crime. You don't get the change in them you thought you had when they walked out of that boot camp saying, ``Yes, sir,'' and, ``No, sir.'' It is a sad thing. We are always trying to improve that. But you have to have the capacity for the courts to discipline. Police officers tell me all the time: ``Jeff, these kids are laughing at us. We can't do anything to them, and they know it.'' We tried to make some changes in the Federal regulations that would allow children who are arrested in rural areas for serious offenses to be held in a separate part of a local jail, totally apart from any adult. ``Oh, no, that wouldn't do. Oh, no. Some adult may yell down the hall at them and say bad names to them and damage their psyche.'' The reason this is important--I want you to understand--is that police and sheriffs in small towns cannot afford to build a separate juvenile jail for a half dozen young people. They don't have them, and it is stupid and inefficient to require them to have them. The Federal mandate says you cannot spend one night in anything but a juvenile jail that is certified as a juvenile jail. What the police tell me--when I was attorney general, I rode for a year and a half with the police chief of 18 years, as fine and decent a person as I have ever known--commuting back and forth, both of us, to Montgomery. We talked on those long drives about what was happening. And what he tells me is--and what I talked to hundreds of police about--is that policemen out at night can catch a youngster burglarizing a house, or catch them in a store, and they take them down to the police station. Maybe there is one officer on duty. They put them in the lobby of the police station. They call the judge, and they call his mom. His mom comes and gets him and takes him home. The next morning, he is out on the street and he is telling his running buddies about getting caught and being let loose. That is what is happening. They can say whatever they want to, but I am telling you, you ask your police officer if that is not what is happening. We need a better ability to deal with that. We have only a very minor improvement in that regard, because our ``psyche'' may be injured. But it is not good for those children, if you care about them, to just arrest them and let them go, with minimal probation or supervision. They commit another crime, and they commit another crime, and still nothing is happening to them. I am telling you that 11-, 12-, and 13-year old kids are not in jail in juvenile courts in America for any minor offense. That is not the reality. So we believe we need to enhance the ability of that juvenile court to intervene effectively to improve it. We believe we can do more in that regard. That is the core of this bill, for those who wanted so many different ideas of prevention--there is a lot of money in there for a lot of new and creative ideas for prevention programs. But one thing President Clinton's Department of Justice did was have a study of the prevention programs in America. What they found is, we are spending the money on programs that do not work well, and in fact, we are spending more money on the programs that work the least. It is a very serious criticism of prevention programs. We have to be sure they work before we send the money. We ought to have some in-depth hearings on that. Finally, the reason I spent some time talking about these Hollywood articles is that I think there are real numbers of factors that go into causing crime. The President says it is the Republicans because they won't pass every gun law he can create. And as soon as you pass one, they come up with another one. He is out with his family now in Hollywood, with members of his philosophical family. He is letting his hair down. And what does he say? He says it is Republicans who won't pass gun laws. There is never an end. That is why these issues are important. I served for 12 years as a Federal prosecutor. I prosecuted a lot of violation of gun laws by criminals, people who were committing crimes and shooting people regularly. We were very aggressive on it. The Federal law is tough. It has 5 years without parole if you carry a gun during the commission of a felony. It has the Speedy Trial Act. You are tried within 70 days. When you are sentenced, there is no parole, and the Federal law mandates just how long you have to serve. It is a long time. People who are caught with guns don't want to go to Federal court. Some think Federal court is easy. Not so. Federal court is much tougher than most State courts in America, particularly on gun cases. When I left office at the end of the Bush administration, there were 7,048 prosecutions of gun violations in America. Since President Clinton has been in office, that number has dropped every year until it reached 3,807 in 1998, a 40-percent decline in prosecutions. So the test is, if you really care about guns, according to the President and the Attorney General, Will you pass a new law? I would say to you, the real test is, Will you enforce the laws we have? You remember a number of years ago when we added a Federal law to make it a felony to take a firearm on a school ground, a Federal law that makes it a crime to deliver a firearm to a young person, a Federal law against carrying assault weapons, those all passed by this Congress. Let me show you the results of the prosecutions by this Department of Justice and this President who believes so passionately that guns cause crime. Possession of firearms on school grounds: In his press conference just a few weeks ago, he said there were 6,000 incidents of carrying firearms on school grounds. In 1997, nationwide, all 92 U.S. attorneys prosecuted 5 of those cases; in 1998, 8 of them. That is all that were prosecuted. Why do we pass laws if they are not going to be prosecuted? The reason is politics. It is not crime fighting, it is politics. Unlawful transfer of firearms to juveniles: Not a bad law; in 1997, Janet Reno's Department of Justice prosecuted five; in 1998 they prosecuted six. Possession or transfer of semiautomatic weapons: The assault weapons ban--such an important law, that if anybody didn't vote for it was a virtual criminal, who just wanted to have people shot by assault weapons--we passed the Federal law before I got here. There were only four prosecutions in each of the past 2 years. I deeply believe in this. Are we at a point where the reality in America is what you say and not what you do? Is that what the reality in America is today? No wonder the President calls the Hollywood stars family, because they do not live in a life of reality. The only thing that counts is what you say on the screen. It doesn't make any difference what your life is outside of that. It is the vision that goes on. I couldn't help but recall that incident in which we had perhaps the greatest untruth ever told by any President in the history of this country when the President of the United States had his news conference, pointed his finger, and said, ``I did not have sexual relations with that woman.'' We know how that was done now. It was orchestrated by the Thomases, his closest friends from Hollywood. They directed, scripted and choreographed how he would make that denial. I submit that I am not really concerned about how we come up with language about sales of guns at gun shows. If anybody in this country thinks that is going to have a substantial impact on crime in America, I ask them to stand up, right now. It won't have a substantial impact. It may have an impact. It may be a good law. We will work to accommodate the President's request. It concerns me that when we have a culture of violence the President won't stand up and be counted against it. Those movies will have more impact on crime than whether or not we have a gun show law. I have never been in a legislative body before. Maybe this is the way things happen all the time. I know this: We have tried to accommodate the Democrats time and time again. We have increased funding beyond my original vision of a bill that would help our juvenile court systems improve--even to more expansive prevention moneys, 55 percent of the money going to prevention, even a small part of that could even be used for any kind of boot camp or detention facility or treatment alternative school. I am concerned about it. I believe we can improve the efforts against crime in America. I believe we need to enforce the laws that we have. I believe if we had 7,000 prosecutions in 1998 instead of 3,800, there would be innocent people alive today. These are target criminals. They ought to be prosecuted. I believe we can do better. I am open to improvement in our legislation. Certainly, Senator Hatch has managed the bill and has done a great job with it. I respect his views. His leadership has been invaluable in moving this legislation along. What concerns me is we may be moving to a point where Members on the other side just don't want legislation. No matter how much we compromise, no matter how much we work together to make the bill to their liking, they still won't give us a time agreement. I see the majority leader on the floor. The majority leader has a lot of things he needs to do in this Senate. If we are going to have a filibuster, how can we stay on this bill? If the Democrats are going to filibuster and kill this bill--if they stick together, they have that power--it would be a great tragedy. There is much in this legislation that could improve our ability to reduce juvenile crime, to intervene in young people's lives and save young people from being victims of crimes. I hope we don't go that route. I hope we don't, after all this effort, have this legislation killed for political reasons. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, one of the great delights in the Senate is being able to listen to Senator Byrd, on a number of occasions, share his wisdom with us. I think the story of the Roman legion and others he has shared with us are not unimportant. They go to the very heart of the decline in discipline and order in America today, and it is deeper than most people think. I have often thought what good does it do to have a $500 text book if a 14-year-old won't read it, would even scoff at the thought of reading it, and has no intention of reading it or paying attention to the teacher, who we are paying and encouraging to try to teach. It does go back to the home. The home is also being undermined, I think, by the popular culture, as Senator Byrd suggests. It is difficult to conceive how we can have any moral order not founded in religion. I suggest that we really don't need to amend the First Amendment. We really need to have it enforced as it is written. It says that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion. In other words, Congress can't establish a religion. That is us. Congress cannot establish a religion or prohibit the free exercise thereof. Congress can't prohibit the free exercise of religion. I think we need to get back to the first 175 year's interpretation of the plain words of that amendment, and little children might be able to have a prayer in the morning. I don't think it hurt me. I think it was a benefit. As a matter of fact, I know the Senator knows Judge Griffin Bell, former Attorney General under President Jimmy Carter. He was asked once at a big bar meeting what he thought about the litmus test President Reagan was applying to judges. I think he shocked everybody in the room when he stepped up to the microphone and said, ``Well, we need a litmus test. Nobody ought to be a Federal judge who doesn't believe in prayer at football games.'' I have thought a lot about that. Maybe that had a lot of insight to it.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, tomorrow we will be having a critical vote in the morning. It will be a vote on cloture to the Y2K legal reform bill that will be coming up. It is being subjected to a filibuster, unfortunately, by members of the minority. I hope that in the morning the agreements can be reached so that that vote will result in our ability to proceed with the bill and that we could make some progress. To share a few comments on it, the computer industry is critical to America's growth, prosperity and ability to be competitive in the world market. It is one of our major exports. People come here from all over the world to learn about computers. Our design and technology has created a huge number of jobs that have been very helpful to America, and we are exporting around the globe large product in that area, which helps us with our balance of payments, which is not good in general. In addition, and maybe even more important, high tech computer equipment is increasing our productivity as a nation. As a matter of fact, Alan Greenspan has raised the question in several moments of testimony I have been present to hear in the last 2 years as to how it is possible that we can have an increase in wages much higher than the increase in inflation, the cost of goods and services. If salaries are going up, why isn't inflation going up? He has been afraid and expressed his fear that if we keep raising wages--and I hope we can just keep raising wages, but his concern was it would drive inflation. But it has not. He has speculated in recent speeches and testimony, and many people have expressed the view that this is because of the impact of high technology, the computers. Now, a worker can produce so much more today than he could a few years ago because of the benefits of this high tech ability. So it is a critical thing for us as a Nation. We want to be able to pay higher and higher wages. We want our productivity to continue to go up, but we don't want to create inflation at the same time. So this is a big deal. So we have this glitch, this year 2000 bug; when the numbers all become zeros out there, there is a concern, a very real concern, that a lot of computers are not going to work well, that whole systems may be in trouble--maybe a bank, maybe a grocery store in a checkout computer line, and things such as telephone systems and others could be in serious jeopardy and cost a lot of money. If it causes that, we have problems. We are a combative society. It is a good thing for us sometimes, and sometimes it is not so good. The recent conference of the American Bar Association--and I made one comment previously on this. I suggested this was an official position of the ABA. I didn't mean to say so, but I think I suggested that. There was a seminar at the American Bar Association, and experts expressed great concerns about the impact of this litigation. We have received information that 500 or more law firms are already preparing seminars on how to handle the flood of litigation that is coming. It has been estimated that the legal costs of Y2K lawsuits could exceed that of asbestos, breast implants and tobacco all combined. How could this be? Well, there are computer systems in every town in America. Every small town has them, and certainly the bigger towns have even bigger systems. If those systems cause a store to mess up, their stock inventory to mess up, or the phone system not to work, and those sorts of things, then we have a real problem. Somebody could file a lawsuit. Now, we have a problem with filing lots of lawsuits. Let me share this story with you. A number of years ago, asbestos companies continued to sell asbestos after they had a reasonable basis to know that breathing asbestos by workers could make them ill. They should not have done that. They should have been held liable for that. Lawsuits were filed. To date, 200,000 asbestos lawsuits have been concluded, 200,000 more of them are pending, and it is estimated that maybe another 200,000 asbestos cases will be filed. But the real tragedy--and as a lawyer who loves the law, I have to say this is a very real tragedy--was that only 40 percent of the money paid out by the asbestos companies actually got to the victims. Costs ate up 60 percent of that. These cases took years to conclude. Individuals who had been victimized died before they ever got a dime. Sometimes even their wives died before their heirs received any benefits. It was not a good day for litigation in America. One more thing: Seventy-percent of the asbestos companies are in bankruptcy today. Don't tell me that if we unleash a flood of lawsuits in every county in America against the greatest, most innovative, creative industry this Nation has perhaps ever created, we can't damage that industry; indeed, we have the capacity to bankrupt. It is a threat to our national economic vitality, in my opinion, and we need to do something about it. Senator McCain and Senator Hatch have been working on this legislation. They have done everything they can to develop a bill with which both the Democrats and the Republicans can live. It will require that a computer company be given notice of the problem and have a chance to fix it before a lawsuit can be filed. Just give them a chance to fix it. They have to fix it. Arbitration: If there is a disagreement, there will be compensation for damages, but it limits punitive damages to three times the actual lost, or $250,000, whichever is greater. That is the general framework of what the bill contains--a reasonable attempt to get compensation and to focus on fixing the problem so that this country's commercial activities can continue in a very efficient way to put our money on fixing the problem and not on lawyers and lawsuits. If we fail in this, if we allow this to happen, somebody is going to bear the responsibility for it. Members who vote against this bill, who are not giving it a chance to work and are not willing to face up to this are going to have to bear a heavy responsibility. We have to have real reform, too. If it is not going to go halfway, we might as well not try it. By the way, 80 lawsuits have already been filed. We had testimony in the Judiciary Committee. The Senator from Missouri, who is presiding now, is a member of that committee. The witness liked the lawsuits. He won a couple of million dollars. I asked him how long it took. He said 2 years. I don't know how he won before he ever had a Y2K problem. But he won. I am thinking, there were just a few lawsuits filed at that time. It took him 2 years. What if you have hundreds of thousands of lawsuits clogging the courts? How can anybody get any legitimate compensation? It is going to be jackpot justice. One jury is going to give somebody $10 million, one is going to get zero, and that is not a way to handle it. This bill for this one Y2K problem will provide a national framework, because this is clearly interstate commerce, in settling these matters and trying to give the computer industry a chance to fix the problem and to get our industries' computer systems working. I am really concerned about the vote tomorrow. It is a critical vote for the American economy. Those who fail to realize that could damage our country. The vote will be coming up in the morning and everybody should be aware of it.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I just want to say to the majority leader how much I appreciate his leadership, and that of Senator Hatch. One reason we ought not to have so many amendments is that Senator Hatch, in managing this bill, has worked to accomplish and accommodate as many amendments as there could possibly be. I am just concerned that we don't have a final time agreement. I think that reflects and suggests there are some in this body who do not want a bill passed. I think it would not be helpful. We need to pass this legislation. And we have accommodated greatly those who have differing views. I think it is a good bill, and it will be a tragedy if we do not complete it. I know you have to have at some point a time limit or we cannot continue with it. I hope the Members of the other party will agree to a time limit. Thank you.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, will the majority leader yield?