Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, as chairman of the Youth Violence Subcommittee, I very much appreciate Senator Ashcroft's leadership on this particular issue. But not just this one, on the entire package of legislation we have put together today. He has conducted hearings in Missouri, which I was pleased to be able to attend. We heard from victims of crime. We heard from police officers. We heard from young people. We went out and met with law enforcement officers who were breaking up drug labs. In the course of that, one of the things we dealt with was adult criminals using young people to commit crimes for them. Senator Ashcroft has prepared that part of our bill in particular, which I think is invaluable, because young people do get treated less severely, and older adults are using them to commit crimes. Zeroing in on some weapons that young people do not need to be able to receive in any fashion is good legislation. As chairman of that subcommittee, I appreciate Senator Ashcroft, former attorney general of the State of Missouri, former Governor of the State, for his leadership throughout this process. I have enjoyed working with him and look forward to continuing to do so as we move this bill through to success.

Mr. SESSIONS. Ten minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who is managing this bill. Mr. President, I want to say how much I have admired his skill, ability, and knowledge in moving this important juvenile crime package forward. It makes positive steps in every area that deals with juvenile crime and violence. We were shocked and saddened by the events in Colorado. It caused us all to rethink and rededicate ourselves to making improvements. We have been working for 2 years to try to get this bill up for a final vote. Maybe now we can have that become a reality. I hope we can continue to debate the issues and debate the amendments and vote. I just hope we don't have a group of Members who, for one reason or another, would rather not see a bill pass. If that is so, I think some people need to be held accountable for that. I am willing to debate and hear the amendments, vote on them, and put my record on the line and do what we can to pass this legislation. Without any doubt, there is a major step forward in putting additional regulations on gun shows, which has been discussed here today. We have several other amendments and provisions in this bill that crack down on the illegal use of guns, including substantially increasing penalties for a lot of different gun violations. Mr. President, I had the occasion to be a Federal prosecutor for 12 years, a U.S. attorney. I served, before that, as an assistant U.S. attorney. I also was attorney general of Alabama. What I have been hearing in the last few weeks about what we need to do about law enforcement and what is wrong in this country really frustrates me. The President of the United States, after this tremendous tragedy in Colorado, proposes that we need to do something about it. As I recall, his basic solutions were that we need a juvenile Brady bill, which was already in our juvenile crime bill pending at that time. He said we need to step up liability for parents whose children go out and commit crimes, which is a very difficult thing to do if you adhere to the traditional rules of American and English criminal law: you have to have criminal intent to be guilty of a crime. We have never made people guilty of crimes unless they had reason to be responsible criminally for somebody else's crime. Maybe we can make progress and the States will make progress, but there is not a lot you can do there. The President proposed a couple of other matters that dealt with guns, and they are minor, not a realistic way to deal with what is happening with crime in America. I want to say that I have, from my experience, noted a real shortcoming in President Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno's Department of Justice. They have not prosecuted the laws effectively. They simply have not done so. In 1992, before President Clinton took office, President Bush had a program called Project Triggerlock. It enhanced, increased, and intensified the prosecution of criminals who use guns illegally, felons who possess firearms, people who carry firearms in the commission of a drug offense, or other criminal activity, people who traffic in stolen guns, people who have sawed-off shotguns and fully automatic weapons. They were prosecuted intensely. In 1992, there were 7,048 cases of prosecutions under those laws that existed at that time. I direct your attention to this chart. It is the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys' statistical data, which the Department of Justice lives by, which shows the number of prosecutions that have been going on in this country. In 1992, there were 7,048. I know that number, because I had a trigger lock prosecution team in my office. I was directed by the President and the Attorney General to do that. I was delighted to comply. I sent out a newsletter to share it with the chiefs of police. It was dedicated solely to laws and information on how to be more productive in prosecuting these criminals who are using guns and killing people, because I knew then and I know today that can save lives. Since this administration has been in office, look what has happened with those numbers. They have gone down now to 3,807, a 40-percent decline in prosecutions. That is a dramatic number. It really offends me. I consider it astounding that the President of the United States and the Attorney General of the United States would go around and say, ``Oh, we are the toughest people in America about guns; we want to do more about guns, and if you Republicans in Congress won't pass every law that we can think of to make some other event criminal.'' They do not care about prosecuting criminals. I have a record of it. In my tenure, we increased dramatically the number of gun prosecutions. I don't take a backseat to anyone over my commitment to prosecute people who use guns. This administration wants to prosecute innocent people with guns, people who have no criminal motive whatsoever, while they are allowing the serious cases to erode dramatically. They have more prosecutors today than they had in 1992, and they have a 40-percent reduction. It is just an offensive thing to me. I will also pull these charts, because I know how to read the U.S. attorney's manual. I did it for 12 years. They had to have several new laws, and some of them are pretty good. I am supportive of them. These are going to fight crime, they said. Look at this chart. This is shocking. Here is one: ``Possession of firearms on school grounds''--922(q). There are a lot of subparts: 922(c), for carrying a firearm in the commission of a crime by a felon carries 5 years without parole, if you are convicted of that. This is 922(q): ``Possession of a firearm on school grounds.'' It was reported, I believe, that the First Lady at this press conference, when they wailed about gun laws and gun shows, said there were 6,000 incidents last year of firearms on school grounds. That is what they said. In 1997, this Department of Justice--and every U.S. attorney in America is appointed by the President of the United States--prosecuted five cases. In 1998, eight. That is nationwide. That is for the whole country. How is that stopping crime and making our communities safer? That is what I am saying. Is that making us safer? ``Unlawful transfer of firearms to juveniles''--that is a pretty good law--922(x)(1). That law passed and closed a little problem there, a loophole. It was closed several years ago. ``Unlawful transfer of firearms to juveniles.'' In 1997, this Department of Justice, which makes guns its priority, only prosecuted five cases; in 1998, six. Look at this one: ``Possession or transfer of a semiautomatic weapon''--that is the assault weapon ban that was allowed. There have been a lot of disputes about it, and a lot of debate about it, because it is really a semiautomatic weapon, but it looks bad. So they banned it. In 1997, there were 34 prosecutions; and, in 1989, 84. I think that begins to make a point. We don't need to be dealing in symbolism or politics. There is a Second Amendment right to bear arms. It is in my Constitution. I don't know. Somebody else may read in certain amendments they like and certain ones that they don't. But it is in the Constitution. And it gives the people the right to keep and bear arms. That is not going to be given away. We passed a lot of rules that are considered to be reasonable restraints on that. I prosecuted gun dealers for violation of regulations. So we expect them to adhere to the regulations we passed. But I will just say with regard to these cases that what we are suggesting: what we are hearing today, or in the last day or so, is an attempt to distract attention from the merits of a good, sound, tough, compassionate juvenile justice bill, and derail it on the basis of whether or not we have a sufficient bureaucracy at a gun show, where I will assure you that probably not more than 1 out of 1,000 guns in America are bought at gun shows, as if that is going to save crime. It is not going to save crime anymore than this law did, or this law did, or that law did. Next year, we will probably come in here and they will have a half dozen prosecutions under that law, and they want to have that kind of thing. What we need to do is go back to a serious prosecution, back to the seven, or maybe 10,000 prosecutions under the gun laws that are already in existence, and focus on them. I would just share this story with you because I think it is revealing. I have been raising this very issue with this very chart for over a year--this chart which I have been holding up for the Attorney General, the Chief of the Criminal Division, and the Associate Attorney General of the U.S. Department of Justice, and I have been asking why they are not doing their job. They don't have a very good answer, if you want to read the transcript. What has happened? Early this year we held a hearing. We set it for Monday, March 22, just a few months ago. It had been set for some time. We had asked the administration to come and testify, because we were going to ask them about this failure, this collapse, in Federal efforts on prosecutions. We had heard that U.S. attorney Helen Fahey, down in Richmond, was doing a triggerlock-type program, and being very successful. The chief of police in Richmond was just delighted. They had a 41-percent reduction in murder and a 21-percent reduction in violent crime. We wanted to highlight this. So we had a hearing. It made the administration nervous. We said: We are going to ask you about these numbers. We are going to ask you why you quit President Bush's Project Triggerlock, and why aren't you replicating and repeating what you are doing successfully down in Richmond? That was going to be on a Monday. On Saturday, March 20, the President of the United States--I guess the word got up to them that they had a little problem. So he had a radio address to the Nation. He focused it on gun prosecutions. He had the United States attorney Helen Fahey in his office, and the chief of police in his office. She was going to testify on Monday. And he talked about the very thing we talked about. I thought: Wasn't that interesting. Maybe we have finally gotten through to somebody. This is what he said: Today I am directing Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Attorney General Janet Reno to use every available tool to increase the prosecution of gun criminals and shut down illegal gun markets. I am asking them to work closely with local, State, and Federal law enforcement officials, and to report back to me with a plan to reduce gun violence by applying proven local strategies to fight gun crime nationwide. My balanced budget---- He always says that--``my balanced budget.'' What that has to do with this, I don't know. My balanced budget will help to hire more Federal prosecutors and ATF agents so we can crack down on even more gun criminals and illegal gun trafficking all across America. That was his radio address. On Monday, U.S. Attorney Helen Fahey testified that Project Exile [what they called the project in Richmond] is essentially triggerlock with steroids. They basically took the Project Triggerlock activities and enhanced it. Plus community involvement and advertising . . . Project Exile is simple and straightforward in its execution and requires relatively limited prosecution and law enforcement resources. The program's focus and message is clear, concise and easily understood, and most importantly, unequivocal. The message: An illegal gun gets you 5 years in Federal prison. That was President Clinton's U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. On May 5 we had oversight hearings with the Department of Justice in the Judiciary Committee. I asked Attorney General Reno if she had gotten this directive, and what she was doing about it. She indicated: The prosecution by Federal Government of small gun cases that can be better handled by the State court . . . doesn't make such good sense. I cross-examined her a good bit about that because it was stunning to me. I said: Did you get a directive from the President? Did he send it to you in writing or did he call you on the phone or were you supposed to listen to the radio? How did you get this message? Are you going to do it? She steadfastly refused to make a commitment to replicate and reproduce the Project Exile in Richmond, VA, and to use that around the country--even though her own people are telling her of the 41-percent reduction in the murder rate and a 20-percent reduction overall of violent crime. This bill provides money for that. We have a proposal to increase substantially, perhaps as much as $10 million or $50 million to the Justice Department to replicate this project. We are going to insist on it. We believe it will save lives. The chart shows from 7,000 to 3,000 prosecutions, a 40-percent reduction. There are those who talk about caring about innocent victims of crime and doing something about crime. There are innocent people in America who have died because those cases weren't prosecuted, those criminals using guns were not prosecuted. They have gone on and killed other people. It is a shame and a tragedy. I believe what we have to do first and foremost is to create a climate and a mentality in this Department of Justice that they are going to use the laws they have been given and not to excuse themselves by discussing some new law that they have little or no intent on prosecuting effectively. That is the true fact of the matter. We are talking about thousands of cases. My view is if it is a good law and it is not unconstitutional and it is not too burdensome and we can figure a way to make it work, I am all supportive of it. I voted for and support several. The real problem is cracking down on the criminals who are using guns. The laws already on the books are the ones that are going to be used 99 percent of the time when those cases are prosecuted. If used effectively, we can remove dangerous criminals from our streets, reduce violent crime and murder, and save the lives of innocent people. I thank Chairman Hatch for all the work he has done, the leadership he has given, and the patience he as demonstrated in moving this legislation forward.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I will.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I am intrigued by the Hollings amendment.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, this fits along with the general view of mine. We are both lawyers, and Senator Hollings is a better lawyer than I, but I think we have made television prime time movies too much a matter of first amendment freedoms, and not enough of a matter of common sense. To say that you have to meet certain standards during certain hours of the day when our children may be impacted by that does not, in a significant way, prohibit a person from exercising what we generally understood to be free speech when we founded this country. Speech was generally understood, at the most fundamental level, as a communication about ideas and issues, and that you would be able to articulate and defend and promote your issues. It did not mean--and I don't think the Founding Fathers contemplated--that every form of video of vicious murder or sexual relations or obscenity could be published in print and in our homes. In fact, we have laws all over America that flatly prohibit certain degrees of obscenity. Indecency cannot be prohibited, but things that are determined as a matter of law to be obscene are flatly prohibited anywhere in America. So, therefore, they say that on the public airwaves, which we license people to use, they have to be committed to the public service. They have to give so many hours of public service advertisements, and we monitor the stations to make sure that they do so. To say there is no Government agency that can say certain things can't be shown during limited periods of time, to me, is strange law. I don't think it is quite right. In addition, I know a lot of people who have spoken on the floor here today--and over the last several days, are worried. Also, the President has spoken about his concern that in the afterschool hours children are not supervised. Many children have parents who work swing shifts or parents who have to be out in the yard or doing other things while they are inside watching TV, and they may not have a V-chip yet. Do we have no responsibility to those children? Is it sufficient to just say it is their parents' fault? Some say if you are a parent, you can control whatever your children watch. Those of us who are parents know that is not precisely accurate. We can work at it hard, and if you are a parent who is home most of the time, you can do a fairly good job. But even then a determined young person can pretty well watch what they want. The point is, the showing of any one violent scene is not going to cause a normal child to become a murderer. The point is, what happens if every night kids who maybe are not healthy are seeing on their television images of violence--and in years gone by, they have gotten more graphic--and at the same time they get in their car and they play an audio or CD of Marilyn Manson, who has extremely violent lyrics, or they turn on the computer and play computer games. I was looking at one and the pointer was a chopped-off hand with blood dripping off it. That is humorous to some degree, but where you have it constantly, it is a problem. First of all, in my wrestling with the Hollings amendment, is it appropriate for the Government to do so? The FCC does all kinds of other limitations on programming. Is it appropriate for them to analyze the content for violence? I have had my staff do some research of the law on it. First of all, my general opinion is that the current state of the law is too restrictive on the ability of the Government to contain what is shown in the homes of America. I think it is too restrictive. I don't think the Constitution does that. But the current state of the law, I believe, is too restrictive, and these are some of the things I have discovered. Under the Hollings amendment, we would perhaps be considered to be pushing the envelope a little bit. But I am not sure that we would because it would prohibit distribution of violent video programming during hours when children are reasonably likely to comprise a substantial portion of the audience. It would require the FCC to reach a definition of what violent programming is and determine the timeframe for it. It would permit the FCC to exempt news and sports programming, and it would have penalties for those who violate that. The closest law we can find on point is on the FCC's regulation of indecent programming, which has survived challenge in the courts. Obscene material is the kind of material that is illegal, where the Supreme Court has stated that this material can be so obscene and so lacking in any merit, that communities in the country can ban it from being distributed in their communities. Indecent material is the kind of material that is less than obscene. So what do we do about indecent material? The FCC defines indecent material--and I am paraphrasing--as this: Patently offensive descriptions based on local community standards of sexual and excretory functions or organs. Government regulation of indecent material is possible, but it has to survive a standard of strict scrutiny. The courts are going to look at it very strictly to make sure the first amendment is not being undermined. In Action for Children's Television v. FCC, a 1995 case decided in the District of Columbia, the DC court of appeals--which is one step from the U.S. Supreme Court--upheld the FCC safe harbor regulation of indecent material, provided the regulation was the least restrictive means to achieve the Government's compelling interest in protecting young people from indecent programming. It didn't deal with violence. The original ban on indecent programming between 6 a.m. and midnight contained an exception for public programmers to broadcast indecent material between 10 p.m. and midnight. A lot of public broadcasters quit at midnight. So the law is a compromise that if you are a public programmer, you can show this material at 10 o'clock and you don't have to wait until midnight like everybody else. The court found that this exception was not narrowly drawn--not the most narrowly drawn restriction and mandated that you have this kind of law and everybody has the 10 o'clock rule. Some of them can't have 10 and some have midnight. But it upheld it. The Supreme Court upheld that restriction and that rule by the FCC. It was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, the final arbiter. They affirmed the ruling without opinion. They did not hear the case, but they did not overrule, and they allowed to stand the opinion of the district court. So I think the difference we have here is that we are dealing with violence as opposed to what may be defined under the law as indecent. I think we are raising a very good point. I am seriously considering this amendment. I understand those who have concerns about it. My basic inclination is to say that we ought to care about children. We know for a fact that many children are at home and unsupervised. We have a responsibility and it is not in violation of the first amendment to deal with this and have some restrictions on it. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 107, H.R. 669.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent S. 785 be discharged from the Committee on Armed Services and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the distinguished chairman of our Judiciary Committee, Senator Hatch. He is right on point. I have a similar chart here. There has been $4.4 billion spent on juvenile prevention programs, 117 separate juvenile programs. We have had no money for law enforcement, make no mistake. The point I really want to make is, when you spend money strengthening our juvenile justice system, giving juvenile judges alternatives and possibilities to intervene effectively through the appropriate discipline when young people go wrong, that is prevention--that is prevention. Fox Butterfield in the New York Times had a front page article about Chicago's juvenile court system. They spend 5 minutes per case. It is just a revolving door. We need to strengthen the ability of juvenile judges to intervene effectively when kids first start getting into trouble, because if you have a limited amount of money for prevention, you should apply it where it works best, for those people who are already beginning to get into trouble. Let me show you a Department of Justice study done recently by a professor at the University of Maryland on behalf of Attorney General Reno. The chart says, ``The findings of the Department of Justice Prevention Evaluation Report.'' What did they find? Most crime prevention funds are being spent where they are needed least. That is a condemnation of us in Congress and the Department of Justice. Most prevention money is being spent where it is needed least. That is President Clinton's own Department of Justice. Most crime prevention programs have never been evaluated. We have 117 of them. They have 4-H Clubs in inner cities that are supposed to keep people from committing crime. I do not know if that works or not. I used to be in a 4-H Club, but I do not know whether that is a good idea. There are 117 of these programs. Among the evaluated programs, some of the least effective receive the most money. We want to just do more, more, more. We have worked for over 2 years on this legislation. We have given it a lot of attention. Chairman Hatch has given it his personal attention. We have now worked with Senator Biden and have his support. In the committee, the bill came out with bipartisan support last year. It has bipartisan support. Here we have an amendment of 100 or more pages, submitted by the distinguished Senator from Vermont. I know that as a former prosecutor he cares about these issues, but we get it this morning--I think my office got this morning probably the only two copies in existence. He wants to spend, what, $3.8 billion--just $3.8 billion. We have not even had time to read the amendment. There are a couple of things that are important to me. There is no money dedicated for law enforcement. I tell you, the people think juvenile judges do not care about kids. The Juvenile Judges Association is supporting this effort because the money is coming in a way that requires a committee, a coordinated committee in a community. Our vision is that the community would come together--the judge, the prosecutor, the sheriff, the probation officers, civic leaders--and prepare a plan to deal with young people who are getting into trouble. Everyone needs to be drug tested upon arrest. If you do not care about the kids, you will not drug test them. If you love them and care about them, you will find out if part of their criminality is being driven by drug use; and if so, then you need to have treatment and continued monitoring of them if they are let go. Parents need to know if the reason their children got involved in theft was because they were strung out on drugs. That is an important thing. That is how you intervene effectively. The power of a court gives credibility to the process that no other drug treatment center or mental health center can give because a judge can order things to happen. You talk to your prevention people, the drug treatment people, the mental health people. They like the order of a judge requiring these things to happen. So I believe that a good criminal justice system is prevention. And what they comment on is a ``lock them up'' mentality. This is what our accountability block grant provides: drug testing of juveniles upon arrest; and it provides the money for State and local people to do that, and the renovation or expansion of detention facilities. The truth is, we have quadrupled the amount of bed space for adults coming in and have driven down adult crime dramatically because we focused significantly on repeat, dangerous adult offenders. But we have spent very little money at the same time that juvenile crime has been increasing dramatically. That is why, as frugal as I am about government money, I think it is appropriate for us as a nation to rise up and address the shortcomings in juvenile court systems in America and try to give them some strength. You have to have some detention. People across the aisle have a little mantra. They are saying: Well, we want to really lock up these tough kids. But when you have three times as many people committing murder as a juvenile, three times as many committing assault with intent to murder, and rapes, and that kind of thing in the last 15 years, then we have to have more capacity, don't we? What are judges doing with a second-time burglar when the only bed space in the State juvenile center is filled with a youngster charged with murder? Where are they going to put these kids? That is what they are telling me. Police officers say: Well, police officers want prevention. Look, I was a prosecutor. I had been a prosecutor for nearly 17 years. Many of my best friends are police officers. You ask them: Don't you wish we could prevent crime? Oh, yes, they answer, I wish I could prevent crime. I am tired of arresting these kids. They will always say that. But you ask them about what they know, you ask them how the juvenile justice system is working, and they will tell you it is in a state of collapse. They have told me over and over again: Jeff, these kids are laughing at us. We can't do anything to them, and they know it. We arrest them, and they are released within hours of their arrest. Nothing happens to them, time after time. This isn't a first-time offense. People act as if you are going to take some youngster----

Mr. SESSIONS. Please.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator from South Carolina for raising a number of important issues concerning the quality of TV programming and other programming. I remember very distinctly a number of years ago I was watching when the Pope came to California and in Hollywood met with top executives. He met with them, encouraged them, and urged them to do a better job, and to start to clean up some of the things being shown on television. When the program was over, they came out to the TV cameras. They interviewed each one of these executives and asked what happened, and what they thought. They said the Pope had made a number of very important suggestions that deserved great consideration and they thought they could make some progress toward his goals. Charlton Heston came out. They asked: Mr. Heston, what do you think? Mr. Heston, do you think things will get better? Mr. Heston said: If the Lord himself were speaking to them, they wouldn't change. The only thing they are looking at is the rating. Since then, things have continued to get worse. I have always remembered that. I think it is fair to say that violence apparently pays. They are looking for ratings and money. It does leave us with a difficult question of what we can do to make this a healthier society, a society that is better for raising children.

Mr. SESSIONS. People act as if first-time young offenders are getting sent off for long periods of time. That is not so. It is just not so. Ask people who know about the system. What we need, though, is for that seriously disturbed youngster who is heading down the wrong road to get to a juvenile court system where the judge can look them in the eye with toughness, concern, and tough love, and be able to discipline them, to set forth a program that fits their needs, whether it is mental health, drug treatment, family counseling, or prison. We do not have that in America, because we don't have any money spent for that. We need to do it, and this bill will do so. I thank the chairman for his time.

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

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, what is the status of the time agreement?

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would like to speak briefly in favor of the Brownback-Hatch amendment. I believe it is a good, realistic first step, because what it deals with is a voluntary step that would allow us to conduct a search and allow voluntary actions by the movie and entertainment industry to confront a problem many of us believe is affecting the culture of violence in America. All of us know that it is not a bomb or a knife that has the intent to kill. The intent to kill comes from the person who wields that weapon. There must be ``malicious intent'' under the law to constitute a criminal act. We believe, and I think most Members of this body believe, that something is awry, that somehow, some way we are allowing a plethora, a host, a bombardment of unhealthy messages to reach our children and that some of them are seriously affected thereby. I, for one, think that the reason we have had more than one of these mass shootings at schools is because a very, very small number of young people in America have found themselves able to immerse into a nihilistic, depressive, death-oriented, violent-oriented lifestyle. It surrounds them. If they are in an automobile, there is violent, depressive music on the radio. If they go to the movies, there are violent movies they can watch. They not only can see them in the theater, but they can rent the movies and play them time and time again, as some of these young people apparently have. These very dangerous movies are filled with anger and violence. There are such things more and more happening on television today. And a young person can get on the Internet and play very intense life- and-death games in which youths are out to kill before they are killed. It is an intense experience for many young people. There are chat rooms on the Internet. You can get on the Internet and find somebody who can feed your negative thoughts, who believes that Adolf Hitler is worthy of respect. You can find somebody on the Internet who would agree with that and affirm this unhealthy view of life. I think we are seeing that kind of thing, and maybe that is a factor in what is happening in America. I would say there is no better champion than Senator Brownback, and I am so proud of the Senator from Kansas for raising this issue so articulately and so persuasively. I think this is just the beginning. I think we are called upon as leaders in the American Government to think seriously about what we are doing and how it affects our culture. One of the great Greek philosophers--Plato, I believe--said, ``The purpose of education is to make people good.'' We think the purpose of education is to transmit technical knowledge and job skills, and that no teacher should even be empowered to suggest what is good and what is bad, to choose light rather than darkness, to choose life rather than death. Are we not capable of affirming those basic principles in our public life in America? I think we can. I think this is a bizarre and abnormal theory we have developed about the proper role of government with regard to matters of arousing religion and faith in this country. The Constitution deals only briefly with the right to express religious opinions. For example, I would like to make this point. It is the only reference in our Constitution about religion. The First Amendment says Congress ``shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.'' People say, what about this ``wall of separation'' between church and state? Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter in which he made reference to a ``wall of separation'' between church and state. This was later. Those who ratified the Constitution never ratified that. We don't even know what he meant by that, it was a private letter, not a formal opinion. That is not part of the Constitution. It has never been approved by the American people, adopted by we, the people of the United States of America, when they ratified the Constitution or voted on in Philadelphia by the people who were there. What they voted on was that Congress, the United States Congress, ``shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.'' The President, sitting in the Chair--I happen to have done that a number of times in just over 2 years in this body. When you look out across the wall, you see in words 6 inches high, or higher, right up there over the door of this august room, it says ``in God We Trust.'' If you go in the anteroom over here, in the President's Room, there is a figure holding a Bible in her arm. It is painted on the ceiling. How long it has been on there I don't know, but for many, many years. There is another one with a cross. There are four words on the four corners of the wall. I think one of them is ``philosophy.'' One of them is ``government.'' And one of them is ``religion.'' We made reference in our founding documents to divine providence, to our creator. So I believe we have established an extraordinarily bizarre understanding in recent years of what the meaning and the proper understanding of the separation between church and state is. I believe that this Congress was prohibited by the American people and the Founding Fathers from establishing an official religion. I do not believe there is anything that any scholar can say that the Constitution is prohibiting acknowledgment of a higher being. In fact, we have done that throughout the history of this country. My personal view is that this legalistic approach has intimidated teachers and made them less willing to provide moral guidance and affirmation of religious impulses of their students. They feel that it is somehow illegal for them even to do so. I do not believe that is true. I think threats of lawsuits have intimidated natural free speech. The Constitution says Congress shall not prohibit the free expression of religion. I think we ought to have a more natural approach. I think any teacher, or any government official, ought to be sensitive not to use any position of authority they may have to impose their own personal theology or philosophy or political views on people who are in a captive audience. That is normal, natural decency. Where I grew up, I was taught to respect people's religion. If they disagreed with me, that was their prerogative. In this country, you are allowed to have and adhere to deep religious beliefs. If a religious faith called on students to pause at a certain time during the day to have a prayer and it is part of their doctrine and they believe deeply in this, why would we not allow that to happen? I was taught you tried to accommodate people's religious beliefs--not to get into debate and argument with them--because we respected people who had something more important than who made the highest test score. Griffin Bell, former Federal judge, and former Attorney General of the United States for President Carter once made a speech. It was suggested he might be critical of President Reagan--he was appointing judges and he said President Reagan had a litmus test for judges. Judge Bell was asked what he thought about this litmus test. He shocked the State bar association meeting members by walking to the microphone and saying, ``I don't know, maybe we ought to have a litmus test--nobody ought to be on the Federal bench who doesn't believe in a prayer at a football game.'' I wonder about that. Why do we think you can't even have a voluntary moment so those people who choose to do so might bow for one moment at the football game to affirm that there is something more important in life than who is the biggest, strongest and who has the most points? How does this undermine our freedom as Americans? If you don't want to bow your head, you don't have to; if you think it is superstitious-- free country. If you respect other people's religion and if this is important to them, you will benignly allow them to carry on with their beliefs. I think we have gone way too far. I think it has affected the ability of the American leadership to assert certain cultural beliefs and values, and if we don't do that, we are suggesting directly and indirectly to our children that there are no permanent values, there are no values worth dying for. One reporter, referring to a prominent American, said there is not one single belief he would adhere to if he thinks it is against his political interest to do so. I hope we haven't reached that point. I hope there are still things that people are willing to stand for, pay a price for--yes, die for. That ought to be transmitted to our children. There are a multitude of ways that can be done. Even our televisions, our newspapers, and our radios affirmed those basic values consistently in the 1950s, for example. It was affirmed at our schools. It was affirmed in our families. It was affirmed in our churches. Now we have begun to lose our moral compass. How we deal with it, I don't know. The Senator from Kansas, Senator Brownback, has said he doesn't really know the answers but he is raising those questions. He is calling on us as a nation to analyze what is happening, to recognize that a culture that affirms life, a culture that affirms light, is better than a culture that affirms death and darkness. Honesty is better than dishonesty; kindness is better than meanness. There is right and there is wrong. We ought to adhere to the right even when, in the short-term, it is not helpful to us. Somehow we have to deal with this. These amendments are a step. We believe it is constitutional, appropriate, and fair. We believe we should analyze in one little area what is happening, to create some studies about the market, a National Institutes of Health study of violent entertainment and the impacts it may have. Just this week I happened to be passing a television set tuned to the Maury Povich show. A mother was expressing her concern about her daughter who was off stage. And they would flip back and forth. The mother said she is doing a lot of dangerous things, even saying she killed somebody. The daughter, off stage, hearing this was still smiling. The daughter even acknowledged throwing her own school principal on the floor. That is so bizarre. Some say television won't affect anybody. Well, maybe it won't one time. But what happens when you see this every afternoon after school? When certain children who are unhealthy receive these messages, can it distort their view of life? Make them less positive, more negative? Less peaceful, more violent? Less committed to honoring rules and civility and decency and order? I suspect that it does and can and it is not going away. We have a great economy; things are doing well. We are benefiting from some of the greatest technological achievements in the history of the world. I hope they will continue. It is making life better for us. However, if we have a danger, it will be that we as a nation will lose our way, lose our direction, lose our discipline, our commitment to order and peacefulness and cooperation. If we lose that, then improvements in technology that made our life so much better may not be able to carry us much further. When talking about how much money we spend on education, what good does it do to have a $500 textbook if the child won't read that book and he has no motivation, no commitment to improve himself or herself or the parents are not supportive? You have a state of the art classroom with the finest technology and students are not interested. You talk to teachers and they will say a lot of children in their classrooms are just not interested, they have no thought for what they are going to make of their lives in the future. I don't know all of the answers. I know this juvenile violence bill does not answer all of them. I know this: In America today, if we have criminal activity by young people, this society has to take that seriously. Even Doctor Laura tells us that. Everybody knows that. A football coach knew that. If you are in the Army and you get out of step, they get you back in line. There is punishment; there are expectations of people that we insist on. That is how you have good Army units, good football teams, good classrooms, and good nations. I am concerned with those issues. I think they are fundamental. I feel a burden to think more about it, to pray more about it, and try to be able to contribute effectively to it. We do need to make sure we are doing fundamental things well. One of them is to have a court system that works well. When a young child is arrested for a serious crime, he should be confronted by a judge and a probation officer and something should be done that is appropriate to that crime. You do not love children and you do not care for them if you blindly allow them to get away with serious wrongdoing. We are failing them when we do that. It is the concept of tough love. If you love children, you cannot have them break into a house and steal something and be caught and allow nothing to happen to them. That is happening in America today. You talk to your police officers, they are having to make these arrests. They tell me: Jeff, these kids are laughing at us. We can't do anything to them and they know it. Victims often are not even allowed to go into the juvenile centers and know what is going on. Their records are not maintained. Judges have no alternatives for punishment or mental health treatment or counseling or drug testing and drug treatment. We want to improve this system to focus on those young people who are going astray, to intervene in their lives and, hopefully, create a better America. It is just a small step. But we have an absolute obligation to make sure the moneys we expend are spent wisely and that they affirm the needs of our civilization; that is, the need for order, abiding by the law, peacefulness, and not violence. Mr. President, I thank Senator Hatch and Senator Brownback for their support of this amendment. It is a good step in the right direction. We are going to have to do more of that as the years go by. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate now proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in adjournment until 9:30 a.m., Thursday, May 13. I further ask consent that on Thursday, immediately following the prayer, the routine requests through the morning hour be granted, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and that the Senate immediately resume consideration of the juvenile justice crime bill, S. 254. I further ask consent that at 9:30 a.m. there be 6 minutes of debate on the Hatch- Leahy amendment, equally divided in the usual form, with no amendments to the amendment in order prior to a vote at 9:40 a.m.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. For the information of all Senators, the Senate will convene on Thursday at 9:30 a.m. and immediately resume consideration of the Hatch-Leahy amendment, with a vote to take place at 9:40 a.m. Following that vote, the Senate will resume consideration of the Hollings amendment on TV violence for the remaining 2 hours of debate. Senators can therefore expect votes throughout the morning session of the Senate, with the first vote occurring tomorrow morning at 9:40. I further ask that immediately following the 9:40 a.m. vote, Senator Bryan be recognized for up to 12 minutes for a morning business statement.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, if I could, before he begins his remarks, I ask unanimous consent that Kristi Lee, my staff member for the Judiciary Committee, be granted the privilege of the floor through the consideration of this legislation.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that S. 28 be discharged from the Energy Committee and referred to the Committee on Indian Affairs.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I now ask that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order at the conclusion of the remarks of Senator Dorgan, which he will commence at this time.