Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. In accordance with the previous order, I announce that tomorrow the Senate will immediately resume consideration of Senator Sessions' second-degree amendment, No. 1125, to Senator Durbin's amendment No. 1078 to S. 1061, the Labor-HHS appropriations bill. As Members are aware, the Senate has been able to dispose of all but a few amendments remaining in order to the bill this evening. Time agreements were able to be reached on a couple of the pending amendments. With that in mind, all Members' cooperation will be appreciated in scheduling time agreements and floor actions on the remaining amendments. Therefore, Members can anticipate rollcall votes throughout the Wednesday session of the Senate, as we attempt to complete action on this important legislation.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I would like to respond. I think you raise a very interesting point. First, I say it is unusual that the States would come to this body and ask the Congress of the United States to ratify a lawsuit, but they have. Our bill does not take effect and does not apply unless this body enacts a global tobacco settlement. It is the last sentence in the amendment. In other words, we do not, and this legislation does not attempt to intervene in litigation that is ongoing unless there is a global legislation by the Congress of the United States, in which case we would then also deal with attorney's fees as we should.

Mr. SESSIONS. To put it real simply, almost every State that entered into this litigation hired a law firm to represent the State. Some of them used their own attorneys, I believe, but most hired private plaintiff lawyers to represent them. They then entered into agreements to pay them so much money. Now those attorneys general, now those plaintiff lawyers, now the tobacco lawyers have come to this body and asked us to approve a global settlement, ``but don't talk about attorney's fees,'' they say, ``because we're going to take care of that between the plaintiff lawyers and the tobacco lawyers. We're going to work that out between us.'' What we are saying is, that needs to be public. The public needs to know. It ought to be capped to a reasonable fee, and not be a windfall, because in many of these cases they hardly filed the lawsuits before the settlement was agreed to, so almost no legal work has been done, yet they would stand to receive perhaps billions of dollars in legal fees. It is a matter we have to deal with.

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

Mr. SESSIONS. That would be the maximum, but if they could not justify the fee by hour, they may not get that.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today it stand in adjournment until the hour of 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, September 10. I further ask that on Wednesday, immediately following the prayer, the routine requests through the morning hour be granted and the Senate immediately resume consideration of the second-degree amendment of the Senator from Alabama, Senator Sessions, No. 1125, to the amendment of Senator Durbin, No. 1078, to S. 1061, the Labor-HHS appropriations bill.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period for the transaction of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 5 minutes each.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Let's look at what the Department of Justice memorandum says. The point of the Department of Justice memorandum about the 1996 election was that it concluded the Departments of Justice and Labor believed they should be involved in supervising the 1996 election.

Mr. SESSIONS. I think it says that it gives the United States clearly the option to do so, and pay for that election or not. In fact, I have in my hand a memorandum of the U.S. Department of Justice which says just that--interprets it just that way. It says on page 2, ``Because of the deep entrenchment of the La Cosa Nostra in the IBT's electoral process, the consent decree gave the Government the option to have the 1996 elections supervised by a court appointed officer.''

Mr. SESSIONS. I don't think we would be in violation of the decree to have the Government--and we speak for the Government, don't we?--say to them we don't intend to fund the second one.

Mr. SESSIONS. I think you have an option to.

Mr. SESSIONS. The U.S. Government, because of its concern about the mob influence of a union, protected itself with the right to assert, the right to provide an election officer in supervision, to supervise the election. So we don't have to exercise that option.

Mr. SESSIONS. What page is the Senator on?

Mr. SESSIONS. Are you reading the first full paragraph there? It doesn't say 1996 election. It says they consent to supervision of any election. That means obviously the United States did not intend to supervise all those elections. The United States only undertook to do so if it chose to do so.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator for yielding, and I just would disagree; I don't think the Government is required to conduct or fund this election, and I do not think we should.

Mr. SESSIONS. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. SESSIONS. If the Senator will yield----

Mr. SESSIONS. They may be. That is right.

Mr. SESSIONS. This Member says that I would oppose strongly any more funding of a $22 million election, and I am prepared to vote against it in that regard.

Mr. SESSIONS. If the Senator will yield, I must say I am most impressed with the eloquence that the Senator has brought to this argument and has done remarkably well, I think, with not a lot to work with. The Congressional Research Service has also indicated that: Legislation enacted by Congress limiting or restricting the funds for the 1996 election would be a Federal law, and the Government parties would be bound to take appropriate action in reliance on that law. What are the consequences to the Congress of not appropriating all the funds necessary to supervise the 1996 IBT elections? There would appear to be no consequences to the Congress. The consent decree does not appear to obligate the Government to supervise the 1996 elections, either directly or indirectly. Rather, the decree embodies the consent of the union defendants to governmental supervision. Basically, the union consented that they would allow themselves, their private entity, to be supervised as a consequence perhaps of, as part of, a settlement to avoid even more severe punishment that could have been enacted against them as a result of Mr. Giuliani's actions against that union. That would be to me the most logical interpretation of the agreement.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank my colleague. In looking at the consent decree. We talked a lot about it. I think we should look at it and see what it actually says with regard to the effort in the 1991 election. What I read it to say--perhaps there is more than I read. But this is what I have. It says that the union defendants further consent to the United States Department of Justice supervising any IBT elections--any. They consent to them supervising any elections or special elections to be conducted after 1991 for the officers of the IBT, president, general secretary treasury, vice president, and trustees.

Mr. SESSIONS. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. SESSIONS. That is what the Department of Justice, the Clinton Department of Justice, memorandum says, that it has the option. I think that's the most plain reading of it, and I suggest to you the union agreed to this reluctantly, preferring not to perhaps but because they had to. I just don't think that would be a fair interpretation of it. I think the most normal interpretation would be that they have the option to do so, and I think this body has the right to say we choose not to fund it. Let's not do it.

Mr. SESSIONS. Yes. But I think the option is the same.

Mr. SESSIONS. And they chose to exercise that option. I think this body has the right to say we don't think we should exercise the next option; at least we are not going to fund it.