Mel Watt

Mr. WATT

Mr. WATT. Mr. Speaker, the artificial time frames and deadlines specified in H.R. 2844 could make it impossible to comply with many State and Federal laws. Consequently, it has the potential to cause serious violations of voting rights and civil rights. To correct that problem, I rise to offer this motion to recommit with instructions. The motion to recommit seeks to limit the damage posed by H.R. 2844 by ensuring that nothing in the bill will undercut the requirements of the civil rights and voting rights laws that this Congress enacted and this country has painstakingly honored over the last 40 years. I cannot support a measure that does not protect the voting rights of every American, including racial and language minorities, people with disabilities, the elderly, and our young men and women serving in the military. H.R. 2844 jeopardizes those protections now afforded to racial and language minorities under section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by making it impossible to provide voting materials to States or political subdivisions with more than 5 percent of the citizens of voting age who are single-language minorities and are limited-English proficient within the time frame prescribed by this legislation. Are these citizens not entitled to participate? The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 sought to empower individuals with disabilities to participate fully in society. H.R. 2844 will diminish both laws by not providing sufficient time to find facilities to host polling sites that are accessible to persons with disabilities. These citizens should be entitled to participate in our democracy even in crisis times. In the last term of Congress, we passed the Help America Vote Act of 2002. The bill passed with bipartisan support in an effort to address the problems brought to light during the 2000 Presidential elections. Does H.R. 2844 allow enough time for provisional ballots to be printed and for other important provisions of that law to be complied with? The answer is, no. H.R. 2844 will also undermine the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act by failing to provide sufficient time for absentee ballots to be printed, distributed, and returned from Americans living abroad. This includes military and diplomatic personnel, their families, and other Americans living abroad. The Department of Defense believes that a minimum of 45 days should be allowed from the time ballots are printed, not from the date the election is called. Our military men and women are serving our Nation all around the world. They should be entitled to participate in our democracy, even in times of crisis. I think we should be sure that every law passed by this body to ensure equal protection of voting rights to every citizen, not just certain Americans, should apply to special elections. H.R. 2844 fails to make good on that promise. For these reasons, I offer this motion to recommit and ask my colleagues for their support based on the proposition that every citizen should be able to participate in our democracy, especially in times of crisis.

Mr. WATT. I am, Mr. Speaker, in its present form.

Mr. WATT. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.

Mr. WATT

Mr. WATT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. The chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary has properly framed the debate that we should be having to date as a choice between this bill and the options of having constitutional amendments. What he failed to indicate was that the rule does not make in order that debate, and it is for that reason that I rise in opposition to the rule itself, because this is not an issue about which there is a right or wrong answer. There are a number of different alternative solutions to the problem that present themselves if a number of people are wiped out in this body. What we ought to be doing is having a serious debate about each one of those options so that each Member of this Congress can make a reasoned evaluation of what way to go. So I think we should defeat the rule, go back to the drawing board, and let us bring all the options to the body for debate.

Mr. WATT

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I am just wondering whether we have the right manager's amendment, because I do not for the life of me see any of what the gentleman just described as being in the manager's amendment, or in the amendment that I have. Perhaps I have the wrong one. The manager's amendment I have substitute language that says nothing about adulteration.

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WATT. I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas.

Mr. WATT. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. The chairman of our committee may be correct about that part of the bill, but only if the manager's amendment passes, I think would he be correct in what he has said, and at this point, while all of us are in support of the manager's amendment, I guess until this bill passes, I mean, we are still here.

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time just for a second, because when we are in the middle of a debate and we are trying to figure out the impact of amendments and coordinate them, it becomes a little unclear what is happening. The original bill did say that an action regarding the sale of a qualified product which is adulterated, as described in section 402 of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act was one of the things that was not covered under the base bill. The manager's amendment, however, struck that language and inserted instead, such terms shall not be construed to include an action brought under the Federal Trade Commission Act. It makes no reference to adulterated, I believe. Maybe I am misreading this, but this is one of those things where I think we should take absolutely no chance. Even if it is redundant in some way, it clearly was not intended and I would hope that my colleagues would just accept the amendment. If it turns out to be redundant, then there are a whole bunch of things in the law that are redundant. That has never been something that we have shied away from. If we want to make something patently clear, we quite often make it redundant. We might say it three, four or five times in the same statute, and this is a point that I think needs to be made patently clear. I yield back to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Ackerman).

Mr. WATT. Reclaiming my time, the gentleman seems to be shaking his head yes. Maybe that means he is going to accede to the argument. If he is, I am happy to yield to him for that purpose.

Mr. WATT. Number two, it quite often puts us in a position of thinking, well, this legislation is not serious and it is not going anywhere anyway, and as happened with the legislation that has been referred to on several occasions here, well, the United States Senate, the more deliberative body, will bail us out and save us from ourselves. I think that is a dangerous slippery slope that our committee has gotten on, and I wish there was some way to pull us back from that so that we would in our committee anticipate, have hearings, and deal with the kind of serious problem that has been identified by the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) here; and it would not be just a question of whether the sponsor of the bill thinks that this does not apply or may not apply. Maybe under those circumstances the committee and its members would look at what this stuff really says, the bill, look at the drafting of the bill. That is part of our responsibility as legislators, and it is even more a part of our responsibility as members of the Committee on the Judiciary; and I fear that we have failed in that responsibility.

Mr. WATT. Reclaiming my time, I would just reiterate the points that the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) has made and suggest to him and the body and the chairman that it is unfortunate that the Committee on the Judiciary in the House has become the repository of everything essentially political. And so two things quite often result from that: number one, just about every vote is a party-line vote because we know that there is a political reason, not a substantive reason that the legislation is being put forward.

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman and Members, I would just reiterate a couple of points. It strikes me that given what has transpired since this bill was introduced, even if it was originally a good idea and even if you accepted the notion that State courts were going to be irresponsible and not do what they are supposed to be doing, now that we have seen the passage of time and had the proof that State courts will dismiss these lawsuits, even if this bill was a good idea, it seems to me that we have proven with the passage of time that it is now definitely a solution in search of a problem. The lawsuits have been dismissed. So, in effect, the system has worked exactly like we would like it to work. That is the way our system is set up. If an individual believes that he has a cause of action and they believe that they have been wronged, or somebody has failed in meeting a standard that is applicable, they have the right to file a lawsuit, go to court, and have that court make a determination on their lawsuit. And that is exactly what has happened. Now, quite often people make those judgments in different ways and you end up with lawsuits being filed that get dismissed. And that happens to probably well over 90 percent of the cases that get filed in court--they get dismissed before they come to trial. Does that mean that they are all frivolous? Well, some of them probably are frivolous. And there are rules in place that allow the courts to sanction people and fine them and charge them attorneys fees of the opposing party when they file frivolous lawsuits. But people still file frivolous lawsuits, and those rules then are triggered and the courts handle that. Does it mean that even the frivolous lawsuits should not have been dismissed? Well, there is another category of cases where there is not enough law to support filing a lawsuit. Whether you have a good lawsuit is a function of whether you have got the facts and a function of whether you have got the law on your side. But our system is set up to allow courts to make that determination, and I would submit that State courts have as much expertise, probably more expertise, in making these determinations than our Federal judiciary. The next point I would draw from this is that as these lawsuits have been dismissed, it strikes me that it is less and less and less likely that subsequent lawsuits will be filed because then you have got a backdrop against which people can go into court and say, well, this issue has been determined by a court adversely and so it should not be here. There is an increased possibility, probability that courts will find that subsequent lawsuits are frivolous in this area. But all of those things argue for our staying out of this and not building a whole new Federal framework for dealing with a problem that does not exist because our system is working. Now, the next point I want to make that I have heard come out of this general debate up to this point is this job loss notion. I have heard some really interesting explanations by this administration about why we are losing jobs in this country. But this about takes all I have heard. Here we are now with some of my colleagues saying, well, if we allow these lawsuits to be filed against McDonalds or whatever the fast food chains are, we are going to result in job loss, and that is what is causing the big job loss in this country. Give me a break. We ought to know better. And there are a bunch of reasons that I could go into about why we are losing jobs, but this would be about the 999,000th reason that I would get to before I would be identifying a source for job loss in this country. So we are kind of grasping at straws here, from my perspective, on that argument. Finally, it amazes me how the same people who, over and over and over, had campaigned saying they believe in local control and States' rights. When they do not get the result that they want at the State level or even in this case when they do get the result that they want at the State level because all of these cases have been resolved adversely that have been filed, it is amazing to me why we think in our arrogance in this body that we ought to just take over because we do not like the result or we think State legislators are incompetent or local elected officials are incompetent, we ought to take it over at the Federal level and forget about the constitutional framework that we are operating in. And it is more inexcusable to me when these bills come out of the Committee on the Judiciary, where there should be the highest of respect for the constitutional parameters in which we operate. This is not something that we should be doing from a number of different perspectives. And I just beg my colleagues, I guess it is a good debate. It is a good way to get us out here on the floor and take up some time when we really ought to be talking about the things that are really causing job loss. We are out here grasping at straws looking for some something to do today. Do we not have something else that we could be doing on the floor today that really honors our constitutional framework? Surely there must be something better. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the gentleman from Washington's (Mr. Inslee) amendment; and I want to yield to him, but I want to make one comment before I do so. My colleague, the sponsor of this bill, has on several occasions told us a persuasive, powerful reason for doing something related to this bill is something that we did related to H.R. 1036. First of all, many of us voted against H.R. 1036. It did pass this body, but then it went to the Senate and the Senate jettisoned the bill. So to use as some powerful reason that something is in a bill that had not even gone through the legislative process, was not even worthy of sending to the President's desk for signature, strikes me as being about as far a stretch as saying that this bill is about employment rather than politics. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I just want to respond to one thing that the gentleman just said who just debated. I, obviously, did not know any of our Founding Fathers personally, so it is hard for me to imagine what would make them turn over in their grave or whatever, as he indicated. But I think they would be a lot more distressed that we were here in this body today saying that State legislators are incompetent to handle these issues in our Federalist form of government than they would likely be incensed with us dealing with this mundane issue having to do with french fries and hamburgers. I think that is what would distress our Founding Fathers. And I regret that the gentleman missed that part of the debate earlier here. I think that is the distressing thing about this debate.

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to start by putting a couple of things in perspective. First of all, I agree with a lot of what the gentleman from Wisconsin (Chairman Sensenbrenner) has said about personal responsibility, so I want to go on record as saying that. I personally like fast food on some occasions, but I also take personal responsibility for my own fitness. So I am not here about personal responsibility. People do have personal responsibility. Let me put that on record. I am here as the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, a subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary and, for that reason, I have the responsibility to control the disposition of time on this bill. And because I am standing in the middle of it, I suspect there will be a number of things said that I need to clarify in advance to position myself. First of all, I suspect that my colleagues are going to hear that I am somehow a defender of fat, irresponsible people today. I suspect that at some time during the course of this debate, I am going to be characterized as the defender of irresponsible litigation. I suspect at some point during the course of this debate today I am going to be characterized as the defender of trial lawyers, the hated trial lawyers that many of my Republican colleagues just despise so much. Let me make it clear at the outset of this debate that I am not here as any of those things. I personally do not think much of these kinds of lawsuits, and I want to go on record as saying that. But that is not the criteria in which I can evaluate this proposed legislation. As a member of the Committee on the Judiciary, I have some other responsibilities. I have a responsibility to defend the federalist system that has been set up under which we operate and which is a constitutional framework over which States and local governments have certain responsibilities and over which the Federal Government has certain responsibilities. And too often, what we hear in this body is lip service to that federalist system and lip service to the proposition that people support States' rights and, yet, when the rubber meets the road, they walk away from any commitment to it. I think that is what is happening with this legislation that we are debating today, because this has been an area that has been uniquely within the province of States and State judiciaries and State legislatures. I also want to warn us against this notion that somehow or another, our court system is run amok and that we should take responsibility as Members of Congress in trying to correct every aspect of our court system. Now, I want to tell my colleagues, I suspect that if there was anybody here who ought to be suspicious and concerned about State courts and State courts running amok, it would be me. I grew up in the era of the civil rights movement, and many of the State court judges during that era were not especially sensitive to people who looked like me and had the racial characteristics that I do. But one of the things that I learned during that process is that I do not always like the result that a court comes out with, but the system of justice and judicial responsibility and the division of responsibilities between the legislative branch and the judicial branch, between the Federal, State, and local governments is a pristine, wonderful system that we should honor, and sometimes we have to be patient and let this work itself out in a way over time, and that is exactly what has happened in this case. From the dropping of this bill to the time that we have come to the floor to debate it today, every single lawsuit that has been filed dealing with this issue, every single lawsuit has been dismissed by the courts. So when I say this is a solution in search of a problem, understand that there is no problem out there. The court system has already addressed this perceived problem that we have. This, I say to my colleagues, is an effort to take this politicized notion of personal responsibility and try to rub people's faces in it without regard to the federalist system in which we are operating. This bill would insulate an entire industry from liability and would undermine and insult, insult our State judiciaries in the various States around the country, and the State legislatures and the whole concept of Federalism. The growing trend in this body to attempt to preempt by legislation litigation that is deemed ``undesirable'' or ``frivolous'' is very troublesome. It gets us to a legislation by anecdote, a legislation by result, rather than any kind of honoring of the process that we should be working within. I believe it is arrogant and disrespectful of our system of government. This bill and others like it presume that State courts, State legislatures, and the citizens of the States themselves are woefully incompetent to address burdens on their systems of government and that, somehow, we, as Members of Congress, have some great intellectual capacity and responsibility up here to control everything that exists in our country. It is a wrong-headed approach that we have set upon. There is absolutely no evidence in support of the proposition that our States cannot handle these matters. The details of this bill drafted in haste will be aptly debated throughout the amendment process. But my major concern, and one that I will reflect in the amendments to the bill that I offer, is what we should be doing as national policymakers. I do not believe that overreacting to every headline constitutes responsible legislating. I hope that this body will get back to the business of evaluating the serious problems confronting the American people and developing some solutions to those problems: employment, the economy, deficits, war. And this bill does not do that. Simply put, as I indicated before, this is a solution in search of a problem, and it would not even be on the floor, I think, today if we were dealing with some of the problems that we really ought to be confronting. Mr. Chairman, with that, having set the framework, I will reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman giving me that enlightenment because I had been trying to stretch my imagination to figure out how this debate was about jobs, and I think the gentleman has put his finger on it. I do not necessarily agree with him, but at least that gives the argument some plausibility if one is trying to argue that the processing of hamburgers is manufacturing jobs and it is a manufacturing process and that we have got to protect manufacturing jobs in this country, then we want to do everything we can, but I think it is a stretch. As I said before the gentleman arrived on the floor, I have heard some pretty interesting explanations for job loss in this country, but this would be way, way, way down the list, like 999,000 on my list of the problems that is creating job loss in this country. I am surprised that the sponsors of this bill have couched it in terms of job creation, but the gentleman has certainly, with the years of experience he has been here, given me some framework within which to evaluate that. I am most appreciative to him. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. WATT. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.

Mr. WATT. I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas.

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to substitute myself for the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) and control the time in opposition to the bill.

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word, and I am going to ask the gentleman from Michigan if I can ask him a question or two, if he will go back to the microphone because he touched on a subject that I talked about in the general debate here, and he at least has tried to put this in perspective for me. I could not quite figure out what it was that the argument was that this bill was about job creation. Is the gentleman now saying that the production of hamburgers is a manufacturing job?

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?