Mel Watt

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I have to say with respect to all my colleagues that I think we have lost sight of what this is all about. When we start debating the merits or demerits of this bill, we miss the point. The point is that in North Carolina if I walk into a physician's office, all of that treatment takes place right there in North Carolina, and historically the tort law and medical negligence law has been determined State by State; and were I in the State legislature of North Carolina, all of this discussion that we are having would probably be a very appropriate debate. But for people who came to Congress saying that they believed in States' rights and the federalist form of government that we have, this debate is totally misplaced. It would be like us saying, well, we are very dissatisfied with schools all across the country; therefore, we are going to federalize the whole education system in America. That is what this debate reminds me of. My Republican colleagues, in 1995, told me that they believed in States' rights. And ever since then, they have been trying to federalize the standards on everything that has traditionally been done at the State level, and this is just another one of those examples. When I raise this point, nobody seems to care. Well, my Constitution says that unless there is some interstate commerce connection, and I have not seen any medical practice take place across State lines since I have been going to doctors; unless there is some kind of Federal nexus here, why are we debating tort reform here, rather than having the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Hart) go back and tell her State legislators that they need to address this problem? If they are losing doctors in Pennsylvania, then they ought to address the problem in Pennsylvania and solve the problem there, not federalize the issue.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I applaud the gentleman from New York (Mr. Fossella) for bringing this motion to instruct forward and pursuing a very good idea. I see that the gentleman has a number of speakers, so I am going to reserve my comments until some of his speakers can proceed. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I want to express my thanks again to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Fossella), to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Grucci), to the chairman of the Committee on Financial Services, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley), the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Baker), and to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Cannon), all of whom have viewed this issue as being important enough to come and support this motion to instruct conferees. I am personally not a big proponent of motions to instruct conferees, because our experience has shown that when we instruct the conferees, they seldom pay much attention to what we are instructing them to do anyway. They kind of have minds of their own. But this seems to me to be one of those situations where there is a growing sense of unanimity that this is a good idea; and I want to thank my friend, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Fossella), for picking up the idea and running with it. Let me kind of trace the history of how we got here so that my colleagues will understand it. There have been several kinds of odd references to me as one of the moving forces in this. My colleagues should know that this was an idea that I originated in a very crude amendment which I offered to the terrorism bill when it was being considered a year or so ago in the Committee on Financial Services. I had two objectives in offering the crudely drawn, quickly drawn amendment to that bill. One of those was the obvious kind of frustration and feeling of helplessness that all of us had in the aftermath of the events of September 11 and the feeling that, as the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Oxley) said, this was a pretty elementary notion, that if the Federal Government was going to freeze assets of terrorists and terrorist groups, that it should not necessarily be the Federal Government that benefited from freezing those assets, but that those assets ultimately should be available to the individuals whose lives had been taken, the families of those individuals and the individuals who had been injured by acts of terrorism. So the first reason that I had was just a sense of frustration and wanting to do something in response to the acts of September 11 and to other acts of terrorism. The second rationale I had, really I have to reveal to my colleagues in honesty, was kind of to make a point, because when we were debating the terrorism reinsurance bill, one of the issues that came up in the committee was whether we would do some kind of tort reform in the context of the terrorism reinsurance bill. I was frustrated by the notion that my colleagues would take a terrorism reinsurance bill and inject a highly political issue of tort reform in that bill, and I wanted to try to demonstrate to my colleagues how unreasonable I thought this whole concept of tort reform was. I thought the best way to do that was to point out to them that if they did tort reform, they would be capping as part of that tort reform the recoveries that individual citizens could obtain for acts of terrorism. I could not imagine that my colleagues would want to put an arbitrary cap of $250,000 in punitive damages, or any kind of arbitrary cap, on the recovery by the family of a constituent of mine who had been killed in the violence on the U.S.S. Cole. My constituent, Lakeina Francis, who had lost her life, her family was there in North Carolina, and my colleagues were playing politics with this bill. I thought that one of the ways I could illustrate to them that what they were doing was unreasonable was to offer this amendment in the context of that terrorism reinsurance bill, and I did. Of course, as I thought, it did put my colleagues who were supporting tort reform in a pretty tough position. They finally started to understand that these arbitrary caps that they were talking about in this bill did not make sense when somebody gets blown up, or when somebody gets injured by extreme negligence of another party. My colleagues thought this was a good idea, and they adopted this amendment in the terrorism reinsurance bill. They adopted my amendment to the bill. Well, I conceded at the outset that this was a crude effort, an effort that started to build steam right there in the committee. After the committee markup and the passage of the House terrorism reinsurance bill, I am happy to say that the gentleman from New York (Mr. Fossella) and the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Cannon) picked up on this idea and introduced a free-standing bill that was much, much better than the crude language that I had offered in the committee; and when the bill was considered in the Senate, the Senators put the language in the bill which was much better than I had introduced in the Committee on Financial Services and much better even than the free-standing bill that the gentleman from New York (Mr. Fossella) and the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Cannon) introduced, which is why we are here with the motion to instruct conferees, to leave the provision in the bill. That is how we got here. This is a great idea. Not because I started with the idea but just because of what the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley) said, the chairman of the Committee on Financial Services, this is so elemental. Why would we freeze the assets of a terrorist group, a terrorist country, terrorist, and not make those assets available to satisfy a judgment that an individual who has been injured or the family of an individual who has been killed in a terrorist attack, why would we freeze the assets if we were not doing it for this honorable purpose? So I just think this is something whose time has come. I do not think it is going to be controversial. The U.S. Treasury has blocked over $3 billion from organizations or countries designated as terrorists or state sponsors of terrorism. Blocking this money may cripple these organizations and these terrorist states, but it does little to assist the victims of their terrorist acts unless we put this provision in the bill. The bill allows Americans who have suffered as a result of terrorist acts to receive compensation from these blocked assets. Compensating victims will not end terrorism as we know it, but it does raise the price, and it sends a message to terrorist organizations and the states that sponsor them, we will not stand for the murder of innocent Americans. Those who target Americans will be punished and not only will you be punished criminally, you will be punished financially as a result of this language. Using terrorists' assets to compensate victims punishes terrorists and deters future acts of violence, hopefully; maybe, may not, but whether it does or does not, we want them to pay for what they have done. Terrorist states and organizations should not go unpunished for murdering innocent Americans. Just this past summer, five Americans were murdered in the cafeteria at Hebrew University, and the organization that claims responsibility for that has funds blocked by the U.S. Treasury. Those people ought to have access to those funds and be able to get to them. The gentleman from New York's bill is fair. It gives all American victims of terrorism an opportunity to receive compensation from terrorist assets, and I urge my colleagues to retain this important provision in the final version of the terrorism insurance bill. By doing so, we demonstrate our commitment to the victim of terrorist acts and show our resolve to punish those states and organizations that sponsor terrorism. This language holds terrorists accountable for their crimes against Americans. It is a great idea. I applaud the gentleman from New York and all of the people who picked it up and ran with it. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Reclaiming my time, I presume what that means is that what the gentleman is saying is what we are about to vote on. I appreciate him clarifying it. I had thought the gentleman just said that this thing was just put up on a web site at 3:00 this afternoon. Now I am being told that he is getting ready to file it so we can read about it while we are debating it on the floor of the House. This is about the quality of our democracy and whether we have the time to read a bill that we were getting right now. There is important stuff we are doing here. Certainly no less, no less important than the things that were being deliberated in the courtroom. And all I am asking is for my colleagues to realize that and to take the time and to give us the time to read what it is we are being asked to vote on. And with that, I do not know how I can be more basic than that, but I am sure it will not make any difference to my colleagues.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. This is not about minority rights. This is about democracy and the rights of every Member of this House.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time, albeit reluctantly. I am sure everybody wants to go home. And this is probably not the greatest time to rise to speak on the floor of the House because everybody does want to go home. I should say at the outset that I have not been a supporter of fast track legislation, either giving that authority to a Democratic president or giving it to a Republican president, so for me this is not a partisan issue. But I presume that that part of this will be debated during the debate on the bill itself. I am not here to address the merit or lack of merits of fast track authority. What I am here to address is the martial law rule that we are being called upon to vote upon this evening, because I object vigorously to martial law. And quite often when we are in the last days of a session and the majority is trying to get martial law, I go out of my way to come to the floor to speak on this concept of martial law. Mr. Speaker, I practiced law for 22 years and there was nothing that I hated more in the practice of law than to start the trial of a case on a Monday or a Tuesday and have that case wind through the course of the week and get to Friday midday or Friday midafternoon and have that case still going on. Because what I realized was that whether it was somebody's property that was involved or whether it was somebody's liberty that was involved, everybody was tired, and the court and the judge and the lawyers wanted to start taking short-cuts. And when the case went to the jury, the jury was going to want to go home. And despite the importance of the matter before that court, you simply could not get justice late on a Friday afternoon. So here we are at 11:30 on a Friday night, and my colleagues come out on the floor and say we want to declare martial law which is to say we want you to give us the authority to consider a bill tonight that nobody has had a chance to read. Now they say they have posted it on a web site sometime this afternoon, but I am sure people who have been following this debate and session on C-SPAN have realized that this Congress has been in session right here on the floor of the House all afternoon debating a very, very important bill. And I would grant you, I would bet you that there is not a person in this body that has looked at this bill that we are getting ready to consider under martial law, same-day consideration. The whole rationale of the rule that says you will not consider a bill the same day that it is filed is to allow democracy to work, to allow the deliberative process to work, to allow the very thing that I objected to when I was practicing law, a compromise of justice, a compromise of democracy, to keep that from taking place. That is why we have the rules of the House. And despite that fact, here we are, my colleagues. They took an hour and a half recess before they even brought this to the floor because they did not know what was in the bill themselves. I know I am getting on everybody's nerves, but this is about democracy and this is about the ability to read and understand what we are being called upon to vote. Just like when I was practicing law for 22 years, it was about somebody's property or somebody's liberty, this is about our democracy. That is what this is about. So heaven forbid that they give me 2 more minutes to tell you what this is about. This is about the quality of our democracy, and whether my colleagues can go home tomorrow or today, actually, we are going home tomorrow regardless of what happens here; maybe it is just later tomorrow, and so it would not make a whole heck of a lot of difference.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time. Let me applaud the chair and ranking member of the House Committee on Financial Services for the job that they did starting the process. We had a bill that was a reasonable start, that has been significantly improved upon during the course of the conference, and one of the things that the bill does is ratchet up criminal penalties, but I want to take some time to say that I am not sure that just ratcheting up criminal penalties will do the job. But there are some things in the conference report which require us and the SEC and the GAO to do additional studies and report back to the committees of jurisdiction about either regulatory action that is recommended or legislative action that is recommended, and one of those things is an SEC study of violations and violators and whether we have been aggressively going after the violators civilly and whether we have undermined the ability of individuals to bring claims in civil court to enforce their rights and protect their status as investors. I do not want to overlook some of those studies that will be reporting back to us because I think this bill is really just the first step, and I applaud us for making that step.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time. I actually seldom come to the floor to speak on a bill that I have not had any personal involvement in before it comes to the floor, that does not come through a committee that I sit on, but I wanted to take the opportunity today to come and praise this bill and say that it is a wonderful bill for North Carolina and for the Nation and to say some nice things about the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge) who is the sponsor of this bill. I have been following him for quite a while. We started out in the State legislature together and in the State legislature sometimes, people come up to a person and say, there are people in this body who are destined for other things in life, and we all knew at that time that the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge) was one of those people. He went on, after serving in the State legislature, to serve as Superintendent of Public Construction in North Carolina and did an outstanding job there, and the thing that has been characteristic of him throughout this process is his ability to reach across party lines and understand that education and science and all of the issues that we deal with on an ongoing basis really are not Republican or Democrat, they are American issues, world issues, issues that are important to deal with on a bipartisan basis. This bill is another example of that, where he has recognized a need based on the experiences that we observed in North Carolina as a result of hurricanes, and used that same kind of bipartisan approach and added to try to solve a problem that existed and addressed that need. I want to applaud the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Science for putting aside, as they always do, the partisanship that so often can pervade this institution, and recognizing the importance of this bill to the people of our country. The problem of inland flooding, I am not sure we were as much aware of until we had a series of floods in North Carolina. I live in Charlotte, North Carolina, and that is about 150 miles from the coast. I grew up thinking that a hurricane was fed by the ocean and the water and that it really could not come that far inland to impact a community, until Hurricane Hugo came charging right through the center of the city that I lived in and did tremendous damage and devastation to the community. If we had had better warning systems and research available to detect that possibility, I think we would all have been better served. We would have saved substantial amounts of money, and whatever amount is going to be expended for this important purpose, I think we will more than benefit from it over time, and I applaud the Committee on Science for the work that it has done on this bill in recognition of that fact. I want to just thank my colleague again for the introduction of this bill, and I thank the gentleman for yielding time for me to say some nice things about my colleague and about the bill and about the Committee on Science.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for continuing to yield to me. I know I am kind of butting in on others' time, but the one thing I do want to say about Clarence Lightner, that I think both of my colleagues will acknowledge, is that all of us went to him for advice, but Clarence did not always tell you what you wanted to hear. He was sometimes blunt, he was sometimes humorous, but every time he gave advice, he did it in the context of a story that was based on some experiences that had shaped his life in many ways. And he did it with humor and with a smile, and he was always giving in that respect. That is the thing that I will remember about Clarence Lightner above all else.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, and I thank my colleague, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge), and my colleague, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price), for taking the time out to do this tribute to Clarence Lightner. For African American politicians in North Carolina, there are a number of people on whose shoulders we believe we stand as Members of Congress, as mayors of cities, as city council people. Clarence Lightner was among the first of those on whose shoulders we stand and on whose shoulders a number of politicians in North Carolina have stood over the years. I remember very well back in the early 1970s when I started getting into politics, managing Harvey Gantt's campaign. Harvey Gantt went on to become, in later years, the first African American mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina, but he did that on the history and with the history there that Clarence Lightner had broken that barrier in Raleigh some years earlier. He was just a magnificent man whom we all looked up to, respected, and admired; and his memory will certainly live on for years and years. He is the person who gave us advice and who mentored us.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Let me say at the outset that when the vote is put on this resolution, I intend to vote ``present.'' I have had a discussion with the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) earlier today about whether I agree or disagree with the court's opinion, the majority opinion, a 2-1 opinion, a part of the court; and I told him I thought I agreed more with the dissent in the case than I do with the majority. But that is almost a side issue here. The real issue is what the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gekas) started to say, I think, was that the process is still continuing. Three people have entered a decision, a 2-1 decision. That decision no doubt will be reviewed by the entire circuit court and no doubt ultimately be reviewed by the United States Supreme Court. And while I recognize that this body has a prerogative to express an opinion about anything it wants to express an opinion about, I just do not think that I want to be a party to joining in the collective expression of an opinion of the legislative side of government to the judicial side of government on this issue, particularly when the case is still pending before the court and we do not know its ultimate disposition. I have strong opinions about this issue. I think the Bill of Rights' first amendment and other amendments in the Bill of Rights was intended to protect those who are in the minority. Obviously, people who do not believe in some God are in the minority; but they are entitled to have their rights protected, too, and not to be in a coercive setting, so I can certainly understand the decision, although I do not necessarily agree with it. I just think at this juncture this body should not be expressing itself on this issue.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I rise in support of this legislation. In the days following September 11, Congress acted very quickly to pass the PATRIOT bill. Some of us thought that some of the provisions in that bill perhaps overstepped the bounds, and some of us voted against it because we were concerned about its implications for individual liberties. In the days since, what has become very, very apparent is that it does not do any good for the CIA and the FBI and Federal law enforcement agencies to have information that would help us combat terrorism and respond to it without bringing local law enforcement and agencies into the equation and sharing that information with them, not necessarily the full ambit of the information that we have but, subject to certain guidelines, sharing that information with them. When this bill came before the Committee on the Judiciary, some of us expressed concerns and offered an amendment that would put some parameters around this second-stage process of sharing information with local authorities. The Committee on the Judiciary added language which I think is absolutely critical to this bill which would make sure that the information limits the redissemination of such information to ensure that such information is not used for an unauthorized purpose, to ensure the security and confidentiality of such information, to protect the constitutional and statutory rights of any individuals who are subjects of such information, and to provide data integrity through the timely removal and destruction of obsolete and erroneous names and information so that people who are just kind of generally suspicious would not have their whole lives and reputations ruined as a result of information that was shared with local authorities even though they might not be guilty of anything or even involved in anything either directly or indirectly. We have done a great service to add this language in the Committee on the Judiciary. There are still some concerns, perhaps, about the use of grand jury information and other aspects of this. I think the Senate is addressing some of those concerns on the Senate side, but we clearly need to move this bill forward, get it into conference and work out some of these other details, because local authorities really need to be in the loop when it comes to protecting us from terrorism. This bill would certainly allow that to happen.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders).

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3180, to consent to certain amendments to the New Hampshire-Vermont Interstate School Compact. H.R. 3180 was introduced by the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass) and the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) to provide participating interstate school districts with the option of choosing all day so-called Australian balloting to occur to support school construction. The proposed amendments make these decisions a matter of local prerogative and do not dictate a state-wide or Federal approach to resolving these questions. The New Hampshire-Vermont Compact was originally approved by Congress in 1969 to increase educational opportunities and promote administrative efficiency. Under the original compact, State and local financial support was channeled into two combined districts to reflect State and local contributions; but because Vermont gave more monetary support than New Hampshire, uneven funding allocations emerged. In 1978, Congress consented to a number of clarifying amendments to the original compact to ensure that participating school districts would receive support commensurate with their contributions. The substance of H.R. 3180 was initiated by residents of the Dresden School District, seeking to amend the compact to allow all-day voting procedures when voting on whether to incur debt. Presently voting on whether to incur debt is conducted under a town hall meeting format, which permits voting only at the conclusion of the meeting. The residents contend that the Australian all-day voting is superior over the town hall meeting format in at least two respects. First, the all- day format is consistent with the way the district conducts its annual district meetings; and, second, and probably more important, the all- day method would allow more voters to weigh in on critical bond issues. Mr. Speaker, this bill was reported favorably without amendment from the Committee on the Judiciary, and I urge Members to support this noncontroversial legislation. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2054, to provide the consent of Congress to a proposed change in the Utah-Nevada State boundary. H.R. 2054 was introduced by the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen) on behalf of himself and the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Gibbons). The bill provides for congressional consent for the States of Utah and Nevada to enter into a compact to change the existing boundaries of those States such that the city of West Wendover, Utah, be within the State of Nevada. The Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law and the full Committee on the Judiciary have resolved some issues related to this bill in a way that makes the bill noncontroversial. The bill allows communities within the States of Utah and Nevada to resolve a long- standing issue of local interest and importance collectively by referendum and through their elected representatives. I suspect if this were a law school issue in a law school class, we could drag this out for a week or two talking about issues of Federalism and various and sundry matters. But in the final analysis, all politics is local, and all of the interested parties will have the opportunity to resolve whatever concerns they have by referendum, debate them. And while this is a pretty substantial change, when you talk about changing State boundaries, it is one that we think is justified and certainly economically in the interests of the local people, and we support the bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Berkley).

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. May I be heard on the point of order, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this is not a controversial bill, and despite the fact that a number of my colleagues feel strongly that the residents of Wendover and West Wendover should be entitled to prescription drug benefits, a point, by the way, which I agree with, the bill itself is not controversial; and I therefore strongly encourage my colleagues to vote in favor of the bill and support the bill. I commend the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Gibbons) and the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen) for bringing it forward. It is nice to know that the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen) believes in gerrymandering. I am just sorry that he did not bring this early enough to get these people out of Utah soon enough that we would not have to have fought with Utah about whether these residents were there for this census, and we would not be all the way up in the United States Supreme Court arguing with Utah about whether they deserve a new congressional district or North Carolina deserves a new congressional district. But that is kind of far afield, too. They did not get that done in time to resolve that dispute, but it is still a good bill. I encourage my colleagues to support it. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson).

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, the issue that we are debating is whether to give the majority martial law authority. I think my colleagues and the public should know what martial law authority is. It is absolute authority to control when to bring something to the floor without even allowing the Members of Congress to read what is being brought to the floor. I was thinking about it, I really could not think of anybody I would less like to give martial law authority to than the majority in this House, particularly after we have been here all day. We came into session at 10 a.m. this morning, stayed in for 45 minutes, and then recessed subject to the call of the Chair, and we have been sitting around in our offices all day until 7:15 tonight. This group now comes and says give us martial law authority, complete authority, to bring a bill and control the House. Well, if they cannot get a bill together all day and they go through three different iterations of the bill they are bringing to the floor, why would I want to give them martial law authority to control the whole process? It is undemocratic, and I cannot think of anybody I would less like to give martial law authority to. Second, the whole concept of martial law authority implies some kind of emergency. What is the emergency to pass a welfare reform bill? What is the emergency that we are dealing with that would bring us into session at 7:15 at night and keep us here until 2 in the morning under martial law. What is the emergency? I do not see any emergency about passing a welfare reform bill. We have a welfare reform bill that is the law in this country right now that will continue to be the law until we pass another one. There is no reason for us to be here at midnight, 1, 2 in the morning, debating an important piece of legislation that none of us has had an opportunity to even look at and review. And I should give the majority martial law authority? Give me a break.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) for yielding me time. I assure him that I will try not to take the entire 10 minutes that he has granted to me for this purpose. But I did think it was important for somebody to come and make the case against this bill and to try to put in perspective what we are trying to do. Mr. Chairman, I have heard throughout the debate on the rule and even the beginnings of the debate on the bill some claims about what this bill will do, which I think are gross overstatements and exaggerations. One of those during the rule debates, somebody came and said that this bill would do something to keep Mohammed Atta from going to flight school in this country. I just think that is a gross exaggeration and the public should not be expecting magic from this bill. I heard somebody say that this is a Democratic bill. My response to that is that immigration policy is neither Democratic nor Republican. We should be trying to do what is in the best interest of the public, and this should not be about politics. I have heard people say that this bill will make immigration services and enforcement more efficient. And I have some very, very serious reservations about that. In fact, I believe the bill could make matters substantially worse, and I think we need to spend some time talking about that. This bill divides administration and enforcement into two separate bureaus. The INS historically has been all under, and immigration has been all under, one agency in the Department of Justice. This bill would divide it into two separate bureaus. What exactly does that mean? It means, first of all, that you have got to have records, and those records have to be housed somewhere. Right now they are housed within the INS. I am not sure where they will get housed in this new two- headed monster. Right now this agency is perhaps the worst agency in America, in the Federal Government. It is still using paper records in an electronic age. But the notion that somehow dividing the agency into two separate bureaus is going to solve that is beyond me. I just do not understand that. You have got one inefficient, unproductive INS now. It seems to me that what you are going to end up with is two inefficient agencies at the end of the day once this bill is passed. What does that do to communications? At least within this body we can stand here on the floor and talk to each other. Imagine if half of our body was in the Senate and half was on this side, would that, in fact, improve communications? I do not think so. They say, well this is all about funding. Well, I have spent some time under separate and unequal. It seems to me at that point what is happening now even in the existing INS is that enforcement is getting disproportionate amounts of money. Administration is not getting enough money, and now you are setting up a system where that can be formalized; and I guarantee you at the end of the day enforcement will always get the bulk of the money. Administration will still be inefficient, and it still will not help make this a better agency. The INS is inefficient. It is probably the most inefficient government agency in America. But moving it down the hall and making it a two-headed monster will not make the agency more efficient. It will make it arguably less efficient. Will the lines at INS be any shorter? No. It just means you will have to go to a different place to stand in line. You will be standing in line in some agency in the Justice Department rather than standing in line in some agency at something called the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Now, let me tell you, perhaps the biggest problem that I have with this bill is that at the end of the day everybody who supports it is going to go home to their congressional districts and tell America that we did something. We did something. Well, you did something. Maybe that is what you have done to keep the dissent down because we have not heard any dissent about this bill. People are frustrated. Yes, they are frustrated because the INS is inefficient. And you are telling people, yes, we are going to do something. But what does this bill do? It does not do anything. All it does is take an inefficient agency and make it two inefficient agencies. And let me tell you that putting Barbara Jordan's name on this bill will not make it a good bill. It does not make it a good bill. You cannot take a bad bill, give it a different name, and all of the sudden say that you have got a good work product. That does not work. Doing something even if it is wrong is not in the public interest. And we can go home and tell America that we have solved America's immigration problems. We have created an agency that will solve the problems with immigration and the problems with Mohammed Atta and all of the things, at the end of the day this bill does nothing. And we are doing a disservice to side-step the issue rather than facing it and dealing with it forthrightly within the agency that currently exists. I know that the rest of this debate will be about how great this bill is. But we need to search our souls in this body. Is this about politics? Is it about being able to go home and tell America that we have done something substantive to solve the immigration problems in this country, to solve the inefficiencies in this agency, or have we just transferred the problem down the hall? I believe that is what this bill does, and I plan to vote against it for that reason.