Mel Watt

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Well, beyond the Subcommittee on the Constitution, the bill did not even go through the full Committee on the Judiciary this year. It has in prior years. But if my colleagues are seriously saying that they are serious legislators and Members of Congress, and they take their job seriously, and they are going to amend the most sacred and profound document of our country, the United States Constitution, do they bring a proposed constitutional amendment to the floor of the United States House of Representatives without even going through the Subcommittee on the Constitution whose job it is to deliberate and decide on the merits of constitutional amendments? Do they circumvent the entire Committee on the Judiciary and go around that committee and bring it to the floor? Or do they go through the regular process? So that in and of itself is an indication that this is a political exercise designed to score political points and having nothing to do with the merits of whether there should be a constitutional amendment. Now, we have gone through this time after time after time. In the past, I have tried to bring constructive amendments to the legislation. It was not a constitutional amendment when it was done before. It was legislation that one could try to amend and try to bring some rationale to. But this year, it is a whole new proposal. It is a constitutional proposal. But it went around all of the processes. It is hard for any of us to take this seriously other than we must be getting close to April 15, tax day in this country, and the Republicans must be very interested in making political points about the level of taxation in this country, which is fine. I mean, they can make those political points. Nobody likes taxes. But we have to have some priorities in this country. If my colleagues are going to be serious about a constitutional amendment that raises taxes, what about a constitutional amendment that deals with cutting taxes? Why should there be a different standard when we are talking about doing away with loopholes in a Tax Code then we would if we were raising taxes. But this constitutional amendment would not give us any authority to have a supermajority. So this is not serious. It undermines the basic principle that our country is founded on, which is one person, one vote. It undermines my representational authority for the\1/435\th of the people of this country that I represent, because, all of a sudden, to get something done, we would require a two-thirds majority vote rather than a simple majority. If this were being taken seriously, it would have gone through the regular process. So I do not even know why I came to debate this. We are not engaging in any serious congressional activity. It is obvious from that, from the number of people on the floor. So I will yield back the balance of my time so that my colleagues on the Republican side can go ahead and make their political point.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I want to put a slightly different spin on this this evening, because I was wondering, when they write the history of the 20th Century, what will they write? When they write the history of the Civil Rights movement, what will they write? They, obviously, will write about Martin Luther King and Fannie Lou Hamer and the tremendous sit-ins and the movement. But I submit to my colleagues that if they write an accurate history of that period, they will write about Thurgood Marshall and Jim Nabrit at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund; they will write about Julius Chambers and James Ferguson in Charlotte, North Carolina; they will write about Matthew Perry and Ernest Finney in South Carolina; they will write about Avon Williams in Nashville, Tennessee; they will write about Don Hollowell and Howard Moore in Atlanta, Georgia; and Jack Young in Mississippi, and Arthur Shores and Fred Gray in Alabama; and, of course, they will write about C.B. King in Albany, Georgia. Everybody that I have named, almost one black lawyer per State, maybe two in some instances, were the people who were not always participating in the sit-in demonstrations because somebody had to be out there available to go and make the legal arrangements to get those people out of jail after they got locked up. They had to represent the demonstrators. They had to be in the courtrooms after Brown versus Board of Education said ``You shall desegregate the schools with all deliberate speed.'' And the deliberate speed took 10 years and 15 years. These lawyers had to be showing up in court to convince southern jurors and southern judges, who did not want to implement what the United States Supreme Court had said in Brown versus Board of Education. They wanted it to take place with the kind of ``all deliberate speed'' that would have still had us trying to desegregate the schools today. But these lawyers, these fearsome lawyers, were in there fighting for justice. Quietly sometimes. Sometimes with very soft voices, as Julius Chambers always had. Sometimes with that big bass voice, like C.B. King, who could just as well have been a Southern Baptist preacher with a booming voice like that. That is what I remember about this man who was about the size of the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop). He was not a big guy, but he had that big magnificent voice. And he had a sense of timing and understanding of what was needed in the Civil Rights movement, and no less commitment to change than any of the people who were demonstrating in the streets. But the knowledge that he had, the skills and training and education, would make our legal system and the laws live out the promise that the constitution had committed to us. And all of these wonderful lawyers, Julius Chambers, James Ferguson, Matthew Perry, Ernest Finney, Avon Williams, Don Hollowell, Howard Moore, Fred Gray, C.B. King, all of them had one thing in common: They would stand before a judge, sometimes be called all kinds of names that we dare not mention in this chamber today, but they would stand firm in the eye of the legal storm that was taking place. They would strategize. They would always be there. So it is from that angle that I give my high tribute to all of these wonderful people, the lawyers whose story may never be written, certainly will never be written in an adequate fashion, because they were the people behind the scenes. But for these brave people, the Civil Rights movement and the changes that we have experienced, indeed our very presence here in this Congress of the United States, would never have occurred. I commend my colleague for doing this special order. I commend the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn) for his tribute to Matthew Perry. I commend the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop) for his tribute to C.B. King and for naming these buildings for them. And I hope that we will give them the kind of justice they are due when the history books are written about the 20th Century and the Civil Rights movement. Mr. Speaker, I yield back to the gentleman.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, let me say up front that I intend to vote for this bill. I voted for it in the committee, and I will vote for it on the floor. The notion of having a Visa Waiver Program is a good and honorable notion that I think all of us support. But I think we would be less than fair with our colleagues if we did not say up front that the criteria which is currently being used for countries to get into the Visa Waiver Program are not the right criteria. Right now we are letting countries into the Visa Waiver Program based on the visa refusal rate that countries have experienced. And, unfortunately, there are a number of instances where that refusal rate is colored by considerations that ought not go into the evaluation: the race of applicants, the economic status of applicants, various biases that people who are considering whether to grant a visa or not are being taken into account. This is not the correct criteria. The criteria which should be being used is whether people who come to our country overstay their visa authority in our country. We are trying to move to a system that evaluates that, and we do not have that system in place. Now, the gentleman from Texas (Chairman Smith) said 14 years is a long time to have a pilot program. The reason we have had a pilot program for 14 years is we have been working on this system, the valid reliable system that we ought to be using to determine whether countries are included in the Visa Waiver Program, for 14 years; and we still do not have the system in place. The problem that I have with calling this a permanent program is that we, in effect, then are sanctioning the process or impliedly sanctioning the process of considering visa denials, which then sanctions the biases that are in that whole denial and approval process. And that is troubling to me. So while I will support this bill, it is with the express understanding that we are moving to a system of evaluating visa overstays which ought to be the criteria for determining whether a country gets into this program or not, not some arbitrary race bias or economic bias or other biased process that quite often is the basis for refusing a visa in a source country in the first place. That having been said, this is a program that is worthwhile. We hope we get the criteria right at some point, and I do encourage my colleagues to vote for the program even though I still have reservations about the criteria that we will be using on a short-term basis.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Pelosi amendment and in opposition to the underlying provisions in the bill dealing with funding of the military in Colombia to address a serious problem that cannot be really addressed by the military. Let me start by stipulating that we have a serious drug problem in this country. I do not think anybody would debate that issue. Part of the reason we have a serious drug problem in the country is that we do not have any kind of rational plan to deal with drug prevention or drug treatment or the consequences of drug use. Instead of coming up with a plan, we come up with reactionary approaches. We come up with emergency responses. And there is no ongoing plan to deal with this. And that is exactly what we are doing again in this emergency appropriation bill. Instead of coming up with a plan, as the Pelosi amendment has suggested that we need to do, we are funding this on an emergency basis. Let me be clear that I do not support having the United States military involved in our drug prevention efforts. And we have had a debate many times on this floor, and we have had a policy of not having the United States military involved in drug prevention in this country. So why in God's name would we, not supporting our own military being involved in drug prevention in our own country, allocate $1.7 billion to a corrupt military in Colombia to deal with drug interdiction? A military that is part and parcel of the drug problem itself because they have been involved with drug dealing and selling and shipment over and over again in addition to being involved with some of the worst human rights abuses that have taken place in that country. Why would we as part of a plan, other than as a reactionary approach, where we are just going to throw money after something and send in the military so we can go home and tell folks we have done something? Why would we give money to a corrupt military in another country to do a job that we would not even have the military do in our own country? This is symptomatic of our approach to issues that are difficult issues. We put some money out there. We say we are sending in the military to solve a problem that is not a military problem, and then we go home and tell our constituents, well, we have done something to solve this problem. This is exactly the approach we should not be pursuing, and I hope my colleagues will support the Pelosi amendment and reject the underlying provisions in this bill, and support the Ramstad and Campbell amendment that strikes out all of this provision, because it has no place in our policy, no place in a plan, a rational plan to deal with drug abuse in this country.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, if my colleagues review carefully the Republicans' budget, it really appears to be a massive shell game. They would have us believe that they can deliver massive tax cuts, extend the life of Social Security and Medicare, eliminate every dime of public debt, increase defense spending by massive amounts, not reduce other domestic programs, give prescription drug benefits. They sound like they used to accuse the Democratic Party of being, everything for everybody. The problem is that the numbers system do not add up. There is not enough money to do all of this. So what one then has to do is figure out now what is their top priority, what will it be under all circumstances, regardless of what happens; and that is reducing taxes by unreasonable and massive amounts. Now, what did Alan Greenspan say about this? One of the previous speakers put his quote up, and he said we ought to be paying down the debt. I was at the hearing where he testified, and he said we should not be giving tax cuts before we pay down the debt. That is the highest priority we have, paying down the debt. That is what is going to keep our economy moving and sustain the economy moving in the direction that it is going now. Yet, do they put that at the top of the priority list? No. They put massive tax cuts ahead of paying down the debt. They want to be everything to everybody in this equation. Mr. Chairman, when we look at the number of dollars that are projected in surplus, the money is simply not there to do all this. We should reject the Republican budget and pass some of the alternative budgets.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds just to respond to the gentleman and thank him for his eloquent endorsement of the amendment that I will be offering. Because if he, in fact, believes that these are personal rights and that property rights should be on the exact same footing, our amendment would place them on the exact same footing with other civil rights. I expect that the gentleman will be supporting my amendment and making his eloquent statement in support of it again. I appreciate the gentleman agreeing to do that. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen).

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 additional minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert). (Mr. BOEHLERT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I reluctantly have to oppose the gentleman's amendment. This bill is into micromanagement enough. We are micromanaging local governments, we are micromanaging State courts, and now we have gotten into micromanaging the time period within which the Federal government must do things. I have no opposition to the Federal government having to notify a property owner after an adverse decision. That requirement I would presume is in the law now. But when we start imposing time limits such as this 14-day time limit, I think we are into micromanagement. While I will not ask for a recorded vote on this, I cannot support it and would oppose it. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I rise in hardy support of the Boehlert-Delahunt substitute. This may be the most direct vote we have taken in this Congress on State rights and local rights and this whole issue. What this amendment does is it strikes out all of the references to local decisions and makes this about Federal decisions. Those are the decisions that ought to be in Federal court. The people who support States' rights ought to be thinking about it in that way.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Would the gentleman entertain a friendly amendment to stretch the 14 days out to 30? That would actually be a lot more reasonable. Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I am not going to belabor this. I mean, it is quite obvious, if we read the United States Constitution, the fifth amendment says that the Government shall not deprive a person of life, liberty or property without due process of law. They are all on the same basis. The statute that we operate under now puts them on the same basis. What this bill is all about is putting property rights and property disputes on a different basis than other constitutional rights. Now, whether we like criminal defendants or not, they should not have a second-class status procedurally. Whether we like people who have been deprived of or about to be deprived of their life or liberty or have been deprived of their life or liberty should not be the determining factor of what process we use. And that is really what this is all about. The proponents of this bill would like to selectively take some rights and elevate them above all other constitutional rights and give them a special privilege. And it should not go unnoticed to my colleagues that the rights that they want to elevate are the ones not having to do with personal liberties but those having to do with property. This bill is about supporting the propertied interest in our country. And I do not have any problem with that. Believe me, I have nothing against people who have property. But their interests should not be elevated above the rights of other constitutional rights. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of the time to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers).

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I want to make full disclosure straight up front. I have been very up front about the fact that I believe the underlying bill is a bad idea. But if the underlying bill is a good idea, and if we are going to adopt the underlying bill, the same rules that apply to real property cases should apply to other constitutional cases. I am holding in my hand the statutory provision under which an individual gets into Federal Court: 28 USC, section 1343. It is one page. It is one page. It enables people who have Federal constitutional rights, whether they are property rights, whether they are privacy rights, whether they are first amendment rights, if they have a Federal constitutional right, this is the statute that allows them to get into Federal Court. And property rights are under the same statute that every other civil right is under. I am holding in this hand the bill. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine pages of special privileges that would be applied only to real-property cases. One page for civil-rights cases, nine pages for real-property cases that are already covered by the one page. There is no reason to do this. And if we do it, the effect is to relegate all other civil-rights cases to a second-class status. Now, if the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Canady) is correct in what he said, and I am quoting the same case that he quoted, it is Lynch vs. Household Finance, that says: ``The dichotomy between personal liberties and property rights is a false one. Property does not have rights, people have rights. The right to enjoy property without unlawful deprivation, no less than the right to speak out or the right to travel, is, in truth, a personal right.'' And if we are going to do this for property rights cases, then, my colleagues, we ought to give nine pages to every other personal right that we have under the Constitution. Now, I do not think this is a good idea, and I am going to vote against this bill even if this amendment passes. I am going to be honest with my colleagues. I think this is a bad idea because we are invading the States rights, we are invading the province of local governments. And local government and State government has a lot better ability to do this stuff than we do at the Federal level. That is exactly what my Republican colleagues have been preaching to us for the last 6 years. But if we are going to do it, if we are going to elevate real- property rights to some special status, I beg of my colleagues to put all other civil rights on the same basis. And that is all this amendment would do. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, would the Chair please advise us how much time remains.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman, first of all, I think all my colleagues should understand what we are talking about here. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Canady) says that this bill would impose certain limitations on other civil rights claims. Fine. If it is good enough for the goose, it is good enough for the gander. This whole thing of putting a property right here and a privacy right here, or the fifth amendment says that a State shall not deprive a person of life, liberty, or property. They are all in the same line. If we are going to treat one of them one way, then we ought to treat all of them the same way. Now, there has been no willingness to do that on the part of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Canady) or on the part of my colleagues, many of them on the other side. They voted for something called the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Let me read to my colleagues what the specific language says. And this bill passed. This is about deprivation of personal liberty. Remember, the fifth amendment says ``life, liberty or property.'' But this is the limitation that my colleagues put on dealing with liberty. It says, ``no actions shall be brought with respect to prison conditions under section 1983 of this title,'' the same statutory provision that this bill amends, ``or under any other Federal law by a prisoner confined in any jail, prison, or other correctional facility until such administrative remedies as are available are fully exhausted.'' Now, that would not be so bad if we were just talking about prison conditions. But we are not talking about somebody getting out of jail. We are talking about things like the free exercise of religion and unusual physical violence by corrections officers or other inmates in these prison facilities, or access to legal resources or access to medical care. My colleagues would have a prisoner who was being starved to death and deprived of medical care exhaust every State and local administrative remedy even though they have got a constitutional claim. But if one of their friends gets deprived of some real property, then they want to set up a whole new system. That is what this is about. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment that has been made in order under the rule.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, what is the time configuration, please?

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute, just to make a clarification. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make sure that this study that keeps getting cited dealing with how many cases get delayed and disposed of, let us make sure that we understand that this study was done by the National Association of Home Builders, and what it really shows is that in many cases, the vast majority of the cases, in fact, 29 of the 33 cases that they surveyed, the court dismissed the case because the claimant's lawyer refused to follow State procedures for seeking compensation before suing in the Federal court. That is entirely consistent with the process that is in place at this point, because the objective is to get people to start at the local level and resolve these disputes at the local level before they are ripe to go into Federal court. So this is just a myth that has been created. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers).

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert), our Republican colleague. (Mr. BOEHLERT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 additional minute to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).