Mel Watt

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. The gentleman from Texas is not a member of the jurisdictional committee, and the rules, I believe, say that the jurisdictional committee and the person defending the right of the jurisdictional committee has the right to close.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi).

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Let me reclaim my time, unless he is asking me to yield to tell us differently. Is the word in the Constitution?

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

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I want to spend a minute or two just talking about what this bill provides for and putting this in context. But first of all let me remind my colleagues of the history again. It is the fourth year on or about tax filing day that my colleagues have brought this same amendment to the floor of the House. It has failed on each prior occasion. They know it will fail again today. And this amendment is not here as a serious legislative undertaking; it is here to make a political point. If it were here to make a serious legislative point, as opposed to going through a political charade, this bill would have gone through the appropriate committees, one of which would have been the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary. I cannot imagine bringing a proposed constitutional amendment, an amendment to the most sacred document in government that we have, without going through the Subcommittee on the Constitution and going through the Committee on the Judiciary. Now, the reason that we did not go that route, or the majority did not go that route is because this is not a serious legislative undertaking. If it were a serious legislative undertaking, they would have made in order proposed amendments to this constitutional amendment because they know that it has serious, serious substantive deficiencies. I want to talk about those deficiencies so that everybody knows what we are talking about. I want to read from section 1 of the bill: ``Any bill, resolution or other legislative measure changing the internal revenue laws shall require for final adoption in each House the concurrence of two-thirds of the Members of that House voting and present, unless that bill, resolution, or other legislative measure is determined at the time of adoption, in a reasonable manner prescribed by law, not to increase the internal revenue''--not change the revenue law, but increase the internal revenue--``by more than a de minimis amount.'' Now, let me point out three serious problems with the language there. First of all, this will be the first time ever in the history of this country, if this amendment passed, that the word ``de minimis'' is used in the Constitution. The word does not exist. It probably was not even a word that was in the vocabulary at the time the Founding Fathers were writing the original Constitution.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Speaker, we have heard a reference by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton) to how well the States which have supermajority tax requirements are doing based on a Heritage Foundation study that was done. Well, we have a different study. I do not really want this to get into a debate about whether taxes are good or bad. I think taxes are good sometimes and they are bad sometimes. They can be beneficial; they can be detrimental. I really think this debate is about the essence of our democracy, which is majority rule. It is not about taxes or no taxes. None of us look forward to voting for a tax increase. All of us should be held accountable if we are irresponsible in voting for tax increases, and we are subject to account for that every 2 years when we run for office. But I think it would be a mistake for the public to be left with the mistaken notion that all States that have supermajority requirements somehow have passed a magic bullet and they are doing well. The actual study indicates that five of the seven States with supermajority requirements experienced lower than average economic growth measured by change in per capita personal income between 1979 and 1989. Four of the seven supermajority States had lower than average economic growth measured by change in gross State product from 1979 to 1989. Six of the seven States with supermajority requirements had higher than average growth of State and local revenues as a percent of residents' income from 1979 to 1989, suggesting that if we did this at the Federal level, we would be simply passing the buck on for higher taxes at the lower level, which is already a problem that all of us recognize. Five of the seven States had higher than average increases in State and local taxes per capita from 1984 to 1993, again suggesting that if we do not accept the responsibilities for what we are doing at the Federal level and people demand government services, they will have to be delivered at the local level and taxes will be lower there. Now, I am not getting into a debate about whether taxes are good or bad. This is not about that. But we should be clear that this Heritage Foundation study, which suggests that just because they have a supermajority they have done something magnanimous for the State or for the Nation is just absolute baloney. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen).

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goode). (Mr. GOODE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall). (Mr. HALL of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to respond to the majority leader, although I am tempted not even to flatter it. Mr. Speaker, this is a debate about amending the Constitution. We can pretend that it is a debate about whether we raise taxes or not, but I want to remind all my colleagues that the Republicans have been in control of this Congress for the last 4 years. They cannot get a majority to cut taxes, much less a two-thirds majority to do anything. So we can come to the floor of the House and harangue the President for doing this or doing that all we want, but remember, both the United States House and the United States Senate are controlled by a majority of the Republicans, and if they want to do something constructive about it, then do it. Do not come down and go through a political charade on tax day. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee). (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to submit for the Record a study of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which responds to the Heritage Foundation's study referred to by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton).

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. I have not had 10 minutes to talk about anything on the floor of the House in so long, I feel like I am filibustering if I take 10 minutes. Let me talk about this in a historical framework first and see if we can figure out what is going on here. On April 15 of 1996, this amendment came to the House floor. On April 15 of 1997, this amendment came to the House floor. On April 22, I think that was tax filing day last year, of 1998, this amendment came to the House floor. On April 15, 1999, this amendment is back on the House floor. Now, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton) talked to us about arithmetic and fractions. Let me ask the statistical probability that a single measure which has failed in the House consistently will show up on the floor of the House 4 consecutive years on the same tax filing day. What is the statistical probability that that could happen by chance? It is not by chance that this matter is here today. This is politics and the desire of my Republican colleagues to make a statement about taxation, which is fine, but we ought to be honest about that. If people want to come to the floor and give a speech about taxes being too high in this country, taxes are too high in this country. But this is about amending the Constitution of the United States, and I am embarrassed that we are here playing political games with the Constitution of the United States. It embarrasses me. We ought to take this more seriously. And if my Republican colleagues were taking this seriously, let me tell Members what would have happened. I am the ranking member of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary in this House. I have not seen this constitutional amendment come to the Subcommittee on the Constitution of this House. I am a member of the Committee on the Judiciary in this House. We did not consider this amendment in the Committee on the Judiciary. We did not even have notice that this constitutional amendment to amend the most important document that we serve under was going to be on the House floor until several days ago, came to the Committee on Rules, never went through the Subcommittee on the Constitution, never went through the Committee on the Judiciary. Now, if they were serious about the constitutional obligation that we are about to undertake here, one would think that even after it went to the Committee on Rules, the Committee on Rules would at least make in order the possibility of amendments that we could consider on the floor of the House to improve this bill. If it is a good idea, why can we not have a debate on potential amendments that would improve the bill? We said to them, ``Look, there is nothing in the United States Constitution now that mentions the words de minimis.'' There is not a person sitting on this floor or in the gallery who knows what ``de minimis'' means. And yet we are going to give a Constitution to the Supreme Court of the United States and say to the Supreme Court, ``You tell us what a de minimis tax increase is.'' This is the same group who within the next several weeks will be back here on the floor trying to amend the Constitution because they do not like what the Supreme Court told them about what the First Amendment means. So when the Supreme Court says what a de minimis tax increase is, then they are going to be unhappy about that. So we tried to offer an amendment that would get us out of that bind. If my colleagues are serious about that, at least let the Congress decide what a de minimis increase is and give the Supreme Court responsibility only for determining whether the Congress has followed its own rules. Do not get us into a posture of the Congress saying, ``This is a de minimis increase'' and then the Supreme Court saying, ``Oh, no, that's not de minimis,'' because nobody knows what this language means. But do you think we got the opportunity to offer this amendment? We did not get the opportunity in the Subcommittee on the Constitution, it never came there. We did not get the opportunity in the Committee on the Judiciary, it never came there. We did not get the opportunity on the floor of the House because the Committee on Rules said, ``Oh, no, you might disrupt our political message if we give you the opportunity to talk about the merits of this bill, to talk about the merits of our democracy, to talk about the merits of setting up a conflict between the Congress of the United States and the Supreme Court of the United States. That would interrupt our political message, and our political message today is that taxes are too high.'' My political message to you is a constitutional message. I represent almost 600,000 people. Every single Member of this body represents almost 600,000 people. I cannot think of any reason that some small group of people would want to elevate their constituency above the value of my constituency. That is what majority rule is about. I do not like to lose votes, but majority rule is the essence of democracy. That is what this debate is about. What the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton) has said is absolutely correct. They want 70 more people above majority rule to decide when taxes can be imposed. He is right. That is exactly what this debate is about. But let me tell you that that undermines in the most profound and basic way the principles on which our democracy is founded, one of those primary principles being majority rule. If we are going to do it, we at least ought to be serious about it. We at least ought to let the Subcommittee on the Constitution consider the bill. We at least ought to let the Committee on the Judiciary consider the bill. We at least ought to have a full and fair debate on this issue on the floor and allow the possibility of amendments. This is not about what my colleagues would have you believe it is about. This is political fun and games. Let me join my Republican colleagues in saying what everybody agrees to, that taxes are too high. I do not make any apologies for that. We all ought to vote for it every time we get the opportunity to reduce taxes. But that is not an argument for a supermajority. That is an argument for responsibility and majority rule, and we ought not upset the basic fabric of our democracy to accomplish it.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Neal). (Mr. NEAL of Massachusetts asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Let me get to the point I want to make. ``De minimis'' is probably no worse than ``reasonable cause'' or other general terms that are used in the Constitution. That is not my point. My point is that we have gone through 200-plus years of litigation determining what those words that are in the Constitution mean, and now we are about to set off 200 more years of litigation about what the term ``de minimis'' means.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 472 and in support of the Maloney amendment. I favor local involvement in this process but I am opposed to anything that has any prospect of slowing down getting to an accurate count and frustrating that purpose, and I believe H.R. 472 will do exactly that. It is unfortunate that this debate has evolved along partisan lines, because this really should not be a partisan issue. For me, it is about the fact that 126,000 North Carolinians were missed in the 1990 Census. Beyond that, it is about the fact that because of that undercount, North Carolina has missed $6,830,000 a year in Federal funds for each of those 10 years that that undercount has been in effect. If we do not correct the problem going forward, a growing State like North Carolina with a growing urban population, with a growing minority population, is going to suffer the consequences of that not only in terms of the representation that it has in the Congress of the United States, but in terms of the actual dollars that come to North Carolina for such programs as Medicaid, highway planning, the Title I reading programs that help our kids prepare themselves to read at grade level. Those are the kinds of impacts that will be had on people in North Carolina. So representatives in North Carolina can vote along party lines if they wish. I hope that they will vote in the interests of their States for an accurate count against this bill and for the Maloney amendment.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown, a granddaughter of slaves and a native of Henderson, North Carolina, was born in June of 1883. During the time Dr. Brown was born, African-Americans were leaving the south to move north, seeking a more tolerable racial climate and better economic opportunities. Boston was considered a mecca for progressive African-Americans. Dr. Brown's mother moved the family to Cambridge, Massachusetts--a move that was followed by 19 other members of the Hawkins family. Dr. Brown was a natural leader at an early age: at 12 she organized a kindergarten department at her church and at 14 she was chosen as orator for her minister's 15th anniversary. Dr. Brown went on to attend English High School until she entered Salem Teacher's College in Salem, Massachusetts. She ultimately received a Bachelor's degree from Wellesley College. In 1901 Dr. Brown returned to North Carolina, teaching at Bethany Institute in Sedalia. When Bethany Institute was forced to close its doors after only one year of operation, Dr. Brown began the difficult process of founding, developing, and operating a school for local rural African American youth. This school would become the Alice Palmer Memorial Institute. Alice Palmer Memorial Institute evolved from an agricultural and manual school to a fully accredited, nationally recognized preparatory school, graduating over 1,000 students during her 50-year presidency. Dr. Brown was a founding member of the North Carolina State Federation of Negro Women's Clubs, an organization dedicated to the betterment of African-American womanhood. She also served two terms as president for the North Carolina Teachers Association, where she pursued three primary objectives: (1) the upgrading of North Carolina's educational facilities, (2) a higher level of communication between the State of North Carolina and African American teachers and (3) the instillment of a high sense of racial pride in African-American teachers. Much of Dr. Brown's success can be attributed to the founding of the Palmer Memorial Institute but she was also involved in various community and civic organizations. When Dr. Brown returned to Sedelia in 1901 only two families owned their farms. By 1930, 95 percent of the families were successful through the Home Ownership Association she founded. Four years later she implemented a movement geared toward ``urban-farm'' living, a program that encouraged farmers to live off their crops. Dr. Brown was also instrumental in the survival of Efland Home for Wayward Girls. Recognizing the school's hardship, Dr. Brown requested that the North Carolina General Assembly fund and maintain the home. Ultimately the State granted $50,000 for the establishment of a new facility for the training of disadvantaged African-American girls. Dr. Brown died on January 11, 1961 in Greensboro, North Carolina after having received numerous accolades for her work in education and civic service, including honorary degrees from Livingstone College, North Carolina Central University, Howard University and a LL.D from Wilberforce University. In 1987 the Charlotte Hawkins Brown Memorial opened as a state historic site in North Carolina and is the only one to honor an African American.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, I was seated here listening to the stories and thinking about what this trip meant to me. Let me start by just thanking the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis), our leader, our primary leader, and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton), our co-leader on this trip. It was a wonderful, wonderful experience. My colleagues will probably recall that at the end of the trip when we were at the airport about to board the plane from Alabama, we had a little debriefing, a discussion, and everybody was going around talking about what this trip had meant. And I sat quietly and never said anything because I was still sorting through the emotions I was feeling and the significance of this trip. And it took me several weeks really to kind of put in perspective some feelings. And this is kind of where I got to at the end of that vexing period. I was reminded that in 1963, I got a scholarship offer to Talladega University in Alabama. And I came to that fork in the road. I had never been to Alabama. And when I looked at the scholarship offer that I had gotten, I decided that probably the last place in the world I wanted to go was Alabama in 1963. And I have been true to that up to this trip. I never set foot in Alabama. It was not a place that I ever aspired to go to to visit. I had these images of people being beaten and fire-hosed and dogs sicced on folks. All these years since 1963, those images have lingered in my mind, and I never have wanted to go to Alabama. And I finally got talked into it by the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) and the wonderful people from Faith and Politics, my good friend over here. Now, another part of me kept saying, well, why did I not want to go to Alabama? I mean, North Carolina, which is where I am from, is in the south also. And I think I came to grips with some fears that I had about going to Mississippi and Alabama and Arkansas, the far southern States, where this movement was taking place. I think I decided that part of the reason that I never wanted to go there was that I was afraid to go there. I knew that there were battles to be fought in North Carolina, but I felt like the people in North Carolina were more progressive than the people in Alabama and Mississippi. And so I came away from this trip really with an increased amount of admiration for the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis). I wrote him a letter. It took me 3 or 4 weeks to write the letter to him because I wanted to say exactly what I wanted that note to him to say. And what I wanted to say to him was that there were those of us in all areas of the south who were kind of around the margins of the civil rights movement, doing little bits and pieces of things here and there, and then there were those like the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) and Fred Shuttlesworth who were right in the middle of this heated battle and making what very easily could have been the ultimate sacrifice, and was in fact for the young girls in Alabama and for other people who participated in those movements. I already loved and respected the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis). I had read his book. I had heard about him. I had seen him on television. But to be there in Alabama and to walk and ride through that State where I now believe I was fearful of going allowed me to come away with an even greater appreciation for those who are on the firing line and making that ultimate sacrifice. And so, I want to say publicly and with all sincerity that I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis). And I thank all of those thousands of people, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Filner) and all of those people who were not fearful, or even if they were, they overcame those fears and they went and they made that sacrifice, because it has made America what it is today and it has certainly made it possible for us all to stand here and share these experiences, black and white, Republican and Democrat, and to say to America that when it comes to a unity of purpose and all of us being Americans, there is no argument about that anymore. And in those days, there was an argument about it. We put that argument to rest, and we owe a great debt to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) for doing that.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Sheila Jackson-Lee), for organizing this special order in tribute to a wonderful human being and statesman, Judge Higginbotham. Let me start by just expressing condolences to Judge Higginbotham's wife, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, and to his two sons and his two daughters. They stood with him and by his side and enabled him to provide a service to our country that, in my estimation, is unparalleled in many respects. This is a very sad occasion for all of us, when we pay tribute to a fallen hero, and Judge Higginbotham, indeed, was a hero for us. He was a man who practiced tolerance, and he practiced it because he had experienced many episodes of intolerance and he understood the impact that intolerance and prejudice breeds in this country. While he was a student at one university he complained about substandard housing for black students and was told by the president of the university, ``The law doesn't require us to let colored students in the dorm, and you can either accept things as they are or you can leave, immediately.'' Despite his outstanding academic credentials, he was denied employment by two major white law firms when they realized that this man, with these credentials on paper, was a black man. So his tolerance and fight against intolerance grew out of himself being discriminated against and experiencing the negative impact of intolerance. We can often tell a lot about a man by what other people say about him, and it was interesting to me some of the things that people said about him. Here is Thurgood Marshall. Thurgood Marshall, former Justice on the United States Supreme Court, said of Leon Higginbotham: ``A great lawyer and a very great judge.'' Not a long accolade, just concise and to the point. President Clinton on Judge Higginbotham. ``One of our Nation's most passionate and steadfast advocates for civil rights.'' People were always calling this man a hero, but he was also a very humble man. Professor Charles Ogletree, ``The epitome of the people's lawyer. Despite his individual merits and accomplishments, he never hesitated to lend a hand to the poor, the voiceless, the powerless, and the downtrodden.'' This was a man who could command the respect of all of us, and did command the respect of all of us, yet he fought all the way to the end for ordinary common people. I remember very well when my Congressional District was in the midst of litigation, and he said, ``You know, we need to convene a group of people to talk about the importance of having minority representation in the Congress of the United States.'' About 2 weeks after that I got a call telling me that scholars and historians and professors and college presidents were convening to have a discussion about this issue in North Carolina. He had just gotten on the phone and called systematically people that he knew would have an interest in this, and they all interrupted their schedule to come and have a discussion about how we would communicate to a court the importance of having minority representation in the Congress of the United States after North Carolina had been without a minority representative in Congress for over 90 years. What would one say to a court that would communicate the importance of the decision the court was being asked to make? That was the kind of command that Judge Higginbotham had of people around him. They respected him so much that they would drop other things and respond to his request. I remember very well the last encounter I had with Judge Higginbotham. I knew he had had a heart attack, and he had gone through an extended recovery period. All of a sudden, we were having a hearing on the impeachment matter in the Committee on the Judiciary and there was Judge Higginbotham expounding on the historical significance of the impeachment clause in the Constitution. When it was over, I went to him and I said, ``Judge, what are you doing here; shouldn't you be at home in bed?'' And he said to me, ``You know, I can't quit fighting about the things that are important, and you know how I feel about the United States constitution. I got to keep fighting for that.'' Within 2 weeks after that Judge Higginbotham passed away, but he was fighting to the very end, and we owe him just a tremendous debt of gratitude. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me the time to make these comments.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, the chairman of our committee has indicated that this is simply a noncontroversial administrative matter. I want to take issue with that because without managers to prosecute this case in the Senate, the case cannot be prosecuted. If we as a House, particularly a newly constituted House, with new Members, a substantial number of new Members, a number of new Members that could be decisive in whether this matter proceeds or does not proceed, if we do not reauthorize these managers, the case cannot go forward on the Senate side. So anybody who approaches this vote as if it is just a noncontroversial administrative matter is doing so in the face of the public's demand that this matter be brought to an expeditious conclusion and should take this matter a lot more seriously. I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to express their opinion that this matter should not go forward by not reappointing these managers to prosecute the case in the Senate and by voting against this resolution.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, as a member of the committee I have had many opportunities to speak on this issue, and I hope to be able to yield back some of my time. But I wanted to express, after hearing the debate today, to my colleagues my deep appreciation to them. I wanted to express that after hearing a good part of the debate today my opinion that the debate has been high quality and civil on both sides, and there are two issues that I think from the debate so far need to be still addressed that I thought might be worthy of talking about. First of all, is lying under oath a serious offense if it is proven? I think we all ought to acknowledge that it truly is. Does it undermine the rule of law? I think we ought to acknowledge that it does in much the same way that lack of resources that people who come into the court and do not have good legal representation and resources and bias of witnesses undermines the rule of law. Untruths also undermine the rule of law. But the thing that undermines the rule of law more than any other single thing is a disregard of the law, and I think to get to the real question we need to ask the question is lying under oath impeachable? Because the standard for impeachment is treason. This is not treason. Bribery; it is not bribery or other high crimes or misdemeanors interpreted as crimes against the state, crimes against the government. So in order for a misstatement under oath to be a crime against the government it would have to be about some operation of the government, not about some sex offense, not about speeding, not about something that is unrelated to the operation of the government. Finally, does it mean that the President is above the law if he is not impeached? Be clear on it, Mr. Speaker. The failure to impeach does not exonerate the President. He can still be tried as any other citizen in this country. The Constitution specifically provides that. When his term of office is up, if he has lied, if he has engaged in perjury, he can be prosecuted and convicted and sentenced just like any other citizen in this country. So this whole notion that somehow by failing to impeach this President we place him above the law is just inaccurate.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, my colleague who just spoke must be working in a different Congress than I am working in. There were three votes on Saturday, no votes on Sunday, two or three votes yesterday, and he says we are working. We ought to be here trying to do something about education, and, instead, the Republicans are trying to get out of town and go home. The education issue has been on the table all this year, ever since the President made his State of the Union address. They want to go home. They have not dealt with it. This is an issue that every single American understands. Every single American understands it. If we reduce the ratio of students to teachers, reduce that ratio, each single student gets more attention. Each single student gets more reading time. Each single student gets to relate to the teacher in a way that they can learn, and that is what this is all about. Let us fund education, and then we can go home.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, first of all, let me say, I cannot think of anybody other than this Speaker of the House that I would less like to yield martial law to. The way this House has been managed, if we give him martial law authority, God knows what might could happen. Mr. Speaker, 3 days ago, the Republican National Committee decided it would start running $150,000 worth of ads in my congressional district to try to put me on the defensive for not raiding the Social Security Trust Fund to pay for $90 billion worth of taxes for rich people. They can find $90 billion in trust fund monies to give for tax cuts, but they cannot find any money to do a reduction in class sizes for our children in this country. They can find $90 billion in money in the Social Security Trust Fund to give tax cuts to the wealthy people, but they cannot modernize our schools. We need to stay here until we get our schools modernized, our class sizes reduced. Reject this martial law. Vote against this rule.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, as members of the Committee on the Judiciary, we have had the opportunity to indicate our willingness to engage in a process that is fair, measuring the President's conduct against a constitutional standard, not a bicycle standard; focused on what the independent counsel has referred or might refer to us; and timely, one that sets an objective to conclude this matter and put it behind us. We have also had the opportunity to listen to our colleagues on the Committee on the Judiciary who want to engage in an unfair and open- ended, partisan political fishing expedition, dealing with bicycles rather than constitutional standards, some of whom have already gone on television and already declared their conclusion in this matter before a trial even begins. We have had our opportunity. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield the balance of my time to a nonmember of the Committee on the Judiciary, my good colleague from Texas (Mr. Edwards).