Mel Watt

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan).

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I have to say that after listening to this debate, my colleague from Florida, the chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime of the Committee on the Judiciary, is just as much in denial on the floor of the House as he is in the committee. The truth of the matter is that these truth in sentencing grants simply do not work for the purpose that he believes they do. We went 2, 3 years ago, I was part of the Subcommittee on Crime at that time, went with the chairman of the subcommittee to the various States. And every place we went law enforcement people, including the folks that he said would say differently, that he invited, told the chairman of our Subcommittee on Crime that this was not a good idea. It was not a good idea, including the Attorney General of California. I was there at the hearing when he told him that. This was not a good idea. This is a Republican Attorney General who is running for governor of California. He told him this was not a good idea. Yet we passed the bill. And now the GAO has told him that it is making no impact, minimal impact. Four States consider this a factor in whether they pass truth in sentencing laws. And he is back here on the floor saying we still ought to do this. We are wasting taxpayers money doing something that if we converted it to prevention programs, as the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) has suggested we do in this amendment, would be having some impact on the crime rate. He would like for us to take credit for the reduction in crime, but crime has gone down in all of these States where none of these grants have been given to anybody. It has got nothing to do with truth in sentencing grants being given to the States. Most of the States, including the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, whose bill this is, do not even get money under this grant program because they do not qualify. And they are not going to change their laws, because they are closer to the people and they have decided that the truth in sentencing scheme that we would appropriate from the Federal Government is not going to work in their States, just like the study that Virginia did that the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) has alluded to. So why are we doing this program? Because we want to stand up and beat our chests that truth in sentencing somehow is doing something that the GAO study says it is not doing, that the Attorney General of California has said it would not do, that everybody we heard who came to testify at those hearings all across America told them were not going to work. Yet this is something that the chairman of our subcommittee, the Subcommittee on Crime, has decided that he wants the Federal Government to impose on States. Contrary to all Federalism principles, we have no role at the Federal Government telling States how they ought to be sentencing. They are the legislators that are closest to the people. That is what we keep hearing from my colleagues who say that they believe in States rights but, over and over and over again, continue to confirm that they do not really believe in it. They just want to give lip service to it. This is all about the Federal Government trying to tell States how they ought to be sentencing prisoners, when State legislators know as much or more about this issue than we do here at the Federal level. This program is not working. We ought to take all of the money and transfer it into other programs, other than the money that has already been spoken for and applied for. That is what we ought to be doing with this. The proposal of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) is a modest proposal, because he is proposing to take just a little part of it. And that part is not being used and it will not be used, because States have decided that this is a terrible idea, has no impact on crime and that they would make their own decisions about what makes sense out in the world, not allow the Federal Government to tell them what makes sense.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I am introducing the Immigration and Naturalization Service Restructuring Act of 1998, which contains provisions to implement dramatic and fundamental reforms within the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Significant management weaknesses, poor services, overlapping organizational relationships, and inadequate border control are problems that have plagued the INS for many years. Many Members and their office staffs receive calls daily from constituents unable to get assistance with immigration related problems from their local INS' office. We need to change the way the INS does business. After careful consideration of all pending restructuring proposals, I believe the proposal offered by INS is the best alternative. This bill will untangle the INS' overlapping and confusing organizational structure and replace it with two clear organizational chains of command--one to accomplish its enforcement mission and the other to provide immigration related services. Key provisions of the bill would: effect an operational split between enforcement and services which would result in distinct, clear lines of authority from the field and headquarters, with the INS Commissioner continuing to the responsible for overall agency operations; eliminate the current field structure in which district offices serve both enforcement and service functions and replace it with separate enforcement and service offices that bring an appropriate mix of staff and skills to local service caseloads and enforcement needs; improve the quality of the workforce by creating separate enforcement and service career paths for INS employees to allow the best employees to move up the ladder and be rewarded for high performance; restructure management operations to ensure effective ``shared services'' operations for records and data management, technological support, training and administrative support, that will serve both the enforcement and service sides of the agency; and establish a Chief Financial Officer to improve financial, accounting and budget systems. The overall mission of immigration is best served by coordinating benefits and enforcement in a single entity like the INS. Both benefits and enforcement are critical components to enforcing effectively our immigration laws. This bill sets forth a structure for the INS to improve the Nation's immigration system.

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 Mollohan-Fox amendment, and I ask my colleagues to support it. Mr. Chairman, imagine what our country would be like if there were no court system, if there were no access to a means to resolve disputes in our country, and then you can see what it is like for poor people who do not have access to the courts. It used to be that we had in our country a system of resolving these disputes by simply going out into the middle of the street and pulling out a sword and dueling. That is not a very satisfactory way to resolve a dispute. What we have when you do not have access to the courts is the most sinister people, the most powerful people having the ability to take advantage of the most vulnerable people in our society. So, when people have access to the courts, who does it benefit? It not only benefits poor people, because they can resolve their differences through an orderly process, it benefits rich people because they do not have to pay for the results of not having the ability of people to resolve their disputes in an orderly way. It makes for an orderly society, which is really what our whole system of justice and our system of courts is designed to do. This amendment is especially important this year because the Supreme Court recently held that interest that is paid on lawyers' trust accounts can no longer be converted to legal services for the poor. When I was the president of the Mecklenburg County Bar in Charlotte, North Carolina, we were wrestling with this problem of how to provide legal services for the poor, as most States were wrestling with that problem, and over time people came up with this idea that since lawyers put money from real estate closings and other transactions into their trust accounts and interest cannot be distributed or paid on those trust accounts, that perhaps we could take the interest from those trust accounts and pay for legal services for the poor, and that became a multi-million-dollar source of revenues for the payment of legal services for the poor. But recently the Supreme Court of the United States said that cannot be done because those trust funds that go into those lawyer trust accounts, if they are to draw interest, that interest belongs to the people who own the money that went into the trust account in the first place. So that money has to be distributed to the individuals who own the trust funds. That is not poor people. So the major source of legal services for the poor went out the window several months ago, a source of funds that actually was providing more legal services to poor people in this country than the appropriations that are provided in this appropriations bill or in last year's appropriations bill. So, this year this amendment is doubly, triply important if poor people are going to have legal services and access to the courts. What is this about? It is about an orderly means of resolving differences between people. Rich people are not the only ones that have disputes; poor people have them too. They should have access to the courts. Mr. Chairman, I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I know Lou Stokes well enough to know that by now he is very uncomfortable, and I am not going to take five minutes making him more uncomfortable, because the more amazing things we say about him, the more uncomfortable Lou will become, and I can see him squirming in his seat now with discomfort. I met this man, and I am sure Lou does not remember this, before I came to Congress, in Charlotte, North Carolina, when he was visiting with friends there and visiting his daughter, who was an anchor person in Charlotte. Neither Lou nor I had any expectation that I would ever be a member of Congress. I remember going away that evening after having met him saying, ``That is a really nice guy.'' I was not a colleague then. He did not even know me. And I think it is that quality that people pick up on that says something about Lou Stokes. It is easy to be nice to people that you know and respect as your equal, that you are colleagues with, but it takes a special person, a humble person, to respect and be nice to everybody, and I have yet to ever see Lou Stokes not be nice to anybody. It is that quality that I think I respect and love about Lou Stokes and that I will always remember, and that is a personal feeling that I have about it. That aspect of it I cannot ever get away from. Aside from all of the wonderful things he has accomplished, I just know that this man is humble enough and respects the views and respects other people enough to always be nice to them. I just want to tell him how much I have enjoyed his friendship and being in the same body with him. I will yield back, so as not to continue to make him more uncomfortable.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, they say those are fighting words down there where I come from, when you say somebody is from South Carolina. (Mr. WATT of North Carolina asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. We were rocking along here, I thought, talking about campaign finance reform, and all of a sudden we took off in a whole different direction. We are talking about reform, yes, maybe, but what voter I.D.s have to do with campaign finance, what registration requirements have to do with campaign finance, I am having a little trouble connecting up. If we are going to talk about these kinds of issues, let us remind ourselves what democracy is all about. It is about allowing people and encouraging people to vote, not putting impediments in the way, not discriminating against citizens, not singling some people out and saying we do not like the way they look so we are going to deprive them of the right to vote by making them produce some kind of arbitrary identification or Social Security number or something. A couple of years ago the South African folks finally had a democratic election. Do my colleagues think South Africa ever required anybody to register to vote? No. I always wonder, why is it necessary to even have a registration? If we allowed this identification process, and we did it in tandem with abolishing registration, then maybe it would be a good thing. Because people could show up, if they were citizens of the United States, and say I am a citizen, I have not registered, that is arbitrary, let me vote. That would further democracy. But when we start putting impediments in the way of registration and then putting more impediments in the way of voting after one has registered, then we have to wonder, is this about reform, does it have anything to do with finance, is it even about democracy? And that is what we have got to keep our eye on; to encourage people to participate in our democracy, not put our country behind any other country in the world. When people talk about democracy, they ought to instinctively think about the United States of America. We should not allow them to instinctively think about a new democracy which has had only one election. Mr. Chairman, we should defeat this amendment and pass the Shays- Meehan bill.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I obviously object to the process that is being followed, but there is something that is behind that process that I object to that I want to call our attention to. We had a debate about it on this floor. This bill allows housing authorities to evict tenants for failure to perform community service. That is unprecedented. Think of it, we give veterans benefits. We give all kinds of benefits, even welfare benefits. We provide to people, we might require them to work but at least we pay them. This is a provision that says, we are going to evict you from public housing unless you perform free community service, no guidelines for it, no question about whether you are an employee. What happens if you get hurt out there doing this stuff? Nothing about guidelines under this provision. We debated this ad infinitum. Here it comes back again on an appropriations bill. Put it on an appropriations bill, maybe we can sneak it through and it will be all right. This is unprecedented. It should not be in an appropriations bill. There ought to be discussions about it back and forth between the committees of jurisdiction in the House and Senate, and we ought to refine it. We ought not just put a provision out there that has no guidelines about it. This is unforgivable. It is out of the process. We should not allow it to happen in this body. Processwise or contentwise, it is unforgivable. We should vote against this amendment.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding time. I have very strong feelings about the bill itself. It is an unprecedented piece of legislation. It is an unconstitutional piece of legislation, and it has some severe unintended consequences. I do not want to talk about the bill in this rules debate. I want to talk about democracy and how democracy works. We had a bunch of amendments to try to address some of the concerns that we had about this bill. We took those amendments and we presented them up on the third floor to the Rules Committee, and the Rules Committee said, no, we will not allow you to have a debate on those amendments. They might improve the bill. They might allow the President to sign a bill into law if some of them were passed. They might enlighten the general public. They might foster democracy, but you are not going to be allowed to have a debate on those amendments. That is what this rule is about. It is about democracy and how democracy works in this House. We have amendments where in the minority not one single amendment of a Democratic Member, or any Member of this House, was allowed to be considered under the rule under which we will be debating this issue. It was not because I did not show up. I showed up at the Rules Committee, even though they scheduled the Rules Committee hearing on this bill at a time when we were not even back in session. They announced it while we were out of session so that we would not know that it was going on. I came back in here and got straight off the plane, picked up my papers, went to the Rules Committee and I said, I have two amendments that I think would help make this bill constitutional. So I am not here as one that did not do what I was supposed to do in the democratic process. I respect the rights of the Committee on Rules, I respect the rules of this House, but when the Committee on Rules looks at me and says, ``Notwithstanding the fact that you came here and asked us to make your amendment in order, and you told us that you would like to help make this bill a constitutional bill rather than an unconstitutional bill,'' and when the chairman of the Committee on Rules looks at me saying, ``I'm the arbiter of what is constitutional in this country; I'm the only person that gets to make that decision,'' then that is a violation of democracy. And that is what this rule is all about. And that is why, my colleagues, without regard to how they feel about abortion, without regard to how they feel about choice, without regard to whether this is a good or a bad bill or not, this rule ought to be defeated. Because if my colleagues support democracy and debate and an informed electorate, there ought to be a debate on these amendments, there ought to be consideration of these amendments on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. That is what this is about. Vote no on this rule so that we can send it back just to have the opportunity to debate some amendments that we think are important.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia for yielding me time for the purpose of debating this important issue. Mr. Speaker, I regret that the sponsor of this legislation, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) left the floor, because I have the greatest amount of respect for her and I am sure that her intentions in offering this legislation are honorable and with good intentions. This is a very difficult issue. Some folks tried to make it an issue on whether you support abortion or do not support abortion, or whether you support choice or do not support choice. But there are some very, very complicated issues involved in this legislation, and I regret that the Committee on Rules did not make some proposed amendments in order that would have allowed us to address those issues and vote them up or down. I would like to spend a few minutes talking about some of those issues, if I might. I said in the debate on the rule that this is unprecedented legislation. I believe it is. The sponsors of this legislation, the proponents of this legislation, have said that this is about trying to protect those 22 States that have parental consent legislation in their States. Well, what about the 28 States who do not have parental consent statutes in their State? If we owe a duty to protect one in our federalist system, in our system where States have rights to make laws, what obligations do we have to the 28 States? What, for example, would happen if, as is the case now, we have gambling legal in one State and gambling not legal in the adjoining State? The parallel here would be we would be making it a criminal act for people to transport somebody across State lines to engage in gambling because it was illegal in the State in which it was taking place. Some States have marital statutes that define the age at which kids can marry. The parallel here would be we would make it a criminal act to transport a minor across State lines if the law in one State said you have to be 18 and the law in the adjoining State says you can be 16 and marry. So you have some very difficult Federalism issues that have been kind of masked over here because the folks who are proponents of this bill would like to have you believe that they are the defenders of States rights. They are always the defenders of States rights, but when the States disagree with them in writing their laws, then, all of a sudden, they do not defend the states' rights to make those laws. And these have been matters which have been governed by State law. The Federal Government has no statutory rule on when one can have an abortion or when one gets parental consent. All of this is governed under State law. The second issue: I said in the debate on the rule that this bill is probably unconstitutional. I offered an amendment in the Committee on Rules saying please let us debate this issue on the floor. The Committee on Rules said, no, we will not make your proposed amendment in order. My amendment would have said we are going to put an exception for the physical health and safety of the minor in the bill. Now, we think the Supreme Court has said that that is required to make this law a constitutional law, and, because of the importance of it, which I acknowledged at the outset of this debate, I would think if it were so important, we would want to make it constitutional. But what are the practical implications we are talking about here? You have a young girl who is feeling not well. She is pregnant. The closest hospital is across the State line. Somebody other than her parent is at home, and they transport that young girl across the State line. Under this bill it is criminal, because there is no intent standard in the bill. There is no protection of the health, physical health of the minor in the bill, so you have got to make a choice between trying to save a baby or getting consent, when you might jeopardize the health of that young girl for the rest of her life. She could become a paraplegic. We were hard on the chairman of our subcommittee because we kept asking him, would you want your daughter to be a paraplegic, trying to save an unborn infant? That is a difficult issue. That does not minimize the issue. It is a difficult issue which this bill does not address, and the fact that we were not able to offer amendments will not allow us to address. Third, we talk about the family issue. Who is family? Sure, Ozzie and Harriet, it was a mother and father and two children. But in some communities, grandparents have taken over the role of parenting. And, under this bill, if they assume that role responsibly, not as strangers, as my colleagues would have you believe this bill is all about, but they assume that role responsibly, they become criminals under the bill. So there are some difficult issues that are not addressed in this bill. We can gloss them over if we want to. The Committee on Rules did not want us to talk about them, obviously, because they did not make my amendment in order which said there ought to be an exception for the physical health of the minor. They did not want us to talk about the fact that there is no intent to violate the law or statute. So even if you transport somebody across the line just because they are feeling bad, if they end up having an abortion in the adjoining State, then you are a criminal. They did not want us to talk about the Jackson-Lee amendment which would have protected the grandparents, not strangers, because we know that, in many communities, grandparents have assumed those roles. Those issues do not get addressed, and this bill is unworthy and ought to go back. I encourage my colleagues to vote against it.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I think it was my inartful articulation of what I was trying to say. I understood that these 8 States have their laws protected going forward, but I appreciate the gentleman clarifying that. I was not trying to mislead anyone on that point.

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

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding time to me. I rise in support of this legislation, although I do so with some ambivalence. The bill that we have to consider today in some respects is a better bill than the bill we passed out of the House originally, but in other respects it is not as good a bill as we passed out of the House originally. But clearly it is a bill that is worthy of being supported because it is better than nothing and it moves us in the right direction. I would like to spend a moment talking about some of the concerns I have about the bill that we are addressing though. First concern is that we are preempting State law, at least partially preempting State law, I should not say we are fully preempting it, but there are 8 States that have stronger laws in this area than we are passing here today. We protect those laws for a period of 2 years but, after that, we do not give them the protection that they deserve to have going forward for States that have stronger laws. Second, and a more important concern, is this high risk loan situation. If you get a loan that is categorized as a high risk loan, then you have got to pay 50 percent of the value of that loan before this law is of any benefit to you. For other people, you pay 22 percent of the loan or possibly 20 percent of the loan, if you have got an appraisal, 22 percent of the loan in some circumstances, 23 percent of the loan in other circumstances, but if you have a high risk loan, regardless of the value of your house going forward, if you have got a loan that starts off being categorized as a high risk loan, even if your area goes through an urban renewal, the value of your home continues to appreciate, you can not get the benefit of the 80 percent provision in this bill or the 78 percent provision in this bill or the 77 percent provision in this bill. So you are kind of stuck with that henceforth now and forever. That is a concern that we need to pay particular attention to in the future. On balance, support the bill. It is better than nothing.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I want to rise in support of this bill. I was not expecting to speak in front of some of my colleagues from North Carolina who were the original sponsors of this bill. But I think all of us hold Judge Hiram Ward in such high esteem that we will all be lining up here to say some goods things about him. I personally, when I was practicing law, had the privilege of trying at least one case in front of him that I can remember. I may have repressed some others that I tried in front of him, but I do remember at least one case that I tried in front of him. And this tribute is especially fitting to Judge Ward, because not only did he serve for a long, long period on the Federal bench, but he was actually instrumental in the design and development of this particular courthouse in the Winston-Salem area, which, actually, the courthouse is in my congressional district. So I just want to thank the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble), whose idea it was, and the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), who has joined with the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble) and myself and other members of the North Carolina delegation in support of this legislation. But, most importantly, we want to thank Judge Ward for his long service and dedication to the Federal judiciary and encourage our colleagues to support this bill so that we can get this courthouse named for him. It is certainly a worthy venture. I thank the gentleman for yielding me time and exaggerating my baseball exploits.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that my name be removed as a cosponsor of H.R. 2908, a bill to repeal the patient transfer provision in the 1997 Balanced Budget Act.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, this is actually a very sad day for this House. There should not have to be a Democratic substitute on a bankruptcy bill, because bankruptcy is not a partisan issue. Let us look at how we got here. There are some people abusing the bankruptcy system that exist now. We sat down and we started working together to try to come up with a bill that would address that issue. Instead, the Republicans came up with a bill that means-tests bankruptcies so that one size is designed to fit all. It astonishes me that the gentleman from Pennsylvania, the chairman of the subcommittee, comes to the floor and acknowledges that he does not want each one of these bankruptcy matters to be adjudicated on its own merits. That is exactly what he said. I thought that is what we were trying to do, have each one of these bankruptcy matters adjudicated on its own merits, because whether somebody is bankrupt and deserves the protection of bankruptcy court is an individual proposition. It is not a matter of means-testing. Can you imagine that somebody who makes above the median income in this country and cannot be extended beyond their means, they should not be entitled to the benefits of the bankruptcy courts? If you look at every single individual and every single case on its own merits, that is what our system is designed to do, and that is the way it should be done, and that is why the Democratic substitute is a better substitute than the original bill. It is not perfect, either, but it is better than the original bill.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, the subject of bankruptcy should not be a partisan issue. It never has been in the history of this House. It should not be today or in the future. There should be no Republican perspective or Democratic perspective on this issue. In 1994, Congress established a Commission to study and recommend changes to the bankruptcy law. The Commission issued its report last October. This bill comes to the floor today without the inclusion of the great, great majority of the recommendations of that Commission. It comes with this many amendments having been offered before the Committee on Rules, a total of 45 proposed amendments, and it comes under a rule under which only 12 of those proposed amendments will have the benefit of debate in this House. These are important proposed amendments that were left out. One excludes veterans' and Social Security benefits from the calculation of current monthly income for the purposes of bankruptcy or means testing under this bill. One provides that a residential landlord would be required to seek relief from the automatic stay, as are other creditors seeking such relief, before being able to move to evict a residential tenant who is elderly or disabled or who is a veteran. These are important amendments that the Committee on Rules has said to this House, we are not going to allow the democratic process to work its will. We are going to close off debate.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, in 1994 we got a new majority in this body. They came saying that they were part of a conservative revolution. They were going to be conservative. Who would have ever guessed that that conservative group would have introduced 118 amendments to the United States Constitution? Who would have ever guessed that that conservative group would have voted on 10 amendments in one session, 10 amendments to the Constitution in one session of Congress more than the whole 10 sessions of Congress leading up to it? And they called themselves conservatives, protecting conservative philosophy. They must believe that they are smarter than the Founding Fathers. So here we are today. We can either have George Washington or we can have Istook. We can have Alexander Hamilton or we can have Istook. That is the choice we have. They say they can draft it better, when our Founding Fathers said it in 10 words: ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.'' They take 86 words to say that they are doing the same thing, using the same word, ``establish.'' If the Supreme Court is having trouble understanding what ``establish'' means in the existing Constitution, how are they going to understand it any better in this Constitution? If the Supreme Court is having trouble deciding what it means to discriminate under the existing Constitution, how are they going to have less trouble understanding it under this Constitution? If the Supreme Court is going to have trouble understanding what it means to deny equal access under the existing Constitution, how are they going to find out, all of a sudden, because the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook) drafted 86 words, and the words of our Founding Fathers were not sufficient? It is a cavalier notion to think that we somehow have a better insight into how to deal with this, with the same words, I might say, than the Founding Fathers. This is not a conservative proposition we are about, here. Amending the Constitution of the United States is a revolutionary principle. Amending the Constitution is a revolutionary proposition, so they can be true to part of what they said. They said they were going to be a revolution, and they can have a revolution, but if they are true to their word that they are going to be part of some conservative revolution, the principle there is to uphold the most conservative document of our country, the United States Constitution.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding time and for taking out the time to honor our friend and colleague Terry Sanford. Before I do that, I want to pay special tribute to the dean of our delegation, who, much to the consternation of all of our Members, has decided that he is stepping down after this term in Congress. We are going to miss him immensely for the wonderful contributions that he has made to the State of North Carolina and to our country. But, of course, tonight is not about the dean of the delegation. We are going to take out a special order for him and roast him when the appropriate time comes. I want to spend a few minutes this evening talking about my friend, Governor-Senator-President Terry Sanford. It is really hard to know where to focus your attention when you talk about Terry Sanford because there are so many wonderful contributions that he made to the State of North Carolina and to our country. You could take any one of these contributions and devote long, long periods of time, much more time than we have this evening, to talk about them, whether you were talking about his role as a war hero; or his role as the champion of public education, who initiated numerous programs to support public education in North Carolina and was instrumental in having the budget for education, public education, grow in North Carolina by leaps and bounds during his tenure as Governor; as the person who originated the idea of community colleges in North Carolina and nurtured them; or as the person who established the Nation's first Governor's School, to provide free educational and enrichment to gifted and talented high school juniors and seniors, which 100 other programs now exist in 28 States copying that program; or as a champion and great supporter of the arts and arts education, and the person who conceived the idea and nurtured the idea of a North Carolina School of the Arts which has turned out so many wonderful artistic people, professionals, outstanding artists, performing artists and dancers and the whole range of artists in our Nation; or as the Governor who was ranked as the 20th Century's Most Creative Governor by Harvard University; or as president of Duke University; or as a member of the United States Senate. You could select any one of those things and talk for hours on end about the contributions that Terry Sanford made to North Carolina. But, having put those things in the record and heard my colleagues talk about some of them, I want to focus on one thing that I think for me personally is the mark of this man. Imagine yourself in the early 1960s in the South, governors standing in the doors of schools to keep black students from integrating those schools; governors saying we are not going to allow our higher educational institutions to accept black students; demonstrations taking place throughout North Carolina and throughout the South for the opportunity for black people to sit at lunch counters and sit in restaurants and eat; and all throughout the South, governors were taking the position that ``We are going to take the course of maximum resistance.'' But in North Carolina, Governor Terry Sanford was serving from the years 1961 to 1965, and Governor Terry Sanford stood up as one of the only southern governors at that time and said, ``Black people are Americans, and they deserve rights that are guaranteed to American citizens under our Constitution.'' He took a leadership role on that front, and North Carolina is a different State today, the perception and reality of North Carolina are different today as a result of that stand. During his term as Governor of the State, he appointed more minorities to government posts in his administration than any of his predecessors had ever done before. There was a time in 1963 that I enrolled at the University of North Carolina. It seems so long ago when I showed up on that campus, and I had three white roommates assigned to room with me in a four person room. And by the end of the day, every single one of them had moved. That is the atmosphere that we were operating in in North Carolina and in the South at that time. Terry Sanford stood up and said, ``We will abide by the law. Minorities are citizens. They deserve the protections of the law. They deserve the protections of the Constitution,'' and North Carolina is a different place as a result of that. So among all of these things that I could focus on about Terry Sanford, for me as a member of the minority race in North Carolina, for others who are minorities in North Carolina, for others who like to brag about the progressive image that North Carolina has, for others who understand that all of us are created equal, Terry Sanford is our hero. Terry Sanford stood up when other people were sitting down on the job. For that reason, I want to thank my colleague, the senior member of our delegation, for giving us the opportunity to say these few words about our deceased friend, Terry Sanford. I hope that we will remember those impassioned positions that Terry Sanford took, and remember that not long before he died, in an interview he said, ``We almost have the same problems we had then. Race is far from solved, despite what people say. Children are still neglected. The working man is somewhat improved, but he still puts in more than he gets out.'' That is what Terry Sanford stood for, making sure that working people, minorities and every single citizen in North Carolina got what he deserved, and the benefits of being an American citizen and a North Carolinian. I yield back to my good friend, the dean of our delegation.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I want to start by joining my friend, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Diaz-Balart) in praising the work of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hall). There is not a person in this body more respected on issues related to hunger and protecting the rights of people who have been persecuted around the world for whatever reason than the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hall). I want to associate myself with comments that have been made in praise of the gentleman by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Diaz-Balart). Mr. Speaker, I am rising in opposition to the rule on this bill. I rise in opposition to the rule because the Committee on Rules ruled that an amendment that I attempted to offer on the floor was not in order. I think the Committee on Rules should have made my amendment in order. There is not a person in this house or in our country, I believe, who would not find offensive and abhorrent the abduction, enslavement, killing, imprisonment, rape, crucifixion or any forms of torture, which this bill condemns and sanctions. This bill condemns and sanctions those forms of torture, but it does it only when the victims are tortured because of religious beliefs. The amendment that I sought to offer would have expanded this bill to offer the same kind of protections for those persecuted because of race, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion. This bill sets up two new categories in the law, a category 1 and a category 2, for people who have been enslaved or killed for religious persecution, and, by doing so, implies that somehow religious persecution is more abhorrent than persecution for other reasons, such as race or political belief or nationality or group membership. The very example that the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Diaz-Balart) referred to about the President going to China and standing in Tiananmen Square, imagine, if you would, that the tanks in Tiananmen Square had just rolled right over the protesters there. Nothing in this bill would address that issue, because those protesters were there for political reasons, not for religious reasons. So I rise to say all forms of persecution, whether they are for religious reasons, whether they are for racial reasons, whether they are for nationality reasons, whether they are because people are standing up for their political beliefs, most often in defense of democracy, all forms of persecution should be covered under this bill. And the Committee on Rules has decided that it will not allow an amendment to be debated on this floor, to be considered and voted on on this floor, that would expand the coverage of this bill to those other forms of persecution. By doing so, it is implying to the world that somehow religious persecution should be given extra protection and heightened priority. Mr. Speaker, we should provide special protections against all forms of persecution. Some people would have you believe that we are paying less attention to religious persecution in the world than we are to the other kinds of persecution that I have made reference to, but let me suggest that that is simply not the case. The United States has 78,000 refugee slots allocated for 1998. Twenty-five thousand of those funded slots are allocated to those Bosnians who are Muslim. Religious reasons. Twenty-one thousand of those slots are allocated to religious minorities from the former Soviet Union. So 59 percent of our refugee allocation is set aside for victims of religious persecution in one way or another. Does that mean that we are treating religious persecution in some lesser fashion? I think not. The only thing I would say to this body is that this bill ought to be broader, and everybody keeps telling me, ``Well, you ought to go and introduce a separate bill.'' My response to that is, we have a bill on the floor. If everybody thinks this is a good idea to expand the protections in this bill to victims of persecution based on race, nationality, group membership or political opinion, as the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Diaz-Balart) indicated everybody does, then put it in this bill, and let us vote it up or down. Because it is not in the bill and the amendment has not been made in order, I oppose this rule.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I rise in support of the LaFalce-Vento amendment. I am a little surprised that people who typically talk about giving businesses more flexibility are now on the other side of this issue, saying we want to remove flexibility from businesses. Typically, the byword is, let us give businesses the opportunity to organize and operate in a fashion that they believe is most advantageous to them. Yet, here we are, apparently, in this bill, willing to take away that kind of flexibility from banks. It has a particularly bad impact on small- and medium-sized banks, because they are not going to run out and spend the time and money to create these holding companies. It is just not going to happen. Consequently, this bill is, and the additional powers that we are giving to them are going to be of less value to them than to the larger banks. So for that reason, the increased flexibility reason, I support this amendment. Another reason that I support the amendment is because I think, to the maximum extent we can, we need to bring assets into the bank and under the bank in such a way that those assets are subjected to the Community Reinvestment Act. Our communities need a strong commitment from financial institutions, and banks in my congressional district have made that kind of strong commitment. I do not think we ought to be giving them any incentives to take assets away from that commitment.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Madam Chairman, it surprises a number of my colleagues on the Committee on Banking and Financial Services that the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Baker) and I are quite often on the same side of financial services issues. But I have got to jump ship on him today when he starts trying to do away with CRA for small banks. Sixty-four percent of the banks in this country, in fact, would be exempted under this amendment. I cannot go there with him. The CRA requirements for small banks, those under $250 million in assets, were already streamlined in 1995. I am not sure what it is we are responding to with this proposed amendment, because in February of 1996, the American Banker headlines said, ``Small banks give thumbs up to streamlined CRA exams.'' They are not complaining. Who is it that we are trying to protect? This is an amendment in search of a problem to solve. And I am not sure why we are trying to solve a problem in the midst of this bill that has a bunch of problems in it for people who do not even perceive that they have a problem. CRA has served a very important purpose in our communities. The gentleman from Utah (Mr. Cook) is absolutely wrong in his assessment that the purpose of CRA is for community people. It is not an affirmative action program. It is for small businesses, small farmers, people who live in the communities. It has got nothing to do with affirmative action. We ought to all be supporting CRA rather than trying to abolish it. I think we ought to oppose this amendment even though there are some other aspects to it that might be valuable.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

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

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, this is a very, very difficult issue to debate, because when one postulates the rights of citizens, innocent citizens, against folks who have been sentenced to prison who are released, whether they are released for misdemeanors or felonies or whatever reason, because of prison overcrowding and conditions in prisons, it always seems like you are taking sides with the prisoners, as opposed to taking sides with the innocent people in the street. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Foley) obviously makes a very, very powerful argument. But an amendment which basically says we are going to go back retroactively and undo existing consent orders that have been entered into, that retroactively says we are going to undo orders that courts have entered in these cases, or even an amendment which, looking forward, says that even though the Constitution might, and we as a body of people in our country believe that nobody, no individual, ought to be put into conditions where they are subjected to rape or disease or whatever by overcrowding or failure of supervision, we cannot enforce that order to protect those people, is an amendment which, in my opinion, goes too far. That is what this amendment does. It undoes prior consent orders. It undermines prior orders, whether they are consent orders or not. Also, it effectively says that where there is a constitutional violation there really is no remedy for that violation, because we are not going to provide a constructive remedy for somebody who is put in inhumane, overcrowded conditions. So while I clearly am uncomfortable, and if anybody believes that I am siding with prisoners over victims in the street, I am uncomfortable being in that position, but I think this amendment goes too far.

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