Mel Watt

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

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

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I have been engaged in a long-standing debate with my colleagues on the Republican side of this House about the definition of what is conservative and what is liberal. And every time I come here, I try to start this way so that I put this debate in context for my friends. I should start it, ``Here we go again.'' That is one of their conservatives, Ronald Reagan, that was his ``Here we go again.'' Because it has always been my philosophy that the most conservative position in America is to defend the most conservative document in America, and that is our Constitution. So how my colleagues could start with a Contract With America that had two proposed constitutional amendments in it has always been kind of disconcerting to me, because they keep calling themselves conservatives and it seems to me that that is inconsistent. How in the 2-year period of that revolution we had introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives a total of 118 proposed constitutional amendments, how they can continue to call themselves conservative, I do not understand. How in that 2-year period of that conservative revolution we voted more times than on constitutional amendments than in any congressional term over the last 10 years, and my colleagues can still call themselves conservatives, I do not understand. Things from the balanced budget amendment to the term limits amendment, to the flag desecration amendment that is back again, to super majority requirement for tax increases, to voluntary school prayer, line-item veto, right to life, provide no person born in the United States on account of birth shall be a citizen here. I mean, a basic constitutional right. Here we go again. Campaign finance reform in the Constitution, my conservative friends. Repeal the 22d amendment. Abolish the Federal income tax in the Constitution, my friends. Establish English as the only language, the official language of a nation that is a nation of immigrants, in the Constitution. And they are calling themselves conservatives. These are the conservatives in this body calling themselves conservatives. And here we go again. Here we go again. These are not conservatives. These are radicals. It is a radical notion to amend the Constitution of the United States. Now, having debunked this notion that those of us who are standing up for the Constitution are the radicals, as opposed to the people who have offered this amendment, now let me go to the notion that we are somehow unpatriotic because we are standing up for the Constitution. Why do I love my country? Does it have anything to do with the color of the flag? It has to do with the principles that that flag stands for. That is all it has to do with. And every time we diminish those principles, we diminish our rights as American citizens. We honor the flag by honoring the ideals that it represents, and among those ideals is freedom of speech, whether we like what somebody is saying or whether we do not like what somebody is saying. The Supreme Court said, ``The bedrock principle underlying the first amendment is that the Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself disagreeable.'' That is the bedrock principle on which the first amendment is founded. What is the ultimate test of religious freedom? It is whether we tolerate those who have a religion that is different than the one that we have, not whether we are defending some particular form of religion. It is a bedrock principle of the things in the Bill of Rights. Now let me go to a third notion here, that we can start amending the Constitution based on polling data. The majority of the American people want the Constitution amended, so let us go out and amend the Constitution. It is the order of the day. It is fashionable. Is that a conservative philosophy or a radical philosophy? As a philosophical matter, the liberties outlined in the Bill of Rights are fundamental freedoms intended to be impervious to changing political tides, my friends, not wax and wane, depending on who is in the majority this year or next year or this day or the next day. The idea of the Bill of Rights is that there are a set of guaranteed rights that no one, including a majority of Americans, can take away from American citizens. That is what tyranny by the majority is. My colleagues have heard that term used: tyranny by the majority. The majority can vote and take some basic constitutional human individual rights that I have. We cannot do it in our democracy. Now lest my colleagues think I stand here as some raving radical or even raving conservative, let me tell my friends that I stand here in the tradition of all the people of North Carolina. This amendment would, for the first time in our Nation's history, 204 years or more, amend the Bill of Rights; and it is a Bill of Rights that the State of North Carolina stood up for from the very beginning. We refused to join the Nation, refused to join this Union because it did not have a Bill of Rights in this Constitution. We refused to ratify the Constitution in August 1788 by a vote of 184 to 83 because the delegates of North Carolina at their ratifying convention wanted a Bill of Rights included in the Constitution. It is in that tradition that I stand here, not in some tradition of being liberal or conservative. It is a human rights, a historical tradition. The delegates believed that in order to secure freedom there had to be rights and those rights had to be inviolable. My colleagues can do it by the majority. They all are the majority this year, but they might not be the majority next year. So are we going to go back and amend the Constitution and change it back when you are out of the majority? My friends, get a hold on what we are doing here. This is about protecting the individual liberties of our Nation that every single one of us would fight and die for; our ancestors fought and died for them, and we would fight and die for them again today if we had to do it. But passing this constitutional amendment ain't got a thing to do with fighting and dying for those principles. Having the guts to stand up and say this is a farce, this is a degradation of our Bill of Rights, that is what our Nation is about. My colleagues all can vote the popular tide all they want, but those of us who know what the historical significance of the Bill of Rights is will stand our ground and hold out our chest and say we are Americans, too. I hope my colleagues will not forget it, whether they are conservative or liberal. This is about protecting American values. That is what this debate is about. Let us get a hold.

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

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. I would submit to the gentleman, Mr. Speaker, that nobody ever said that federalism was convenient. It is terribly inconvenient to operate in a federalist system. But that is not a justification for the Federal Government taking over all the rights of the State.

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

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Texas for yielding time to me for the purposes of debate. Mr. Speaker, let me say that this bill will be characterized as a vote on whether one supports voluntarism or not. I really do not think that this has to do with whether one supports voluntarism at all. I think we all support voluntarism. We all supported voluntarism last week or the week before last when the housing bill came to the floor and we got into a massive debate about whether the Federal Government ought to be requiring residents of public housing to volunteer. It was not about whether we supported voluntarism or not. It was about the relationship that should exist between the Federal Government and the State government, and the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Manzullo] has hit the nail completely on the head on that issue. It amazes me the extent to which we will go to make ourselves reelectable. We will disregard any kind of principles if it makes us look good, and we will get on a one-track mindset, and the one-track mindset for the last 2 or 3 weeks has been voluntarism, and let us do everything we can do to support voluntarism. Mr. Speaker, there are some principles here that are more important than voluntarism. I thought that my Republican colleagues, of all people, supported those principles of believing in the rights of States to have certain territory within our Federalist system that they have jurisdiction over. This is one of those areas. There is no reason that we ought to be federalizing the entire tort law of the Nation related to volunteers. We have no jurisdiction. It is unconstitutional, probably, for us to do that, to take an issue that has no connection with the Federal Government and turn it in such a way that we preempt all State law, and then say we are not overstepping our bounds; in fact, we believe in States' rights. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle keep telling me that they believe in States' rights, and I keep saying, ``Well, when are you going to show it? When are you planning to stand up, and stand up for the rights of States in the Federalist system?'' They federalize juvenile justice, they tried to federalize tort law, they tried to federalize the criminal law. Now here we are, trying to federalize an obligation of the volunteer or the rules related to volunteering and liability when one does volunteer. These are matters of State law, and should be protected in our Federal system if we are going to protect the Federal system at all. This whole notion that, well, a State can opt out if it wants to, what right do we have to make a State go back to its legislature and pass a law that opts itself out of a piece of Federal legislation? If that is not preemption of State law, we are requiring the States to do that, the Federal Constitution never gave us the right to do that. That is a violation of the whole concept of States' rights. Mr. Speaker, I agree with the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Manzullo]. Were I a member of a State legislature, this is probably a very, very good bill. But that is not the issue here. They did not send us to Washington to pass legislation that State legislators ought to be dealing with. They sent us here to protect the rights of the States in our Federalist system. I thought that is what my colleagues stood for on the Republican side, and I hope one day they will come back to that realization and start standing up for States' rights, which they give so much lip service to, rather than just doing what is convenient when it is politically popular to do so. This is a bad idea. We ought to defeat it, send it back, and let the State legislators do it.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, the budget agreement has over a 5-year period 135 billion dollars' worth of tax cuts. Eighty- five percent of those tax cuts go to the 5 percent of the richest people in America. How can we give $135 billion in tax cuts when there are children who cannot read; when there are children who are going to school hungry and we are not fully funding the WIC Program; when there are people sleeping on the street and we are not putting any money into the housing programs; when there are children who cannot read when they enter the first, second, third, fourth grade, and we are cutting the Title I reading program; when unemployment is rampant in our communities, in some places 17, 18, 19 percent unemployment in our communities, and we are cutting the summer jobs program? How can we give tax cuts to the richest people in America when the schools are falling down around our students in our public schools? Yet, it is the Congressional Black Caucus budget which is the only budget that addresses all of these needs. This is the budget that has its priorities in order. It should be the priorities of America. Yet, the agreement says let us cut taxes while our children go hungry. Let us cut taxes while our children cannot read. Let us cut taxes while people sleep on the street. We can be a better America. Support the Congressional Black Caucus budget.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, some people will say that this is the Black Caucus budget, but the truth of the matter is, this is the America budget. The Black Caucus is the only organization which has stepped up to the plate and met the challenge of balancing the budget not in the year 2002 but in the year 2001. As we can see from this chart, in every single year between now and 2001, under the Black Caucus budget, our deficit is substantially less than any other budget that is on the table for consideration. The reason is that under every other budget proposal they are decreasing taxes, and that is like going on a diet by gaining weight in the beginning. One cannot lose weight by gaining weight first and then going on a diet. One just cannot do it. We go directly to a balanced budget in the year 2001. This is the budget that America should support. This is the budget that my colleagues should support.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

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

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment offered by the gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens]. But before I debate that, let me thank those people who were on the floor earlier giving praise to an amendment that had been incorporated or provisions in a bill that had been incorporated into this legislation that the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Smith] and I supported, and others. It is so infrequent that I get any praise on this floor, I always stop to take the time to acknowledge that and to thank people on both sides of the aisle for issuing words of praise. With regard to the bill in general, let me say to the chairman and the ranking member on both sides that I have followed this discussion and it is my intention to vote for this bill, although I have some serious reservations about the entire block granting process; reservations which are a product of historical realities in the South about how block grants have historically been used when they were in vogue at earlier times in our history; reservations about consolidation of programs, although I think it is a good idea; reservations about giving more and more control to State entities when a lot of these problems are in fact problems that are dealt with at the local level and should be dealt with at the local level; reservations which have to do with the fact that some of our State legislatures are still controlled by more rural interests, and those interests tend to get taken into account even in a collaborative process which the chairman of the subcommittee and the chairman of the committee have talked about, to the disadvantage of major urban communities and cities. All of those leave me a little concerned about the block grant approach and lead me to say that this is an experiment of sorts, as I understand it. We are trying to move to a balance that restores control to more local and State bases and moves it back away from the Federal Government. I am prepared as a general proposition to take that experiment and hope, like everybody else does, that it is going to work out. With respect to the summer youth employment program, however, I do believe that we have got to protect it, even though this discussion really is a discussion about separating summer youth from the other disadvantaged youth block grant programs. In a sense we are kind of debating the possibility of pitting those two things against each other when both of them are needed. But understand that the disadvantaged youth block grant programs tend to address youth who have already dropped out of the system, who have already had adverse impacts, and in my estimation the summer youth employment programs, at least in the communities that I am familiar with, have often been used to address the front end of the process, to provide employment to some kids who may end up dropping out if we do not intervene with them earlier in the process. The importance of having a summer youth program that is separate and distinct in funding from the general disadvantaged youth block grant program, it seems to me, still is important. It is for that reason, although I do not want to sound like I am trying to say anything negative about the disadvantaged youth block grant program, it is for that reason that I am rising in support of the Owens amendment and would encourage its adoption.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Reclaiming my time, I appreciate the gentleman's clarification on that. I was aware of the collaborative process. I still think even in that collaborative process in a number of States, rural interests tend to be overrepresented, and it is not something that I can scientifically prove to the gentleman. I can just tell the gentleman that in a number of Southern States, rural interests typically dominate over urban interests. I understand that the gentleman has worked hard to try to work out this balance, and I am going to vote for the bill regardless of whether this amendment passes or not, but I would feel more comfortable if we had this amendment passed.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, let me start by saying that we have never postured this as a choice between just the worst possible bill in the world and the status quo. It was my colleagues on the other side who did that. This bill is marginally better than it was last year, and I am going to vote against it because it just has some terrible provisions in it, even though some of the things in it are good. We should support the substitute, the Kennedy substitute, because it is better, but none of us should talk ourselves into believing that either of these bills is going to solve all the problems of the poor as some of my colleagues seem to be insinuating their bill is going to do. These bills are not even going to solve the housing problems of the poor, much less all of the problems of the poor. But the substitute of the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy] is light years better because it puts emphasis on the drug elimination grant program, which is actually the thing I hear the most when I go home: How can we deal with drugs in these public housing units? What help can the Federal Government give us to deal with this problem? We encourage under Mr. Kennedy's substitute community service, but we do not mandate it. We do not force people to go out there and work for nothing, which is what the main bill does, and we encourage an income mix in both public housing and in the voucher program, and we try to do it in such a way that we do not end up pitting the very poor against the working poor, which is what ends up happening under the main bill here. All of those things are compelling reasons that this Kennedy substitute is a better alternative than the underlying bill. It is not a choice between doing nothing, maintaining the status quo, but this is a better substitute, and we should support it.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to make sure that my colleague from North Carolina understood that while this bill does not mandate taking any money North Carolina would have to make substantial changes. We do not meet 3 out of the 4 criteria that this bill sets up, and right now North Carolina, which has one of the most aggressive juvenile justice programs, would not qualify.

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 been fascinated by this debate, and a little perplexed. I kind of came in when the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Paul] was making his comments, and noted that there were some striking similarities between what we were debating today and what we debated last week. Last week we were trying to tell our colleagues on the other side, including the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Paul], that if you take a house away from one person and give it to another, you are creating a problem for the one from whom you took it. That is why we said, hey, unless you are creating more housing, every time you take a public housing unit away from the very poor and give it to the working poor you are disadvantaging the very poor and putting them on the street. The gentleman from Texas is not here, but I wanted to tell him that I certainly agree with his notion that if you take a house away from somebody and give it to somebody else, the person you took it from has been disadvantaged, but that was true last week as well as it is this week. It did not change from last week to this week. The same theory applies. It was true then, it is true now. I wanted to tell him that while he may be right that public housing is a problem, we are not talking about public housing now. This is about vouchers, and so we are not talking about public housing projects or public housing communities this week. We had that discussion last week. I certainly want to tell the gentleman from New York [Mr. Lazio], the chairman of the subcommittee, that it is fine for him to talk about local flexibility today, but where was all the local flexibility last week when we were debating this issue, or earlier this week, when we were debating this issue? He values local flexibility now, it seems to me he would have valued it then. But first and foremost, I cannot understand why last week and earlier this week the objective was to come up with a mix, and all of a sudden now we are on the other side of that issue. It is okay to mix in public housing working poor, even if it is at the expense of the very poor, but it is not okay to mix into the voucher program more poor people because that vouchered housing is out in some other parts of the community. If it is a good policy to support mixing income levels, then, my goodness, is it not a good policy running in both directions? It cannot be only a one-way street. I do not understand, Mr. Chairman, why we have gotten ourselves into this, except that again the committee chairman and the subcommittee chairman are defending this bill at all costs, as if it was some perfect vehicle. This bill is not perfect. The problem is we have got a limited number of units and they have to go to somebody. We have a limited number of vouchers and they have to go to somebody. We are trying to figure out some way to get not only poor people, the working poor taken care of, but we are trying to figure out a way to get the very poor taken care of, because if we do not do that, those people are going to end up on the street. They do not have any options. And so while the Kennedy solution is not a perfect solution, the only perfect solution is to come up with more housing units for public housing and more vouchers for nonpublic housing to accommodate all of the people who do not have enough housing. That is the only perfect solution. I would submit to my colleagues that the solution of the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy] is a lot better than the solution that is provided for in the base bill. I encourage my colleagues to support the Kennedy amendment.

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

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I cannot sit here and listen to the chairman of our subcommittee say that with a straight face after the debate we had last week. The essence of this bill is certainly not local flexibility, far from it.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to clarify something that the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum], the chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime, said. He said he had these conferences, hearings all around the country. I think he said he had six of them. I was at one of those hearings myself. The information I recall hearing was almost identical to what the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Sandlin], the juvenile judge, who just ceased being a juvenile judge, said at that hearing. I wanted to yield to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Scott]. He attended almost all of these hearings. My recollection is just different from our chairman's about what people were saying at these hearings. I wondered if the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Scott] might tell us what his recollection of those hearings was.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. What good is the bill if no one qualifies?

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. I thank the gentleman for yielding, Mr. Chairman. Is it not ironic that the gentleman's State qualifies, and no other State in America qualifies?

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

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. If the gentleman will yield on that point, that gets me to another real concern, because we are building all these prisons. I think what ultimately ends up happening is what this bill allows to happen, which is, we will end up putting juveniles in jail with adults, which has been absolutely contrary to policies that we have been supporting. In fact, all the evidence confirms that children who are housed with adults are five times more likely to be sexually assaulted, twice as likely to be beaten by staff, 50 percent more likely to be attacked with a weapon. In 1994, 45 children died while they were confined in State adult prisons or detention facilities, including 12 murders and 16 suicides. I just do not want to receive any more letters like this one. I am not one that usually comes and makes policy by anecdote, but this one I could not resist, because it is from a father. He is describing to me as his Representative the plight of his son. He said, ``My 16-year-old was certified and sentenced to 8 years.'' That means he was certified as an adult. Sentenced to 8 years. This was his first offense. He was being raped, beaten for money or sex too many times. This is in the adult facility. Before this he went to the warden asking for protective measures, only to be laughed at. Finally you get to the bottom line here. His ultimate decision was suicide. So this kid gets convicted, sentenced as an adult, with adults, sexually abused, and ends up committing suicide. That is just not something that we want to have happen based on our policies.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. I would be happy to yield.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. We are down to definitely a maximum of 11. And understand that there are four criteria that a State has to meet to get these funds. What we found out was that North Carolina, as aggressive as we are, as much as North Carolina supports the philosophy of the bill the gentleman from Florida professes to support, that we do not meet three out of the four requirements. We fail on three out of the four requirements. We do not have open juvenile records; we do not allow the prosecutor, by himself, to decide whether to prosecute as an adult, because we think it is reasonable for a judge to make that determination; and we do not sanction parents who fail to supervise their children. We do not punish the parents for that. Those are three of the four requirements and we fail on those three, so we do not get any of the money, even though we have some of the toughest juvenile laws in America.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to correct my colleagues on one point. They keep saying there are 12 States that qualify. I want to assure them that North Carolina was included in the list of States that, according to the report, qualified, but I have a letter from the State of North Carolina in my file----

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Velazquez amendment and urge my colleagues to support the amendment. The bill provides for a minimum rent of $50 per month. Ms. Velazquez's amendment provides for a minimum rent of $25 a month. And I am sure, and I am glad, that most American citizens probably cannot relate to what all this bickering is about. Twenty five dollars a month, $325 a year, is peanuts to most people, and that is fortunate in America. But there are some of us who remember when $325 a year, $25 a month, was a major, major difference between our ability to eat and not eat. And it is important to us to look out for people in our country who for whatever reason, often for reasons not of their own making, they are between jobs, they are down on their luck, so to speak, as we used to say, and they simply do not have the money. So, we are talking about for some people in this country, the issue of whether they have housing or whether they do not have housing, whether we put more people on the street or whether we provide some compassion and provisions for them to have a roof above their heads. For that reason, I want to applaud the gentlewoman from New York, [Ms. Velazquez], for bringing this amendment to us and encourage my colleagues in the House to support the amendment. It will make this bill a better bill.