Mel Watt

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Go right ahead.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Colorado for yielding time. I rise in support of sustaining the veto of the President on this bill. Mr. Speaker there is a tendency on the part of some of my colleagues to try to divide folks into groups, based on their vote on this issue, of whether they support life or do not support life. I respectfully submit that no Member of this body supports death over life; that there are always difficult choices on a number of these votes. But we heard evidence submitted at hearings in the Committee on the Judiciary that indicated and confirmed that serious medical jeopardy can result to women, and that in some cases this procedure is the only procedure that is available in late-term abortion to save the life of the mother, to preserve the ability of the mother to have children in the future, to protect the health of a prospective mother in those situations. And when that occurs, to put the doctor and that mother in the position of saying, ``You will be a criminal if you exercise your right to protect yourself from serious health conditions, or to protect your reproductive capacity in the future, or protect even your life,'' I think is irresponsible. This is not, as some folks would suggest, an easy decision. It is always a difficult decision. And the very people who are always talking about keeping the Government out of our personal lives it seems to me are the ones that are on the opposite side of this issue, because I do want the Government to leave some personal decisions to the individual American women and citizens of this country. And one of those decisions is when it is proper to save one's own life to, save the ability to have children in the future. That ought to be a personal decision made by the woman and her physician. I want to make one final point that suggests, in the closing days of this Congress, that this is really not about this bill at all; it is really about politics. The President vetoed this bill quite some time ago. It has been sitting over there in the Committee on the Judiciary, waiting. Well, what has it been waiting for? It could have come out in 2 days to have this vote. It could have come out in 2 weeks to have this vote. But it just sat there. Mr. Speaker, when does it come out? Right before the election, so that somebody can inject the politics of the moment into a serious public policy discussion. This is about politics, my colleagues. It is about choice of a woman to protect her own health and safety and her own life. It is about keeping the Government out of our own personal lives, and I think we ought to sustain the President's veto on this bill.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for yielding this time to me, and I may not take 2 minutes. I want to express my disappointment, Mr. Speaker, that we are missing an opportunity to deal with a serious issue by playing politics with it. If we had come together and tried to deal with this issue in a way that the American people deserve to have it dealt with, I think we would have a much, much better bill on the floor today rather than this bill, which all of us will go out and say deals with terrorism but all of us, deep in our hearts and minds, really know does not serve the purpose. The litmus test for terrorism legislation, it seems to me, if we are responding to what happened in New York and what happened in Atlanta, is, can we craft some legislation that would have had an impact had it been in place at the time those tragedies occurred? I do not think we can say yes to that inquiry when we look at this legislation. The part of the legislation that, had we put it in the bill, would have dealt with the Atlantic situation, would have been the tagging or taggants which would help identify the powder that was used in the Atlanta situation, and we have the capacity to do that. We are missing that opportunity by saying we are going to put this aside and do a study on this issue which has been studied time after time after time. We should be disappointed in ourselves in this legislation. I am not going to vote against the legislation. But it is so far below what we could have gotten if we had just worked together in this body.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule, and as a member of the Committee on the Judiciary, this whole process is offensive. The first bill that we saw, which was marked in the bottom left corner as having come out of the computer at 4:04 this morning, we received at about 10 o'clock this morning. This bill which is under consideration now is marked in the lower left corner 12:51 p.m. today. That is less than an hour and a half ago. Now, one of the earlier speakers has got up and said to us and to the American people that this bill represents a frontal attack on terrorism. My friends, this bill is not a frontal attack on terrorism. This bill is a charade. We are already engaged in a crisis of confidence of the American people in our ability to deal with terrorism, and this process further undermines the confidence of the public in our ability and willingness to deal with terrorism. It allows no amendments; it allows no input, and it is a charade. The American people ought to ask themselves, and use as a standard for evaluating this bill, is there anything in this bill that would have dealt with, had the bill been in place, would have dealt with the Flight 800 in New York, or the bombing that occurred in Atlanta? There is not a thing here in this bill that would have addressed either one of those. In fact, the thing that would have dealt with the bombing in Atlanta at the Olympics, the tagging of explosives, has been completely removed, except to study the issue, as if we have never studied the issue before. Mr. Speaker, this is an abomination. It is a charade. We ought to reject this rule and we ought to strongly consider voting against the bill.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday July 10, 1996, I was granted a leave of abence and I missed a series of votes. On rollcall vote number 295, I would have voted no. On rollcall vote number 296, I would have voted no. On rollcall vote number 297, I would have voted yes. On rollcall vote number 298, I would have voted yes. On rollcall vote number 299, I would have voted no.

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 withdraw my reservation of objection.

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

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Reserving the right to object, Mr. Speaker, I wanted to do so to heap further praise on the chairman of the committee and on the ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers], for the haste with which they have moved this legislation along, and also to heap additional praise on the Senate for doing what I think is a major improvement in the bill that had previously passed on the House side. The Senate has taken a good idea and made it surprisingly and pleasingly better than we started with. There is one reservation that I have about the way we are doing this. I wanted to express that without objecting to the unanimous-consent request. That is, the disappointment that I am sure that all of our Members will feel at not having had the opportunity, because of this process, to vote unanimously in support of this resolution, to send another resounding signal to all Americans that this kind of conduct, church burnings, is not to be tolerated in our country, and this process is depriving us of having the opportunity to be able to cast a recorded vote. But I understand the reason why. The reason is that these two gentlemen, the chairman of the committee, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde], and the ranking member, understand that this is important to get this legislation passed and to the President immediately, and we are about to go home for a break, and we need to move this legislation along.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the chairman of the committee, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde], and the ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers], for proposing this legislation, and encourage my colleagues to vote unanimously in support of it. There are two important reasons for this legislation, the first of which is a practical reason. When I appeared on the scene at Matthews Merkland, and the investigation was proceeding of that church burning in Charlotte, NC, we had representatives of the Federal Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms division, we had representatives of the State Bureau of Investigation, we had representatives of the local law enforcement officials, and representatives of the local fire department. But for the fact that that church had been completely destroyed, there is some question about whether the Federal authorities could have been there at all. If the amount of damages had been minimal, there would have been some question about whether they could have even gone to investigate the fire, despite the terrible nature of it and everybody's suspicion that it could have been racially motivated. So this legislation, on a practical level, will get us beyond that. It was a wonderful sight to see all of the law enforcement authorities there in a spirit of cooperation, trying to bring their resources to bear on this tragedy, and in that particular situation it led to a very quick arrest. The second important reason is a symbolic reason. That is that we need to make a statement of our outrage about these church burnings. This legislation will enable us to make that statement to the American people that this kind of conduct is totally outside the bounds, is unacceptable in a democratic society. I encourage my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I rise in support of the bill. This is a simple bipartisan bill that is intended to make the Federal Anti-car Theft Program work better. It has the support of the National Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, the Clinton administration, the automobile industry, and the auto insurance industry. In 1992, Congress passed the Anti-car Theft Act in response to spiraling auto theft in America. Among other things, that law set up two national registers of information--one dealing with stolen parts, and another dealing with car titles. The stolen parts register was assigned to the Department of Justice, and the national titling register to the Department of Transportation. This bill deals with the national titling register. The national titling register will be an important tool to stop a practice known as ``washing'' the titles of stolen cars. Right now, car thieves can steal a car in one State, then take it to another State and by using criminal paper-shuffling, get a new washed title for the stolen car. As surprising as it may seem, there is presently no central place against which a State can check the bona fides of a title from another State before it issues a new one. Most checking of titles now is done after the fact, by mail, using paper records, and is not very effective. The central title register is therefore a crucial step toward stopping interstate movement of stolen cars. Unfortunately, experience has shown since 1992 that the Department of Transportation is not the best place for establishing such a register. The register is primarily a law enforcement tool, better suited to the Department of Justice, in addition, the Department of Justice already has access to data systems that can be adapted to include titling information. Recognizing that reality, all parties concerned have agreed that responsibility for this national title register should be shifted from the Department of Transportation to the Department of Justice. This bill does that. I urge my colleagues to support it. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Weller]. (Mr. WELLER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my colleague from Oklahoma and my colleague from North Carolina for bringing this resolution forward. I tell my colleagues that I worshiped on Sunday in the church that burned in Charlotte, NC, and I want to lift up two quick messages from the minister's speech that day. He said unequivocally to the people who are doing these burnings, ``You can destroy the building, but you cannot destroy the church.'' Second, he said to his members, ``We have got to find a way to find the good in this and to rise above this and to maintain the values that we hold dear.'' I hope all of us will keep those two things in mind as we condemn these church burnings and as we all vote, hopefully unanimously, in support of this resolution.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, my colleagues, I am not a member of the committee of jurisdiction for this bill, and I do not come to the floor often to talk about matters involving international security. Most of my time is consumed with domestic issues and legal issues and banking issues because I serve on those committees. I do not come to the floor this time to talk about the technicalities of the CIA's budget. I have not been upstairs, into the secret room, to review the details of that budget. Mr. Chairman, I come to talk about ordinary common sense, which is what budgeting is about. I come to talk about the setting of priorities, which is what budgeting is about. And I cannot believe that at a time when we are talking about cutting every single program that affects the domestic security of our Nation that, given choices that we must make, we could be talking about raising and increasing the level of funding for the CIA's budget by 5 percent. At a time when we are talking about balancing the Federal budget and doing much of it on the backs of the American people who are most vulnerable, I cannot believe that we are talking about increasing the budget for the Central Intelligence Agency by 5 percent. So this is about common sense and priority-setting. There are children who are starving in this country. There are children who are under-educated in this country. There are children who do not know where their next meal is coming from and do not qualify for the school lunch program because we do not have enough funds to make that possible. There are elderly people who need health care. There are Head Start programs that need to be funded. And when we make the choice to devote more of our resources to funding the Central Intelligence Agency, we do so at the expense of every single one of those programs. So, Mr. Chairman, I want to appeal to my colleagues in the wake of these past three votes that have gone down that deprive the American people of even basic knowledge about what we are even spending on the CIA's activities, something that I personally think is sinister and unacceptable, to at least bring a level of reasonableness to this debate and to this vote in terms of the priorities we are setting for our country. I cannot believe that we do not have higher priorities for whatever amount of money it is we are debating here; I am told it is over a billion dollars that is at play in this amendment alone. And given a choice between spying on somebody, even if it is for worthy objectives, and I have no problem with that, or feeding our children and educating our children and providing for the health care and security of our people right here in our own country, I beg and plead with my colleagues to make the priority our children and our domestic programs.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, today we are going to see the rest of the story, the rest of this extreme agenda that the Republican leadership has been playing out all this term of Congress. We have seen it in Medicare, we have seen it in an erosion of occupational safety, we have seen it in an effort to allow the big cats to raid pension plans, we have seen it in wage and hour laws changes, and today we see the rest of the story: They are coming today to try to do away with the minimum wage. Now they are talking about giving a minimum wage increase, but the truth of the matter is this bill will attempt to repeal the minimum wage for three-fourths, 75 percent, in fact, of the companies in this country, and that is outrageous and unacceptable and extreme. The rest of the iceberg will be seen today.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I want to go back to this point about whether this is, in fact, a minimum wage bill or is it a doing away with the minimum wage bill? Because at the end of the day all of my colleagues need to understand this: There are 75 percent of the businesses in this country which have gross incomes of less than $500,000 a year. Those businesses employ over 10 million people, and for those people, this bill would do away with the minimum wage, do away with overtime. No such thing as overtime pay for those anymore. So, I hope the gentleman who was up here talking about this as a minimum wage bill will understand that for those 10 million people this is not a minimum wage bill; this is a bill that does away with the minimum wage, does away with any payment for them for even overtime work that they do.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Yes, Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have the gentleman yield. What about all those new employees?

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from Virginia for yielding time for the purposes of debate on this important resolution. Mr. Speaker, the truth of the matter is that resolutions of this kind tend to have no substantive value, so quite often I just ignore them and keep going. But this time, this resolution was introduced by my good friend from New York [Mr. Houghton], and it started me thinking that while there is no substantive content to the resolution, it does give us an opportunity to do some important things related to democracy, and, aside from the partisanship that quite often exists in this body, it gives us time to debate, in fact discuss, the merits of democracy in this world, and to talk about some of the value that we place in democracy and the value of a democratic election. It is hard for us to imagine in this country a country that can go 30 years without having a democratic election. We take the ability to stand on this floor and outside this building and say what we want for granted. We take the democratic process and democratic elections for granted sometimes. But the value of democracy should never be assumed. It is captured quite eloquently by the gentleman from New York [Mr. Houghton] in is ``Dear Colleague'' about this resolution, in which he says, ``This is worthy of our consideration and important to the United States' national interest of seeing democracy triumph over tyranny around the world.'' The people of Sierra Leone are eager to follow us down the path of democracy, and we forget that so often we are trying to get people to follow us down that path, because so often we dwell on the negative aspects of our democracy and forget that, as one person said, democracy is the worst form of government that we can have, except all the other forms of government. There are two other things that I want to cover very quickly, and that is democracy is not easy in other parts of the world, and there are challenges that democracies face around the world. We ought to take every opportunity to encourage and congratulate other countries who are following us down this path. So I want to applaud this resolution for that purpose. Finally, there are adjoining countries, countries that adjoin Sierra Leone or are in close proximity to them, where democracies are now struggling, the country of Nigeria, the country of Liberia. Both have ongoing struggles that illustrate better than I could ever talk about the challenges that face democracies in this world. So if we can encourage Sierra Leone to expand this concept to those adjoining countries, to those democracies that are facing challenges, then that is an important objective that we ought try to support. I want to congratulate the gentleman from New York [Mr. Houghton], and encourage my colleagues to support this important resolution.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, with all respect to my friend, the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Hayworth], I think he is still giving his campaign speech from 2 years ago. Every budget that is coming to this floor will balance the Federal budget, so this is not about whether we balance the Federal budget or not. We have already passed that point. The question is what kind of priorities we set while we balance the Federal budget. Do we continue to build up a military that is already spending 100 times, 100 times more than any other country in the world? And do we do that at the expense of ordinary, average working people who need health care, who need education, who need the environment protected, who need the services that we provide to the elderly? Mr. Chairman, anybody ought to understand that this is not about whether we balance the budget or not. It is about the priorities we set while we engage in that process. Mr. Chairman, I hope my friend will understand that that debate is over.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. My good friend's comments, the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Bliley], about trial lawyers reminded me of the saying that we always use when we are condemning lawyers: First thing we do, let us kill all the lawyers. I want to remind my colleagues that that comment we often use comes from Shakespeare, ``Henry VI.'' Mr. Speaker, in the sense in which that line is used, a corrupt king and his followers are trying to figure out how to suspend everybody's freedoms and rights, and the only folks who could possibly stop that from happening? My colleagues guessed it: the lawyers. So kill all the lawyers, if my colleagues want, but what they are trying to do in this case is to stand between the Republicans and the suspensions of the rights of the people, the people in this country. As the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Markey] has indicated there is no litigation explosion in product liability cases. The litigation explosion is in business versus business cases. We have talked a lot about, in this Congress, personal responsibility. Punitive damages, and having individuals have the right to file lawsuits when they are injured by faulty products, is about corporate responsibility. If we favor personal responsibility, should we not also favor corporate responsibility? And what about States' rights? I have talked about that before. My colleagues have talked about it and say they supported it. But for years and years and years, product liability has been determined under State law, and here we are, federalizing product liability.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

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

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, basically what we have done in the bill is to acknowledge, as the original bill does, that the Federal Government cannot alone accomplish all of the housing objectives that we all have as a Nation. We have added to that the goal, the specific language that is in the original Watt amendment, which says that our Nation should promote the goal of providing decent and affordable housing, and the rest of the language that was in the original amendment, and we have acknowledged that the Federal Government can pursue this policy. So I think all our hearts and minds are at peace on this.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.