Mel Watt

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, this is a tremendously difficult issue. I started to stay in my office and punt, and not come over here and talk about it at all. It is difficult because the statistics do indicate that there is a higher rate of recidivism for those people who have committed one offense in this area, and a greater likelihood that some of them will commit another offense. However, I thought it would be a dereliction of my duty as a Member of this body not to point out two very troubling aspects about this bill. First of all, our Constitution says to us that a criminal defendant is presumed innocent until he or she is proven guilty. The underlying assumption of this bill is that once you have committed one crime of this kind, you are presumed guilty for the rest of your life. That, Mr. Speaker, is contrary, whether we like it or not, it is contrary to the constitutional mandates that govern our Nation. We should not be presuming people guilty unless they have committed a crime. Once they have paid their debt to society, they should be allowed to go on with their lives. The second concern I have about this issue is that my colleagues in this body have over and over talked to us about how important States rights are. Yet, in this area, somehow or another we cannot seem to justify allowing States to make their own decisions about whether they want a Megan's law or do not want a Megan's law. All of a sudden, the Big Brother Government must direct the States to do something that is not even necessarily a Federal issue. So those two things lead me to encourage my colleagues to stand up for our Constitution and stand up for States rights and oppose this bill.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, there really is no more vulnerable population in America in terms of being exposed to criminal conduct than the people who live in the lowest-income areas in America, and when we start talking about who is vulnerable, sure, the elderly are vulnerable; sure, children are vulnerable, sure police officers are vulnerable. The list can go on, and on, and on, and on. But there really is no more vulnerable population than the population that lives in areas of our country where the incidence of crime is far above the national average. Mr. Chairman, this kind of illustrates how insane the process is we have embarked upon this evening. If we are going to set out to define who the vulnerable people were in our country--who is vulnerable to crime--we would have started with this amendment that simply says a vulnerable person under this bill is one who lives in a neighborhood where the incidence of violent crime is above the national average. I am the first to stand here, even though it is my amendment, and confess to my colleagues that it makes no sense. But it makes just as much sense to do this in this bill as the bill when we started out as the Frost amendment when he added it, as the Slaughter amendment when she added it, as the Conyers amendment when he added it, as the Stupak amendment when he added it, and my friend from Connecticut, the last amendment, when she added hers. What we are doing is a gross violation of the public safety and the trust that we owe to the citizens in this country. We are talking a very serious issue, and we are politicizing it. We are bringing it in here and saying let us make fun of these things, in effect, because we are in a political year, let us beat on our chest and show America how hard on crime we are,instead of following a responded policy that Republicans and Democrats alike on a bipartisan bases have agreed upon for years. So I offer this amendment to show how slippery that slope is. Where do we draw the line? How do we draw the line? What makes sense on who is vulnerable and who is not vulnerable in our country if we do not get to the underlying cause of violent crime in the first place? Why signal one group out and exclude another? But, most importantly, why do we bring this into this context, into a political context, this serious debate, and take it away from the nonpolitical, reasoned, rational process that we have set up? We are supposed to be setting public policy here. That is what we all were elected to do. And I have heard on this floor tonight people say, ``Okay, well, it sounds good, even if it is unconstitutional, I am going to vote for it if you make me do a recorded vote, because I know that if I don't do it, there are political consequences.''

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

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I just want the Chairman to know what I am opposed to is political posturing, and I think that is what we are doing here, because the response that we got from the Sentencing Commission indicates that this matter has been addressed. We can all kind of go home and run on various things, but our obligation is to make public policy here, and not just stand up and give the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Chrysler] or any other member of this body something to go home and run on.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

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

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I want to address the issue that has been raised by several of my colleagues that this bill is about the U.S. Marshals Service. The reason there is no debate about the bill itself is that it is an absolutely noncontroversial bill, and is brought to this floor for debate simply so my Republican colleagues can say, ``We brought an open rule to the floor, and you can amend it in any way you want.'' Well, we want to amend this bill. We want to amend it by attaching a minimum wage provision that will raise the wages of the American people. So what is their response? The first time we say, ``Hey, we have an amendment,'' they say, ``Oh, no, this is not an open rule. You can't amend this bill that way. It is not even germane to talk about it on the floor.'' They do not want to talk about it. You just heard the reason they do not want to talk about it, because you have got a bunch of extreme people, some of whom believe there ought not even be a minimum wage in this country, that people ought to be allowed to work for 5 cents an hour if the market dictates that. They do not care about what kind of conditions people are living in, in this country. All they care about is supporting their corporate, rich constituencies. They talk about supporting a minimum wage, as long as they are on the television. They talk about supporting a gas tax cut, as long as they are on the television. What they will not admit is if we defeat the previous question on this rule, we can talk about both of those things in the context of this bill. Democracy is about debate. Bring it off the television and onto the floor of Congress and let us debate it. Let us defeat the previous question on this rule.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, April 30, I was unavoidably detained and missed rollcall vote No. 138. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes'' on rollcall vote No. 138.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I want to first thank my colleague, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Frost], from the Committee on Rules, for being generous with his time, because I may not have time on the debate of the bill itself to make some of the points that I would like to make. Mr. Speaker, I am as upset about the Trade Center bombing and the Oklahoma City bombing as anybody in America. I do not want anybody to be misunderstanding what I am saying. But we are about to perpetrate a fraud on the American people, because this bill is not any longer about terrorism, the bill is about matters that go well, well beyond terrorism and we are, unfortunately, using these two terrorist acts as the predicate for undoing some important constitutional protections. I will not even spend my time talking about the death penalty provisions in this bill. What I will spend my time talking about is the importance of the Great Writ of Habeas Corpus, which most people are not going to understand, because a lot of people think habeas corpus is about the death penalty. It is not. Only 1 percent or less of habeas corpus petitions involve the death penalty at all. That is, less than 100 out of 10,000 habeas corpus petitions involve the death penalty. Habeas corpus appeals have been brought by gun owners who feel that they have been unjustly imprisoned for exercising their second amendment rights. They have been brought by pro-life protesters, who feel that they have been unjustly imprisoned by their first amendment rights being suspended. They have been brought by people who have been protesting on the pro-life side. They span the whole philosophical gamut of our Constitution. Mr. Speaker, this is a constitutional attack that we are engaged in. First, petitioners are limited to one petition, 1 year of exhausting their appeals. By imposing this limitation, important new evidence, even new compelling evidence of one's innocence, can no longer be offered in a court of law to prove one's innocence. Compelling new evidence of one's innocence can no longer be offered, after that one bite within 1 year. We have seen the advances that our country has made in DNA, and DNA evidence is now coming forward to reveal that people who have been in jail for 10 years, 15 years, are being held unjustly, without any contradiction, and we are willing to compromise the most basic thing, innocence, for political expediency. Habeas corpus is only in the Federal Constitution, yet this bill says that the Federal courts must defer to State courts in the interpretation. That is unprecedented. Never has it happened in this country. Sandra Day O'Connor, not one of your liberal bastions, and you can call me anything, but she is certainly not there, she said that the Federal courts must presume the correctness of the State courts' legal conclusions on habeas, or that State courts' incorrect legal determination has ever been allowed to stand because it was reasonable. What is a reasonable, unreasonable, interpretation of the Constitution? We have to defer only if the State court does something out of the ordinary, or unreasonable. It is the Federal court's prerogative and responsibility to determine our Federal constitutional rights. Mr. Speaker, even Justice Rehnquist recently said that ``Judicial independence is one of the crown jewels of our system of government.'' Mr. Speaker, we cannot sacrifice our constitutional principles because we are angry at people for bombing. The constitutional principles that I am arguing for are for every single American, and the minute we start compromising them to get terrorists, to get anyone, we must compromise them for everyone. Think about the number of cases in our judicial system that involve terrorist acts. They are few. We get angry about them. But think, on the other side, that our Constitution was written not to protect those people, but to protect every American. We are sacrificing our own individual liberties and our own constitutional rights for the political expediency that goes with passage of this bill.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, all of those of us who were friends of Ron Brown certainly have their own personal stories, and I have mine, but I will not take the time to dwell in personal stories. I simply wanted to be one of the Members who rose in support of this resolution and to express my condolences to the Brown family and the families of all the other brave Americans who lost their lives in this tragic accident.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I just need 10 seconds for the truth. The gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde], I am sure will admit that there is a provision in this bill that allows the consideration of secret evidence that the defendant will never even know about and can never refute. That is absolutely counter to everything that our country stands for.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker and my colleagues, I hate terrorists. They are the scum of the Earth. There is nothing lower than a terrorist. They are worse even then people who shoot folks in the back. And if this bill were limited to terrorists, emotionally I would be doing exactly what my colleagues are proposing to do here. But this bill is not limited to terrorists; it goes well beyond terrorists to common ordinary citizens. I read recently with horror a story of parents who, because their child got involved in something they did not like, they locked the child in the room for days at a time. And I got outraged by it. I think a number of us read that story and got outraged. This goes beyond that because what we are doing is locking other children, who had nothing to do with what we are here to talk about, in our constitutional closet with unconstitutional means today, and we are doing it in the name of combating terrorism when we know full well that there is a significant dislike between the two things. Only 100 out of 10,000 habeas corpus issues come from death penalty cases. Even less come from terrorist cases. Yet this bill is not limited either to death penalty cases or to terrorist cases. It is depriving every single American, every single child, every single one of us, of our constitutional protections of habeas corpus. The chairman asked the question that Abraham Lincoln asked: Can a country conceived in liberty long endure? The ones that do not endure, Mr. Speaker, are the ones who concoct secret courts and deny their citizens the right to confront their accusers, and deny their citizens the right to contest unjust imprisonments, even in the face of compelling evidence of innocence. That is what this bill does. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves today for the American people.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee].

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for sharing in this special order tribute to Ron Brown. Mr. Speaker, I want to spend a minute or two in this final part of the 5-minute period just saying a couple of things, more from the heart. First, Mr. Speaker, I want to express my condolences to Alma Brown and to the entire Brown family, and to the families of those others who perished so tragically in this crash. This was a devastating loss for our country and for me personally. Second, I cannot help but recall the very last time that I saw Ron Brown, which was in the hall in the Rayburn Building. I had been involved in a hearing and was rushing in one direction. Ron had been called before a committee of the House to testify at another hearing. He was coming out of that and was rushing off to another place. Despite the fact that both of us were in a hurry and headed in different directions, the characteristic that always came through from Ron Brown surfaced. That was the ability, for whatever small period of time he had, to look at you in the eye and make you feel that you were the most important person in life at that moment. We spent a few moments together, and that came through to me. That is the memory that I will always have of Ron Brown. Mr. Speaker, I would like to express my condolences to Alma and the rest of the Brown family and to the families of those who perished tragically in the plane crash in Croatia. The outpouring of support that we have seen since Ron's passing is a testament to the life he led and the impact that he had on people. Since his passing there have been two things that have been said about Ron most frequently. They are that Ron Brown had a lot of friends and that he had a tremendous amount of political acumen. I knew both of those things were true. Almost 2 weeks after Secretary Brown's passing I think it is necessary for us to continue to honor his life and celebrate his legacy. Ron Brown taught us about the importance of providing jobs for our citizens through economic expansion and ensuring equality of opportunity so that all could share in the fruits of economic expansion. Expanding Economic Opportunity Ron Brown knew that the success of the American economy in the 21st century would depend upon expanding economic opportunity for all of our people. In a time where the gap between the rich and the poor is ever- widening, we must see to it that our economy creates jobs which provide living wages. We must also see to it that the good which flows from economic prosperity is shared among all of our people. Equality of Opportunity Ron Brown knew that our schools and our workplaces should be a reflection of America and should ensure equality of opportunity. He saw to it that his Commerce Department reflected the racial, ethnic and gender differences of the taxpayers on whose behalf his Department worked. Ron worked to provide opportunities for others who might not have been given the chance. Ron Brown knew that there were many more Ron Browns with intelligence, ambition and the will to succeed. Ron Brown gave them an opportunity to shine. They were African-American, white, Latino, Asian-American, they were among those who accompanied him on the mission to Bosnia. We must continue to work to see to it that America fulfills this promise of equality which Ron Brown exemplified. As we honor our late Secretary of Commerce we must not forget these things which his life has taught us so well and we must work to continue his legacy. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio for providing this opportunity to do this special order before his special order comes forward.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida, Mrs. Carrie Meek.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I left this body earlier and I went and watched these proceedings on television for a while to try to get a flavor of what was going on here. And as I listened, I heard my colleagues on the Republican side come to the floor and say that this is about taxes, taxes, taxes. I think they are missing the point. We can debate taxes when we talk about whether to raise taxes or lower taxes. This is about whether to amend the Constitution of the United States. This is about fundamental fairness. Lord knows, I have been in on the losing end of a lot of votes since I have come to this House, both when we were in the majority and during this term when we are now in the minority. But on every single one of those votes, almost without exception, it has been by majority rule, because that is the basis on which our constitutional democracy is founded. It is one person, one vote. Every single Member of this House gets sent to this body by the same number of people. That is why we redistrict the country every 10 years after every census, to guarantee that each individual citizen in this country, in this body, the people's body, has one individual who represents their interests and that individual's vote is equivalent to the vote of every other individual in this body. So, this is not about taxes, taxes, taxes, my friends. This is about the fundamental rights and belief in democracy. This is about majority rule. And you all seem to have missed that point. You say that you believe in conservative values. But four times during this session of Congress you have come in to attack the Constitution. I am beginning to believe that you do not believe in the Constitution at all. We should defeat this insane amendment to the Constitution and to the fundamental rights that we all should believe in and support.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time, and I am reluctant to get into this high-powered debate. But I do sit on the Committee on the Judiciary, and I sit on the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, and I will tell my colleagues that this bill has not come to either one of those committees for hearings or consideration. It was simply brought to the floor so that we could deal with it on April 15, tax day, so that it could be the backdrop for a political debate on an issue that really needs substantive deliberate consideration. Mr. Speaker, Members may think that we are playing games when we talk about representation and majority rule, but that is what the entire concept of our country is based on. Each one of us, as Members of this body, is sent here to represent a different constituency, to bring our input to bear from that constituency on every problem that comes to America. When we talk about doing away with the concept of majority rule, what we are doing is undermining the basic fabric and principle of the Constitution and the democracy that we are sent here to represent. So this whole notion that we can take one-third or one- fourth of our Members and tie up the whole process and make them a majority is counter democratic. Mr. Speaker, I have been arguing with my colleagues all this term that this whole concept of undermining the Constitution is not a conservative concept. Conservative government is based on the Constitution, and not withstanding that, these revolutionaries who call themselves conservatives have four times, during the course of this Congress, come to us and said let us do away with the Constitution that we believe in so dearly, that we are sent here to preserve. Mr. Speaker, I think we ought to vote down this rule and vote down the bill and send it back for a proper consideration and deliberation.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to House conference bill H.R. 956, the conference report on the Products Liability Reform Act. Folks are on the floor today blaming lawyers for all the ills in America today. And this conference report is suppose to protect America from these greedy trial lawyers. Well, for the record I want you all to know that prior to coming to this place, I practiced law for 22 years and I'm proud of that and I'm proud of the contributions of the bar in shaping America and making it a better place for all of us. People often quote the line from Shakespeare's ``Henry VI,'' ``First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.'' Sounds funny out of context. But they don't tell you about the scene. It's a scene where 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 stand in their way--you got it, the lawyers. Think about that the next time you're tempted to use this quote. Calling someone a hypocrite might be funny too, if it's taken out of context. And yesterday, we spent an hour debating whether it was proper debate for one of my Republican colleagues to call Democrats hypocrites. Well, I want to be careful not to call any one or any party a hypocrite, even though the ruling of the Chair yesterday confirmed that I would be within my rights to do so. I would, however, like to pose the question in the context of this debate on product liability reform: Exactly who is being hypocritical? Who is being hypocritical when they claim they want to stop the explosion of individual product liability claims so that you can alleviate the backlog on civil court dockets when, in fact, the backlog has been cased by an explosion of civil claims filed by big businesses against other big businesses over commercial disputes? My 22 years of practicing law showed me, and the statistics confirm it, that antitrust and commercial litigation is getting longer and longer, more and more complex and taking up more and more court time. At the same time, individuals are being squeezed out and priced out of courts. Courts are no longer for the people. They can't afford them. Who is being hypocritical when they preach about personal responsibility for individual citizens but then absolve corporate citizens from responsibility for injuries they cause, even when the corporations make a calculated business decision to do so? Who is being hypocritical when they claim to be champions of States' rights and a limited Federal Government on one hand, but then fight for this legislation, which would preempt the laws of 50 States which have developed over hundreds of years on the other hand? Finally, who is being hypocritical when they claim to support individual rights even though they're supporting a bill that will severely limit an individual's access to justice? That's what this bill does. Vote ``no'' on this bill. Fight hypocrisy.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, the point I wanted to make is the House passed this habeas reform in another context. That bill has been passed by the House and can stand on its own. We have been under the impression that this was an antiterrorism bill. I am surprised that the gentleman is not anxious to get some of the antiterrorism provisions back into the bill.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank my colleague, the gentlewoman from Idaho [Mrs. Chenoweth], for joining me as a cosponsor of this amendment. Mr. Chairman, there is no Constitution which protects liberals or conservatives. It protects every single citizen, it confirms the concept that democracy is about government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Habeas corpus confirms the proposition that our Constitution and democracy is about government of the people, by the people, and for the people; it is our buffer between ourselves and the government that we have constituted. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I want to be clear, I have never said habeas is completely irrelevant to terrorism.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from Idaho [Mrs. Chenoweth], and I ask unanimous consent that she be allowed to control the time.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee]. (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers], the distinguished ranking member.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I just want to point out as I read this amendment, it is not limited to any Federal issue. In the last crime bill that this body passed, we made carjacking, whether the car went interstate or not interstate, a Federal offense. We made drive-by shooting, whether the bullet was fired across State lines or not, a Federal offense. Now, apparently under this amendment, we would make any multiple killing, manslaughter, any kind of circumstances, a Federal offense. Where are the people who for so long in this body have been advocating for States rights? Where have you gone? This is not an issue that ought to be a Federal issue. If we are going to do it for Federal offenses, at least limit it to Federal offenses and not State offenses.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to make it plain to the gentleman that what I am complaining about is not the Federal offenses, but there is no reason that we ought to say to the State of New York, which has their own legislative body and has, based on the gentleman's party's proposition, a right as a State to make its own laws, that every multiple killing in the State of New York ought to carry the death penalty, if the State of New York has made a decision of its own that they will have no death penalty in State offenses. That is the point that I am making. This is way, way too broad, and it is totally inconsistent with the philosophies that I have heard espoused from the other side of this body consistently during this term of Congress.