Paul Wellstone

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, may I ask my colleague from Virginia--I wasn't clear; he was about to table the Rockefeller amendment. I ask my colleagues whether I could have 2 minutes in support.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank my colleagues. Before we have the voice vote, I thank Charlotte Oldham-Moore of my staff for doing a lot of work, and I thank the people around the country for helping us.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I am pleased not to have a call for the yeas and nays, but rather a voice vote.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, this amendment is simple and it is important. It calls on the Defense Department to issue new guidelines that will strengthen the privacy rights of victims of domestic violence who are spouses and children of our military employees. Just a little bit of background. And it calls for this to be done in an expeditious manner, I think within a 9-month period. Mr. President, domestic violence--actually, I am sorry to say on the floor of the Senate--is a huge problem and a huge issue in our country. About every 15 seconds a woman is battered in her home. A home should be a safe place, but all too often it is not. And this affects women and children. And I say this is nationwide, because I would not want any colleague to think that the focus here is just on the military. Battering is one of the single greatest causes of injury to women. According to the Department of Justice statistics, of the 1.4 million hospital emergency room admissions in 1994, about a quarter of them were treated for injuries from domestic violence. The prevalence of violence against women associated with the U.S. Armed Forces is deeply disturbing. The dependent victims of violent crimes in the Armed Forces are particularly vulnerable due to isolation, the mobile lifestyle, and financial security--some of which we are trying to deal with in our legislation. The Department of Defense data estimates that on average 23.2 per 1,000 spouses of military personnel experienced domestic violence in the last 5 years. According to an Army survey released to Time Magazine, spousal abuse is occurring in one of every three Army families each year. So unfortunately it is a problem. Here is the problem that we are trying to rectify: In civilian society we recognize the confidentiality of communications so that if a woman sees a doctor or she sees someone else, a mental health worker or someone she needs to see to give her help, there is confidentiality. But we do not have the same confidentiality for spouses of our Armed Forces personnel and their children. And so what we are trying to do is to make sure that we have the same guarantees of confidentiality. When you do not have the confidentiality--and, again, we believe and we agree that our military is absolutely correct that when it comes to those that are enlisted in the military, there is a problem with confidentiality because you want to know what is going on with that soldier if you are about to put that soldier in a combat situation. But I am not talking actually about the military; I am talking about the spouses and the children. We want to make sure that the victims are not retraumatized. What happens too often, I say to my colleagues, right now--and I think there is an acknowledgement of this; I think this amendment is a positive step; I really do--what happens all too often is that many women are afraid to step forward because the conversation they have with their doctor, or wherever they go, is not confidential; it becomes public, it becomes released to too many people. And therefore what happens is she has to worry that her husband may, in fact, take action against her. So many women are afraid. They are afraid to tell anyone about what is happening to them. They are afraid to tell anyone that they themselves are being battered or that their children are being battered. So let me just kind of conclude with an example. Annette--I do not want to use any full names--is the former wife of a naval chief petty officer and the mother of two young children. She was routinely beaten by him from June 1994 through 1996. Military protective orders and civilian restraining orders failed to protect her and her children. Her ex-husband was charged with 21 offenses by the U.S. Navy, including eight assault charges involving Annette. He was ultimately court- martialed. During the military's investigation of abuse, she was interviewed in the presence of her batterer, and her batterer's command was notified, which resulted in a brutal escalation of the violence toward Annette. At his court-martial proceedings, her dating and marital history were reviewed publicly by prosecuting attorneys. We need to ensure that military wives and dependents like Annette are given the same rights of privacy and confidentiality as civilian victims. That is what this is about. It calls on the Defense Department to basically issue some guidelines that will give these military wives and dependents the same rights of privacy and confidentiality that any other civilian victim has right now. This will make an enormous difference, I say to my colleagues. We bring these amendments to the floor. I am so pleased it is supported. I thank both my colleagues for this. I certainly hope that we will keep this in conference committee. I hope I will have their support because this really will make an important difference. It is really very important. I thank Senator Murray. I hope she will have time to come down. I thank both my colleagues for their support. (Disturbance in the Visitors' Galleries.)

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of myself and Senator Murray.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, first of all, let me thank both my colleagues, the Senator from Virginia and the Senator from Michigan. Amendment No. 16 (Purpose: To provide for enhanced protections of the confidentiality of records of family advocacy services and other professional support services relating to incidents of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, and intrafamily abuse)

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. Chief Justice, I want to explain my views publicly on the impeachment articles sent to us by a partisan vote of the House of Representatives, and on the removal of the President from office which they would prompt. First, I am shocked and saddened that our Republican colleagues persistently have blocked our efforts to have open and public debates and discussion in our deliberations in this matter, and most especially in our deliberations on the final votes on whether to remove the President. Whatever their motives, this is not what a free, representative, accountable democracy is all about. Simply publishing partial transcripts of our proceedings, which include only some formal statements made by senators and not the deliberations themselves--and doing so only at the end of the trial--is, in my view, a great leap sideways. I also want to describe what I think--and frankly have thought for months--is a more appropriate mechanism to express our disapproval of the President's behavior: a tough, bipartisan censure resolution which makes clear our contempt for what he's done in lying to his family, his friends, his staff, and the American people about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky; and the disgrace which those lies have placed upon his Presidency for all time. In recent months, hundreds of Constitutional scholars--including many respected conservatives--have argued that, in their view, the Constitution does allow this censure vote; the Senate's precedents allow it; we have done it before. It's true that the Constitution is silent on the question of what else we can do in addition to removal; it is also true that the Constitution in no way prevents us from moving forward on censure. The argument that we are somehow blocked Constitutionally from censuring the President is contrived, and fraught with partisan pleading. Even so, if we are ultimately blocked by a filibuster from a vote on censure, the President will not have escaped the judgment of Congress or the American people. Any Senator, in any venue they choose, can offer their own forceful, public censure of the President, repeatedly if they like. I certainly have. A corporate expression of the Senate's condemnation of the President's actions, while of course preferable, is not essential, for all of us already have made known our views. We all condemn the President's behavior. It has been said so many times, it hardly bears repeating, were it not for the wilful, partisan attempts to mischaracterize a vote against removal as a vote to condone what the President has done. That is, of course, preposterous; the President has been impeached by the House. That has only happened once before in our history. The trial has gone forward, and every member of this body has condemned the President's behavior as unacceptable, meriting only scorn and rebuke. It is clear that the President already has paid a terrible price in the eyes of history, not least in the shame and humiliation that this permanent mark on his presidency has caused him, his family, his friends and supporters, and his Administration. The message is clear, including to our young people: When one fails to tell the truth, there are real, sometimes even awful consequences and costs. The President's behavior was shameful, despicable, unworthy, a disgrace to his office. And in this long, sordid, painful process, I believe he has been held accountable for what he has done. Pursued overzealously by Kenneth Starr and by House Judiciary Committee Republicans, the articles were then approved by the full House in a grossly unfair and partisan proceeding that was destructive both of our polity and our politics. All of us should be deeply troubled by it, and all should work together to put it behind us. In my view, these allegations should never have reached the Senate. But they have, and the trial has now been held. It has changed few, if any, minds on the basic facts, on how the law should be applied to those facts, or on the high bar for removal set by the Constitution. Finally we bring to a close this long, sad year of investigations, hearings, and speeches. It has been a painful year. In many ways, it has been a lost year. Think of what we might have done this past year, had we not done this. Think of the news we could have made, had not all seen this. Think of the good laws that we could have written, had not this stood in the way. Think of the opportunities lost, the hopes staved off. We must ask with Langston Hughes, ``What happens to a dream deferred?'' Sadly, so many opportunities for better, more prudent and proportionate judgment fell by the wayside. First, and most important, the President should have avoided this sorry relationship. Then, a little over a year ago, the President could have been more forthcoming and told the whole truth, instead of misleading us all. The American people could have handled it. Then, the Independent Counsel could have shown greater discretion in judging whether to bring this case forward. The leadership of the House of Representatives could have allowed a vote on censuring the President, instead of pushing the case forward to impeachment. They were wrong to thwart the will of what I expect would have been a House majority in so doing. And the Senate could have voted to dismiss the case and promptly and resolutely censured the President. Instead, against better judgment, against all indications of the people's will, and against any shred of charity, an ardent and zealous minority pressed on. They had the right. They had the power. But they were wrong, and I believe history will so judge them. It is a supreme irony that the most conservative forces in our politics today have for months wielded the most radical option made available in the Constitution against this President: impeachment and removal. Aware of its dangers, our founders designed Constitutional protections against its abuse. This process has shown that those protections are not perfect; they require reasoned judgment in their application; judgment that has been missing in this process from day one. Let us resolve to learn the lessons of this long, sad year. Let us learn now, having come this far, the wisdom of the founders that impeachment is and must be a high barricade, not to be mounted lightly. Let us learn that because it requires the overwhelming support of the Senate to succeed, it cannot and should not proceed on a merely partisan basis. Let us learn that the desire to impeach and remove must be shared broadly, or it is illegitimate. Let us learn that the subject matter of impeachment must be a matter of great gravity, calling into question the President's very ability to lead, and endangering the nation's liberty, freedom, security. Let us learn that the case against the President must be a strong and unambiguous one in fact and in law, for even a President deserves the benefit of our reasonable doubts. The charges brought against President Clinton do not rise to those levels. And even if they did, the case against him is neither strong nor unambiguous. As the White House defense team has made clear, there are ample grounds for doubt about both the facts and law surrounding each of the two articles before us. It is true that the impeachment process has further alienated millions of Americans from their government, and that is a tragic harm for which the President bears considerable responsibility. It is also true, as we were told by Chairman Hyde yesterday, that the nobility and fragility of a self-governing people requires hard work, every day, to get it right, to fight the good fight, to discern the common good. But I believe, unlike him, that it is the impeachment process itself, both here and in the other body--its partisanship, its meanness and unfairness, its leadership by those who want to win too badly--which has increased people's cynicism; not the prospect of the President's ``getting away'' with something. Our nation was founded on the Jeffersonian principle, ``that government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.'' What Jefferson and the other Founders feared was the warning of their counterpart Rousseau: ``As soon as any man says of the affairs of State `What does it matter to me?' the state may be given up as lost.'' But while the many signs of disaffection among our people are growing, I do not think we have reached the point of no return; there is time in this Congress to recover from this episode, and to move on. Despite the claims of pundits that Americans have simply tuned out, I think a deeper reality is present in their reactions, and in the polls. In fact, most Americans, in their wisdom, have reached a subtle, sophisticated judgment in this case, and have already moved beyond it. As is so often the case, they're way ahead of Washington. It is true that they abhor the President's behavior, but don't believe it merits his removal. In addition, they believe that there are larger issues facing the nation than the misdeeds that nearly all now concede the President committed: peace in the Middle East; the hunger of children; the health of Americans; saving our social security safety net; debating whether hundreds of billions of dollars of surplus should go to bolster Medicare, or to some combination of universal savings accounts or tax cuts. These are the things that the people sent us here to work on. These are the things that I hear about when I return to my state. So let us now bring to a close, with our votes, this long, sad year of investigation and impeachment. And let us resolve that there shall be many a year before we have another one like it. It is time for our country to pull together to seek an end to the fractious partisanship that has defined this period, and to re-engage a full-throated, genuine debate about our nation's future that can help us find again that common ground that unites us as Americans, and that can serve as a firm foundation for resolving the many serious problems that still face our country--impeachment or not--today and tomorrow. We should, as White House attorney Charles Ruff said, listen to the voices not merely of the advocates who have been before us, but of Madison, Hamilton, and the others who met in Philadelphia 212 years ago; of the generations of Americans since then; of the American people now, and of future generations of Americans. And if we do, we will do the right thing. Congressman John Lewis observed in his final impeachment speech, in the end, we are ``one house, one family, one people; the American house, the American family, the American people.'' We are called together to come to judgment on this President, and then to return promptly to the pressing issues that lay before us, and that require our urgent attention. That judgment is by now clear: Bill Clinton should remain President; the censure of this body, and the historic impeachment that will ever attach to his name, will leave a permanent mark on his presidency. I thank you, Mr. Chief Justice, for the fine work that you have done, and I thank both the majority leader and the minority leader for their leadership. I said to Senator Lott, I think yesterday, I am still furious that we are in closed session and will say that, but I appreciate the way in which you have kept us together. I thank the two of you. I was thinking I might do something a little different, because even if I were to give a great speech to the best of my ability, I don't know that there are any more arguments that can be made. I was thinking like, I might agree--actually I have a printed statement--I might agree to just have my statement included in the Record and not speak any further, if I can get some support for some legislation. (Laughter.) Just on some children's legislation. Does it look like we are at that point? It does? Well, I like that show of support, and I think, Mr. Chief Justice, what I will do is give to you in a moment a full statement and just simply say to everybody here about three things in 2 minutes. One, I wish we had done this in open session, and I cover that more in my full statement. Second of all, I think that a decision to acquit is certainly not a decision to condone the President's behavior which I think merits scorn and rebuke. Third of all, I think that the standard, and I want to say this to Senator Domenici, talking about children, to me the standard is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. I think the evidence has to be unambiguous and strong. I don't think it was. Senator Levin said that very well, so I don't need to repeat any of those arguments. Fourth of all, Tim Hutchinson, Senator Hutchinson, I like what you said about the polls. I actually make a different argument. I raised the question earlier when we were raising questions about popular will and does it matter. I actually meant about the last election, it seems to me if it ever does, it is on such a decision. I think before you overturn an election, you really have to meet a very high threshold. I don't think the House managers have done so. Finally, I think a lesson that I have learned as a political scientist, when I teach class again, is I do not think the articles work and this process works when it is clearly not bipartisan. I think it becomes illegitimate. It just doesn't work. You did not have broad support coming from the House, and you do not have it here. That is why I think it was doomed from the start. Finally, it has been a long, sad year, and I wish--I just wish--that those who could have really rendered decisions with judgment had done so, starting with the President and his sorry affair. He could have told the truth to the people in the country. The people would have appreciated that. I could also talk about Starr, and I could also talk about the House, and I could also talk about us. But I do not think I need to do so. Let's get on with the work of democracy. We have had some strong views here, but I am looking forward to working with you.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I object. I would like to have a voice vote.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. Chief Justice, the majority leader is trying to get the floor, but I wonder whether I could not move that any Senator be allowed, if he or she makes it their choice, to have our statements that have been made and passed in closed session left entirely up to us to also be a part of the Congressional Record.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. Chief Justice, if I could ask the majority leader whether he might be willing--it seems to me that if this is the principle, I wonder if he would amend his request to any Senator who wants to--and it is up to the Senator--this is far different than having our final deliberations a matter of public record, which is what I think we should do, but what you are saying is any Senator who so wishes can do so. Might that not apply to all of the closed sessions we had? It seems to me that the same principle applies.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. Chief Justice, I have a question for the majority leader. I might not have heard this the right way. This would allow any Senator who so wishes to have his or her statements made in all of our--not just the final deliberations, but this would cover all of our sessions that have been in closed session; is that correct or not?

Mr. WELLSTONE. I ask unanimous consent that there be a 40-minute debate, equally divided, between the leaders or their designees in open session on the motion to suspend the rules.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I rise today to express my deep concern over the apparent disregard for international standards of fairness and openness in the legal process in Peru. President Fujimori is visiting Washington today and is being congratulated by the President on resolving Peru's border dispute with Ecuador. During his visit, I think it is important to point out that under his rule democratic principles have been threatened in Peru and the basic civil rights of the Peruvian people have not been properly respected. In his inaugural speech in July of 1990, President Fujimori stated that ``the unrestricted respect and promotion of human rights'' would be a priority of his government. His promises, though, quickly proved suspect as he solidified his control over what has been described as ``an authoritarian civilian military government''. In April of 1992 he annulled Peru's constitution, dissolved the Legislature and purged most of the judiciary, most forcefully and notably those courts responsible for ensuring the civil rights of its citizens. Since this time independent monitoring groups like Amnesty International have documented numerous extrajudicial executions of peasant men, women and children, perpetrated by Peru's military and police forces who later attempted to conceal their actions. These executions have been determined by respected independent human rights organizations to have been orchestrated from the highest levels of the current Peruvian government, including two of President Fujimori's top advisors. Human rights workers and journalists in Peru have been subjected to intimidation, death threats, abductions, and torturous interrogation and imprisonment by the Peruvian government in response to their attempts to hold responsible those who committed these atrocities. President Fujimori's systematic dismantling of Peru's legislative and judicial systems has resulted in impunity for those who commit these acts of aggression. To investigate and determine accountability in these cases, the military has often served both as prosecutor and judge, keeping their identities secret and under direct control of the executive branch. These ``faceless judges'' have also punished, without proper recourse or due process, and in direct violation of international law, those who challenge or call attention to their actions. According to the State Department's most recent human rights report the Peruvian government has eliminated the use of faceless tribunals, but much damage has already been done and many condemned by the faceless judges remain incarcerated. I am especially concerned about the failure to respect due process in one case in particular. One individual who has directly suffered from the transgressions of Fujimori's authoritarian government is American journalist Lori Berenson. Her journalistic coverage of Peru's economically and politically disaffected was not popular with the Peruvian government. While working in Peru in January of 1996 she was arrested and charged with involvement with terrorist organizations. According to human rights groups, she was tried without due process, little evidence, and without being allowed a defense. She was convicted of ``treason against the fatherland'' and sentenced to imprisonment for life. The handling of this case has drawn widespread condemnation from human rights groups, the U.S. State Department, and even high ranking Peruvian officials. Many have pointed out that, by depriving Ms. Berenson of her right to defend herself in a fair trial by an impartial jury, the Peruvian government was in direct violation of numerous international treaties guaranteeing the legal rights of prisoners. The Commission of International Jurists, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the United Nations Human Rights Committee are among the many respected organizations who have condemned Peru's actions and have urged that immediate measures be taken to abolish these practices which undermine internationally recognized fair trial standards. Today, Lori Berenson remains incarcerated in a country with notoriously harsh prison conditions where she has been held in the total isolation of solitary confinement since October 7 of last year. According to her father she is suffering serious health problems. Amnesty International charges that the conditions under which she is imprisoned contravene the U.N. Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, a Convention to which Peru is a party. I wanted to take this opportunity to urge President Fujimori to grant Lori Berenson a fair, open, and just trial as prescribed under international conventions. And I call on him to honor his pledge to all the Peruvian people to make the respect of basic legal, civil, and human rights a priority in his government.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, today, I am submitting legislation to urge the President to sponsor a resolution condemning China's human rights record at the next session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights this March and to begin immediately contacting other governments to urge them to cosponsor such a resolution. When President Clinton formally delinked trade and human rights in 1994, he pledged, on the record, that the U.S. would ``step up its efforts, in cooperation with other states, to insist that the United Nations Human Rights Commission pass a resolution dealing with the serious human rights abuses in China.'' While the U.S. has claimed an intention at least to speak out on human rights, the substance of U.S.- China relations--trade, military contacts, high level summits--go forward while Chinese leaders continue to crackdown on every last dissident in a country of over one billion people. The Chinese government continues to commit widespread abuses, and since the President's visit in June, has taken actions that flagrantly violate the commitments it has made to respect internationally recognized human rights. Recently, it sentenced three of China's most prominent pro-democracy advocates, Xu Wenli, Wang Youcai, and Chin Yougmin, to a combined prison term of thirty-five years. These disgraceful arrests were part of a crackdown by the government on efforts to form the country's first opposition political party. Further, a businessman in Shanghai, Lin Hai, is now being tried for providing E-mail addresses to a prodemocracy internet magazine in the United States. Another democracy activist, Zhang Shanguang, was convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison for giving Radio Free Asia information about protests by farmers in Hunan province. These events are occurring against a backdrop of growing repression, such as the adoption of strict new regulations on the formation of non- governmental political and social organizations, and the imposition of tough new regulations on film directors, computer software developers, artists and the press if they ``endanger social order'' or attempt to ``overthrow state power''. The arrested dissidents and their courageous supporters deserve our full backing, and the Administration's, in their historic struggle to bring democracy to China. At the June summit in Beijing, President Clinton engaged in a spirited debate on human rights with President Jiang Zemin. In light of this brutal, recent crackdown, I urge the Administration to bring a resolution at Geneva in March and to register its continuing deep concern on two issues President Clinton raised with President Jiang at the summit--the absence of freedom of expression and association, and the use of arbitrary detention in China. Past experience has demonstrated that, when the United States has applied sustained pressure, the Chinese authorities have responded in ways that signal their willingness to engage on the issue of human rights. This pressure needs to be exercised now. By sponsoring a resolution at the U.N. Human Rights Commission, the United States will demonstrate its commitment to securing China's adherence to international human rights standards.. On October 5, 1998, China signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but it has yet to take the necessary steps to make it legally binding. The Administration agreed early in 1998 not to sponsor a resolution criticizing China at the U.N. Human Rights Commission in consideration of Chinese commitments on human rights, including the signing of this important covenant. Yet, the recent acts of intimidation and detention underscore that the Chinese government has not retreated from its longstanding pattern of serious human rights abuses. It is time for the United States to provide the leadership which the people of China depend on. We must take action to submit a resolution on China in Geneva and build international support for its passage. The U.N. Human Rights Commission is the only international body which oversees the human rights conditions of all states. Even though the resolution may not pass, simply the debate of human rights in China and Tibet at the Commission will make an important difference. I have had the great honor of knowing and becoming friends with Wei Jingsheng this past year. Mr. Wei is a Chinese dissident who has spent most of his life in Chinese prisons for his pro-democratic political writings. In an article published shortly after his release, Mr. Wei stated, ``Democracy and freedom are among the loftiest ideals of humanity, and they are the most sacred rights of mankind. Those who already enjoy democracy, liberty and human rights, in particular, should not allow their own personal happiness to numb them into forgetting that many others who are still struggling against tyranny, slavery, and poverty, and all of those who are suffering from unimaginable forms of oppression, exploitation and massacres.'' Mr. President, the United States must not take its freedom for granted. As Americans, we must take action and sponsor and lead the international effort to condemn the human rights situation in China and Tibet. I hope that my colleagues will join me in passing this resolution.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, regarding the President's speech last night, I will start out with his style. I thought it was rather amazing that, given all that has happened--like our trial here--that the President came before the Congress and delivered a very good speech. He certainly had confidence and he outlined some important proposals. I think his proposal dealing with Social Security was extremely important. I think it is a solid proposal. And it does not go in the direction of some of the privatization schemes which I think would have taken the ``security'' out of Social Security. But it also recognizes we need to make some changes and we need to make sure that we support or save the Social Security system. But we keep it as a social insurance program. It is a contract. It is for all the people in the country. The emphasis on the COPS Program, community policing, is right on the mark. The law enforcement community in Minnesota has done some great work with this community policing program, including dealing with all of the issues having to do with domestic violence. Every 13 seconds a woman is battered in the United States of America in her home--a home should be a safe place--and many children see this, as well. God knows what the effect is on the children. Mr. President, I also want to just be very honest about my disappointment in this speech. Here we are, going into the next century, the next millennium. Here we have this great economy, booming along. We hear about it all the time. This is our opportunity now to take bold initiatives, to put forth bold proposals that really respond to children in America. The President talked about low-income, elderly citizens, many of them women. I think it is terribly important to address that reality. Mr. President, what about the reality of close to 1 out of 4 children under the age of 3 growing up poor in our country? What about the reality of 1 out of every 2 children of color under the age of 3 growing up poor in our country? We have heard from the experts. We have had the conferences. We have seen the studies. We know about the involvement of the brain. We know we have to get it right for these children by age 3 or many of them will never be able to do well in school and never be able to do well in life. I see a real disconnect between some of the words uttered by our President and his proposals that don't meet the challenge. The commitment of resources to affordable child care for so many families in our country doesn't even come close to meeting the need. I thought we were going to make a commitment to affordable child care for everyone, not just for welfare mothers and their children. Not that we've done enough for those on welfare. That, in and of itself, is important, and we are not doing nearly as well as we should. But we need to help not just low income, but working income, moderate income, even middle-income families, for whom good child care is a huge expense, so that their children can get the best of nurturing and intellectual stimulation. But this is not in this budget. It is not in this budget. There's money, but the President's solutions are not in the same scope as the problems themselves. The President has a proposal that focuses on afterschool care. I am all for that. But when I think about the poverty of children in our country, when I think about a set of social arrangements that allow children to be the most poverty-stricken group in our country, when I think about what a national disgrace that is, and when I think about all we should be doing to make sure that every child in our country has the same opportunity to reach his and her full potential, and when I think about what we are going to be asking our children to carry on their shoulders in the next century, I don't see in the President's State of the Union Address a bold agenda that would lead to the dramatic improvement of the lives of so many children in our country. Why the timidity? With this economy booming along, in the words of Rabbi Hillel, ``If not now, when?'' If we are not going to speak for our children now, when will we? If we are not going to move forward with bold proposals, start with affordable child care, when will we? Finally, Mr. President, on the health care front, some important proposals: Give credit where credit should be given. I meet with people in the disabilities community and this is a huge problem. You want to work and then when you get a job you lose your medical assistance and you are worse off. To be able to carry health care coverage for people in the disabilities community so more people can work--yes. A tax credit proposal that says if you have a problem of catastrophic expenses--I know what this is about; I had two parents with Parkinson's disease--as a family, you can get up to a $1,000 tax credit per year. But this credit is not refundable. Why in the world do we have a tax credit that is not refundable, in which case families with incomes under $30,000 a year get no help whatever? Are we worried about providing assistance to low-income people, poor people, as if they have it made in America? Second of all, catastrophic expenses go way beyond $1,000 a year. And here is what I don't understand about the President's downsized agenda. Whatever happened to universal health care coverage? Now we have 44 million people with no health insurance, more than when we started the debate several years ago. Now we have another 44 million people who are underinsured. We have people falling between the cracks. They are not old enough for Medicare, prescription drug costs are not covered, they can't afford catastrophic expenses, they are not poor enough for medical assistance, they are getting dropped for coverage by their employers, and copay and deductibles are going up and are way too high a percentage of family income. Several years ago, the health insurance industry took universal health care coverage off the table. We ought to put it back on the table. I don't understand the timidity of the President's State of the Union Address when it comes to making sure that we can provide good health care coverage for all of our citizens. Our economy is booming, we are going into the next century, this is the time for bold initiatives. This is not the time for timidity. This is a time to make a connection between the words we speak and the problems we identify and the challenges we say we have as a Nation and the investment. Where is the investment in the health, skills, intellect and character of our children in America? Where is the investment to make sure that every citizen has health coverage that he and she can afford for themselves and their families? I didn't see it in the President's State of the Union Address. For that reason, I am disappointed. I believe our country can do better. I believe our country can do better. I believe the U.S. Congress can do better, and I hope that we will.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, let me, first of all, thank my colleague, Senator Harkin. We have been working very hard on this. There are other Senators who support this motion--Senator Leahy, Senator Feingold, Senator Boxer, and Senator Lieberman. And I know Senator Hutchison has indicated interest in this question. This will be a very important vote coming up next week. First, let me just, if I could, Mr. President, say that I feel very honored to be speaking from Dale Bumpers' desk. I don't think there is anybody who could match his oratory, but I am sure lucky to have this desk and this long cord. And Dale Bumpers, wherever you are, I will do my very best to try to carry on in your tradition, or at least give it everything that I have. Mr. President, next week before the Senate goes into its own deliberations on this question of whether to dismiss charges, we will take this one step at a time. We most definitely will try to move forward with a motion to suspend the rules so that the Senate deliberations will not be in closed session. We also would like to make sure that the very debate as to whether our deliberations are in closed session or secret session be open to the public. And we will, on the floor of the Senate, make every effort possible to keep that debate in the open. I am going to be very brief and just make the following arguments because there are some very, very good people who do a lot of work when it comes to interpretation of the rules. I will say, since the Parliamentarian is here, that Bob Dove has been eminently fair. He has treated all of us from both political parties with the utmost respect. My own feeling about this is that this trial has been momentous. I personally wish that it had not come over from the House. I have always made my point that I believe the House overreached on the impeachment charges. But, Mr. President, they are here in the Senate. I think here are the following questions: If in fact we as a Senate are going to go into deliberations over whether to dismiss the charges against the President, or later on whether we will have witnesses, or later on whether the President shall be removed, I cannot imagine that the U.S. Senate would go into closed session. I cannot imagine that our deliberations and our debate and the arguments we make would not be open to the public. The public isn't going to believe in this political process if we go into secret or closed session. The public is not going to have trust in what we are doing if they don't get a chance to evaluate our debate and what we are saying and why we reached the conclusions we reached. Mr. President, I really do believe that if there is to be healing in our country--and I certainly pray that there will be--it would be a terrible mistake for the U.S. Senators, Democrats or Republicans, to cut the public out. The part of the public that is looking at the proceedings right now, that is evaluating the arguments that are being made--and there are people who have made very good arguments on both sides of the question--to then say to them, ``Listen, when it comes to now the Senate, the U.S. Senate, going into our own deliberations and making our own decisions, you, the public, you're cut out of it,'' this goes against the very essence of accountability. It goes against the very essence of what a representative democracy is about. Mr. President, some of these rules go back to 1868. That was a time when the U.S. Senators were not even directly elected. They were elected by State legislatures. The 17th amendment changed all that in 1913 as part of the Progressive movement and the progressive change in the country. The idea was that the U.S. Senators would be a part of representative democracy, directly elected by the people, accountable to the people. This is a huge decision we are going to be making in the U.S. Senate. And I think it will be a terrible mistake for the U.S. Senate to go into closed session, to cut the public out, to not let people have the opportunity to hear what we are saying in the debate. Mr. President, it is really quite amazing, if you think about it. People will know what our votes are--dismissal of charges, witnesses, whether the President should be removed from office--and somewhere there will be a transcript of the proceedings, but I don't think they will even be published. There will not even be a public record of what U.S. Senators--the Senator from Arkansas or the Senator from Minnesota or the Senator from Iowa--had to say in this debate. I just say to all of my colleagues, I hope that, No. 1, you will agree to a unanimous-consent agreement that in our discussion or our debate whether or not we go into closed session, that it be open to the public. What an irony it would be if, in the very debate about whether or not our deliberations will be open or closed, our deliberations were closed. It seems to me that debate ought to be open to the public. Second, I certainly hope that we will have the two-thirds vote that it will take to suspend the current rule that says we must be in closed session. Mr. President, I think it is important for the public right now to be engaged in this process. I hope people will be calling their Senators, because I really do believe that part of our deliberations, part of our modus operandi as Senators, whatever States we represent, should be to stay in touch with people. Of course, we reach our own independent judgment. We reach our own independent judgment about the facts, about the charges. Then there is another question, the threshold question, about whether or not these charges rise to the level of removing a President from office. I think part of what we are about as Senators is to try to stay in close touch with the public, with people in our States, whatever decision we make. It can be a matter of individual conscience, but I think it is terribly important that we operate as a representative body, as the U.S. Senate, as a part of representative democracy of the United States of America. We can't on this question, we can't on these questions, if we go into closed session.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I defer to my colleague from Illinois, Senator Durbin, but I ask unanimous consent that Senator Harkin and I be allowed to follow Senator Durbin in speaking order.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I rise to speak today to honor a great Minnesota Senator and a great American. U.S. Senator Hubert H. Humphrey died on January 13, 1978. On that day, a piece of Minnesota died--a piece of the nation died. In many ways, Senator Humphrey embodied the best of our state and our nation. He was a visionary who never lost sight of people in the here and now; he was a prophet who spoke with authority and compassion; he was a leader who never lost sight of the ``. . . extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people.'' Whether as the Mayor of Minneapolis or the Vice President of the United States, Senator Humphrey was a person of dignity, integrity and honesty. Even during our darkest days of segregation and war, he never lost his humor or his commitment to improve the lives of people. And this Happy Warrior did improve the lives of countless people throughout my state and our country. Indeed, he fulfilled his own pledge that ``we must dedicate ourselves to making each man, each woman, each child in America a full participant in American life.'' My state and our nation owe a debt to Senator Humphrey that can never be paid. I owe a debt to Senator Humphrey: In the back of my mind, I continually aspire to the standard he set for Minnesota Senators. I attempt to fulfill his goal that our ``public and private endeavor ought to be concentrated upon those who are in the dawn of life, our children; those who are in the twilight of life, our elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, our handicapped.'' My thoughts on Senator Humphrey's passing are even more poignant this year because his wife--Senator Muriel Humphrey--died this past fall. As friends and family gathered at her funeral, I was struck by how blessed we were to have these two incredible people pass through our lives. I close very simply in honor of the memory of this very great public man: We all are better off because of his life.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I believe it is important for girls and young women to raise awareness about their concerns, and to work to shape the beliefs and policies which affect girls' lives throughout the world. This year, the Girl's International Forum, sponsored by an organization in my state, brought together fifteen outstanding girls from thirteen states to Seneca Falls. For three days, they met and drafted the following Girl's Declaration of Sentiments. I want to share their thoughtful ideas with my colleagues now. I ask that the declaration be printed in the Record. The declaration follows: Girl's International Forum--Girls' Declaration of Sentiments, Seneca Falls, New York 1998 Fifteen girls, ages 8-18, created a Girls' Declaration of Sentiments in Seneca Falls, New York on July 16-19, 1998. The girls, hailing from thirteen different states, were brought to Seneca Falls by Girls International Forum, a non-profit organization affiliated with New Moon Magazine for Girls. Modeled after the original Declaration of Sentiments developed in Seneca Falls 150 years ago by suffragists, the Girls' Declaration defines an agenda for the Girls Movement, just as the Declaration of 1848 defined an agenda for the first wave of the Women's Movement. The Girls' Declaration focuses on 8 areas of concern and proposed solutions. The Girls' Declaration was unveiled at the Closing Ceremony of Celebrate '98, the sesquicentennial celebration of the First Women's Rights Convention, and received a standing ovation. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Nancy Rubin, accepted the Girls' Declaration on behalf of the U.S. government and pledged to share the document with both the Clinton administration and the United Nations. Girls International Forum was created in 1994 so girls could help shape the policies which affect girls' lives around the world. GIF's first project took place in 1995 when they sent 13 U.S. girls (ages 10-17) to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China. As the largest girls delegation at the conference, GIF distributed the Girls Agenda (a pamphlet of girls' issues collected from girls worldwide) and raised awareness about girls' eagerness to participate in setting policy that affects girls' lives.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I rise today to call the attention of my colleagues and the American people to a new veterans memorial in my home state of Minnesota. I believe this memorial will help us remember and better understand the sacrifices made by Korean War veterans. As a member of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, I was pleased to participate on a recent hot Sunday afternoon in a dedication ceremony for the Minnesota Korean War Veterans Memorial. The ceremony was a fitting tribute to the 94,000 Minnesotans who bravely answered the call of duty nearly half a century ago, serving in a land far from home during the ``Forgotten War.'' A sea of umbrellas protected many in the crowd from the scorching sun while the talented Minnesota State Band entertained with patriotic tunes. Various speakers recalled the brave service by Korean War veterans. On that September afternoon, we paused to remember and honor Korean War veterans. Located in the Court of Honor on the State Capitol grounds in St. Paul, the memorial includes eight polished columns bearing the names of the more than 700 Minnesotans who made the ultimate sacrifice. It includes an eight foot bronze statue of an American soldier searching for his buddies. Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to join me in thanking the members and supporters of Minnesota Korean War Veterans Chapter One for making this important memorial a reality.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, today, I would like to call attention to a small but very important issue that was not addressed in the appropriations bill that was considered today. In short, Congress has not provided the necessary funding to HHS to track what happens to families who have been dropped from the welfare caseloads. Back in April when the Senate passed the budget resolution, it included an amendment that I offered directing HHS to determine whether former welfare recipients are achieving ``economic self-sufficiency'' once they stop receiving benefits. But a budget resolution was never adopted by Congress. I ask all my colleagues, why don't we want to know what is happening to families after they leave welfare? Are we afraid of what we might find? So many of my colleagues keep talking about the success of reform, citing the dramatic drop in the number of caseloads. But I ask you, do we know where those families are? Are they better off? Have they achieved economic self-sufficiency? Or are they more deeply enmeshed in poverty? Why are we not interested in finding answers to these questions? As policy makers it is our duty and our responsibility to make sure that the policies we enact for the good of the people actually are doing good for the people. But if we don't go and find out how they are actually affecting families, how will we know? We need to put in place the means to address these very critical questions, and directing HHS to set up a means of evaluating what happens to families is the most common sense way to approach this issue. Evaluation is one of the key ingredients in good policy making and it does not take a degree in political science to realize what anyone with good common sense knows: if we want to try something new, we need to assess how that new program works. Now when Congress enacted welfare reform, the goals as I understood them were to move people off of welfare and dependency and into jobs and economic self-sufficiency. The dropping number of caseloads implies that we have met only part of the first goal--moving families off of welfare. But eliminating dependency and achieving economic self-sufficiency through a job that supports a family are effects that can only be determined over a longer period of time. As policy makers--regardless of ideological stripe--it is our role to ensure that the programs that Congress enacts to provide for American families' well-being are effective and produce the goals we intended them to. We need to know what is happening with the families who are affected by the new reform, whether it is in fact effectively helping low income mothers and their children build a path to economic self-sufficiency. What we do know, what everyone knows is that the caseloads have dropped dramatically--1.3 million families have left welfare since August of 1996 alone, that is 4.5 million total recipients including mothers and their children. But what that number tells us is only a snapshot of the broader picture. I want to take a moment to talk about this number and what it tells us. First of all, we have to recognize how naive it is to assume that all 1.3 million of those families are finding jobs and moving towards a life of economic self-sufficiency, because that number only tells us about families that have been dropped from the caseload--and families drop from the caseloads for many different reasons. A family may lose their benefits due to sanctions, or they may leave welfare on their own, for many reasons which we do not know. Even more troubling is that although the number of families receiving welfare has declined, indicators of poverty have not shown a similar or equal rate of decline, which means that many families who are eligible for assistance are not even applying. Even among families where the parent has found a job--because without it they would not be receiving any assistance--we know very little. We do not know how long those jobs are lasting or whether they are the kind of jobs that will put families on a path to economic self- sufficiency. Just because a parent finds a job does not mean that the family is no longer poor. Getting a job that pays a family wage, that enables a mother to provide a life for her children that lifts them all out of poverty does not happen overnight. We need to know what happens to families 6 months, 12 months, even a couple of years down the road. And we do not know that. No one seems to know, even those members of Congress who keep trumpeting the ``victory'' of welfare reform. Just a few weeks ago, in the Conference Committee for the Higher Ed. bill, I asked my colleagues if they knew of any research demonstrating that these 1.3 million families had indeed achieved economic self-sufficiency and no one had an answer for me. No one! Let me just say that accepting a very narrow measure of what has happened to 1.3 million families is no victory in my book. Each family is more than a number, more than another tally mark to be added to that statistic of 1.3 million caseloads. Adding up that tally does not answer critical questions. Questions like why did that family stop receiving benefits? Was it due to an increased income from the mother's job? If yes, then what kind of wages is that mother now making? Does she have a job that is going to enable her to continue to provide for her family, or will the next crisis of a sick child, a broken down car, or some other unforeseen problem push her back to needing assistance? We have very little information about the situations of these 1.3 million families. We are in the dark because we turned off the lights. Now, let me back up a minute and provide my colleagues with some background on this issue of asking the necessary questions about the impact of welfare reform. Requiring states to evaluate the impact of new welfare policies is not new. Not at all. In fact, prior to enacting the 1996 reform, all states that applied for a waiver to try an experiment with their AFDC program--and 43 out of 50 states had been granted waivers by 1996--were required under the regulations of the waiver to hire an outside contractor to evaluate the impact of their new program. For example, in Minnesota, two of the primary criteria for evaluating the programs were whether the program ``helped families increased their income and self-sufficiency'' and ``supported families' movement toward self-support.'' But when Congress enacted TANF, states were no longer required to continue those evaluations. In fact, 24 states stopped the evaluation process altogether, and only 19 have applied for funds to continue those evaluations. That means that over half of the states ended their project evaluations when Congress dropped the requirement to assess the impact of reform. Of course these projects that I have just mentioned are not the only evaluations of the new reform. When states begin to apply to HHS for the $1 billion in bonus money for successfully moving families into self-sufficiency, they will be required to report on the status of both current and former recipients. Then, HHS will have some information about what is happening. But that information will not be available until at least the Fall of 1999. Last year Congress considered this issue important, since we specifically earmarked $5 million in the FY98 Labor-HHS appropriations for HHS to give to states interested in doing their own tracking studies. And just a few weeks ago, HHS announced it had awarded grants to 13 state and county projects to track ``leavers''--those who have been dropped from the caseloads due to increased earnings or sanctions, and those who have not even applied for assistance even though they are eligible. This is an example of responsible policy making, and I will be very interested in the outcomes of these evaluations. But in a year's time, these 13 projects will be cut off at the knees. These projects will be unable to complete their planned evaluations because they will not have the necessary funds. Why? Because Congress has failed to appropriate similar funds for FY99. I ask you again, what are we afraid of? We do have some information, but it is not very helpful. You might not want to know about it, but I'm going to talk about it anyway, because I want to illustrate that what information we do have is very, very limited. Recently released reports give us some idea of what is happening, but there are huge holes in what we do know. The good news is that many states--31 according to the National Conference of State Legislatures-- are conducting various types of tracking studies on their own. The bad news is that these studies are wildly diverse in terms of who they track, how long they track recipients, and when their reports will be available to the public. Let me just give you a snapshot of what this kind of tracking system looks like. The studies run the gamut from those examining all closed cases, to only sanctioned cases, to cases closed due to increased earnings, to families diverted from ever applying for assistance. And the time frames of the studies range from 6 months to five years and everything in between. But the really frustrating thing about what appears to be a potential wealth of data is that there is no central clearinghouse for it. As I mentioned before, HHS received a special $5 million appropriation for FY98 to fund some tracking studies. But the funds were only to provide help to states to do their own tracking. It did not provide funds so that HHS could act as a central location for analyzing the results of these studies. So, while I was glad that Congress committed necessary resources to studying what happens to families after they leave welfare, that is only part of the job. We need an efficient means of analyzing the information that we do collect, and directing HHS to serve as a central clearinghouse would have been the best way of doing that. There are other problems with this scatter-shot approach to tracking. One of them is that it does not allow us to trace what happens to families that get sanctioned. Do they get caught up in a ``churning'' cycle, getting sent to the end of the line, deepening the hardship of an already poor family? One study in Iowa of families that had been sanctioned found that only 30% were working 30 hours a week or more and almost half of them had experienced a dramatic decrease in their income (over $380 per month). From several studies, in New Jersey, Iowa, and Tennessee, it seems that many families who are being dropped from welfare due to sanctions are turning to other family members for assistance. A study in New Jersey showed that almost 50% of the families that were sanctioned and lost their benefits turned to family for aid; in Tennessee, 71% sought help from other family members. While I understand the intent of welfare reform was to decrease families' dependency on welfare, I do not think--and I am confident that my colleagues agree--that it was Congress's intent to shift the burden of assistance to other low income families who are just keeping their own heads above water. Families that get sanctioned are at least within the state's data base and are easier to track. The groups that we really know very little about are those families in need who never even make it onto the official welfare roles. Many families are discouraged from even applying for aid or get diverted by receiving a lump sum of 2 or 3 months of benefits. In New York City--in Brooklyn and Queens--the primary goal of city welfare offices, according to its official manual, is to discourage families from even applying for assistance by encouraging them to get a job or depend on relatives. While this may initially save the state money and reduce its caseloads, shifting the need of mothers and their children to other family members spreads individual resources more thinly and risks expanding the number of families in poverty. More disturbing is that this phenomenon does not appear to be only happening in New York. I think this is a very troubling trend that seems to be attached to these groups, one that I want to bring to my colleagues' attention because I think it will have greater implications for all low-income working families. As I have mentioned, very little research looks at the long term impact of reform, and most of the studies I have mentioned above are short-term studies. But a program in Oregon is often cited as one to emulate. I would like to take a moment here to tell my colleagues about this particular program, because I think this case shows us the importance of getting more information than just the number of recipients dropped from the caseloads. Unlike other welfare to work programs that focused on recipients just getting a job--any job--the Portland program provided really strong support services to help families find a ``good'' job, a full-time job that paid above minimum wage, included medical benefits and the potential for advancement. The way that the Portland program did this was to take a ``mixed services'' approach. And what that translates into is what I would think would be a good job search program for anyone, whether they were on welfare or not. First, staff assessed the skills and interests of recipients, and then they worked closely with individual recipients to help them plan a strategy for getting what they needed to find a good job. Those folks that needed educational or vocational training were sent to do that. Training also included programs that helped parents who needed some life skills training to improve their employability. And as recipients were participating in these programs, program staff worked closely with local companies and employers to match recipients with good jobs where they would succeed. For many families, this approach worked to get them jobs that did pay higher than the minimum wage at the time ($4.15), and many were still at their jobs at the end of two years. But, there is a finer point that needs to be made about what appears to be good news in this study. The jobs that parents got were higher than minimum wage, but they were still only $6 an hour at the most. Well, that just isn't enough for a family of three--a mother and two children, which is what the average family on welfare consists of--to make ends meet. And the bigger downside is that although many families were able to leave welfare, 40% of families were still receiving cash assistance at the end of two years. Even if we were to be optimistic about the potential for these $6 an hour jobs to translate into job advancement and greater earnings, what about the other 40% who still needed cash assistance? We cannot be celebrating welfare reform as a ``success'' when so many former recipients have jobs that only move them to just beyond the eligibility line for cash assistance but do not set them on that path to economic self-security. And, probably more importantly, we need to know more about the specific barriers that keep those 40% of families from getting a ``good job'' too. We just cannot walk away from them. As I mentioned, the program in Portland is unusual compared to other welfare-to-work programs. On the other end of the spectrum are programs like Wisconsin Works, better known as W-2. With the W-2 program, the basic premise is that parents will not get cash assistance unless they are working. This kind of program moves parents into the work force very quickly, because they need that cash assistance. But what a recent study of Milwaukee families found was that even though parents are getting jobs quickly, 6 months later three quarters of them were no longer employed. And of those parents who did get jobs, only 14% were getting paid full time wages. That means that less than 2 out of 10 families had a parent who was working full time. This is very disturbing information. What is happening to these families who are getting pushed into the work force so quickly that they are not given the opportunity or the training to find jobs that are more likely to translate into sustained, full-time employment. Based on this study, it is very clear to me that we as policy makers definitely need to know about how other ``work first'' approaches are affecting families. When less than 2 out of 10 families has a parent bringing home a full time wage, there are a lot of families who are not making ends meet, and that is not a success in my book. Looking at the administrative side, we know that since the caseloads have dropped dramatically, states have more funds available to provide support services to families trying to find jobs. However, the 1.3 million drop in caseloads is only a drop in the number of families receiving cash assistance; many of those families are still receiving other support services such as subsidized child care, transportation, housing and medical care. When the labor market hits a downturn--which is the direction it appears to be heading--and many families are forced to return for cash assistance, what will happen to the states' ability to provide these support services necessary to put those mothers back in the workforce? There is much uncertainty about the future and we are doing little to reduce it. Even those of my colleagues who supported the 1996 welfare reform bill must recognize Congress's important responsibility of finding out what is happening to those 1.3 million families who have been dropped from the roles. Reform is not a one-shot deal. Real reform involves long term oversight to insure that policies benefit all parties: states and poor mothers and their children. I have always said, the true test of welfare reform will come in the austere economic times, when many more families will need it most. Will we wait until folks are again in dire straits before we begin to gather information about how to correct the programs that we have just reformed? Are we really going to allow ourselves to be so short- sighted? Or will we recognize that our responsibility to enact good policies that protect our most vulnerable populations such as poor mothers and their children is intrinsic to our duty as good and effective policy makers. Not until we are sure that this reform has accomplished all of its goals-- eliminating dependency and helping families to establish and maintain economic self-sufficiency--can we truly claim that this reform is good and sound policy for all.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Senator, and commend him for his support on this very important issue. I also wish to thank my friend, Senator McCain, for joining me last year in sponsoring the Udall Act. I believed when we passed the Udall Act last year we had begun to change a sad history of chronic underfunding of Parkinson's by the NIH. It was a very personal victory for me--and for all those who fought so hard to see the Udall Act enacted into law. I am here today, along with my colleagues, in an effort to fulfill the promise of the Udall Act and the commitment we in Congress made to people with Parkinson's, their families and those researchers dedicated to curing this disease. I find it very disheartening to learn that so little of the research NIH claims to devote to Parkinson's is actually Parkinson's-focused as called for by the Utall Act. it was our intent and it is our obligation to ensure that at least $100 million in research specifically focused on Parkinson's is allocated. And if it takes stronger language, more oversight, or congressional hearings to guarantee it gets done, then that's what we must do. Members of the Senate have expressed their interest in seeing the Udall Act fully funded in fiscal year 1999, and we have taken some positive steps this year to accomplish that goal. But our work is not done. The ultimate goal is not legislative accomplishments. It is not adding more dollars to this account or that one. The ultimate goal is to find a cure for this horrible, debilitating disease so that more people don't have to suffer the way my parents and our family did, or the way Mo Udall and his family does, or the way countless families do every day in this country. By passing the Udall Act we made a promise to put the necessary resources into the skilled hands of researchers dedicated to finding that cure. I intend, as I know my colleagues and those in the Parkinson's community intend, to do everything I can to fulfill that promise.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Four thousand pages. If ordinary citizens--which I mean not in a pejorative way, but in a positive way--have not the faintest clue of what is going on, and those of us supposed to be representing people have not been in a position to know what kind of decisions have been made, then it is no wonder that people say we do not believe in this. I tell you, between what has happened with this bill and anonymous holds--which is another feature of this process that I really think we have to confront to take on where somebody can just put a hold on something or an individual judge, or whatever; and it is anonymous; and you never find out who it is--between that and conference committees where even if you pass an amendment in both bodies, the conference committee can take it out or something can be put in, I think we do have to do a lot better in this process. I think that should be at the top of the agenda in the next Congress. Mr. President, I think that this bill--and as I speak, I do not even know how I will vote on it. On one hand, it is like Fiddler on the Roof. It is certainly better than a Government shutdown. On the other hand, there are some important provisions in this bill. There are some things that are important that have been done. My colleague from Illinois talked about the strong position the President took and the strong leadership the President took on making sure that there are more teachers and how we can reduce class size in grades K through 3--critically important. On the other hand, I do not really know all that is in this bill. I guess that puts you in a position of not necessarily voting--it is hard to vote for or against a bill if you do not really know what is in it. But I will tell you, some things I heard my colleague talk about-- special deals for the oil industry, corporate welfare for the oil industry, and gosh knows what else has been put in this piece of legislation--makes me wonder, makes me wonder. I say this, I think this bill--25 pounds, 40 pounds, 2 feet tall, several thousand pages--that we have not had a chance to review sort of represents our failure to deal with these appropriations bills, deal with this budget, have an open debate, have an accountable political process. And I think this bill that we are supposed to vote up or down on tomorrow--a conference report--represents the profound failure of this Congress to do well for people in Minnesota and people in the country. I think that is really what it is all about. I yield the floor. Mr. CRAIG addressed the Chair.