Paul Wellstone

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. If I can say to my colleague, some of what I said-- everything I said I meant, and it is meant to challenge the majority party and the majority leader. But in a very serious way--the Senator mentioned education; it really breaks your heart, too, if you want to try to the best of your ability to represent people--on the Elementary and Secondary Act, between myself and staff, we were in 100 schools just meeting with people, getting their ideas about how we could best help them. We took all their ideas. Then we worked on amendments. I was so excited to come on the floor and have amendments representing what people said. The whole idea was to try to do good for people. You cannot represent the people in your State; you cannot do good for people; you cannot be a good Senator unless the Senate becomes the Senate again. I think it is just outrageous that the majority party just does not want to have the discussion, does not want to have the debate, does not want to vote--apparently doesn't want to vote. I just think that is not the way the Senate should operate, and it makes it very difficult to do good for people.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Yes.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I say to my colleague from Iowa, that may very well be what we do. I hope this suggestion of a possible lame duck session is an idea that will last about 1 hour and that will be the end of it. And I hope our discussion on the floor will be part of putting an end to it. But I am pleased to join with my colleague. I am pleased to start asking unanimous consent to bring up this legislation.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank my colleague. I think we will be back on the floor and we may very well be trying our level best to put these issues back on the floor. I will be proud to do it with my colleague from Iowa.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Will the Senator yield for just a second? I just want to make sure, I just want to ask the Senator, Bonnie Campbell has directed all of the work against violence against women; is that correct? My wife Sheila works closely with her. She has done phenomenal work, has just a great reputation; am I correct?

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I want to echo the words of my colleague from Minnesota and thank my colleagues, the Chairman and ranking members of the Environment and Public Works Committee for their attention to the needs of the residents of Breckenridge, Minnesota and this much needed flood control project. We have come a long way since the floods of 1997, when I visited the community to witness first hand the devastation. Since then the city of Breckenridge has been working closely with the Army Corps of Engineers and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to design a comprehensive flood control plan to protect the community from future losses. I am pleased that the Senate WRDA bill will include authorization for this much needed flood control project.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I introduce today on behalf of myself and Senators Lieberman, Kennedy, Reid, Moynihan, Levin, and Landrieu, a resolution to designate January 1, 2001, and every following January 1st, as a day of peace and reconciliation among all peoples of the world. The purpose of this resolution is to create a day of peaceful celebration across the world and in our backyards, as well as a day for sharing food with others whose lives we normally do not touch in a personal way. ``One Day in Peace,'' a pledge of no violence in our homes, neighborhoods, and battlefields, on January 1, 2000, was supported by over 100 nations, 25 U.S. governors, hundreds of mayors worldwide and over 1,000 organizations in nearly 140 countries, as well as the UN General Assembly. It worked and the new millennium was ushered in with a day of peace worldwide. At the same time, another event, The Millennium Meal Project, an international effort to use the tradition of breaking bread to promote peace and end hunger, was officially endorsed by the White House, members of both the House and Senate, the World Peace/Inner Peace Conference and the Jubillenium World Conference on Religion and Peace featuring 19 diverse faiths and went exceedingly well this past January 1, 2000. Now these two initiatives have joined together in order to encourage people all over the world, through sharing of a special meal, to reach out to one another for ``One Day'' by creating an environment of peace and mutualism. Since the beginning of recorded history, breaking bread together has been seen as a tradition when people from opposing sides can sit down and learn about one another in a peaceful manner. Particularly we as Senators need to put aside our differences, on both sides of the aisle, to discover and celebrate our commonalities in order to prepare ourselves for working more harmoniously during the 107th Congress to solve the critical problems of both violence and hunger in our nation and in our world. We know, all too well, that children around the world and at home are going to bed hungry, and that our children are often afraid to go to school. Let us make ``One Day'' a special time of reflection, to eliminate hunger and violence for children and families throughout the world, by sharing our prosperity and friendship with people from all backgrounds, beliefs and cultures. This day should be held high in importance to celebrate our diversities and differences, rather than emphasizing them as barriers between us. I hope this resolution will be adopted unanimously.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the privilege of the floor be granted to Janko Mitric, an intern, for today.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the 25th anniversary of the establishment of African American Family Services. This inspirational organization has spent the past 25 years providing culturally specific services to the Minnesota African American community. Since 1975, it has expanded its services from solely dealing with chemical dependency to providing critical services in chemical health, family preservation, domestic violence, and adolescent violence prevention and anger management. In addition to these programs, African American Family Services provides its clients with two other invaluable services--a resource center, which includes a resource library and a cross-peer education mentoring project, and a technical assistance center, which creates training programs to educate human and social service professionals on enhancing service delivery to African American clients. Twenty-five years after its founding, this organization is still searching for new and innovative ways to serve Minnesotans. Currently, African American Family Services is attempting to work more directly with the children of its clients, hoping that this will help to break the cycle of self-destructive behavior that many families experience. As the leading provider of human services to the Minnesota African American community, this organization has served countless individuals and families. By providing an effective network of dedicated staff and volunteers who have worked hard to serve every person who walks through its doors, African American Family Services truly has been able to make a difference in the lives of its clients. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work with this wonderful organization, and am proud to commend its outstanding record of success and service to the community on the floor of the United States Senate. Please join me in honoring all of the people who have made the success of the African American Family Services possible.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Will my colleague yield for a moment?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that in the proper order of speakers, after Senator Lautenberg and Senator Hollings and a Republican Senator are recognized to speak, I then be recognized to speak for 10 minutes of my leader's time.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I ask my colleague--I have 10 minutes reserved--if my colleague from Illinois needs to speak----

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I thank my colleague, Senator Hollings from South Carolina, for his remarks. Let me say to my colleague from South Carolina, I can't imagine the Senate without Senator Hollings-- the color, the power of the oratory and, frankly, being willing to stand by the courage of his convictions. He is a great Senator.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I want to include this in the Record today. I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, this is all so timely. In this Washington Post article, the lead editorial is: ``Catholic `Criminals' in China.'' The first sentence reads: The Communist regime in China has identified and rooted out another enemy of the state: 81-year-old Catholic Bishop Zeng Jingmu. . . . Bishop Zeng was nabbed last Thursday. He spent a good many years in prison. . . . Bishop Zeng has been guilty of a single crime all along: He is a Catholic believer. Bishop Zeng was picked up last week and is now imprisoned again. I quote again from the editorial: . . . Bishop Zeng has been guilty of a single crime all along: He is a Catholic believer. Mr. President, every Senator should read this editorial today before they vote. I came to the floor of the Senate with an amendment. It merits a report from a commission we had established, to report back to us, a Commission on Religious Freedom, chaired by David Sapperstein. The commission looked at the situation in China and it made a recommendation to us. The commission's recommendation was, right now in China, as evidenced by what happened to this Catholic bishop, an 81- year-old bishop imprisoned for being a Catholic, that it is a brutal atmosphere and we in the Senate and the House of Representatives ought to at least reserve for ourselves the right to annually review trade relations with China so we can have some leverage to speak out on human rights. That amendment lost. I brought another amendment to the floor. I said based upon China's agreement with the United States in 1991, a memorandum of understanding, and then another agreement in 1993, which the President used as evidence that we would delink human rights with trade policy with China, we should call on China to live up to its agreement that it would not export to this country products made by prison labor. Many of these people are in prison because they have spoken out for democracy and human rights. That amendment lost. I brought another amendment to the floor of the Senate, which was an amendment that said men and women in China should have the right to organize and bargain collectively; they should be able to form an independent union. I cited as evidence Kathy Lee and Wal-Mart paying 8 cents an hour from 8 in the morning until 10 at night--mainly to young women. They get 1 day off a month. I said shouldn't we at least say we want to extend the right to annually review trade relations until China lives up to this standard? That amendment lost. Then I offered an amendment with Senator Helms from North Carolina, a broad human rights amendment, citing one human rights report after another saying that China needed to live up to the basic standard of decency when it comes to respecting the human rights of its people. That is a sacred issue to me--anywhere in the world. That amendment lost. I want to conclude my remarks on the floor of the Senate in three ways. First, I hope I am wrong, but I believe we will deeply regret the stampede to pass this legislation and the way in which we have taken all the human rights, religious freedom, right to organize, all of those concerns, and we have put them in parentheses and in brackets as if they don't exist and are not important. I think we will regret that. I think we will regret that because if we truly understand the implications of living in an international economy, it means this. It means that if we care about human rights, we have to care about human rights in every country. If we care about the environment--not just in our country--if we care about the right to organize--not just in our country--if we care about deplorable child labor conditions, we have to be concerned about that in every country. When we as the Senate and as Senators do not speak out on human rights, we are all diminished. When we have not spoken out on human rights in China, I think our silence is a betrayal. I will make two other final points. I have heard my colleagues argue ``exports, exports.'' I have spoken plenty about this legislation, and I will not repeat everything I said but just to say I think the evidence is pretty clear. Not more exports but more investment--there is a difference. I think what will happen is China will become the largest export platform with low-wage labor under deplorable working conditions exporting products abroad, including to our country, and our workers will lose their jobs. Frankly, we will be talking about not raising the living standard of working people but lowering the living standard. On agriculture, I think there was a piece in the New York Times on Sunday. Every day there is an article in the newspaper about China. It is not a pretty picture. It is as if many of my colleagues want to turn their gaze away from the glut in production--about the protests, about people being arrested for the protests. Frankly, as to the argument that we are going to have many more exports to China and that is going to be the salvation of family farmers--the President of the United States came out to Minnesota and basically made that argument--we can have different views about human rights and whether or not there will be more respect for human rights as we have more economic trade relations in China, but so far that is not the evidence. I can understand how people honestly disagree. I don't believe that most-favored-nation status or normal trade relations with China is the salvation of family farmers for this country. I want my words in this debate to be heard. I want to stick by these words, and I want to be held accountable. I want every other colleague who has made such a claim, that this will be the salvation for our family farmers in this country, to also be held accountable. Finally, I say to Senators that I believe we will lose this. And people in good conscience have different viewpoints. I can't help speaking with some strong feeling at the end of this debate to say this: I will look at this debate and vote with a sense of history. One- hundred years ago, our economy was changing. We were moving to a national economy--industrialized national economy. You had farmers, laborers, religious communities, populists, and women. And they made a set of standards. They wanted an 8-hour day. They wanted to abolish some of the worst child labor conditions--antitrust action; women wanted the right to vote; direct election of U.S. Senators. They wanted the right to organize and bargain collectively. The Pinkertons were killing labor organizers. The media were hostile. Money dominated politics. But many of those demands became the law of the land over the years and made our country better. So it is today. This is the new economy. It is an emerging global economy. What we were saying is we want to civilize the global economy and make it work--not just the large conglomerates. We want this new global economy to work for the environment; to work for family farmers and producers; to work for human rights; to work for religious freedom; to work for workers. That is what this debate has been about. I think this will become where you stand in relation to this new global economy. I think it can become some kind of axis of American politics over the next 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 years to come. I am proud to stand for human rights. I am proud to stand for religious freedom. I am proud to stand for the right of people to organize. I am proud to stand for an international economy but an international economy that is based upon some standard of decency and fairness. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, though we are in disagreement, I thank my colleague from Iowa for his fine words on the floor of the Senate.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Could I ask my colleague whether, in the proper order, I could then follow Senator Harkin, or after you two are done?

Mr. WELLSTONE. I have my own time.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, before the Senator starts, I ask the Chair: I am in order to follow the Senator from Iowa; is that correct?

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I want to say at the very beginning to my colleague from Utah, for whom I have a lot of respect, that none of what I am about to say is aimed directly at him personally; quite the opposite. But I want to come out here and take very serious exception with the process and the result. We finalized the legislative appropriations bill. Rather than having the Treasury and Postal appropriations bill coming directly from the floor of the Senate and having the opportunity to offer amendments, that bill was put into the legislative appropriations conference report. The two bills were basically linked to one another. This is a terrible way to legislate. I say to the majority leader and others that we have been at this before and that I am out here on the floor of the Senate again today saying I take very serious exception to this. I cannot represent the interests of the people in the State of Minnesota very well when there is no opportunity to come to this floor and have amendments and try to make a difference. I didn't come to the floor of the Senate to be a potted plant or a piece of furniture. In this particular case, I take exception with a couple of different things. First of all, we have raised our salary to $141,300, and there is no opportunity for an amendment to be offered on the floor of the Senate to block this increase, no opportunity at all, no opportunity for any debate on this with an amendment. I can understand how the majority leader or someone on the majority party did not want to have an up-or- down vote. But I will tell you that I find it is very difficult to square raising our salary to $141,300 at the same time we are not willing to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $6.15 over a 2-year period. It is just unbelievable to me. I want to be clear about it again. The Congress, by taking the Treasury-Postal appropriations bill and putting the salary increase into it, then putting it into a legislative appropriations conference report, is basically raising our pay without even taking a vote on it. I want to tell you that is what gets us in trouble with the people we represent. This is exactly what gets us in trouble with the people we represent, and for very good reason. Maybe the majority leader didn't want to have an up-or-down vote. Maybe the majority party didn't want to have an up-or-down vote. But I wanted an opportunity to come here to the floor of the Senate and say no way am I going to support raising our salary to $141,000 a year when this Senate and this conference has not been willing to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $6.15 an hour. To be very honest with Senators, I might raise another question, which is: Have we earned the salary increase? Have we passed a Patients' Bill of Rights? No. Have we passed prescription drugs extended onto Medicare? No. Have we reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act? No. Have we reauthorized the Small Business Administration? No. In all due respect, we have done hardly any of the work of the people. We have not done much at all when it comes to the basic issues that affect the lives of the people we represent. Yet we are raising our salary to $141,000 a year. We are putting it into an unrelated conference report so that there will not be a vote on it. I think that is not a very direct way of conducting business. I want to remind my colleagues of the words of Senator Kennedy 4 years ago, when the Senate voted to gut rule XXVIII. That is the Senate rule limiting the scope of conference, and we are violating this conference report. I quote from Senator Kennedy. This was 4 years ago, and it is so true to be prophetic. The rule that a conference committee cannot include extraneous matter is central to the way the Senate conducts its business. When we send a bill to a conference we do so knowing that the conference committee work is likely to become law. Conference reports are privileged. Motions to proceed to them cannot be debated, and such reports cannot be amended. So conference committees are already very powerful. But if conference committees are permitted to add completely extraneous matters in conference--that is, if the point of order against such conduct becomes a dead letter--conferees will acquire unprecedented power. They will acquire the power to legislate in a privileged, unrenewable fashion on virtually any subject. They will be able to completely bypass the deliberative process of the Senate. Mr. President, it is a highly dangerous situation. It will make all of us less willing to send bills to conference and will leave all of us vulnerable to passage of controversial, extraneous legislation any time a bill goes to conference. I hope the Senate will not go down this road. Today the narrow issue is the status of one corporation under the labor laws, but tomorrow the issue might be civil rights, States rights, health care, education, or anything else. It might be a matter much more sweeping than the labor law issue that is before us today. That is exactly what we have done. What we have here today is a mini- omnibus measure, and I think it is exactly the road that Senator Kennedy was warning we should not go down. I say to colleagues that I think every Senator ought to object to what we are doing--every Senator, Democrat and Republican alike. We had an opportunity in the later months of this summer when we came back to bring this appropriations bill to the floor. We could have dealt with the Treasury-Postal appropriations bill. If we had, I would have brought an amendment to knock out our salary increase. I would have added an amendment that said we do not raise our salary increase to $141,000 a year until we raise the minimum wage. I would like to have had an up-or-down vote. All of us would have been held accountable, but that is not the way it was done. The majority party apparently doesn't want to have any votes any longer on any amendments whereby we will be held accountable. Instead, anytime a Member desires--and I hope other Democrats will speak on this--it is true, they can take unrelated issues in matters, put it into a conference report, vote to raise our salary to $141,000 a year when we are not willing to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $6.15 over 2 years. They are in the majority. They can put it into an unrelated conference report, bulldoze it over us, and pass this legislation. As a Senator from Minnesota, I am not going to let it happen without speaking about it. There will come a time when they may not be in the majority and there will come a time when they may find provisions that are put into conference reports unrelated to the scope of that conference report antithetical to the values they believe in, against what they think is right, against a Member's ability to represent their State, and they won't like it one bit. But that is exactly what has happened today. It is not because of the Presiding Officer right now, the Senator from Utah. But I believe this is truly an egregious process. Again, one more time--just to be clear to those who are following this debate--I want to be on record. As a Senator from the State of Minnesota, people did not elect me to vote for a salary increase to $141,000 a year, people did not elect me to be here not in a position to bring out any amendments on the floor of the Senate to represent their interests, and people certainly did not elect me to let others put a salary increase--we now go up to $141,000 a year--in a conference report so we don't have an up-or-down vote on it without someone speaking out against it. I speak out against it. I am not showboating. I speak out against it not because I don't think Senators should make a decent salary. First of all, what bothers me the most is I don't think we have done much. I think this has been a do-nothing Senate. I don't think we have done much on most of the crucial issues that affect people's lives. I am not sure what we have done to earn this increase. Second, and I think even more importantly, I don't know how in the world we can justify raising our salary to $141,000 a year when we are not even willing to raise the minimum wage. There are 10 million people in this country who would directly benefit, and many others who would indirectly benefit, from the raise of the minimum wage. There are 119,826 Minnesotans who would benefit from a $1 increase in the minimum wage over 2 years, and if we don't do that, the minimum wage increase that we did pass has essentially lost all of its value. It is not even keeping up with inflation. So colleagues understand, we hear a lot about the booming economy. It is true, but not all the new jobs that are being created are living wage jobs. In 1998, 29 percent of all the workers were in jobs paying poverty-level wages. In some of the jobs where we have seen the greatest growth--waiter staff, cashiers, janitors, and retail sales people--people earn less than half of what is called a living wage. A study released by the U.S. Conference of Mayors in 1998 showed that nearly 4 out of 10 Americans visiting soup kitchens for emergency food were working; they were working poor people. I don't think I want to go into the statistics. We have so many people in this country who could benefit. We have people who work 52 weeks a year, 40 hours a week, and they are still not out of poverty. The raise in the minimum wage would make a real difference, from $5.15 to $6.15 over a 2-year period. What are we doing instead? Instead, we are raising our salary to $141,000 a year. We are raising our salary through the worst process, whereby rather than risking someone bringing an amendment out and having an up-or-down vote, someone has put the Treasury-Postal appropriations bill into the legislative appropriations conference report. Quite clearly, it was done in a very deliberate way so we wouldn't have to have an up-or-down vote. In conclusion, I object to this process. I believe one of the worst things we ever did was make it possible for the majority party--and I promise the Chair that when we are in the majority I will take the same position--to basically waive the rule and insist measures that are put in conference committee be related to the subject material, that we no longer have to deal with the scope of the conference, the worst thing we could have ever done in violation of this constitutional process, and certainly in violation of the very notion of accountability. We have been down this road before. I have come to the Chamber many times and objected to this. This time I believe even more strongly in it. I say to my colleagues, if you want to raise the salary, go ahead, but don't do it in this way. And don't put one appropriations bill that we should have been able to vote on into an unrelated appropriations bill conference report, and then bring it to the floor where there is no opportunity for amendments. I can't have an amendment that says we shouldn't raise our salary to $141,000, but I will vote against this. And I am sorry because the Presiding Officer and other Senators have done good work and in both these appropriations bills there is funding for a lot of important work. I am going to vote no for two reasons. A, I am on record objecting to the way we are conducting our business. I am on record in opposition to the way the majority party is bulldozing over the right of the minority to come to the floor of the Senate with amendments. Second, I am voting against this appropriations bill because I think it is an outrageous proposition that the Senate should vote to raise our salaries to $141,000 a year and we are not willing to vote, to even have a debate much less a vote, on raising the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $6.15 an hour over a 2-year period so people who work hard all year- round and are still poor, who don't earn a decent living and cannot take care of their children, are not even given the opportunity to be able to do better for themselves and their children. I think it is egregious. It is absolutely egregious what has happened. I am in opposition to it. I hope other Senators will speak out in opposition to the process and in opposition to the Congress being so generous with our own salary and oh so stingy when it comes to looking out for the interests of many hard-working, working poor people in this country. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 14 minutes of Senator Dorgan's time be yielded to Senator Graham from Florida and that 6 minutes of my time be yielded to Senator Graham of Florida.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a second? If the Senator needs time, I will give some of my time to the Senator.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I understand S. 3068 introduced earlier today by Senator Kennedy and others is at the desk, and I ask for its first reading.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I now ask for its second reading, and I object to my own request.