Floor Statements

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote and I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the order that relates to Senator Menendez on this matter.

I also ask unanimous consent that the next votes be 10- minute votes.

Mr. President, on behalf of Senators Kennedy and Mikulski, I call up amendment No. 3058.

I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 3109.

I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, this morning the Senate will conduct morning business, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two sides, with the majority controlling the first half hour.

We are working hard to come up with an agreement on how we can dispose of the Biden and Kyl amendments. We were very close to being there several times yesterday, but we are still not there. Once we reach an agreement, Members will be notified of when the votes will occur.

The Senate has received, it is my understanding, the children's health legislation. We are going to begin the process of getting to a point where this matter will be considered and disposed of in the Senate and sent to the President.

Other matters which need to be considered this week are a continuing resolution and debt limit. I have been in contact with my distinguished colleague, the senior Senator from Kentucky, to see how we are going to work our way through this. Members will be apprised of schedule issues throughout the day.

Madam President, there will be no more votes today. We have tried all day to have more votes, but it has been difficult to work that out. We hope in the morning, at about 10:30, we can have as many as five votes--three to five votes. We are going to finish our work on hate crimes and SCHIP. That will require three to five votes. We hope we can get that done with a unanimous consent request; otherwise, we will work our way through it and the procedure will take care of most of it. I think there is a general feeling that this should be done. As indicated, I thought we were going to be able to have the votes today, but for various reasons we were unable to do that. It has made it difficult for the two managers of the bill, but, in fact, we have been able to work out some amendments that have been offered. I just wish we could have done more.

I respect so much the work of our manager on this side and Senator Warner on the other side. They are certainly experienced at this, and we are confident we will be able to draw to a close, hopefully in the not too distant future, the Defense authorization bill and, shortly thereafter, move to the Defense appropriations bill.

Mr. President, I say to my friend, if we spent 3 more days on this bill, that means we would have to dispose of 100 amendments a day. If we spent 4 days on it, we would have to dispose of 75 amendments a day. So these managers have done excellent work, and we know we can't get through all these amendments, but there are a lot we need to get through. It is important, and we will cooperate on this side in every way we can, and I am confident the minority will also.

Yes. Basically, I said there would be no more votes today; that somewhere in the morning, around 10:30, we will have three to five votes, three or four on hate crimes--hopefully, only two--and one on SCHIP. When we finish that, we will find out where we are in relation to this bill.

Mr. President, we do have a lot to do. There are a number of other issues in addition to the CR that we have to finish before Monday. We have no choice. We have a farm bill we have to extend, and we have a number of things we have to do. We are going to work together to see what we can do in that regard. It has been slow on this bill, but in spite of that, I think we have had one of the best debates we have had on this bill. On the two amendments we have dealt with, the Kyl-Lieberman amendment and the Webb amendment, I think that was very good debate. In addition, we had extremely good debate on the Biden- Brownback amendment. I always joke about the House saying: We are going to do this much this week. And I say: Well, we will do this much this week and feel good about what we have done. We are getting to a point here where we have the ability to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and we are pushing toward that goal, and that goal is Monday as the drop-dead day on a number of things we have to do.

Mr. President, I say to my distinguished counterpart, the senior Senator from Kentucky, we have tried real hard. This is the third time we have taken up this Defense authorization bill. I understand the feelings Senator Levin, Senator Warner, and Senator McCain have regarding this bill. Is this a good time to file cloture? I don't think there is ever a good time. But I think that we have all had a pretty good picture of what is happening on this bill. I would have to acknowledge that at some time, if the distinguished Republican leader had not filed cloture, then we would have filed cloture. Whether it would have been today is something we can talk about later. But I don't feel in any way the Republican leader has surprised me. He has kept me posted about some of his feelings on this.

We have had a number of very complicated issues in this last couple of weeks because of the fiscal year drawing to a close. As a result of that, we have procedural things that seem to always come up with the Senate. But in spite of having said all that, we have been able to accomplish a lot. It would have been much better had we not been interrupted so many different times for various reasons, but that is what happened.

We have spent 15 days on this bill, 15 legislative days on this bill. Other than immigration, I don't think there is anything we have spent this amount of time on during this Congress.

Mr. President, I ask the Chair lay before the Senate the message from the House to accompany H.R. 976, the children's health insurance bill.

I move to concur with the House amendment, and I send a cloture motion to the desk.

I ask the mandatory quorum call under rule XXII be waived.

I move to concur in the first House amendment, with the amendment that is at the desk.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

I ask now that the clerk report the second-degree amendment which is at the desk.

Mr. President, I think I interrupted my distinguished friend. Did he have more business to conduct?

I ask unanimous consent we now proceed to a period for morning business with Senators permitted to speak therein for a period of up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, would my friend yield?

I was in my office with the TV on listening to my friend from Iowa. I was compelled to come to the Chamber. I have been in Washington for a long time as a Member of Congress. I served in other offices before I came. All my adult life I have been involved in government one way or the other. They were all part-time jobs until I came back. The reason I came to the floor is that in my experience over all these many years I have rarely seen anyone with the leadership that this ranking member, former chairman of the Finance Committee, offered with this very difficult children's health issue. I say that without qualification. I have said it in closed meetings, and I have said it in public meetings, and I say it before the American people this afternoon. I wish we could have done more with this. I wish we could have done more. But, as I said, and as the distinguished senior Senator from Iowa heard me say in my office, in my years in government, I have spent more time on this issue than anything else I have ever worked on. We could not be at the point we are now but for the Senator from Iowa.

It has been very difficult. The House had to give up a tremendous amount of what they wanted. The Senator from Iowa and I both served in the House. They are two different institutions. It is difficult for the House, from my having served there, to understand and appreciate the difficulties we have here.

I don't know how I can say more than what I have said. I am impressed with the way Senator Grassley has handled this bill. We had difficult issues that came with the House because they had so much, and we were only going to offer them a lot less than what they wanted. But the Senator from Iowa was firm. He was gracious. He was a gentleman through it all.

As I have told a number of people, with Chuck Grassley, no one ever has to wonder how he stands. It is not ``I will go talk to my staff,'' or ``I will get back to you.'' He told us in those meetings what he could do and what he couldn't. I was compelled to come to the floor because we had a real gesture of statesmanship by the Senator from Iowa with this SCHIP legislation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I came to the floor earlier today and spoke very favorably of my friend, Charles Grassley from Iowa, and he deserved that attention that I gave him, those accolades that I extended to him.

I also want to extend my appreciation to Senator Hatch, who has worked on this. He is a member of the Finance Committee. He did an outstanding job and helped us get to the point where we are now. We are going to talk more about SCHIP tomorrow. I do not want those who worked so hard on this side to think that I have forgotten about them just because I said so many nice things about Senator Grassley.

Senator Baucus, the chairman of the committee, has been a champion from the very beginning. He worked hard to try to explain to everyone that we could not do everything the House wanted to do, even though he and I wanted to do that.

The same applies to Senator Rockefeller, who is the subcommittee chair who worked on this. He did a wonderful job. He attended meetings with the House when his presence was extremely important.

I want to make sure that everyone understands the great work done by Senators Baucus, Grassley, Hatch, and Rockefeller as members of the Finance Committee to get us to a point where tomorrow sometime we will finish our work on SCHIP.

Mr. President, Matthew Shepard was a 21-year-old student at the University of Wyoming when he was savagely beaten on October 6, 1998. Why? Because he was a homosexual; he was gay. Two men who had offered him a ride home robbed and pistol whipped him, beat him so severely they smashed his skull. If that wasn't enough for these demons, they tied him to a fence with a rope in the cold of winter, lonely--you can appreciate it if you spent a few of them in Wyoming-- and left him to die. And he did die. He died of severe head injuries less than a week after the beating that was given.

What happened to Matthew was a tragedy for this young man, of course for his family, for other gay men and women who were and have been terrorized by this awful crime. It was certainly a tragedy for our Nation. The men who murdered Matthew Shepard were not charged with committing a hate crime because crimes of violence committed on the basis of sexual orientation were not prosecutable as hate crimes under Wyoming or Federal law. This is still the case today. The Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act would strengthen the ability of Federal, State, and local governments to investigate and prosecute hate crimes.

This amendment would remove the current limitation on Federal jurisdiction that allows Federal involvement only in cases in which the assailant intended to prevent the victim from being engaged in a ``federally protected activity,'' such as voting. This amendment would expand the groups protected under current law to include all hate crimes, including those based on disability, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity--including race and ethnicity. This amendment would provide the Department of Justice the authority to assist State and local jurisdictions in prosecuting violent hate crimes or taking the lead in such prosecutions where local authorities are unwilling or unable to act.

Unfortunately, some of these crimes of hate-motivated violence have been directed to our men and women in uniform.

Just a few years ago, Alan Schindler, a sailor in the Navy, was stomped to death by a fellow serviceman because of his sexual orientation.

A short time after that, PFC Barry Winchell, an infantry soldier in the Army, was beaten to death with a baseball bat because his attackers believed he was gay. They didn't know--they believed he was gay. To them he acted gay, whatever that means.

In December of 1995, two paratroopers who were members of a group of neo-Nazi skinheads at Fort Bragg shot an African-American couple in a random, racially motivated double murder that led to a major investigation of extremism in our military. These killers and 19 other members of this division were dishonorably discharged for neo-Nazi gang activities.

According to a recent Southern Poverty Law Center report, the problem is only going to get worse as members of hate groups have been entering our military, which is increasingly desperate for new recruits. In fact, it used to be if you had committed a crime, any type of crime, the military wouldn't take you. You had to have a high school education and you certainly couldn't be a member of a gang. They are so desperate for military members because of this war we are involved in in Iraq, they are taking just about anybody. There are no background checks with these new recruits.

We have to make it clear that crimes of hate in our military will not be tolerated, and this amendment does just that. It strengthens the Defense authorization bill by sending a clear message that such crimes will be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

Is there a better place to have this amendment than on the Defense bill? I think not. We have had it on it before. If we have our military around the world fighting terror--and that is what they are doing-- shouldn't we be able to protect our own troops from the terror? Shouldn't we be able to protect our own people in this country against being terrorized because of their sexual orientation? the color of their skin? their religion? The answer, of course, is we should be able to do that. They should be able to be protected.

We have to make it clear that crimes of hate in our military will not be tolerated. I repeat that. As we hold ourselves up as a model for the ideals of equality, tolerance, and mutual understanding abroad, we have a special responsibility to combat hate-motivated violence right here at home. Our troops are on the front lines of Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere fighting against evil and hate. We owe it to them to uphold these same principles at home.

The Matthew Shepherd Act was introduced this spring at a ceremony attended by his parents, Judy and Dennis. I hope that tomorrow we will honor the memory of this young man by passing this important legislation which is named after him.

We all remember the brutal killing of James Byrd a few years ago, in Texas. This young man, at nighttime, was walking down a street in his own hometown when he was seen by some white men. They beat him severely, tied him to the back of their car, and dragged him through the streets until he was dead.

We need only look to the recent events in Jena, LA, to see for all the progress, racial tensions continue across our country. This legislation honors the commitment to justice that is woven deep within the fabric of our Nation.

I certainly urge all of our colleagues to join me in voting for this matter in the morning. It is important. It is the least we can do for Matthew Shepard and his family.

Mr. President, I was disappointed earlier this year when the

comprehensive immigration reform was not passed. On two separate occasions, as Republicans filibustered the legislation to its legislative death, we tried to move this to conference on comprehensive immigration reform, and it was filibustered both times. We had knowledge there were not enough Republican votes to pass it. The last time we got 12 Republican Senators.

Part of that vital legislation was something we called the DREAM Act. This legislation's advocates have moved very hard. The primary advocate for this, and its primary sponsor, has been Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois. He has worked tirelessly in his efforts to pass the DREAM Act. He has spoken within the Senate on many occasions, both here on the Senate floor, in the committee, and in press conferences we have had regarding immigration. I have never known Senator Durbin to feel more strongly about anything than this, and we have been together for 5 years.

The DREAM Act recognizes that children should not be penalized for the actions of their parents. Many of these youth come to America very young. Many do not even remember their country of origin because they were too young when they left, nor do they speak the language of their home country. They think of themselves as Americans.

Many of these children are so desperate to be able to go to school. Only children who come to the United States when they were 15 years old or younger and have been in the United States for at least 5 years can apply under the DREAM Act. They would have to meet certain criteria, including earning a high school diploma, demonstrated good moral character, and passing criminal and security clearances. That is what the DREAM Act requires. To qualify for permanent status you must go to college or serve in the military for at least 2 years.

I have met star students in Nevada, for lack of a better description, who had qualified for the DREAM Act. With it their future is limitless. Without it, their future is very limited. Their future is diminished, of course, if they can't go to school.

Many of the children this bill would help are extremely talented and have graduated in the top of their classes, yet cannot go to a State school. What a waste it is to make it more difficult for them to go to college or prohibit them from getting jobs where they could be making meaningful contributions to their communities and to our country. What good does it do anybody to prevent these young people from having a future? Is gang membership better? Is a minimum wage job for life better? Is a life of crime better?

I hoped we would be able to offer this legislation as an amendment to the pending legislation, the Defense Authorization Act, but we have been unable to do that. Enacting the DREAM Act will give more of our children an opportunity to succeed.

Senator Durbin and all who care about this matter should know that we will move to proceed to this matter before we leave here. I am going to do my utmost to do it by November 16. This is important legislation. We have a commitment to the young people to do this. It was part of the comprehensive immigration reform. It was a key part of comprehensive immigration reform. It was there that Senator Durbin began talking about it--some would think incessantly--but he talked about it all the time, and he still feels strongly about this.

I send a message to him tonight and all who care about this legislation, we are going to try to move to this legislation. We should have been able to do it on this bill. We are going to be unable to do it, but we are going to move forward on this legislation as I have outlined.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senate report 110-184 be star printed with the changes at the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to S. Res. 333.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating there be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that tomorrow following the time for the two leaders, there be 2 hours for debate, equally divided between the two leaders, prior to the cloture vote on the Kennedy amendment No. 3035; that upon the completion of that time, the Senate vote on the cloture motion relative to that amendment; that if cloture is invoked there be 2 minutes for debate, equally divided in the usual form, followed by a vote on the amendment; that if cloture is not invoked the amendment be withdrawn; that there then be 2 minutes for debate prior to the cloture vote on the Hatch amendment No. 3047; that if cloture is invoked, there be 2 minutes for debate prior to the vote on the amendment; that if cloture is not invoked the amendment be withdrawn; that following the disposition of these amendments there then be 2 minutes for debate prior to the cloture vote on the motion to concur in House amendments to H.R. 976, the Children's Health Insurance bill; further, that the live quorums in each case under rule XXII be waived.

Mr. President, I appreciate everyone's cooperation. I will say we have a lot to do. It is all up to us when we get it done. I hope it does not spill over into the weekend. If things work out right, we could finish everything tomorrow. We will have to see. But we are going to try to. I know that may be wishful thinking on my part. But we are going to try to get as much done as we can.

Yes.

I say to my friend, I wish to be able to complete, prior to a week from Friday, the Defense appropriations bill.

I would also like to have a run at Commerce-State-Justice, which deals with the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration. I would like to be able to do those two appropriations bills before we leave. We have a tremendous burden to do the rest of the appropriations bills. The House has passed them. It is easier for them to do than us. I have requested that we start our conferences. I want real conferences like we used to have around here when the distinguished Republican leader and I were a little bit younger, when we actually had conferences where people sat down and talked about different issues. We are going to try to do that and get a number of these done so we can send them to the President. I think that is what will get this program moving along.

I have spoken to the head of the Office of Management and Budget. Even though he may not be able to agree with what I want, I have found him a person who is agreeable. I talk to him anytime I call him.

Maybe we can work our way through this. But we can't do it unless we have bills that are completed that we can send to the President. It is not just going to happen by magic. I personally believe it is not good for this country to have long-standing continuing resolutions. We need to do our job. That is why I hope we can complete our work so next week we can do the appropriations bills.