Hatch-Leahy Juvenile Crime Bill

Another week has come and gone without a meeting of the House-Senate conference on the Hatch-Leahy juvenile crime legislation, that passed the Senate by a 73 to 25 vote last May. The marches in more than 70 cities around the country on Mother’s Day drew attention to these matters. On Monday at the National Peace Officers’ Memorial Service, the President again called upon us to act.

Just yesterday the Senate voted in favor of the Daschle Amendment urging Congress to move immediately to resolve the impasse on that Conference and enact sensible public safety legislation, including closing the gun show loophole in current law. On the Budget Resolution last month, the Senate adopted a similar amendment. I regret to have to report, however, that there has been no action on this vital matter.

Violence Against Women Act

I also regret that the activists on the Supreme Court have chosen to override the will of the Congress and overrule a portion of the Violence Against Women Act. We have not taken up the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization that Senator Biden has championed and that so many of us have supported. That is something we could and should have enacted by now.

National Police Week

I do want to thank Senator Hatch and all members of the Committee for helping pass S.1638 on Monday to extend the eligibility of education benefits to the families of those public safety officers who were killed in the line of duty and for adopting the Leahy amendment so that families in Vermont were not arbitrarily excluded from benefits by the close of an eligibility date just after their time of loss.

This week we take time to remember the law enforcement officers who gave their lives protecting the public. It is National Police Week. I had asked last week that this Committee take up S.2413, the bill that I introduced with Senator Campbell and Senator Hatch to improve our Bulletproof Vest Grant Partnership Act by reauthorizing the program for another 3 years, raising the annual appropriation to $50 million and guaranteeing to jurisdictions with populations less than 100,000 a fair share of these resources. The President endorsed the bill and urged action when he spoke at the National Peace Officers’ Memorial Service on Monday on the West Front of the Capitol. I still hope that the Senate will respond this week.

Judicial Nominations

Unfortunately, the Committee cancelled the internet security hearing it had noticed for yesterday and had no hearing on Tuesday morning either. I regret that the Committee did not take those opportunities to hold a confirmation hearing for another group of qualified nominees to the 81 federal court vacancies around the country. We remain well behind the pace set by this Committee in 1998, let alone by the pace we met in 1992 when a Democratic Senate confirmed 66 judges nominated by President Bush during a presidential election year.

I understand that the Chairman does not expect to proceed to report the Pennsylvania nominees on the agenda today. I hope that we can find a way to report as many nominees as possible as soon as possible.

Subpoenas

Instead of the legislative agenda we in the minority have suggested be the focus of the Committee, this Committee is choosing to follow in the footsteps of Congressman Burton, revisiting the campaign finance hearings of the House GRO Committee and the Thompson Committee here in the Senate. Now we are searching for something to hold a hearing about with regard to Elian Gonzalez and to subpoena e-mail material from the White House. Of course, Congressman Burton has already held a series of 4 hearings on the e-mail problem. That is the majority’s prerogative since they set the agenda.

Quorum

With only four of the 10 Republicans in attendance at the scheduled business meeting and with the Chairman ving publicly announced that we would not be proceeding with the Pennsylvania nominees, the Republican majority nonetheless took occasion to criticize the attendance of the minority this week. The minority has cooperated in achieving quorums over the last several years. Just last week it was the minority members that made the quorum and held the quorum as long as possible while the Committee met. Last week 7 of the 8 members of the minority attended, over 87 percent of our membership. When the majority has over 87 percent attendance, i.e., 9 of its 10 member majority present, that is when it might start considering whether to criticize the minority. Until then, there should not be such criticism. The minority members-- in particular Senator Feinstein and Senator Feingold, but from week to week all minority members of the Committee-- have attended these meetings with little to no notice of the last-minute changes of the agenda, with agendas bereft of legislative matters being urged by Democratic members, and in spite of their extremely busy schedules and competing demands for their time and attention. I commend each Democratic member of the Committee for her or his cooperation, engagement and patience– especially this year.