There are several pressing matters pending before the Committee on which Senator Kennedy has shown great leadership for some time. I hope that the Chairman will join with Senator Kennedy and me and others to see if we can work together to make progress on them.

One is the Religious Liberties Protection Act, a version of which passed the House two weeks ago. This is an important piece of legislation. It raises a number of tricky constitutional issues. The last time we tried to legislate in this area, the Supreme Court held that Congress had exceeded our constitutional authority. So we must make absolutely certain that we do it right this time.

We held one hearing on this general topic in June. We were supposed to hear from a number of constitutional scholars, but they were called off at the last minute because of some concerns about the length of the hearing. It was my hope that we would hear from these experts at a follow up hearing at which we can begin to build the kind or record that will be needed.

As I noted at the June hearing we need to work to ensure that the bill does not undermine the efforts of States and localities to administer their civil rights laws. This will not be easy, but we are willing to make the effort to do this the right way.

A second important issue is hate crimes. Senator Kennedy, Senator Hatch and I have all spoken to this issue over time and recently. Now that the Senate has passed the Kennedy Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which a number of us have cosponsored, and the bill recently introduced by Senator Hatch related to hate crimes, as amendments to the Commerce, Justice State Appropriations bill, we need to see whether we can work together to ensure final passage of this most important legislation.

I would like to see the Committee take up and pass the the Anti-Atrocity Alien Deportation Act, S.1375, which I introduced with Senator Kohl cosponsoring.

Some time ago I introduced the Senior Safety Act, S.751, with Senator Torricelli. That could make a significant difference in the lives of our seniors and provide greater protection from the unscrupulous out to take advantage of them.

In the few weeks remaining to us this session we can make progress on all of these matters. I will be working to see that we do.