Date: 2006-09-19
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. It is rather interesting that this legislation comes up with no hearings. no discussion with the school districts. no discussion with local authorities who have the obligations to meet the demands that we cavalierly talk about here. This Court decision I believe is 1985. That is what school districts have been struggling with is to try to put in a policy that meets the test of reasonableness and also protects them in terms of liability and the teacher in terms of liabilities. We cited Columbine here. I cant believe there is a school district in Colorado that doesnt have a policy dealing with guns on campus. in compl iance with Federal law where there is zero tolerance for guns on campus or you can lose your funding. Paducah. Kentucky. and the tragedy there. I cant believe there is a school district in Kentucky that has not responded in the years since those tragedies. The fact of the matter is every school district in the countryhas a policy like this because they can. in fact. be sued for not having a policy. for not taking reasonable steps to protect their students and faculty and staff. Here we have the United States Congress apparently read a.report of statistics and studies of all of the activities which is illegal under State and Federal law. They have read that now and have decided 10. 20 years later that the school districts are not doing any. thing. are not taking action. and the Federal Government has to tell them to take this action. It is incredibly arrogant and an insult to people who every day live on the front lines for the protection of those students and those faculty members and those staff members and for those children whose charge they have to think that somehow they have not developed the best policy they possibly can within the confines of the fourth amendment. within the confines of their State interpretation of State laws. That is what school districts struggle with all of the time. That is what they do for a living. Those are the measures they can take. This idea that somehow if you codify this Supreme Court decision. the TLO decision. that somehow if you codify this and they are immune from liability. no. they are not. Someone would go to the court and decide it was an unreasonable search. and you will be right back with liability. just as is done all of the time under the fourth amendment. What school districts have tried to do is to build a policy over a period of years to try to make it the most effective policy and also make sure that they are not exposing the district and others to all kinds of different liabilities. but to have an effective policy. Does anybody here suggest that is not their purpose? Does anybody suggest that they have not done this since Columbine. they have not done this since Paducah. or they have not done this since the shootings in Oregon? Of course they have. And you know what. they would probably be in a much better standing if you would keep cutting the Safe and DrugFree Schools Act. if you quit cutting the money that is available to them in education so they could make these policies even more effective. and they could spend even more time with the students working on why these behavior patterns should not be allowed. why schools should be a safe place. why schools should not be allowed to be the street. There should be bright lines between the schools and streets. That is what schools are seeking to do all the time. But here is the Federal Government 10. 20 years later after the policy was announced saying. I guess you are not doing anything. and we are going to tell you to do it. We are going to tell you to do it this way or the highway. It just doesnt make any sense. It just doesnt comport with what all of us know is going on in the districts that we represent. Eitherthat. or you have never visited a school. you have never talked to a school administrator. or never talked to a superintendent or a teacher. The fact of the matter is that they struggle with this all of the time. and they do it within the confines of the decision that you say is controlling. They know that. That is why they hire attorneys. That is why the policy parties that are responsible for coming up with this. that is why they oppose this. But this will be the Congress who tells them. do it our way. that is the only way. and now we will have to go back through all of these policies and start over from ground zero. It just doesnt make any sense. It denies what we all know is. in fact. taking place in school districts and schools all over this country every day as those individuals struggle to keep those educational institutions safe for the students who are attending them. I urge my colleagues to vote against this legislation. Mr. Speaker. I yield back the balance of my time.