macleginn/stanford_congress_record_longer_speeches huggingface dataset:
Date: 1997-09-10
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to point out with -respect to the ranking members recollection of my voting record on this particular topic. it is remarkable since 2 years ago I was not a Member of Congress and for me to have voted on that would have been a tremendous achievement. I assure my colleagues.
Date: 1997-09-10
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

The dollars are headed to State and local grantrelated programs that assist neglected or delinquent children in Statesupported institutions. could be correctional facilities or other institutions for neglected and delinquent children.
Date: 1997-09-10
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

Mr. Chairman. the gentleman suggests that the amendment represents dollars going out of school districts entirely toward other types of settings. which I would refute and reject and believe that that cannot be supported. In fact. this is a grant program. School districts. in many cases and. in fact. in most cases. also apply for these funds. receive these funds for the assistance of atrisk children. Now. these activities take place in schools of all sorts. and they are at the will and liberty to apply for the grants just as any other institution may. The real question. though. is that we are talking about specific individuals. Now. while some may measure fairness based on a relationship between institutions. others of us measure fairness on a relationship of how we treat individuals. whether they are a child at risk and subjected and entitled to a public education. be it at an elementary school. be it at a special home that has been created for a neglected or an abused child. or in a juvenile correctional facility. We are talking about dollars that are going directly to children to assist children. Now. frankly. I am less impressed by how one building or one group of education bureaucrats fares compared to another. I think the American people. in general. are more inspired by what we can do for children and for individuals who have the greatest need. who are at the greatest risk. This amendment. in fact. gets dollars to children who need it most wherever they may be.
Date: 1997-09-11
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

Mr. Speaker. while Democrats are busy trying to come up with new excuses why working families should be denied the same educational opportunities that the liberal Washington elites own children enjoy. innovative Governors and mayors throughout the country are moving forward with school choice. Democrats say they are not really against working families. Of course. they simply do not mind keeping families trapped in bad schools. for liberals prefer instead promises to reform these bad schools through the magic of the Federal Government. Many of these politicians have idealistic visions about how working families can cope with Governmentowned schools in which children do not feel safe. where dumbing down trumps excellence. and where burned out teachers rotate in and out of classrooms more often than the Yankees try new managers. Mr. Speaker. they propose to. get this. pump more money into the very same Government schools that have failed them year after year after year. with no mention of changes in structure or in methods. A generation of illiterates does not deter Washington liberals in their misdirected intentions. Everyone at their cocktail parties is in agreement that denying school choice for everyone elses children is a victory for the Washington bureaucracy. Republicans have a different idea: School choice empowers children and their families.
Date: 1997-09-16
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

Mr. Chairman. I would like to refute the arguments of the gentleman from Minnesota who just spoke. I have a lot that I find that I like about Minnesota. one of which is an author and a storyteller named Garrison Keillor. -who writes about a mythical town in Minnesota called Lake Woebegone. He talks about Lake Woebegone. where all the children are above average. all the children are above average. If Members are inspired by that particular statement. that particular comment. I would suggest that they really would want to embrace national testing. because that is what they will get. They will get 50 States where all children are above average. Let me suggest. the gentleman who said that those who favor the Goodling amendment. as I do. and hope we have support here today. that this amend-. ment would deny States the opportunity to participate in voluntary testing. I would suggest this debate is not about national testing. It is not about testing at all. and it is not about the value of testing. What it is. though. is about whether we should embrace a governmentowned test versus an independent test. States around this country realize the value of independent testing. testing that is outside of the U.S. Department of Education. that is not controlled and dominated by Federal bureaucrats who are rewarded when they treat all States and all students as though they are somehow all above average. Members of my State board of education told me that they did not want the governmentowned national testing program. Other State legislators and leaders in the areas of schools told me the same. Local school leaders told me the same thing. Yesterday. Mr. Chairman. there was a meeting here in Washington about this national testing program. It was a meeting of the national test panel which is organizing this effort. The National Governors Association did not show up because they have -withdrawn from the effort. State after State after State is coming to the conclusion that when we come here tonight. that this national testing effort is a bad. bad idea. and that the Goodling amendment ought to be passed. that $100 million a year to "support this nonsense is something we should not do. We should redirect those dollars directly toward children. not toward more bureaucracy and more administration. A governmentengineered national test. I will submit. is the most direct pathway to mediocrity in America. It is an idea that we should reject. and we should reject it tonight .by voting in favor of the Goodling amendment.
Date: 1997-09-17
Speaker: CURTIS WHITE (republican)
Chamber: S

CoDirector. Fiction Collective 2. Unit for Contemporary Literature. Illinois State University. Normal. IL. DEAR MR. WHITE: It has come to my attention that the National Endowment for the Arts has been credited with supporting a number of books published by FC2 that were not funded by a grant from this agency. As you know and as the Endowments grant letter makes clear. funds are released for the specific project described in the grant letter and specified in the grant application. The Endowments -logo should be used only on those publications for which a grant was received. Grant #9652230091. which will conclude on June 30. 1997. awarded funds for the following books: S&M. by Jeffrey DeShell. Mexico Trilogy. by D.M. Stuefloten. A Spell for the Fulfillment of Desire. by Don Webb. Memory Wax. by Alan Singer. and Aviary Slag. by Jacques Servin. The progress report which you filed with this agency erroneously included Blood of Mugwump as among those volumes partially supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. this is not the case. In any future publications. including promotional materials and reprints of FC2 volumes. please remove any reference to the National Endowment for the Arts from any publication which is not supported by an NEA grant. I would appreciate your prompt attention to this matter. Sincerely.
Date: 1997-09-23
Speaker: THOMAS W EWING (republican)
Chamber: H

Member of Congress. Rayburn House Office Building. Washington. DC. DEAR CONGRESSMAN EWING: I refer to your letter requesting a meeting for June 19th in order to discuss the cases of Ms. Jennifer Davis and Ms. Krista Barnes. two American citizens who were detained in Peru with 6.4 Kgrs. of cocaine. Although I appreciate your kind invitation. I must remind you that this is an internal domestic matter that involves the Peruvian Judicial branch which is separate and independent from the Executive branch. Therefore. as the representative of the Head of State. and the Executive in particular. I am not authorized to discuss the issue with foreign authorities. All information I have about these cases has been provided to you and some of your colleagues in a letter dated Finally. I understand that on May 1st. you and the Congressional Caucus on Human Rights organized an informal conversation about prison conditions and the judicial system in Peru. This Embassy attended the meeting and presented an informal paper on the issue. Sincerely yours.
Date: 1997-09-24
Speaker: SAM JOHNSON (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Speaker. it is impossible for me to believe the hypocrisy coming from the White House on campaign finance reform and the way we have been treated on this floor. We just wasted 45 minutes. Just days after Attorney General Janet Reno started a 30day investigation into Clinton and GORES fundraising practices. he has the audacity to threaten to call Congress back into session if we adjourn without at least debating campaign finance reform. I feel compelled to point out that we do not need campaign finance reform. we need elected officials who will follow the current law. If we enforce the laws. such as no foreign contributions. we would not need an independent counsel to tell us that President Clinton and Vice President GORE broke the law. plain and simple. Mr. Speaker. the President should be using thatphone in the White House to do his job. not line his pockets.
Date: 1997-09-24
Speaker: LINDA SMITH (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Washington

Mr. Speaker. sometimes we just have to sit back and admire the Democrats for their breathtaking audacity. Democrats have found themselves caught redhanded in more than one sense taking money from foreign sources. Let us make it very clear that is- illegal. That is why the Democrat Party has alreadyreturned millions of dollars in contributions from foreign sources. Of course that is after they used the money to help the President get reelected. So now they feel qualifiedto tell the American people. how to do it and that they are the .party that would be expert in raising money. Well. would that still be from foreign sources? Maybe they think that under a better system. asystem that does not force them to break the law. it should be OK. to raise money for political campaigns from Communist China. launder that money to conceal its source. shred evidence to conceal the criminal behavior and then act outraged about the system. Or maybe they just want to change the subject.
Date: 1997-09-24
Speaker: LINDA SMITH (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Washington

Mr. Speaker. I say I am opposed to this motion not because of its content. but I am opposed because in the present form it is missing an addition I think is important to be before this House. the addition of language relating to a pay raise.
Date: 1997-09-24
Speaker: LINDA SMITH (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Washington

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Speaker. I think it is very important that the first thing that we say is "We like this amendment." It makes sense. It made sense when we passed it. The protection of exploited children is a national issue important to all Americans hearts. But confidence in this Congress to handle fairly all issues vital to citizens is clouded by previous procedures used to allow a salary increase for Members of Congress to go through just last week without a vote. We are just going to ask to oppose the motion in its present form. not the content. We just want to add something. We would like to add that we would like to take the Senate language. they already voted against a salary increase. so we would say that to slow down a couple of minutes on this floor. to add this salary increase motion to this other vital motion is not much to ask to restore the confidence in America in Congress. in what we are doing. Mr. Speaker. I reserve the balance of my time.
Date: 1997-09-24
Speaker: LINDA SMITH (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Washington

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker. I want to point out that the Senate does have a provision to strike the pay raise. and that is all the gentleman from Indiana wanted to say. that they have struck the pay raise. Mr. Speaker. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin .
Date: 1997-09-24
Speaker: LINDA SMITH (republican)
Chamber: H

o f Washington. Mr. Speaker. I wanted to make a point that actually the majority voted against the pay increase last week. 102 to 112. so they would not have passed it had they been the only people here. Mr. Speaker. I yield 1 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama .
Date: 1997-09-24
Speaker: LINDA SMITH (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Washington

tion adjustment. It is about upholding Mr. Speaker. I yield 1 minute to the a law that was passed in 1989. gentleman from Montana . I know Members have deep feelings
Date: 1997-09-24
Speaker: LINDA SMITH (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Washington

sunshine and they want a vote on the Mr. Speaker. I yield 30 seconds to the law of 1989. then learn the legislative gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. process. Introduce a bill and repeal or Fox]. amend the 1989 law that set up the pay
Date: 1997-09-24
Speaker: LINDA SMITH (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Washington

Mr. Speaker. I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.
Date: 1997-09-25
Speaker: SAM JOHNSON (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Madam Speaker. the Secretary of Education believes giving low income parents the ability to send their children to a better and safer school is. "a simplistic world view and dead wrong." But recent polls show that school choice is gaining support in America. especially among minorities. A recent study shows that 57 percent of AfricanAmericans and 65 percent of Hispanics support school choice. I am surprised the administration is coming out against such a commonsense idea. Secretary Riley made it clear that low income families will not be helped by this administration. Now let me make it clear that we in Congress will continue to push for school choice. See. we do not believe the President should be the only person in public housing withthe opportunity to send his child to a better school.
Date: 1997-09-29
Speaker: DAN SCHAEFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

Mr. Speaker. the bill reauthorizes provisions of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act relating to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and U.S. participation in the International Energy Agreement for one fiscal year. These provisions. which will expire September 30 absent this reauthorization. assure that. if there is an energy emergency. the Presidents authority to drawdown the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and the ability of U.S. oil companies to participate in the International Energy Agreement without violating antitrust laws is preserved for another year. . As I stated at the markup. because of their importance to U.S. national energy security I believe these programs should not go unauthorized. At the same time. I believe requiring them to be reauthorized annually is appropriate as long as oil from the Reserve continues to be sold for budgetary purposes. It is my hope that when DOE completes its review of SPR polices we can work with the administration and the appropriators to develop a coherent and consistent policy regarding the future of the Reserve. Finally. there are several conservation related programs contained in EPCA and which were discussed at the subcommittee hearing that are not included in the bill we are considering today. I intend to work with interested parties to reauthorize these programs in the neat future.
Date: 1997-09-30
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

Madam Speaker. my. how things have changed. George Washington. the Father of our Nation. was obsessed with the idea of establishing a national character. He believed in the marrow of his bones that the esteem and success of a nation derived above all from one thing and one thing only. It was not the strength of its army. the wealth of its resources. the level of taxation extracted from its citizens. nor was it the refinement of his laws. No. Washington believed that the esteem and success of a nation derived above all from the virtue of its people. To General Washington. the greatness of a nation and the greatness of its people lay in the moral character of individuals. He wrote that "A good moral character is the first essential of man." How different things are today in the city that bears the name of such a great American hero. We e2e daily a new standard of character. a nevernever land of legalistic gymnastics that carefully avoids the outright lie. but plumbs the depths of deception. deceit. and verbal prestidigitation. The campaign to deceive began with Medicare. blossomed in Filegate. and continues this very day with the corruption of American elections by foreign money. This new White House standard is a national disgrace.
Date: 1997-10-01
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

Mr. Speaker. when Americans opened up their newspaper last week. this is what they found: DNC Teamsters and the Teamsters traded funds. ClintonGore campaign implicated in scheme to raise illegal donations. Court records show that the ClintonGore Reelection Committee and the Democrat National Committee conspired with Teamsters to divert -money to a union bosss election. They conspired to hide these illegal contributions. and they conspired to swap funds with Teamsters. We know this because three aides to Teamster boss Ron Carey pleaded guilty to these felony charges of diverting funds through various political groups to the Teamsters. It was payback time over at the ClintonGore Reelection Committee. and so an illegal laundering scheme was hatched. and no campaign finance laws were going to stand in their way. Here is how the laundry cycle worked: Take the union funds. put it to Democrat Senate and House election committees. the ClintonGore campaign pays back by calling their wealthy donors to send cash to the Carey reelection campaign. And here we have just one more example of a Presidential legacy that makes Richard Nixons legacy look like an ethics guide to the Boy Scouts.
Date: 1997-10-06
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

Mr. Chairman. I would urge colleagues to reject the Miller amendment that is before us at the moment. I ask this body to remember exactly what it is that this debate is all about. This is not a discussion over safeguards against some prospective possibility of executive abuse where national monuments are concerned. This is a bill that is brought to us because of the demonstrated abuses that have already occurred. already occurred. What this amendment proposes to do is virtually nothing different than the President has already done in establishing the Escalante Grand Staircase National Monument. Think of this. 1.7 million acres set aside in a State where the governor was not consulted. where the governor of that State of Utah heard by rumor that this might occur within his State. The President did not even exercise the courage of making the announcement from the State where the monument was to be designated. He made it one State over in Arizona. He consulted the governor of my State in Colorado. Roy Romer. who now is chairman of the Democratic National Committee. consulted him weeks before. consulted Robert Redford. an actor. but did not consult one member of the Utah delegation. What this amendment suggests in front of us now is that the President will attempt to notify somebody. It does not say it has to be the governor of that State. It says that it may be some other individual. any other individual or organizations that he deems advisable. Well. who would that be? Let me just tell my colleagues from past experience. it was not the governor of the State of Utah where this monument was in question. In fact. that governor flew all the way here to Washington. DC. camped out in a hotel. asked for meetings with the President of the United States and was denied that opportunity until 2 in the morning before that President set aside 1.7 million acres. Let me suggest. this is not just an issue of great concern for those individuals here from Utah. It is of great concern to every Member of this Congress who has public lands within it or private land within it or State lands within it. because those are the kinds of lands we are talking about. The Antiquities Act that we think of was designed quite frankly for small monuments. In fact. prior to this 1.7 million acre setaside. that is what we saw. small areas of land with some unique feature. But when this President decided to waltz into a State without notifying the congressional delegation. without notifying the Senators. without notifying one individual within that State of any elected capacity and set aside 1.7 million acres. we need to shut that authority off. We need to put that authority back in the hands of the peoples House so that we can assure right here that our citizens and taxpayers. property rights holders and those who enjoy the use of public lands and who enjoy credible monuments have the opportunity to have input and a sayso and have full opportunity to deliberate the importance of those dramatic actions by this Congress.
Date: 1997-10-07
Speaker: SAM JOHNSON (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Speaker. I agree. we got to keep the public schools going. but why does the President continue to deny low income students a chance to excel academically? Why does he insist that children attend unsafe and often druginfested schools? Well.-to be honest. I am still trying to find the answer to these questions. I find it ironic that both the President and Vice President send their children not to the Districts struggling public schools. but to safe and challenging private schools. They understand and they want their children to get the best education. get it in a safe and friendly environment. They do not want their children to walk through metal detectors and have police roaming the walks and the halls or witness a drug buy or a shooting. and I do not blame them. But I believe that every child. black. white. rich or poor. should have the same choice. They should be able to get a first rate education. one that fosters growth and learning. not hopelessness and despair. For all the Presidents talk of equality and opportunity for all. he is now the obstacle to those parents who want only the same privileges he has. to give their kids the best education possible. He seems to be more interested in bureaucrats. unions and Federal control than in the wellbeing of our children. Our President does not believe that you parents are smart enough to do what is best by your kids. by denying you the freedom of choice that he and the First Lady exercise. he is denying your children their best shot at the American dream. What is wrong with letting parents make their own decision. use their own money. that their children would be better served in a private school or a public school on the other side of town? What is wrong with this? What is the President trying to save? Clearly it is not our childrens future. Mr.-Speaker. the answer is simple. it is school choice. The- answer is simple. it is parental - control. The answer is freedom to choose how and where your child gets an education. The President must not prevent our children from succeeding. The future of America depends on it.