
DATE: Sunday, November 16, 1997             TAG: 9711160018

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B9   EDITION: FINAL 

                                            LENGTH:  231 lines

ROLL CALL HOW MEMBERS OF CONGRESS VOTED

Here's how area members of Congress were recorded on major roll call votes in the week ending Nov. 14.

HOUSE

Charter schools: By a vote of 367 for and 57 against, the House passed a bill (HR 2616) authorizing $100 million in fiscal 1998 to fund charter schools within the nation's public school systems. More than 700 such schools now operate in at least 21 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The number is expected to grow as additional states make them legal. Charter schools are exempted from most rules for traditional public schooling. They use innovative curricula and teaching methods, and are required to achieve superior academic performance or face closure. They are controlled by their own boards of trustees, and are fiscally accountable to the U.S. Department of Education.

Tim Roemer, D-Ind., said: ``This legislation is about public school choice, so our parents can send their children to good public schools, charter schools, alternative schools, magnet schools. . . . It is about schools that function with less bureaucracy and with less strings attached. It is about schools that try bold ideas with respect to curriculum and school days and partnerships with businesses and apprenticeship programs.''

Ron Paul, R-Tex., said, ``Our public school system faces too much regulation from the federal level. We do not need a new program. In this bill, we will have mandates from the federal government on the states . . . also recommendations in here that the curriculum be evaluated . . . (and) the eventual evaluation and setting of standards that I think is so dangerous to the public school system.''

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Bateman Yes Pickett Yes

Scott No Sisisky Yes

Clayton Yes Jones Yes

Line-item veto: Voting 352 for and 64 against, the House passed legislation (HR 2631) overriding President Clinton's veto of specific items in a fiscal 1998 military construction bill. That was Clinton's first use of line-item veto powers. With this vote, the House joined the Senate in disapproving the item veto. Clinton's next possible step is to use a traditional veto to reject this disapproval bill. It would take two-thirds majority votes in each chamber to override a second veto and allow the disputed spending for 38 construction projects at bases to go forward.

Ron Packard, R-Calif., said: ``The president must use this new power very carefully, fairly, and responsibly. Otherwise, the line-item veto becomes an abusive and dangerous power in the hands of the president. . . . Nobody should claim this bill contains unnecessary spending or is laden with pork.''

David Skaggs, D-Colo., said it was ``a mistake'' for Congress to enact a line-item veto. ``We did this to ourselves. The only way we are going to come to our senses about our mistake is to have to suffer the consequences . . . until we realize that we have it in our power to restore our constitutional rights.''

A yes vote was to reject the president's line-item veto and support the spending.

Bateman Yes Pickett Yes

Scott Yes Sisisky Yes

Clayton Yes Jones Yes

Trade: Voting 182 for and 234 against, the House defeated a bill (HR 2644) to suspend duties for at least 14 months on certain imports from Caribbean and Central American countries. The bill required duty-free treatment of products such as textiles, apparel, handbags, luggage, watches, and work gloves. It sought to put those exports on equal footing with Mexican and Canadian products that enter duty-free under the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). As this vote occurred, lawmakers also were weighing a measure granting presidents ``fast track'' authority for shepherding international trade agreements through Congress. Lacking House support, the latter bill was shelved until 1998.

Cass Ballenger, R-N.C., said increased trade spurred by waiving duties ``will create jobs here and help countries like Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala become more stable. After years of war and removing dictators, these countries are now fragile democracies and need our help. . . . Reducing tariffs will result in lower consumer prices for imported products.''

Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., said taxpayers ``should not be subsidizing more loss of jobs here in the United States,'' adding that the bill was unlike NAFTA because ``there are no obligations on the Caribbean nations . . . no requirements for sanctions against sweatshops or child labor'' or for cooperation in fighting drugs and illegal immigration.

A yes vote was to lower trade barriers with the Caribbean and Central America.

Bateman Yes Pickett Yes

Scott No Sisisky No

Clayton No Jones Yes

Spending bill: By a vote of 352 for and 65 against, the House approved the conference report on a bill that shelves President Clinton's proposal for national academic testing while providing $277 billion for the departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services in fiscal 1998. Accounting for 16 percent of the federal budget, this is the largest of the 13 appropriations bills that fund the government, followed by the defense appropriations bill at $248 billion. It had been delayed, in part, by GOP opposition to planned national testing, on a voluntary basis, of fourth-graders in math and eighth-graders in science. Under this bill, the plan is to be delayed until at least 1999 and studied by the National Academy of Sciences, and final say on whether it can go forward will rest with Congress, not the Department of Education.

Bob Livingston, R-La., said two of the things he liked about the bill were that ``we were able to stop national education testing in its tracks'' and expand anti-abortion provisions ``to make sure no federal funds were used to purchase health plans that would pay for abortions.''

Another supporter, David Obey, D-Wis., said the bill authorizes a needle-exchange program for drug users ``that may be controversial but which will save lives.'' He said it also ``repeals the $50 billion ripoff that was being provided in the (1997) tax bill for the tobacco industry.''

No member spoke against the bill.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Bateman Yes Pickett Yes

Scott Yes Sisisky Yes

Clayton Yes Jones No

Census: Voting 282 for and 110 against, the House passed a bill (HR 2267) that provides fiscal 1998 budgets for the departments of State, Justice, and Commerce. The $32.1 billion measure was disputed mainly over an administration plan to use statistical sampling to count inner-city populations in the 2000 Census. It advances the plan but makes it easier for Republicans to block it in court on grounds that the Constitution requires ``actual enumeration'' of the population. Also, the bill allows certain illegal immigrants to receive permanent visas without first returning home. Under this softening of a 1996 immigration reform law, at least 200,000 aliens will gain legal residence by paying a $1,000 fine. Another loophole in the 1996 law - a waiver of deportation rules for hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans who have fled persecution - was enacted separately as part of a District of Columbia budget bill.

Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., called statistical sampling ``a diversion from what this country has done for over 200 years, and that's to count the men and women and children . . . one by one in a very methodical way, and instead of doing that, we're going to guess how many people are in this country.''

Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., called GOP opposition to statistical sampling an ``effort by the leadership to politicize the Census and make sure that millions of minorities and poor are left out of the count. They try to hide behind the Constitution, but they don't care whether sampling is constitutional or not.''

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Bateman Yes Pickett Didn't vote

Scott No Sisisky Yes

Clayton No Jones No

Adoption: The House approved, 406 for and 7 against, a bill (HR 867) to move neglected children more quickly from state-run foster care to adoptive families. It changes current practice, which encourages social agencies to return children to their biological parents even if those parents are potentially abusive. Instead, it emphasizes finding a safe, adoptive home. It provides federal cash incentives for states to cut the number of children in foster care and offers additional benefits to parents who adopt handicapped children. An estimated 500,000 abused, neglected or abandoned children now are in state foster care. The Senate passed the bill on a non-record vote and it awaited President Clinton's signature.

Clay Shaw, R-Fla., said that as a result of the bill, ``we can expect adoptions to increase by many thousands of cases in the next five years. Think of that, thousands of additional children removed from the uncertainty of foster care and placed in warm, loving, and permanent families.''

No member spoke against the bill.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Bateman Yes Pickett Yes

Scott Didn't vote Sisisky Yes

Clayton Yes Jones Yes

Spy budget: Voting 385 for and 36 against, the House approved the conference report on a bill (S 858) funding U.S. intelligence agencies in fiscal 1998. The bill funds the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency and other units. While America's intelligence budget is an official secret, it has been widely reported to be in the $27 billion to $30 billion range.

Ike Skelton, D-Mo., said the bill reflects ``the fact that as the size of the Armed Services decreases, the need for timely and reliable intelligence becomes more critical. Our military commanders cannot do their jobs . . . without intelligence of the highest quality.''

Another supporter, James Traficant, D-Ohio, said: ``When Gen. (Norman) Schwarzkopf said that he relied on intelligence as much from the media and CNN as he did from the CIA and other sources, that should be cause for alarm. I honestly believe that . . . we are not getting the type of intelligence that we need to keep our great nation free.''

No member spoke against the bill.

Bateman Yes Pickett Yes

Scott Yes Sisisky Yes

Clayton Yes Jones Yes

Scientology: Voting 101 for and 318 against, the House refused to condemn the German government for what critics say is discrimination against minority religious groups. The non-binding measure (H Con Res 22) charged, in part, that German officials have discriminated against Scientologists. The German government does not recognize the Church of Scientology as a religious organization and denies it the tax-exempt status that it gives to other church groups, according to floor debate.

Jerry Weller, R-Ill., said: ``American citizens today are being denied the ability to do business in Germany because of their religious faith. Whether members agree with the values and the teachings of Islam, or Jehovah's Witnesses or the Church of Scientology, these individuals are being persecuted.''

Amo Houghton, R-N.Y., said the issue was ``whether we do not look just a bit pompous sitting back here with all our many moral problems in this country, to pass judgment on a nation, our friend, which is wrestling with something which we ourselves and other nations are wrestling with.''

A yes vote was to pass the resolution.

Bateman No Pickett No

Scott No Sisisky No

Clayton Yes Jones No

SENATE

Spending bill: Voting 91 for and 4 against, the Senate approved the conference report on a bill (HR 2264) appropriating $277 billion in fiscal 1998 for the departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services. The bill contains a long list of riders making major policy changes. For example, it shelves for at least one year President Clinton's plan to begin voluntary national testing of fourth- and eighth-graders, bans U.S. funding of new Teamsters elections, bars the National Labor Relations Board from authorizing single-site bargaining units within an overall company, prohibits the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) from issuing regulations on ergonomics in the workplace, and repeals a $50 billion tax break for tobacco companies that was included in the 1997 balanced budget-tax cut package.

Lauch Faircloth, R-N.C., praised the bill because it ``eliminated funding for national testing as well as funds for Teamsters elections'' and ``preserved my amendment that would require the Education secretary to certify that 90 percent of the funds (for) education go to students and teachers.''

No senator spoke against the conference report.

A yes vote was to approve the legislation.

Robb Yes Warner Yes

Faircloth Yes Helms No ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

Photos

VIRGINIA

[names and addresses of reps. listed]

[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]