LIEBERMAN CALLS FOR HOMELAND
SECURITY VOTE
WARNS AGAINST GOP PORK, SPECIAL INTEREST PROJECTS
November 13, 2002
WASHINGTON
- Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, D-Conn.,
delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday.
Mr. President, I rise to support the motion for cloture
that will be voted on in about 15 minutes. This is a way to
begin bringing this debate on the creation of homeland security
to a close and to allow our government to begin the urgent
business of creating this new department. For those of us who
have supported this idea for over a year now, this moment is
long overdue.
But I must say, I am troubled by the draft of the
substitute bill that began circulating yesterday which in my
view has not only a number of very good parts in it, which are
quite similar to those contained in the bipartisan bill reported
out of the Governmental Affairs Committee, but also has a number
of serious short shortcomings that I hope to discuss when it
comes to the floor either later today or tomorrow.
I am especially concerned that this new substitute bill
creating a November 13, 2002 Department of Homeland Security
also contains with it a number of special interest provisions to
that are being sprung on the Senate without prior warning or
consideration. This is really not the time for that.
We all ought to be focusing on the terrorist threat, the
need to create a Department of Homeland Security to meet that
threat and not on using a vehicle that is moving, probably to
passage, to put into it a host of pet personal projects. I hope
the President and members of the leadership will discourage
senators and members of the house from using this homeland
security debate as a vehicle for accomplishing those more
special purposes.
Mr. President, more than 14 months have now passed since
September 11, 2001, that day when terrorists viciously exploited
our vulnerability and took the lives of 3,000 of our friends,
family and fellow Americans. Thirteen months have now passed
since October of 2001 when Senator Specter and I initially
proposed legislation creating a Department of Homeland Security
to meet and beat the terrorist threat.
This measure was not just bipartisan. It was in fact
intended to be nonpartisan. Our proposal had nothing to do with
politics and everything to do with giving our government the
ability to protect the American people from another terrorist
attack. I point this out now, not out of pride but to make clear
how far we've come in some ways in the wrong direction and how
much time we've taken before making this urgent transformation.
In the beginning the vision of a Homeland Security
Department was chaired by our former colleagues, Warren Rudman
and Gary Hart. Then it was put forward in our committee bill.
Then as happens to good ideas in a democracy, it gained support
and steam in congress. At the outset, President Bush and most
Republicans in congress resisted our legislation. I never took
that resistance to be partisan, and I don't believe it was. The
President argued that the coordinating office of homeland
security within the white house, led by Governor Ridge would be
strong enough to do this massive and complex job. So for eight
months the administration did oppose the creation of a Homeland
Security Department. In the meantime, the Governmental Affairs
Committee held a total of 18 hearings exploring every possible
aspect of our homeland defense vulnerabilities and how they
should be fixed.
On May 22 of this year, the product of that work, a new
version of the bill, was reported out of our committee,
unfortunately on a party-line vote, with all Democrats voting in
favor of a department of homeland security and all Republicans
opposed. But that
partisan split did not last for long. A month or so later, I was
very pleased when, last June, the President and most members --
most of our Republican colleagues -- endorsed the proposal to
create a Department of Homeland Security.
Mr. President, somebody once said that it's common in
Washington to see people change their positions but rare to see
them change their minds. And
I'd like to believe that's exactly what happened in the White
House, based on experience. The President and his assistants
changed their mind about the desirability of a Department of
Homeland Security.
We then worked with the White House and Senate
Republicans to build the greatest
possible support for a bipartisan bill. In July of this
year, our committee sent such a bipartisan proposal to the
senate floor which we began to debate in early September. And we
had a good debate on this proposal, as was acknowledged by all
people on both sides. Our committee legislation overlapped the
President's proposal and the house-passed bill on 90% or 95% of
the issues and decisions involved.
But somehow, despite finding ourselves on the same page,
we couldn't find a way to turn the page together to create a
more secure nation. The sticking point, of course -- the major
sticking point -- was civil service protections and collective
bargaining rights for homeland security employees. And we tried
in good faith to bridge that divide. We pushed repeatedly for a
vote on a very reasonable bipartisan proposal.
We pushed repeatedly for a vote on a very bipartisan
proposal crafted by Senators Breaux, Nelson and Chafee to break
the unnecessary logjam over the rights of federal workers.
But that was not to be our hour. Colleagues on the other
side did not yield. Five times they refused to allow a vote on
their own bill, even though democrats had time and again given
ground and simply wanted to vote on the compromise amendment.
And as will be remembered most because of senator Daschle's
justified expression of anger on this floor, the bush
administration even began to question the patriotism of
Democratic senators rather than join this good-faith area of
disagreement to try to come to an agreement.
And I must say, Mr. President, in a new low in the tawdry
business of political campaign advertising, Senators Cleland and
Carnahan were subjected to ads that took votes that they cast
out of context on homeland security and questioned their
patriotism. That was outrageous and unacceptable.
The fact is that these two senators, Carnahan and Cleland,
had been early supporters of a Department of Homeland security.
So what started out as a nonpartisan effort to protect America's
national security, unfortunately became a very partisan effort
to decide elections.
Well now the campaign is over, and it's time to turn a
page once again. Benjamin Franklin said, "you may delay,
but time will not." I say this afternoon that we may delay,
but the terrorists will not. Senators Hart and Rudman have
issued another report within the last week or two, and they
predicted an attack, another terrorist attack. They've said that
it "will result
in even greater casualties and widespread disruption to American
lives and the American economy. The need for immediate action is
made more imminent by the prospect of the United States going to
war with Iraq and the possibility that Saddam Hussein might
threaten the use of weapons of mass destruction."
Mr. President, our vulnerabilities remain painfully
serious and our national apparatus to protect national security
is dangerously disorganized. That is why it is so critical to
pass a bill creating a Department of Homeland Security led by a
strong and accountable secretary. That will start to close our
vulnerabilities and improve our homeland defenses. Safety in
this new age is a civil right. When human beings, when Americans
live in fear, their rights are compromised.
So by invoking cloture and moving towards a resolution on
a Department of Homeland security today, we will be saying loud
and clear that we as a nation do not succumb to fear. We will
face what threatens us with strength. We won't be shaken by that
voice that once again has threatened us on audio tape because we
will secure our own future by working together here in Congress
to better organize our government and thereby to secure more
control of our own destiny.
Fear, uncertainty, and delay will be overcome by
strength, unity and American ingenuity. We will protect our
friends, our family and our
children against the worst designs of our terrorist
enemies by drawing on the best in each of us and hopefully in
the days ahead we will do it together. Mr. President, I urge my
colleagues to vote for cloture on this vital legislation.
|