Mr. President, tomorrow, April 15, is the deadline for millions of American people to pay massive, retroactive tax increases that President Clinton pushed through the Congress last year. President Clinton raised income taxes, gas taxes, taxes on seniors and small businesses. The President sought to tax everything that moves and some things that do not. On November 21, 1991, Bill Clinton told an audience here in Washington: If you omitted the reference to Republicans, candidate Clinton's own words should provide President Clinton with ample evidence of why Whitewater has become an issue of importance to the American people and why congressional hearings must be held. Well, now that the President has raised everyone else's taxes, we discover he has not paid all of his own. Worse yet, President Clinton's health care plan will be the single-largest tax increase in the history of the world. It seems like the President never met a tax he did not like, except his own. Mr. President, I believe I am speaking for millions of hard-working American taxpayers when I say we expect our President to pay his full and fair share of taxes, and to pay them on time. In yesterday's and today's "Doonesbury" cartoons, Republican leadership is depicted brainstorming about Whitewater. Let me refer to yesterday's cartoon, "Doonesbury." GOP leadership is brainstorming. It has Congresswoman Davenport: "If I may, Bob, dear?" "The Chair recognizes Congresswoman Davenport." She goes on to say: "I think we should tread carefully with these hearings. If there is, in fact, malfeasance, then by all means, we should bring it to light. She goes on to say: "Lest we appear merely vindictive, it might be best if you kept a low profile during the actual hearings." "Um, [how do I do that?] how low?" And she goes on to say, "Cleveland? Seattle? It's up to you, dear." Mr. President, the only payback I have seen is to watch President Clinton pay back his back taxes. Mr. President, notwithstanding that, the fact is we do need hearings. It has not a whit to do with payback, but rather accountability. The same accountability that candidate Clinton called for, before he became President Clinton. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Washington [Mr. Gorton]. Mr. President, just an hour ago in Olympia, the attorney general of the State of Washington, my distinguished successor in that office, Christine Gregoire, held a news conference together with several prosecuting attorneys from the State, of both political parties. The news conference was on a topic of overwhelming and urgent and immediate importance, the habeas corpus provisions contained in the House bill on crime, a bill, and perhaps an amendment, which is being discussed at the present time. Ms. Gregoire denounced those provisions in the House bill and urged the Congress to remove the entire title, all of the provisions in title VII of H.R. 4092 relating to habeas corpus. In her judgment, and I am quoting: The citizens of the State of Washington are particularly sensitive to this case of endless appeals. Today marks the 12th anniversary of the brutal murders of three women in Clearview, WA, by a man named Campbell. Mr. Campbell was sentenced to death some considerable time ago, but in the course of the last 7 or 8 years, he and his attorneys have filed 44 motions and briefs in State and Federal courts, and 5 separate appeals in a so-far successful attempt to delay his execution. On March 28 we marked the fifth anniversary of a stay of that execution, imposed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Five years and seventeen days have elapsed -- that period of time. Campbell appeals have cost our State and our Nation's taxpayers an estimated $2.3 million. I need to emphasize that his murders were perhaps the most brutal and callous undertaken in the State of Washington at any time in the last several decades. Some in the State of Washington in positions of legal authority feel that, should the House provisions on habeas corpus become law, that the Campbell appeals would start all over again. As a consequence, provisions which are advertised as simplifying the appeals structure in fact add additional and unnecessary complications to that procedure, and focus attention not on the guilt or innocence, not even on the trial in the State courts before a jury, but on various procedural aspects of those appeals themselves. Our attorney general and our prosecuting attorneys have gotten together to ask for changes in the habeas corpus rules that apply in the Federal courts at the present time: First, to allow one appeal and one appeal only through the Federal court system; second, to require that such a petition be filed within 6 months of final adjudication in State court; third, to ensure that appeals are judged by legal standards prevailing at the time of conviction and not new standards that invite constant new petitions; and fourth, to impose deadlines on Federal courts for their decisions to end the unconscionable delays which were involved in the Campbell appeal the first time through in the ninth circuit which actually resulted in an order from the Supreme Court to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals actually to act. Mr. President, on the surface of it, any provision which states that it is a reform of habeas corpus procedures is deemed to be a plus by most of the people of the country when, in fact, we are faced with one which makes the process more complicated, which adds to the time and the expense and the delay. That proposal should be defeated. It was removed by this body in the debate last November over a crime bill. It ought to be removed from the House bill as well. Will the Senator yield on that particular point? I am happy to yield to the Senator from Utah. If the Senator will allow me to comment, it is pretty apparent the House leadership is doing everything it can to thwart the passage of the true crime bill. Frankly, the current House crime bill contains a habeas corpus proposal which would result in a de facto elimination of the death penalty. Does the Senator agree with me on that? The Senator regretfully does agree that that is very likely to be the net result of that provision if it should become law. If I could go on, the leadership in the House appears set on keeping this measure in the bill to obtain leverage in the conference between the House and the Senate. They know that we are very upset about the habeas corpus provision. We kept it out of our bill because it is so controversial. The Senate passed a very tough habeas corpus provision in the prior Congress. They want to put it in to get leverage. Now, the Rules Committee over there has reported the rule which, aside from dumping most of the Republican initiatives or amendments, also stacks the deck against efforts to remove the liberal habeas corpus provision. The rule also fails to allow Republicans to offer an amendment which will ensure funding for the crime bill -- again, a leverage position so they can get a softer bill than what we have done over here. Mr. President, despite the odds, Republicans are prevailing in the House on other death penalty amendments. The habeas votes were supposed to occur this afternoon over there, but when it looked to the leadership that their efforts to pass a liberal habeas corpus -- that is, to allow more multiple appeals up through the State courts, Federal Courts -- when it looked like their efforts to pass that type of provision might fail, the House leadership promptly decided to adjourn until next week. Now they are talking about a "king of the hill" group of amendments. Now, the way that works is -- and it is a big game -- the way it works is they know their habeas corpus provision is going to go down, and so they come up with two votes. One is to strike, I believe, the habeas corpus provision. But nothing happens even if they vote to strike until the second when they move to correct it. What it means is that the liberals in the House can vote to strike their habeas corpus provision, and then they turn right around and move to correct it and put it right back into effect. Nobody else can have another amendment, and the Republicans and conservative Democrats who want to straighten this incessant number of habeas corpus appeals out, they are just out in the crime debate. Now, does the Senator agree with me on that particular analysis? This Senator certainly does agree with that analysis, and the reason this Senator came to the floor was to point out that from the point of view of the country as a whole, this is not a partisan issue. The attorney general, my successor in the State of Washington, is a member of the Democratic Party. Most of the prosecuting attorneys who appeared with her today are members of the Democratic Party. And they reflect the views of the vast majority of State attorneys general across the United States, Republicans and Democrats and nonpartisans combined. They want true habeas corpus reform just as the senior Senator from Utah wants true habeas corpus reform. But just as the senior Senator from Utah feels that doing nothing is far preferable to doing the terrible job which was proposed here at one point in the Senate in our debate but defeated, so this group of attorneys general and prosecuting attorneys wants this provision stricken from the House bill and this issue taken up at a later time separately when it can be debated on its own merits. I am certain that their advice to Members of Congress, my attorney general to my members, probably the Senator's attorney general to his members, would be, under this set of circumstances, to vote to strike the present provisions and not to insert anything in their place, to separate this issue out entirely for future debate. And if that is the result, then it may very well be that the House will have passed a bill which will be constructive in connection with dealing with crime. If, in fact, the House passes a bill that includes its present habeas corpus provisions or anything remotely similar to them, what is called an anticrime bill will, in fact, be a procriminal bill. It will add to the time that people like Campbell can delay justice and can add to the costs to the people of the United States and frustrate the administration of justice. If the Senator will yield again, I wish to compliment the Senator because the Senator is a former attorney general of his State. He understands this situation. It is a very difficult issue to understand. A lot of people in both Houses do not understand it, except everybody understands that there are now unlimited appeals through both systems, the State and the Federal system. Just so we all understand, those crafting the House rules have passed a rule, or will pass a rule, that contains what is called the "king of the hill" provision, and by this I mean Republicans will get their amendment to strike the liberal habeas corpus provisions of the House bill. It is the prevailing view that this effort to strike the liberal habeas will pass, but immediately after that vote there will be a vote on another liberal Democrat habeas corpus amendment which the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union, supports. This will allow liberal Democrats to vote to strike the original habeas corpus provision but ensures the passage of another one of these provisions that is not going to do anything to solve the problem. So Democrats in the House have been blaming Republicans for delaying their crime bill, but when it was apparent that Republicans might win on some votes, especially habeas corpus, the leadership folded their tents until next Tuesday so that they could put it together in a way that they could not lose even though a majority of Members of the House would like to have a different habeas corpus provision. So we here, as the distinguished Senator from Washington has said, avoided the issue. We just kept habeas out of the bill hoping that we could work it out separately later. But we know that, if the House is intent on keeping their liberal habeas provision that will exacerbate the situation in their bill, then, in all honesty, it is going to be kept there for leverage during the conference because they know that we do not want that liberal provision in the bill that is going to exacerbate the problem, not alleviate the problem. I think the distinguished Senator from Washington has done us all a favor in pointing this out. It is exactly for that reason that I came to praise my successor, Ms. Gregoire, as the attorney general of Washington, for a very cogent presentation of her point of view and that of our prosecuting attorneys. I think they are doing the State a great service. I hope and I expect that many or most of the members of the congressional delegation of my State in both parties will defer to her judgment in this connection and see to it that we deal with the crime bill and leave this issue to later and not do something which adds to the complexity of appeals in the guise of making them more simple. Mr. President, as I say, I just happened to be walking through and heard this discussion on habeas corpus. We worked for a long, long time, as the Presiding Officer knows, to arrive at a compromise on habeas corpus. I met for the better part of 7 months with the National District Attorneys Association, and the National Attorneys General. Both of those associations officially signed on to a meticulously detailed and compromised habeas corpus provision which we thought we could have agreement on in this body. I made a commitment, although I do not agree with the characterization of the House provision on habeas corpus as being this great get-out-of-jail free card that is being painted. But I do acknowledge one important fact; this will complicate matters greatly. I would remind my colleagues that we had in the underlying crime bill, the so-called Biden bill, to which we added amendments -- I had included my provision on habeas corpus that had been negotiated with the DA's, and negotiated with the attorneys general, the National Attorneys General Association. Although over a third of the national attorneys general did not ultimately support it, the majority of the association did, and an overwhelming majority of the DA's, and the National District Attorneys Association supported it. It did not go as far as I believe the Derrick amendment; that is, the alternative amendment that is going to be offered in the House. But I withdrew it. I withdrew it in order to get a crime bill passed. I withdrew it in order to make sure that we would also be able to get the Brady bill passed. I withdrew it in order for us to be able to attend to other matters in the crime bill. We reached an agreement here on the floor that as part of that extensive compromise that brought about the most significant crime bill we have ever passed through this body, that we would, in fact, put it aside and not raise it in this calendar year. Will the Senator from Delaware yield for a question? I am delighted to. This Senator knows fully the sequence of events, having participated in the discussion on habeas corpus for many years in the Judiciary Committee. I am sure the chairman will recall that my amendment on habeas corpus was separated out, was taken up as a freestanding bill. But in that procedural posture, realistically, it lacked the impact of being considered as part of the crime bill. I understand fully why the Senator from Delaware did what he did, as he has explained, to get the crime bill passed. I thought at the time that the habeas was very important and should have been taken up. My question to my colleague from Delaware is will we not have in conference an opportunity worthy, of necessity -- naturally depending on what the House of Representatives does -- to deal with habeas corpus? The answer is, unfortunately, possibly, yes. I say "unfortunately" because the one thing that the police officers of America need urgently is assistance. I am fearful that by having to bring up habeas corpus in conference and then on the floor in both bodies again through a conference report, based on my 22 years of experience in dealing with these crime bills here, and 9 years of experience -- I see some of the staff on the floor here who are on the Republican side who know as much or more about this than I do -- we know from our vast experience that this is an incredibly difficult topic to reach any accommodation on. In fact, in the past it has been used as a rationale, and sometimes was a rationale to allow, in effect, what amounted to a filibuster to keep any crime legislation from passing. That is why I committed on the Senate side -- and I would like to ask the Record to be held open so I can get my exact quotes because I know I will be quoted on this 75 more times if I get it wrong -- but my recollection is during the debate on the crime bill this Congress last year, I indicated that we would -- in the unanimous-consent agreement we had, other than attending to the separate amendment that the Senator from Pennsylvania had -- that we would not attempt a return, forgetting an agreement on what amendment would be considered -- we would not raise on either side habeas corpus in this Congress, in this Senate, or at least until the crime bill was passed in this Senate. I will go and check the Record precisely on what it was. The reason for that was not because I disagreed with what the House is attempting to do, not because I disagree with the so-called Biden compromise reached with the district attorneys and attorneys general. I agree. But because I recognize the reality of what will happen to something I care much more about, and that is putting 100,000 cops on the street, building boot camps, setting up $1 billion for drug courts, $9 billion for preventive programs, drug treatment, et cetera, et cetera. I care much more about those things than reforming habeas corpus at the moment. So what I am fearful of, in answer to the question of the Senator, is if the House of Representatives passes any -- forget "liberal." Let us assume they pass, from my perspective, a draconian habeas corpus provision that essentially eliminates habeas corpus. Whatever position they take on habeas, once habeas is in the conference, the fat is in the fire, and the one thing other than guns that has been the thing that has kept the crime bills from passing here will have to be resolved. We have never been able to resolve it thus far. It has always been used as an excuse by everyone who has any reason to be against the legislation to say they are against it, and we end up stalemated. So I sincerely hope that we do not have to consider habeas in the context of the crime bill. If the Senator from Delaware will yield for one moment, my suggestion is that the habeas issue can be dealt with and can be resolved if we can separate out those who are really opposed to capital punishment, who use the habeas issue as a vehicle for stalemated legislation. The issue boils down to two critical points. One was what would happen on intervening judicial decisions with the kind of language on fundamental rights very close among the participants in the last Senate debate; that is, the Senator from Delaware and the Senator from Utah, and this Senator; and what would happen on successive petitions? We passed the habeas bill in 1989 which had the agreement of Senator Hatch and Senator Thurmond, and I think it was very close to what the Senator from Delaware had in mind. Of course, we have to deal with the semicolons. We cannot deal with the generalizations. But my view has always been that the death penalty is so important as a deterrent, and that this is one area of Federal law which touches State law directly because of the 37 States which have the death penalty, it cannot be carried out because of the lengthy appeals on Federal habeas corpus that the Senator from Washington has talked about -- one case today -- and that there are about 2,800 people on death row. I think last year the number of executions was 38. From my own experience as a district attorney, with the view that capital punishment is a deterrent, and the need for some imposition and fair timeframe, which I have addressed on timeliness, part of which the Senator from Delaware has subscribed to in terms of filing it 6 months after the process is finished, if we take a close look at getting the case into the Federal court early and one comprehensive hearing without the rules set up by the Supreme Court on bouncing back and forth -- on a conservative Supreme Court has not made any real practical sense -- it is my view that when Joe Biden, Orrin Hatch, Arlen Specter and some of the House Members get together to talk about the specifics, we can solve it. (Mrs. MURRAY assumed the chair.) Madam President, I say to my friend from Pennsylvania, if we could get the people who are viewing habeas as a means to curtail application of the death penalty out of the debate, and if you can get the conservatives looking for full and fair essentially to eliminate Federal habeas out of the debate, we can get an agreement. Unfortunately, some of my right- and left-wing friends arrive at the same point, which is they are intractable, unwilling to acknowledge any change. The Senator from Pennsylvania and the Senator from Delaware can most likely arrive at an agreement, but I doubt whether Senator Gramm from Texas and the Senator from Delaware and the Senator from Pennsylvania and the Senator from Massachusetts could arrive at an agreement. I will make the Senator an offer he cannot refuse. I will deliver from the right wing, this side of the aisle, being a centrist myself. I think the Senator from Delaware can deliver the other side, which I prefer not to characterize. I would not want to ask the Senator to carry such a heavy load, because I am confident my shoulders are not strong enough to carry the corresponding load. If the Senator will yield, I am delighted that the Senator from Delaware and this Senator from Washington have, by different roads, reached the same point on this issue. On the procedure, not the issue. That is exactly correct. And it is because there have been so many differences on substance that the Senator from Delaware reached that procedural decision, reluctantly as he may have come to it, in any event. I began in this discussion by praising the attorney general for the State of Washington for asking the congressional delegation to keep the House bill clean on this issue -- as the Senate has already done -- so that we may concentrate on a number of areas in connection with crime that may be controversial, but at least on which there is a greater degree of agreement than there is on this issue. Habeas corpus is vitally important. We undercut respect for the law by the observation on the part of citizens that these appeals go on forever and ever. The way in which we are to solve that question has obviously become a matter not only of controversy on its own merits, but as the Senator from Pennsylvania said, as a vehicle to get at other things often stated in the debate. I reiterate my praise for the prosecuting attorneys and the attorney general from my State. I hope we will be able to debate habeas corpus, but along with them, I trust we will do it independently. (Mrs. BOXER assumed the chair.) I thank the Senator from the great Northwest. Madam President, I want to point something out here. I worked for 7 months on a compromise. I got an absolute majority of the attorneys general of the United States of America, including a Republican attorney general from the State of Pennsylvania, and other Republicans, as well, and an overwhelming majority of all of the district attorneys in America, to agree to it. The Senator from Washington still would not agree to that compromise. The conservatives still would not agree to it. So we have a phrase that we use in the law -- and there are three lawyers on the floor -- and the phrase is: You come with unclean hands when you make an assertion for which you have, in fact, put yourself in the position to have no credibility to make because of actions earlier. It is one thing to come and praise a single attorney general for being opposed to a House provision. It is another thing to imply that if we let the attorneys general make the decision, and the DA's, we could be for what they were for. In truth, they were for the Biden compromise. Your attorney general was in the minority. But the attorneys general were for the Biden compromise. The DA's were for the Biden compromise. The conservative Republicans were against the Biden compromise on the floor. We took it out of the bill because the conservative Republicans were not for what the prosecutors of America were for. They are the facts, nothing but the facts. They used to say in that show with Walter Brennan, "Ain't brag, ma'am, just fact." Those are the facts. I say that not to be critical, but to underscore that the idea that we can get together in a conference and arrive at a conclusion is bizarre, because even when I came to this floor with a document in hand, negotiated in detail for 7 months, with the imprimatur of the District Attorneys' Association and the United States Attorneys General Association, I could not get my Republican friends to be for that. I respect that. But it is mildly disingenuous for somebody to suggest the reason to be against the House provision is because the district attorneys and attorneys general are against it -- which they are. I assume that the corollary of that would be true -- if they were for something, we should be for it -- because, clearly, the district attorneys are not for preventing the death penalty from being imposed. So this Senator from the State of Delaware, after 7 months of frustration, dealing in good faith with honorable men and women who prosecute these offenses at a State level, reached an accommodation with them, for which they said: We agree with Biden. And I said: I agree with the attorneys. The liberals became very angry with me, and the conservatives became very angry with me because we, the prosecutor- types, agreed. So I say: Either say the attorneys general know what they are talking about, and the DA's know what they are talking about, and be for it; or say that nobody knows what they are talking about except me, whoever "me" happens to be speaking. But this is a perfect illustration of why I hope the House does not pass anything on habeas corpus, because we will have some of it -- I am not characterizing the last two arguments. I want the Record to show that I am not speaking of the Senator from Washington nor the Senator from Pennsylvania. But we will hear on the floor the most humorous and outlandish assertions relative to habeas corpus. The reason they can make them is because our distinguished fellow citizens in the gallery, who are not lawyers, should not, and most times do not, know the details of habeas corpus. So I can stand here and say: "Habeas corpus is the root of all evil," and people up in the gallery would say, "He may be right. I kind of like the guy," or, "I do not like him, and he is probably wrong." Half of the people I ran into out in the street when this was a big issue thought it was the name of a convicted felon crouched behind a garbage can in an alley waiting to jump on someone. Habeas corpus is the cause of our problems. Habeas "schmabeas." Most people do not understand it. I know everybody comes to the floor and brags about not being a lawyer. Well, ignorance is sometimes bliss. I know my friend from the State of Washington is a fine lawyer, a better lawyer than the Senator from Delaware. He was a prosecutor, and understands it fully. That is not the point I am making. The point is, when we get to the debate on the floor and we are trying to pass either a $15 billion or $23 billion crime bill that could really do something about crime, Congress will spend weeks talking about habeas corpus. In the meantime, people will get shot and killed. Forget the death row guy. There is one thing I want to remind everyone of, and I will stop. Anyone filing a habeas corpus petition is not a threat to any American. If they are filing a petition, by definition that means they are in jail. You do not file a petition, you cannot file a petition unless you are behind bars. Those are the facts in terms of impact. So anybody who files a petition and says, "Hey, judge, I've got a habeas corpus petition; here read it," is already in jail. Now you may argue that justice is being delayed in that they are not being hung and they are only in jail. OK, fine. I understand that argument. Sometimes it is a correct argument. But we are not putting anybody in this gallery or anybody on the street, or anybody in this Chamber in jeopardy because we have not fixed habeas corpus. The only people in jeopardy are the people in the jail who might be innocent. And, I might add, an outrageously high percentage of the petitions filed in Federal court -- and, I might add, in the Federal courts out of 735 Federal judges, three-quarters of them were appointed by Ronald Reagan. So they are not your left-wing judiciary if really an outrageously large percentage of those criminals who pass that paper out through the bars and give it to a court and say, "Check me out, habeas corpus." The court says: "Hey, you are right. Your rights were violated." Funny thing, but that is a separate issue. The issue here is, will anybody understand the habeas corpus debate if we bring it up when we have to pass this crime bill? My suggestion is people here will understand it. Will it get confused in the public? What will the end result of it be? That we do not get a crime bill? If we do not get a crime bill that means more people will be murdered, more people will be mugged, more people will be battered, more people will be without protection. Less help will go to the community because we will stand here left, right, and center, myself included, all of us, and we will either speak intelligently or pontificate not so intelligently on habeas corpus. I say let us pass the crime bill. Let us put habeas corpus over here. Let us go help the communities and come back and fight over habeas corpus. I will conclude by saying if you cite prosecutors as a reason why to be against a particular position that is credible, that is worth doing. That carries weight. I respectfully suggest if you cite them as evidence for why we should be against a position when they are overwhelmingly for a position, you should also take that into consideration. Madam President, will the Senator yield? Yes. It is a great pleasure to listen to the Senator from Delaware in his enthusiasm as well as his knowledge of this subject. Occasionally he may get slightly more enthusiastic than the facts warrant. This Senator began with the discussion of this subject by quoting only his own attorney general -- -- I understand. And prosecuting attorneys from his own State. When, however, the Senator from Delaware says that his compromise was endorsed by the National District Attorneys Association and by the Association of Attorneys General, he is exaggerating to a certain degree. The National Association of Attorneys General did not endorse the Biden compromise. It might very well have been he got agreement from a slight majority of individual attorneys general. He did not get the support of the majority of attorneys general from States which impose capital punishment. When the board of directors of the National District Attorneys Association, a relatively small group, endorsed the Biden compromise, there was literally an uprising across the country among the members of that association. Undoubtedly, the board of directors, having worked for 7 months with the very distinguished and forceful Senator from Delaware who wished to do something in this area, figured that they better endorse the Biden compromise or they might get something worse. They did not have their troops with them. Will the Senator yield on that point? The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware controls the time and has yielded to the Senator from Washington. Madam President, I want to intervene on that point. I will relinquish the floor back to the Senator. If the Senator will recall what I said, I knew he was speaking only for his attorney general. I pointed out his attorney general was against the Biden compromise and I pointed out that a majority of the attorneys general were for the compromise and a third to half ended up being opposed to the compromise. The official endorsement came from the District Attorneys Association. The Senator is correct in that the attorneys general board of directors endorsed it. He is also correct that a majority of the attorneys general of the United States of America beginning and at the end endorsed, and he is correct that the Attorneys General Association as an association did not officially endorse because at that point when, by, I guess it was -- how many attorneys general -- I think there were -- do not hold me to this. I will do it for the Record. But I think there were 11 attorneys general officially opposed, 11 State district attorneys general, and there was as many as 18 that had questions about it, if I recall correctly. So, my enthusiasm was not overblown or overborne. My enthusiasm, as characterized by my friend from Washington, was accurate in that by his own admission a clear majority of attorneys general in the United States did, in fact, support the compromise, No. 1; and No. 2, the organization of district attorneys officially, their organization and an overwhelming number of their membership as characterized to me by the organization, endorsed the compromise. Essentially what there was, was a very articulate, very forceful attorney general from the State of California named Dan Humbert who led the charge against the compromise and was able to get, I think, at the top of the line, 12 attorneys general to agree with him. But the point is that I am flattered. I am flattered that I now know that a majority of the attorneys general of the United States are fearful of me, that they are fearful that if they do not agree with me they are going to get something worse. I wish my colleagues would take some lead from them and follow their genuine concern and fear and drop habeas corpus from our discussion, because I want to get cops on the street as quickly as I can get them there, and habeas corpus should be delayed for another day. Will the Senator yield? I yield the floor. Good. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington has the floor now. Madam President, maybe it is just that the colleagues know the Senator better than the attorneys general do. I suspect that is true. In any event, the numbers in this connection are perhaps not as important as the substance. Clearly, they are not as important as the substance, and the numbers are somewhat murkier than the Senator from Delaware would have the membership believe. If the Senator will yield, I frankly resent the constant reference to my attempting to mislead the United States Senate. I am not making any such statement. Does the Senator question whether the majority of attorneys general endorse the compromise? Does he have any doubt about that? This Senator does not know first hand the answer to that question. This Senator accepts -- -- Then the Senator should resist suggesting that I exaggerate. This Senator accepts the statement that the Senator from Delaware made. This Senator did dispute the proposition which the Senator from Delaware has withdrawn, that the National Association of Attorneys General endorsed his position. That did not happen. They took no position on it. This Senator asserts that a majority of the attorneys general from the States which impose capital punishment did not endorse his position. This Senator also points out that the board of directors of the National District Attorneys Association did, in fact, agree with the position that the Senator from Delaware ultimately reached, but that many -- I cannot say most and neither, I suspect, can the Senator from Delaware, because there are literally hundreds of district attorneys throughout the United States -- that there was a considerable revolt among district attorneys with respect to that matter. And it is the belief of this Senator that if the district attorneys of the United States and the attorneys general of the United States were asked whether or not they support the provision which is before the House of Representatives today, it is the view of this Senator that they would reject it by a rather substantial majority. Will the Senator yield on that point? In that connection, of course, the Senator from Delaware and the Senator from Washington have reached the same position. If the Senator will yield, I not only would guess, I know that the leadership, Democrat and Republican, of the National Attorneys General Association and the District Attorneys Association would be and are opposed to either the proposition offered in the House Judiciary Committee-passed provision or the anticipated alternative about to be offered, I believe, I am not certain of this, by Congressman Derrick. But I think, regardless of whether or not anyone accepts either of our characterizations of where the prosecutors of America stand on this issue, I think this discussion, where we are trying to agree and cannot, is illustrative of how difficult it will be to reach a compromise where we do not agree and we are trying to reach agreement. We cannot even agree when we are trying to agree when it comes to habeas corpus. I would suggest it is nearly impossible for us to agree in time to pass a crime bill where we have serious substantive disagreements. I will conclude my comments on this for the day by saying, I happen to substantively agree with the approach taken, as I understand it, by the Derrick amendment that is going to be proposed in the House. But I practically do not agree with this incorporation because it will have the effect of torpedoing something I have worked now 5 years to put together -- 5 years -- and that is the core of the crime bill we passed out of here and that they are about to pass on the floor of the House. So I want the record to be clear. There is nothing altruistic in my opposition to including habeas corpus. There is nothing that relates to substantive concerns I have with the House approach. It relates to the ability to put 100,000 cops on the street and $9 billion or $7 billion, whether you take the House or Senate bill, of prevention methods and efforts on the street to help protect Americans and to help keep children at risk out of the drug stream and the crime stream. That is my reason for hoping that the House, by whatever method they arrive at, chooses not to include a habeas corpus provision. Because although I enjoy negotiating with my Republican friends, I know that what will happen is I will be spending more nights at 3 o'clock in the morning with Mr. Manus Cooney, who is not even a Senator, but just a brilliant staff person -- and he is, by the way, first-rate -- on the Republican side. Manus and I have spent more time with one another having to deal with habeas corpus than we have with our families on occasion. As much as I like him -- and I see him in the back -- I do not want to spend any time with him this spring, because we basically agree on the crime bill. And as one of the lead staff persons, the most knowledgeable staff person in this place on these criminal justice issues, he can tell you, on behalf of Senator Hatch and on behalf of Senator Thurmond before him, he and I as two principals in the past, one in the present, we have spent a lot of time trying to resolve this. We tried very hard and we do not know how though do it, and we are not bad at trying to reach compromises. I envy and admire the optimism of my friend from Pennsylvania, Senator Specter, who says he has a compromise but he forgets to point out to you, not only do the liberals not agree with him, the conservatives do not agree with his compromise. Nobody does. Nobody. I mean the Senator from Delaware could probably reach an accommodation, because I am accommodating fellow and I am his neighbor. But nobody really agrees with his compromise. That in no way goes to the merits of the compromise. That goes to the political reality of the compromise. So, you know, as I said, here we have spent probably 40 minutes so far, or longer, and the poor Senator from Arkansas is here to get the floor on a totally different matter, and the Senator from Washington, Senator Murray, is here probably on a different matter. I have been a party to and maybe the principal reason we have absorbed almost 40 to 50 minutes on an issue that is not even before us. Can you imagine, Madam President, what will happen when it comes before us? So my plea is that the House has the wisdom and the fortitude to forgo putting this in the crime bill this time around and we can visit it another time when we have a year or so to deal with it. I yield the floor for the evening. I thank my colleague. Madam President, does the Senator from Washington have the floor? The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington has the floor. I will not seek the floor for the evening. I thank the distinguished Senator from Delaware. At the ultimate end of this discussion we find ourselves in agreement procedurally, though not necessarily with the Derrick amendment in the House of Representatives. I am relieved we have exhausted the subject and I yield the floor. Mr. PRYOR addressed the Chair. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.