Tom Harkin: “I ask the Senator from Virginia if he would please provide to my office these specific examples and the schools because…”

“I ask the Senator from Virginia if he would please provide to my office these specific examples and the schools because I would like to take a look at those. I would like to look at them because, under the 1997 bill that we passed, if you bring a bomb or a gun or drugs to school, you are out. You are out. So I would like to ask publicly if the Senator from Virginia would provide those to my office so we can take a look at those to see why there is this disagreement. In the 1997 bill, which we passed 98-1 on the Senate floor, if you bring a bomb or drug or guns to school you are out. I say to the Senator from Alabama that I realize he has good intentions. All of us want discipline in schools. I brought two kids through public schools. Of course, we want discipline in our public schools. None of us wants our teachers or busdrivers to be subject to violence by kids who may harm them or harm themselves. None of us wants that. We want safe schools. That is why in the process of 26 years we have worked hard on a bipartisan basis in the Senate and in the House to fashion and change this legislation so that we meet the needs of those public schools. That is what the 1997 bill was all about. It is working. Let's not turn the clock back and segregate these kids as we did in the past. We have come too far for that. That is what the Sessions amendment does. It just segregates these kids.”