Bart Stupak: “we have a substitute that will be offered tomorrow which is a tough bill, it is smart and it is balanced. The bill put…”

“we have a substitute that will be offered tomorrow which is a tough bill, it is smart and it is balanced. The bill put forth by the majority party tonight is not smart and it is not balanced and its toughness only comes from trying to lock up young people. We have a carrot, says the majority. That carrot is based upon 197 juveniles that we have in the Federal system. Of those 197, 120 are Native Americans. So we have 77 juveniles and we are using these 77 juveniles to be the carrot for the 300,000 juveniles that are around the States. So we tell them we have these certain incentives, these certain carrots, and therefore if they do what we tell them to do, we will make available $1.5 billion to punish young people. The National Conference of State Legislatures wrote to all of us today and said the bill is an unfunded mandate. The Federal Government is now going to apply, and I will quote, ``new rules nationwide regarding juvenile records, judicial discretion, parental and juvenile responsibilities; these present new obstacles for the States that need Federal funds.'' And, therefore, they oppose the bill. The State legislatures, the council oppose the bill. What have you done? You give zero money for early intervention, zero money for detention, zero money for prevention, and instead you want to try 15-year-old kids as adults with the option of trying 13-year-old kids as adults and you say that they got to do what Congress says; if not, they get no money.”