Pete Domenici: “We have before us an appropriations bill. We have imposed, on top of the House bill, our particular appropriators' likes…”

“We have before us an appropriations bill. We have imposed, on top of the House bill, our particular appropriators' likes and dislikes. But the underlying bill that the House sent to us essentially says, ``Let's keep the Legal Services Corporation, but let's make sure that those things that the Legal Services Corporation has been doing that many Senators and many people in this country don't think they ought to be doing, that those things be prohibited.'' The House did not abolish the program. The House in the appropriations bill funded legal services with these prohibitions attached. What I am going to do now is to take the amendment that came out of the subcommittee that is on the floor on legal services, and I am going to substitute for it something very much like the House bill. So for those who wonder whether this amendment, the Domenici-Hollings and many others, whether this bill will permit the Legal Services Corporation to do business as usual, I submit to them we are going to let this Legal Services Corporation do what the House said they can do. And what is that? First, let me say that this approach to justice came under the regime of Richard Nixon. And what he said then I believe applies today, and maybe more so. He said: [It] gives those in need new reason to believe that they too are part of ``the system'' . . .”