Melvin Watt

this is a tremendously difficult issue. I started to stay in my office and punt, and not come over here and talk about it at all. It is difficult because the statistics do indicate that there is a higher rate of recidivism for those people…

there really is no more vulnerable population in America in terms of being exposed to criminal conduct than the people who live in the lowest-income areas in America, and when we start talking about who is vulnerable, sure, the elderly are…

this amendment simply would request the U.S. Sentencing Commission to review this matter and make recommendations about enhancements for the areas that are covered by this bill. Mr. Chairman, it is time for us to get a grip. It is time for…

I simply wanted to be one of the Members who rose in support of this resolution and to express my condolences to the Brown family and the families of all the other brave Americans who lost their lives in this tragic accident.

I am as upset about the Trade Center bombing and the Oklahoma City bombing as anybody in America. But we are about to perpetrate a fraud on the American people, because this bill is not any longer about terrorism, the bill is about matters…

I just need 10 seconds for the truth. The gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde], I am sure will admit that there is a provision in this bill that allows the consideration of secret evidence that the defendant will never even know about and…

I hate terrorists. They are the scum of the Earth. There is nothing lower than a terrorist. They are worse even than people who shoot folks in the back. And if this bill were limited to terrorists, emotionally I would be doing exactly what…

I will tell my colleagues that this bill has not come to either one of those committees for hearings or consideration. It was simply brought to the floor so that we could deal with it on April 15, tax day, so that it could be the backdrop…

I want to be clear, I have never said habeas is completely irrelevant to terrorism.

Mr. Chairman, this is the height of micro-management, the Congress of the United States debating a provision that would set attorney's fees and take that discretion away from judges. Mr. Chairman, it is the height of hypocrisy for people…

I just wanted to make it plain to the gentleman that what I am complaining about is not the Federal offenses, but there is no reason that we ought to say to the State of New York, which has their own legislative body and has, based on the…

I think if you polled every Member of this body, you would get no dispute on that issue. All of us would agree that additional laws are needed to address this dynamic and changing area that we historically have not had to deal with in this…

I have to evaluate his amendment on its merits. Mr. Chairman, I want to say this to my colleagues. There is politics all over this place, on the right, on the left. But I want to tell my colleagues that the Constitution of the United…

I just want to point out as I read this amendment, it is not limited to any Federal issue. In the last crime bill that this body passed, we made carjacking, whether the car went interstate or not interstate, a Federal offense. We made…

I am supporting the Barr amendment because he restores the good faith exception under the fourth amendment.

We are not talking about clairvoyance, we are talking about knowing or reasonably expecting. That is the same, the same identical legal standard that exists in the United States of America. This is not clairvoyance we are talking about. It…

When a manufacturer in Prague manufactures a dangerous product, knowing or in reasonable judgment should know that that product is going to end up here in the United States, the question becomes whether we should protect the manufacturer…

He is first and foremost a citizen of the United States, and it is our obligation as Members of Congress to support and defend and protect our citizens. That is the public policy.

And the distributor may have $10 in the bank, and the manufacturer in Prague, a multibillion-dollar industry, is making these things, and is making them dangerously, and knowing that an individual in the United States may end up being…

I would like to do three short things, given the lateness of the hour. First of all, I want to go back to a special order or an insertion that I did in last year's African-American history special order and pay tribute to a special woman…

I am just trying to get some further clarification here, because the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Bliley], has indicated that they are not giving this spectrum away. Am I clear that in the process of loaning this spectrum, when you get…

now that I have heard all the explanations, I would say that this is like giving away the dirt road and the interstate highway, and, once this is all over, we are going to be given back the dirt road to auction off the somebody else.

I think we do need to increase the level of competition in the telecommunications industry, and this bill heads us in that direction. But there are also some very troubling things about this bill, and I am really having a hard time…

if they use the new capacity, would that not be the equivalent of giving you back what would be the virtual equivalent of black and white television as opposed to much more advanced capabilities, the equivalent of color television? I know…

is it not true that the old spectrum is inordinately less valuable than the new digital spectrum?