Don Nickles: “Several comments were made that we are vitiating the consent decree. Totally false. I will tell my colleagues, you can…”

“Several comments were made that we are vitiating the consent decree. Totally false. I will tell my colleagues, you can read the consent decree, it does not say anything about a rerun election. The consent decree did say that the Teamsters would pay for the 1991 election and taxpayers would pay for the 1996 election. The Teamsters came out very well. They got a nice gift, $22 million, maybe more, which is over about $45, maybe $50 per person as the cost to the taxpayers of this vote. That is pretty high. Some of us do not think we should do it again. Maybe I was asleep at the switch in 1989. It happened. Nobody objected. And in 1991, since the Teamsters paid for it, it never came up. I was not aware of it until after the 1996 election and we found the abuse. It is an abuse on the Teamsters and on the taxpayers and should not be repeated. That is the reason we have the amendment before the Senate. We do not vitiate the consent decree. We say in the future, judge, we know the consent decree is silent. It does not say who should pay for it. Now, frankly, if you read the Constitution it says Congress shall have the power to appropriate money. It does not say 'an unelected judge.' It does not say a judge, where a consent decree is silent, has the power to go in and mandate something, like mandating U.S. taxpayer funds. Some of us think elected officials should make that decision, not unelected judges.”