William F. Smith

Would States be allowed to consider a parents' motive when deciding to terminate parental rights or seek reunification of this family, and could this include sincerely held religious beliefs of the parents?

I also see a new section has been added that requires the States to include in their State laws, as statutory grounds for termination of parental rights, conviction of parents for certain specified crimes against children. It also…

Does the bill address States' authority to pursue any legal remedies necessary to provide medical care or treatment when such care or treatment is necessary to prevent or remedy serious harm to the child, or to prevent the withholding of…

Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that under CAPTA, States have been allowed to exempt parents from prosecution on grounds of medical neglect if the parent was employing alternative means of healing as part of the parent's religious…

Mr. Speaker, the comments by opponents of this legislation simply do not represent the views of most Americans. They do not even represent the desires of a majority of the Members of their own party. Every substantive provision in this…

I do not think the Endangered Species Act is being enforced as originally intended and, quite frankly, it has gotten out of balance. The balance is too great on the side of the regulations, and they do not take, in their enforcement…

I remember well that day you and I were together on that Texas ranch. When you tell someone that they may lose the right of use of their property, it does not take long for that rancher or farmer to decide they are going to clear the brush…

It is not the fact that the golden-cheeked warbler had ever landed in any of the foliage on that particular piece of property. It is not that they had at any time in the past. It is just that they some day might. There is no current use of…

I think any Federal land policy of the kind that we are talking about, that means the way the current Endangered Species Act is being enforced, is in clear violation of the Constitution, particularly the fifth amendment. Until the…

The golden-cheeked warbler had never been seen on her property, past or present. It just might someday tend to land there. For that reason the regulations were imposed.

I support this extension of the H-1A program which originally was effective for just 5 years. This will permit the Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims to conduct hearings and otherwise investigate the competing interests relevant to…

Actually the chart that he showed shows the exact opposite, if I may say so. At the beginning of the Bracero program we had an increase in the number of illegal aliens coming into the country. The decrease that was caused was not by the…

The whole thrust behind this amendment is not to reform legal immigration. In fact, it is to kill any reform that we have in legal immigration. There is no separate legal immigration reform bill on the House side as there is on the Senate…

I just wanted to respond to my friend from California to say there is in the bill a mechanism to reimburse individuals who are not admitted to this country. But furthermore, I want to say in regard to the amendment he was referring to, I…

Let me respond to my friend, the gentleman from California, by saying first of all, I do distinguish the bill as it is currently written with a volunteer verification system from the mandatory verification system that we had at the phase…

A well-known news magazine this week called tax cuts a ``giveaway.'' That illustrates precisely the liberal mind-set of some in the media and most in this administration. They actually think that the money of hard-working, lawabiding…

H.R. 962 adds former Representatives Hamilton Fish and Ron Mazzoli, by name, to the Commission on Immigration, chaired by former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan of Texas. Hamilton Fish and Ron Mazzoli were both long-time members of the…

Does this mean that a judge, in a case brought by a property owner under the provisions of this legislation, would be constrained from awarding payment from what is known as the ``judgment fund'', which is beyond the control of the…