Patrick Leahy: “we have an adage: Where there is a will, there is a way. Often that seems to embody how legislation is passed by this…”

“we have an adage: Where there is a will, there is a way. Often that seems to embody how legislation is passed by this Congress. Of course the question always is what is the will, and what is the way? We should look no further than the priority being put on two separate pieces of legislation: S. 254, the juvenile justice bill, and H.R. 775, the Y2K bill. If one looks at that, one sees how the will and the way work around here. The Hatch-Leahy juvenile justice bill, S. 254, passed the Senate after 2 weeks of open debate, after a number of votes, and after significant improvements on May 20. The Senate passed it by a strong bipartisan vote of 73-25. On June 17, the other body passed its version of this legislation but chose not to take up the Senate bill and insert its language, which is the standard practice. Nor has the Republican leadership in the House made any effort to seek a House-Senate conference or appoint conferees. When there are differences in legislation passed by each House, the normal order is for House and Senate conferees to work these differences out in conference, but we cannot do that unless they appoint conferees. The majority in the other body is taking a break even before our July 4 recess. They are taking no steps to proceed to conference on the juvenile justice bill or toward the appointment of conferees.”