Jim Sensenbrenner: “Mr. Speaker, we have now heard the proposition that passing this bill as it is with the death penalty provisions…”

“Mr. Speaker, we have now heard the proposition that passing this bill as it is with the death penalty provisions contained in it is somehow going to render ineffective the foreign policy of the United States. I would draw the attention of the gentleman from Massachusetts, in particular, to House document 107-139, which is a legislative proposal transmitted by the President of the United States to Congress on October 25, 2001, containing the death penalty. Now, under the Constitution, it is the President that conducts the foreign policy of the United States, and if he believed that the death penalty features in this legislation which involved terrorist bombings would somehow hamper his ability to put together an international coalition to fight the al Qaeda or any other terrorist organization, I am sure he would have said so in this message that he sent to the Congress. But he did not. Giving prosecutors the opportunity to ask for the death penalty when there is a particularly heinous crime I think is something that should be an arrow in the quiver of the Justice Department.”