Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1169

Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here to show support for my Judiciary Committee chairman's effort to move this measure by unanimous consent. He has described the bill in considerable detail, so I will not repeat his description of the bill.

From a point of view of process, I will say that this was a bill that came through Judiciary without a single voice of dissent. A great deal of bipartisan work was done to make sure it addressed new problems that young people face in all these different areas that the chairman described. It has a lot of enthusiasm and support in the Judiciary Committee. ``Hotline'' means you ask unanimous consent and warn people you are going to ask unanimous consent, and anybody who wants to object has a chance to come to the floor and do so.

It is my understanding that there is one Senator of the 100 of us who wishes to do so, and so here we are going through that exercise. But it has completely cleared on our side and is ready for action.

I would say that it is quite broadly supported. This is the list of law enforcement support for it. As you can see even from a chair quite far away, this is a fairly considerable document with a substantial list of hundreds of folks from across the country who pledge their support to this bill in law enforcement.

I would add that from the State of Arkansas, the junior Senator from Arkansas is the Senator who is going to raise the one objection, I gather. The Arkansas State Advisory Group, the association called Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, and the official State Arkansas Division of Youth Services all support this bill.

On the list of law enforcement supporters that I showed you are the following law enforcement leaders from Arkansas who support this bill. Robert Alcon is the chief of police of the Mayflower Police Department, and he supports this bill. Steve Benton is the chief of police of the Ward Police Department; he supports this bill. Ray Coffman is the chief of police of the Judsonia Police Department; he supports this bill. Randy Harvey is the chief of police of the Lowell Police Department; he supports this bill. Mark Kizer is the chief of police of the Bryant Police Department; he supports this bill. Kirk Lane is the chief of police of the Benton Police Department; he supports this bill. Randy Reid is the chief of police of the Glenwood Police Department; he supports this bill. Montie Sims is the chief of police of the Dardanelle Police Department; he supports this bill. Obie Sims is the sheriff of the Lafayette County Sheriff's Office, and he supports this bill.

I would note that the senior Senator from Arkansas is not here to object to it.

I would hope that since the Governor of Arkansas has appointed a Youth Justice Reform Board, whose purpose is to ``improve the overall effectiveness of the juvenile justice system'' through evidence-based practices, the 3-year period that this bill gives for the implementation of this would give Arkansas plenty of time to accommodate itself. If there proves to be a problem, we can always come back to it later. In the meantime, this effort that is being undertaken under the leadership of the Governor of Arkansas is being done in conjunction with the Arkansas Division of Youth Services, which supports this bill.

I would add one other thing, which is that the purpose of this bill is to prevent children from being locked up for something that no adult could be locked up for if they were to do it--truancy, not showing up for school, things like that.

In the event, however, that a child comes under the supervision of a court and the court directs that child to do certain things, if the child then fails to comply with the court order, judges have broad authority to enforce compliance with their orders. It is known as the contempt power. It is inherent in the judicial office. It can include fines; it can even include detention.

To be in violation of a court order is not, in my view or in the view of anybody else that I am aware of, a status offense. Therefore, in a particularly acute or difficult situation in which a judge feels the need to enforce compliance with his or her order, the contempt power inherent in the judiciary is not obviated or addressed in any way by this bill.

So for all those reasons, I will conclude by recalling the story of the conclusion of the Founders' work on the Constitution, when, at the end, Benjamin Franklin stood up and acknowledged that there had been various disagreements but that he would urge that each of the Members of that body doubt just for one moment their own infallibility and allow the measure to proceed.

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, may I clarify one point?

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, there are grants that the Federal Government makes to States to support their juvenile justice programs, and there are conditions that come with those grants. But I want to make sure that what is clear from the exchange is that this is a condition for receiving these Federal grants, but there is no mandate of any kind. The State, if it wishes, is free not to receive the Federal grant money and not comply with those conditions. It may be a technical point, but I think it is one that is important to clarify.

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Again, for the Record, I am the Senator from Rhode Island, not the Senator from Vermont.

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