Speech by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-California), June 22, 2000

Speech by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-California), June 22, 2000
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am deeply distressed that the Senator from Alaska raised a point of order. I want to explain why.

Yesterday we voted for almost $1 billion to get involved in a very serious problem in Colombia. Our people will be exposed to a lot of danger there. All we are simply trying to do with this sense-of-the-Senate amendment is to protect them. Further, all we are trying to do is say to Secretary Cohen: You are right on your guidelines that you have issued. And those guidelines simply say our people should not be involved in counterinsurgency, that our people should not be in the line of hostile fire. It is very straightforward, and it is very simple.

Frankly, the way the Senate has responded to this shows me I did the right thing when I never voted for this in the first place. If we cannot stand up in the Senate and support the Secretary of Defense in his very straightforward directive, then I am very concerned about what we are getting ourselves into. I hope I am wrong.

I am distressed the Senator from Alaska did this. When Senator Sessions from Alabama, from his side of the aisle, offered legislation on an appropriations bill yesterday, no one said the amendment of the Senator from Alabama, which dealt with this very same subject, was legislation on an appropriations bill. I do not think it is fair to have a double standard. If we are going to use that rule, we ought to use it.

I did not like Senator Sessions' amendment yesterday. Frankly, I viewed it as a way to get us far more involved in the counterinsurgency, but I did not make a point of order. The

fact the Senator did this is distressing.

I am not going to ask for a vote on a procedural motion because that would not even be close to the kind of vote I think I could get on this sense-of-the-Senate amendment. That is what I fear is happening. People do not seem to want to vote on the sense-of-the-Senate amendment. It is not fair.

As of June 25, 2000, this document was also available online at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r106:S22JN0-125: