District of Columbia Appropriations Act, 2004-Continued

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2004—CONTINUED

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, again, I thank the ranking member, Senator Landrieu, for her good comments and, more importantly, I thank her for her good work on this bill.

There is a lot more to this bill, frankly, than just the scholarship portion of the bill. You would not know that by the debate, but there is an awful lot in this bill on which we all agree. Frankly, there is a lot on the education part we agree on as well.

I thank my colleague from Delaware for his good statement. They have both contributed a lot to the debate tonight. I appreciate their good faith and their commitment to the children and their good comments.

I want to take a moment before my friend from Alabama speaks, who has been on the floor for some time, to, at least from my perspective, explain where I think these negotiations are and what happened with them. I am afraid my perspective is a bit different than what my colleague said, but I hope not too different. We negotiated in regard to the topics my colleagues have just discussed for 2 or 3 days. These were negotiations that went on at the staff level, but they also went on at the Member level. All three of us were directly involved. We spent all day yesterday involved in negotiations.

Quite frankly, the issues they have raised on the floor, I felt, and continue to feel, are very legitimate issues. These are not trivial issues; these are important issues. I felt and still feel at this moment—I guess I am an eternal optimist—that these issues could be resolved on a policy basis among the three of us. I still feel they can be resolved. The negotiations, candidly, broke down, as my colleague from Delaware said, when my two colleagues on the other side of the aisle came to me and said there is one condition you have to meet that is not negotiable, and that condition is you have to guarantee these items will come out of conference. That is one thing as chairman of the subcommittee I cannot guarantee. I can guarantee I will fight for them in conference. I can guarantee I will represent the Senate position and that I will do everything I can to get as much of what we agree on through the conference; but what I am not in a position to do is to give any kind of ironclad guarantees to my colleagues—as much as I would like to—that every single thing we would agree to, every single sentence, paragraph, word, comma, will come out of the conference committee with the other body. That just cannot be done. I am not in a position to do that and to tell them that in good faith. I suppose I can tell them that and it would not happen, but I am not going to do that. So that is when the negotiations broke off.

I want the other Members of the Senate, both on my side of the aisle and the other side of the aisle, to understand that that is when the negotiations broke off. If that is the condition of making an agreement on this amendment we all could agree on, and that we can get this bill passed, then that is not going to happen.

Now if it is trying to work out all the very legitimate issues my colleagues have just raised, then we can continue these negotiations. I am an eternal optimist, and I think we can work these out. I have told both of my colleagues that. I don't think we are that far apart. These are legitimate issues, and we can work them out.

I see my colleague on her feet. I will not yield the floor, but I will yield for a question.

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Mr. DeWINE. I appreciate my colleague's comments. Let me take a moment to state where I think this bill is. My colleagues have talked about some of the improvements they would like to make in the bill. I was given a list here. We don't have an amendment before us. At this point we don't have an amendment, but I think they are going to present one at some point. So we don't have all the language to go through, but we have talking points or some power points to look at. I will go through a couple of these points.

The first point is that eligible participating students must take the same tests as kids in public schools. That was met and that is now part of the bill, as amended by Senator Feinstein's amendment. So we appreciate that contribution that now is a part of the bill as amended by Senator Feinstein, which the Senate just adopted about an hour ago.

The second provision talks about eligible participating students are taught by a teacher who holds a college degree. That part of No. 2 is now in there as far as Senator Feinstein had that in the amendment.

No. 3 requires a full and independent evaluation for the scholarship program. The Feinstein amendment that was passed by voice vote by this body about an hour ago does require a full, independent evaluation.

I say to my colleague, the ranking member of the subcommittee, Ms. Landrieu, that we are more than happy to incorporate the Senator's specific evaluation concerns that she has outlined and to work with her on additional language as far as incorporating that into the bill.

Her fourth point, scholarships are limited to students attending failing schools, the bill's language provides priority for students who are in failing schools. They are going to be the ones who get the priority. I point out to my colleagues that they are going to be the ones who are going to be first in line. So that is the state of play. That is where we are.

Let me make a couple of other additional points before I turn to my colleague from Alabama. One is, my colleague asked, what is the administration's position? Reference was made to the fact that in their letter the administration did not say they were for this three-pronged approach.

My colleague will be getting a letter from the administration outlining that, yes, they very definitely are for this three-pronged approach. They are for it. They are 100 percent behind it. They back it, and there will be a letter coming to her shortly and to this Senate outlining the administration's support of the three-pronged approach.

Earlier today we talked about the fact—I think it is significant—that it was the Mayor and the Mayor's team who originally decided and came to the Senate and the House and said: This is what we want; we want this three-pronged approach. We want the additional money, this add-on money, for the public schools.

We need to keep in mind that it has been this Mayor who has sought out additional money for the last several years for the public schools in the District of Columbia. So this is consistent with what he has done in the past. He sought this additional $13 million. It is consistent with what he has done when he has asked for additional money for the charter schools. So in this bill we have an additional $13 million for the charter schools, again what the Mayor requested.

The third prong, of course, is the $13 million for the scholarships. So it is the program of the Mayor of the District of Columbia. It is a very balanced approach, new money, not taking any money away from the public schools but, in fact, doing just the opposite, new money for the public schools, new money for the charter schools, and new money for this new scholarship program. I think it is very important for us to keep this in mind.

My colleagues who are concerned about this bill have talked about No Child Left Behind. My esteemed colleague from Louisiana has talked about this and has inferred that this is not really consistent with No Child Left Behind. It strikes me, with all due respect, that this is so consistent with our program of No Child Left Behind, because if there is anyplace in this great country of ours where children have been left behind, it is the District of Columbia. Through no fault of their own, the children of the District of Columbia have truly been left behind.

What a great tragedy it is, when people come to the District of Columbia, they come to our Nation's Capital and they see the great monuments, they see this great building, they see the great White House, they see this body, and yet if they truly understand what is going on here, they understand that there are children who are not getting the education they deserve.
They are not getting the education other children across this country are getting.

With this bill and with this very balanced approach, we are taking a step towards giving the parents of these children more choices and giving more opportunity to these children. I truly believe this is consistent with our idea that there should be no child in this country left behind.

I yield the floor.