Privileges of the House-Integrity of Proceedings of the House
PRIVILEGES OF THE HOUSE-INTEGRITY OF PROCEEDINGS OF THE HOUSE -- (House of Representatives - May 03, 2005)
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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
I rise in support of the resolution. H.R. 748, the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act, makes it illegal to transport a minor across State lines for the purposes of getting an abortion. Now, transport is not defined in the bill.
When the Judiciary Committee marked up the bill, I offered an amendment which said simply that we should exempt taxicab drivers and others in the business of professional transport from the transportation provisions of the bill, because as written, it would be a Federal crime for a taxicab driver to take a young woman who gets in a cab and says, take me to the abortion clinic so I can get an abortion.
If the taxicab driver complied with that task, he would be committing a Federal crime. Now, even if he were not prosecuted, there is a civil liability provision in the bill which exposes the cab driver and through the principles of agency, the entire cab company, to civil liability by the parents of the young woman who find out how she got to the clinic.
So let me read my amendment: "The prohibitions of this section shall not apply with respect to conduct of taxicab drivers, bus drivers or others in the business of professional transport."
However, the report in the markup filed by the majority described the amendment thusly: "Mr. Scott offered an amendment that would have exempted sexual predators from prosecution if they are taxicab drivers, bus drivers or others in the business of professional transport."
Now, I will let the public decide whether or not that is a distortion. I believe that it is. But I would just say that if a prosecutor has evidence that a person is a sexual predator, the last thing they would do would be to go to this provision of the code, which is a misdemeanor, rather than the various felonies that they could prosecute the person for.
The amendment does not immunize a sexual predator from the crimes of being a sexual predator, just the provisions of this transportation provision which is just a misdemeanor.
Now, Mr. Speaker, let me just say, in any event, whatever you think of the bill, this distortion obviously speaks to character; but in my view, the descriptions in the committee report and the distortion of those amendments, particularly the one I just described, say more about the character of the person responsible for describing the amendment that way and the character of those trying to defend the distortion, than it does about my amendment.
I would therefore, Mr. Speaker, hope that we would pass the resolution so that the House will not be on record as condoning such misrepresentations.
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