Prepared Opening Statement of Senator Chuck Grassley

Ranking Member, Senate Committee on the Judiciary

Executive Business Meeting

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Mr. Chairman,

We have a request to hold over the Hurwitz nomination.  We can voice vote out the remaining nominees - Baker, Lee, Tharp and Russell.

Before we vote on the nominations, I'd like to say a few words about the release of the President's fiscal 2013 budget that was released earlier this week.  Specifically, I want to talk about the Department of Justice budget which this committee has a distinct interest in reviewing.

The Justice Department budget, like the rest of the President's fiscal 2013 budget, is loaded full of budgetary gimmicks and sleight of hand.

While the budget claims to be nearly $1.8 billion below the fiscal 2012 appropriations, many of the savings achieved in this budget are one-time recessions from existing balances that remain in Justice Department accounts.  These one-time recessions are more than just deceiving, they are actually harmful to the long-term viability of the federal government's budget.

For example, those who attended yesterday's hearing heard from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) about how the Justice Department has been carrying over a balance in the Bulletproof Vest Partnership program dating back as far as fiscal 1999.  According to GAO, those funds include $27 million sitting in an account that could be deobligated and used to offset future appropriations.  This is the same tactic being used by the department throughout the rest of its budget.

Now, using unspent or unallocated funds is a good thing?and the department shouldn't be carrying over significant balances?otherwise, we'll need to cut down future appropriations.  However, this becomes a problem when these one-time recessions are used to offset base-line spending increases?as the department's fiscal 2013 budget does.

These one-time recessions are used to mask spending increases for a variety of Justice Department accounts.  For instance, the Marshals Service has a net increase of $29 million, but it only appears to be a $12 million increase to the baseline when offset with $17 million in one-time recessions from construction and salary funds.  The FBI appears to be reduced by $48 million, but in reality the FBI sees a net budget increase of $114 million, offset by a one-time recession of $162 million.

Same story with the Drug Enforcement Administration budget where they show a net increase of only $10 million, when in fact the baseline increase is $25 million offset by $15 million in recessions.  The list goes on and on throughout the rest of the budget.

Perhaps the most concerning part of the department's budget is the fact that many of the spending increases will be paid for out of the Crime Victims Fund.  This fund was created in 1984 by the Victims of Crime Act.  It is financed by fines and penalties paid by convicted federal offenders, not from tax dollars.  The funds in the account are to be used for victim's services and assistance.

For years, the fund has had an administrative cap placed on it by the Appropriations Committee.  This arbitrary cap limits the amount of funds that go to help victims, creating an additional funding stream for appropriators to pay for programs they want to fund.

The fiscal 2013 budget does manage to increase this cap from $705 million, to just over $1 billion.  This should be good news for victims, but it is not.

Instead of providing this money to victims, the department's budget, in the department's own words, "proposes to preserve important OVW and OJP grant programs that directly or indirectly assist victims of crime by funding them through [Crime Victims Fund] receipts...rather than with discretionary budget authority."  So, instead of asking Congress to fund grant programs, the department is asking to use Crime Victims Fund money to pay for programs that "indirectly assist victims".

This is a significant change and one that allows the Justice Department to continue to increase funding for bureaucratic components like the Criminal Division, Civil Division, Tax Division, and law enforcement components like the FBI, DEA, and Marshals, while decreasing net expenditures.

What this does is essentially allow the Justice Department to increase the size of the bureaucracy, without looking like they're spending more money.  Instead, the crime victims fund takes the hit.

This is not a budget that seeks to lead for the future.  It is not a budget that faces the reality that the federal government is too big already.  It is an election year ploy to say they are cutting the budget while using gimmicks to pay for it.

The only solace is that Majority Leader Reid has already signaled that he has no intention of bringing such a dead on arrival budget to the Senate floor.

So, keeping with the practice that the Senate Majority has followed for more than 1,000 days, we don't really need to worry about voting for the gimmicks in the department's budget.  However, we'll need to keep an eye out so that these gimmicks don't find their way into an appropriations bill.

Iowa City, IA -Some ideas sound crazy, others really are...creating a homemade medical device, falling in love with a Barbie doll, channeling direct orders from God, moving to a far away city to chase a dream.

Walking the Wire, Riverside Theatre's annual festival of original work from playwrights across North America, will bring to the stage a wide variety of potentially implausible scenarios as part of this year's theme, This Will Never Work.

This year's Walking the Wire is directed by Riverside Theatre Artistic Director Jody Hovland. The show is sponsored by Integrated DNA Technologies (IDT).

"Walking the Wire has all the theatricality of an aerial act - a single performer telling a story in a single spot of light. And this year's theme insures plenty of daring twists and turns as well," Hovland said.

With over 100 submissions from across the U.S. and beyond, the dozen monologues reflect a diverse range of original work from playwrights both near and far.

The 12 playwrights whose work will be presented are: Brent Boyd (North Hollywood, CA); Dave Carley (Toronto, ON); Ron Clark (Iowa City); Mark Harvey Levine (Pasadena, CA); Deborah Magid (Cleveland Heights, OH); Gordon Mennenga (Iowa City); Mike Moran (Mount Vernon); Amanda Petefish-Schrag (Maryville, MO); Gwendolyn Rice (Madison, WI); Janet Schlapkohl (Iowa City); Jen Silverman (Astoria, NY); and Amy White (Mount Vernon).

Three area writers, Clark, Moran and Schlapkohl, will perform their own work, with an additional cast of actors including Tim Budd, David Busch, Fannie Hungerford, Katherine Smith and Jessica Wilson. 

Walking the Wire runs March 2-11. Showtimes are Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m.

Tickets are $28 for adults, $25 for 60 and over/30 and under, $15 for youth (18 and under). $15 student rush tickets are available 20 minutes before curtain on a first come, first served basis for any remaining seats. Tickets can be purchased online at www.riversidetheatre.org, by phone at (319) 338-7672 or at the Riverside Theatre Box Office. The Box Office is located at 213 N. Gilbert St, Iowa City. Box Office Hours are: 12 - 4 p.m. Monday - Friday, and one hour before performances.

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Performance Schedule

Friday, March 2 at 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, March 3 at 7:30 p.m.

Sunday, March 4 at 2 p.m.

Thursday, March 8 at 7:30 p.m.

Friday, March 9 at 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, March 10 at 7:30 p.m.

Sunday, March 11 at 2 p.m.

For a religion many Americans still describe as "cultish" and "secretive," the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has gained a lot of mainstream clout in the past couple of years.

On Broadway, the irreverent musical satire "The Book of Mormon" was the hands-down favorite of 2011, winning nine Tony Awards. On television, "Big Love," a fictional HBO series about a Mormon polygamist, enjoyed a five-year run ending last March. And on the GOP presidential campaign trail, front-runner Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman are both Mormons with deep roots in the 181-year-old church.

Los Angeles attorney Robert P. DesJardins studied the religion and its history for his newest novel, Land of the Saints (http://robertpdesjardins.authorsxpress.com/). He found a history that provided him not only with plenty of mystery and intrigue for his fiction, but also gave him insights into the religion's role in contemporary America.

Did you know?

• Former governors Romney and Huntsman share a common ancestor: Parley Pratt. An original apostle of the church founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith, Pratt was Romney's great-great grandfather and Huntsman's great-great-great grandfather, DesJardins says. Pratt was said to have had 12 wives in the years before polygamy was banned by the church in 1890. (Current members practicing plural marriage are excommunicated.) Pratt was killed in 1857 by the estranged husband of a woman with whom he'd become involved.

• Romney and Huntsman are not the first church members to run for president. Joseph Smith, who founded the church in 1830, began his run for president on Jan. 29, 1844. It ended with his assassination five months later on June 27.

• Contrary to popular belief, the church's growth has slowed dramatically since 1999. From 1974 to 1994, it was said to be the fastest-growing American-made religion, but the numbers started dropping in 1999, DesJardins says. There are now about 14 million Mormons worldwide and they comprise just 2 percent of the U.S. population, which is interesting, DesJardins notes, since they comprise 28 percent of the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates.

• One issue that surfaces in heavily evangelical Christian states such as Iowa and South Carolina is whether Mormons are Christians. "Mormons believe in God the father, Jesus the son and the Holy Ghost. They believe in Jesus as our savior and Messiah," DesJardins says. "So how why would anyone say they're not Christians? The difference is, they do not believe the three gods are one. And they believe in human deification - that humans can become gods. Those are two fundamental reasons why some Christians say Mormons do not share their faith."

• The Latter-day Saints is well-known as the keeper of the largest genealogical library in the world, with more than 2.4 million rolls of records on microfilm, and a database with names of 600 million dear departed. Why all the data on non-church members? Mormons can assure ancestors are together for all eternity through baptism of the dead; living church members stand inn as proxies.

The church has long been regarded with suspicion, and even outright violence. Despite its growing prominence in American culture, those attitudes still prevail, DesJardins says.

"The church itself hired two ad agencies in 2009 to research public perception and was disappointed to find Americans still describe it as 'cultish,' 'secretive' and 'sexist,''' DesJardins says. "It set about to change that with a multi-million-dollar TV, billboard and Internet campaign in 2010."

The campaign expanded in 2011.

DesJardins expects it will do little to help a religion that still idolizes its authoritarian founder, carefully guards secrets and ceremonies, and reserves positions of power within the church for men.

About Robert P. DesJardins

A successful Los Angeles lawyer for more than 35 years, DesJardins is now a lecturer, private judge and judge pro tempore for the California Superior Court - in addition to being a novelist. In Land of the Saints, his third book, his main character is an attorney who finds himself drawn into the mysterious and dangerous world of Mormon spirituality after a friend is charged with murder. DesJardins is also the author of "The Mistral and A Darker Shade of Orange."