madam chairman , i thank the gentleman for yielding me time . 
i rise reluctantly because rarely do i oppose a majority bill . 
in this case , however , as i expressed in the committee on the judiciary , i think there are three problems with the bill : first , it federalizes state crimes . 
second , it spends too much money . 
third , it has mandatory minimums . 
i voted for mandatory minimums a number of times in my previous time in congress , and then i had 6 years out , six years out to talk with people in the community , to talk with judges . 
and during that time , i became very uncomfortable with our approach about mandatory minimums . 
we have sentencing guidelines . 
the idea of those guidelines is to have a coherent system of sentencing , some method of figuring out how heinous one crime is compared to another . 
and then congress comes along and slaps on mandatory minimums on top of that framework , doing violence to the framework of a sentencing guideline system . 
i think it is a mistake . 
like i say , i voted for them in the past . 
i will not do it again . 
i am inclined to say , let us have a sentencing guideline system that works . 
let us not , because of some political considerations , rise and go after say crack cocaine as opposed to powdered cocaine and end up with perverse results , which is somebody rotting in jail because they smoked the wrong kind of cocaine . 
it is an unjust result . 
it is something we should resolve in this body to avoid . 
i think we have an opportunity to improve this bill . 
i will be supporting some of the amendments the gentleman from virginia ( mr. scott ) xz4003641 will be offering . 
it is another opportunity to try to improve it . 
i appreciate the gentleman yielding me time . 
