Jeff Sessions on Welfare & Poverty Republican Jr Senator (AL)

Basic tradition is opportunity to work hard & keep fruits

SCOTUS nominee Elena KAGAN: Washington v. Glucksberg, 1997, would be the starting point for any consideration of a due process liberty claim, including one involving economic liberty.

Eminent domain for private development is Court over-reach

ALITO: Kelo involves the power to take property for public use through eminent domain. What occurred in that case was the taking of the homes of people of modest means for the purpose of building a large commercial facility that was thought by the city to be beneficial to the economic welfare of the city. People live in homes and they have a sentimental attachment to them. The neighborhood means something to them. And taking their home away and giving them money in return, even if they get fair market value for the home, is still an enormous loss for people.

SESSIONS: The Constitution said you could take property for public use. The court felt that was too restrictive, basically, and a majority just changed it to say you could take property for a public purpose, which includes some private redevelopment. See, that’s not founded in the Constitution. That’s an overreach, in my opinion.

Voted NO on instituting National Service as a new social invention.

Adds to National and Community Service Act of 1990 (NCSA) purposes:
1. providing year-round opportunities in service-learning;
2. involving program participants in emergency and disaster preparedness, relief, and recovery;
3. increasing service opportunities for retiring professionals;
4. encouraging service by individuals age 55 or older and continued service by national service alumni;
5. focusing national service on the areas of national need.

Proponent's argument to vote Yes:Sen. BARBARA MIKULSKI (D, MD): [In developing national service over many years] we were not in the business of creating another new social program. What we were in the business of was creating a new social invention. What do I mean by that? In our country, we are known for our technological inventions. But also often overlooked, and sometimes undervalued, is our social inventions.

We created national service to let young people find opportunity to be of service and also to make an important contribution. But not all was rosy. In 2003, when I was the ranking member on the appropriations subcommittee funding national service, they created a debacle. One of their most colossal errors was that they enrolled over 20,000 volunteers and could not afford to pay for it. That is how sloppy they were in their accounting. I called them the "Enron of nonprofits."

And they worked on it. But all that is history. We are going to expand AmeriCorps activity into specialized corps. One, an education corps; another, a health futures corps; another, a veterans corps; and another called opportunity corps. These are not outside of AmeriCorps. They will be subsets because we find this is where compelling human need is and at the same time offers great opportunity for volunteers to do it.

Opponent's argument to vote No:No senators spoke against the amendment.