The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

MS. FARNSWORTH: I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Jim Lehrer is away. On the NewsHour tonight, an update on the Florida crash, Kwame Holman reports; the Team Act, Charlayne Hunter-Gault runs a debate; where they stand, Sen. Dole addresses the gender gap; teen runaways, Rod Minott looks at a Washington State law; and a David Gergen dialogue with Winnifred Gallagher, author of I.D.: How Heredity and Experience Make You Who You Are. It all follows our summary of the news this Tuesday. NEWS SUMMARY

MS. FARNSWORTH: Search teams waded through fuel-contaminated waters in the Florida Everglades again today. They continued to look for more pieces of the wreckage of ValuJet Flight 592. Today's search centered on finding the cockpit voice recorder. The flight data recorder was retrieved yesterday and is being examined at the National Transportation Safety Board Laboratory in Washington. The vice chairman of the NTSB said today the black box contained useful information. He would not be more specific. Also in Washington today, Federal Aviation Administrator David Hinson told the Senate Transportation Committee his agency will intensify its safety efforts.

DAVID HINSON, FAA Administrator: First we are accelerating the hiring of the inspector work force that's already approved by Congress and recommended by the administration. Second we are accelerating the introduction of some data gathering programs, and third we are initiating the comprehensive review of the inspection work force with respect to how we allocate their very broad and available resources so that we are applying their skills in the appropriate way and in the appropriate place.

MS. FARNSWORTH: We'll have more on the crash right after the News Summary. In economic news today, the Commerce Department reported retail sales were down in April for the first time in five months. The report blamed the .3 percent decrease on a sharp drop in new car sales, and the Labor Department reported the Consumer Price Index was up by .4 percent in April. A surge in energy prices was the major reason for that advance. Gasoline prices increased by the largest amount in more than five years. In Chicago today, Mitsubishi Motors hired former Labor Secretary Lynn Martin to investigate charges of sexual harassment at its Illinois assembly plant. Martin pledged to conduct an independent review of the company's policies. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued the Japanese automaker in federal court last month. The suit claimed the company failed to stop sexually offensive behavior directed at its female employees. The company denied the charges. Lynn Martin spoke at a news conference.

LYNN MARTIN, Former Labor Secretary: We are moving forward to make sure that the men and women of Mitsubishi from top to bottom have the mutual respect that everyone deserves in the workplace, regardless of race, ethnic background, gender, because that end drop--I mean, there's a reason for this. It does produce the best product. It isn't just sitting out there as, as a noble gesture. It is both noble. It is right, and it is a business imperative for this company.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Mitsubishi lawyers met with EEOC officials in Chicago Friday. A spokesman in Tokyo said that meeting resulted in some progress; however, the EEOC Chicago director said the session had been cordial but not productive. Dr. Jack Kevorkian was acquitted by a Michigan jury today of assisted suicide charges. It's the third time in two years Kevorkian has been found "not guilty." The retired pathologist has attended 28 deaths since 1990. In Beijing today, Chinese and American negotiators ended talks without finding a way to avert a multi-billion dollar trade war. The Clinton administration has threatened to hit $2 billion worth of Chinese imports with punitive duties if the government does not crack down on theft of intellectual property. Chinese officials said they will retaliate if the U.S. imposes the penalties. In Washington, State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns had this to say.

NICHOLAS BURNS, State Department Spokesman: We have a very difficult relationship with China, but it's also a very important relationship, and we can't afford to allow this relationship to spiral downward. We have got to use every bit of ingenuity and every bit of diplomatic skill, as well as inducements like our right to seek punitive action under the intellectual property rights conventions. We want to have an economic relationship that works to the benefit of both countries but that is fair, where the rules are respected and where treaties are respected.

MS. FARNSWORTH: American officials say the Chinese government has failed to enforce a 1995 agreement to curb widespread counterfeiting of compact discs, videos, and computer software. In Ghana today, up to 4,000 Liberian civil war refugees aboard a leaking freighter were granted asylum. In the past week, the ship had been turned away once by Ivory Coast and twice by Ghanaian officials, but today the refugees were permitted to disembark in the Ghanaian port of Takoradi and were transferred to a United Nations camp for medical treatment. The Ghanaian government said it would not accept any more Liberian refugees. In Northern Bangladesh more than 400 people were killed when a tornado swept through dozens of villages. At least 33,000 people were injured. One hundred thousand have been left homeless. The Tongail district, about 75 miles from the capital city of Dhaka, was hardest hit. The storm flattened villages in the remote area where houses are made mostly of mud and straw. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to an update on the Florida crash, a debate over the Team Act, Sen. Dole on the gender gap, a new approach to teen runaways, and a David Gergen dialogue. UPDATE - UNSAFE SKIES?

MS. FARNSWORTH: The crash of ValuJet Flight 592 is again our top story. Kwame Holman reports on today's events at the crash site in Florida and in Washington.

KWAME HOLMAN: The flight data recorder from ValuJet 592 was recovered yesterday and flown to Washington for examination. Today at a press conference at the crash site in Florida, National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Robert Francis said the preliminary findings were encouraging.

ROBERT FRANCIS, Vice Chairman, National Transportation Safety Board: There is good data on the recorder. I don't want to talk at this point about specifics because it's very preliminary and it's being refined and it's a pretty sophisticated operation.

MR. HOLMAN: Search teams continue to work in quadrants around the crash site of the DC-9 looking for body parts and the voice cockpit recorder which officials hope will be found with the help of Navy sonar devices.

ROBERT FRANCIS: If the cockpit voice recorder pinger is functioning and if it's in the water, the sonar will pick it up. If, however, for some reason it's not working--battery failure or whatever it would be--obviously the sonar is not going to pick up the pinger. If also it's buried in mud, the recorder will not--the sonar will not pick up the pinger. We're operating on an assumption that certainly close to the flat data recorder would be a place that one could find it. On the other hand, we have large numbers of, of major parts from the tail of the aircraft where the recorders are located that are fairly, fairly far separated from where we found the flight data recorder. So we're going to be working on the access between, between those two.

MR. HOLMAN: Divers have found small pieces of the jet, such as bundles of wires, which may prove important in determining why the plane crashed. But the going is slow and difficult.

LT. GLEN KAY, Metro Dade Police: It's a very trying experience. In addition to the heat and the conditions that the officers are in, they also will have to suit up, wear special gear, which elevates their body temperature. We're working on--as a result of that--they're working on a basis via half-hour rotation, to where they can only stay in the suits for a half hour. They have to come out, be de-contaminated and then rest for about a half hour, then go back in after the next crew goes in.

MR. HOLMAN: In Washington, Federal Aviation Administrator David Hinson testified before the Senate Commerce Committee and defended his agency's ongoing review of ValuJet's performance.

DAVID HINSON: We will be examining the overall operations of the carrier, including an audit of its contracted repair facilities' quality control programs. We will observe the procedures and training of maintenance personnel. We will evaluate the effectiveness of the new technical support center, and our inspectors will conduct increased cockpit observations of crew resource management procedures, aircraft dispatch planning, and in- flight management.

MR. HOLMAN: Still, Hinson was bombarded with questions from the panel about the safety of ValuJet and the planes that fly.

SEN. OLYMPIA SNOWE, [R] Maine: It has been reported that this plane that was involved in the crash on Saturday had returned to the terminal seven times. When do you determine when it's necessary to ground a plane because of its numerous returns to a terminal? Is there a determination? Do you make a determination in that regard?

DAVID HINSON: No airplane is allowed to leave the gate or fly unless it is airworthy, and that airworthiness is determined by the appropriate maintenance personnel of the air carrier, and the captain must also--is required not to accept and fly an airplane that is not airworthy. I personally reviewed all seven incidents that were alluded to in the paper just because I was curious as well. And as an experienced airline person, I did not find any of those unusual or particularly hazardous. I just thought they were mechanical problems that the crew elected to go back and have fixed.

SEN. WENDELL FORD, [D] Kentucky: Are low cost carriers basically safe to fly on?

DAVID HINSON: The cost of a ticket that an airline charges is irrelevant to the FAA. How an airline positions itself economically is their business. But what is relevant to us is that they all meet the same safety standard, and we apply our work force and our resources to that end.

SEN. LARRY PRESSLER, Chairman, Commerce Committee: Is the DC-9 a safe aircraft if it's twenty-nine or thirty years old, and are there any differences in characteristics here if they get into an emergency situation?

DAVID HINSON: No, there's no difference. They're all safe.

SEN. RON WYDEN, [D] Oregon: Mr. Hinson, I think what troubles me most about what the inspector general has said with respect to safety inspection--

MR. HOLMAN: Senators also grilled Hinson about recent charges from the Department of Transportation inspector general that flying ValuJet simply isn't safe. Mary Schiavo appeared on the NewsHour last night.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And you raised some questions about ValuJet. You said, in fact, that you wouldn't fly ValuJet.

MARY FACKLER SCHIAVO, Inspector General, Transportation Department: [May 13] Well, actually, the first time I said that was on February 7th at a meeting in my office with my deputy inspector general, Mario Lauro, and others present. I said I wouldn't get on the airline because of the number of incidents that have been reported.

SEN. RON WYDEN: She's saying that to a great extent the system is sort of hit and miss, the system is essentially random. She goes to the extent of saying that many inspectors basically run an inspection program that has 'em just inspecting whatever goes by. Is that what goes on--

DAVID HINSON: No.

SEN. RON WYDEN: --and, if so, do you agree with that?

DAVID HINSON: No, sir. Sen. Wyden, I strongly take exception to her comments. We have a very professional, highly dedicated, organized, and efficient inspector work force that do their job day in and day out. And when we say an airline is safe to fly, it is safe to fly. There is no gray area. And I want to give you one statistic which I think makes the case and you really don't have to look any further. If we had the same accident rate today that we had in 1960 when many of us were flying around on the airlines and thought it was a safe environment, if we had the same accident rate for 121 carriers, last year we would have experienced 242 major air carrier accidents, 33 fatal, one every ten days. Now obviously something has happened in the 36 ensuing years. That safety curve is irrefutable evidence that the FAA, the industry, the pilots, the mechanics, the air traffic controllers, everybody involved, are doing a very good job.

MR. HOLMAN: Today an aide to Schiavo said her office would investigate charges that inspectors were directed to go soft on ValuJet. At the hearing, Republican Ted Stevens objected to Schiavo's public airing of her findings.

SEN. TED STEVENS, [R] Alaska: I suggest to you the President has the right to remove an inspector general for dereliction of duty, and you and the Secretary should examine into that, because it is not a functioning inspector general to go public and try to destroy confidence in our airline safety system, and I think she did.

MR. HOLMAN: Meanwhile, as part of an effort to ensure public confidence, the Transportation Department announced today 91 new air safety inspectors will be on the job by the end of July, two months ahead of schedule. FOCUS - TEAMWORK?

MS. FARNSWORTH: Now a controversial proposal that could change the interaction between management and workers. Charlayne Hunter- Gault looks at the so-called Team Act.

SPOKESMAN: I guess I'd begin by saying here we go again.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Last week, the Senate looked like it was on the verge of a compromise. Republicans were pushing for partial repeal of the federal gas tax. Democrats wanted to increase the minimum wage. The simple solution appeared to be one bill containing both measures, but then Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole added to the mix something called the Team Act and challenged the President to accept it.

SEN. BOB DOLE, Majority Leader: I think he'll sign the bill, the Team Act, and it's a very minor piece. As you know, it's only about a sliver of the entire package.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But the President said he wouldn't sign any bill that contained the Team Act.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: He wants to put this poison pill, and it will undermine workers' rights.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The Team Act, more formally the Teamwork for Employees and Management Act, would modify Depression era labor laws to make clear that businesses are allowed to form worker management groups in non-union shops to discuss some workplace issues. But there are differing opinions on what the bill would accomplish. Kansas Senator Nancy Kassebaum, sponsor of the bill, gave an example of how she envisions the Team Act would work.

SEN. NANCY KASSEBAUM, [R] Kansas: A group of workers at a manufacturing plant want to discuss health and safety issues with their supervisor. The supervisor forms a safety committee with the foreman and three or four workers in the group meets once a week. The workers note that the floor is often slippery and workers have fallen, causing injuries and significant workers' compensation costs for the company. The workers also note that most accidents happen on Mondays, so perhaps a brief safety reinforcement briefing at the start of the shift coming off the weekend would improve plant safety. Acting on these employee suggestions, the supervisor makes sure that mops are available to clean up the floors and institutes a five-minute safety meeting for workers each Monday morning. Sounds reasonable.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But not to most Democrats.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE, Minority Leader: What the Republicans want to do is roll back 60 years of labor law. They want to be able to allow companies to set up rump organizations to negotiate with themselves. It's like the father asking the son-in-law to negotiate on behalf of the employees and coming up with some plan that the- -ultimately the employees are supposed to accept as fact in that workplace. That is unacceptable. We aren't in any way, shape or form opposed to good discussions and good negotiations and good opportunities for employees, employees to work out their differences. That should be a fact. In fact, 96 percent allow that, but we will not tolerate rump organizations in the name of labor negotiating with companies and calling that somehow advancement in a workplace.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Presidential politics took the debate beyond the pros and cons of the Team Act.

SEN. BOB DOLE: In his State of the Union address last January, President Clinton said, "When companies and workers work as a team, they do better and so does America." So what happened between January and May? Well, the labor bosses called in and contributed $35 million.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY, [D] Massachusetts: We have not--maybe we will have to or maybe we should talk about the various companies and corporations that are supporting this legislation and what they've contributed to various candidates.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The stalemate over the Team Act blocked action on the gas tax and minimum wage for a week. Late this afternoon, Senate Republicans emerged from a meeting and offered to remove both the Team Act and gas tax from the minimum wage debate, holding votes on the three issues separately instead.

SEN. TRENT LOTT, [R] Mississippi: A straight vote on the gas tax repeal, a straight vote on the minimum wage, with some amendments included that basically I think would be acceptable. That's with a training wage and raising the threshold, and a straight vote on the Team Act.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But Democrats were cool to the offer, saying now they want to see what Republicans in the House do with the minimum wage bill before they'll agree to move ahead on either the gas tax or Team Act legislation. That could come next week.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Now, we debate the Team Act proposal. Andy Stern is the president of the Service Employees International Union, representing more than 1 million workers. Dan Yager is general counsel for the Labor Policy Association, a research and advocacy group. Thank you both for joining us. Dan Yager, please start for us by explaining what the law is and why it needs to be changed.

DAN YAGER, Labor Policy Association: Well, I think you have to recognize this whole debate is really about a recognition that American workers are intelligent. They can make decisions for themselves and they can contribute a powerful intellectual resource to the American economy and to the ability of our American companies to compete in a world marketplace, but in order to tap that resource, employers have to be able to communicate with those employees. They have to be able to worktogether with them on important issues like health and safety, training, changes in, for example, in machinery in, in the workplace. The problem is the current law in a non-union setting really does not--and that's 90 percent of the work force--does not let employers and employees sit down and work together on these issues. The only thing that is really legal in those settings is for the employer to dictate to those employees exactly what it is they're supposed to do and not take any info whatsoever on them on ways of improving production, ways of improving the services that they're providing.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And that's what--and so the law would change it now?

MR. YAGER: The Team Act would, in effect, the Team Act would enable employers and employees to address matters of mutual concern, such as health and safety, training, and those kind-- productivity, quality, those kinds of issues. It would retain the existing prohibition, and this is really what gave rise to the law. In the thirties, 60 years ago when this law was written, a lot of employers would try to defeat unions by setting up fake unions, sham unions, company unions, a variety of names for those. The law would retain that prohibition. It would say if the employer sets something up that's pretending to be a union, that's still illegal, but if they're working together on, on these matters of mutual concern, they're not engaging in collective bargaining, that's legal. And that's what we need. The employee involvement in movement is essential to the competitiveness of our economy.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What's wrong with that, Mr. Stern?

ANDY STERN, Service Employees International Union: Charlayne, no one disagrees that people should be able to work together, employees and management, but the reality is this is not about teens or "teamwork" any more than when Saddam Hussein sent solders into Saudi Arabia it was really about "them being volunteers." The fact is in the American workplace today, employers can talk to employees all they want. The problem is employers are not listening. They're not hearing what employees are saying. They're saying that at a time when corporate profits are at record highs, when the stock market is booming, when CEO's are getting 30 percent pay increases while workers are reporting the lowest pay increases according to the Labor Department in history, what the employers now want to do is establish their own organizations and because they're so smart, they want to select the representatives to those organizations, they want to decide what the employees get to talk about, they want to be able to dismiss employees who may disagree with what they have to say, and they want to be able to have a situation where they choose how these operations exist and then be able to alter them in any way they see fit. This is not about teamwork. This is a question about independence. Bill Clinton doesn't select the Congress. They're elected. Employees' representatives should be elected. That's all we're asking, they be independent from the employer.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So you're saying, in effect, that the sham unions that this Act was designed to prevent, that the employers are still trying to do this?

MR. STERN: It's a very easy test. If the employers want representatives of the workplace, let them be elected. That's the American way.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Yager.

MR. YAGER: I go back to my original premise. Employees are smart. If an employee is trying to pull the wool over--an employer is trying to pull the wool over their eyes, they're absolutely going to see right through that. Now, meanwhile, employees still have another option. If they want as an alternative or in combination with this interdependent relationship with their employer, if they want to set up an independent structure, a union, the Team Act has absolutely nothing to alter their ability to do that. And they can, they can file a petition, they can have that election, and they can have that union speak for them at the bargaining table. That choice is available. The problem is 90 percent of the work force right now has chosen not to have that approach and, in effect, the law disenfranchises them because it really puts a muzzle on them and does not allow their employer to empower them.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Yager--if the, if the employees can have unions, if that's an option, what's your problem with this?

MR. STERN: I don't have any problem, and I think employees should have unions, and I think employers know that the average union worker makes $5,220 a year more, gets twice as good benefits as non-union workers, and part of it is an attempt to try to thwart that effort. But the other part of this--

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Why is that? I mean, how do you square that with what he just said?

MR. STERN: Because if employees are so smart, which I agree they are, then let them elect their representatives. Why do we need to create organizations controlled by the employer, negotiating with themselves? If employees are so smart, I'm sure they're smart enough to elect their own representative, decide what they want to talk about, bring independent consultants in to help them, and not have to have the employer dictate all of the terms, conditions of their life.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What about that? Why couldn't they be elected if--

MR. YAGER: We're talking apples and oranges because what a union, collective bargaining is about, employees have this interest, employers have this interest. The employees elect a representative to be their advocate for that employer and to resolve wages, benefits, and rules in the workplace. What employee involvement is about is the employer is delegating responsibilities to those employees. It's saying, we're no longer going to have a health and safety director that makes all the health and safety decisions in this plant, we're going to delegate that to the employees, we're going to work with them, we're not going to turn the plant over to the employees.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And what do the employees that you've talked with said about this?

MR. YAGER: They love it. I mean, if you were to go into any workplace and see this, you would see how employees that are in employee involvement settings love their work. It's much more fulfilling to them. Meanwhile, the fact that it's making their company more competitive and enhancing their own job security is something that ought not to be overlooked, and this happens in both union and non-union settings, as well.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: He's right about that, isn't he, Mr. Stern?

MR. STERN: Yeah. And we're totally in favor of employee involvement. We have nothing against it. It goes on every single day all across America.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So where would you, how would you draw the line?

MR. STERN: The question is whether we're going to let employers establish organizations at their workplace where they pick the representatives, where they decide what's discussed, where they make a decision if they don't like what you say they can get rid of you, they can fire you, they can throw you off the committee. If there are three or four workers and the management wants to figure out who's going to represent the workers, let 'em elect them.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is there any avenue of control of employers, any point of, you know, what's the word I'm looking for, recall? Can they do anything about the things that he's saying?

MR. YAGER: Can the employees do it?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mm-hm.

MR. YAGER: Sure. They can, they can elect a union. I mean, I think the problem is employers are being told--and this Thursday, President Clinton is going to have a group of major corporations together, and he's going to talk about corporate responsibility and he's going to tell 'em involve your employees. Well, companies are hearing that, on the one hand, from the government, but on the other hand, the government's telling 'em it's illegal, and actually one of the companies that is going to be at that meeting, the Donnelly Corporation, has just been litigating this issue with the NLRB, the National Labor Relations Board, for the last year.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Stern, is there evidence of why these employee unions exist in what 97 percent of the companies around the country--non-union companies--is there evidence of widespread abuse, the kind that gives rise to unions here?

MR. STERN: No. In fact, that's why it's going on; every day in America, employees are involved in the workplace, 97 percent of the workplace that's true, that's a good number.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: That is right, isn't it about?

MR. YAGER: Yeah. That's--some polls have shown that.

MR. STERN: So all we're saying is when the employer then wants to take the next step and form an organization that's supposed to represent the workers, this is America, let 'em elect their representatives. We're talking about going for the next step of having a discussion to having negotiations, to bargain.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But if it's working now, why, why--

MR. STERN: Well, that's why I'd ask Mr. Yager, why change the law, if it's working now, employers--

MR. YAGER: Employers have already taken the next step. Let me give you an example. There was a case that was just handed down about three months ago that said in a grocery store situation, a grocery store had set up a committee, and one of the things that they discussed was how to make improvements in the scanners at the checkout lines. The National Labor Relations Board told that company that was an illegal subject for them to discuss with their employees. Now, if you can't talk about issues like that, nobody knows what it is legal to discuss with your employees.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Stern, do you see this being basically an anti-union thing? Is this really about the future of the union or threats to the union, as you see it?

MR. STERN: I think it is about unions, but more importantly, I think it is about the rights of workers in the workplace, union or non-union, to be able to select their own representatives, to be able to be independent from the employees and to be able to talk about what's on their mind, which is why are their employers making so much money and they're not getting their fair share of the proceeds.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How much of this debate right now is being driven by politics, Mr. Yager?

MR. YAGER: Politics drives everything around here. I think there's no--and sometimes it makes intelligent discourse on issues a little bit difficult, but I think what is--politics has driven this issue to the point where we can talk about it in settings like this, and I think it's the kind of issue that the more people talk about it, and even the President, I think at some point he's going to realize that on this--in this issue, he is opposing workplace cooperation. He's opposing teams.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Stern.

MR. STERN: It is about power. Corporate America has all the power. Workers have very limited amounts of power. We're trying to just say we want to be independent, we want to have a voice, we want to have rights, and the status quo is great for the employers and now they even want to get more power.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right, Mr. Stern and Mr. Yager, thank you.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, Sen. Dole on the gender gap, a new approach to teen runaways, and a David Gergen dialogue. SERIES - WHERE THEY STAND

MS. FARNSWORTH: Next another in our "Where They Stand" series, excerpts from major speeches delivered by presidential candidates Dole and Clinton. We'll be airing them each week between now and August conventions. Tonight Bob Dole addresses the so-called "gender gap." Polls show women tend to support President Clinton over the Senate Majority Leader. Last week, Sen. Dole reached out to female voters in a speech to Republican women at a Washington hotel. He began by explaining why his wife, who is president of the American Red Cross, wasn't with him.

SEN. ROBERT DOLE, Republican Presidential Candidate: I'm sorry Elizabeth cannot be here, but I know she's somewhere working. But she's very fond of quoting Frances Perkins, who was, as you know, Franklin Roosevelt's Secretary of Labor and was the first female cabinet officer. And she was once asked if being a women posed a disadvantage in public life and said, "Only when I'm climbing trees." Now one thing clear in today's world of politics, thanks to organizations like Renew, if you're looking for a place where no branches are out, no branches are out of reach of women, then you ought to look at the Republican Party because every branch is out there waiting for Republican women to come on board. [applause] I used to say as I was running for Congress even, it's all right to go out, you know, if I wanted to get elected, I went to meetings where a lot of women were present. I like men too but don't misunderstand me, they always showed up for the head table, but they never showed up for work, and if I wanted to get elected, I went to the women. [applause] And I don't want to offend any men here. I once thought we ought to have an equal rights amendment for men after I married Elizabeth. But, in any event, I've been a long-time supporter for the right reason. And as far as I can see, when I look at the Senate and I look at the House and I look at state legislators and we're very proud in the state of Kansas to have 11 Republican women in the state senate in Kansas, and they're all doing a good bottom, and the bottom line is that America's women are making America a better place. They're helping us make changes in America, and we need to take that message back to every community in America. And I spent my life fighting for a better future for women, men, and their families. And I've seen some poll numbers and you've seen the poll numbers and say, well, there's a gender gap. Does this bother me? You bet it does. I don't believe there should be a gender gap. I think that gap will close. Do I have a plan to eliminate it? Yes, I do. First, I will proudly discuss my record on issues of concern to America's women. It's a record that includes authoring the Women's Equal Opportunity Act, which is part of the 1994 crime bill, change the law to make it easier to convict repeat rapists. It's a record that includes leading the Senate to fully fund for the first time in history the Violence Against Women's Act. It's a record that includes fighting for a balanced budget, for lower taxes, for better schools, and for a strong national defense and for building a brighter future for all of our citizens. These are all your issues. They're my issues. They're American issues. [applause] And I'll also be very busy point out a credibility gap that President Clinton has. When he was a candidate, he said on the "Larry King" show we can balance a budget in five years. And then he was all over the lot. Then it was eight, and then it was ten, then it was nine, then it was six. And he finally got down to seven years. But when it came time to match his words with actions, I said he vetoed the first balanced budget in a generation--first balanced budget in a generation. His veto means that every one of your daughters and granddaughters are still facing a future of debt and women and men alike should also be concerned about the President's credibility gap when it comes to taxes. And by the way, until midnight tonight, it is tax freedom day. And tomorrow you start working for yourself. For 128 days you've been working for state, local, and the federal government, so tomorrow you're on your own. And what you make tomorrow you may be able to keep. So I can tell you this--we've gained one full week. It takes 128 days now and Clinton's been in office about three years. He's already added seven days, the fastest growth we've had in moving up Tax Freedom Day. And if he stays another four years, who knows, it may be July 4 when we have tax freedom. He's not going to be around four more years but he'll have a chance to celebrate Tax Freedom Day. And they love taxes. I'm reminded from time to time when I was debating with Sen. Kennedy a few years ago on a tax issue and I was making a statement and I got all wound up there in the Senate floor as you do from time to time and I said, "Now gentlemen, let me tax your memories," and Kennedy jumped up and said, "Why haven't we thought of that before?". So there's nothing they didn't like to tax. We also had a state tax relief for small businessmen and women, farmers, ranchers. We thought it was a good idea. We thought it was a very good idea. In fact, the President told us, he thought it was a pretty good idea. Everything we're for is a good idea as far as the President is concerned. One reason to elect me in November '96 is to keep the promises he made to you in 1992. He promised you all these things in 1992. [applause] Spousal IRA's, we had 'em. Estate tax relief where you had a bigger exemption, we had 'em, so if your husband died or so the breadwinner died, you didn't have to sell off the family farm or the family business to pay the estate tax. A tax credit for expenses I said associated with adoption, we had 'em. Long-term care and seriously ill, we had tax credits. Tax credits to help care for elderly parents and grandparents, it was in our bill. Reduction in some cases, elimination of the marriage penalty tax which I think many of you are familiar with, repeal of the 1993 Clinton increase in the amount of Social Security benefits that are taxable, so it seems to me that under a Dole administration, in my administration, women would be benefiting from those tax reductions today, because I would have signed the bill, I would have signed it with great pride and said, let's help America, let's move America forward, and we can do it. We've got to provide incentive. We've got to provide tax relief. [applause]

MS. FARNSWORTH: Republican Presidential Candidate Bob Dole speaking last week in Washington. FOCUS - TEEN RUNAWAYS

MS. FARNSWORTH: Now how best to deal with teenage runaways, a new Washington State law designed to protect them has provoked a court challenge. Rod Minott of KCTS-Seattle reports.

SPOKESMAN: How are you doing? We've got one. We'll be down here.

ROD MINOTT: On the streets of Seattle, Greg McCormack roams as a kind of angel of mercy on wheels.

GREG McCORMACK, Street Links: You guys need any socks or anything?

MR. MINOTT: Five nights a week he and his partner Pat Gillan deliver food and clothing to homeless youth.

GREG McCORMACK: Okay. We got PBJ's. Tonight we got tomato soup. We got hot chocolate, coffee.

MR. MINOTT: It's estimated that on any given night there are between five hundred and one thousand homeless youth on the streets of Seattle. To get a handle on the problem, Washington State lawmakers recently passed a law designed to rescue these children, a law that possibly puts McCormack and others in a precarious position, because it requires those who shelter and provide help to runaways to report them to police or parents. Previously, shelters were not required to report runaways, and many police often gave up trying to keep them off the streets. McCormack thinks the new law could make life even tougher for young runaways.

GREG McCORMACK: Now instead of running to the police when a perpetrator is after them or a sexual predator is after them, now they're running from the police and the predator as well. And it's just one more group of people to run from.

MR. MINOTT: But the law known as the Becca Bill was passed by parents and legislators who said they wanted to save their kids. The law was named for 13-year-old Becca Hedman, a teenage runaway who worked the streets as a prostitute. Her father, Dennis Hedman, remembers what happened to her three years ago.

DENNIS HEDMAN, Becca's Father: She's standing on a street corner. She gets picked up by a 36-year-old white male who pays her $50 to have sex. She accompanies him back to his room, they perform the act. He was not satisfied, wanted his money back. Uh, Becca told him no. She turned her back to get dressed. He pulled a baseball bat from--out from under the bed and beat her to death.

MR. MINOTT: That murder and his inability to save his daughter sent Hedman on a mission to radically change Washington State's juvenile laws. Besides making the reporting of runaways a legal requirement, the Becca Law also set up a statewide network of lock crisis shelters to hold runaways for up to five days, and in a dramatic turnaround, the law scrapped provisions in juvenile law that required the consent of teenagers before they were put into mental health, drug, or alcohol therapy. Under the new law, the parents do not need consent before committing their children.

MIKE CARRELL, Washington State Representative: Do you parents have certain goals and things that they're telling you they want you to do?

MR. MINOTT: The legislation was sponsored by State Representative Mike Carrell.

MIKE CARRELL: We have never addressed the kids who are mentally ill, who are drug-addicted. The question I would ask you: Is it a right for children to go out on our street and die? We essentially changed this to say that you are a child until the age of 18. Your parents are there and society are there to protect you.

MR. MINOTT: But those who have been providing for the runaways are worried the bill's reporting rules have driven the teenagers further underground. Nancy Amidei is a social worker who heads a Seattle area task force aimed at helping homeless youth.

NANCY AMIDEI, Partnership for Youth: I can tell you that right after the bill was signed in this area at least, all of the service providers noticed a quick drop in the number of kids seeking service. In fact, in some of the shelters, we went from twenty youngsters a night to two. That was a big drop.

WOMAN: [speaking in group] There are so few beds in any kind of group home.

MR. MINOTT: Youth service providers have been struggling with how best to protect themselves and their clients.

RACHEL MEYERS, Covenant House: I think a lot of youth service agencies are kind of going right now on sort of a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. If you don't ask a kid if they ran away and their parent doesn't want them to be gone, then you have a reason to think that maybe it's okay for them to be away from home. This part isn't very clear, and my guess is that it's not going to be clear whether or not it's safe to use a "don't ask, don't tell" until it's challenged in court.

MR. MINOTT: Providers also worry what kind of environment they're sending kids back to.

NANCY AMIDEI: The youngsters that we see who are on the streets for a length of time who feel they have to survive by being on the streets for most of them the situation is not a good one at home. About a fourth have literally been shoved out, pushed out by their parents. Altogether, about three-fourths have experienced some form of abuse or serious neglect.

MR. MINOTT: That feeling was echoed by teenagers like 17-year- old "Angel," who ran away a year ago.

"ANGEL": So my mom would like hit me, punch me, umm, throw me, and my stepdaddy, he, when he was living with us, he would like hit me up the side of the head, say like mean things to me.

MR. MINOTT: But legislator Carrell thinks for many kids charges of abuse at home may be unfounded.

MIKE CARRELL: The fact that the child has ran run away could be for any number of reasons, and just because a child says I've been abused doesn't mean that they've been abused, uh, and there are lots, hundreds, thousands of cases where people are making false accusation of this. This is the, the tactical nuclear weapon of the 1990's.

MR. MINOTT: Although the legislation is only 11 months old, the provision which allows parents to lock up their child in a mental institution already is being challenged in the courts. The case involves a 15-year-old known as "T.B.". Her parents asked that she not be identified on camera. Last fall, the parents forcibly committed "T.B." to this private psychiatric hospital. "T.B." remained here for three weeks before escaping. In testimony before the State Supreme Court, "T.B.'s" mother said she forced her runaway daughter to be hospitalized out of fear for the child's safety.

WOMAN: She has a diagnosed mental illness and because of it, she's unable to make sound and responsible decisions on her own behalf. When we acted, she had withdrawn from school and lacked the ability to live in any kind of structured environment--even a youth shelter--without running away.

MR. MINOTT: But "T.B." says she does not have a mental illness and objected to being locked up.

"T.B.": For me, it made me more angry and, I mean, it made me want to run away more and not talk to them at all for a long time, and it doesn't--it didn't really help.

MR. MINOTT: "T.B.'s" attorney, Mary Perdue, argues locking teenagers up against their will in a mental hospital violates their constitutional rights.

MARY PERDUE, T.B.'s Lawyer: Because it's actually the director of a for-profit hospital making the decision, we're saying it's unconstitutional to let that person who has a financial interest in the decision make the decision, that the person who should be making the decision is someone who's independent, neutral, and we're saying that that should be, that should be a judge.

MR. MINOTT: While the courts consider what to do, on the home front "T.B." appears to have won a partial victory. She said her parents have backed off from putting her in a hospital and that she'd recently left the streets and returned home. Despite the fact that "T.B." and her parents have resolved some of their differences, the case remains in the courts, backed by a number of youth and civil rights groups. The outcome of the case is expected to set a legal precedent in how Washington State handles its runaways teens.

GREG McCORMACK: [talking to teen] Want a sandwich?

MR. MINOTT: Meantime on the streets of Seattle, Greg McCormack has not seen any decrease in the number of runaways, and whatever the outcome of the court case, he expects to be just as busy every night, tending to the ever-growing street population. DIALOGUE

MS. FARNSWORTH: Finally tonight, a Gergen dialogue. David Gergen, editor-at-large at "U.S. News & World Report," talks with Winifred Gallagher, science writer and author of I.D.: How Heredity and Experience Make You Who You Are.

DAVID GERGEN, U.S. News & World Report: Nature vs. Nurture, that debate has raged over centuries, and as you point out, even in Shakespeare and The Tempest one finds the characters arguing about whether one's basic nature can be changed by childhood or by nurture, and you've just written a book saying that in the last few years we've actually come a long way in our understanding. Help us understand where we are.

WINIFRED GALLAGHER, Author, I.D.: Okay. I think there the important thing to realize is that there have been three basic ways to understand why we are the way we are, and the first is nature. And it's actually the oldest way. People since Hippocrates have understood that babies are born a certain way, and until the turn of the century, the assumption was that they pretty much stayed that way too, and what--how they were treated and what happens to you after your borne doesn't make a great deal of difference. That's temperament. That's your biological temperament, which is a basic orientation to the world, how you're going to react to life in a very basic way.

MR. GERGEN: For most of history people believed it was nature that determined--

WINIFRED GALLAGHER: Right.

MR. GERGEN: --your take on life, your emotional take on life.

WINIFRED GALLAGHER: Way before--now we know that genes give us a great deal of that basic temperament, but they didn't know it was genes, but they were on the right--right track. Now, around the turn of the century with Freud, we began to learn that what happened to you after you were born was often very important. This is nurture, learning how your parents treated you. And, in fact, what happened then was scientists got carried away with that idea, and sort of forgot about temperament, that the genetic basis that you were born with was also important. So we had these two views that, that were sort of oil and water. The third way of looking at this issue, which is what I've tried to write about, is that we actually--

MR. GERGEN: It's the new one.

WINIFRED GALLAGHER: --get a second nature, so that rather than nature and nurture being oil and water, they're like the flour and water that make bread and once, once you have bread, you can't pull apart the flour and the water anymore.

MR. GERGEN: So that, in effect, your born, genetically born with a certain temperament.

WINIFRED GALLAGHER: You are born with a certain temperament.

MR. GERGEN: But your experience in your early years, in your childhood, then makes--modifies temperament. It can change that temperament.

WINIFRED GALLAGHER: Not just psychologically in some sort of airy fairy way but in a very real physiological structural way. I'll give you an example. We can't do these kinds of experiments with children for obvious reasons, but if scientists breed very, very highly aggressive or highly anxious monkeys, and give that infant to a very relaxed, competent, experienced mother to raise, that infant will grow up to resemble not just behaviorally but also neurochemically an infant who was born with the normal levels of those two traits. Now, that's a very profound finding. This isn't just like some sort of slick gloss on a basic trait. This is a profound change in that trait that's due to experience.

MR. GERGEN: This is what scientists have discovered over the past 20 years in a variety of fields.

WINIFRED GALLAGHER: This is going to be the cutting edge. This is going to be the, I believe, the personality, psychology, and the temperament research of the next century.

MR. GERGEN: And you argue that essentially the nature versus nurture debate is over.

WINIFRED GALLAGHER: It's over. It's nature and nature, and this third thing that they create between them, which is something quite different.

MR. GERGEN: And the fact that you can create your second nature through your own socialization, through your own childhood, so that the child is born with a temperament that makes that child very bold, assertive, reckless, perhaps even violent, that that, that that disposition can be changed through socialization.

WINIFRED GALLAGHER: Let's draw the line at violent. Let's, let's take a little boy who's born very bold and feisty and aggressive. Now that child can end up being the captain of the football team and a Senator or a very successful entrepreneur, or that same child with--for the very same reasons can end up seeking thrills in, in a criminal environment, and that is socialization. That's not genes.

MR. GERGEN: I see. But the research basically says in terms of criminals it's overwhelmingly the socialization rather than genes.

WINIFRED GALLAGHER: Overwhelmingly. Most--the scientists that I've talked to who are the most inclined to look for genetic and biological explanations for behavior make a big exception where socialization, which is teaching kids how to obey the laws, is concerned. This is the overwhelming majority of criminals are criminals because of how they were brought up, not because of their genes.

MR. GERGEN: What practical advice would you give to young parents about raising children that say--a certain disposition on the part of their child, that they find this child is not going to be well adapted to the world for whatever reason that may be in terms of this--what should they do? Where does this lead you?

WINIFRED GALLAGHER: The best advice is to look at who your child is, look at the child's temperament. If you have a very shy child, accept that. This child is never going to be the life the party, but that doesn't mean that this child can't be helped to have some friends. The child may not have a hundred friends, but the child can have three or four friends. And it's really--it's really a very sensitive acceptance and recognition of the child's basic disposition and then helping the child to live comfortably with that disposition.

MR. GERGEN: Mm-hmm. So that how much you can change your personality after adolescence--you say personality doesn't change very much but even in Henry V, and Henry V was very different from Prince Howe.

WINIFRED GALLAGHER: Right. Exactly. Well, that's an excellent example. Henry V, when he was Prince Howe was kind of what we would call a juvenile delinquent, who liked to go out and raise cain.

MR. GERGEN: Right.

WINIFRED GALLAGHER: When he became King Henry, he invaded France, so he's taking this same basic let's go seek some thrills and get in some fights and mix it up, he's taking that same orientation, but when he's king, he's doing something very different with orientation. And I think that's true for us.

MR. GERGEN: So that there can be personality changes as you get older.

WINIFRED GALLAGHER: You can change your--you can change what you decide to do with your traits definitely.

MR. GERGEN: I see. You wouldn't trade your traits so much as with the focus of your activity and channel them in a different way.

WINIFRED GALLAGHER: Well, you can do both, and this is--this is going to sound hopelessly retro, but I'm actually a big believer in, in the power of psychotherapy to change the power of insight, to change traits. I don't think we necessarily have to take a drug to change.

MR. GERGEN: Why is that so retro?

WINIFRED GALLAGHER: Uh, I think right now we're living through the health care system is being overhauled and people don't want to pay for psychotherapy. It's much cheaper to take Prozac, but I think in terms of like understanding a certain trait that you have and how maybe to sort of file down the rough edges on it a little bit, live a little more comfortably, experiment with different ways to be, I think that's--I think it's a long process. It's a difficult process and an expensive process, but much more so than when I started out in the book I now think that it also can be a very effective process.

MR. GERGEN: It's interesting. I want to come back to this question that you pose at the end of your book. You said about the American culture, you quoted one source as saying, we probably live in the most civilized time ever in history, look at our children, we have all these kinds of drugs, we have these treatments, we have our psychotherapy, and yet at the same time, you say we're going through an epidemic of depression, that one in ten Americans is depressed, twice as many women as men. What's really going on?

WINIFRED GALLAGHER: Well, it's the best of times and the worst of times. We do have an epidemic of depression, and a lot of people think that that has to do--no one is quite sure how to explain it, but a lot of people think it might have to do with the fact that we have very high expectations and, and no longer the kind of economy that has the terrific booms say that prevailed right after the war, where it seemed like anybody could do anything, so we, we have these very high post war expectations, but we don't have the economy driving it underneath. And that can create a sense of gee, well, why aren't I rich and famous? That's, that's putting a very, very superficial spin on it, but I think the risk here is that we raise up certain kinds of personalities and certain types of people as if they were an ideal, and, in fact, the glory of our species and I would argue of our nation is that we have so many different types, and they're all wonderful. We need them all.

MR. GERGEN: But your point also would be that rather than turning to anti-depressant drugs, such as Prozac, that we ought to learn to build more support systems and let people be--you know, not try to change them so dramatically to drugs but allow them to adapt more easily to the environment in which they find themselves.

WINIFRED GALLAGHER: I think we have to be very careful when we talk about anti-depressants because they have been one of the greatest medical boons of the 20th century and certainly someone who's suffering from the illness of depression can--their whole life can be changed by these drugs. On the other hand, sometimes the way the drugs are marketed they seem more like a psychological- -I mean, who couldn't be a little more resilient, a little more cheerful, a little more optimistic, worry a little less, and I think sometimes those things, even if they're uncomfortable, they're actually signals that we need to think about something that's going on in our lives. Maybe if, if your job is that stressful, maybe you don't need to take a drug to deal with the stress, maybe you need to have a different job. So I would just argue like let's think about what we're treating when we take a drug, are we treating a trade, or are we treating an illness?

MR. GERGEN: Okay. Fine. Well, thank you very much.

WINIFRED GALLAGHER: Thank you for having me. RECAP

MS. FARNSWORTH: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday, search teams waded through the Florida Everglades looking for more pieces of the wreckage of ValuJet Flight 592. In Washington, the Federal Aviation Administrator said his agency would hire 91 more safety inspectors by June, and the Commerce Department reported retail sales were down in April by .3 percent. Consumer prices were up by .4 percent. Higher gasoline prices helped raise the CPI. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Thank you and good night.