[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 27 (Thursday, February 13, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2372-S2379]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                    The Challenges Facing Our Nation

  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, we are making the case about advise and 
consent but many of our people around the country are worried about 
what is coming in these next couple of days. The country is on alert. 
People are asking me, should I really go out and get duct tape? What 
can I do?
  I have been around politics for a very long time. I was elected to 
the House in 1982. These are the toughest times I have seen, and I have 
seen some tough ones. We have an economy that is not performing. We 
have a budget which has turned from surplus to deficit.
  The very people who said deficits were terrible when Democrats were 
in the majority are saying deficits are now fine as long as they are 
not more than so many percent of the gross national product, no 
problem. Unfortunately for those people, Alan Greenspan said deficits 
do matter, and we have an economy that is the worst that it has been in 
50 years. On top of that, we have Osama bin Laden who apparently issued 
a warning to Americans and he told the Iraqi people that if the 
Americans come in there, do what it takes to hurt them all around the 
world.
  We have the tragedy and sadness of the Shuttle Columbia. We have the 
news that North Korea possesses perhaps the ability to hit the west 
coast, where I live and my people I represent live and not far from 
where the Presiding Officer lives. We have a lot of challenges.
  What I say today is measured in my comments because whatever the 
future holds for us, and I think many people fear it is war, we are 
going to pull together as one. Looking at all of these challenges I 
mentioned, and I exclude from that the shuttle tragedy, but the North 
Korea situation, the Iraq situation, the Osama bin Laden situation, the 
economic situation, I believe this administration has seen these crises 
and they have amplified them. I do not think they are solving them. I 
think they are amplifying them. I do not see the path to a prosperous 
economy in any of the plans. I see more deficits as far as the eye can 
see. I do not see a path for job creation. I do not see a path where we 
are protected in our homeland. I see my local responders saying, Where 
is the help that was promised?
  I do not see that. I do not see a path to peace in Iraq. I see a lot 
of energy and focus on a path to war. I do not see the path--and I have 
lived through many administrations, Republican and Democratic. I wish 
the President would put the same focus and attention on avoiding war 
and disarming Iraq as he does on war to disarm Iraq. War may be 
inevitable. It should not be a first resort or a second. It should be a 
very last.
  Looking at North Korea, why are we not talking to them? We have 
brilliant people in the State Department.
  As far as I can tell from my post on the Foreign Relations Committee, 
we have not elevated this to the same level as Iraq in any way, shape, 
or form. They keep saying we will resolve this diplomatically. I am 
glad. But I don't see that focus. What I see is when the North Koreans 
want to talk, they fly to New Mexico to talk to Bill Richardson. 
Something is wrong with that. We need to do better.
  I see issues turning into problems, turning into crises, and I don't 
see them being resolved; I see them getting worse. I can tell you, when 
I go home, people are coming up to me in the supermarket--Democrats, 
Republicans, Independents--tugging at my sleeve, literally. They say: 
We are anxious. We are worried. We are scared.
  I am waiting for the type of leadership in this administration on all 
of these issues that will help us see the light at the end of the 
tunnel. We will pull together as Americans, regardless. The greatest 
Nation in the world, we will meet our challenges. But there is much 
more we need to do--not more deficits as far as the eye can see. That 
is not going to help. Not talk about war, war, war, and ignoring the 
chance that we can avoid it and achieve the total disarmament of Iraq. 
I don't see the kind of help to our hometowns, if you will, to get 
ready.
  Someone said it right--this is not original on my part; I believe it 
was a mayor of one of our Midwest cities. She said when people fear an 
attack by a terrorist, they are going to call 9-1-1. They are not going 
to call the Senate, and they are not calling the President. They will 
call 9-1-1.
  What are we doing? We lauded the firemen and the policemen, as well 
we should have. The best way to honor them is to give them the help 
they need. Guess what this administration is doing. It is canceling the 
COPS program. These are the grants to our local law enforcement people 
who are going to get the 9-1-1 call if, God forbid, there is an attack 
on our homeland.
  This President is spending a lot of money in the budget. But talk to 
the people back home, and they are not happy with the unfunded mandates 
they are seeing. We see an unprecedented attack on the environment. 
Talk about danger, I will tell you about danger. As we worry about 
chemical and biological attacks, Osama bin Laden, why have we lost the 
focus on getting him? The President was fierce in his resolve to get 
Osama bin Laden, and we have not achieved that up until this point. We 
fear the chemical and biological attack.
  Seventy million Americans--and that includes 10 million children--
live within 4 miles of a Superfund site which contains these dreadful 
chemicals that harm our children and all of us. What have they done? 
They have slowed the cleanups and are now telling taxpayers they have 
to pick up all of the costs of that program because they do not want to 
continue a fee on the polluters, which was something put into place 
under Republican and Democratic administrations. This is a crisis, and 
it is being amplified by this administration.
  I look around and I see the fund sites proliferating. Under President 
Clinton, we cleaned up an average of 87 sites a year. It is down to 40 
sites. It is down to the taxpayers now picking up the tab, and people 
are beginning to be very fearful about their children's health.
  There are many issues that confront us. I will close with this. Last 
night, the Republicans stayed in the Chamber to make their point. That 
was a good thing to do. I am in the Chamber today

[[Page S2378]]

to make my point. Give me the information, folks. Tell this man to 
answer the same number of questions you asked Richard Paez. Tell this 
man to answer the same number of questions you asked Margaret Morrow to 
answer. Tell this man to answer the same number of questions and in the 
same depth as President Clinton's nominees answered. And if you do not 
like that approach, simply ask him to answer the questions that some of 
President Bush's nominees answered.

  We are not going to stand here and treat this Constitution as some 
relic. We have equal power with the President. If we were not to ask 
for these answers, we do not deserve to be here.
  I see a couple of my friends on the floor, and I have to say, I am 
ready to vote on Miguel Estrada as soon as he answers the questions. I 
am not going to roll over for any President, Republican or Democrat, if 
they send us people who are either too scared to answer the questions 
or we are told by some Federalist Society expert to keep your mouth 
shut and it will go well. It is wrong.
  I have some self-respect as a Senator. Do you know who gave it to me? 
I was not born with it. The people who sent me here--35 million 
strong--believe me, they did not all send me here, but of those who 
voted, a majority did. Do you know what I told them? I told them that 
the makeup of the courts is very important and the power of the courts 
is very important. I promised them that before I cast a vote, aye or 
nay on anyone, I would have information and I would always tell you why 
I was voting yes or no. And I have voted for more than 90 percent of 
this President's nominees. I don't know how I will vote on this one. I 
might vote for him if I see his writings. I might. I might not. I may 
find that he does not come from the center, which is what President 
Bush promised. We would get judges from the center.
  They can stay here all night and talk and talk and talk and talk. But 
I will be ready to vote when I have seen the answers to the questions, 
the same kind of questions they asked Margaret Morrow, Richard Paez, 
and every one of Bill Clinton's nominees.
  Double standards do not sell with me. I worked very well with Senator 
Hatch and colleagues on the Judiciary Committee on both sides of the 
aisle when I had people I was very interested in getting through the 
process. And I said to them: You deserve to know every single thing you 
are asking for, and I will work with these nominees and make sure they 
give you those answers.
  That is respect. That is respect for the job we are supposed to do. I 
respect this job. I respect the people I represent too much to roll 
over and say to this President or any other: Send nominees down who 
will not answer questions. It does not matter to me. It is your choice.
  If I were to do that, I would be belying this Constitution. When I 
got elected to this body, I held up my hand and I swore to protect and 
defend it. It means everything to me. It is more important than me. It 
is more important than any other Senator. It is more important than any 
President. This is the document that has kept us going as the greatest 
democracy in the world all these years. And God forbid we turn our back 
on it. If we do, we will not recognize the country we will have.
  I see coming, if we roll over on this one, a judge selection process 
that is essentially a secret process. That is something I cannot 
support, I will never support, even if I am the only one left who feels 
that way--and I doubt that will be the case because there are very 
strong feelings on my side of the aisle that the judicial selection 
process should be an open process, an honest process, a fair process.
  I appreciate the chance to express my views on these issues and other 
issues. It is time we solve the problems we are facing and not create 
new ones. A new problem we are creating is judicial nominees who will 
not talk. That is a new problem. I hope, as a result of what we are 
doing today, the Republicans will go back, they will chat with Mr. 
Estrada, they will tell him to answer the questions, and we can get on 
with a vote and the other important business we have before us.

  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. President, the Honorable Senator from California 
laid out a very touching and moving litany of the times in which we 
live. These are difficult times, with the prospect of dealing with a 
brutal dictator in Iraq, a dictator who has used weapons of mass 
destruction against his own people, has shown no hesitation to use 
poison gas, chemicals, and biological weapons, a dictator who clearly 
has ignored resolution after resolution of the United Nations over a 
12-year period, who poses a threat to all of us. That crisis looms out 
there. The day of decision is coming soon. As the President has noted, 
Saddam Hussein will either disarm or be disarmed. We have to be 
concerned about what is happening in North Korea where they are talking 
about restarting a nuclear program that they agreed to abort.
  We have problems of recession. A lot of folks in my State are worried 
about where the next paycheck is going to come from, worried about the 
state of the economy. We have a lot of concerns out there. This is a 
time of great uncertainty. This magnificent, august body, the Senate, 
one of the greatest deliberative bodies in the world, instead of 
focusing its efforts on dealing with those issues of great concern, we 
are involved and engaged in trying to break off a filibuster from my 
honorable colleagues on the other side who are not going to allow us to 
have a vote, a simple up-or-down vote--that is all we are asking for--
on the nomination of Miguel Estrada to the circuit court of appeals.
  I have been here a little over a month. I don't have that great sense 
of history that my colleagues, such as Mr. Byrd, the Honorable Senator 
from West Virginia, has. He is a walking history of the Senate. I sit 
here in awe as I listen to him.
  I listen to the honorable chair of the Judiciary Committee, Senator 
Hatch, who has been here a long time. I still get chills standing where 
I am standing, looking at this great sense of history. Yet we are 
sitting here, and I was listening last night, and we are talking about 
the nomination of the first Hispanic to serve on the circuit court, and 
what I am listening to is a litany of who did what to whom before. You 
would almost think that we were the Hatfields and McCoys instead of 
Democrats and Republicans. You would think we were the Earps and 
Youngers at the OK Corral.
  I don't know who did what in the past. I don't know why a particular 
judge in the past perhaps took a long period of time before they got a 
chance to have a vote on the floor of the Senate. I don't know who was 
right yesterday and who was wrong. But this is today. This is a time 
when I got elected. I can tell you the citizens of Minnesota were 
saying they wanted to get past the bitter partisanship that stops the 
Senate from doing its business. They want public figures to simply get 
something done, move on, take care of the flood problem, the disaster 
problems we have had in northwest Minnesota, the drought that is 
affecting other parts of the country, get an energy bill through, get a 
budget--that would not be a bad thing for the U.S. Government--get a 
budget passed. Moms and dads have to deal with that all the time. We 
have folks out there clamoring for us to just do what we have been 
elected to do, to do our business.

  Instead, I listened last night to the Honorable Senator from New York 
and the Honorable Senator from Illinois, and they had pictures of 
candidates in the past who, for some reason or other, did not get 
through the Judiciary Committee fast enough. We went back and forth and 
back and forth and back and forth. You know, that was yesterday.
  We are never going to be younger than we are today. The proverbial: 
Today is the first day of the rest of your life. What would be so hard 
for us, as a deliberative body, to say we are going to start with 
today, we are going to make sure--we are going to put aside all the 
sins of yesterday and make sure that, from here on, when folks come up, 
they have a hearing and they have a vote?
  By the way, I have to say I have heard my honorable colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle talk about Mr. Estrada not answering questions. 
This has been shown last night; Senator Hatch showed it many times. 
This is the transcript of the hearing, the all-day hearing in which he 
answered question after question after question.

[[Page S2379]]

Maybe he gave answers folks on the other side of the aisle did not 
like, but he answered questions. He answered questions. Then, after the 
hearing itself, a few Senators--I understand two Senators on the other 
side of the aisle--sent written questions, which he answered. So he has 
answered the questions.
  What we have today, unfortunately, is we are getting caught up in the 
worst kind of partisan wrangling based on what folks did yesterday.
  I think we are better than that. I think this august, deliberative 
body is better than that. I think it would be good for America today, 
in this new millennium, this new century, to forget what happened in 
the last millennium. Let's move forward on this one and say what we are 
going to do and say a nominee of any President, whether it is a 
Republican President or President not of my party, will get a fair 
hearing and a vote, up or down. In fact, when I ran for office, I 
answered a question in one of the debates, and I said I would use the 
same standard to judge a nominee from the President of another party as 
I would to judge a nominee from President Bush. That is what I think we 
were elected to do.
  If we can just get past what happened yesterday, if we can stop 
talking about who said what to whom and when, then we can kind of move 
on here to act fairly, act deliberately, and, by the way, act with 
great respect for this Constitution that we all love.
  I heard a wonderful discourse from the Senator from New York 
yesterday about the Constitution. I love the Constitution. What we are 
asking for Mr. Estrada is follow the dictates of the Constitution.
  Does the Senator from Pennsylvania have a question?
  Mr. SANTORUM. I ask the Senator from Minnesota to yield for a 
unanimous consent request.
  Mr. COLEMAN. I yield for that purpose.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 1 p.m. 
today, the Senate stand in recess subject to the call of the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. REID. Reserving the right to object, I ask my friend from 
Minnesota through the Chair how much longer he is going to speak 
because we do have a Member in the Chamber who wishes to speak.
  Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. President, I say to the Honorable Democratic whip, I 
will speak not more than 10 minutes if this understanding is accepted.
  Mr. REID. We have two over here. That leaves only 5 minutes for each 
of them. They have been here waiting for some time.
  Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. President, I say to the Honorable Democratic whip, 
less than 10 minutes. I can move to the other portion of what I was 
going to speak about if the Senator from Nebraska seeks the floor.
  Mr. REID. If my friend would be kind enough to divide the remaining 
20 minutes between Senator Nelson of Nebraska and Senator Stabenow of 
Michigan?
  Mr. COLEMAN. I have no problem with that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is that proposed as a unanimous consent 
request?
  Mr. REID. It is.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request of the 
Senator from Pennsylvania?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Is there objection to the request of the Senator from Nevada?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.