[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 69 (Monday, May 23, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5744-S5747]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NOMINATION OF PRISCILLA RICHMAN OWEN TO BE UNITED STATES CIRCUIT JUDGE
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT--Continued
Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, as passions rise higher and higher here in
the Senate, I come to the floor today to urge that cooler heads
prevail; to urge that the majority not take the fateful step they are
contemplating; to urge that we step back from the cliff we are
approaching, before it is too late.
We have all heard the arguments for and against a rule change that
has been dubbed ``the nuclear option.'' I will not reiterate those
arguments here. But as someone who came to the Senate to get things
done for real people, I have some experience trying to reach compromise
on difficult issues. The heart of compromise is well known: one side
cannot have all that they want. Yet the essence of the so called
``nuclear option'' is just that--one side wins, one party wins, one
majority wins full power over who will sit on the Federal bench. The
other side--the other party, the minority--is left powerless, silenced
by a new rule that strips the minority of all power over judges. We all
know that such an outcome is the opposite of moderation, the opposite
of compromise, the opposite of bipartisanship. In short, the opposite
of how to get things done in a way that encourages participation on
both sides of the aisle.
There is no need to go down this troubled partisan path on judicial
nominations and my own State of Wisconsin has shown us a smoother road
for more than a quarter century. In all those years, Wisconsin has used
a bipartisan nominating commission to force all sides to act in
bipartisan cooperation when selecting judges. During the
administrations of Democrats and Republicans, and during the tenure of
Republican as well as Democratic Senators, we have used the Commission
and succeeded in selecting well-qualified nominees who have been easily
confirmed by the Senate in every case. Using this process, both
political parties have been represented--the minority does not get to
choose the nominee, but they can affect the choice and have their views
count.
If we move forward with the proposed rule change--a change designed
to bring about one-party rule whenever the Senate considers judges--we
will silence a minority of the Senate and a majority of Americans. You
see, the Democratic Senators in this body were elected by a majority of
Americans. How will a majority of Americans speak up about judges who
will sit in their districts, on the Seventh Circuit, on the Supreme
Court, making decisions about their lives for generations to come if
this rule change is made?
People all across our country--whether in the majority or the
minority--deserve better. They deserve to have some say over who will
sit in judgment over them. And they deserve more than that, they
deserve a Senate that is working to solve the challenges they face
every day, challenges like the skyrocketing cost of health care which
leaves too many without coverage and even more struggling to pay for
the coverage they have, challenges like factories closing and jobs that
pay too little to support a family, challenges like the need to save
for retirement in an age of disappearing pensions and job insecurity.
These are among the problems we should be dealing with today.
So for the sake of those who need healthcare, for the sake of those
working for too little, for the sake of those nearing retirement with
fear and worry, I urge my colleagues to stop. Stop and listen. I hope
you will hear what I hear, Americans asking for what they have always
asked of the Senate--that it be a place where debate continues,
passions cool, and compromise prevails for the good of all.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, what is the parliamentary situation?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will note the business at hand is
the Priscilla Owen nomination, and the minority controls the time until
5:30.
Mr. LEAHY. I thank the distinguished Presiding Officer. I will take
some of my time.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the
quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the Senate is on a path toward a divisive
and actually unnecessary showdown. I have been here long enough to know
that if the vote on the Republican leader's nuclear option were by a
secret ballot it would fail overwhelmingly. There are too many Senators
who will tell you privately that on a secret ballot they would never
vote for it. We know this because, as these Senators know, it is
harmful to this institution and it is wrong for this country--wrong in
terms of protecting the rights of the American people, wrong in terms
of undercutting our fundamental system of checks and balances, wrong in
terms of defending the independence of and public support for an
independent Federal judiciary. But especially it is wrong in
unilaterally destroying minority protections in the Senate in order to
promote one-party rule, something this Senate has never known and has
never wanted.
I have served in the Senate for almost 31 years. During that time,
several times the Democrats were in charge of the Senate--in the
majority. Several times the Republicans were. The hallmark of every
leader, Republican or Democratic, was that the special minority
protections of the Senate would remain. No matter who was in the
majority, they believed they had as their obligation protecting the
rights of the minority because that is what the Senate is all about.
Every Senate majority leader took as his trust to make sure that when
he left, the Senate had at least the strengths it had when he took
over.
Today, Democratic Senators alone will not be able to rescue the
Senate and our system of checks and balances from the breaking of the
Senate rules the Republican leadership seem so insistent on demanding.
It will take at least six Republicans standing up for fairness and for
checks and balances. I know a number of Senators on the other side of
the aisle know in their hearts that this nuclear option is the wrong
way to go.
Senators on both sides of the aisle have called for the vote on the
nuclear option to be one of principle rather than one of party loyalty,
and for this to be a vote of conscience. I agree. To ensure that it is,
I urge both the Republican leader from Tennessee and the Democratic
leader from Nevada--both of whom are my friends--to announce publicly,
today, in advance of the momentous vote that awaits us at the end of
this debate, that every Senator should search his or her heart, his or
her conscience, and vote accordingly.
I call on both the Democratic and Republican leaders to announce that
there will be no retribution or punishment visited upon any Senator for
his or her vote.
I remember in the aftermath of another vote, one I called at that
time a profile in courage, when our friend, the senior Senator from
Oregon, Mark Hatfield, cast the deciding vote against a proposed
constitutional amendment. Ten years ago some of the newer Republican
Senators at the time reportedly wanted to strip him of the chairmanship
of the Appropriations Committee. The press at the time provided counsel
to those newer Senators, some having recently arrived from the other
Chamber, and who were accustomed to the way the Republican Party in
that body operates, where everything is all or nothing.
At the time, some of those Members urged that Senator Hatfield be
penalized for his vote of conscience, a vote they did not like. They
thought conscience should be set aside, he should have toed the party
line. I remember the unfair pressures brought to bear on Senator
Hatfield. I do not want to see that befall other Senators, Republican
or Democrat, whichever way they choose to vote on the nuclear option.
The Senate has its own carefully calibrated role in our system of
Government. The Senate was not intended to function like the House. The
Great Compromise of the Constitutional Convention more than 200 years
ago was to create in the Senate a different legislative body from the
House of Representatives. Those fundamental differences
[[Page S5745]]
include equal representation for each State in accordance with article
I, section 3. Thus, Vermont has equal numbers of Senators to New York
or Idaho or California. The Founders intended this as a vital check.
Representation in the Senate is not a function of population or based
on the size of a State or its wealth.
Another key difference is the right to debate in the Senate. The
filibuster is quintessentially a Senate practice. James Madison wrote
in Federalist No. 63 that the Senate was intended to provide
``interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens''
against ``illicit advantage'' and the ``artful misrepresentations of
interested men.'' It was designed and intended as a check, a balancing
device, as a mechanism to promote consensus and to forge compromise.
The House of Representatives has a different and equally crucial
function in our system. I respect the House and its traditions just as
I respect and honor the Senate tradition. It is the Senate and only the
Senate that has a special role in our legislative system to protect the
rights of a minority from the divisive or intemperate acts of a
headstrong majority.
As the Republican leader agreed in debate with Senator Byrd last
week, there is no language in the Constitution that creates a right to
a vote or a nomination or a bill. If there were such a right, if there
were a right in the Constitution to require a vote, then Republicans
violated that more than 60 times by 60 times refusing to have a vote on
President Clinton's judicial nominees, by 60 pocket filibusters of
Clinton judicial nominations and about 200 other executive nominations.
According to the Congressional Research Service, more than 500
judicial nominations for circuit and district court did not receive
final Senate votes between 1945 and 2004. That is more than 500. It
amounts to 18 percent of all overall nominations. By contrast, this
President has seen more than 95 percent of his judicial nominations
confirmed, 208 to date.
What the Republican leadership is seeking to do is to change the
Senate rules in accordance with them but by breaking them. It is wrong
that the Senators who refused to have votes on more than 60 of
President Clinton's judicial nominees, and hundreds of his executive
branch nominees, have only one Republican agenda now--to contend the
votes and nominations are constitutionally required.
The Constitution hasn't changed from the time of the Clinton
Presidency to Bush's Presidency, nor have the Senate rules been
changed. That is why I like to keep the Senate autonomous and secure in
a ``nuclear free'' zone.
The partisan power play now underway by Republicans will undermine
the checks and balances established by the Founders of the
Constitution. It is a giant leap toward one-party rule with an
unfettered executive controlling all three branches of the Federal
Government. It not only would demean the Senate and destroy the comity
on which it depends, but it would undermine the strong, independent
Federal judiciary protecting rights of liberties of all Americans
against the overreaching of political branches.
It is saying, no matter whether you are Republican or Democrat or
Independent in this country, only Republicans need apply because they
will control the executive branch, the House of Representatives, the
Senate, and now the independent Federal judiciary. That is what it
comes down to. There will be no checks and balances on who goes on a
Federal bench for a lifetime job, lifetime position. There will be no
checks and balance. It will be, if you are a Republican, you can be on
the Federal bench and help shape it; otherwise, forget about it.
This is not a country of one-party rule. I hope this country is never
one of one-party rule. No democracy law exists if it is there by one-
party rule.
Our Senate Parliamentarian, who is nonpartisan, our Congressional
Research Service, which is there to serve both Republicans and
Democrats, have said the so-called nuclear option would go against
Senate precedent. In other words, to change the rule, you would have to
break the rule. In other words, to say we are going to talk about how
judges should judge, we will break our own laws to do it. What an
example to a great and good country like ours. What an example to say
we are somehow above the law.
What it is saying to the American people, you 280 million Americans,
you follow the law, but 100 Senators are better than that. We don't
have to follow the law. We stand above the law. In fact, if we don't
like the law, we will break the law and make a new one.
Do our friends on the other side of the aisle want to so blatantly
break the rules for short-term political gain? Do they desire to turn
the Senate into a place where the parliamentary equivalent of brute
force is whatever can be rammed through by partisan ramrodding and arm
twisting?
We are not playing king of the hill. We are protecting the
Constitution. We are protecting the best checks and balance of our
Nation, the Senate, and we are doing it so we can remove the checks and
balance of the Federal judiciary. What enormous stakes.
That is why I say if this were a secret ballot, the nuclear option
would never pass. There are too many Senators who state privately in
the cloakrooms, the dining room, and the Senate gym, they know this is
wrong but they have to follow party discipline.
We did not come to this crossroad overnight. No Democratic Senator
wanted to filibuster. Not one of us came to those votes easily. We hope
we are never forced by an overaggressive executive and compliant
majority into another filibuster over a judicial nomination.
Filibusters, like the confrontation the Senate is being forced into
over the last several days, are the direct result of a deliberate
attack by the current administration and its supporters in the Senate
against not only the traditions of the Senate but the rules: We are
willing to break the rules that serve our purpose for the moment.
The nuclear option is the grand culmination of their efforts. It is
intended to clear the way for this President to appoint a more extreme
and more divisive choice--not only in the circuit courts of appeals but
should a vacancy arise on the Supreme Court. That is not how the Senate
has worked or should work.
I have been here with six Presidents. It has been the threat of a
filibuster that has encouraged a President to moderate his choice and
work with Senators on both sides of the aisle, both Republican and
Democratic Senators. Of the six Presidents I have served with, five of
them actually looked at the advice and consent clause and worked with
Senators from both parties for both advice and consent of the judges.
But this has been politicized and the Senate Republicans have
systematically eliminated every other traditional protection for the
minority. Now their target is a Senate filibuster, the only route that
is left to allow a significant Senate minority to be heard.
Under pressure from the White House over the last 2 years prior to
this year, the former Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee
led Senate Republicans in breaking the longstanding precedent and
Senate tradition with respect to handling lifetime appointments to the
Federal bench. Senate Republicans have had one set of practices to
delay and defeat 61 of a Democratic President's moderate, qualified
judge nominations. But then they suddenly switch gears and switch the
rules to rubberstamp a Republican President's choices to lifetime
judicial positions, including many who were very controversial.
The list of broken rules and precedents is long, including in the way
the home State Senators were treated, the way hearings were scheduled,
in the way the committee questionnaire was unilaterally altered, to the
way the Judiciary Committee historic protection of the minority by
committee rule IV was repeatedly violated. In the last Congress they
destroyed virtually every custom and courtesy used throughout history
to enforce cooperation and civility in the confirmation process.
For years, Democratic Senators have been warning that the
deterioration of Senate rules and practices, if done away with, would
also do away with the protection of minority rights.
So that is where we are. I have been proud to serve here both in the
majority and the minority. I remember all the times when I was here as
a member of the majority party, it was constantly drummed into us at
our party
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caucuses, at party meetings, we have to maintain the Senate rules to
protect the rights of the then minority, the Republicans.
It is amazing to me the Senate, the place that is supposed to be the
conscience of our Nation, would allow a President, any President, to
convince them to turn their back on precedent, on history, but also on
their own rules.
We have always been a check and balance on Presidents. Now we have
Senators who will tell you, quietly outside the Chamber, they are
frustrated by taking orders from the White House and yet will not stand
up and say no, we don't work for the White House. We are not appointed
by the White House. We are elected by the people of our State. We swear
on the oath to protect the Constitution. We are not protecting it when
we break our own rules. We are not protecting the people of this
country when we throw away the ability to have checks and balances.
This is a serious mistake, and we will rue this day.
So at this ninth hour, I say to Senators: Vote your conscience. As I
said earlier, if this was a secret ballot, the nuclear option would
never pass. But vote your conscience. And again, I would urge both the
Republican leader and the Democratic leader to announce on the floor of
the Senate that nobody will be punished if they vote their conscience
because, after all, why would anybody want to serve, why would anybody
want to be 1 of 100 to represent 280 million Americans? Why would you
want to serve in the Senate if you felt you could not vote your
conscience? I will vote mine on this issue. I will vote to protect the
rights of the minority--all minorities throughout this country. I will
vote to uphold the law. I will vote to uphold the rules of the Senate.
And I will vote to uphold that which causes us to have a check and
balance where instead of rushing off the cliff following one person on
either the right or the left, we seek the compromises that are best for
this country.
I see the distinguished Senator from New York on the floor. I am
perfectly willing to yield the remainder of my time to her.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Vermont who has
been a stalwart defender of the Constitution his entire public life.
And as a member of the Judiciary Committee, as chair and ranking
member, and all of his activities on behalf of this issue, he has
demonstrated the highest level of leadership.
Mr. President, I started my day today in Newburg, NY, at the military
headquarters of GEN George Washington. Many of the most important
battles of the Revolutionary War were fought in New York, up and down
the Hudson River Valley, the Champlain Valley, the Mohawk Valley, down
into New York City, out on Long Island. Today, we were announcing
legislation that I had sponsored here in the Senate with my friend and
colleague, the senior Senator from Virginia, Mr. Warner, to commemorate
the Revolutionary War.
We were reminded at this event today of something called the Newburg
Conspiracy. What was that? That was an effort by a small group of
people to persuade George Washington to begin to assume the mantle of
absolute power, to, in effect, become more like a king than what had
been envisioned for this new Republic, a President and a system of
government with checks and balances.
In one of his greatest speeches, then General Washington repudiated
the Newburg Conspiracy and memorably said that we should all stand
against any effort to consolidate power. We must stand for our
Republic. And that Republic, which is unique in human history, has this
unusual system of checks and balances that pit different parts of the
Government against one another that, from the very beginning,
recognized the importance of minority rights because, after all, that
is what the Senate is, a guarantor of minority rights.
I represent 19 million people. Yet my vote is no more important than
the Presiding Officer's or any of my other colleagues who may represent
States with far fewer citizens because we have always understood that
majority rule too easily can become abusive, that those in the majority
and particularly those who lead that majority always believe that what
they want is right by definition. It is what they fight for. It is what
they care about. But we have understood, thanks to the genius of our
Founders--great leaders such as George Washington--that human nature
being what it is, we have to restrain ourselves, not only in the
conduct of our day-to-day relations with one another but in the conduct
of our government.
So we have created this rather cumbersome process of government.
Sometimes people in a parliamentary system look at it and say: What is
this about? You have a House of Representatives where you have majority
rule, and then you have this Senate over here where people can slow
things down, where they can debate, where they have something called
the filibuster. It seems as if it is a little less than efficient.
Well, that is right. It is, and deliberately designed to be so, with
the acute psychological understanding that every single one of us needs
to be checked in the exercise of power, that despite what we may
believe about our intentions and our views, not one of us has access to
the absolute truth about any issue confronting us. So one of the ways
we have protected the special quality of the Senate over all of these
years is through unlimited debate, through the creation of rules that
would make it possible for a minority to be heard, and more than that,
create a supermajority for certain actions that the Constitution
entrusts to the Senate, and, in particularly, the appointment of judges
for lifetime tenure.
Now, why would you have a supermajority for judges? Again, I think it
shows the genius of our Founders in their understanding of human
nature. This is a position of such great importance, such overwhelming
power and authority, that anyone who comes before this body should be
able to obtain the support of 60 of our fellow Senators. It has worked
well.
There have been people going back in American history, and not just
back to the beginning but back just a few years into the Clinton
administration, who I believe should have been confirmed as judges. The
Senate decided not to. The President has sent us his nominees, and we
have confirmed more than 95 percent of them. I voted against a number
of them, but the vast majority were acceptable to more than 60 Members
of this body.
What is happening now with this assault on the idea of the Senate, on
the creation of this unique deliberative body that serves as a check
and a balance to Presidential power, to the passions of the House,
which has exercised the opportunity to create consensus with respect to
judicial nominees, is that we have a President who is not satisfied
with the way every other President has executed his authority when it
comes to judicial nominees.
Many Presidents have not liked what the Senate has done to their
judicial nominees. We can go back to Thomas Jefferson. Thomas
Jefferson, one of our greatest Presidents, was really upset because
John Adams appointed people Thomas Jefferson did not think should be on
the Federal bench. He did not agree with their philosophy. He had
personal problems with some of them and the relationships between them.
So he tried to undue what his predecessor had done. And the Senate,
recognizing what General Washington had understood back during the
Revolutionary War, what the writers of the Constitution had understood
in Philadelphia, said: No. Wait a minute, Mr. President. We are not
substituting one king for another. We are trying something entirely
different. You may get a little frustrated, but Presidential authority
is not absolute, so we are going to expect you to abide by the rules.
Every President has faced these frustrations. Franklin Roosevelt, at
the height of his power, with an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress,
faced all kinds of setbacks from the judiciary, and he wanted to change
them. He wanted to pack the courts, and the Democrats in the Senate,
who put the Senate first, who put the Constitution first, said: No.
Wait a minute. We admire you. You are saving our country. You are doing
great things. But, no, we cannot let you go this far.
Well, today, we are here because another President is frustrated. He
has gotten 95 percent of his judges. He
[[Page S5747]]
wants 100 percent. I can understand that. That is the way a lot of
people get when they have power. They want it all. If you are against
him, then he thinks you are against everything he stands for as opposed
to having legitimate disagreements.
So this President has come to the majority in the Senate and
basically said: Change the rules. Do it the way I want it done. And I
guess there were not very many voices on the other side of the aisle
that acted the way previous generations of Senators have acted and
said: Mr. President, we are with you. We support you. But that is a
bridge too far. We cannot go there. You have to restrain yourself, Mr.
President. We have confirmed 95 percent of your nominees. And if you
cannot get 60 votes for a nominee, maybe you should think about who you
are sending to us to be confirmed because for a lifetime appointment,
60 votes, bringing together a consensus of Senators from all regions of
the country, who look at the same record and draw the same conclusion,
means that perhaps that nominee should not be on the Federal bench.
But, no, apparently that is not the advice that has been given to the
President. Instead, it looks as though we are about to have a showdown
where the Senate is being asked to turn itself inside out, to ignore
the precedent, to ignore the way our system has worked--the delicate
balance we have obtained that has kept this constitutional system
going--for immediate gratification of the present President.
When I was standing on the banks of the Hudson River this morning,
looking at General Washington's headquarters, thinking about the
sacrifice that he and so many others made, many giving the ultimate
sacrifice of their life, for this Republic--if we can keep it, as
Benjamin Franklin said--I felt as though I was in a parallel universe
because I knew I was going to be getting on an airplane and coming back
to Washington. And I knew the Republican majority was intent upon this
showdown. I knew the President had chimed in today and said he wants
up-or-down votes on his nominees. And I just had to hope that maybe
between now and the time we have this vote there would be enough
Senators who will say: Mr. President, no. We are sorry, we cannot go
there. We are going to remember our Founders. We are going to remember
what made this country great. We are going to maintain the integrity of
the U.S. Senate.
Thank you, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I understand we have 1 minute left.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 1 minute 40 seconds, to be
exact.
Mr. LEAHY. I thank the distinguished Presiding Officer, and I thank
the Senator from New York for her comments.
Mr. President, I would simply reiterate what I said before. If the
vote on the nuclear option was cast in secret, from everything I have
been told by my fellow Senators, it would go down to crashing defeat.
As Senators know, we have to break the rules to change the rules.
Again, I would just urge that both leaders, both the Republican and
Democratic leaders, make it clear to their Members that nobody is going
to be punished for a vote on conscience. I hope Senators will stand up
and be a profile in courage, vote their conscience, and vote the right
way.
Mr. President, the hour of 5:30 has arrived, so I yield the floor.
Quorum Call
Mr. President, I see the Republican leader is not on the floor yet,
so I will suggest the absence of a quorum to accommodate him. I suggest
the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll and the
following Senators entered the Chamber and answered to their names:
[Quorum No. 3 Ex.]
Baucus
Bingaman
Burr
Cantwell
Cochran
Cornyn
Dayton
Durbin
Frist
Gregg
Inouye
Kennedy
Leahy
Lincoln
Lott
Murkowski
Nelson, Nebraska
Pryor
Reid
Salazar
Schumer
Stabenow
The PRESIDING OFFICER. A quorum is not present.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I move to instruct the Sergeant at Arms to
request the presence of absent Senators, and I ask for the yeas and
nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The question is on agreeing to the motion of the Senator from
Tennessee. The yeas and nays were ordered, and the clerk will call the
roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. The following Senators were necessarily absent: the
Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran), the Senator from New Hampshire
(Mr. Gregg), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn), the Senator from
Mississippi (Mr. Lott), and the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski).
Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn)
would have voted: ``yea.''
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Dayton),
the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Inouye), the Senator from Massachusetts
(Mr. Kennedy), and the Senator from Arkansas (Mrs. Lincoln), are
necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thune). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 90, nays 1, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 126 Ex.]
YEAS--90
Akaka
Alexander
Allard
Baucus
Bayh
Bennett
Biden
Bingaman
Bond
Boxer
Brownback
Bunning
Burns
Burr
Byrd
Cantwell
Carper
Chafee
Chambliss
Clinton
Coburn
Coleman
Collins
Conrad
Corzine
Craig
Crapo
DeMint
DeWine
Dodd
Dole
Domenici
Dorgan
Durbin
Ensign
Enzi
Feingold
Feinstein
Frist
Graham
Grassley
Hagel
Harkin
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Isakson
Jeffords
Johnson
Kerry
Kohl
Kyl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lugar
Martinez
McCain
McConnell
Mikulski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Nelson (NE)
Obama
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Roberts
Rockefeller
Salazar
Santorum
Sarbanes
Schumer
Sessions
Shelby
Smith
Snowe
Specter
Stabenow
Stevens
Sununu
Talent
Thomas
Thune
Vitter
Voinovich
Warner
Wyden
NAYS--1
Allen
NOT VOTING--9
Cochran
Cornyn
Dayton
Gregg
Inouye
Kennedy
Lincoln
Lott
Murkowski
The motion was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. A quorum is present.
The majority leader.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, for the information of our colleagues, we
will be voting around noon tomorrow on the cloture motion with respect
to Priscilla Owen. We will be in session through the night, and time is
roughly equally divided.
____________________