[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 47 (Wednesday, March 21, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1884-S1921]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                  JUMPSTART OUR BUSINESS STARTUPS ACT

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senate will resume consideration of H.R. 3606, which the clerk will 
report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 3606) to increase American job creation and 
     economic growth by improving access to the public capital 
     markets for emerging growth companies.

  Pending:

       Reid (for Reed) amendment No. 1833, in the nature of a 
     substitute.
       Reid amendment No. 1834 (to amendment No. 1833), to change 
     the enactment date.
       Reid amendment No. 1835 (to amendment No. 1834), of a 
     perfecting nature.
       Reid (for Cantwell) amendment No. 1836 (to the language 
     proposed to be stricken by amendment No. 1833), to 
     reauthorize the Export-Import Bank of the United States.
       Reid amendment No. 1837 (to amendment No. 1836), to change 
     the enactment date.
       Reid motion to recommit the bill to the Committee on 
     Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, with instructions, Reid 
     amendment No. 1838, to change the enactment date.


                             Cloture Motion

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The cloture motion having been 
presented under rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the 
motion.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     hereby move to bring to a close debate on H.R. 3606, an Act 
     to increase American job creation and economic growth by 
     improving access to the public capital markets for emerging 
     growth companies.
         Harry Reid, Ben Nelson, Jon Tester, Charles E. Schumer, 
           Joe Manchin III, Patty Murray, Mark R. Warner, 
           Christopher A. Coons, Robert Menendez, Thomas R. 
           Carper, Joseph I. Lieberman, Debbie Stabenow, Robert P. 
           Casey, Jr., Tom Udall, Jim Webb, Barbara Boxer.

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. By unanimous consent, the mandatory 
quorum call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on H.R. 
3606, an act to increase American job creation and economic growth by 
improving access to public capital markets for emerging growth 
companies, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Idaho (Mr. Crapo) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 76, nays 22, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 53 Leg.]

                                YEAS--76

     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Barrasso
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bingaman
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Brown (MA)
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Carper
     Casey
     Chambliss
     Coats
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Coons
     Corker
     Cornyn
     DeMint
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hagan
     Hatch
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson (SD)
     Johnson (WI)
     Kerry
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Lee
     Lieberman
     Lugar
     Manchin
     McCain
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (NE)
     Nelson (FL)
     Paul
     Portman
     Pryor
     Reid
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Rubio
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Thune
     Toomey
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Vitter
     Warner
     Wicker
     Wyden

                                NAYS--22

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Blumenthal
     Boxer
     Brown (OH)
     Cardin
     Conrad
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Harkin
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Reed
     Sanders
     Webb
     Whitehouse

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Crapo
     Kirk
       
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 76, the nays are 
22. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in 
the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
  Cloture having been invoked, the motion to commit falls as being 
inconsistent with cloture.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I raise a germaneness point of order against 
the pending Cantwell-Graham amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order is well taken, and the 
amendment falls.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I raise a germaneness point of order against 
the Reed-Landrieu-Levin-Brown of Ohio substitute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order is well taken and the 
amendment falls.


                           Amendment No. 1884

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 1884, offered by 
Senators Merkley, Bennet, and others.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Reid], for Mr. Merkley, Mr. 
     Bennet, and Mr. Brown of Massachusetts, proposes an amendment 
     numbered 1884.

  (The amendment is printed in the Record of Monday, March 19, 2012, 
under ``Text of Amendments.'')
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on that 
amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.


                Amendment No. 1931 to Amendment No. 1884

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I call up the second-degree amendment, No. 
1931, offered by Senator Reed of Rhode Island.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Reid], for Mr. Reed, proposes 
     an amendment numbered 1931 to amendment No. 1884.

  The amendment is as follows:

       At the end, add the following. ``The Commission shall 
     revise the definition of the term `held of record' pursuant 
     to section 12(g)(5) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 
     (15. U.S.C. 781(g)(5)) to include beneficial owners of such 
     class of securities.''.

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the bill before this body had broad 
bipartisan support, bicameral in nature. The bill we are considering 
today is the IPO bill, of course. The bill passed the House by an 
overwhelming majority. President Obama supports it.
  I want everybody to know that the bill is imperfect, and that perhaps 
is an understatement. What we are trying to do with amendments offered 
by Senators Merkley and Reed is to improve this bill, which has a lot 
of problems. These two amendments would go a long way toward correcting 
those.
  This is an important piece of legislation, and we are confident that 
it will improve innovators' access to capital and give startups the 
flexibility they need to hire and grow. But it is not perfect, I 
repeat. As with any other piece of legislation, there are ways we can 
improve it. On this bill, there are many ways we can improve it. I am 
sorry we cannot do more.
  To that end, the Senate will consider two germane amendments to this 
IPO bill that will protect investors and prevent fraud.
  The first amendment is sponsored by Senator Merkley and others. It 
deals with companies that raise capital online from small investors. 
This amendment will ensure that watchdogs are in place to protect the 
small investors and their money from fraudulent companies and abuse of 
the system.
  People are lurking out there waiting for ways to cheat. I am sorry, 
but it is true. These are people who are either amoral or immoral, 
looking for opportunities to make money. I appreciate very much the 
work that a number of Senators have put into this amendment. It is an 
important amendment, and it is so important to improving this bill. You 
will hear much more this afternoon from the sponsors of the amendment 
about why it is so important.
  The second amendment is sponsored by Senator Reed of Rhode Island. 
All Senators have stature, but Jack Reed, with his military background, 
his experience in the House, and his experience in the Senate, is a man 
we all look to for leadership. His amendment will ensure fair and 
honest disclosure by companies raising capital. It will stop businesses 
from gaming the system and avoiding oversight by hiding thousands--or 
maybe tens of thousands--of investors. This will stop when this 
amendment passes.
  Democrats and Republicans agree that we need to pass the IPO bill and 
make it easier for American companies to raise capital, to grow 
operations, and to hire new workers, but we must do so in a way that 
balances the needs and rights of investors and prevents fraud and 
abuse.

[[Page S1885]]

  These two amendments will accomplish that. These two amendments are 
not going to make the bill perfect, but it will be a lot better.
  While the IPO measure before the Senate today is an important piece 
of legislation, experts agree its impact on job creation will be 
somewhat limited.
  This legislation is something that is before this body. Yesterday, 
Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would create, in 1 year, as it 
did this year that we are in, 300,000 jobs. It is hard to comprehend, 
but people who sponsored the amendment voted against it. But this isn't 
anything new. I think it is such callous disregard for what is fair and 
right.
  The Republican leader has been talking nonstop about how important it 
is for Congress to continue to create jobs. So I am disappointed--and 
that is an understatement--that yesterday Senate Republicans, led by my 
friend the Republican leader, rejected an opportunity to help American 
exporters grow and hire.
  The Ex-Im Bank helps American exporters compete in a global economy, 
and it has always enjoyed broad, bipartisan support--until this 
Republican minority stepped in here. The last time it was offered, in 
2006, a Republican offered it. It got unanimous consent to pass. This 
legislation has been going since the 1930s. It is backed by the 
National Association of Manufacturers, the Chamber of Commerce, the 
Business Roundtable, and labor unions. All my Republican friends can 
explain to the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of 
Manufacturers, and the Business Roundtable that not only did they kill 
this bill but they stopped the deficit from going down by $1 billion, 
because the Ex-Im Bank bill reduces the deficit by $1 billion. Of 
course, it had Republican cosponsors.
  In fact, my Republican colleagues, including many who voted against 
this amendment yesterday, admitted they support the legislation. I had 
a number of Senators come to me saying, we like it. As I said yesterday 
in my remarks, they are voting against a bill they say they like. The 
Republican leader said a number of things yesterday, but he said he 
wanted to vote down this worthy proposal because he wants to pass it 
separately.
  We understand what is going on here. The Republican-dominated House 
of Representatives wants to send over here a hollow shell of the Ex-Im 
Bank, and they would look to us and say that we now have an Ex-Im Bank 
bill. What they have come up with is so foolish, and that is a good 
description of it. Their offer is hollow. They want to appear to 
support the Ex-Im Bank and at the same time kill it.
  Democrats actually do support the Ex-Im Bank, and we made that very 
clear to everybody and voted accordingly. We want it to become law.
  House Republicans have shown no desire to even consider this 
important jobs measure--let alone pass it. The only way to ensure the 
Ex-Im Bank can continue to help American companies grow and create jobs 
is for the Senate to attach it to this IPO bill, and that failed.
  Yesterday, Senate Republicans had an opportunity to join with 
Democrats to create hundreds of thousands of jobs in this country over 
the next many years. They passed up that opportunity. Once again, they 
chose to pick an unnecessary fight instead. They want to fight over 
even things they agree with. How do you like that one? They love this 
bill, but they want to fight about it.
  Our No. 1 priority is to create jobs, and we have shown that. It is 
obvious that the Republicans don't have their priorities straight. But 
this is something we have had to live with.
  We are going to work with the minority to come up with a time to have 
a vote. The time expires around 6 o'clock tonight. Because of a number 
of things going on here today, I hope we can have a vote earlier than 
that. We will do our best to work with the Republican leader to try to 
come up with a vote. There will be three votes: Merkley, Reed, and 
final passage.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana is recognized.

  Mr. TESTER. Mr. President, I ask to speak for up to 10 minutes, with 
Senator Merkley following me.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. TESTER. Mr. President, I rise to speak in strong support of the 
capital formation bill that we received cloture on a few minutes ago.
  In a place where we too often get bogged down by politics, this 
legislation reflects a strong, bipartisan commitment to creating jobs 
by ensuring that small businesses have access to critical capital that 
they need. This legislation has tremendous potential to create jobs and 
spur economic growth and innovation. The key component to achieving all 
of these goals is ensuring that small businesses have access to the 
capital they need to grow their businesses and create jobs.
  This legislation is a rare instance in Congress where both Chambers 
in both parties come together to focus on this Nation's most urgent 
priority, and that is jobs. The President has already expressed his 
support for it. So let's get this bill done and off to him for his 
signature.
  Over the past few years, I have held 12 small business opportunity 
workshops all over the State of Montana. Without a doubt, access to 
capital is always one of the most critical issues that I hear from 
small business owners. Access to capital makes all the difference for a 
small business. If the money is there, so is the expansion; so is the 
capacity to do more research and development; so is the next great 
idea. Without capital, though, there is no growth, no risk-taking, and 
there are no jobs.
  Montana is a State of entrepreneurs. It is a frontier State. It has a 
tradition of self-reliance, which is clearly reflected in the 
entrepreneurs and the successful and innovative small businesses they 
have created and grown in this great State. They clearly reflect 
America's entrepreneurial spirit, which helps keep rural America strong 
and makes our economy the most innovative in the world.
  Our small businesses in Montana vary from family farms, ranches, and 
one-man manufacturing shops, to innovative biotech companies and 
cutting-edge information analytics firms. Many of these newer firms 
have the opportunity to change the landscape when it comes to 
diversifying Montana's economy.

  According to research from the Kauffman Foundation, nearly all net 
jobs created since 1980 have come from firms 5 years or younger. The 
role of startups in creating jobs and driving innovation has been well 
documented, but that ability to create jobs is limited if these firms 
do not have access to financing to scale and to grow their companies. 
So central to job creation is making sure investors and capital markets 
are accessible for startups.
  Because of this potential for growth, we need to do all we can to 
empower these businesses with the tools they need to survive and thrive 
at every stage of their development. These young companies must be able 
to access the capital they need to bring innovative ideas and products 
to the marketplace.
  Back in July I held the first of a series of hearings in the Banking 
Committee to examine the challenges and opportunities facing innovative 
small businesses as they try to access capital. A major take-away from 
the hearing was the need to ensure that capital markets remain within 
reach of startups at various stages of their development, particularly 
in the stages before they may be ready to go public.
  A key recommendation offered at the hearing came from Rob Bargatze of 
Ligocyte Pharmaceuticals in Bozeman, MT. He said we should take a 
closer look at updating SEC regulation A to better enable small 
businesses to raise capital through these public offerings. The 
regulation A exemption was created in the Securities Act of 1933 to 
provide small companies with an opportunity to raise capital without 
being subject to full registration with the SEC.
  Ligocyte is developing a new norovirus vaccine with the potential to 
prevent hospitalization and save significant health care costs--and to 
create those jobs of the future. Working through the FDA approval 
process is not easy. It requires years of hard work and tens of 
millions of dollars. It can be tough for any company to stick it out 
for that long or for that much money, but for a small firm in Bozeman, 
MT, it can be especially difficult. Access to capital to fund their 
clinical trials will be the determining factor in their ability to gain 
FDA approval.

[[Page S1886]]

  Back in September, Senator Toomey and I introduced the Small Company 
Capital Formation Act to update regulation A by increasing the total 
amount of capital that can be raised through these offerings to $50 
million, while protecting new investors. Currently, the businesses can 
only raise $5 million under regulation A--a limit that has not been 
updated in nearly 20 years and one that many view as too low to be a 
valuable tool in raising capital.
  The bill maintains the most attractive elements of regulation A, 
including the ability for issuers to test the waters before registering 
with the SEC. It also preserves the nonrestricted status of securities 
sold through a reg A offering so that these securities can be resold to 
investors after the initial offering.
  New investor protections include a requirement that issuers file an 
audited financial statement with the SEC--a requirement that has been 
included in the legislation that I introduced as well as the House bill 
before us today. The bill also directs the SEC to establish additional 
disclosure requirements and requires issuers to electronically file 
offering statements with the Commission.
  Additionally, the bill subjects those offering or selling securities 
under regulation A to negligence-based liability under section 
12(a)(2), and it includes disqualification provisions to prevent bad 
actors from making these offerings in a way that is consistent with 
Dodd-Frank.
  From what I have heard said about the House version of regulation A, 
you would presume none of these investor protections are included. Let 
me clarify that the bill I introduced with Senator Toomey, S. 1544, is 
identical to the language included in the House bill, H.R. 3606, that 
is before us today.
  The truth is that the substitute amendment that was voted on 
yesterday made very minor changes to this portion of the House bill, 
such as changing a ``may'' to a ``shall'' and adding a study by the SEC 
5 years after implementation of these changes.
  We should have been able to pass this bill by a voice vote here in 
the Senate since this bill has enjoyed strong bipartisan support in the 
Senate, with six bipartisan cosponsors. Regardless of that, I am 
pleased that this balanced bill also enjoyed a 420-to-1 vote in the 
House--420 for, 1 against. Imagine that--all but one voting Member of 
the House of Representatives agree on this bill.
  I would also note the SEC's recently released recommendation from its 
Forum on Small Business Capital Formation increasing the regulation A 
exemption to $50 million was one of the top recommendations at this 
forum.
  By the way, this is an idea which has been in the SEC's Forum on 
Small Business Capital Formation recommendations almost every year 
since 1993, the year after the limit was last raised to $5 million. So 
the idea that this is some risky new idea is not correct. In fact, at a 
briefing with the SEC a few weeks ago, SEC lawyers suggested that there 
was absolutely nothing scary about S. 1544 and that they felt very 
comfortable with the existing investor protections included in that 
bill.
  The bottom line is that I am thrilled we will finally have an 
opportunity to pass this legislation--hopefully very soon--and get it 
to the President's desk.
  What does this legislation mean for Montana entrepreneurs? Let me 
cite a few examples.
  For Brett Baker, president and CEO of Microbion Corporation in 
Bozeman, lifting the cap on regulation A offerings will provide him 
with broader opportunities to raise capital. Instead of worrying about 
where the next phase of financing will come from, he can focus on 
discovery and research, working with the Department of Defense to use 
compounds Microbion discovered to treat antibiotic-resistant wounds. 
These changes will also allow a company such as Microbion to access 
capital at an earlier stage without diluting its earlier investors who 
believed in them from the earliest days of that company. And raising 
capital publicly through regulation A would also give folks in Bozeman 
who know about the company an opportunity to share in its success, 
something that is not possible now unless they are an accredited 
investor.
  More broadly, this legislation is going to provide small businesses 
in Montana's emerging data and biotech industries with new tools and 
options to access capital at different stages of development, and it 
will also provide necessary updates to existing regulations. For 
example, changes to the SEC's 500 shareholder rule would ensure 
companies, such as investment brokerage D.A. Davidson in Great Falls, 
can continue to provide their employees with stock in the company 
without having to go through a costly and time-consuming registration 
process with the SEC. This Montana-grown company dates back over 75 
years and has always believed in rewarding its employees so they can 
have a stake in the success of the firm, which now operates in 16 
States. Without these changes, a company such as D.A. Davidson would be 
faced with the choice of costly public registration or potentially 
eliminating existing employee shareholders.

  For companies such as Rivertop Renewables in Missoula, this 
legislation will provide them with an onramp to going public if that is 
an option they choose to take one day. Rivertop has begun full-scale 
production of their groundbreaking green biochemical products used in 
commercial products such as dishwashing detergents and de-icer. These 
changes will ensure that Rivertop will have multiple strategies at 
their disposal so they can go public at a time that is right for them 
and take advantage of the public markets as they continue 
commercialization of their products.
  For Lance Trebesch of ticketprinting.com and Ticket River, this 
legislation will enable him to grow his ticket printing, event 
management, and online ticket printing firm. Since 1997 this company 
has expanded its reach internationally, with over 25 employees in 
Bozeman and Harlowton, MT.
  This bill will ensure that entrepreneurs across the State of Montana 
will have a whole new set of tools at their disposal so they can make 
smart decisions about their future to develop and expand their 
businesses. They will have more choices and better access to capital 
markets, which should also give them more leeway to create and 
innovate.
  We have seen ecosystems of support for small businesses such as these 
as they spring up in virtually every county in Montana. Obviously, the 
success of these companies has implications for job creation and 
growth, but there are also tremendous opportunities for innovation.
  It is not surprising that in Montana so many startups have located 
near universities in Missoula and Bozeman. In fact, many of these firms 
got their start with discoveries in the labs at Montana State and the 
University of Montana. With this legislation, the possibilities are 
endless for Montana and for entrepreneurs and innovators across Montana 
and this Nation.
  Mr. President, I look forward to voting on this legislation and 
getting it to the President for his signature.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the 
conclusion of the remarks of Senator Merkley and Senator Bennet, I be 
recognized.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REED. I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.


                           Amendment No. 1884

  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I rise to speak to amendment No. 1884. 
Specifically, this is the crowdfunding amendment. That might be a term 
that is new to many, so let me explain.
  The Internet provides new opportunities for capital to reach small 
businesses and startup entrepreneurs, and what this crowdfunding 
amendment does is to say that when the crowd; that is, all of those who 
are surfing the Internet, goes to a funding portal on the Internet, a 
Web site, to support a company, to invest in a company, there is an 
orderly process that adequately facilitates this type of opportunity 
while providing fundamental investor protections. So this will be an 
effective instrument of capital formation because, indeed, if 
crowdfunding becomes a situation where inaccurate information is put 
forward, where there is no

[[Page S1887]]

accountability, where there are pump-and-dump schemes, then the 
reputation of crowdfunding will be deeply damaged and the opportunity 
for capital formation will be equally affected.
  This follows on a model that is already on the Internet in some other 
contexts. For example, you can visit a Web site called kickstarter.com, 
and you as an individual can look at a host of concepts that are being 
put forward for social and artistic activities across this country. You 
can say: Yes, I want to help that artist build that sculpture or so on 
and so forth. They may say how much money they want to raise, and you 
would decide what you want to donate. That is a donation model. You 
also can go to Web sites such as prosper.com or kiva.com, and these are 
peer-to-peer lending Web sites. If you go to prosper.com, you will see 
a whole list of folks who are saying: Yes, I want to consolidate my 
credit cards, I would like to borrow X amount and I am offering an 
interest rate of such-and-such, and here is a little bit of background, 
and you can decide if you want to lend to that individual or not. That 
is peer-to-peer lending.
  Well, what crowdfunding does is to create an equal opportunity for 
folks to invest in early-stage businesses, startup businesses, small 
businesses. Imagine, for example, you run into someone at a cafe who 
says: I have this new idea for a coffee shop called Starbucks. I am 
going to call it Starbucks. Would you like to help me launch this?
  And you say: Well, another coffee shop--I don't know if the world 
needs another coffee shop.
  Maybe you jump in and maybe you don't. Then years later, you say: Oh, 
I should have seized that opportunity.
  Well, through a crowdfunding portal, you get to hear those stories. 
You get to read those stories being presented by folks from across the 
country about their efforts, and you can decide if you want to 
participate.
  Now, crowdfunding is in the larger capital formation bill that comes 
to us from the House, but that particular formulation is deeply flawed, 
and I am going to walk through a series of differences between the 
House bill and the Senate bill for my colleagues so they can understand 
why we need to pass amendment 1884.
  The first factor is that the House bill does not require someone 
listing themselves or asking for startup money to provide any financial 
information. Well, that is a huge mistake. If there is no information, 
there is nothing to guide, if you will, the wisdom of the crowd.
  What we do in this Senate amendment is to create a simplified format. 
If you are seeking less than $100,000, then your CEO simply certifies 
what the financials are for the company. If you are seeking from 
$100,000 to $500,000, then you need to have a CPA review the financial 
statements. If you are seeking more than $500,000, then you need to 
have audited financial statements. So, as the amount of money you are 
asking for increases, the degree to which you need to do due diligence 
financially and present the details increases as well.
  There is certainly nothing that would prevent a particular Web site 
from establishing its own standards above and beyond these particular 
levels.
  A second thing is it is critical there be accountability for the 
accuracy of the information. The House bill not only doesn't even 
require information, but they put out information and there is no 
accountability. Basically, it is an invitation to spin any story one 
likes.
  What the Senate bill says is, in order for this capital market to 
work well one has to stand behind the accuracy of their information. It 
has basic liability accountability; that is, as a director or officer 
of this organization, they are standing behind the accuracy of what 
they put out. It has a due diligence protection so this is very 
balanced. It has a requirement that the information be relevant or 
germane to the conduct of the company. So that is another protection 
for the business itself. So it is balanced between the two. But this 
can give investors a basic belief that what is being set up are 
reasonable amounts of information proportional to the request and that 
the officers and directors are standing behind this information. That 
creates the foundation for an effective marketplace.
  A third distinction between the House bill and our amendment No. 1884 
is the House bill does not require companies to go through an 
intermediary. In other words, under the House bill, if someone wants to 
promote their company, they can simply put out an e-mail. An e-mail can 
say anything they want because they are not responsible for the 
accuracy, and they can send it to everyone in the world. They can 
proceed to put up popup ads that simply promote their company--again, 
with no accuracy required. But by creating an Internet intermediary and 
that intermediary has to register, we create a streamlined formulation 
so they have a funding portal registration much simpler than a broker 
dealer. But in doing so, they agree they are not going to take any 
position on the various investment opportunities they are listing. So 
you truly are the marketplace. They are not saying, by the way, that 
particular offering by that company is a sweet deal. They can't pump 
it; they can't favor it. So you are a neutral marketplace, again, 
enabling the investor to know they are getting straightforward 
information, not something that is spun.
  Another distinction is the House bill has no aggregate caps. The 
result of that is that a person could lose their entire life savings in 
one fell swoop. The Senate bill puts on very reasonable proportional 
caps that say if one's income is $40,000 or less, their cap is $2,000; 
if they are between $40,000 and $100,000, their cap is 5 percent of 
their annual income; if they are over $100,000, it is 10 percent. So it 
allows for larger amounts of money from those who have much higher 
incomes but provides basic aggregate cap protections so we don't end up 
with folks who are on public services because they were swindled out of 
everything they had.
  Another key distinction is that under the House bill one can list 
their offering and close their offering within a single day, which 
provides absolutely no feedback loop for any type of detected 
deception. Under the Senate bill, we create a 3-week period from one's 
listing to their closing. So one lists their idea. If enough people 
sign up to reach one's funding request level--say one has requested to 
raise $600,000. If enough people sign up and they are investing 
$100,000 here, $1,000 there that one reaches their goal, as soon as the 
21-day period expires, then they close. So that does give time for some 
sort of feedback loops regarding any sort of fraudulent activity.
  Another distinction is that the House bill allows a company to pay 
promoters and not disclose it. That is called pumping. If one has ever 
seen the movie ``Boiler Room,'' one can see a basic classic pump-and-
dump scheme, where a roomful of folks on the phone are calling people, 
cold-calling them, and they are saying: Hey, I am calling because I am 
giving you this incredible investment opportunity and here is the 
story. They can say anything they want and they can talk people into 
buying that stock and then the stock is actually being purchased from 
the folks who own the boiler room. Then, as soon as they sell all the 
stock they have, they quit making phone calls, the value of the stock 
drops, and everybody who invested loses out. That is a classic boiler 
room. That is a classic pump and dump. The House bill allows paid 
promotion with no disclosure.
  The Senate bill says if they are going to get on the blog's site 
within a Web site portal and say favorable things about a stock and if 
they are paid by the company to do it, they have to disclose that. They 
simply say: Hey, I am employed by such and such, but I want to bring to 
your attention some merits of this. But at least the public knows where 
they are coming from.
  Another essential issue is the issue of dilution. Dilution is not a 
solution in this world; it is a problem. Those are folks who get in on 
the front end and think: I got in on this idea early. I am going to 
benefit from having made this effort, and find out later a bigger 
investor came in and the stock was diluted in a fashion in which they 
are basically written out of their share of the ownership. So the 
Senate bill directs the SEC to provide investor protections in this 
area.
  These are key distinctions. These are the distinctions between a 
solid foundation for capital formation in this incredibly exciting new 
opportunity, new

[[Page S1888]]

market, and simply a path to predatory schemes that the House is 
providing. That is why I am encouraging my colleagues to support the 
amendment Senator Bennet, who will be speaking next, and I have put 
together and a number of our colleagues have joined us, including 
Senator Landrieu and Senator Scott Brown. This is a credible foundation 
for an exciting idea.
  Let me close with this notion; that is, that across America, 
Americans have $17 trillion invested in their retirement accounts. If 
they were to put 1 percent of those funds into this type of 
crowdfunding startup, they would be providing $170 billion of 
investment potential for small companies and startup companies. That is 
an incredibly powerful potential form of capital to put America 
forward. It is small businesses that create most of the jobs, and this 
capital formation idea will help in that. Let's get it done.
  I certainly deeply appreciate the contributions of my colleague from 
Colorado, Senator Bennet, who will make his points.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I wish to recognize the Senator from 
Oregon, Mr. Merkley, for his leadership on this issue and for his 
willingness, when times got tough, to dig even deeper and make sure we 
get to the balanced approach that is reflected in this amendment. It is 
a bipartisan amendment, which around this place I think is worthy of 
all of us taking a moment to recognize, and it is an amendment the 
people who know most about crowdfunding support. I wish to read several 
paragraphs from some of those folks.
  From Launcht, which is a crowdfunding platform, they note that our 
compromise:

       [i]s important because, unlike previous bills, for the 
     first time, we have a Senate bill with bipartisan 
     sponsorship, a balance of state oversight and federal 
     uniformity, industry standard investor protections, and 
     workable funding caps.

  From the National Small Business Association, we hear that our 
compromise:

       [w]ould promote entrepreneurship, job creation and economic 
     growth by making it much easier for small companies to raise 
     capital and get new ideas off the ground. This legislation 
     represents a reasonable effort to accommodate differing 
     points of view and to move this important idea forward.

  One prominent investor protection advocate wrote that:

       [t]he CROWDFUND Act addresses this concern by providing 
     significant regulatory relief to very small issuers without 
     unreasonably compromising the investor protection provisions 
     on which the federal securities laws are grounded and the 
     long-term success of the U.S. securities markets has been 
     based.

  The Senator from Oregon did an excellent job of describing the 
provisions in this bill, so I am not going to go over that ground 
again. But I do wish to talk for a moment before I yield to the Senator 
from Rhode Island about what it is we are trying to solve. Too often I 
think we don't ask ourselves what the nature of the problem is we are 
trying to solve before we actually set about solving it, and then--no 
surprise--we end up actually making matters worse.
  In my townhalls the chief concern of the people who come is that 
median family income has continued to decline in this country. For the 
first time in this country's history, the middle class is earning less 
at the end of the decade than they were at the beginning of the decade. 
That has never happened before in the United States.
  So person after person has come and said: Michael, I have done what I 
was supposed to do. I kept working at my job. Nobody said I didn't do a 
good job. But my wage is actually less in real dollars today than it 
was at the beginning of the decade, but the cost of health insurance 
continues to go up, the cost of college. I have had at least half a 
dozen people say to me they cannot afford to send their kid to the best 
college they got into. I can't think of anything that is more of a 
waste of our productivity than that.
  The essential problem we are facing in this economy is structural. 
Our gross domestic product, believe it or not, as we stand here, is 
higher than it was when we went into this recession, the worst 
recession since the Great Depression. Productivity is also way up. The 
efficiency with which we are driving that economic growth is way up 
because we have had to respond to competition from abroad. We can't 
take anything for granted anymore. We have employed technology to drive 
productivity from the cotton pickers in my wife's hometown to the 
largest Fortune 500 companies that we have, and we have 23 or 24 
million people who are either unemployed or underemployed in this 
economy.
  The economic output is back, but it has decoupled from wages and it 
has decoupled from job growth and that was true before we went into the 
worst recession. You see, the last period of economic growth in this 
country's history is the first time our economy grew and wages fell, 
that our economy grew and that we lost jobs. It was a decoupling of 
economic growth from wage growth and from job growth. There is 
something terribly wrong with that picture, and it is creating an 
enormous downward pressure on the middle class in this country.
  There are a bunch of things we need to do, but there are two major 
things that I think we need to do; one is, we need to educate our 
people for the 21st century. The worst the unemployment rate ever got 
for people with a college degree in the worst recession since the Great 
Depression, the one we just went through, was 4.5 percent. That is a 
pretty good stress test, it seems to me, of the value of a college 
education in the 21st century. But as a country today, if someone is a 
child living in poverty, their chances of getting a college degree are 
9 in 100. If we don't change the way we educate people in this country, 
we will continue to see 91 of 100 children living in poverty 
constrained to the margin of our economy and the margin of this 
democracy. That is an important piece of work. We have a vital national 
interest in that, and we are not paying attention to it here.
  But also we have to create the conditions in this country where we 
are driving innovation and driving job growth because the days of just 
expecting the largest companies in this country to create jobs are 
over. The jobs that went away in the 20th century, many of them are not 
coming back in the 21st century. It is about businesses that are 
started tomorrow and next week and the week after that and the month 
after that. In order to create those sorts of conditions, the amendment 
we have presented, this crowdfunding amendment, could unleash billions 
of dollars, as the Senator from Oregon said, of local investment, 
investment on Main Street--or on someone else's Main Street through the 
Internet--that could allow people with great innovative ideas for the 
first time to raise capital from our middle class and from other people 
who would like to participate in this kind of new business venture.
  This is not all we need to do. There are many things we need to do, 
and I think there are things in this overall bill we need to fix. But 
this bipartisan amendment represents a real step forward. As we look to 
the future, it is the reason we need to do comprehensive tax reform in 
this Congress. It is the reason we need to fundamentally think 
differently in this Congress about our regulations. We should be asking 
ourselves the question: Are we more or less likely to be creating jobs 
in the United States with rising wages? I think we should put the 
politics of this aside because there isn't a person in this Chamber who 
doesn't want to do this. We start, though, with the recognition that we 
have structural issues we need to resolve.
  I hope everybody who hasn't had the chance to get a look at the 
amendment will look at it. I hope people on both sides of the aisle 
will support this amendment. I am very pleased it is bipartisan, with 
Senator Merkley and Senator Brown, and I look forward to voting on this 
amendment this afternoon.
  I see the Senator from Rhode Island is here. I thank him for his 
leadership on this legislation, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I commend Senator Merkley and Senator Bennet 
for their extraordinary work, indeed, in collaboration I believe with 
our colleague Senator Brown from Massachusetts to make significant 
improvements in the crowdfunding provisions

[[Page S1889]]

of the House bill. As Senator Bennet and Senator Merkley have 
indicated, this represents a potentially very productive way to raise 
capital, and they have provided protections that will ensure investors 
in this process are not disadvantaged, and I commend them for that.
  It addresses one of the significant issues in the House bill but, 
frankly, not all the significant issues. There are some extremely 
glaring, I think, provisions in the House bill that we attempted to 
address in the Reed-Landrieu-Levin substitute. That substitute 
amendment, although it received a majority of votes, did not receive 
enough to achieve cloture to be the bill we are now considering. We are 
now considering the House bill.
  I have an amendment to that House bill that addresses one of several 
difficulties with the House legislation. Investors, when they buy stock 
in public companies, expect routine disclosures. They expect to know on 
a quarterly basis, and in a very real sense on an annual basis, what is 
the company doing? What are the prospects of the company? All that goes 
hand in hand with the widely dispersed ownership of a public company. 
The House legislation would allow many companies with a substantial 
number of beneficial shareholders, the actual owners, the real owners 
of the stock, the ones who can vote the stock, the ones who get the 
dividends, the ones who vote on the proxies or directly for the 
leadership of the corporation--it would allow them to remain dark. This 
might be appropriate for some companies that have a relatively small 
base of real owners, but the way the House has drafted this legislation 
it could risk allowing a significant number of larger companies to go 
or remain dark.
  The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 set up a system of public 
reporting. Beginning in 1964, the SEC required that companies with at 
least 500 holders of record--and at least $10 million in assets, to 
follow the routine reporting requirements under the securities laws. 
The decision was made that at that point a company does have a size 
that is adequate and necessary so that they should be disclosing.
  The issue that is motivating the House is this 500-person 
requirement. It was adopted, as I said, in 1964. There is a sense that 
the limit is probably too low. The House version is 2,000. We make no 
attempt to change the House limit of 2,000 now, the new limit. But what 
we want to be sure of is that the individuals who are being counted are 
not the record holders, they are the real owners, the beneficial 
owners. In fact, many companies are very astute and assiduous in 
assuring that these record holders fall beneath this 500 level.
  There are many large companies, well-known companies, as I mentioned 
in my previously remarks, that have thousands of beneficial owners but 
still have, on their own records, less than 500 holders of record. The 
SEC defines record holders as ``each person who is identified as the 
owner of such securities on records of the security holders maintained 
by or on behalf of the issuer.''
  Holder of record is very direct. It is the shareholders who are 
recorded as such on the books of the company. This is where the term 
``beneficial owner'' comes from. In such instances, the shares are held 
of record by a third party, usually a broker, on behalf of the 
shareholder. For example--and this is one of many examples--if you buy 
shares from Charles Schwab, that discount brokerage firm would likely 
serve as the record holder and you would be the beneficial owner. It is 
your money; you paid for it. It is your vote because you are a 
beneficial owner. It is your right to sell the shares. But as far as 
the company is concerned, the holder of record is the broker, Charles 
Schwab.
  I think we have all been familiar and all received in the mail a big 
package of proxy materials from our broker. It is not, in many cases, 
directly from the company. It is from the Wells Fargo Advisors, it is 
from Schwab Advisors, et cetera, because they are on the records of the 
company as the ones who are the record holders. They distribute the 
material to beneficial owners.
  The consequence is that for companies that may have a very few or 
relatively few record holders, they have thousands and thousands of 
beneficial owners. Those are the individuals who will lose out if the 
company decides, under the House bill, to suddenly go or remain dark, 
to avoid public reporting.
  As I have indicated before, most investors today do so through 
intermediaries--through brokers, through others. As a result, they 
would not necessarily be counted as a record holder. Record holders--
the brokers, the large entities--are increasingly purely passthroughs. 
They are agents with no economic interest in the company, no voting 
rights. Those are held by the beneficial owners. That is why I believe 
that beneficial ownership should be the test for whether companies have 
to report under the Securities Exchange Act. It should encompass those 
who have the power to sell and/or the power to vote the shares. They 
are the actual shareholders. They are the individuals who management is 
committed by fiduciary duties to work for. So I think it is appropriate 
that when we raise this level to 2,000 we also ensure that it is not 
simply record holders, it is the beneficial owners--the real owners, 
for want of another term.
  There also could be, for example, two identical companies with 
identical numbers of beneficial owners but they might have different 
numbers of record holders because of the way the shares are held--in 
trust or by a broker, et cetera. And one company reporting and one not 
reporting does not seem to be to be a fair or efficient way to do 
business.
  Companies already have to obtain numbers of beneficial owners from 
brokers and banks in order to know how many copies of annual reports 
and proxy materials they have to print, so every company knows about 
how many beneficial numbers they have. They have to provide the proxy 
material through the brokerage or bank to the beneficial owners, so 
they know very well--in fact, quite precisely--their beneficial 
ownership, their real shareholders.
  But using record level as the trigger to remain private, to avoid 
public reporting, to me again is the wrong approach. My amendment would 
clarify the definition in this new shareholder threshold section of the 
underlying bill, and ensure that companies are not avoiding these 
public reporting requirements by using a threshold of 2,000 record 
holders if they have 2,000 or fewer beneficial owners. If this is a 
truly small business that has 1,500 individual shareholders, beneficial 
owners, and they want to remain dark--that seems to be something that 
we certainly would countenance, and with my language it would be 
possible to do so.

  I think this approach makes it fair for everyone. It also doesn't 
frustrate the expectations of a person who buys a share of nationally 
known stock that is publicly reported and gets a 10 Q and every year 
the 10 K, and suddenly they don't get anything. They wonder what is 
going on at the company. Maybe the company merges with another company, 
creates a new company, and now has less than 2000 holders of record. I 
think that is not an approach we should countenance. I think 
transparency and accurate information are critical to the success of 
our capital markets, and I think this legislation will do that. 
Requiring quarterly reporting of firms with a large number of 
shareholders--real shareholders, beneficial shareholders--protects 
investors while at the same time improving overall market transparency 
and efficiency. From this information, those individual analysts and 
brokers who follow companies are able to determine their 
recommendations, are able to advise clients that you should buy this 
company, it is a good company.
  When the company goes dark, that information source dries up and it 
is harder for individuals, brokers, investment advisors to give advice. 
I think this would not be helpful to the market. In fact, I think it 
might, ironically, impede capital formation, not facilitate capital 
formation.
  There is one important point that has to be stressed, and that is my 
amendment does not affect the employee exemption in the underlying 
bill. The House bill has a blanket exemption for counting owners of the 
company for employees. We have reviewed this exemption in our 
legislation with eminent experts, including Prof. John Coates at 
Harvard Law School, and he concurs that employees would not be swept up 
into being

[[Page S1890]]

counted because they happen to receive compensation through stock in 
their company.
  There are many companies--WaWa, Wegmans--that want to have active 
employee participation in the company through stock plans but are 
private companies and want to remain private. This should allow them to 
do so.
  Again, my legislation makes no attempt to change the underlying House 
bill, which gives a very broad blanket exemption for employees, who are 
exempted from the shareholder threshold.
  There is another aspect here, too, and that is ESOPs, employee stock 
option plans, because they do acquire stock on behalf of employees. We 
specifically asked Professor Coates, one of the preeminent experts in 
securities law, whether this would inadvertently trigger or 
inadvertently complicate the beneficial ownership rule. His opinion is 
that ESOPs typically count as one record holder and one beneficial 
owner because they do not pass through the votes or the right to direct 
sales. They do not have the characteristics which are typical of the 
beneficial owner: the right to vote and the right to sell the stock. 
They maintain those rights. They do not delegate those to the 
individual employees who might be part of the pool. So Professor 
Coates' view is that ESOPs also would be exempt from being counted, if 
you will, as more than one entity.
  We have also reached out to the Securities and Exchange Commission 
and we have received some assurances, from talking to Meredith Cross of 
the SEC, that, given their rulemaking power, they have within the ambit 
of their power in implementing this legislation the ability to clarify 
any of these points. So that not just employees who receive stock 
through an employee plan, but an ESOP and other entities that hold 
stock--not on behalf of their investors but have the right as an entity 
such as a venture capital fund or a private equity fund--have the right 
at that fund level to vote and to direct the sale of the shares and 
receive the dividends--that they, too, would be counted as one entity.
  Professor Coates, as I said, believes this will not affect the 
venture capital/private equity firm structures, which would typically 
count as one shareholder, whether of record or beneficially. The VC 
firm or PE firm does not pass through votes or the right to direct 
sales to its own investors, and the same might be said with mutual 
funds, pension funds, et cetera--the primary passthrough which would be 
counted as brokers and banks, who hold on behalf of beneficial owners.
  What we have, I think, is legislation that recognizes the need to 
increase the number adopted in 1964, but also to recognize that the 
real owners of companies far exceed, in many cases, the holders or 
record, and that these real owners depend upon the routine reporting 
that is required under the Securities Exchange Act so they can be 
informed, so they can follow their stock. Indeed, the analysts who look 
closely at these companies, who make recommendations to buy and sell, 
also need this type of information. For this reason I have proposed 
this amendment. I think it is something that improves the bill. It was 
included in our substitute which did not receive 60 votes to pass 
cloture but did receive the majority of votes in this body. I think it 
is something, again, that will improve this legislation. I would not 
hesitate to add that many more improvements are necessary, but 
certainly this would be an improvement.

  I would note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Udall of New Mexico). The clerk will call 
the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to enter into a 
colloquy with my Republican colleagues for 30 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                              Health Care

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, on the Senate floor this morning Senator 
Durbin called on Republican Members to offer to give up what he called 
their Federal health care. I heard his comments, and he makes an 
interesting argument. But, once again, Democrats in the Senate are 
ignoring history, as the Senator did today. They are ignoring the facts 
and ignoring the Democrats' record on this issue.
  The truth is, Republicans in this body have already offered to give 
up their health insurance coverage. In fact, here is the rest of the 
story:
  During the debate on the health care law--almost 2 years ago today--
Republicans offered to forego their private coverage and instead enroll 
all Members of Congress in Medicaid, the government's safety-net 
program for low-income individuals. The Democrats in this body 
unanimously rejected this idea. Every Democrat voted no. This was on an 
amendment by former Senator LeMieux from Florida, an amendment that 
asked to enroll all Members of Congress in the Medicaid Program. Yet at 
least 50 percent of the newly covered individuals under the Democrats' 
new law are going to get coverage, and they will get their coverage 
through Medicaid.
  So the President's solution for health care in this country is to put 
50 percent of the newly covered individuals under Medicaid. Yet the 
Democratic Members of the Senate unanimously voted no. If Democrats 
believe Medicaid is good enough for the 24 million people they will 
soon force onto the rolls, my question is, Why isn't it good enough for 
the Democratic Members of Congress?
  So I am joined today by my colleagues on the Senate floor who 
continue to raise questions about the health care law and so many 
broken promises made by this President. I am fortunate to be joined by 
a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Grassley.
  I would ask my colleague from Iowa, as a senior member of the Senate 
Finance Committee, who spent a lot of time studying and debating 
President Obama's health care law, my question to the Senator is, Do 
you think the President's promises match the reality?
  Mr. GRASSLEY. I say to the Senator from Wyoming, definitely not, and 
Americans are seeing every day that is not the case. If I could respond 
a little bit more in length, I would go back to 1994 and point out a 
problem President Clinton had, and in turn that President Obama tried 
to avoid about 14 years later. It was in 1994 that the health care 
reform issue came before the Congress--promoted by President Clinton at 
that time--and it failed in large part because it fundamentally changed 
the health care coverage for nearly every American.
  We know the bill that is now law has fundamentally changed, but 
President Obama, in 2009--and throughout his campaign in 2008--decided 
he would combat the failure of the Clinton administration on health 
care reform, and not being successful there, by repeating over and over 
to Americans: ``If you like what you have, you can keep it.'' That is 
basically what we heard at least 47 different times while the bill on 
health care reform was being debated.
  We heard that from the President himself. We probably heard it from 
Members of this Congress hundreds of times. While it may have been 
politically useful to make that promise to the American people, it 
remains a promise he cannot keep and he did not keep.
  The fact is, millions of Americans are seeing changes in their 
existing health plans due to the health reform law. So, basically, when 
the President said, ``if you like what you have, you can keep it,'' it 
is not turning out that way, and Americans are seeing it every day.
  The administration's regulations governing so-called ``grandfathered 
health plans'' will force most firms--up to 80 percent of the small 
businesses--to give up their current health care programs, and that is 
happening fairly regularly. When those businesses lose their 
grandfathered status, they immediately become subject to costly new 
mandates and increased premiums that follow. So the economics of health 
care costs and health care insurance dictate that people are not going 
to be able to keep what they have, as the President promised.
  Families in 17 States no longer have access to child-only plans as a 
result of

[[Page S1891]]

the health care law. So if you were a voter in 2008, and the President 
said to you ``if you like what you have, you can keep it,'' and you 
wanted only health insurance for your children, you cannot do that 
today in these 17 States. It is not known how many families who lost 
coverage for their children because of the law have been able to find 
an affordable replacement.
  Medicare Advantage covers about 20 percent of the senior citizens of 
America. There is a study that shows the Medicare Advantage enrollment 
is going to be cut in half. The choices available to seniors are going 
to be reduced by two-thirds. Then there is the open question about 
Americans who receive their health care through large employers. The 
CBO recently released a report that constructed a scenario where as 
many as 20 million Americans could lose their employer coverage.
  While I acknowledge that the Congressional Budget Office report 
provided the number that I just mentioned as only one possible 
scenario, there are many who believe that is very plausible given the 
incentives in the health care law created for large businesses.
  So I say to the Senator from Wyoming, 47 times--just while we were 
debating it; I don't know how many times during the campaign--this 
President said, ``If you like what you have, you can keep it.'' It is a 
promise that was not kept.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Well, I say to my colleague from Iowa, it is 
interesting that we take a look at this and so many promises that 
reflect one specific promise, ``if you like what you have, you can keep 
it.''
  I practiced orthopedic surgery for 25 years, taking care of families 
in Wyoming. Many of those families included family members who were on 
Medicare, the program for our seniors. Senator Grassley has made some 
reference in his earlier comments about seniors, people who are on 
Medicare, people who are having a harder time finding a doctor. This 
health care law clearly had an impact on seniors as well.
  So I would ask my colleague from Iowa, are there specific things the 
Senator has been hearing as he travels around the State and visits with 
folks at home in terms of perhaps promises made specifically to seniors 
and those broken promises related to Medicare?
  Mr. GRASSLEY. That is not only a promise that has been broken, that 
is a promise that is very easy to quantify because, on July 29, 2009, 
during the consideration of this health care reform law, the President 
said:

       Medicare is a government program. But don't worry: I'm not 
     going to touch it.

  So let's take a look at the health care law and see if that promise 
was kept. The health care law made significant cuts in Medicare 
programs. This is what we can quantify in dollars and cents.
  On April 22, 2010, the Chief Actuary of Medicare analyzed the law and 
found that it would cut Medicare by $575 billion over 10 years. The 
President said, about Medicare, as I told you, ``I'm not going to touch 
it.'' But the President has touched it in a big way: $575 billion out 
of Medicare.
  Medicare is on a path to go broke by 2021; $575 billion is not going 
to guarantee Medicare for everybody in the future. We have to reform 
and change Medicare if that promise is going to be kept. We all want to 
do that, but the President has made that more difficult.
  The Congressional Budget Office wrote that over $500 billion in 
Medicare reductions ``would not enhance the ability of the government 
to pay for future Medicare benefits.'' You know what the President said 
during the debate on this bill: ``I'm not going to touch it.'' But he 
has touched it in a big way.
  The Chief Actuary had this to say about the Medicare reductions:

       Providers--

  Meaning hospitals and doctors--

       Providers for whom Medicare constitutes a substantive 
     portion of their business could find it difficult to remain 
     profitable and, absent legislative intervention, might end 
     their participation in the program.

  So not only touching 500-and-some billion dollars, but also touching 
it in a way of limiting access for senior citizens of America when the 
President said, ``I'm not going to touch it,'' he misled the American 
people.
  The CM Actuary said, in essence, these cuts could drive providers 
from the Medicare Program. I have a hard time understanding how these 
massive cuts to Medicare count as somehow: I'm not going to touch 
Medicare.
  On the other hand, the biggest problem facing Medicare in the near 
term is a physicians payment update problem that we constantly have to 
address and could have been addressed in the health care reform bill. 
You know what. It was not addressed. Of course nothing was done about 
it. Perhaps that is what the President meant when he said about 
Medicare, I say to the Senator from Wyoming, ``I'm not going to touch 
it.''
  Mr. BARRASSO. That clearly points out to the people around the 
country what they know, and if they are on Medicare that it is that 
much more challenging for them to even find a doctor because of the 
$500 billion of cuts to Medicare--and not to save Medicare, not to 
strengthen Medicare, but to start a whole new government program for 
other people. So those are several of the promises the President made.
  We just heard from my colleague from Iowa, ``if you like what you 
have, you can keep it.'' We know that promise has been broken, and now 
the promises by the President--I will protect Medicare--which is 
clearly not the case, as the American people have seen, which is why 
this health care law is even more unpopular today than it was when it 
was passed.
  But thinking back to the time it was passed, the Senator from 
Missouri Mr. Blunt, who is joining us on the floor, was very actively 
involved in the debate and the discussions in pointing out the concerns 
people in his home State had with regard to the health care law and the 
objections he heard. My recollection is that there was even an issue on 
the ballot about the health care law and mandates and related issues.
  So I ask my friend and colleague from Missouri if there are comments 
he would like to add to help with this discussion of the broken 
promises of the Obama health care law.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I thank the doctor for his leadership on 
this issue during the debate on the health care law itself and right up 
to now, the second anniversary of it being signed into law. Certainly 
Missouri voters were the first voters who went to the polling place and 
registered their views on this. As I recall, 72 percent said they did 
not want to be a part of it. The famous comment made on the other side 
of the building by the Speaker--we will know what is in the bill once 
we pass it--has proven to be very true and not very positive from the 
point of view of that bill.
  The Senator from Wyoming and Senator Grassley have talked about the 
promises made already--the promise not to touch Medicare, the promise 
that if you like what you have, you can keep it--surely nobody can say 
that with a straight face anymore--and the promise during the campaign 
that there wouldn't be a mandate.
  Four years ago this was the big division of the two principal 
candidates for the nomination on that side. Senator Obama's view was 
that there would be no mandate, that there was no need for a mandate. 
In fact, at one point he said that having a mandate would be like 
solving homelessness by mandating that everybody buy a house. Now, that 
is not my quote, that is President Obama's quote when he was Senator 
Obama--having a mandate on health care would be like solving the 
housing problem by saying we are going to require that everybody buy a 
house.
  This plan does not work. It doesn't come together. The parts of the 
plan that were supposed to pay for the plan are one by one being 
discarded.
  Remember the so-called CLASS Act, the long-term care act, which 
technically, I guess, would have produced some money because it 
collected money the first 10 years; the first 10 years, we are counting 
the money and we are not allowed to spend any of it for the first 10 
years. So, sure, that would be a net income to the Federal Government. 
We are not spending and money is coming in. But even the Secretary of 
Health and Human Services said what many of us said at the time, which 
is that this plan won't work, so we are not even going to collect the 
money because we know there is no way this particular structure will do 
what it is supposed to do.
  It is just one broken promise after another, it is just one set of 
provisions

[[Page S1892]]

after another, and the more the American people look at it, the more 
they realize this just doesn't add up. Not only does it not add up 
financially, it doesn't add up to better health care.
  We are going to see lots of people--the Congressional Budget Office 
recently estimated that I think 20 million people who get insurance now 
at work would lose that insurance at work once this goes into effect, 
and that was not a calculation in the original bill. Everybody was at 
least calculating that anybody who has insurance now would keep what 
their employer would continue to pay for. Well, for 20 million of them, 
apparently, that is not going to be the case.
  I yield to the Senator from Wyoming on that topic of just what 
employers are going to have to decide to do once they are faced with 
this new mandated policy that covers not only what they think they can 
afford but whatever some government official decides is the perfect 
policy for all Americans. Now, imagine that--the perfect policy for all 
Americans. One-size-fits-all almost always means that one size doesn't 
fit anybody. And these employers, it is now understood, are in many 
cases just going to take the option that they will pay the penalty that 
is less than they are paying now for insurance or they are going to 
have to require their employees to go get their insurance in a 
subsidized exchange. That means taxpayers will be helping buy insurance 
for people who today have insurance through their employers at the rate 
of at least 20 million, and I think that number will be a lot higher 
than that.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Well, it does seem that way to me, to the point that 
now, 2 years out, Senator Coburn and I put together a report on what we 
are finding. It is a checkup on the Federal health law, and the title 
is ``Warning: Side Effects.'' That is because there are huge side 
effects from this health care law. The four that we have written out on 
the prescription pad, as we see it, on the prescription pad handed out 
by President Obama, No. 1 is fewer choices; No. 2, we have higher 
taxes; No. 3, more government; and No. 4 is less innovation. That is 
what the American people are seeing as the side effects of this health 
care law. People don't want few choices, they want more choices. People 
don't want higher taxes, they want lower taxes. They don't want more 
government, they want less government. They don't want less innovation, 
they want more innovation. That is what the American people asked for.
  There was a reason to do health care reform--because people wanted 
the care they need from a doctor they want at a cost they can afford. I 
know that is what my colleague from Iowa sees when he goes home every 
weekend and talks to people in his home communities.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, if I could add one thing at this point, 
we don't really know how bad this law is yet. I am going to add 
something to what Senator Blunt said when he quoted the Speaker of the 
House saying that we don't really know what is in this bill and we are 
going to have to pass it to find out what is in it. That is what she 
had to say to get a majority vote even within her own party to get it 
through the House of Representatives. But, in a sense, she is right. 
One could understand every letter of this law, but it has 1,693 
delegations of authority for the Secretary to write regulations, and 
until they are written, we aren't really going to know what is in it. 
We remember the accountable care organization rules that came out. Six 
pages out of 2,700 in the bill dealt with accountable care 
organizations, but the first regulations that were written were 350 
pages long. So we really won't know how bad this legislation is maybe 
for a few years down the road, and hopefully we never get that far down 
the road.
  Mr. BARRASSO. My understanding of the accountable care organization 
component is that the very health programs the accountable care 
organizations were modeled after, the ones the President held up as the 
models across the country--one was in Utah, one was Geisinger in 
Pennsylvania, and I believe the Mayo Clinic may have been a third--once 
those 350 pages of regulations came out, the programs the President 
said were the models we want to follow, they all said: We can't comply 
with these regulations. They are too stringent. They are too confining. 
They will not work in our program.

  So if it is not going to work in the places where the President said 
they are doing it well, to me that means they are not going to work 
anywhere in Wyoming and very likely not anywhere in Iowa or anywhere in 
Missouri as we try to make sure patients get the care they need from 
the doctor they want at a cost they can afford.
  That is why I continue to look at this health care law and go home 
every weekend and talk to people, and I continue to hear that this bill 
is bad for patients, bad for providers--the nurses and the doctors who 
take care of the patients--and bad for taxpayers.
  When we take a look at Medicare--and Senator Blunt made a comment 
about Medicare and some of the changes--who is going to make these 
decisions? It looks to me as though, from reading through this law, it 
is about 15 unelected bureaucrats with this so-called Independent 
Payment Advisory Board who will decide what hospitals will get paid for 
providing various services. So in small communities, the hospital may 
say: Well, we can no longer offer that service. I have heard my 
colleagues talk about the specific loss of the ability of hospitals to 
even stay profitable with some of the cuts, from taking $500 billion 
away from Medicare, again, not to save and strengthen Medicare but to 
start a whole new government program for others.
  Those are the things we are dealing with and why, at townhall meeting 
after townhall meeting, people continue to tell me they want this 
repealed and they want it replaced with patient-centered health care--
not government-centered, not insurance company-centered, but patient-
centered health care. That is what people are asking for, and they get 
tired of all these broken promises the President has made.
  I remember the President said he was going to bring down the price of 
premiums by $2,500 per family per year. What family wouldn't want that? 
The whole purpose of the health care law initially was to get the costs 
of health care under control. This didn't do it.
  If I go to a townhall meeting, as I did not too long ago in Wyoming, 
and say: How many of you under the new health care law are finding that 
you are paying more for health insurance, not the $2,500 less a year 
the President promised, but how many are paying more, every hand goes 
up. Then we ask the question: How many of you believe the quality and 
the availability of your own care is going to go down as a result of 
this health care law, and every hand goes up. I know that in the Show 
Me State of Missouri, that is not what people want. They don't want to 
pay more and get less. I don't know if my colleague has been hearing 
things similar to that at home.
  Mr. BLUNT. I think that is what we are all hearing. Whether you are 
for this bill or not, my guess is that you are hearing that if you are 
asking that question.
  Another of the President's promises was that an average family, if 
this health care plan went into effect, would pay $2,500 less, as the 
doctor just said, per year. In fact, since he became President, 
insurance premiums have risen by $2,213 a year--not a $2,500 cut but a 
$2,213 increase, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The survey 
says that in 2008, for employer-provided insurance, the average family 
premium was $12,860. Last year it was $15,073. These are incredible 
increases for families, coupled with the bad energy policies and other 
policies that put families into a condition they would hope not to be 
in and we hope for them not to be in. So you have increased costs to 
families, increased costs to the system.
  That is the other thing the President said. Another broken promise 
was that this health care bill would control costs. Recently, according 
to the Medicare Actuary--the person who calculates these costs--the 
estimate was that national health spending would go up at least $311 
billion over 10 years under this plan. Now, that is not cost control; 
that is $311 billion, almost one-third of $1 trillion in increases.
  Payment reductions to hospitals--the Senator from Wyoming mentioned 
this board that will make these decisions. I am not sure there will be

[[Page S1893]]

enough people on that board who understand rural hospitals and 
understand why it is critical that rural hospitals that are critical-
care hospitals continue to have different arrangements with the 
government than others do for the government-provided health care, such 
as Medicare and Medicaid. And if they understand that, there may not be 
enough people on the board who understand the unique needs of urban 
hospitals that have a heavily uninsured population.
  How is this 15-member board going to be better than the 500 Members 
who serve people in Washington now, trying to look at specifics and 
then be accountable? To whom is this board accountable? What decision 
do they make that somebody can challenge in a meaningful way, in a way 
that they would be really concerned about?
  So it doesn't control costs as the President said it would. It 
doesn't reduce insurance costs as the President said it would. I think 
it will wind up with maybe even more people uninsured as long as the 
penalty paid is less than the premiums paid, particularly for young 
workers who are outside the system today. Under the President's plan, 
we eliminate the advantage they have for being young and healthy by 
saying: No, you can't really classify groups, whereas if a person gets 
life insurance, that person will certainly pay more if they are 75 than 
if they are 27. They are just going to pay less. It is the same way 
today for health insurance as well because it is clear that the 
likelihood of a person using that plan at 26 is different than it is at 
62. So all of these things just don't add up, and people are beginning 
to figure that they don't add up.
  I thought Senator Grassley made a very good point about even when we 
passed the bill, we wouldn't know all of the costs of this bill until 
it actually goes into effect. I am very much in support of his view 
that we never want to let this get so far down the road where we would 
know how much it would really cost or all the rules and regulations we 
would really have because it will head health care in a direction where 
we might not be able to reverse course and get to a health care system 
that is really focused on patients and health care providers rather 
than government bureaucrats deciding what is the best health care for 
everybody. I want my doctor to decide. I want to be part of that 
discussion. I do not want some government bureaucrat deciding what 
procedure is the only procedure that is acceptable for me.

  Mr. BARRASSO. It is interesting--because I know the Senator goes 
home, as I do, very often to talk to many of the small business owners 
in the State of Missouri, as I do in Wyoming, and as Senator Grassley 
does in Iowa--one of the promises the President made is, he said 4 
million small businesses may be eligible for tax credits. Well, it 
turns out that the key word there by the President is ``may''--may be 
eligible.
  Even the fact that the White House has sent out postcards to all 
these small business--the IRS spent over $1 million of taxpayers' money 
to send out millions of postcards promoting the tax credit--the 
Treasury Department's inspector general recently testified that ``the 
volume of credit claims has been lower than expected''--as a matter of 
fact, only 7 percent of the 4 million firms the administration claimed.
  Why? Well, because of the complexity and the whole way the system was 
set up, the President was able to talk big and deliver very small. That 
is why so many people are very unhappy with the claims in the health 
care law because they know these promises have been broken.
  With regard to Nancy Pelosi's famous quote--that first you have to 
pass it before you get to find out what is in it--that is why I come to 
the floor every week with a doctor's second opinion because it does 
seem just about every week we do learn some new unintended consequence, 
something new about the health care law and another reason why 
Americans are unhappy with it, why it remains as unpopular, if not more 
unpopular, today as when it was passed, and why so many people believe 
the Supreme Court should find this bill unconstitutional, for the 
reasons that do have Americans at home in an uproar, and very unhappy 
that the government can come into their homes and mandate that they buy 
a government-approved product and pay for it or pay a fine. Nothing 
like this has happened before, and people are, frankly, offended.
  We do not know what the Supreme Court is going to do, but I know what 
this body ought to do. This body ought to vote to repeal and replace 
this broken health care law and get a health care law in place which is 
what the American people wanted, which is, the care they need, from the 
doctor they want, at a price they can afford.
  We have not seen that yet. But that is why we are here on the second 
anniversary of the President's health care law, to continue to point 
out the flaws of this legislation. Quite interestingly, when you take a 
look at some of the national poll numbers, for people who have talked 
to a health care provider--whether that be a nurse, a doctor, a 
physician's assistant, a physical therapist, a nurse practitioner, no 
matter who--they are even less supportive of it than the general 
public.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, this Friday the Nation observes an 
anniversary that most Americans would prefer to see removed from its 
calendar. I am talking about the second anniversary of the passage of 
the President's health care law. Rather than celebrate this day, it is 
one that citizens and taxpayers have come to rue and regret. The 
process by which Obamacare became law was an affront to republican 
principles of democratic self-government. The substance of this law is 
an historic threat to the liberties our Constitution was designed to 
secure.
  A decent respect for the opinions of the American people cautioned 
against passing this law on a purely partisan basis. Yet in spite of 
the clear opposition of the American people to this massive expansion 
of government power, and to its historic spending and tax increases, 
the President and his congressional allies were determined to jam this 
bill through the Congress.
  The architects of this strategy, if not the party loyalists who 
carried it out against the wishes of their constituents, sleep easy at 
night having done so, because they knew that this was a once-in-a-
generation opportunity, the crowning achievement of the liberal 
bureaucratic state. A takeover of the Nation's health care sector and 
its top-down regulation by Washington had eluded Democrats for over 70 
years.
  The economic downturn of 2008 changed that. With the election of 
President Obama and significant majorities in the Congress, the left 
was not going to, in the words of the President's Chief of Staff, ``let 
a crisis go to waste.'' What this strategy meant in practice was that 
Democrats would advance a radical liberal agenda whether the American 
people supported it or not. That is the anniversary we are observing 
this week, and it is a dark spot on our Nation's history, in my 
opinion.
  The Obamacare episode showed a fundamental disrespect for the 
opinions and constitutional common sense of the American people. Faced 
with growing unrest and real concerns about the impact of this law on 
families, the economy, and access to health care, the law's proponents 
assumed that the American people were too dumb to get it; that once 
Obamacare became law, the American people would come to love it, as 
well as the benefactors who gave it to them. That is what they thought. 
As Speaker Pelosi explained: We have to pass the bill so you can find 
out what is in it.
  The great liberal conceit was on full display in the process that led 
to this bill becoming law. We know better than you, they said. We can 
plan one-sixth of the American economy, and you will eventually come to 
like it.
  Well, as we all know, the American people had something else in mind. 
They reminded Congress and the President that in this country the 
people are sovereign. They stood up as free men and women rejecting 
Obamacare before it became law and refused to embrace it afterwards. 
And as their understanding of the law has deepened, they have remained 
constant in their commitment to full repeal. According to a Rasmussen 
poll this week, over half of Americans support the full repeal of 
Obamacare.
  Next week, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument on the 
constitutionality of this misguided law. In arriving at their decision 
later this year, they will consider Obamacare through the prism of past 
precedents and the

[[Page S1894]]

Constitution's original historic meaning. But the Justices of the 
Supreme Court are not the only ones evaluating the constitutionality of 
this law. The American people and citizens of this Nation have their 
own obligation to consider whether this law comports with our 
Constitution and principles of limited government, and on that the 
verdict is already in. According to a recent Gallup poll, 72 percent of 
American adults, including 56 percent of self-professed Democrats, 
believe that the law's individual mandate is unconstitutional.
  The average American who opposes this law on constitutional grounds 
might not be a law professor or an appellate advocate, but those 
citizens and taxpayers understand our Constitution was designed to 
guarantee liberty and that it did so, in part, by limiting the powers 
of the Federal Government and maintaining the sovereign powers of the 
States.
  They know the unconstitutionality of ObamaCare runs far deeper than 
the onerous individual mandate. The law is, at its core, a violation of 
our most deeply held constitutional principles.
  It undermines personal liberty and puts more power in the hands of 
the Federal Government. In the interest of advancing what the left 
views as a constitutional right to health care, they undermine actual 
constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property.
  The law's mandate for abortion-inducing drugs undermines sacred 
rights of personal conscience and religious liberty.
  Its expansion of Medicaid fundamentally transforms the relationship 
of the States to the Federal Government, undercutting the ability of 
those sovereign communities to make basic decisions about the welfare 
of their citizens by crowding out spending for police, infrastructure, 
and education.
  The American people might not have submitted complex legal briefs in 
the Supreme Court litigation, but their conclusions about ObamaCare 
possess a unique and powerful wisdom. The people of Utah and the rest 
of this country understand the very DNA of ObamaCare--a commitment to 
more government control, the empowering of an already unaccountable 
administrative state, and an assault on free markets--is 
unconstitutional.
  This was not what President Obama promised the American people. The 
President couched this government takeover of the Nation's health care 
sector as a modest reform designed to reduce costs.
  When he spoke before a joint session of Congress in September of 2009 
to push for his plan, the President promised it would ``slow the growth 
of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our 
government.''
  The President swung and missed on all three. According to the 
President's own Actuary at CMS, national health expenditures would 
increase by $311 billion over the law's first 10 years. This comes as 
no surprise to the American people. The President's health care law 
promised all sorts of new free care. But we all know, contrary to the 
repeated assertions of President Obama and his administration, nothing 
in life is free.
  The bill will eventually come due for all this so-called ``free 
care,'' and it is taxpayers who will pay that bill.
  According to the Congressional Budget Office, ``Rising costs for 
health care will push Federal spending up considerably as a percentage 
of GDP.''
  This is not what the President and his allies promised. We were 
promised lower costs. What we got were higher costs, more Federal 
spending on health care and, with it, more taxes and more debt.
  When fully implemented, ObamaCare authorizes $2.6 trillion in new 
Federal spending over 10 years. It will increase premiums by $2,100 for 
families forced by ObamaCare to purchase their own insurance. Its 
Medicaid expansions will impose $118 billion in new costs on the 
States.
  It will increase spending on prescription drugs, physician and 
clinical services, and hospital spending. It will increase the deficit 
by $701 billion over its first 10 years.
  How does the President propose to pay for this? Here is how: He will 
pay for it by selling more Treasurys to China. He will pay for it by 
increasing taxes and penalties by over $500 billion, and American 
workers will ultimately pay for it with 800,000 fewer jobs than would 
have otherwise existed.
  This is not the story the President or the Democrats in Congress 
responsible for this law want the American people to hear. So they will 
attempt to spin their way out of it.
  In a memo obtained by the press last week, the advocates of ObamaCare 
laid out their strategy to sell the merits of this misguided law prior 
to oral arguments at the Supreme Court.
  This week was designed to lay out all the great things provided by 
ObamaCare. But, naturally, that memo mentions absolutely none of the 
costs. It doesn't mention the cost of these benefits for Federal 
taxpayers. It doesn't mention the costs for employers and workers. It 
doesn't mention that the law could lead to as many as 20 million 
Americans losing employer-sponsored health benefits by 2019. It doesn't 
mention the impact the $\1/2\ trillion in tax increases and penalties 
will have on the economy, and it doesn't mention the harm this law does 
to our Constitution and its principles of republicanism, personal 
liberty, and limited government.
  I wish I could say I was surprised, but I am not. ObamaCare is merely 
the capstone to a generations-long liberal project that has attempted 
to convince citizens that they can have their cake and eat it too. They 
can have all the benefits of an ever-expanding welfare state, and 
nobody--or only the very rich--would have to pay for it. ObamaCare 
exploded this myth. It is the culmination of generations of government 
expansion, and it shows once and for all that we are all going to be 
paying for the liberal welfare state.
  Taxing Warren Buffet is not going to cut it. All American families 
will pay for this $2.6 trillion spending law one way or the other. 
After centralizing control of the Nation's health care system in 
Washington, DC, and putting health care decisions into the hands of 
government bureaucrats, we will all pay for it through higher taxes, 
less opportunity, and diminished access to care.
  Our children are going to have to pay for it, as a nation conceived 
in liberty is increasingly burdened by an unsustainable national 
indebtedness; that is, unless the American people get the final word on 
this. They certainly should.
  I believe in the American people. I know what my fellow Utahans think 
about the President's health care law. No less than legislators or 
Justices, they take the Constitution seriously. They know this law is 
unconstitutional. They know what it does to free markets and to free 
men and women. They know that if this law is constitutional, then there 
are effectively no limits on what the Federal Government can do. They 
know this law has to go. I look forward to showing it the door.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 30 minutes.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Thank you very much, Mr. President.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized.
  Mr. BROWN of Massachusetts. Mr. President, I enjoyed the preceding 
presentation by the Senators dealing with issues surrounding health 
care. I think it is a very relevant discussion we need to all pay 
attention to.


                           Amendment No. 1884

  I want to talk on two issues today. I will start first with the 
crowdfunding amendment that has been offered by Senators Bennet, 
Merkley, and me--something we have been working on in a truly 
bipartisan manner, as it should be done here, and as I do many of my 
actions.
  For those of you who may be listening either up in the gallery or on 
television, crowdfunding is an opportunity for individuals to invest 
money upwards of $1,000, upwards of $1 million total--so $1,000 per 
person, totaling $1 million--not dealing with a lot of the traditional 
SEC filings that are in place and a lot of the other problems in which 
only very wealthy people in years past have been able to participate in 
these types of offerings.
  For example, right now, if I had a good idea, and I wanted some of my 
friends to invest in it, and then we go and start marketing, we could 
not do that. That is illegal. One of the President's objectives in his 
jobs speech was to talk about these new opportunities, and crowdfunding 
is one of them. He

[[Page S1895]]

supports it. The House has done a similar crowdfunding bill. We are 
actually taking this crowdfunding opportunity and putting a little bit 
more safeguard in it.
  I think our bill is different--well, I know our bill is different 
than the House bill in that the House bill does not require that you 
actually are a legal business or even some kind of incorporated legal 
forum before you try to issue stock. That bothers me somewhat in that 
you could have somebody in their living room taking people's money and 
issuing stock with no check and balance, and I think that is important.
  It also does not require that you offer securities through an 
intermediary. You could put up your own Twitter site: Buy shares is my 
great idea. Come on and buy shares.
  All the experts agree that we would need to require an intermediary, 
say, like an eBay, where the crowd can help identify the good and bad 
players, the way that eBay uses identified bad sellers on their site.
  But also, as I said, it allows investments to take place that cannot 
be done right now, and allows those entities, those groups, to take 
that money and either use it as the investment seed money to create 
those new ideas and new jobs--as we know, startup businesses are the 
entities that are actually looking to create jobs at this point--and/or 
use that money as seed money to go to a more traditional lender and 
say: Hey, we have a great idea and we also have some money to back it 
up, and we would ask you to sign on with us.
  I am hopeful the amendment comes up. I understand it is. I am looking 
forward to having that very important vote. I would appreciate, 
obviously, the Presiding Officer and everyone else giving strong 
consideration to that.


           Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act

  Mr. President, I wish to shift gears for a minute and talk about the 
Violence Against Women Act. As we know--you may not know--Jessica 
Pripstein of Easthampton, Lisa Stilkey of Douglas, Belinda Torres of 
Worcester, Kristin Broderick of Haverill, Patricia Frois of Marshfield, 
Edinalva Viera of Brighton, Milka Rivera of Lawrence, Nazish Noorani of 
East Boston, Casey Taylor of Winthrop, Alessa Castellon of Roslindale, 
Lauren Astley of Wayland, Michael Trusty of Edgartown, Janice Santos of 
Worcester, Beth Spartichino of Easton, Son Tran of Lowell, Jettie 
Lincoln of Plymouth, David Walton of Tauton, Elaine McCall of 
Wakefield, Jennifer Freudenthal of Webster, Brian Bergeron of Malden, 
Lancelot Reid of Dorchester, Joel Echols of Springfield, Maria Avelina 
Palaguachi-Cela of Brockton, Troy Burston of Medford, Joseph Scott of 
Worcester, and Aderito Cardoso of Brockton--are constituents of mine 
who have been killed by their husbands, wives, partners, girlfriends, 
or boyfriends in domestic violence incidents in 2011 and 2012 alone, 
and it is only March of this year.
  It is unacceptable. The loss of those lives is tragic. But in 
addition to the people who have lost their lives, the lives of the 
victims' children, families, and friends have been destroyed. I know 
because I was a victim of domestic violence. As a child, I watched as 
my mother was beaten by abusive stepfathers. I did what I could to 
protect my mom and my sister, but as a young boy there was only so much 
I could do.
  I remember vividly being a 6-year-old boy going to protect my mom and 
getting beaten on until the police came. It is something that still 
lives with me, and I try to use that experience and knowledge to help 
in many different ways.
  When I was growing up, quite frankly, there were not the resources 
that are available to victims today. I wish my mother had known back 
then that she was not alone. I wish she could have used one of the 
fantastic support providers that now exist in Massachusetts today. 
Since being elected to the Senate, I have been moved by the 
organizations in my State that are stepping to the plate--and 
continuously step to the plate each and every day--to provide support 
to victims of domestic violence.
  Quite frankly, as a government, we have made tremendous progress in 
helping victims get their lives back in order--not only the victims 
themselves but the family members of those victims.
  The Violence Against Women Act was first signed into law in 1994, as 
you know, and made a bold statement that we would redouble our efforts 
to support law enforcement efforts to crack down on offenders and 
assist those working in our communities to provide assistance to 
victims seeking a new life away from the violence they had been 
subjected to.
  In each reauthorization we have improved upon the previous bill and 
made it stronger and made stronger commitments to those who have been 
abused. Now is not the time--let me repeat: now is not the time--to 
take our foot off the gas and avoid dealing with this problem.
  The landmark Violence Against Women Act must be reauthorized this 
year. I am incredibly proud to have cosponsored this reauthorization 
when it first came to my attention. I believe it makes critical 
commitments against this horrific problem.

  Historically, VAWA has been a bipartisan effort, where both parties 
locked arms in support of our enforcement and victims against 
perpetrators of domestic violence. It was a glimmer of hope for an 
otherwise contentious and overly partisan atmosphere. I have to tell 
you--this is not the first time I have said this--but there is no 
Democratic bill that is going to pass, there is no Republican bill that 
is going to pass, for those listening. It needs to be a bipartisan, 
bicameral bill that the President will sign.
  I have been deeply troubled to see that this year's reauthorization 
has become, once again, partisan. There is no reason for it. There is 
no excuse for it. We just did the Hire a Hero veterans bill, we did the 
3-percent withholding, we are doing the insider trading, we did the 
highway bill. There is no reason we cannot do the VAWA bill on a 
completely nonpartisan basis.
  I am on the floor today to call on my colleagues to band together and 
pass this reauthorization and send a very strong signal to Americans 
that the Senate--yes, the Senate--stands united in recognizing victims 
from across the country, to give them the help they need and, 
obviously, deserve.
  In Massachusetts, VAWA is supported by law enforcement and many 
service providers that are on the front lines in assisting domestic 
violence victims. I know. Previously, as an attorney, I dealt with 
family law matters. I know of the yeoman's work these entities do.
  On Friday, I will be visiting Voices Against Violence in Framingham, 
MA. They receive VAWA funding to support direct services to victims and 
survivors of sexual assault and ensure that a trained rape crisis 
counselor is available after hours and on weekends.
  The YMCA in central Massachusetts in Worcester uses those funds for a 
proactive program that has service providers working very closely with 
law enforcement to provide information to domestic violence victims and 
advocate on their behalf--at a time when, quite frankly, these folks 
need advocates.
  Because of VAWA, REACH Beyond Abuse in Waltham has supported many 
cutting-edge prevention efforts with teens and the placement of 
advocates in police departments as a symbiotic, a give-and-take 
relationship in those departments.
  The Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center in Newburyport, where my dad lives, 
used VAWA funds to establish a high-risk homicide prevention project 
and was recently recognized by the White House for their work.
  I could go on and on and on about the tremendous involvement and 
great organizations not only in my State but throughout this country 
that are making a difference in the lives of victims. We need to stand 
as a body and not get into party rhetoric, and declare to women across 
America that they are not alone in this fight. We need to do everything 
in our power to help the millions of women like my mom who were once in 
this situation and are now survivors. And we need to help them become 
survivors, not victims. So I call upon my colleagues to join me in 
sending a very strong bipartisan vote and get this done.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cardin). Will the Senator withhold his 
request?

[[Page S1896]]

  Mr. BROWN of Massachusetts. Yes. I am sorry. I did not see the 
Senator.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from 
Massachusetts for his remarks in support of the Violence Against Women 
Act. I believe the bill will be before us shortly. We will count on 
Senator Brown's vote. So we look forward to that.


                  TRIBUTES TO SENATOR BARBARA MIKULSKI

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to a 
public servant, a social worker, and a tenacious advocate for 
vulnerable Americans. I rise today to honor a trailblazer and a mentor 
for me and countless others. I rise today to honor an outstanding U.S. 
Senator from Maryland and the dean of the Senate women, my friend 
Barbara Mikulski.
  I am privileged to have represented California in this body for 
almost 20 years. When I first ran for the Senate, back in 1992, I 
received a call from Barbara Mikulski, personally urging me on and 
reaching out to provide encouragement.
  I have relied on her advice, her friendship, and the Mikulski brand 
of candor ever since. As a matter of fact, one of my fondest evenings 
was a three-onion martini right down the street.
  It is hard to believe, but when Senator Mikulski took office in 1987, 
there was only one other woman in this body, Senator Nancy Kassebaum, 
later Nancy Kassebaum Baker, the great Republican Senator from Kansas. 
Increasing the number of women in the Senate has been painfully slow. 
In 1991, the ranks of women in this body rose to three, then later to 
seven after the 1992 election. Today we have 17 women in this body and 
76 in the House. As Senator Mikulski reflected in the Washington Post 
last year:

       Women were so rare even holding statewide political office 
     [back then] . . . I was greeted with a lot of skepticism from 
     my male colleagues. Was I going to go the celebrity route or 
     the Senate route? I had to work very hard.

  And she has. Barbara has worked very hard to become an outstanding 
legislator and a trailblazing public official. Let me list a few of her 
firsts. She was the first female Democrat to serve in both Chambers of 
Congress--that in itself is impressive--the first female Democrat to be 
elected to the Senate without succeeding her husband or her father; the 
first woman to chair a Senate appropriations subcommittee; the first 
woman to serve a quarter century in the Senate; and the first woman 
elevated to a Senate leadership position.
  She is the only current Member of Congress in the National Women's 
Hall of Fame. And she is not done yet. Just last week, Barb achieved 
another historic first. According to the Senate Historical Office, she 
reached 12,858 days of service, becoming the longest serving female 
Member of Congress in our Nation's history.
  Senator Mikulski was born and raised in Baltimore. Determined to make 
a difference in her community--and you know that well, Mr. President--
and guided by her Catholic belief and a belief in social justice, she 
became a social worker, helping at-risk children and educating seniors 
about Medicare. She once said, ``I feel that I am my brother's keeper 
and my sister's keeper.'' Social work evolved into community activism 
when Barb successfully organized communities against a plan to build a 
highway through Baltimore's Fells Point neighborhood.
  Shortly thereafter, in 1971, she was elected to the Baltimore City 
Council where she served 5 years. That was about the time I was elected 
to the Board of Supervisors in 1970 in San Francisco. In 1976, she ran 
for Congress and won, representing Maryland's 3rd District for a 
decade. She was then elected to the Senate and has won reelection in 
1992, 1998, 2004 and 2010 by large majorities.
  As I said, Barb is an accomplished legislator. She is also one of the 
very best. She cares passionately about quality education and ensuring 
every student has access to higher education. She is a fighter for stem 
cell research to cure our most tragic and debilitating diseases. She is 
a tireless advocate for the National Institutes of Health. And she is a 
leader on women's health, writing law requiring Federal standards for 
mammograms, and a fearless proponent of breast and cervical cancer 
screenings and treatment for uninsured women.
  We serve together on the Intelligence Committee. She asks some of the 
most prescient questions. I have seen her commitment to the FBI, to 
fighting terrorism, and also to cybersecurity where she headed a task 
force for our committee that has resulted in the cybersecurity 
legislation newly pending.
  Finally, she has led the way to strengthen pay equity for women. The 
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act is the law of the land today 
because of Barbara Mikulski's effort. As Barb said when we passed the 
bill:

       I believe that people should be judged solely by their 
     individual skills, competence, unique talent and nothing else 
     in the workplace. Once you get a job because of your skill 
     and talent, you better get equal pay for equal work.

  Or, in a manner that best captures Barb's candor, she said, ``Women 
of America, square your shoulders, put on your lipstick, suit up, and 
let's close that wage gap once and for all.'' To me, that is classic 
Barbara Mikulski.
  Let me close with a story. Every so often at Barbara's leadership, 
the Senate women get together for dinner. There is no agenda or staff, 
just Republican women, Democratic women, and a lot of lively 
conversation. We talk about our families, we talk about the workplace, 
we talk about the world, and, of course, we even talk, to some extent, 
about this place. Sometimes we enjoy Senator Mikulski's world-famous 
crab cakes, the best you will ever taste, and second only to the 
Dungeness crab of the west coast, I might add. If you have not, make 
sure you try the recipe on her Web site. We talk about our families and 
the way we can work together. It is a throwback to the civility of the 
Senate. These dinners are when Barb really stands out as the dean of 
Senate women.
  Women in this country have always had to fight for the most basic of 
rights. I think young women forget that it was not until 1920 that we 
were able to vote in this country, and it was only because women fought 
for it. Barb will be the first to say her milestones are symbols of how 
far she has come. But she will also show us how much farther women have 
to go.
  Today we take it for granted that a woman can be Secretary of State--
we have had two--or Speaker of the House--we have had one or a 
candidate for President. Not quite yet. Oh, no, I take that back. We 
have had one. And one day soon, a woman will sit in the Oval Office of 
this great country. When she does, she will owe a great deal to Barbara 
Mikulski.
  But on this day, let the Congressional Record of this Senate reflect 
and forever record that Senator Barbara Mikulski is the longest serving 
woman in the history of the United States Congress, and this country is 
forever better because of it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I came here to talk on another matter, but 
I wish to take a few minutes to talk about my friend Barbara Mikulski. 
We have served a long time together. When she came to this body, I 
think I may have been chairman of what was then called the Labor and 
Human Resources Committee, now the Health, Education, Labor and 
Pensions Committee.
  From the day she got on that committee, she made a difference in 
every way, not just for women but for every single American in this 
country. I have a tremendous amount of profound respect for Senator 
Mikulski and what she has been able to accomplish.
  Let me mention one thing. Back in the early 1990s, she and I worked 
together on what was called the FDA Revitalization Act. That act was a 
very important one, because we had the FDA spread out all over the 
Greater Washington, DC, area, probably 30, 35 different offices, some 
of which were in converted chicken coops. It was ridiculous to have 
these top scientists in anything but a centralized location with top 
computerization and all of the other scientific instruments they need 
to do this work for the American people. I have to say that Barbara 
Mikulski played a pivotal role in helping to

[[Page S1897]]

develop that tremendous facility. I want you to know that I do not 
think it would have been developed without her effort and her dogged 
work to make sure that we now have a centralized--and it still needs 
improvement but centralized FDA campus that literally is saving the 
lives of millions of people and making the lives of millions of people 
better.
  I could go on and on. But I have a lot of respect for my 
distinguished colleague from Maryland. I would feel badly if I did not 
get up and tell people how much I do respect her. She believes in what 
she does. She loves this body, most of the time, I think. And she cares 
for her follow Senators. We care for her. I want her to know that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleagues in honoring 
our friend and colleague who is often regarded as the dean of the women 
in the Senate, Barbara Mikulski.
  Earlier this week Senator Mikulski added to her already long list of 
accomplishments the distinction of being the longest serving female 
Member of Congress in the history of the United States of America.
  Senator Mikulski's life is a story of the American dream. Raised in a 
working-class immigrant family in the east Baltimore neighborhood of 
Highlandtown, Senator Mikulski learned at a young age about the 
struggles of working families and ethnic Americans and the value of 
paying it forward.
  She helped at her father's grocery store, which opened early in the 
morning so that steelworkers could buy lunch before their morning 
shift. She delivered food to seniors and families when parts of her 
neighborhood were set on fire after the assassination of Dr. Martin 
Luther King. At one point she even rode on the top of a tank to deliver 
the groceries.
  Senator Mikulski's roots helped shape her role today as a mentor, 
fighter, and true public servant. She worked as a social worker for 
Catholic Charities, helping at-risk children and counseling seniors on 
Medicare. She had her start in politics as a community organizer and 
social worker.
  In 1970--one side of Barbara Mikulski her colleagues have certainly 
seen is her dogged determination--she organized Marylanders to stop a 
16-lane highway project that would have threatened Fells Point and 
another neighborhood in Baltimore. She got the job done. Many people 
say that work helped to save Fells Point and the Inner Harbor, two of 
the showcase areas in the great city of Baltimore. She gave a speech at 
Catholic University to a Catholic conference on the ethnic American. It 
caught the attention not only of people in Baltimore but far beyond its 
reach as she talked about her family story and the story of millions 
just like her.
  One year later, she ran for and won a seat on the Baltimore City 
Council--the first step in her now 41-year career in public service.
  Over the course of the Senate's 223-year history, there have only 
been 38 female Members; the first, Rebecca Latimer Felton, of Georgia, 
was appointed for political reasons to fill a vacancy, and she served 
only a single day in 1922.
  Senator Mikulski has so many firsts in her story of public service. 
She was the first woman elected to the Senate in her own right--the 
first--and not because of a husband or father or someone who served 
before her in higher office. She was the first woman Democrat to serve 
in both Chambers of Congress--the first. Last year, she was inducted 
into the National Women's Hall of Fame for her trailblazing political 
career, including, with this recognition today, becoming the longest 
serving woman Senator in the history of our Nation.
  Given her years of experience, it is no wonder other Members of 
Congress have turned to her for guidance, men and women alike.
  I can recall so many meetings of our Democratic caucus when, after a 
long debate involving many people saying many things, Barbara Mikulski 
would stand and, in a few terse words, get it right. At the end of the 
day people would say: That is what we ought to do. She has this insight 
based on her life experience and her ability to try to peel through the 
layers of the political onion and get to the heart of the issue.
  Following the election of a number of esteemed women into the Senate, 
a lot of reporters deemed 1992 as ``The Year of the Woman.'' Senator 
Mikulski's response was so typical and so right. This is what she said:

       Calling 1992 the ``year of the woman'' makes it sound like 
     the ``year of the caribou,'' or the ``year of asparagus.'' We 
     are not a fad, a fancy, or a year.

  That was typical Barbara. Senator Mikulski rises above and beyond all 
that. From her first days in the Senate in 1987, she has fought an 
uphill battle to address the most important issues of national 
importance.
  First and foremost for her is her family, next is her great State of 
Maryland. She is a fearless advocate, and I know the Presiding Officer 
knows that better than most as her colleague from that great State.
  She has supported educational initiatives, veterans causes, 
interstate commerce, access to health care and women's health and fair 
pay.
  The Chair knows the answer to this question, but some of those 
listening to the debate might not. What was the first bill that the 
newly elected President Barack Obama signed in the White House with a 
public ceremony? It was a bill Barbara Mikulski pushed hard for, the 
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, so women going to work all 
over the United States--not just in the Senate--would get a fair shake 
when it comes to the compensation for the jobs they did. It was 
President Obama's first bill. When he signed it, the very first pen he 
handed over to Senator Barbara Mikulski. I was there and I saw it.
  Championed by Senator Mikulski, the long-awaited and much needed bill 
clarifies time limits for workers to file unemployment discrimination 
lawsuits, making it easier for people to get the pay they deserve 
regardless of race, age or gender.
  I wish to start here--but I don't know where I would end--to talk 
about the important issues she has worked for. Let me talk about health 
care for a minute. When we set out to pass this historic affordable 
health care act, Barbara was assigned the job to make sure it connected 
with the families and workers across America in a very real way, to 
make sure that at the end of the day we weren't talking to ourselves or 
engaged in political gibberish but passing a law that could literally 
change a life for the better. She led that effort and made invaluable 
contributions to the substance of that bill.
  We knew those provisions would be important and that they would work 
because we knew where Barbara Mikulski came from and we knew where her 
political heart resides. While it is a milestone to celebrate Senator 
Mikulski's distinction as the longest serving woman in the Congress, 
there is a much greater cause for celebration; Senator Mikulski's 
decades of service to this Nation is an admirable feat for any man or 
woman.
  I extend my congratulations to my colleague and friend Senator 
Mikulski for this milestone. Thank you for what you have done for the 
Senate, for the State of Maryland, and for our great Nation.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant editor of the Daily Digest proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the hour of 2:30 having arrived, it is my 
honor and my pleasure to rise to honor a patriot, a pioneer, and now 
the longest serving woman in the Congress of the United States ever, 
and that is the senior Senator from Maryland Barbara Mikulski.
  Barbara and I served together in the House, and we came to the Senate 
together in 1986. I remember that day so well, when we had our first 
appearance in the Senate as new Senators. It was quite a moving event 
for me. But one of the events I remember about that day is the 
presentation of Senator Mikulski.
  We all said a word or two, and everything we said will be long 
forgotten. But what Barbara Mikulski said, in the way she has of saying 
things, will not be forgotten.

[[Page S1898]]

  Here is this woman who is not even as tall as my wife, who is 5 feet 
tall, but she said, ``I slam-dunked Linda Chavez,'' her opponent. That 
said it all.
  That was the beginning of my working closely with this good woman. 
She has been a friend, an inspiration to me in so many different ways 
in the time we have served together. When we got on the Environment and 
Public Works Committee, she was here, and I was here. She was always 
ahead of me in seniority because of her longer service in the House. On 
the Appropriations Committee, for more than two decades, I was here, 
she was here. She was always one ahead of me.
  Barbara was the first Democratic woman elected to the Senate in her 
own right. Last year, she surpassed the legendary Margaret Chase Smith 
of Maine as the longest serving woman in the history of the Senate. On 
Saturday, she officially surpassed Congresswoman Edith Nourse Rogers of 
Massachusetts, who, by the way, served in the House from 1925 to 1960 
as the longest serving woman in the history of the Congress.
  Senator Mikulski's service--and the service of many female Members of 
Congress--has paved the way for girls of today to know they can become 
Senators, they can become professional basketball players, and they can 
be engineers and doctors. The sky is the place they need to go, and 
that is where they believe they can go because of the work that has 
been done by Barbara Mikulski.
  When I came to the Senate with her, she was the only woman who served 
in the Senate as a Democrat. There was one other Republican at the 
time. Now, since then, Mr. President, I have watched very closely on 
this side of the aisle. Now we have 12 Democrats, and if the elections 
turn out the way I hope they do--and I am cautiously optimistic they 
will--we will have 17 women who are Democrats in the Senate.
  She has been truly a trailblazer. We recognize Barbara's achievements 
today and her outstanding record as a tireless advocate for the State 
of Maryland. She grew up in the Highlandtown neighborhood of east 
Baltimore. She learned the value of hard work by working in and 
watching her dad, especially, open that family grocery store and work 
from early in the morning until night. He sold lunch to steelworkers 
and other people who came by that little grocery store.
  In high school she was educated by the nuns at the Institute of Notre 
Dame. She credits the nuns with instilling in her faith and a thirst 
for justice. She went on to study at Mount Saint Agnes College, which 
is now part of Loyola College in Maryland. She earned her master's 
degree in social work from the University of Maryland.
  Barbara was a social worker and has always been proud of the fact 
that she has been a social worker. She was employed by Catholic 
Charities and the City of Baltimore's Department of Social Services. I 
can imagine what a dynamo she was--and she still is. There is no work 
harder than being a social worker. The problems one sees and has to 
deal with are extremely difficult.
  During her years as a social worker, she was a powerful voice for 
children and seniors in need of an advocate. Barbara Mikulski then and 
now is an advocate. It was there the spark for service and activism was 
lit, but it was a plan to build a 16-lane highway that fanned the 
flames that had been lit by her activism.
  The highway would have gutted historic Fells Point, a neighborhood 
that she believed should have been protected. It would have uprooted 
homeowners in a majority African-American neighborhood. She organized 
the residents of Fells Point and Baltimore's Inner Harbor and stopped 
the construction of that highway.
  That is a testament to the power of democracy that she believes in 
with all her soul. Looking back on that triumph, Senator Mikulski said:

       I got into politics fighting a highway. In other countries, 
     they take dissidents and put them in jail. In the United 
     States of America, because of the First Amendment, they put 
     you in the United States Senate. God bless America.

  She has always been an advocate for the disenfranchised and 
disadvantaged in this country, but she has also been an advocate for 
dissidents in other countries, of whom she has spoken so eloquently on 
so many occasions. Her family was Polish. She has heard all the Polish 
jokes, and she has withstood a little of the ``barbs'' when 
neighborhoods were different than they are now. But she took special 
pleasure and was so proud of her heritage.
  Barbara took a special interest in the plight of Polish people 
oppressed under communism. We know in 1980 the people of Poland started 
a fledgling little group called Solidarity--a movement to engage in 
nonviolent resistance against communism and in support of social 
change.
  Senator Mikulski and I had the wonderful pleasure of traveling under 
the guidance of a trip led by John Glenn--a world famous man then and 
now. It was a wonderful trip for a couple of new Senators. The Iron 
Curtain was down, and it was down hard, but we went to Poland on a 
codel. I can remember we had the opportunity to meet with members of 
the Solidarity movement. We met in secret with them, in a secret 
location, and Senator Glenn talked, Senator Stevens, then a senior 
member of the Senate at the time spoke, and I said I would like to hear 
from Senator Mikulski.
  Now, Mr. President, I am not articulate enough to explain the 
presentation she made extemporaneously, but this powerful woman stood 
and talked about her heritage and her religion and what that meant to 
the people of America and what it should mean to the people of Poland. 
It was truly--and I have told her this personally over the years on 
several occasions to remind her--one of the most heart-warming, 
stirring speeches I have ever been present to listen to. She spoke to 
the people assembled there--there weren't many of them--as a fellow 
activist. She spoke as an American of Polish descent and a fellow 
Catholic. She spoke as one of them. When that presentation was 
completed, everyone knew she was one of them.

  It took almost a decade for the Solidarity movement to strike victory 
in Poland, and I know Senator Mikulski's speech was not the reason, but 
I guarantee you it was one of the reasons they had the audacity and the 
courage to proceed as they did.
  Remember, Poland was an interesting country. It was the only country 
behind the Iron Curtain where the Communists could not destroy their 
educational system, and that was because of the strength of the 
Catholic Church in Poland at that time. Solidarity's victory in Poland 
inspired a stream of peaceful anti-Communist revolutions that 
eventually caused the fall of communism entirely all over Eastern 
Europe.
  Barbara's Polish ancestry and the Polish community in which she grew 
up in Baltimore were very important to her, but I never knew it until 
that moment in Warsaw with those few members of Solidarity who were 
assembled to honor us.
  Her great-grandmother had come here from Poland with just a few 
pennies in her pocket--literally--but she had a dream of a better life 
for her and her family. This is what Barbara Mikulski said about her 
great-grandmother.

       She didn't even have the right to vote, and in this great 
     country of ours, in three generations, I joined the United 
     States Senate.

  It was a remarkable feat for her. But, more importantly, it was a 
confirmation of the American dream. For Barbara, what began as 
community activism, a fight against a highway, grew into a successful 
career in public service.
  I just want to add a side note, Mr. President, and talk about 
something very personal to me. When Senator David Pryor got sick, he 
was the Democratic conference secretary in the Senate. That opened up a 
spot in the Senate leadership. That was something I thought would be 
interesting to me. It was known who was interested in filling that 
spot, and I knew Barbara was interested.
  I went to Barbara and said: Barbara, if you want it, it is yours. Two 
years later, Wendell Ford decided he was going to retire. He was the 
whip. I can still remember that morning walking from the Hart Building 
over to the Russell Building, in that long walkway there, and I saw 
Barbara Mikulski. I didn't say a word to her.
  She said: I want to talk to you. She said: You supported me when I 
wanted to be the conference secretary. You

[[Page S1899]]

want to be the whip, I am supporting you. But for Barbara Mikulski, I 
would not have had that leadership position. Once the Democratic caucus 
knew Barbara Mikulski supported me, it was all over. I won. And I won 
because she came to me, as she did that morning.
  So, Mr. President, my respect, admiration, and love for this woman is 
difficult for me to describe, but it is there. Barbara Mikulski ran for 
Congress and won after serving on the city council of Baltimore for 5 
years. She represented Maryland's Third District for 10 years before 
winning the seat in the Senate she now holds.
  Again, I appreciate all she has done for me--so many different things 
she has done for me. As a very able member of the Appropriations 
Committee and somebody who loves this institution, I am in awe of the 
legislative record of this amazing woman.
  She has been a dedicated representative not only for the State of 
Maryland but the State of Nevada. One thing she did for me--and there 
have been a lot of them--when we were new Senators and she was on one 
of the subcommittees of the Appropriations Committee concerning 
veterans benefits and affairs, as a favor to me she traveled to Reno, 
NV, to look at an old veterans hospital. She went through it and said: 
This is not the way a veterans hospital should be, and I, Barbara 
Mikulski, am going to change it. And she did.
  Through the appropriations process we renovated and improved that 
hospital so it was one of the better hospitals at the time. So I am 
grateful for this good woman, an advocate for parity for women on 
everything from salary to health care access. But for Barbara Mikulski 
the National Institutes of Health would not have a center for women. 
She got a little upset when she learned they had done a study of the 
effect of aspirin on people's hearts and she realized they had tested 
10,000 people and they were all men.
  I had a situation that arose in Nevada about at the same time where 
three women came to me who had something called interstitial cystitis, 
a devastating, debilitating, painful disease that is described as 
running slivers of glass up and down your bladder. It was said to be a 
psychosomatic disease. These women had nowhere to go. I talked to 
Barbara Mikulski about this, and now 40 percent of these women have 
medicine that takes away their symptoms totally.
  I could go on here a long time, as everyone can see. But I do it 
because I congratulate Barbara on this milestone, which is so important 
to me and the Senate, and to tell her how much Nevada appreciates her. 
It is not just for Maryland. She has done things for the entire 
country.
  I wish her well for years to come.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader is recognized.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, it is my honor to be here this 
afternoon to extend, on behalf of the Republican Conference of the U.S. 
Senate, our respect and admiration for the senior Senator from Maryland 
on achieving this important milestone.
  I am sure she would be the first to tell you that becoming the 
longest serving woman in the Congress wasn't easy. A life in public 
service is filled with many highs and lows. But Barbara is nothing if 
not both tough and resilient.
  Barbara would point to her upbringing as the daughter of a Baltimore 
grocer, where she learned firsthand how hard work, honesty, and 
determination can lead to a successful and rewarding life. She later 
learned, while fighting a freeway that would have destroyed several 
Baltimore communities, including her own, that if you fought hard 
enough for something you believed in, you too can make a difference. So 
if you knew Barbara back then, it wouldn't surprise you we are honoring 
her today.
  Last year, when Senator Mikulski became the longest serving female 
Senator, she said she never saw herself as a historical figure. To me, 
Barbara said, history is powdered wigs and Jane Addams and Abigail 
Adams, both pioneers in their own right.
  However, Barbara is a pioneer. She is only the second woman to be 
elected to both the Senate and the House. When first elected in 1986, 
she was only the 16th woman to serve. Today, in Congress, there are 76 
women in the House and 17 in the Senate. As dean of the Senate women, 
she served as a role model and a mentor to many of these women. To put 
this in perspective: When she first arrived in the Senate, there 
weren't any natural mentors to teach her the ways of the Senate. At the 
time, even the Senate gym was off limits. A lot has changed since then, 
and Barbara had a lot to do with it.
  Later, as more women were elected to the Senate, Barbara worked with 
them to help them understand the Senate and how best to be an effective 
Senator, both here and back home. She wanted to give back.
  Most importantly, regardless of party or issue, Barbara would push 
her female colleagues in the Senate to think differently, encouraging 
them to think of themselves as a force--a force of good and, oft times, 
a force for change. I know many are grateful not only for Barbara's 
leadership and courage but for her willingness to take the time to 
share her experiences with them. I don't want to just be a first, 
Barbara once said. I want to be the first of many.
  In 35 years, nearly 13,000 days as a Member of Congress, Barbara has 
been a champion of the space program, science research, welfare reform, 
major transportation, homeland security, and environmental issues in 
Maryland.
  I wish to recognize Barbara not only for the tremendous 
accomplishment as the longest serving female in the history of the 
United States in Congress but also for all of her many accomplishments 
in the House and the Senate. As she once said herself, it is not how 
long you serve, but it is how well you serve.
  I wish to recognize Barbara for the pioneering model she has been to 
so many women in her distinguished career.
  Congratulations, Senator Mikulski.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Stabenow). The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, Senator McConnell and I have tentatively 
worked out something so we will have votes tomorrow, not today. That 
being the case, we are not under a crunch for time here today.
  We have a number of Senators here who wish to say something regarding 
Senator Mikulski, and I wish to set up an orderly time to do that. So I 
ask that Senator Mikulski be recognized. Following that, we have 
Senator Cardin to be recognized for 10 minutes; Senator Boxer, 10 
minutes. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has been here since before 
anybody else. So following Senator Boxer, I ask that she be recognized. 
And Senator Gillibrand?
  Mrs. GILLIBRAND. At the conclusion of my colleagues' remarks, 3 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I know there are a lot of us who want to 
pay our tribute and respect to the senior Senator from Maryland, 
Senator Mikulski. I want to make sure everybody has their opportunity. 
Are we operating under a consent order?
  Mr. REID. Yes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The consent order to this point has Senator 
Cardin, followed by Senator Boxer, and then Senator Hutchison. Senator 
Kerry is asking to be recognized.
  Mr. KERRY. I believe he included my name for 10 minutes at the same 
time. Madam President, I believe Senator Reid included my name in that 
list for 10 minutes--I ask unanimous consent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Senator 
Kerry will be added, and a complete list will be put together.
  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I am glad we could get that straight.
  Let me first thank all of our colleagues who are here to pay honor to 
the senior Senator from Maryland, Senator Mikulski.
  This is March Madness in basketball. Sweet 16 is starting. We are 
very proud in Maryland of our Lady Terps. They are in the Sweet 16. But 
I want you to know that we are all getting our fantasy teams, and I 
want Senator Mikulski on my fantasy basketball team because she is a 
true leader, she understands the importance of working together, and 
she is a winner.
  We are proud of her roots in Maryland. She is the great-granddaughter 
of Polish immigrants who owned a bakery. She began her public service 
in

[[Page S1900]]

high school, where she helped deliver groceries to seniors who were 
locked in their apartments and she helped the homebound seniors get the 
food they needed. She went to the University of Maryland School of 
Social Work because she wanted to be a social worker. She wanted to 
help other people. She knew that she was good at that and she could 
make a difference in people's lives. She worked for Catholic Charities 
and dealt with children at risk and helping seniors with Medicare.
  As you have heard from several of my colleagues already, she gained 
her reputation by taking on a highway that was scheduled to be built 
that would have gone through Canton and Fells Point, disrupting a 
neighborhood in Baltimore. This was a 16-lane highway. It was 
considered to be a done deal; it was going to happen. The powers that 
be said we are going to have a highway coming through downtown 
Baltimore. The powers to be did not know Barbara Mikulski. That highway 
never happened. Senator Mikulski stopped that highway from being built.
  She then went on to serve in the Baltimore City Council with great 
distinction. Then in 1976 she was elected to the Congress for the Third 
Congressional District, a seat that was vacated by our esteemed 
colleague Paul Sarbanes, who then came into the Senate, and Barbara 
Mikulski followed in the great tradition of Senator Paul Sarbanes. In 
1986, when Senator ``Mac'' Mathias's seat became vacant, Senator 
Barbara Mikulski was elected to the Senate.
  She has many firsts: The first female Democrat elected in her own 
right to serve the United States Senate. At the time she was elected to 
the Senate, she was only one of two female Senators. Today, we have 17 
female Senators in the Senate in large part because of Senator Barbara 
Mikulski. I know the Presiding Officer was part of that expansion. You 
will hear how Senator Mikulski was not only a role model and an 
inspiration but an incredible help to get more women elected to the 
Senate.
  Last year we joined in this body to celebrate Senator Mikulski 
becoming the longest serving woman in the history of the Senate, 
surpassing Margaret Chase Smith from the State of Maine. Then on this 
past Saturday, on St. Patrick's Day, she became the longest serving 
woman in the history of the Congress, replacing Edith Nourse Rogers 
from Massachusetts who served, as the majority leader pointed out, from 
1925 to 1960.
  Marylanders understand longevity records. We are very proud of Cal 
Ripken and the record he held in baseball. Senator Mikulski's, like Cal 
Ripken's, legacy is what she has done in office to make a difference, 
not the length of her service. She is a fierce and effective advocate 
for so many causes. We have heard about her accomplishments in 
education and health care, what she has done to advance sensible health 
care to improve quality for the people of this country. That was her 
mission in the Affordable Care Act, to make sure that we had the 
delivery systems in place that would deliver quality health care, and 
Senator Mikulski's leadership was critical in that regard.
  She has been a leader in women's health care issues. I will never 
forget her reminder to all of us in the caucus: Don't forget women's 
health care issues when you bring that bill to the floor. And we 
didn't. We put that in under Senator Mikulski's leadership. We talked 
about breast cancer and cervical cancer screenings. Senator Mikulski 
has been in the leadership on all those issues.
  We in Maryland are proud to be where the National Institutes of 
Health is headquartered. Its growth in large measure has been the 
result of Senator Barbara Mikulski. We are proud of HOPE VI and 
housing. Senator Mikulski has been in the forefront of that program, 
making it possible for many people in our community to have decent, 
affordable, and safe housing.
  Senator Mikulski has been critically important to America's space 
program. I have been with her many times at Goddard and seen firsthand 
the results of her advocacy and what it has meant. The Hubble space 
telescope is another legacy of which Senator Mikulski can be rightly 
proud.
  We in Maryland are also proud to house NSA, the National Security 
Agency, with its new mission with the cyber command located in 
Maryland. Senator Mikulski, as Senator Feinstein pointed out, has been 
one of the real leaders on national security issues. We can't issue 
press releases on this. She is a member of the intelligence committee. 
She works behind closed doors to keep us safe. But we all know that she 
is one of the key leaders in this Nation on national security issues.
  We know about pay equity and the Lilly Ledbetter law, the first bill 
signed by President Obama. It was Senator Mikulski's leadership that 
got that bill to the President's desk, recognizing that we are still 
not where we need to be on gender pay equity in America.
  In our region, the Chesapeake Bay is center to our way of life and 
our economy. Senator Mikulski has been one of the real champions on 
water quality and the Chesapeake Bay. She understands the respect for 
State and local government, that we have to work together as a team. I 
know the Governor of Maryland, Governor O'Malley, would agree with me 
that there is no better friend to the people of Maryland working with 
the State than Senator Barbara Mikulski, getting the Federal Government 
on the same page as the State and local governments to get things done 
for the people of Maryland. That is true with what she has been able to 
do for all of us working across the Nation.
  I think the Baltimore Sun put it best when it said:

       There is nobody more feisty, more willing to take on big 
     business, big government, or anyone when it is time to look 
     out for the interests of her constituents.

  I think all of us would agree.
  On a personal note, I thank Senator Mikulski for her friendship, I 
thank her for being my buddy and my adviser. Whether she is with 
Presidents or Kings or the patrons at Jimmy's Restaurant in Fells 
Point, you get the same common sense, the same down-to-earth person--
you get Senator Barb. We are so proud of her.
  Thank you, Senator Barb, for what you have done to make this Nation a 
better place to live. Thank you for being such a role model for young 
people, especially young women, to get involved, to make a difference. 
Thank you on behalf of my two granddaughters. Their future is much 
brighter, their opportunities are much greater because of you, Senator 
Barb.
  Congratulations. Your colleagues here want to express our love and 
respect and admiration for your incredible service.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Merkley). The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, what an incredible milestone Senator 
Mikulski has reached. The words of her colleagues and the love they 
feel for her are coming through. It is a wonderful thing for me to be 
part of this tribute. I don't know how many Senators would have the 
Governor of their State here--Your Honor; and the former distinguished, 
incredible Senator Paul Sarbanes is here. That in itself, Senator 
Mikulski, is testimony to your status among all of us.
  So many of us are here in the Senate because Barbara Mikulski knocked 
down the barriers one by one--the first Democratic woman ever elected 
to the Senate in her own right, the first woman to serve in both 
Chambers, the longest serving woman in the Senate. Now she has made 
history once again. This past Saturday, after 12,858 distinguished days 
of service, no other woman in history has served in Congress longer 
than Senator Mikulski--ever.
  Some trailblazers make history, and they are content to stand proudly 
alone. ``Aren't I great? I did it.'' But not Senator Mikulski. She 
always made clear that she was honored to be the first Democratic 
woman, but she never wanted to be the last.
  I will never forget her saying:

       Some women stare out the window waiting for Prince 
     Charming. I stare out the window waiting for more women 
     Senators.

  Well, 17 women, Republicans and Democrats, now serve in the Senate. I 
know all of us have stories to tell about how Senator Mikulski helped 
us along the way, reaching out to mentor us, encourage us, lead us and 
organize our regular meetings filled with folders and pens and pencils, 
and organizing dinners. She and Senator Hutchison teamed up. We are so 
fortunate to have

[[Page S1901]]

them working together. We get together now and then. Just in the heat 
of debate, we sit down and break bread together.
  When I considered running for the Senate in 1992, Senator Mikulski 
was the very first person I went to see, after my husband. I was 
conflicted. I had a good House seat. I was told I could hold it for as 
long as I wanted, and I was not sure I should give it up for the 
Senate. I was considered a long shot. Senator Mikulski told me the 
following: ``If you run, and I want you to run,'' she said, ``it will 
be the toughest thing you will ever do and the best thing you will ever 
do.'' And she was right.
  Those of us of a certain age have probably seen the play or the movie 
``A Man For All Seasons.'' Today we celebrate a woman who is truly a 
Senator for all seasons. Some Members have passion, others have policy 
skills, some are brilliant negotiators, others great advocates for the 
least among us, some are very serious students of history, and others 
are flatout hilarious. But I do not think our country has ever seen so 
many incredible traits combined in one Senator. Whatever the issue, she 
will address it. Whatever the problem, she will solve it. Whatever the 
wrong, she will fix it. Whatever the need, she will meet it. Whenever 
and wherever people without a voice need a champion with a keen mind, a 
sharp wit, and an unparalleled ability to speak from the heart and get 
things done, Barbara Mikulski is there. A lot of us have been there 
with her, and we have watched her and we love it and we marvel at her. 
And she does it with a sense of humor that is unparalleled. Anyone who 
has ever listened to a speech or interview with Senator Mikulski has 
heard her utter these incredible quips, which I fondly called 
``Mikulski-isms.''
  She has called us women into battle by asking us to go ``earring to 
earring'' with our opponents. She has challenged us to square our 
shoulders, suit up, put our lipstick on, and fight. She has said often 
that women do not want to talk about gender but an agenda that helps 
America's families.
  When asked by Glamour Magazine how she felt about being named 
Glamour's Woman of the Year along with singer Madonna, Senator Mikulski 
replied, ``She's got her assets, I have mine, and we both make the best 
of what God has given us.''
  When asked about the different perspective women bring, she often 
says, ``Women, we are not so much about macro issues but, rather, the 
macaroni and cheese issues.'' Who else could say that better?
  When discussing the challenges women face in politics with a group of 
female parliamentarians from around the world, this is what Barbara 
Mikulski explained to them when they asked about what is it like and is 
it tough. She said:

       Let's put it this way. In an election, if you are married, 
     you are neglecting him; if you are single, you couldn't get 
     him; if you are divorced, you couldn't keep him; and if you 
     are widowed, you killed him.

  Then there was one of my favorite Mikulski moments. This is a 
treasured moment. The women of the House still hadn't managed to 
integrate the House gym, so we were relegated to this tiny room with 
old-fashioned, hooded hair dryers and hardly any room to move. But 
there were very few of us, and we decided to make the most of it by 
having an aerobics class. Of course, coming from California, I 
organized it.
  In came Geraldine Ferraro, Barbara Kennelly, Olympia Snowe, Barbara 
Mikulski, and me. Our instructor started the class by asking us to 
stretch our arms way up, and we do.
  Groans.
  ``Put your hands on your hips.''
  More groans.
  Now she says, ``Bend from the waist.''
  Suddenly, a voice bellows from the back of the room: ``If I had a 
waist, I wouldn't be here.''
  We all turned around to see Senator Mikulski, and we just cracked up. 
Needless to say, that was the end of the aerobics class.
  As funny as she can be, I can't think of anyone more resilient than 
Barbara Mikulski. I remember when she was mugged a few years back, one 
evening outside her home in Baltimore. A man pushed her to the ground 
and grabbed her purse. It was terrifying--for the mugger. He had no 
idea whom he was dealing with. At 4 feet 11, Senator Mikulski fought 
back and defended herself, just like she defends the people she 
represents, just like she defends women and families, just like she 
defends equal pay and equal rights and civil rights and the health care 
of our citizens and the dignity of our seniors.
  The truth is, the Senate used to be a very lonely place for women, 
but Senator Mikulski changed that. From the day she was first sworn in, 
she has carried the challenges, the hopes, and the dreams of millions 
of women with her. Barbara Mikulski has inspired generations of young 
women everywhere. She has given them the confidence that they can do 
it, too, because even as we celebrate this incredible milestone, I know 
Senator Mikulski's greatest hope is that a young girl growing up today 
will be inspired to follow in her footsteps and one day to break her 
record. When that happens, it will be because Barbara Mikulski--our 
dean, our cherished leader, our Senator for all seasons--opened the 
doors of the Senate wide enough to let the women of America walk in.
  Thank you, Barbara Mikulski.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I am pleased to stand and add my 
experiences with and admiration for Senator Barbara Mikulski. It is 
fitting that she is now the longest serving woman in the U.S. Congress.
  When I first got here--I was elected in 1993--Barbara Mikulski, as 
the dean of the women in the Senate, had a workshop the previous year 
for the newly elected Democratic women Senators. When I arrived in 
1993, she expanded it to include all new women Senators, and her sort 
of opening comment was, civility starts with us.
  Surely, she has carried through as the dean of the women of the 
Senate to ensure that all the new women get their bearings in the 
Senate, that they get the advice of the ones who have been here before. 
It has been a huge help and really a fun opportunity for us to get to 
know each other on a personal level as we have our women Senators' 
dinners.
  From this came a book Senator Mikulski and I worked on together. The 
genesis of the book--which became ``Nine and Counting,'' the nine women 
Senators who were here in the year 2000--came from a meeting called by 
Senator Mikulski to meet with the women of Northern Ireland, along with 
the women of Ireland, when there was so much strife in that country. 
Barbara Mikulski called all of the women Senators together, our nine, 
to give encouragement and advice to the women who were trying to bring 
the people of Ireland and Northern Ireland together so that there could 
be a peaceful conclusion to the conflicts in Northern Ireland. From 
that, as we were sharing our stories to show the women of Northern 
Ireland how much they could do, from our experiences and our overcoming 
of obstacles, Barbara Mikulski and I sat down and said:

       You know, I think we have a book here. If each of the nine 
     women Senators could write a chapter about our obstacles and 
     our beginnings in politics and help encourage other young 
     women and girls to aspire to and be able to succeed in 
     politics, then we ought to do it.

  So we worked with a publisher. We got together and decided how we 
would lay it out. We then decided as a group that we would give all of 
the proceeds to the Girl Scouts of America because almost each of us 
had been a Girl Scout at one point.
  From so from that we put a book out, which is still being sold here 
in the Senate bookshop called ``Nine and Counting.'' It has given a lot 
of money to the Girl Scouts of America, to a leadership fund so that 
they can continue to create girls who will be leaders in our 
country. But that started with the meeting Barbara put together for 
those of us who could maybe give advice and help these women of 
Northern Ireland.

  When I came into the Senate in 1993, the first thing I wanted to do 
was give equal treatment to women who work at home in their ability to 
save for retirement as those who workout outside the home. I had the 
experience, as a single working woman, of putting aside some money for 
my IRA, and then when I married my husband Ray, I found out I could put 
aside only $250 in an IRA. I said: Wait a minute. Why would someone 
working inside the home--a woman

[[Page S1902]]

who is probably going to need retirement security more than any of us--
not be able to save for her own retirement security if she is a married 
woman? So I authored the Homemaker IRA, and of course I wanted to have 
a Democrat lead because we had a Democratic Congress. So I asked 
Senator Mikulski, and she said she would absolutely sign on--as she 
always does--when it is something that is going to benefit women. So it 
became the Hutchison-Mikulski bill. I said to Barbara: I want this bill 
to pass. I don't care if my name is first. I would love to put your 
name first if you think that will help us get it through. She said: 
Absolutely not. I would not take your name off that bill for anything 
because it was your idea. There are not very many people in this body 
who would make that gesture and also put her weight behind the passage 
of the bill.
  Of all the things I have done and that we have done together, 
Barbara, and of all the things that bill is going to affect the most 
people in our country because now we have the Homemaker IRA that passed 
in 1996 that allows women--whether they are married and working at home 
or outside the home and single or married--they will be able to set 
aside the same amount. Fortunately, that amount has grown, and so it is 
not $2,000, but it can be $2,500 or $3,000 or $5,000, depending on 
their age. It is a wonderful thing we were able to do together.
  Senator Mikulski and I also worked on behalf of Afghan women. When we 
started hearing the atrocities that were happening to the women of 
Afghanistan that were brought back by great women's organizations, such 
as Vital Voices, that told stories of not only unequal treatment of 
women in Afghanistan but inhumane treatment of women in Afghanistan. 
Senator Mikulski, Senator Clinton, and I introduced the Afghan Women 
and Children Relief Act, which was signed into law in December of 2001, 
which authorized funding for women in Afghanistan and Afghan refugee 
women. Political participation was supported for Afghan women, and we 
followed up with appropriations. I have to say our Republican 
President, President Bush, and our Democratic President, President 
Obama, have always said American money will go into Afghanistan or Iraq 
or anywhere else to support equally the education of girls and boys; 
that we would support women where they are not being treated as equals 
on a human rights basis. So our Presidents have stood and, of course, 
our bipartisanship in Congress has done the right thing. Again, Senator 
Mikulski is a leader in that area.
  I cannot think of a stronger supporter in this Senate than Barbara 
Mikulski in the area of NASA. I wish to say Senator Bill Nelson also 
has been such a strong supporter, as well as Senator Lamar Alexander, 
but Senator Mikulski and I now are the--she is the chairman and I am 
the ranking Republican on the committee that is appropriating for NASA. 
We are also fortunate to have Chairman Jay Rockefeller on the 
authorizing and oversight committee for NASA. He, too, has been such a 
strong leader in assuring that we continue America's preeminence in 
space.
  When the rubber hits the road in appropriations, Senator Mikulski has 
been there to say: We are going to have the science in the Hubble 
telescope, which has given us so much information, as well the James 
Webb telescope. Now, of course, we have the human space flight issues 
and Barbara Mikulski has been right there saying, of course we are 
going to utilize the International Space Station, of course we are 
going to keep America's priorities in space because it has done so much 
for our economy and our jobs and our technology and our health care 
improvements, but it has also been a national security issue that 
Barbara Mikulski recognizes, first and foremost.
  I cannot match a lot of the stories about Barbara Mikulski and her 
personality, but I can tell you I took Barbara Mikulski to tour the 
Johnson Space Center in 2001, and we did a wonderful event at Baylor 
College of Medicine to talk about the research that is being done in 
the biomedical sciences and on the space station. I thought, I am going 
to bring Barbara where we can show her a little bit of Texas.
  We know Texas has a lot of personality and sometimes we are thought 
to have a little too much fun, but I will tell you what, Barbara is one 
of us. I brought her to the Houston rodeo. During the month of the 
Houston rodeo, everybody is ``Go Texas,'' and everybody dresses Texan, 
which means cowboy, and we have a great time. So I took Barbara 
Mikulski into the steer auction, where just this past Saturday a steer 
was sold for $460,000.
  It is a grand champion steer, I might say. All of that money goes for 
scholarships for our young people to go to college.
  Barbara came into the steer auction, and she looked around. There 
were 2,000 people at the breakfast before all these people are going to 
go and bid on the steers so we can fund scholarships. We were all 
dressed appropriately for Texas, and she reached over to my ear and she 
whispered: Now, Kay, if we were here on Monday morning and we went to a 
chamber of commerce meeting, do these people look like this? I love to 
tell that story in Houston because it gets huge laughs. She won over 
everybody in Houston. They adored her from the beginning. She put on 
her cowboy hat, she rode in the grand entry on a buckboard and she 
became an honorary Texan in our hearts. So Barbara Mikulski knows how 
to win over others.
  Let me mention one of my early experiences when I first came into the 
Senate. There was an effort to have health care reform. A program was 
put forward and this particular program had some things that were good, 
but one of the things in it was that no health insurance coverage would 
be required for women to have mammograms if they were 40 or below. I 
will tell you something, the biggest eruption in the Senate was Barbara 
Mikulski saying: Are you kidding? I will not let this go by me in the 
Senate. We are not going to say that a woman who is 40 or under is not 
going to be eligible for insurance coverage for a mammogram. It is not 
going to happen. Barbara Mikulski took the lead, and I am going to tell 
you, the first thing that came out of that plan was that provision, and 
it will never be in a plan as long as Barbara Mikulski is in the 
Senate. So I am just going to tell anybody who is looking at health 
care reform, take a little advice, don't mess with Barbara Mikulski 
because we are going to have mammograms.
  Not only that, Barbara Mikulski came forward in the next month and 
passed unanimously in the Senate a mammogram standards bill. During 
this process she learned that there were varying degrees of standards 
of mammography. She was going to make sure there were standards that 
every clinic would have, that every piece of equipment would have and 
she led the effort. It is law today.
  I will end with yet another accomplishment; that is, single-sex 
education in public schools. Senator Jack Danforth of Missouri started 
looking at the issue and said: We need to allow our public schools to 
offer single-sex education--meaning girl schools and boy schools--
because so many of us have seen that we have to adapt education for the 
needs of each individual child to the best of our ability. We know 
there are so many wonderful private schools for boys and girls, but we 
could hardly have a public school that would be single sex in this 
country in the 1990s.

  So Jack Danforth started the effort, and when he left the Senate, I 
picked it up. The more I looked at it, the more I saw the benefits to 
boys and to girls--particularly in the middle and high school grades--
were palpable. Senators Clinton, Barbara Mikulski, Susan Collins, the 
three of them, had gone to an all-girls school. I had not, but they 
knew the benefits firsthand of single-sex education. Barbara was the 
product of single-sex education, having gone to a parochial school.
  I first introduced the amendment in 1998, but it was in 2001--when 
the four of us came together--that we actually got the bill passed 
through an amendment and that amendment then not only made public 
single-sex education an option and legal, it also made it eligible for 
Federal funding grants similar to all our public schools.
  I wish to say it has been one of the joys of my time in the Senate to 
work with Senator Barbara Mikulski, and I think this 4-foot-11-inch 
mighty-might has 10 times the impact. She has made an impact on 
Congress and an impact

[[Page S1903]]

on America because she is relentless, she is reasonable, she 
understands an issue, and she understands the importance of listening 
as well as talking. She is effective and she is respected. If there is 
anyone in the Senate who doesn't like her, respect her, and work well 
with her, I have not met them. When one is the longest serving woman in 
the Senate and Congress, they have worked with a lot of people. She is 
unanimously so well regarded, I have never met an enemy of hers.
  I will close by saying the people who know her best love her most, 
and I cannot think of a finer thing to say about any person.
  Thank you.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, first of all, I wish to say what a pleasure 
it is to welcome Senator Sarbanes back. I had the pleasure of sitting 
beside him on the Foreign Relations Committee for 24 years. We miss his 
judgment and wisdom. We could use it these days.
  I wish to welcome Governor O'Malley. I can't think of a time, when 
people have stood up to laud a fellow Senator, that a Governor of their 
State is sitting and listening. All of the comments to this moment and 
beyond will undoubtedly echo the remarkable affection that everybody 
has for Barbara Mikulski and particularly the high regard in which she 
is held.

  This is a very special celebration for the longest serving woman in 
the history of the Congress, 12,862 days today and counting. In that 
time--I recall when I first came here there was one woman serving, and 
that was Senator Nancy Kassebaum--it is fair to say Barbara Mikulski 
has been one of the pivotal forces in creating and assembling what I 
would call a true ``band of sisters''--the women with whom she has 
served in the Senate, each of whom makes extraordinary contributions to 
this institution.
  We have heard from other colleagues that her career is filled with 
milestones, and it is. She is the first Democratic woman to serve in 
both Houses of Congress. She is the first Democratic woman elected to 
Senate leadership. She is the first woman elected to statewide office 
in Maryland. These are just a few.
  When Barbara came to the Senate in 1986 after 10 years in the House 
of Representatives, women were still, as she describes it--these are 
her words--``a bit of a novelty'' in the Senate. Indeed, then, it was 
only Barbara and Senator Nancy Kassebaum. But now Barbara says:

       We're not viewed as novelties. We're not viewed as 
     celebrities. We're viewed as U.S. Senators.

  One of the reasons for that is that Barbara Mikulski has demonstrated 
a seriousness of purpose, an ability to legislate, and an ability to 
make friends and bring people together that has defined her role as the 
dean of the women in the Senate.
  Some of her women colleagues in the Senate call her Dean. Others call 
her Coach Barb. But no matter what they call her, she has brought them 
together in this bipartisan sisterhood, as we just heard from the 
Senator from Texas. She holds workshops and serves as a mentor to all 
newcomers and organizes regular monthly dinners. They don't always 
agree on everything, but the dinners are what some of them have called 
a ``zone of civility,'' which is something the Senate could use a 
little more of these days. Again, it is Barbara Mikulski's example that 
helps point us in that direction.
  But for all of her firsts, I would say to my colleagues that Barbara 
Mikulski's career has never been about gender as much as it has been 
about agenda. I have had the privilege of working with her enough on 
different issues of being what she calls one of her Galahads. I have 
seen her laser focus on what is right, on her conscience, on her gut, 
on her sense of what the people of Maryland want, and what she thinks 
is her duty as a Senator. That is why I wanted her on the Speaker's 
platform in 2004 in Boston at the convention, and she delivered just 
the right message in her forceful and commanding way. She stood up 
there and declared:

       When women seek power, we don't seek it for ourselves; we 
     seek it to make a difference in the lives of other people.

  There is no arguing, as we heard from a number of colleagues, about 
what an extraordinary difference Barbara Mikulski has made in the lives 
of other people, not just Marylanders but all Americans. She has been 
an extraordinary advocate for the Goddard Space Center, for the Wallops 
Flight Facility, and for Johns Hopkins Applied Science Lab in Maryland, 
as well as the Port of Baltimore and Chesapeake Bay cleanup efforts.
  For decades, she proudly worked beside my colleague of 26 years Ted 
Kennedy. She loved Ted Kennedy and Ted Kennedy loved her. Together, on 
the Health Committee, they worked to make universal health care a 
reality. Her role when Senator Kennedy was sick was an extraordinary 
role of picking up that baton and helping to bring it across the finish 
line.
  Along the way she became a leader on women's health, fighting for 
equality in health research and making sure women get the quality of 
care they deserve. She was one of the chief sponsors of Medicaid 
financing of mammograms and Pap smears.
  Personally, I will never forget how Barbara  reacted when the 
National Institutes of Health said it would not include women in trials 
of aspirin as a preventive for heart attacks because ``their hormones 
present too many biological variables.'' Barbara  fired back: ``My 
hormones rage because of comments like that.''
  Her proudest accomplishment, she says, is the Spousal Anti-
Impoverishment Act, which helps to keep seniors from going bankrupt 
while paying for a spouse's nursing home care. But throughout her 
career, Barbara Mikulski has fought to strengthen the safety net for 
children, for seniors, and for anyone who needed somebody to stand for 
them or push open a door for them.
  That fight started in east Baltimore where her Polish immigrant 
grandparents ran a bakery and her father a grocery store. She says she 
often watched her father open the doors to his grocery store for local 
steelworkers so they could buy their lunches before the morning shift. 
She got it in her head at that time that she would rather be opening 
doors for others on the inside than knocking on doors from the outside.
  So no surprise, after college she got a job as a social worker 
helping at-risk children and educating seniors about Medicare. She got 
involved in politics by organizing community groups to stop a highway 
from going through the Highlandtown neighborhood where she grew up. Let 
me tell my colleagues, nobody had ever seen anything like her. At one 
rally, she jumped up on a table and cried:

       The British couldn't take Fells Point, the termites 
     couldn't take Fells Point, and goddamn if we'll let the State 
     Roads Commission take Fells Point.

  As they say on ESPN, the crowd went nuts, and the roads commission 
never knew what hit them. And I assure my colleagues, that was a 
nonprofane use of our Lord's name.
  Again, no surprise, that led to her election to the Baltimore City 
Council. I think that explains a lot about just how good a politician 
she is--how well she knows the street. I think every one of her 
colleagues, all of us, are in awe of Barbara's ability to focus on the 
street emotion, on the simplicity of an argument, and to be able to sum 
it up in a razor-like comment that just cuts to the quick and makes the 
rest of us who search around for the words seem pretty inept in the 
process. Whether it is at Camden Yards, Fells Point, the Eastern Shore, 
the Washington suburbs, or up along the Mason Dixon Line, Barbara  has 
her finger on the political pulse of Marylanders. She understands their 
concerns, shares their aspirations, and sums up their hopes and their 
dreams in a few short sentences that nobody else can parallel.

  If anyone expected Barbara Mikulski to accept being just a novelty or 
a celebrity in Congress, they obviously had no understanding of her 
deep roots as an immigrant, being an American, and the values she 
learned about hard work in her family.
  If anyone expects her to slow down just because she is now the 
longest serving woman in the history of Congress, they don't know 
Barbara Mikulski. A couple of years ago, Barbara  and I talked--I think 
it was at one of our retreats--about how similar Maryland and 
Massachusetts are in certain ways, especially their rural and fishing 
histories which we actually both have.

[[Page S1904]]

She told me she wasn't much of a fisherman, but she liked to hunt. The 
only problem she cited was the recoil of the rifle given that she 
stands 4 feet 11 inches tall.
  Well, it is clear from the record, clear from the comments of all of 
her colleagues, and clear from this extraordinary longest serving 
record in the Congress and all that she has accomplished that she 
stands as one of the tallest Senators and packs a punch way beyond her 
4 feet 11 inches.
  We are proud to have her as a colleague, and we are in awe of her 
ability to galvanize action, which is what this institution should be 
all about.
  Mr. LEVIN. When you read over the long list of Senator Barbara 
Mikulski's accomplishments, one word keeps coming up, ``first.'' First 
woman to be elected to the Senate from Maryland, first woman of her 
party to serve in both the House of Representatives and in the Senate, 
first woman to serve in the Senate leadership. Today we gather to honor 
Senator Mikulski, who in addition to her many firsts, now stands as the 
longest serving woman in the history of the Congress.
  Senator Mikulski began her service in Congress in 1976, and in all 
her time here since, she has championed the causes dearest to her--
causes dear to the needs of her constituents and to our Nation's most 
vulnerable citizens.
  As chairwoman of the Children and Families Subcommittee, Senator 
Mikulski has been a determined champion of the young, the old, and the 
sick. She has fought for access to higher education for every child 
because she believes ours is a nation where every young boy and girl 
should have the chance to reach his or her true potential. She has 
fought for secure pensions for seniors because she believes ours is a 
nation where, after a lifetime of work, every person should have the 
chance to enjoy their retirement. And she has fought for preventive 
screening and treatment for every woman because she believes ours is a 
nation where no one should lose a mother, daughter, or wife from a 
preventable illness.
  As chairwoman of the Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations 
Subcommittee, Senator Mikulski has led the charge to promote economic 
development, equip our first responders, and invest in science and 
research. Senator Mikulski understands the importance of the private 
sector, particularly small businesses, in creating job opportunities. 
That is why she has fought for legislation making it easier for 
businesses to make investments and hire new workers. No one has fought 
harder to support our emergency first responders than Barbara Mikulski, 
who said:

       We must protect our protectors with more than just words--
     we must protect them with the best equipment, training and 
     resources.

  Senator Mikulski is also committed to the promotion of scientific 
research and laying the groundwork for maintaining U.S. leadership in 
the area. She has advanced legislation to substantially increase the 
number of students earning degrees in science, technology, engineering, 
and math.
  As a Senator from Maryland, Senator Mikulski understands the 
importance of the Federal workforce. Many of her constituents are 
responsible for the high quality of life many of us take for granted 
every day. Whether its food inspectors, air traffic controllers, or 
medical researchers, many Marylanders who make up the Federal workforce 
contribute to our Nation's health and safety. Fortunately for them, and 
the rest of us, they have a powerful advocate in the Senate. Senator 
Mikulski said, ``I want every Federal employee to know I am on their 
side.'' Indeed she is--not only because it is in the interests of her 
State, but because she knows well that an effective Federal workforce 
is in the interests of every citizen in every State. Throughout her 
career, Senator Mikulski has fought off misguided efforts to privatize 
essential functions of the Federal workforce, and fought for fair pay 
and benefits for these committed public servants.
  Fair pay has been a focus for Senator Mikulski, and women across the 
country can be grateful for that. In 2007, the Supreme Court considered 
the case of Lilly Ledbetter, a woman who for nearly 20 years had been 
paid less than her male coworkers for equal work. In its decision, the 
Court ruled that Ms. Ledbetter could not proceed with her case, not 
because it had no merit, it did; but because of a technicality. Once 
the Supreme Court rules against you, where can you turn? Just ask Ms. 
Ledbetter; she will tell you. Senator Barbara Mikulski introduced the 
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to address the flawed Supreme Court 
decision; and on January 29, 2009, it was signed into law.
  In the Book of Genesis, the first question asked of God is ``Am I my 
brother's keeper?'' Senator Barbara Mikulski has spent a lifetime and 
built a career in answer of that question. She said:

       I feel that I am my brother's keeper and my sister's 
     keeper. I think that's why I am shaped by the words of Jesus 
     himself: Love they neighbor. And I took it seriously.

  The Senate is better off because she did. The people of Maryland are 
better off. Our Nation is better off. I am grateful not just because 
she has become the longest serving woman in the history of Congress, 
but because she has served her Nation so well.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, today I wish to offer my heartfelt 
congratulations to my esteemed colleague and dear friend, Senator 
Barbara Mikulski, on becoming the longest serving woman in the history 
of the United States Congress. This milestone, reached on March 17, 
marks 12,858 days--more than 35 years--of dedicated service to her 
beloved State of Maryland and to our Nation.
  A little more than a year ago, in January of 2011, Senator Mikulski 
began her 25th year in the Senate, surpassing my personal role model in 
public service, Senator Margaret Chase Smith, the Great Lady from 
Maine. Adding in her 10 years in the House, Senator Mikulski now 
establishes the record for longevity in either chamber, set by 
Congresswoman Edith Nourse Rogers, who represented Massachusetts but 
was born in Maine.
  For me, the special meaning of this occasion goes far beyond such 
coincidences. Just as Congresswoman Rogers and Senator Smith inspired 
young women in the past to lives in public service, Senator Mikulski 
inspires the young women of today. As a new Senator in 1997, I was 
welcomed by her kindness and helped by her wisdom. She taught me the 
ropes of the appropriations process and instituted regular bipartisan 
dinners for the women of the Senate.
  It has been a privilege to work with Senator Mikulski for 15 years. 
During that time, I have come to know her as a fighter and a 
trailblazer.
  Senator Mikulski is, above all, a hard worker. Growing up in east 
Baltimore, she learned the value of hard work at her family's grocery 
store. Her commitment to making a difference in her neighborhood led 
her to the path of service, first as social worker, then as a city 
councilor and as a Member of Congress.
  Senator Mikulski's longevity is only the preface to her story of 
exceptional accomplishment. She has fought for increased access to 
higher education for our young people and for improved health care for 
our seniors. I am proud to have fought at her side on those issues, as 
well as for increased Alzheimer's research, improved women's health 
care, and enhanced educational opportunities for nurses.
  As House colleagues during and after World War II, Margaret Chase 
Smith and Edith Nourse Rogers were instrumental in achieving full 
recognition for women in uniform. Senator Mikulski carries on that 
legacy as a determined advocate for all who serve our country. Working 
with her on the Appropriations Committee, I have witnessed firsthand 
how seriously she takes her responsibility to the American taxpayers.
  Throughout her life in public service, Senator Mikulski has lived by 
one guiding principle: to help our people meet the needs of today as 
she helps our Nation prepare for the challenges of tomorrow. It is an 
honor to congratulate Senator Barbara Mikulski for her many years of 
service, and to wish her many more.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, it is heartwarming to see such a 
spontaneous outpouring of respect and appreciation for the 
distinguished Senator from Maryland, Ms. Mikulski. It is certainly well 
deserved.
  She is one of the hardest working and most effective Senators serving 
in the Senate today. It has been a great pleasure working closely with 
her on the Appropriations Committee.

[[Page S1905]]

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, today I wish to pay tribute to our dear 
friend and colleague, the senior Senator from Maryland, Barbara 
Mikulski. This week, Senator Mikulski became the longest-serving woman 
in the history of the United States Congress. That is quite a milestone 
and I want to congratulate her on her many years of devoted service to 
the people of her home State.
  Senator Mikulski is a Maryland native. Descended from Polish 
immigrants, she was born and raised in Baltimore. She attended college 
at both St. Agnes College in Baltimore and the University of Maryland.
  After several years of working as a social worker in the Baltimore 
area, Senator Mikulski began her political career in 1971 when she was 
elected to the Baltimore City Council. She served there for 5 years 
before running for Congress in 1976. For 10 years, she represented the 
Third Congressional District of Maryland. Then, in 1986, she was 
elected to serve here in the Senate.
  Although the milestone we are recognizing today is a significant one, 
it is not the first for Senator Mikulski. Indeed, throughout her time 
in the Senate she has been a pioneer for women in public service.
  For example, Senator Mikulski was the first woman elected to 
statewide office in Maryland. She was also the first Democratic woman 
elected to a Senate seat that was not previously held by her husband. 
And, she was the first woman to serve in both the Senate and the House 
of Representatives.
  I have known Senator Mikulski a long time, having served with her in 
the Senate for over 25 years now. While she and I have often found 
ourselves on opposite sides of many issues, I have long admired her 
commitment to her principles and, most importantly, her devotion to the 
people of her home State. Indeed, she has been a stalwart and often 
times fierce advocate for the interests of Marylanders.
  I want to congratulate Senator Mikulski on this important milestone 
and I am grateful for this opportunity to pay tribute to her and to her 
many years of public service.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I greatly appreciate having this opportunity 
to join my colleagues in expressing our congratulations to Barbara 
Mikulski as she reaches another great milestone in her career of 
service to the people of Maryland in the United States Congress.
  Senator Mikulski is now the longest serving woman in the history of 
the United States Congress. Although outstanding in and of itself, it 
is an achievement that represents far more than the number of years she 
has served in the nation's Capitol. It is also a testament to her 
outstanding public service and her commitment to our future that has 
made it possible for her to help to make our great Nation both stronger 
and more secure.
  Back home, Senator Mikulski's constituents have come to appreciate 
her more and more as they have seen how hard she works to represent 
them every day. That is why they always come out in such great numbers 
every election day to make sure she will continue to do so. They can 
see the difference she has made all around them and they appreciate the 
way she has made their cities and towns better places to live.
  I have often heard Senator Mikulski referred to as the Dean of the 
Senate women, a title she has earned that was conferred upon her with 
the great admiration, affection and appreciation of those with whom she 
has served. Over the years so many of them have acknowledged the 
difference she has made in their lives with her support, her 
encouragement, her guidance and her direction. She has been such a 
great mentor to them because she has always led the best way--by 
example. It is another mark of distinction that has come to her as, 
each day, she has helped to write another chapter of the history of 
Maryland and this great Nation of ours.
  Looking back, she has played an active role in a long list of changes 
that have come to our country over the years. Because she has been at 
the forefront of so many of them she has been a role model not only for 
those with whom she has served, but for those who have been watching 
her in action back home. I have no doubt, in the years to come, many 
more women will serve in the House and the Senate who will credit 
Senator Mikulski for first giving them the idea of serving in the 
Congress. Her own record of success then assured them that it would be 
possible for them to do the same if they were willing to work hard and 
take their case to the people for their consideration.
  In the end, that is what our service in the Senate is all about--
doing everything we can so that the current generation will have the 
tools they will need to succeed and then take their place as the next 
generation of our nation's leaders. Thanks to good people like Barbara 
Mikulski the people back home know that someone cares. She has given 
them a voice and it is heard and heard clearly whenever she takes to 
the Senate floor to make their concerns known.
  I have often heard it said that the meaning of public service is 
found in the definition of the word ``service.'' That is why we are 
taking a moment today to thank Senator Mikulski for putting her 
principles and her beliefs into action all these many years for her 
beloved Maryland and the United States of America. If I may paraphrase 
the words of Abraham Lincoln, it isn't so much her years of service 
that matters so much as the service of her years. Through the years she 
has made a difference in so many ways that will be long remembered and 
celebrated.
  Congratulations, Barbara. You are setting a record pace here in the 
Senate. From this day on, you will be setting a new record every day. 
Thank you for your service, but most of all, thank you for your 
friendship. Diana and I have appreciated having the chance to come to 
know you and to work with you.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today in tribute to Senator 
Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, who has just become the longest serving 
woman in Congress, and to applaud the pioneering role that she has 
played in the evolution of the Senate.
  Things have certainly changed since 1986, when Senator Mikulski was 
elected to the Senate. When Senator Mikulski joined the Senate as the 
first Democratic woman elected in her right as opposed to filling the 
term of a spouse, the Senate looked very different. There was only one 
other woman senator, Nancy Kassebaum, a Republican from Kansas. The 
Senate had just begun to televise their proceedings the year she was 
elected. And, obviously, there were no women in leadership positions in 
the Senate.
  Senator Mikulski set out to change all that. She became the first 
woman in the Democratic leadership. She became the first woman to serve 
on the Appropriations Committee. And then she became the first woman to 
chair the Senate CJS Appropriations subcommittee.
  And things certainly have changed. Now, in the 112th Congress, there 
are 17 women, both Republican and Democrat, in the Senate overall. 
There are seven women on the Appropriations Committee alone. Five women 
chair Senate committees. Women have had significant roles in both the 
Democratic and Republican Senate leadership.
  While all of these changes were clearly not solely a function of 
Senator Mikulski's pioneering leadership, she blazed a trail as bright 
and as wide as anyone could possibly hope for. With her impassioned 
speeches, her plain spoken delivery, and her commitment to fairness and 
justice, Senator Mikulski could not be ignored or pigeonholed. She 
stood up for what she believed in, and she would not allow her voice to 
be silenced.
  Senator Mikulski cared deeply about health care issues, and women's 
health in particular. When she learned that many Federally-funded 
research protocols did not include women, she led the fight to insure 
that would never happen again. She established the Office of Women's 
Health at NIH to ensure women would always have a voice in critical 
health issues.
  One of her proudest accomplishments was working to pass the spousal 
impoverishment law, which changed the rules that forced elderly couples 
to spend all their assets and give up their home before the Government 
would help one member of the couple pay for a nursing home.
  Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention Senator Mikulski's 
efforts on

[[Page S1906]]

behalf of her beloved State of Maryland. From the crabbers of the 
Chesapeake Bay to the steelworkers at Sparrows Point to the scientists 
at Goddard to all the other families all across the State, no one has 
worked harder to give them a voice on Capitol Hill than Barbara 
Mikulski. On this historic day, I wish her the best, and I know that as 
long as she is a United States Senator, she will never stop fighting 
for what she believes is right.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, we mark March as Women's History Month, as 
a time of year for us to remember the valiant female leaders of our 
great Nation. One of them is very special to Montana. In 1916 Jeannette 
Rankin was the first woman elected to the United States Congress, 4 
years before women were granted the right to vote.
  As a member of the House of Representatives, her daring and vocal 
stance on controversial issues such as war and peace brought critical 
recognition from the press. In every situation, the strength of her 
values persisted, even under the pressures of unanimous opposition to a 
war with Germany. Jeannette Rankin said, ``I may be the first woman 
Member of Congress, but I won't be the last,'' and helped to pave the 
way for future generations of women leaders.
  This past Saturday, March 17, 2012, marked a monumental day in 
American history. The Senator from Maryland, Ms. Barbara Mikulski, 
celebrated her 35 year in the United States Congress.
  That important accomplishment is a milestone for American culture and 
female leaders in Congress. Senator Mikulski is now the longest serving 
female in the Senate and in the history of the U.S. Congress. She spent 
her first 10 years in the House of Representatives, followed by the 
next 25 years here in the Senate. She has worked every day to make 
America a better place for the next generation.
  When Senator Mikulski began her work in the House of Representatives, 
there were 18 female Members of the House and three female Members of 
the Senate. When she began her first term in the Senate, there were 23 
female Members of the House and only one other female Member of the 
Senate. Now, she is a leader among our 17 female Senators and 76 female 
Members of the House of Representatives.
  Her strong sense of community and instinctive nature pertaining to 
the needs of Americans is exemplified by her action-oriented attitude. 
Even before her tenure in Congress, as a social worker for the people 
of Maryland, Ms. Mikulski was active in local issues in and around the 
Baltimore area and worked to help at-risk children and seniors. She 
continues working passionately to address those issues throughout her 
tenure in Congress.
  Her advocacy for justice and contributions to social issues are 
evident with her work to fight for women's rights and improved access 
to health care, to better education, and to volunteering and national 
service opportunities. She offers tremendous leadership for the Senate 
both as the chairwoman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions 
Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging, and as the chairwoman of the 
Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related 
Agencies.
  Like Jeannette Rankin, Senator Mikulski has been a leader and an 
exemplar for strong and courageous women leaders in America.
  Senator Mikulski gets things done, and I have enjoyed our friendship 
during our work together in the Senate. Her brave spirit is one that 
sets the bar for new and incoming Senators, both male and female. I 
congratulate Senator Mikulski on her special day and I look forward to 
continuing our work in the Senate together.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, first of all, let me say I am enormously 
touched and gratified by the warm words my colleagues have spoken on 
both sides of the aisle. I am particularly moved by the fact of the men 
of Maryland who are here today. I am moved by the wonderful words of 
Senator Cardin, my colleague. I am moved as well that Governor O'Malley 
is here today.
  When I came to the Senate, Senator Paul Sarbanes was my senior 
colleague, and he is here today as well. Governor O'Malley and Senator 
Sarbanes are on the bench, but these men are certainly not back-
benchers. I must say about the Governor and Senator Sarbanes and 
Senator Cardin, they prove the old adage that men of quality will 
always support good women who seek equality. I have enjoyed their 
support, their wise counsel, and their collegial efforts on behalf of 
the people of Maryland during my years in Maryland politics.
  It is a great honor to be here today passing this significant 
benchmark of becoming the longest serving woman in the history of the 
Congress, both in the House where I served for 10 years, and in the 
Senate. It is a great honor for me to be able to pass into the history 
books along with such an esteemed person as Senator Margaret Chase 
Smith. We spoke about that in January 2011 when I was sworn in. There 
were tributes that day and wonderful words from our two women Senators 
from Maine. Today--actually over the weekend--I surpassed the record of 
Edith Norse Rogers who was the longest serving woman in the House. Both 
of those women came from New England. They were both hardy, resilient, 
and fiercely independent. I, as I have read their histories, so admired 
them. They were known for devotion to constituent service, an unabashed 
sense of patriotism, and kind of telling it like it is. I hope that as 
I join them in the history books, I can only continue with the same 
spirit of devotion to duty and that fierce independence and patriotism.
  I didn't start out wanting to be a historic figure. To, ``What do you 
want to be when you grow up?'' you don't say, ``I want to be a historic 
figure.'' When I was growing up, it was about service. For me, it is 
not how long I serve, it is not about history. For me, history books 
were Jane Adams and Abigail Adams and powdered wigs. I just welcome a 
day when I have time to even powder my nose, let alone powder my wig. 
But the fact is, when I grew up, I wanted to be of service. I learned 
that in my home, in my family, in my community, and with the wonderful 
nuns who taught me.
  Today my colleagues have spoken about my wonderful mother and father. 
I had a terrific mother and father. I am so happy my two sisters and my 
fantastic brothers-in-law are joining me today. I only wish my mother 
and father could be here with me because they worked so hard to see 
that my sisters and I had an education at significant sacrifice to 
them. But they were really wonderful people where others saw them in a 
life of business. Every day my father would open his grocery store and 
say, ``Good morning, can I help you?'' When he did, he wanted to assure 
that his customers got a fair deal.
  My father opened his grocery store during the New Deal because he 
believed in Roosevelt and because, as my father said, ``Barb, I know 
Roosevelt believed in me.''
  I also had the benefit of the wonderful Catholic nuns who educated 
me. I had the benefit of going to a school called the Institute of 
Notre Dame and then Mount St. Agnes College, the Sisters of Notre Dame 
and the Sisters of Mercy. These women, who concentrated their lives on 
the message of Christianity and the message of Jesus Christ, wanted to 
make sure that women in America could learn and be a part of our 
society. They didn't only teach us our three Rs, they taught us about 
leadership and service. But they also taught us about other values--the 
values of love your neighbor, care for the sick, worry about the poor, 
and be hungry and thirsty for justice.
  When I was at the Institute of Notre Dame, a school that Nancy Pelosi 
went to as well, there was something called the Christopher movement 
after St. Christopher. The motto was, ``It is better to light one 
little candle than to curse the darkness.'' That is what I wanted to 
do. I wanted to be a social worker. I even thought about being a 
doctor. One time I even thought about being a Catholic nun, but that 
vow of obedience kind of slowed me down a little bit.

  In this country wonderful things happen. When my great-grandmother 
came to this country, she had little money in her pocket but a big 
dream in her heart: that she could be part of the

[[Page S1907]]

American dream, that she could own a home in her own name, in her own 
right; that she could have a job and so could the people in her own 
family; and that based on merit and hard work you could be something. 
Well, in three generations, I have become a Senator. Only in America 
the story of my family could have occurred--modest beginnings, hard 
work, effort, neighbor helping neighbor.
  Much has been said about my fight for the highway. I was thinking 
about getting a doctorate, a doctorate in public health at Johns 
Hopkins. But they were going to run that highway through the 
neighborhoods, the older ethnic neighborhoods, the African-American 
neighborhoods. We were viewed in some of those neighborhoods as the 
other side of the tracks. I wanted to fight to keep those neighborhoods 
on track. So I took on city hall, and I did fight them.
  In this country, what happened? In another country, they would have 
taken a protester like me and put me in jail. Instead, in the United 
States of America, they sent me to the city council. I worked hard 
there, and 5 years later, when Senator Paul Sarbanes, who was a 
Congressman, ran for the Senate, I ran for his House seat, and I got 
the job.
  When I arrived in the House in 1976, only 19 women were serving: 14 
Democrats and 5 Republicans; only 5 women of color. In 2012, there are 
74 women in the House: 50 Democrats, 24 Republicans; 26 women of color. 
In the Senate, there are now 17 women serving: 12 Democrats, 5 
Republicans. Today, we saw visiting us Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, a 
woman of color who served well while she was here.
  Those are the numbers and those are the statistics. And though I join 
this long number of firsts, for me it is not how long I have served but 
how well I have served. When I came to Congress, I became a Member for 
the fabulous Third Congressional District of Maryland. My job was to 
represent a blue-collar community that was in economic transition. What 
did we do? We were a community that built things here so we could ship 
them over there. We built cars. We built ships. We made steel. We knew 
if a country did not make something and build something, it could not 
make something of itself.
  I fought for those blue-collar people. I fought to keep those jobs in 
manufacturing. We fought for the Port of Baltimore, its dredging, so we 
could bring in the big ships so we could have exports. We worked again 
for those people in those manufacturing areas while we saw jobs go 
overseas. Then we worked very hard for cities to make sure our cities 
were safe, that we had great schools, and that they had a chance of 
making it.
  I fought hard for health care. One of my greatest pieces of 
legislation was the Spousal Anti-Impoverishment Act, so that if one 
spouse went into a nursing home, the other spouse would not have to 
spend down their life's savings and lose their home. AARP tells me my 
legislation of so many years ago, that stands today, has kept 1 million 
people--1 million people--from losing their home or their family farm.
  Those were the battles then. Those were the battles when I changed my 
address and I came to the Senate. Although I changed my address, the 
battles are still the same: jobs, social justice, opportunity, based on 
hard work, peace in the world, and I continue to fight for this.
  But for me, it is not only about issues. Issues are so abstract. 
Issues can be so bloodless when we talk about it. For me, issues are 
about people--the people I represent in my own hometown, the people I 
represent in my State, and the people who live in the United States of 
America.
  My favorite thing is being out there talking to the people, going 
into diners, going table to table, listening to their stories, holding 
roundtables with parents whose children have special needs, meeting 
with scientists who have discoveries they think will lead to new ideas 
and new products that will bring new jobs, meeting with universities 
that train our workforce. For me, it is about the people.
  So as I pass this important benchmark, which I am so honored to do, I 
want people to know I am still that young girl who watched her father 
open that grocery store every day and say: ``Good morning. Can I help 
you?'' I am still that young girl who went to the Institute of Notre 
Dame and Mount St. Agnes College who said: I am going to light one 
little candle. I do not want to curse the darkness. I want to continue 
to fight for a stronger economy, a safer America, the people of 
Maryland.
  In conclusion, I want to say thanks. I am going to thank the Dear 
Lord for giving me the chance to be born in the greatest country in the 
world, to be able to work hard and serve in one of the greatest 
institutions in the United States of America. But nobody gets to be a 
``me'' without a whole lot of ``thee.''
  I thank my family. I thank the religious women who educated me. I 
thank all of my staff who have worked so hard to help me do a good job. 
And I thank the countless volunteers who believed in me and worked for 
my election when nobody else did. Most of all, I thank the people of 
the Third Congressional District and the State of Maryland for saying: 
Barb, we are going to give you your shot. Don't ever forget this. Don't 
ever forget us. I want them to know, though I have now served in the 
Senate 12,892 days, I will never forget them. Every morning I am saying 
in my heart: Good morning. Can I help you?
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  (Applause, Senators rising.)
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I am so honored to join so many of my 
Senate colleagues and people from Maryland and across this country in 
recognizing and congratulating the amazing woman you just heard from, 
my good friend from Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski, who, as you have 
just heard, has just become the longest serving female Member of 
Congress in the history of the United States.
  This is an achievement that takes courage, it takes passion, and it 
takes commitment. Those are three attributes all of us who know her so 
well know she has in abundance. But my good friend, Senator Mikulski, 
has not just served long, she has served well.
  The senior Senator from Maryland, over her 35 years in Congress, has 
established herself as a trailblazer, as a leader, and as a fighter for 
the people of her State. It is fitting that this milestone was reached 
during Women's History Month because Senator Mikulski has given so much 
of herself in support of other women in Congress. She has guided us, 
she has shown us how to stand and fight, and she has taken all of us 
under her wing.
  Senator Mikulski realized when she arrived here that there was no 
rule book for women in Congress. So she took it upon herself to guide 
the way. She drew on her own experiences to make the transition easier 
for all of us.

  She organized seminars that you have heard about. She taught us how 
to work together. She taught us about the legislative process, the 
rules on the floor, and the many more subtle rules off the floor.
  In short, Senator Mikulski showed us the ropes, and she has done it 
every day I have been here for all the women who have come since she 
has been here. While she knows it is important and courageous to lead 
the charge, she also understands the first ones have to be responsible 
and successful so others can follow. It is because Senator Mikulski has 
done her job so well that other women have been able to follow in her 
footsteps.
  She is here today as the longest serving woman in Congress, not by 
accident or by happenstance. She is here because she has earned it, 
because the people of her State know she is an indispensable champion 
of their causes, because she does work across party lines, and because 
she delivers results.
  I know many years from now when women have achieved a larger, more 
representative role in our Nation's Capital, Senator Mikulski will be 
at the very top of the list of people to thank--the person who not only 
forged the path but who went back and guided so many of us down it.
  I know many of my colleagues are on the floor today to thank Senator 
Mikulski. But I am here especially to thank her, as one of those women 
who have followed in her footsteps, for her more than 35 years of 
service to her State and to her country. Those of us who know her well 
know she is not even close to being finished.

[[Page S1908]]

  So, Mr. President, my very best to my very good friend, Senator 
Mikulski. I wish her very well in her next 35 years.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President I too want to speak of my dear friend 
Barbara Mikulski, who is just precious. She is precious to her family. 
She is precious to the people of the Third Congressional District that 
she represented for 10 years. She is precious to the people of 
Maryland, precious to the people of the United States, and precious to 
those of us who have the privilege of serving with her in this body.
  She has been affectionately known as a few things: The dean of women; 
the breaker of the ceiling, as Patty Murray just said; setting the 
stage, setting the rule book--writing the rule book--for women in the 
Senate.
  There will be 51 women in the Senate 1 day--there will be--and it 
will come much more quickly because Barbara Mikulski was the first. 
There is no question about that. The Senate will be a better place for 
it in so many different ways.
  She is also not only known as the dean of women, we love her. She is 
known as Barb. I love calling her on the phone late at night and having 
her say: This is Barb. Please call me. Make sure you say the words and 
leave your phone number twice.
  Of course, when Barb says something, we all do it. So I always leave 
the phone number twice.
  I admire so much about her. But one of the things at the top of the 
list is who she is. She is the real deal. She knows where she came 
from. She has never forgotten where she came from. As I have told her 
personally, she has that internal gyroscope of who she is, what she 
should do, and how she should do it that guides her almost 
instinctively, and it is probably the most precious thing a politician 
can have. Not very many people have it, but hers is about the best I 
have ever witnessed.
  It started from her upbringing and her faith, which she mentioned. We 
have talked about Willy. She has mentioned Willy. But you never forget 
how she reminds us because it is with her, and you can see it in her 
actions every day--how when people would come into the store that Willy 
had, the grocery store in east Baltimore, when they had lost their job 
or someone was very sick and Willy would say: Take the groceries and 
pay me later.
  It reminded me of my grandfather Jake--we have talked about this--who 
was an exterminator, not quite the same as Willy and not providing the 
same services, but he would tell people: If you have roaches and rats 
in your house and you can't pay, I will still exterminate. Pay me when 
you have the money. So I understood that instinctively.
  I would have loved Willy to have met my grandfather Jake because I am 
sure they were kindred souls in a lot of ways. And the guidance of 
Willy and Barb's mom--you can see it every day in the way she acts.
  I just want to say another thing about Barb. She got into public 
service as a community activist. There was a highway that was going to 
tear up an important and historic part of her community, and she got 
involved. Being schooled by her and many of my colleagues, many women 
believed, oh, they would be excluded from politics if they went into 
politics directly. But when you are a community activist and you take a 
lead because something is bothering you about your home or your 
neighborhood, politics just followed sort of naturally. It is a little 
bit like Patty Murray's story as well.
  These days, because of what Barb has done, I think my daughters can 
aspire--I do not know if they do, but they can aspire to go into 
political life directly. In those days, it was much harder. But there 
she was. She led this fight. She went on to the city council, of course 
the Third Congressional District in Maryland, and now to this august 
Chamber. She has done so much. It has been cataloged by all my 
colleagues.
  Medical research: There are probably millions of people alive today 
because of the 35 years she has pushed to make that happen. They do not 
know who they are, but they are there; and they are living happy and 
healthy because of Barb Mikulski.
  How about veterans and health care needs? Again, literally tens of 
thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of our veterans are living much 
better lives because they were able to get the health care that Barb 
Mikulski spearheaded, particularly in the earlier days when this was 
not a popular cause.
  The list goes on and on and on. She has done so much. In our Chamber 
she is beloved. Beloved. People are sometimes afraid of her when she 
gets mad. People want her approval. But most of all, I think what most 
of us seek is her advice, because after so many years in politics, she 
has that gift to understand what the average person needs and to talk 
directly to them. She does not talk through her colleagues or does not 
talk through the media or does not talk through some community leader 
or other politician. She still is talking to that family sitting in 
east Baltimore or in Hagerstown or in Annapolis. She almost has them in 
front of her eyes wherever she goes. That is why her speeches are so 
effective. She does not try to polish them. That is not her. She speaks 
from the heart directly to the people, and she cares so much about them 
that it comes through. It is an amazing trait.
  I most admire people in political life who never forget where they 
came from. She is one of the most powerful people, not just women, one 
of the most powerful persons in America. I did not know Barb Mikulski 
when she was a community activist in East Baltimore, but my guess is 
she is exactly the same today. All the power and the accomplishments 
and the emoluments and the praise, all deserved, have not changed her a 
whit. That to me says an amazing thing about an individual.
  Barb, I know my colleagues are waiting, but we love you. We cherish 
you. And as Patty Murray said, I will put it my own way, I am sure that 
Barbara Mikulski, knowing her as well as I do, the best is yet to come.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I wish to join my colleagues in a 
tribute to Senator Mikulski.
  I am delighted to join my colleagues in joining in this tribute to 
perhaps our favorite colleague, Barbara Mikulski, on her becoming the 
longest serving woman in congressional history. Her work in these Halls 
has made our country stronger. In a place where partisan rancor too 
often rules the day, she has established a legacy of service to her 
constituents and to all of us in this body that stands as an example to 
every one of us.
  Her political career began in the late 1960s when she launched a 
campaign to stop the construction of a highway over a historic 
neighborhood she wanted to protect in Baltimore. She won that battle 
and went on to run for the Baltimore City Council in 1971. More than 40 
years later and following a successful stint in the House of 
Representatives, Barbara Mikulski continues to blaze an impressive 
trail.
  During her 27 years in the Senate, she became the first woman to sit 
on the Senate Appropriations Committee, the first woman to chair an 
appropriations subcommittee, and the first Democratic woman elected to 
Senate leadership. Last year, we celebrated Barbara as she became the 
longest serving female Senator. Now she has crossed yet another 
milestone, passing Congresswoman Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts, 
having served in the Congress longer than any woman in history.
  Of course, we do not just celebrate the quantity of Barbara's service 
but its quality. No one is better at drilling down to the heart of an 
issue and expressing it in punchy, unforgettable terms. No one cheers 
us up more than Barbara when she tells us to: Stand tall, square our 
shoulders, put on our lipstick, and rise to the occasion. We do not all 
put on lipstick, but we all get the message.
  No one better combines the idealism of politics with the proactive 
abilities of government. She told me once with a twinkle in her eye, 
``I am a reformer, but I am a bit of a wardheeler too.'' Practicality 
and passion combined is what makes politics successful, and no one does 
it better than Barbara.
  When she was first elected to the House in 1977, she was 1 of 21 
women in Congress; 18 in the House and only 3 in the Senate. Today 
there are 93 women

[[Page S1909]]

serving including 17 Senators. Barbara has earned the distinction of 
dean of the Senate women. But she never, never forgot her roots as a 
champion for those who need a voice in this building.
  In her years in the Senate, Barbara Mikulski's dedication to her 
constituents and women's rights has been clear, from becoming a 
champion of women's health issues to organizing training seminars for 
women of both parties elected to the Senate, to sponsoring and pushing 
through with a force that we all remember the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay 
Act of 2009.
  During my much shorter tenure as a Senator, I have had the great 
privilege and pleasure to work with Barbara to pass landmark health 
care reform legislation out of the HELP Committee. I have also served 
with her on the Intelligence Committee, and worked closely with her on 
the Senate Intelligence Committee's cyber task force to evaluate cyber 
threats and issue recommendations to the full committee. I have taken 
from those experiences great affection and respect for Senator Barbara 
Mikulski. These are issues that are complex, complicated, difficult, 
and abstruse, and she brought to them the verve and the vigor and the 
vision to move on them. And those really are her hallmarks: verve, 
vigor, and vision.
  I know all of us here in this Chamber are proud to call Senator Barb 
our colleague and friend as she makes history yet again. Her hard work 
and collegial spirit have enriched this Senate. I wish her all of the 
best in the accomplishments ahead. On behalf of all Rhode Islanders, 
Senator Mikulski, I congratulate you for this milestone in your 
history, the Senate's history, and our Nation's history.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia is recognized.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, I consider it an honor and a privilege 
to rise for a moment to pay tribute to Senator Mikulski from the State 
of Maryland, And in so doing, I think it is only appropriate that I 
quote from a speech made on November 22 in 1922 by the first woman ever 
to serve in the Senate.
  Rebecca Latimer Felton was the first woman Senator. She was appointed 
for 1 day. Governor Brown had run against Walter George for the Senate. 
Walter George won. And because of Ms. Felton's unending help to him in 
his race, he asked the Governor if he would appoint her for a day to 
his seat before he took it and was sworn in.
  She came to Washington, DC, to serve for 1 day and she made one 
speech. In that speech she had a paragraph that to me exemplifies 
Barbara Mikulski. She said, ``Let me say, Mr. President, that when the 
women of the country come and sit with you, though there may be but 
very few in the next few years, I pledge you that you will get ability, 
you will get integrity of purpose, you will get exalted patriotism, and 
you will get unstinted usefulness.''
  That was Rebecca Felton in 1922. Today, in March of 2012, we honor a 
Senator who has lived up to every one of those promises Ms. Felton made 
almost 100 years ago. I have had the privilege to serve on the HELP 
Committee with the Senator, worked very closely on the Alzheimer's 
legislation which she has been such a leader on, worked with her on 
many other projects, including one I am happy to remind her about, and 
that was the confirmation of Wendy Sherman a few months ago when 
together on the floor of the Senate, we worked together to see that she 
was appointed and named and confirmed Under Secretary of State for the 
United States of America, serving under Hillary Clinton.
  On that night when we worked on getting that UC done, and it was not 
easy, I saw the tenacity, I saw the grace, I saw the patriotism, and I 
saw the integrity of Barbara Mikulski. It is an honor for me to rise 
today and commend her on a great individual achievement, not just for 
herself but for all of the women who have gone before her and all the 
women who will come later on, and to my five granddaughters and my 
daughter.
  She has led the life in the Senate exemplary of the contributions 
that all women can make to our society. I commend her on her service, 
her compassion, her integrity, and all that she has done for the State 
of Maryland, the United States of America, and peace on this Earth.
  Barbara, congratulations to you on a great achievement. It is an 
honor for me to be here.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Klobuchar). The Senator from Delaware is 
recognized.
  Mr. COONS. Madam President, I am honored to follow my good friend and 
colleague from the State of Georgia in recognizing the remarkable 
contributions of Senator Mikulski, now the longest serving woman in the 
history of the Congress.
  Today we have been joined by many great Marylanders. We have had 
Governor O'Malley and Senator Cardin, and former Senator Sarbanes, and 
Senator Mikulski's own family, her sisters and brother-in-law in 
attendance. I am also pleased that we have got two of her favorite 
constituents, my father and my brother, who are with us today as well. 
They live in Annapolis and they have known what I have known since 
childhood when I lived in the suburbs of Baltimore, that Senator 
Mikulski is a remarkable, a tireless, a passionate, and an effective 
Senator.
  Reference has been made to her start as a community organizer, 
someone who saved Fells Point from a 16-lane superhighway, someone who 
was not afraid to get into the gritty issues of a local community and 
standing up for folks who did not have anyone to fight for them. We 
have also heard about her early years as a social worker, helping folks 
in need understand the programs available to them and then fighting for 
the programs that should have been available to them.
  It is no surprise to any of us that the district she first 
represented in the House of Representatives, the Third, was known as 
the ``steel district'' where lots of men and women worked in the 
Bethlehem Steel plant. It is no surprise that she has earned a 
reputation here in the Senate as a woman of steel, who fights for 
manufacturers, who fights for Federal workers, who fights for Western 
Maryland, who fights for poultry on the peninsula of the Eastern Shore 
of Maryland, who fights for her constituents day in and day out.
  It is indeed just that in this Woman's History Month we would be 
recognizing Senator Barbara Mikulski, who has stood up for Maryland 
each and every day. And though like me she comes up a little short 
every time she stands, she stands incredibly tall in the company of 
Senators throughout American history. She is someone who is passionate 
for people, who has determination to continue in the tradition of her 
father, that fair deal grocer, who asked every day that simple 
question: How can I help, and then gets busy answering it.
  She is a role model for me, for all of us, for my daughter, for my 
family, for our community. She is the only Senator I have heard say to 
me, fiercely, before going on a vote on the floor: To the barricades. 
And she is the only person who could say that and mean it. For a 
lifetime, she has been at the barricades of justice. She has been at 
the barricades of service. She has been at the barricades of making a 
difference. And for that, we are all grateful.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska is recognized.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I too stand today to pay recognition 
to a friend, a colleague, and truly a woman who brings a smile to my 
face. Because for as many years as she has served her State of 
Maryland, for as many years as she has served in the Halls of Congress, 
she has the enthusiasm, the spontaneity, the excitement when she 
approaches an issue as a brand new rookie freshman coming into this 
body.
  That is quite remarkable because around here we can get kind of 
dragged down by the day-to-day politics, the partisan nature, and the 
conflicts that are inherent in this process.
  Barbara Mikulski is one who embraces life and the responsibilities 
that are put before her. She has an opportunity to represent her 
constituents, and she embraces it with an enthusiasm that should be a 
reminder to us all of why we are here to serve.
  I have so many different stories and quips and quotes about Senator 
Mikulski, whose name sounds somewhat similar to mine--Murkowski. Every

[[Page S1910]]

now and again, we have an opportunity to share the same stage, the same 
podium, and the individual who is introducing us will trip on his or 
her tongue and refer to us wrongly. There was one occasion where we 
were being recognized by the National Geographic Society, and she 
pointed out to the individual making the introduction: She is the 
vertical one, and I am the not so vertical one.
  This is just a recognition again that regardless of the situation, 
Barbara Mikulski has a good comeback, a quick quip. She is a 
quipmeister if there ever was one. It speaks again to the enthusiasm 
and passion she brings to the job she has in front of her.
  With names such as Murkowski and Mikulski, we clearly have a Polish 
heritage we look to with pride. She reminds me of mine because she is 
perhaps a little more connected to those Polish roots. Again, there is 
a sense of pride with whom she is, where she has come from, and what 
her family has done preceding her that allows her to go on and do so 
much for so many.
  We have had the opportunity to work together on issues that, coming 
from different parts of the country--truly different ends of the 
country--and one would not think we would have as much commonality on 
some of the issues. As the chairmen on the Commerce, Justice, Science 
Appropriations Subcommittee, we have worked closely on issues that 
relate to our fisheries, coastal issues, and judiciary issues. She is 
always reminding me that we have to take care of our fishermen out 
there and make sure our families who rely on our waters are 
appropriately cared for.
  We have worked together on women's health issues. We were recently at 
the Sister to Sister event. I do feel a kinship and a relationship with 
this Polish sister as we talk about those issues that are so important 
to women's health.
  We share the same concerns about how we do more for our first 
responders, our servicemembers, and our veterans. Just this past week, 
as Senator--I almost called her Murkowski myself--Senator Mikulski was 
chairing a committee, and I brought up an issue as it related to the 
late Senator Ted Stevens and the Department of Justice investigation 
that failed so miserably--and we are now pursuing it, through different 
avenues, to make sure nobody should have to go through what Senator 
Stevens did--Senator Mikulski literally stopped the committee hearing 
to remind the Attorney General that, in fact, this was not a partisan 
issue; this was an issue where we all should be concerned and that if 
there is no justice within the Department of Justice, what does that 
mean for us as a nation.
  She is never hesitant to speak and stand and make very clear, when 
these issues are important to the Nation, it should know no bounds by 
party. Barbara Mikulski has held true to that.
  In many different ways, that makes this milestone we are recognizing 
even more important because I think there is a kind of a piling on of 
events that can happen in the Halls of Congress, where the weight of 
what we do on a daily basis gets to be a load. To a certain extent, one 
can get tired, one can get worn, but Barbara has not let the weight of 
that responsibility bring her down.
  I was joking with her a little bit ago when all the accolades were 
coming her way. I said: Barbara, with all these kind words that are 
being said about you, by the time the tributes are done, you are going 
to be 7 feet tall. That woman is 7 feet tall in the minds of so many of 
us. She is a giant for the people of Maryland. She has proven herself 
to be a giant in so many ways as she works to do good for so many.
  I am proud to stand with so many colleagues in recognizing her 
tenure, recognizing this historic place she has carved for herself 
within the Congress, and to call her my friend.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I rise to honor the service of one of 
our most distinguished and long-serving colleagues, the tireless, 
sometimes relentless, and often spirited senior Senator from Maryland, 
Ms. Barbara Mikulski.
  To say she is a trailblazer for women in politics is an 
understatement. She has blazed a bold trial not just for women in 
politics but for all women in every endeavor. She is a fighter, an 
advocate, someone whom one is hopefully on the same side with because 
she is a formidable opponent when one is on the opposite side. She is a 
role model for leadership and getting things done.
  Her impressive list of accomplishments is far too long to recite in a 
few minutes or even a few hours. It would not adequately do justice to 
her incredible service to Maryland and the people of this Nation. 
Senator Mikulski has dedicated her career to serving Marylanders and 
has dedicated her life to public service.
  She began as a social worker in the neighborhoods of Baltimore, 
working every day on the street helping at-risk children find their way 
and giving seniors the help they needed.
  She was not, and is not, a bleeding heart, but there is no one who 
has a fuller heart, a more open heart to the deepest needs of the least 
powerful among us than Senator Mikulski. She is someone one wants on 
their side.
  Senator Mikulski came to public service with what I like to call the 
long view. She can see beyond herself to the needs of society as a 
whole, and she has fought for those needs and won on far more occasions 
than she has lost.
  When she first ran for public office in 1971, I know she had in her 
heart the deep and abiding memories of those kids and seniors she met 
in Baltimore when she began her career. I know she carries those 
memories with her to this day. To this day, she has never forgotten the 
people of Maryland who need her the most and have had the wisdom to 
elect her time and time again.
  Her political career has taken her from the Baltimore City Council to 
the House of Representatives and to this Chamber, where she has 
honorably served for the past 26 years. For 7 years, I have had the 
opportunity to work with her in this Chamber, and there has been no 
stronger, more knowledgeable, more committed colleague on this side of 
the aisle. She is an example for all her colleagues, determined to work 
across the aisle when possible and ready to fight for her beliefs when 
necessary.
  She was the first woman elected to statewide office in Maryland, the 
first Democratic woman elected to the Senate in her own right, the 
first woman to serve in both Houses of Congress, and the longest 
serving female Member of the Senate.

  As we all know, this past Saturday, Senator Mikulski became the 
longest serving woman in the history of the Congress, serving more than 
35 years in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
  It is only fitting that she achieve this milestone during Women's 
History Month because she has not only paved the way for women in 
politics but she has helped pave the way for women everywhere.
  I had the opportunity to work with Senator Mikulski during the long 
and difficult debate and negotiations on health care reform. Her work 
was instrumental in ensuring that women have access to the 
comprehensive health care they are now guaranteed under the law. During 
that debate, no one's voice was clearer, no one's voice was stronger, 
no one was more convincing than she in the fight for a woman's right to 
comprehensive health care coverage.
  She fought for mandatory insurance coverage of essential services, 
such as mammograms and maternity care, services that many insurance 
companies refused to cover. She fought to end gender discrimination by 
insurance companies.
  As a result of the affordable care act and, in large measure because 
of Senator Mikulski's tireless efforts on behalf of women, being a 
woman is no longer a preexisting condition, as insurance companies used 
to say, that can be discriminated against.
  Those insurance companies that routinely denied coverage of basic 
women's health services--essential services--are now required to cover 
those services under the comprehensive women's health services 
provision of the law.
  Whenever there is a need in the Chamber for a strong voice for women, 
whenever there is a need for an advocate to stand for the powerless 
against the powerful, whenever there is a child who needs a friend or a 
senior citizen

[[Page S1911]]

who needs a hand, Barbara Mikulski is there.
  I believe there are many times she comes to this floor remembering, 
as she said, her days back in Baltimore, and she is right there--an 
advocate's advocate--fighting for those children and seniors she met 
along the way.
  The rest of us are better off because she comes here with a full 
heart, ready to do what is right, not just what is politically 
expedient.
  Her bill, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, was signed into law by 
President Obama just days after his inauguration. I was proud to work 
with her on that bill and on so many other efforts as well that make a 
difference in the lives of average Americans.
  Finally, Senator Mikulski has been a tireless advocate for something 
that is near and dear to my own heart--for those who suffer from 
Alzheimer's and their families.
  As the son of a mother who battled Alzheimer's for 18 years and lost 
her life to it, I understand firsthand the unique challenges of 
providing long-term care for a loved one. Senator Mikulski has come to 
this floor on countless occasions advocating for increased research, 
education, and programs for individuals with Alzheimer's. She has found 
support from her colleagues on both sides of the aisle.
  It is estimated that 5.4 million Americans are currently living with 
Alzheimer's and millions more have been touched in some way by this 
debilitating disease.
  I thank the Senator from the bottom of my heart for her passion for 
helping those who suffer from this disease. I look forward to 
continuing to work with her on this issue until we find a cure for 
Alzheimer's.
  The bottom line: Barbara Mikulski is a deeply committed public 
servant. The State of Maryland has rightly recognized her invaluable 
service for many years. Because of her efforts, those Maryland families 
know their interests are protected and their voices are heard.
  It has been an honor to serve with her. All of us in this Chamber can 
only hope to serve our States with the same conviction, selflessness, 
and pride as Senator Mikulski has throughout her 35 years of service to 
the State of Maryland.
  I am reminded of what Mother Teresa said when she got the 
Congressional Gold Medal:

       It is not the awards and recognition that one receives in 
     life that matters; it is how one has lived their life that 
     matters.

  In that respect, Barbara Mikulski has lived an extraordinary life. We 
thank her for what she has done and not just for the people of Maryland 
but for all the people of America.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, I am proud to be able to join my 
colleagues on the floor this afternoon in honoring Senator Barbara 
Mikulski for her service to Maryland and for the endless contributions 
she has made to the people of this country.
  It is very hard to adequately describe a political icon such as 
Barbara Mikulski. For all of us women in politics, she is a model of 
what we can aspire to or what we would hope to aspire to. I just want 
to tell a simple story about Barb that I think reflects her ability to 
get along with people, her zest for life, as so many of my colleagues 
have described, and the connection she makes that makes a difference 
for people.

  She and I were on a flight with four other Senators to the security 
forum in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a couple of years ago, and the weather 
was bad, so our flight was diverted to Bangor, ME. It was winter in New 
England, and of course, when there is bad weather in New England in the 
winter, it sticks around for a while, so we were trapped overnight in 
Bangor. Most of us just sort of sat there waiting to figure out what 
was going to be done while we waited for a flight the next day, but not 
Barbara because she doesn't sit still. She is never afraid to pick up 
the phone and take action, and that is exactly what she did. Barbara 
dialed up her old friend and colleague--the colleague of all of us--
Senator Susan Collins, and said: Guess where I am. And that is how 
those of us who were on that flight--the six Senators and the Secretary 
of Homeland Security--wound up joining Senator Collins and the 
legendary Troop Greeters of Bangor, ME, in welcoming troops at the 
airport as they returned home from overseas. So what had earlier seemed 
like an inconvenience turned into a fabulous opportunity to thank our 
brave men and women in uniform and to have a good time while we were 
doing it.
  You find those kinds of things happening if you spend time with 
Barbara Mikulski. It is a byproduct of her relentless energy, her drive 
to better her community and our Nation as a whole, her deep commitment 
to fighting for women's health, and her unfailing grace and gumption as 
a legislator, a colleague, and a friend.
  As has been said, she got her start as a social worker trying to make 
the lives of men and women in her native Baltimore a little easier to 
bear. She was working in the service of values that were taught to her 
by her family, who owned the neighborhood grocery store. And as so many 
have commented, she often tells the story of her father opening the 
store early so that steelworkers coming in for the early-morning shift 
would have time to buy their lunch. Barb has carried that spirit, those 
values she learned from her family in that grocery store here to the 
Senate, and often those values are sorely needed here.
  As dean of the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues, she has built 
a sense of community within the caucus. Her bipartisan women's dinners 
are legendary. And, of course, what happens at those dinners stays at 
those dinners. Those are Mikulski's rules. But we really don't need to 
look any further than that wintry night in Maine to know how effective 
she has been in making things happen for people.
  I look forward to more of her dinners, to more conversations with the 
Senator, to more chances to work with her as she fights on behalf of 
women and seniors and veterans and all those who don't have a voice in 
government and at the table. I thank the Senator for her friendship, 
for her leadership, and for her many years of service.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, I too am honored to be able to rise 
today to speak of our dear friend Barbara Mikulski. So many good things 
have been said, so many accolades have been shared about what Barbara 
has done and what she means to all of us. I can only tell you there is 
not a better ally, mentor, neighbor, and, most important, friend to 
have in the Senate than Barbara Mikulski.
  My State shares a border with Barbara's State. Maryland and West 
Virginia have had a long and illustrious relationship. As Governor, I 
had always known of Barbara and had met her a few times when I served 
the great State of West Virginia. But as a Senator, I have had the 
privilege of being her colleague and working with her and becoming 
friends, listening to her and watching her in how she works with her 
constituents, how she considers the issues, how she fights for issues. 
I don't think anyone has ever had to guess where Barbara stands on an 
issue because we all know.
  In the 15 months we have worked together, I can say it has been 
extremely rewarding to serve alongside her, whether it is her wisdom 
she shares on the train ride over to our sessions here or whether we 
talk about our both being raised in a grocery store. My grandfather had 
a little grocery store and, as you know, Barbara was raised with her 
father in a grocery store. I think, basically, if you have retail in 
your blood, you understand the people of America.
  Her sense of humor is something to behold. Every day I have the 
privilege of serving with her is a good day in the Senate.
  I know colleagues have all shared their stories about Barbara, and 
they have had more experience with her in the Senate. As a freshman, 
being here only a little over a year and a half, I have not had that 
many personal experiences, but I can tell you this: If there is a fight 
that breaks out, if there is something going wrong, you want Barbara on 
your side. She is the person to have in that foxhole when the shooting 
starts. And I have been so appreciative to have her as my friend and 
always counting on her.

[[Page S1912]]

  As we have all heard, she has been an advocate for women's health, 
the space program, and her most beloved State of Maryland, which she 
fights for every day.
  Last year she became the first woman to reach the milestone of 
serving a quarter of a century in the Senate. Madam President, I have 
staffers who are younger than her years of service. But I also have 
young staffers, especially my female staffers, who have said they see a 
world of possibility because of the trail Senator Barbara Mikulski has 
left for them. With all of that, she has blazed a trail for all of us. 
No one will be able to fill the shoes of Barbara Mikulski. We will all 
be lucky enough to follow in her footsteps.
  When she began serving on the Hill in 1977, there were 20 other women 
in all of Congress. She and 17 others served in the House, while there 
were 3 in the Senate. Today, 35 years later, there are 17 women serving 
in the Senate. If there is anything we can learn from Senator Barbara 
Mikulski, it is that 17 women is far too few. We need more women like 
you, Barbara, and, just as important, we need more Senators like you.
  I can honestly say that I know the State of Maryland is much better 
off because of Barbara Mikulski, but I can tell you that the United 
States of America is a better country because of Barbara Mikulski. So I 
say thank you to my dear friend Barbara for her service to this great 
country and to all the constituents in Maryland who must be extremely 
proud of her and have a right to be so. I too am so proud to call her 
my friend and my neighbor.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Madam President, we have listened with interest and 
total accord as the life of Barbara Mikulski in the Senate has been 
reviewed by so many people. We have heard the friendship and good will 
we all share toward her.
  Her record is quite well known. She is determined to get things done. 
She never lets minutia stand in the way or block an accomplishment. And 
I have noticed one thing: When Barbara Mikulski starts to talk during a 
debate, the noise around the room quiets down. And if it doesn't, 
beware; Barbara will call your attention to it and say it in a way that 
demands attention.
  Barbara and I arrived in the Senate in fairly close proximity. I came 
here in 1983 and Barbara arrived in 1986, as I recall. We were both on 
the Appropriations Committee. I had some slight seniority over her, and 
one of the things that were being dealt with was seniority. Barbara 
asked for my help in the choice of subcommittee, and I tried to step 
out of the way and help Barbara obtain the chairmanship of a 
subcommittee in Appropriations, which she managed so well and so 
effectively. She once called me her Galahad, and I was proud of the 
moniker because it was intended to be a compliment and a sign of 
friendship.
  Strikingly, Barbara Mikulski and I have backgrounds that are not 
dissimilar. I came from Polish heritage. My grandparents on my paternal 
side were born in Poland, as Barbara's family was. They were 
immigrants. My parents were brought as children from Europe and went 
through the traditional immigrant absorption.
  My folks found it very hard to make a living as they grew up here in 
America. My grandparents were essentially poor people with a kind of 
blue-collar background. They had to resort to storekeeping to keep food 
on the table, a roof overhead, and clothes on their backs.
  The one thing that threaded through those years for me--and I heard 
it coming from Barbara Mikulski so many times when she spoke--was there 
was always dignity in the house, there was always a positive outlook.
  As I heard, my parents, like hers, were not able to do much with 
presents and valuables. But they did something else, and you see it so 
fundamentally clear in Barbara Mikulski's demeanor and her behavior: 
that what she learned at home, the same thing that I learned at home, 
was the meaning of values not valuables but values. And values included 
a character obligation for hard work and honesty and decency. They were 
the yardsticks by which we were measured as children and as adults.
  I worked very closely with Barbara. I left the Senate, as is known, 
for 2 years and my seniority slipped as a consequence. Barbara's 
seniority continued to grow, and she is chairman of the appropriations 
subcommittee. Barbara always brought a degree of strength and energy to 
the things that she said and to the things she did. Although Barbara 
during a presentation wanted to make sure that she was heard, and heard 
correctly, she would also pop up with humor. She had a facility with 
words and a facility with expression that would have you engrossed in 
what she was saying and caught off guard when a joke or a humorous 
statement would pop up.
  When we note that Barbara Mikulski, from this modest background, was 
always on the side of working people, it was never a mask; it was the 
truth and it was where she wanted to be. I must say that she, for me, 
was always a steadfast beacon that would remind us: Don't get carried 
away too much with your personal importance. Get carried away with the 
things you have to do in your responsibility as a Senator.
  When Barbara Mikulski came these years ago, as was noted, she was the 
first among the women to come to the Senate and ultimately, as we now 
know, became the longest serving and carried herself through all of the 
difficulties we have had. But always, always you could depend on 
Barbara Mikulski. When Barbara stood up, people stopped talking about 
things that were extraneous and they would listen carefully, because 
Barbara Mikulski always made so much sense and she didn't let you get 
by without a challenge if she believed you were wrong.
  We have heard about her record, we have heard about her 
accomplishments, and everybody had wonderful things to say about her. I 
listened carefully to the statements that were being made and thought 
about our days together and how wonderful it was to be able to hear 
Barbara Mikulski make sense out of what often escaped that challenge. 
She would offer the challenge and she would offer solutions.
  I, like our other colleagues, stand here in awe and respect and note 
that Barbara Mikulski, the storekeeper's daughter, is so much like that 
which I saw in my own life and we have seen in America in the past 
century; and Barbara Mikulski who, in all due modesty, without any 
impression of a smug satisfaction, is always ready to take up the 
battle for the people she served, not only in the State of Maryland but 
across the country. She is an inspiration for women coming to 
government, and she serves so well as a demonstration of what could be.
  I am delighted to be here, to stand here as a friend and an admirer 
of Barbara Mikulski, and wish her many more years of service. I know 
that with Barbara around, you can always count on sense and good 
judgment to result.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York is recognized.
  Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Madam President, I associate myself with the remarks 
of my colleague, the Senator from New Jersey.
  It is with great admiration that I rise today to join all of my 
colleagues who have spoken before me and who will continue to speak 
honoring the Senator from Maryland, Barbara Mikulski, as the longest 
serving woman in the history of the Congress.
  It has been such an honor to serve with Senator Mikulski. In my 3 
years in the Senate, she has quickly become a dear friend and an 
invaluable mentor, as she has been for all of the other female 
colleagues as the dean of women Senators.
  It wasn't until 1932 that Hattie Caraway became the first woman ever 
elected to the Senate, and it wasn't until a half century later in 1986 
that, against all odds, Barbara Mikulski became the first Democratic 
woman elected to the Senate. That is right. When she arrived in the 
Senate, she was just one of two women serving in this body. Now the 
longest serving woman in congressional history, Senator Mikulski is 
showing what is possible when you ignore conventional wisdom, never 
stop fighting for what is right, and honor our commitment to families 
who elect us every single day.
  One of her hallmark battles has been the fight for equal pay for work 
for women. This is not only an issue of

[[Page S1913]]

equality and justice but an economic imperative, because as we stand 
here today, with more dual income households than ever, women only make 
78 cents on the dollar compared to men. For women of color, the 
disparity is even greater, African-American women earning 62 cents on 
the dollar, and Latinas 53 cents on the dollar. I know Senator Mikulski 
won't give up until we correct this outrageous injustice, and I am 
honored to be fighting alongside her.
  Senator Mikulski has also led the fight to strengthen our laws 
against domestic violence, and open access to health screenings and 
treatment that saves women's lives. Close to my heart, she was among 
the first to stand up to insurance companies that said that being a 
woman was a preexisting condition. You can always count on Senator 
Mikulski to lead the charge in drawing a line in the sand in the Senate 
when it comes to protecting women's health and women's right to choose. 
We saw it yet again when she stood up to the dangerous overreach of the 
Blunt amendment that would have denied women of this country the 
ability to choose which medications to take and leave that decision to 
their boss.
  She embodies the words of Eleanor Roosevelt:

       The battle for individual rights of women is one of long 
     standing and none of us should countenance anything that 
     undermines it.

  It is that spirit--making your voice heard, never backing down in the 
face of injustice--that has made Senator Mikulski one of the strongest 
voices we have for women in this country and women around the world. 
Every single day she is paving the way for more women leaders in 
America by showing the young women and girls of this country that 
women's voices matter and are needed in our public debate.
  I close by expressing my personal debt of gratitude to her for her 
vision, her leadership, and her pioneering spirit. I simply could not 
imagine working in this body without her leadership. She has taught me 
so much in such a short period of time. And, as importantly, she has 
fostered an unbreakable bipartisan spirit among our colleagues that has 
resulted in important victories for the American public.
  Thank you, Senator Mikulski, and congratulations on your historic 
achievement. It is an honor to serve with you, and I hope to continue 
to serve with you for many years to come.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Both Senator Sessions and Senator Snowe are 
here, and I don't know if they wanted to speak. I know we have had a 
flow of speakers on this side, and if one of you wants to speak before 
I speak, I think it is the fair thing to do.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama is recognized.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, my understanding was that Senator 
Durbin is going to make a UC request, which I plan to object to, and 
there might be some brief discussion of that. But I don't see Senator 
Durbin on the floor.
  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. I am probably going to be the concluding 
remarks on celebrating Senator Mikulski, so I am going to proceed with 
that.
  Madam President, we have been here now for almost 3 hours--I was down 
here when we started. Senator Feinstein started about 2:00 and we are 
approaching 5:00 now--for an incredible celebration of Barbara 
Mikulski's career. I have listened to a lot of it both at my office and 
here on the floor, and it is pretty remarkable to hear the kinds of 
things she has done with her life and I rise today to honor my 
colleague, Senator Barbara Mikulski.
  As has been noted, this month Senator Mikulski becomes the longest 
serving woman in the history of Congress. With her perfect sense of 
timing, Barbara  reaches this historic milestone during Women's History 
Month. And it is for the history books. But, as Barbara  has said: It 
is is not how long I serve but how well I serve. And she has served 
very well. She has served her beloved State of Maryland very well, and 
she served this country in a number of capacities on the Appropriations 
Committee and on various committees in the Congress.
  We celebrate this historic occasion but, more deeply, we celebrate 
Barbara's record of achievement--a record that transcends gender, a 
record that is rooted in a life dedicated to public service.
  Since she was first elected to public office in 1971 to the Baltimore 
City Council, Barbara  has been setting milestones. Think about that 
for a minute--1971. This is 40 years plus of public service. As the 
Chair knows, this is pretty remarkable. She served in public service 
for a while. I have served for a while. But 41 years of public service 
is remarkable--the first woman elected to statewide office in Maryland; 
the first Democratic woman elected to the Senate in her own right; the 
first woman in the Senate Democratic leadership; and the first 
Democratic woman to serve in both Houses of Congress. Yet it is not her 
being first that is the most impressive; it is her commitment to 
putting others first. Barbara  has shown that commitment time and 
again.
  In over 35 years in the Congress, she has never wavered in her 
service to our Nation and her dedication to the people of Maryland. She 
has fought for quality education. She has fought for American seniors. 
She has fought for women's health and for veterans. For women facing 
unequal pay, Barbara  championed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. For 
senior citizens facing bankruptcy because of a spouse's nursing home 
care, Barbara  wrote the Spousal Anti-Impoverishment Act. Yes, she is a 
trailblazer, but she blazes those trails to help others--for young 
people who dream of going to college, for families facing devastating 
illness, for opportunity for all Americans. That has been her passion, 
that has been her true achievement, and that will be her greatest 
legacy.
  When Barbara  was first elected to the Senate in 1986, there was only 
one other female Senator. Now there are 17. Barbara  is, rightly so, 
the dean of the women. She is a mentor to her female colleagues, but no 
less so she is an inspiration to all of us.
  I admire Barbara's remarkable determination and her tenacity, but 
also her ability to work with others to get things done. She will fight 
for what she believes, but she will sit down to dinner with her 
colleagues across the aisle. And she has never forgotten where she came 
from. The daughter of a Baltimore grocer, each night she returns home 
to Baltimore. She has never forgotten the values she learned there: 
hard work, helping one's neighbor, patriotism.
  She is diminutive in height only. That was evident early on. The 
story is well known how, as a young community activist, Barbara  
stopped that 16-lane highway from coming through Baltimore's Fells 
Point neighborhood. She is not afraid to stand up to power, and she is 
not afraid of speaking strongly to power. In all the ways that count, 
Senator Barbara Mikulski is a towering figure.
  Albert Schweitzer once said: I don't know what your destiny will be, 
but one thing I know for sure. The only ones among you who will be 
truly happy are those who have sought and found how to serve. This 
Barbara Mikulski has done. From her early days as a social worker to 
her years in Congress, she has served. She has served long and well.
  Congratulations, Barbara. It is an honor to be your colleague.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I couldn't be more pleased as well as 
privileged to join all of my colleagues today in congratulating a very 
good friend and colleague, the dean of the women of the Senate, Senator 
Barbara Mikulski, on overtaking Congresswoman Edith Nourse Rogers as 
longest serving woman in the history of the Congress.
  As someone who has had the privilege of knowing Senator Mikulski 
since 1978 when I was first elected to the House of Representatives, 
for me, this milestone represents a watershed moment in the life of 
American politics.
  For nearly 35 years, I have witnessed Barbara Mikulski summon and 
harness a seemingly limitless reservoir of energy as a fierce advocate 
and a champion on behalf of the people of Maryland as well as the 
country. With equal parts vigor and vigilance, she has demonstrated a 
devotion to her constituents that has been unerring in its promise and 
ironclad in its purpose.

[[Page S1914]]

  It is precisely that caliber of service that the people of Maryland 
have rewarded time and time again.
  As I stated on this very floor at the outset of this Congress when 
she surpassed the length of service of Maine's legendary Senator 
Margaret Chase Smith, Senator Mikulski is synonymous with ``the special 
bond of trust which should exist between the governing and the 
governed.'' She has ``recognized injustice and acted boldly to quell it 
. . . giving a voice to the voiceless . . . power to the powerless.''
  What Senator Margaret Chase Smith and Congresswoman Edith Nourse 
Rogers exemplified as standard bearers in the last century for length 
of service, Senator Mikulski embodies in this century--that the 
commitment to advancing the common good is bound neither by geographic 
region nor political affiliation but, rather, by an undaunted desire to 
serve others.
  A consummate role model and admired mentor, Senator Mikulski always 
stands as a shining example that the robust pursuit of policy and the 
willingness to hear and consider dissenting views are not mutually 
exclusive. As I have often said, Senator Mikulski knows only one speed, 
and that is full speed ahead. But by the same token, she only knows one 
way to govern--through what she aptly referred to as the zone of 
civility. That approach, so integral to making this institution work, 
is indisputably one of the hallmark measures of Senator Mikulski's 
longstanding success in public life. Indeed, it is the blueprint for 
interaction that she has imbued in all of us who are women serving in 
the Senate. She has worked to establish a tone of respect that infuses 
our conversations, our collegiality, our collaboration. It is a 
personal cause to Senator Mikulski that is exemplified by the monthly 
dinners for women Senators that she initiated along with the Senator 
from Texas Mrs. Hutchison, a tradition that has become a catalyst for 
camaraderie and central to what Senator Mikulski calls our 
``unbreakable bond.''
  There has been no greater friend for women who have come to serve in 
the Senate, and I am sure it is a result of Senator Mikulski having 
arrived here as the second woman to serve in the Senate, along with the 
Senator from Kansas, Senator Kassebaum, as she said at the time--and 
that is why she was so willing to serve as a mentor for other women who 
arrived in the Senate, because she was only one of two women who were 
serving in this institution. As she said, the Senate had a long 
tradition of every man for himself. She was determined, she said, that 
it would not be every woman for herself while she was in the Senate.
  As my colleagues also well know, when it comes to having an ally in 
the legislative foxhole, there is none more feisty, none more 
formidable, and certainly none better than Senator Barbara Mikulski. I 
have witnessed her tenacity firsthand, having worked with her side by 
side over the decades, whether on matters of equity for women in the 
workplace, ensuring gender-integrated training in the military, working 
on cybersecurity, working on every other issue where we are bringing 
justice to those who have borne the brunt of injustice.
  Nowhere has her leadership been more unmistakable, of course, or more 
monumental than in the area of women's health. I well recall, when I 
arrived in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1979, I joined what was 
then known as the Congresswomen's Caucus on Women's Issues, which is 
where I ultimately became the cochair for a better part of the decade. 
Senator Barbara Mikulski, at that time being in the House of 
Representatives, served in that caucus as well.
  When I arrived in the House of Representatives in 1979, there were 
only 16 women serving in that institution. That is why the 
congresswomen's caucus was formed, to focus on those issues that 
mattered to women and to family and to children. We recognized that it 
was our obligation and responsibility to work, to focus on those issues 
because otherwise they would languish on the back burner rather than 
being on the front burner. We also understood that if we did not focus 
on these issues, if we did not advance these issues, no one else would. 
So we began to tackle systematically many of the discriminatory laws or 
inequities that were embedded in Federal law that failed to recognize 
the dual role women were playing, both at home as well as in the 
workplace.
  We began to work on these issues one by one because there were so 
many issues across-the-board that were affecting women, where they were 
ultimately bearing the burden and the consequences of these inequitable 
laws. We did that with respect to pensions, for example, where women 
discovered that after their husbands died, their pensions had been 
canceled.
  We discovered it when it came to family and medical leave, which took 
us the better part of 7 years to enact that legislation. But, again, 
women were bearing the burden of taking care of their ailing parents or 
their children at home and paying the consequences in the workplace.
  Then, of course, there was the issue we discovered of discriminatory 
treatment in our clinical study trials. Regrettably, at the time our 
National Institutes of Health were actually discriminating against 
women and minorities, excluding them from clinical study trials because 
it was too complicated to include women in these study trials because 
we were biologically different. As a result, any of those treatments 
that were developed as a result of those trials could not be applied to 
women. Ultimately, this could make the difference between life and 
death because the kinds of procedures and treatments that were derived 
from these clinical study trials could not be applied to women.
  When we discovered that these inequities and this discriminatory 
treatment existed, we set to work on how to redress this wrong. It is 
hard to believe there was a time in America where women and minorities 
were systematically excluded from these trials that, as I said, had 
lifesaving implications. Who would have thought that women's health 
would have been the missing page in America's medical textbooks or 
merely an afterthought.
  So I, as a cochair along with Congresswoman Pat Schroeder in the 
House, on behalf of the caucus, and, of course, then-Senator Barbara 
Mikulski in the Senate teamed up in a close bipartisan, bicameral 
collaboration to establish the groundbreaking Office of Research on 
Women's Health at the National Institutes of Health so that never again 
would women be overlooked when it came to key clinical study trials 
that were underwritten by the Federal taxpayers and Federal funds. In 
fact, Senator Mikulski, as I well recall, launched the key panel of 
stakeholders at Bethesda to give this initiative critical national 
attention and momentum--as only she could--as well as fundamental 
policy changes that ultimately resulted from that panel 
that reverberate to this day, resulting as well in lifesaving medical 
discoveries for America's women.

  That is the passion and power of Senator Mikulski that has led her to 
this historic day. Barbara is not about legacy, she is about problem-
solving. As somebody described it, her ideology is grounded in the 
practical, and that is so true. It is not only the practical but giving 
power to the people and developing practical solutions in their 
everyday lives.
  She is a guardian of the common good, a woman who redefines the word 
``trailblazer,'' a pioneer of public policy. Senator Mikulski continues 
to shape the landscape of our Nation for the better, with a force and a 
might and a stature, one of the giants of public service, not just in 
our time but for all time.
  On the occasion of Senator Mikulski's recordbreaking service, we 
congratulate her, we salute her, and we are honored to be able to 
express a profound appreciation for her extraordinary and legendary 
tenure in the Senate.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mrs. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor this afternoon to 
celebrate Barbara Mikulski's service to this country. I had the honor 
of presiding for the last hour and heard the statements of so many of 
my colleagues. I heard them talk about how, when she joined this 
Chamber in 1986, Barbara Mikulski was the first woman elected to the 
Senate who was not preceded by a husband or a father,

[[Page S1915]]

the first woman elected to the statewide office to serve the State of 
Maryland, and only the 16th woman to have served in the Senate ever.
  Today she is truly the dean of women Senators. She is a mentor and a 
friend to the rest of us, and she has always set the bar high. This is 
a woman who took on city hall as a young social worker in Baltimore--
and won. This is a woman who has championed landmark legislation that 
has touched the lives of millions on issues ranging from health care to 
education to civil rights. She has shattered glass ceilings, not just 
in the Senate but in the Congress as a whole.
  If that is not enough, she has even graced the glossy pages of Vogue 
magazine. Most of you may not have seen the photos that were taken in 
front of the Capitol Building with a number of other women leaders, 
including Meryl Streep, who was in town for a screening of her film 
``The Iron Lady.'' So I think it is fitting, to borrow a phrase from 
the Iron Lady herself, Margaret Thatcher, who famously said, ``In 
politics, if you want anything said, ask a man; if you want anything 
done, ask a woman.''
  I don't think my male colleagues who are here today will take offense 
at that one since anyone who has ever worked with Barbara Mikulski 
knows she is a force of nature. She may not be the tallest Member of 
the Senate, but she is certainly the most tenacious. She is a tireless 
advocate for the people of her State, and she has a fierce and enduring 
love for those she represents. She knows where to pick her battles, and 
we have seen her face some tough debates in the Senate over the past 
few years. Whether it was working to take C-sections off lists of 
preexisting conditions at insurance companies or fighting to ensure 
equal pay for equal work for women or promoting better educational 
opportunities for children with special needs or ensuring that our 
troops and families receive the benefits that they have earned and that 
they deserve, she has never stopped working for fairness, justice, and 
decency.
  The daughter of a smalltown grocery store owner, she has made 
strengthening the middle class the centerpiece of her economic agenda 
because, as she always puts it, the women in the Senate understand 
issues not just at the macro level but also at the macaroni-and-cheese 
level.
  When Barbara Mikulski came to the Senate 26 years ago, she lit a 
torch that has brightened the path for so many of us, for the 16 other 
women Senators who serve today and for all the future generations of 
women leaders who will lead our country forward. I am humbled to call 
her a colleague and a friend, and I am honored to celebrate her 
incredible service to our country today.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, there are several of my colleagues here 
who are continuing their tributes to Senator Mikulski. I have a 
statement that was scheduled at 5 p.m. that will take all of 10 
minutes, and then I will yield the floor at that point. I don't know if 
Members who are on the floor want to establish a queue of who will 
follow, but if anyone wants to make that unanimous consent request, I 
see that Senator Carper and Senator Cantwell are here on this side, 
Senator Coats is on the other side. I don't know if Senator Sessions is 
planning to speak after I have spoken on a substantive matter beyond 
the UC request.
  Mr. SESSIONS. No, although I wouldn't mind seizing the opportunity to 
speak about Senator Mikulski for a minute, but otherwise, if the 
Senator has no----
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I am going to give a statement and make a 
UC request that I planned at 5 p.m. And if I could suggest I be 
followed by Senator Sessions, and then Senator Carper, Senator Coats--
--
  Mr. COATS. If the Senator will yield on that, I don't want to 
interrupt the tribute to Senator Mikulski, and I know the Senator has 
some business he has arranged. I will give mine another time. You don't 
have to include me in the queue. I don't want to spoil the party. The 
tribute is worthwhile, and I will find another time to do this.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I wish to make an admission. I have spoken 
about Senator Mikulski earlier and this is a different issue. I suggest 
after Senator Sessions that Senator Carper and Senator Cantwell follow. 
I ask unanimous consent that the Senators be recognized in the order I 
have noted.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Would the 
Senator wish to request that the nontribute-related portion of the 
discussion be put in a separate place in the Record?
  Mr. DURBIN. That is what I was about to ask the Chair, to have 
permission that my statement not related to Senator Mikulski be placed 
in a separate part of the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Mr. Durbin and Mr. Sessions are printed in the Record 
under ``Cameras in the Courtroom.'')
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, although I do not have prepared remarks, 
I wish to join with my colleagues in making a few comments about 
Senator Mikulski.
  Senator Mikulski is a great Senator. She is a delight to work with, a 
formidable adversary, and a formidable ally in any important debate. 
She is someone whom all of us respect and admire. It surprises me she 
has been at this business so long. It doesn't seem as though it is 
possible. She certainly hasn't lost her enthusiasm for the job and she 
has played an important role in quite a number of issues with which the 
country has had to deal.
  I remember her leadership on an important issue during the post-9/11 
time, when we were wrestling with how to deal with security for our 
country. She spoke firmly and strongly in favor of firm action to 
defend America from attack.
  Another issue I don't think has been mentioned but is exceedingly 
important--something I have observed her deal with and provide 
leadership on for some time--is space and NASA. She is one of the 
absolutely most knowledgeable and experienced Members of this Senate 
and the entire Congress in dealing with the complexities and the needs 
of NASA and she is a champion and advocate for exploration of space. 
This is an area where America has led the world, and for all her time 
in the Senate, she has been a champion of advocating that the United 
States maintain this leadership because I think we share the view that 
America is a nation of explorers. We are a nation that leads the world 
in exploring and it is part of our DNA. So I appreciate her leadership 
in that particular area, as I have watched her with great admiration in 
her activities.
  I didn't realize this tribute would be going on this afternoon and I 
didn't have prepared remarks, but I wish to join with my colleagues to 
say how much I appreciate her efforts. We celebrate her great 
accomplishment in the Senate. I believe that as we go forward, we will 
find that on issue after issue she will play a critical and a positive 
role in making America a better place.
  I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I wish to follow my colleague from Alabama 
and speak for just a few minutes about our friend and colleague, 
Senator Mikulski, who celebrates her milestone through her public 
service to the people of Maryland.
  I asked my staff to go to the Web page for Senator Mikulski, her 
Senate office, and I came across one paragraph which I wish to read to 
my colleagues, if I may. It says:

       Barbara Mikulski has never forgotten her roots. Throughout 
     her career she has returned each night to her home State of 
     Baltimore, Maryland. From community activist to U.S. Senator, 
     she has never changed her view that all politics is indeed 
     local and that her job is to serve the people in their day-
     to-day needs as well as prepare this country for the future.

  Sometimes people have come to Congress over the years and they come 
understanding clearly that our job is to serve. Over time, somehow they 
lose that thought a little bit and it is less clear who is to be served 
and who is to be the servant. She has never forgotten who the servant 
is. She knows she came as a servant, and she will leave someday as a 
servant--hopefully, not anytime soon.
  If we ask most people around here what are maybe one or two words 
that best describe Barbara Mikulski, I think a lot of people would say 
she is a fighter. Let me just say, if someone is

[[Page S1916]]

an advocate for a particular cause, she is the person one wants in the 
foxhole with them. There is no better advocate, and there is no better 
or more able opponent on an issue. It is a lot better to have her on 
your side than it is to have her against you.
  I take the train home at night. I go through Baltimore on my way to 
Wilmington, DE. Along the route, we go by a place called Aberdeen. 
Sometimes the train stops there; sometimes it does not. We have seen 
Aberdeen Proving Grounds literally consolidated from around the 
country. Much of the important research activity the Army does is at 
the Aberdeen Proving Grounds. The person more than anybody else who has 
made that possible is Barbara Mikulski. It is a vast facility, with 
tens of thousands of employees who I think are mostly civilian and a 
campus of over 100,000 acres that does great work, helping to provide 
for our defense against all kinds of attack, foreign and domestic. She 
is a great person to have on your side in leading that fight.
  One of the other things I love about Barbara is her devotion to first 
responders. There is a big national fire school in a town called 
Gaithersburg, MD. She has helped make that place possible to not only 
train folks who are first responders for the people of Maryland, but 
they train as well first responders for virtually every State in every 
corner of this Nation. People will go to bed tonight knowing that if 
there is a fire or a problem or an incident in their community, it will 
be responded to, and they can thank Barbara Mikulski for helping to 
ensure the folks trained there are ready to do that.
  As much as anybody I know, she is a person who values service. 
AmeriCorps is an organization that encourages young people--really 
people of all ages--to volunteer and to serve. Volunteers are the ages 
of our pages and a whole lot older and the ages of guys like me. We all 
have an obligation to serve and to bring that spirit of service, 
whether or not we are in public life.
  I was struck by the fact that she often opened the store as a kid, 
beginning a lot of her days as her dad opened the family grocery store, 
early in the morning in east Baltimore. I was born in West Virginia in 
a town called Beckley. I lived there for about the first 6 years or so 
of my life, but I would go back many summers, and I had the opportunity 
to work there for a supermarket, a mom-and-pop supermarket, with my own 
grandfather who opened the store almost 6 days a week, and I had the 
opportunity to see him and his work and what he brought to that store 
every day as the butcher. I think I know more about serving by working 
my summers in that store than anything else I have ever done. I suspect 
one of the reasons Barbara has adopted and retained the spirit of a 
servant is because of her childhood and growing up and seeing her own 
family, her own dad, in that particular store.
  I mentioned my grandfather in West Virginia. His wife, my 
grandmother, suffered from Alzheimer's disease. My grandmother's mother 
suffered from Alzheimer's disease. My own mother suffered from 
Alzheimer's disease. I don't think there is anybody in this body who 
has done more to lead the fight to ensure that this scourge of our 
society--and the scourge of people all over the world--is reined in and 
overcome. When that day comes, people will stand and say: I did 
something about this. Nobody in this body I think can take more credit 
for conquering Alzheimer's disease and dementia than Barbara Mikulski.
  Finally, when people think of Barbara, they think of a fighter, an 
advocate for voluntarism, and some of the other things I talked about. 
I don't know that many people think of her as an athlete, but I will 
say that she is very a big advocate for leveling the playing field. She 
wants to make sure people not just in athletic endeavors have a level 
playing field in which to compete, but she wants to make sure young 
people coming from the most impoverished backgrounds have an 
opportunity and have a real shot at life to get a decent education as a 
child, the chance to go to college and to increase their potential to 
not just earn money and support their families but to live productive 
lives. Those are just some of the things I think about when I think of 
Barbara Mikulski.
  I will close by saying she had been in the House I think for 6 years 
when I arrived in 1982, 1983, and for all the time we served there 
together, she was always very encouraging of me, very supportive of me 
as her Delmarva buddy, as we shared the Delmarva Peninsula. Even to 
this day we work together to make sure we have a strong, vibrant 
poultry industry on the Delmarva Peninsula. I like to say we are still 
Delmarva buddies as we look out for the mutual concerns of our 
respective States.
  With that having been said, let me yield back my time. I see Senator 
Cantwell is ready to speak. My guess is, she is going to say some more 
things about Barbara. But those are some things I am glad I had a 
chance to say.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I do rise to celebrate the remarkable 
achievements of my colleague from Maryland, Senator Mikulski.
  Last January we celebrated an obvious achievement of her becoming the 
longest serving female Senator. And last Saturday that milestone 
entered another chapter, with her 12,858 days of serving the people of 
Maryland in Congress, which means she is now the longest serving female 
Member of Congress.
  I know Barbara Mikulski started her career fighting for Fells Point, 
a particular location in the Baltimore area that she thought deserved 
and needed to be protected, and that galvanized her to 35 years of 
service, where she has been a trailblazer on so many issues.
  Many people have talked about those today--about being the first 
woman elected to statewide office in Maryland, the first Democratic 
woman to serve in both Houses of Congress; the first Democratic woman 
to sit in a Senate leadership position, and the first Democratic woman 
to be elected to the Senate in her own right.
  Throughout her career, she has faithfully provided a very strong 
voice for the people of Maryland. But it is here in the Senate we have 
all gotten to see Barbara Mikulski, the dean of the women Senators, and 
to see her incredible work as a trailblazer on so many important 
issues.
  She has been a tireless champion on issues from pay equity to 
increasing access to college education, for women's health, for women's 
health care law, and time and time again she has proven she knows how 
to fight on the right side of the issues.
  For the women of the Senate, she is an incredibly important ally. 
When it comes to each of us who comes to the U.S. Senate, to find our 
way and to make our own mark, Barbara Mikulski is the Senator who is 
always there with you to make sure you can achieve what you want to for 
the State you represent.
  I know for me I am very excited--my colleague from Alabama was 
mentioning Senator Mikulski's love of NASA and space exploration--in 
that I can say Senator Mikulski is certainly interested also in sci-fi, 
and I would call her a ``techie'' Senator because she certainly has 
shown a great deal of interest in technology and science.
  As the Chair of the Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations 
Subcommittee, she was a key partner in the funding of key science and 
technology issues, and for us in the State of Washington, when we 
needed a new Doppler radar technology system, she was there to help 
ensure that those people who lived in coastal regions were going to 
have the appropriate protections they needed for understanding 
inclement weather.
  She also has helped in prioritizing efforts such as the cleanup of 
the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland--something we in the Northwest relate to 
because we strive to have the same cleanup of Puget Sound.
  We have worked together on important legislation, such as passing the 
Lilly Ledbetter legislation.
  But it is Barbara Mikulski--when it comes to protecting women's 
access to health care or standing up to any attack on Medicare--who is 
the most articulate, the most determined, the most persevering advocate 
to make sure women's issues and their cause are understood in the U.S. 
Senate.
  I was proud to stand with her when she went up against the House plan 
to defund critical women's health care access and there was a near 
shutdown of

[[Page S1917]]

government. As people tried to pressure Planned Parenthood, she was 
there to make sure we continued important programs such as breast 
cancer screening.
  So today I join my colleagues from the Senate to thank her for those 
years of service in the U.S. Congress, both in the House and the 
Senate. While she may represent Maryland, we all want to claim that we 
are better off as a country having Barbara Mikulski in the U.S. Senate.
  And to my colleagues--or to the young people who are here with us on 
the Senate floor--to understand this moment and achievement, you have 
to understand that in the whole history of our country, there have only 
been 39 women Senators, and a good number of those women Senators only 
served a few days or a few years. So the fact that somebody has 
achieved not just a seat in the U.S. Senate but a leadership position 
in the U.S. Senate is an incredible achievement.
  We are glad she has represented a time when women have ascended to 
leadership in the U.S. Senate, where she is considered one of the wise 
Members when it comes to strategy on so many policy issues.
  We are better off as a body because Barbara Mikulski has served with 
us, and we are looking forward to many more years of wisdom and, 
hopefully, many more women Senators joining the ranks of Barbara 
Mikulski in their tenure.
  I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise today also to pay tribute to my 
colleague, the senior Senator from Maryland, Barbara Mikulski.
  As everyone has said, this is a landmark, this is a milestone: the 
longest serving woman Senator and Member of Congress in the history of 
Congress, serving more than 35 years.
  As a relatively junior Member of this body, I love Barbara Mikulski. 
I love her because she calls me ``Franken.'' That is music to my ears. 
We are in the caucus lunch, I may be in her way, and she says: Franken.
  I am not only a relatively junior Senator, I actually kind of 
recently was a comedian at one point. And she is really funny--Barbara. 
I remember the first time I saw her speak--it was years ago, years ago; 
I cannot remember what the event was--and I am going to try to quote 
her joke. It was her joke, remember, about herself. She talked about 
her first campaign effort. I think it was for city council or something 
like that. She said: I knocked on 7,387 doors, and I walked a total of 
372 miles, and I didn't lose a pound.
  So I love Barbara. And she is a force--a force--of nature. Being the 
dean of women here is not her most commanding title. Her most 
commanding title is: a fighter. She is a fighter. When she commits 
herself to a cause, she is a true champion.
  She is a true champion for America's seniors, preserving pensions; of 
Medicare, defending Medicare--boy, do not attack Medicare around 
Barbara Mikulski--and combating poverty. No one works harder for 
quality education, fighting to make sure every child has a quality 
education, so that child can pursue the American dream. And she is 
committed to fulfilling our country's promises to our veterans, which 
is so important, and to increasing community service and voluntarism.

  As anyone who has watched proceedings here in the Senate knows, 
Barbara Mikulski, as my colleague from Washington stated, is the 
greatest champion in the body for women's health. Here is something 
that is pretty amazing to understand. I want the pages to hear this. 
She fought to include women in NIH clinical trials. Women were not 
included in the National Institutes of Health clinical trials until she 
made sure they were. This is hard to believe, isn't it? But in your 16 
years of life, you--at 16, you cannot conceive of this. This is how 
backward we were. Think of what she did. That is who we are talking 
about today.
  She has improved access for women to mammograms and cancer 
screenings--for all women. She has fought for women to have their own 
say over their own body and reproductive system. Basically what I am 
saying is, when you have Barbara Mikulski on your side, you have a 
strong voice in the U.S. Senate.
  We have heard reference to her accomplishment on the Lilly Ledbetter 
Fair Pay Act. When advocating for this bill, Senator Mikulski said:

       Women earn just 77 cents for every dollar [their] male 
     counterparts make. Women of color get paid even less. The 
     Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act will empower women to fight for 
     fair pay by once again making employers accountable for pay 
     discrimination. I will fight on the Senate floor to get this 
     bill passed.

  And the bill was passed. It was the first bill President Obama signed 
in office.
  Senator Mikulski and I share a number of passions. One of them is 
early childhood education. Increasing early childhood education--access 
to it--is one of my top priorities because we know over and over that 
the benefits of early childhood education have been demonstrated. And 
Barbara  knows this.
  I wanted to have a hearing on just the economic benefits of early 
childhood education--just the economic benefits--because a child who 
has a quality early childhood education is less likely to be a special 
ed kid, is less likely to be left back a grade, has better health 
outcomes; a girl is less likely to get pregnant before she graduates 
from high school, a child is more likely to graduate high school, more 
likely to go to college, more likely to graduate college, more likely 
to get a good-paying job and pay taxes, and much less likely to go to 
prison. It has been shown over and over that the cost-benefit is, for 
every $1 spent, like $16 in return.
  I wanted to get a hearing just on this. Because we were talking about 
education, I thought this needed to be discussed, and we needed 
experts, economists who were credible on this. So I went to Barbara  
and she, of course, said: Oh, yeah. OK. Let's do it. She is Chair of 
the Subcommittee on Children and Families. I thought that would be a 
good place to do it, except I am not on that subcommittee. I am on the 
HELP Committee, which this is a subcommittee of, but I am not on that 
subcommittee. She said: OK, that doesn't matter. You come anyway. And 
not only that but: What witness do you want?
  She let me pick a witness, Art Rolnick, an expert in early childhood 
education--on the economics of it--who started out as an economist at 
the Federal Reserve in Minneapolis and got into the economic benefits 
of it.
  She is a true ally. She is someone who used her resources as 
chairwoman of a committee to make sure something you feel strongly 
about will be aired, will be discussed.
  You learn from Barbara  that what we do around here is not so much 
about policy, it is about people. For her, it is about the people of 
Maryland. She goes to bat for them time and time and time again. It is 
about kids. And it is about women, who often have to be both the 
breadwinner and the caregiver, and who should have every right and 
every opportunity at work and in society that men have.
  As both a Member of the Senate and as a father of a wonderful 
daughter, I am enormously grateful to Senator Mikulski for being a 
tremendous role model to women in this country, for having fought her 
way to the Senate, and for proving that legislating was not a man's 
job--or only a man's job--it is a man's job too.
  This body is so much the richer for her, and Americans are so much 
better off as a result. But her work, our work is not over. Out of 100 
Senators, there are still only 17 women. Our Nation is facing 
tremendously difficult challenges, and having more women like Senator 
Mikulski in the room will help us solve those problems. I am glad she 
is here leading the way.
  With that, I would like to thank Barbara  for her leadership, her 
friendship, and for being such a fierce advocate. Congratulations, 
Barbara, on your achievements thus far and on this milestone. I look 
forward to many years fighting alongside you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise, along with so many colleagues, to 
pay tribute to Senator Barbara Mikulski, an extraordinary woman and 
Senator, someone who has become the longest serving woman in the 
history of the

[[Page S1918]]

Senate, indeed, in the history of the Congress. She surpassed, on 
January 5, 2011, the record of Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith 
as the longest serving Senator. Just this Saturday, she became the 
longest serving woman in the history of the Congress, surpassing the 
tenure of Edith Nourse Rogers, a Republican Congresswoman from 
Massachusetts, who served in the House from 1925 to 1960.
  Senator Mikulski is the first female Democrat to be elected to the 
Senate in her own right in 1986. She is a woman of many firsts. She is 
indeed the dean of the Senate women--I would actually say a dean of the 
Senate, with her great energy, her great eloquence, and her great 
passion, particularly for those who are often overlooked in our 
society. She comes at it honestly. She was a social worker in 
Baltimore, helping at-risk children and educating seniors about 
Medicare before being elected to the House of Representatives.
  She has taken that concern for the vulnerable and a particular 
passion for the State of Maryland forward every day she has served in 
the House and Senate. She has served on numerous committees. She is a 
subcommittee chairperson on the Appropriations Committee--Commerce-
Justice-Science. She has devoted herself to those issues, and many 
more. She serves on the Select Committee on Intelligence and has been a 
key member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions 
Committee. She has left her mark on a broad range of programs that 
touch each and every American family. She has been particularly active 
in women's health, ensuring that women were included in NIH clinical 
trials, where in the past they were ignored.
  Since one cannot ignore Barbara Mikulski--which is virtually 
impossible--she made it a reality that they cannot ignore women in NIH 
clinical trials, requiring Federal standards for mammographies, 
ensuring uninsured women have access to screenings and treatment for 
breast and cervical cancer. She increased research dollars for 
Alzheimer's and enhanced the Older Americans Act.
  She has been, since her first days in the House of Representatives, 
at the forefront in advocating for better health care and education 
particularly for the most vulnerable among us. She has been a champion 
of national service, understanding that in a great country one has to 
contribute as well as benefit.
  She said one of the things she is most proud of--in her words--
``strengthening the safety net for seniors by passing the Spousal Anti-
Impoverishment Act. This important legislation helps keep seniors from 
going bankrupt while paying for a spouse's nursing home care.''
  That is a fitting and representative example of her service. 
Throughout her service, she has maintained national priorities but has 
never taken her eye off Maryland. She commutes every evening back to 
Baltimore. She works hard to ensure that the people in Maryland benefit 
because of her activities.
  I also thank her for the kindness and help she has given me 
personally--her concern, for example, with the fishing community in 
Rhode Island, which is under her jurisdiction on the Appropriations 
Committee, and in other ways. She has been terribly important and kind 
to us. She was instrumental in helping us to secure funding for the 
HOPE VI project in Newport, RI, which has created extraordinary 
beneficial housing for a mix of incomes in Newport. It is one of the 
most attractive as well as one of the most stable communities I think 
anyplace in the Nation. She has been there to help us constantly.
  I could go on and on, as my colleagues have said. I simply want to 
say at this special moment in Senator Mikulski's career, we thank her, 
admire her, respect her, and she has set a great example for us. In the 
days ahead, she will not only continue to inspire and sustain us, she 
will continue to sustain and lead in her State.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, some time ago, I was reading a book 
about the beginnings of the interstate highway system in our country. I 
came across a paragraph when the highway builders and the Federal 
Government were going to run the interstate highway through some stable 
middle-class, working-class neighborhoods of Baltimore. The highway 
administration was greeted by an organizer who, on behalf of citizens 
of this neighborhood, said this is not the place to put this highway. 
She was successful in convincing them that the highway should go 
elsewhere so it would not be disruptive of so many homes, well-
established small businesses, and the cohesive community in that part 
of Baltimore. The woman who led that effort several decades ago was 
Barbara Mikulski. She was not yet on the city council. She was a 
citizen who spoke for her neighbors and has continued to do that as a 
member of the city council and then as a Member of the House of 
Representatives and for many years--3\1/2\ decades--of the Senate.
  We heard Senator Reid and others earlier today talk about Senator 
Mikulski being the first female Democrat to serve in both the House and 
Senate--to be elected to the Senate without succeeding a husband or a 
father and first to chair an Appropriations subcommittee. Most 
important, she helped to blaze this path. In 1987, there were only two 
female Senators. One was the daughter of a Presidential nominee a 
generation earlier, and the other was Barbara Mikulski. Today, there 
are 17 female Members of the Senate. It doesn't look like America yet. 
There is not anything close to the number of minority members as a 
percentage of the population, but I hope that changes. I think it will. 
It doesn't come close to representing the gender makeup of our society. 
But to go from 2 female Senators, when she first came, to 17 today--and 
if I can predict elections, which none of us can, and we certainly 
cannot try--I think there is a good chance there will be a number of 
additional women in this body this time next year.
  I wish to say a couple more things about Senator Mikulski on a less 
serious note. I have been privileged to serve on two committees with 
Senator Mikulski--one being the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions 
Committee. During the health care legislation, she was so helpful to so 
many of the causes we care about and to justice in this country, and on 
the Appropriations Committee, where she cuts a wide swathe of 
involvement for Maryland and this country, she champions women's health 
and many talked about this earlier. She cares so much about the 
National Institutes of Health, not just because it is located in 
Maryland but because it matters so much for scientific research, for 
curing a whole host of diseases and preventing diseases, and the number 
of jobs NIH creates, not just government jobs but the jobs that come 
out of commercialization of scientific research.
  My State is one of the leaders; whether the jobs come out of 
Cincinnati Children's Hospital, Southwest Hospital, and where Case 
Western Reserve University is and its medical center around Cleveland, 
we see that kind commercialization.
  I often call her Coach B because she is someone who has been around 
here a long time and is always willing to advise newer and younger 
Members. She has been following, especially in my State, what is 
important, the issue of health care. My State has some of the leading 
health care institutions in America. Also, what she has done with the 
space program--the only NASA facility north of the Mason-Dixon line is 
in Cleveland, with a satellite in Sandusky, NASA Glenn, named after 
former Senator and astronaut, John Glenn. She has been one of the 
strongest advocates for the space program, and science, technology, and 
R&D. She has been particularly helpful to me as I fight for the kind of 
work NASA Glenn does in Cleveland, and I am appreciative of her for 
that.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennet). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Mr. Whitehouse pertaining to the introduction of S. 
2219 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced 
Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

[[Page S1919]]

                  Ohio's College Basketball Excellence

  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I rise to talk about a new record 
that has been set. It has nothing to do with the number of votes the 
highway bill garnered last week in the Senate, and it has nothing to do 
with length of service of Senator Mikulski.
  For the first time in history, this year one State has four teams in 
the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Men's Division I basketball tournament: Ohio.
  A special congratulations to the Ohio State University, in Columbus; 
the University of Cincinnati, in Hamilton County; Ohio University, in 
Athens, OH; and Xavier University, also in Cincinnati, for their 
outstanding run so far and making our entire State proud.
  I am hosting, for the fifth time, an annual Ohio College President's 
Conference next week. We bring in 50 to 60 college presidents to meet 
with each other and with me and we bring in people from the 
administration, Republicans and Democrats, House and Senate Members, 
who lead on higher education issues. We bring 55 or 60 college 
presidents in from Ohio for a day and a half, and there are public and 
private institutions, 2-year community colleges, and 4-year colleges 
and universities. They learn best practices from one another. They 
build relationships that help all 55 or 60 of these college Presidents 
to do better.
  Perhaps, we will talk more about college sports this year because of 
these four Ohio teams that made the Sweet 16.
  We also know another point of reference for Ohio this year was that 
March Madness started in Dayton, in what has become an important 
tradition to Miami Valley and our country. This weekend, before the 
games started, Dayton's Oregon District hosted the First Four Festival, 
where 15,000 people crowded local restaurants and bars, listened to 
live music, and watched games on big screens.
  A few days later, President Obama and British Prime Minister David 
Cameron came to the same city where the Dayton peace accords were 
negotiated and joined the Dayton community and teams from Kentucky, 
Mississippi, New York and Utah and their fans to watch the first rounds 
of the NCAA Division I men's tournament at the UD Arena. The UD--
University of Dayton--Arena now holds the national record for the 
number of NCAA basketball tournament games held in a single venue.
  The business community in Dayton, one of the most active in the 
country--the Dayton Development Coalition--rallied together to make 
sure military families from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base were able 
to attend, and $3.5 million was pumped into the local economy, 
showcasing the Miami Valley's world-class tourism infrastructure of 
hotels, parks, entertainment, and recreation.
  We saw the same thing later in the week in the Arena District of 
Columbus, where the city hosted games on the opening weekend. Local 
Columbus leaders and businesses hosted teams from St. Louis, North 
Carolina, Michigan, New York, Tennessee, California, and Washington, 
DC, with their fans.
  The city expected a $10 million impact on the local community, with 
tens of thousands of people staying at hotels, eating in restaurants, 
and enjoying one of the fastest growing cities in America, where, I 
might add, the Presiding Officer once lived. We saw a boost in tourism 
in northern Ohio, where Bowling Green hosted the first and second 
rounds of the NCAA women's basketball tournament. Organizers in Bowling 
Green said the games were more than about basketball, it was about 
people from across the Nation coming to town and boosting the sales of 
small businesses.
  All the excitement and economic activity goes to show that Ohio is a 
tremendous attraction of basketball tourism and basketball talent. As 
the tournaments continue, and Ohio's teams continue to win, I look 
forward to working with our communities and our business leaders to 
further leverage our assets in tourism and recreation to help create 
jobs throughout our State and to promote economic development.
  I thank the Presiding Officer, I yield the floor, and I suggest the 
absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following 
morning business on Thursday, March 22, the Senate resume consideration 
of H.R. 3606; that the time until 12:30 p.m. be equally divided between 
the two leaders or their designees; that at 12:30 p.m., the postcloture 
time be considered expired and the Senate proceed to votes on the 
following: Reed No. 1931, Merkley No. 1844, as amended, if amended, and 
passage of H.R. 3606, as amended, if amended; that there be 2 minutes, 
equally divided in the usual form in between the votes; that upon 
disposition of H.R. 3606, the Senate then proceed to the consideration 
of the House message to accompany S. 2038, the STOCK Act; that there be 
4 minutes of debate, equally divided in the usual form prior to the 
vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to concur in the 
House message to accompany S. 2038; that if cloture is invoked on the 
motion to concur, that all postcloture time be yielded back, the motion 
to concur with an amendment be withdrawn, and the motion to concur be 
agreed to; that the motions to reconsider relative to the above items 
be considered made and laid upon the table; and that all after the 
first vote be 10-minute votes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                        CAMERAS IN THE COURTROOM

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, by this time next week, the Supreme Court 
will have finished hearing oral arguments in the case challenging the 
constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. 
How important is this Supreme Court case on health care reform? Well, 
health care is such an important issue that Congress spent 1 year 
drafting and debating a bill that the Court is going to consider next 
week.
  Health care has been a critical issue for so long in our country that 
in the last century, nine different Presidents have spent time, energy, 
and political capital fighting for reform. It is so important that the 
Supreme Court reserved 6 hours for oral argument over the course of 3 
days to consider the act's constitutionality. The last time the Court 
dedicated that kind of time to any one case was in 1966--if I am not 
mistaken, that was 46 years ago--when it considered Miranda v. Arizona. 
Not even the health care case is important enough for the Supreme Court 
to justify breaking its antiquated tradition of allowing cameras to 
televise the proceedings, so the American people are not going to have 
a chance to see and hear these historic arguments for themselves as 
they take place.
  I cannot predict the outcome of the case, but I can tell you what to 
expect just outside the doors of the Supreme Court. It is a scene we 
have seen over and over again for decades. Thousands will gather 
outside the Court. Many are going to camp overnight, sleeping on the 
sidewalk in the hopes of getting about 1 of 200 seats available to the 
public. The vast majority of those wanting to see the Supreme Court 
argument on one of the most important cases of our time will be told: 
No, you are not allowed to come inside the Court. We don't have room 
for you. In a democratic society that values transparency and 
participation, there cannot be any valid justification for such a 
powerful element of government to operate largely outside the view of 
the American people.
  For too long the American people have been prevented from observing 
open sessions of the Supreme Court. Except for the privileged few, the 
VIPs, the members of the Supreme Court bar or the press, the most 
powerful Court in our land--some might argue in the world--is 
inaccessible to the public and shrouded in mystery.
  I am pleased to stand in the Judiciary Committee with Senator 
Grassley, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, asking that 
the Senate pass our bipartisan bill that would require televising open 
Supreme Court proceedings. With the benefit of modern technology, the 
Supreme Court proceedings can be televised using unobtrusive cameras 
and the Court's existing audio recording capability. Our bill respects 
the constitutional rights of the parties before the Court and respects 
the discretion of the Justices.

[[Page S1920]]

The Court can decline to televise any proceeding where the Justices 
determine by a majority vote that doing so would violate due process 
rights of one or more parties.
  In our view--Senator Grassley and myself--this is a reasonable 
approach that balances the public's need for information and 
transparency, the constitutional rights of those before the Court, and 
the discretion of the Justices.
  It is no secret that Senator Grassley and I have strong disagreements 
about the actual law that is going to be considered by the Court. We 
have taken to the floor many times to explain our positions. Despite 
our disagreement on the substance of the health care bill, Senator 
Grassley and I agree on a bipartisan basis to stand united in full 
support of S. 1945, which would finally bring transparency and open 
access to Supreme Court proceedings.
  We are not the only Members of this body who believe these 
proceedings would produce greater accountability. In past years the 
Cameras in the Courtroom Act enjoyed bipartisan support. The last 
sponsor of the act before he left the Senate was Senator Arlen Specter 
of Pennsylvania. This version of the bill, very similar to his own, has 
the support of Senators Cornyn, Klobuchar, Schumer, Blumenthal, 
Gillibrand, Harkin, and Begich. As Senator Grassley would note, 
Democrats and Republicans from both Chambers have written to the 
Supreme Court asking it to permit live televised broadcasts of the 
health care reform arguments.
  In November, Senators Blumenthal, Schumer, and I wrote a letter to 
the Chief Justice making a request to open the Supreme Court for this 
historic argument and let America hear the arguments made before the 
Court and the questions asked by the Justices in open court. Chief 
Justice Roberts responded to our request last week, and it sounds as 
though he sent the same letter to Senator Grassley. The Chief Justice 
informed us that the Supreme Court has respectfully declined to 
televise the health care arguments, but that the Court would graciously 
offer an alternative.
  Here is the alternative: The Court will post the audio recordings and 
unofficial transcripts to the Court's Web site a few hours after the 
arguments are over. For that gesture, I guess we can congratulate the 
U.S. Supreme Court for entering the radio age. America entered the 
radio age 90 years ago. The Supreme Court is catching up with a delayed 
broadcast-audio only. But I think America deserves better.
  Decisions that affect our Nation should be accessible by the people 
who are affected by those decisions and they should be produced in a 
way that Americans can both see and hear. The day of the fireside chat 
is gone. The day of radio transmissions exclusively is gone. 
Television--and increasingly even the Internet--is the dominant medium 
for communicating messages and ideas in modern America. It is not too 
much to ask the third branch of government at the highest level to 
share the arguments before the Court with the people of America. 
Understand, there will be hundreds of people present and watching this 
as it occurs. It is not confidential or private. It is only kept away 
from the rest of America because this Court doesn't want America to see 
the proceedings.
  The Supreme Court is an elite institution in our government. Every 
member of the Supreme Court went to one of two Ivy league law schools. 
Most of the clerks before the Court come from one of seven law schools. 
None of the current Justices has run for public office. None of the 
current Justices has tried a death penalty case. And the lawyers who 
appear before the Supreme Court are part of a small and exclusive club. 
Perhaps this limited exposure is why many on the Court don't seem to 
fully appreciate the impact its decisions have on everyday America, and 
why the American people deserve to have more access to the Court's 
public proceedings. Since the Supreme Court is the final word on 
constitutionality, on issues that impact the lives of every American, 
the American people should have full and free access to its open 
proceedings on television.

  Let's be clear about one thing: Our bill only applies to court 
sessions that are already open to the public. Supreme Court Justices 
should be able to consult with each other, review cases, and deliberate 
privately. No one in this bill, or otherwise, is calling for those 
private deliberations to be televised. I believe that televising 
private deliberations or closed sessions of the Court would cause harm 
to our judicial system. Our bill does not require that and I would not 
support that. Open sessions of the Court, however, where members of the 
public are already invited to observe are a different matter. They 
should be televised in real time and widely available.
  Some who oppose our bill say that the elite cadre of seasoned lawyers 
with the rare opportunity to argue before the highest Court in the land 
will grandstand in front of the cameras, risking their professional 
reputations and even their clients' cases. Some say that the Court's 
Justices, who have been subjected to the most rigorous vetting process 
known to man and the most widely covered confirmation hearings, will 
shrink from the camera's glaring lens. I don't buy it. The experience 
of the State and Federal courts that have allowed the open proceedings 
to be televised proves these fears are unfounded.
  While the Federal courts of appeals have not permitted cameras to 
broadcast all appellate proceedings, there was a 3-year pilot project 
in 1990 that assessed the impact of cameras in the Federal courts. 
Listen to what happened as a result of the pilot program. At the end of 
the day 19 of the 20 judges most involved concluded that the presence 
of cameras in the Federal courts ``had no effect on the administration 
of justice.''
  Don't take my word for it. Kenneth Starr, former Solicitor General 
and independent counsel, supports our bill and said this:

       This fear seems groundless . . . The idea that cameras 
     would transform the [Supreme Court] into ``Judge Judy'' is 
     ludicrous.

  For more than 30 years State courts have broadcast their proceedings 
and, in fact, what they found hasn't detracted at all from the pursuit 
of justice. Every State in our Nation permits all or part of the 
appellate court proceedings to be recorded for broadcast on television 
or streaming on the Internet. Expanding access to the Supreme Court by 
televising its proceedings should not be controversial. Public scrutiny 
of the Supreme Court proceedings produces greater accountability, 
transparency, understanding, and access to the decision-making in 
government. Congressional debates have been fully televised for more 
than three decades.
  There are people who follow the C SPAN broadcast religiously. I know. 
I meet them regularly. As I said in the Judiciary Committee, people 
will come up to me and say: One of your colleagues looks a little bit 
under the weather. Does he have the flu? Is he sick? By observing C 
SPAN or following the floor of the Senate and knowing each of us, they 
think on a more personal basis. They hear these statements, they listen 
to the debates, and they feel better informed about their government. 
Wouldn't the same apply across the street in the Supreme Court?
  Opponents of our bill say the public will be misinformed because all 
they see are brief clips of the Court's proceedings that could be 
misconstrued. As I said, this argument sounds a lot like an editorial 
from a few years ago, and it said:

       Keeping cameras out [of the Supreme Court] to prevent 
     people from getting the wrong idea is a little like removing 
     the paintings from an art museum out of fear that visitors 
     might not have the art history background to appreciate them.

  In 1986, Chief Justice Burger wrote the following words in the 
Supreme Court's Press-Enterprise Company v. Superior Court opinion. 
These words are as true today as they were in 1986:

       [P]eople in an open society do not demand infallibility 
     from their institutions, but it is difficult for them to 
     accept what they are prohibited from observing.

  The time has long since come for the Supreme Court--for the highest 
Court in our land--to open its doors and allow the American people to 
finally observe its proceedings.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1945

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, at this point I wish to make a unanimous 
consent request relative to this bill that would open the Supreme Court 
proceedings to be televised.

[[Page S1921]]

  I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the consideration of 
Calendar No. 319, S. 1945, a bill to permit the televising of Supreme 
Court proceedings; that the bill be read a third time and passed; and 
the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening 
action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I want to 
congratulate my colleague Senator Durbin for his able articulation of 
his view. This is a matter that the Senate and the Congress has 
considered for quite a number of years. It has not decided to take this 
step to direct a coequal branch of government on how to conduct their 
business, and I don't think we should. So I think it would be 
inappropriate to pass this on a UC without a full debate and discussion 
and a full vote on it.
  So I would say that.
  Also, I would note the Justices have opposed this policy. I think we 
have a duty to respect the coequal branch of our government. They feel 
as though it would impact adversely the tenor and tone of the oral 
arguments. The Justices would also have to feel a burden and explain 
why they are asking a question, perhaps citing a case by name that all 
the lawyers would know but having to explain to nonlawyers now what is 
on their minds as a part of their process of questioning. So I think 
that is a factor.
  I would also note it raises constitutional questions. Why would we 
want to push to the limit and perhaps push over the limit and try to 
dictate to a coequal branch how to conduct the adjudicative process? 
Not the political process; we are the political branch. Theirs is the 
nonpolitical branch, where Justices are given lifetime tenure so as to 
insulate them from pressure and to allow them to dispassionately decide 
complex issues. I would also note that in terms of what is said and how 
an argument goes, there is no difference, I suppose, between that and 
what goes on in chambers when the Justices meet in private and talk 
about what issues are before the Court and how they should be decided.
  What is important in the adjudicative branch? What is the criteria 
and the fundamental essence of a judicial proceeding? Ultimately, it is 
the judgment. The judgment speaks. The arguments don't speak. The in 
camera discussions don't speak. The judgment itself represents the 
opinion of the Court. It is the law and the defining process.
  I appreciate very much the work of my esteemed colleague. I know he 
loves the law; we both do. He believes this would improve justice in 
America. I can't conclude that to be correct. I believe Justices should 
be given the responsibility to conduct their branch consistent with 
their best judgment of how do to it. Therefore, I object. I thank and 
respect my colleague for his different opinion.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 247, S. 671; 
that the committee-reported amendment to S. 671 be agreed to, and the 
bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. DURBIN. Reserving the right to object, it is my understanding the 
Judiciary Committee staff has been working on a package of important 
Judiciary Committee bills, including the very bill Senator Sessions has 
asked unanimous consent to move to--a bill which I quite likely will 
support.
  Would the Senator be willing to modify his request to include the 
passage of other bills which are part of that package and have 
similarly important elements to them in terms of keeping America safe? 
They include the following: Calendar No. 246, S. 1792, the 
Strengthening Investigations of Sex Offenders and Missing Children Act; 
Calendar No. 233, S. 1793, the Investigative Assistance for Violent 
Crimes Act; and discharging the Judiciary Committee from further 
consideration of S. 1696, the Dale Long Public Safety Officers' 
Benefits Improvements Act; agreeing to a substitute amendment which is 
at the desk, and passing the bill, as amended?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator so modify his request?
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I appreciate the suggestion by the 
Senator from Illinois, as I believe I will be able to support all those 
bills, but I have information that Senators on our side oppose or have 
objections to two of them and would like to offer amendments or modify 
them. So I am not able to agree on behalf of colleagues that all the 
bills would be passed as written.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, until the time comes--and I hope it is 
soon--when we can reach an agreement on all four bills, I will object 
to moving one bill in the package.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would note that the Presiding Officer 
is a cosponsor with myself of S. 1792, the Strengthening Investigations 
of Sex Offenders and Missing Children Act of 2011, and perhaps we will 
be able to make that work sooner or later. I am sure we will.

                          ____________________