[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 59 (Thursday, April 10, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2333-S2336]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
MINIMUM WAGE FAIRNESS ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED
Mr. REID. I move to proceed to Calendar No. 354, the minimum wage
legislation.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the motion.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 354, S. 2223, a bill to
provide for an increase in the Federal minimum wage and to
amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to extend increased
expensing limitations and the treatment of certain real
property as section 179 property.
=========================== NOTE ===========================
On page S2333, April 10, 2014, in the second column, the
following language appears: Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 345,
. . .
The online Record has been corrected to read: Motion to proceed
to Calendar No. 354, . . .
========================= END NOTE =========================
Schedule
Mr. REID. Mr. President, following my remarks and those of the
Republican leader, the time until 10:30 a.m. will be equally divided
and controlled.
At 10:30 a.m. there will be a vote on the Ninth Circuit judge, whose
name is Michelle Friedland. Until cloture is invoked there will be up
to 30 hours of debate prior to vote on the confirmation of the
nomination. So we have two votes we need to have before we leave here
this week. We can have a vote at 4:00 tomorrow afternoon and the second
vote would be around 7:00 or thereabouts tomorrow afternoon or tomorrow
evening. We have to finish these two matters before we leave this week.
The schedule is up to--not Republicans but a few Republicans--so I
would suggest the Republicans deal with their own, and we can finish
this morning if we need to. We certainly could.
Mr. President, I would be happy to yield to my friend, the dignified
and really superb Senator from Georgia.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Georgia.
Welcoming the Guest Chaplain
Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I thank the leader for the introduction
and I am very pleased to introduce today the Reverend Raphael Warnock,
the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. He is a gifted
author, a gifted and prolific preacher, and a great citizen of the
great State of Georgia and the great city of Atlanta.
Following in the traditions of the King family and the preachers of
Ebenezer Baptist Church, he is the fifth pastor in the history of
Ebenezer to carry out the mission of Ebenezer with great humility and
great ability and great love, and is a great pastor in our eyes. I am
pleased to welcome him to the U.S. Senate, and I know we will all be
blessed in his presence today.
I yield back.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader is recognized.
46th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1968
Mr. REID. Tomorrow marks the 46th anniversary of the signing into law
the Civil Rights Act of 1968, better known as the Fair Housing Act.
This landmark legislation took a stand against
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housing discrimination and gave American families a fair shot at
finding housing that was suitable to their needs. It is fitting we
recognize this anniversary now, especially in light of the equality
legislation we have been trying to pass here in the Senate recently.
The Economic Ladder
One of the first well-known billionaires we heard a lot of talk about
on the planet was the outspoken oil tycoon J. Paul Getty. He once
quipped: ``Money is like manure. You have to spread it around or it
smells.''
Well, Charles and David Koch have certainly spread the money around,
but it still stinks. It stinks because of what they do with their
money. The Kochs are singlehandedly funding an attack on this Nation's
middle class, instead of concerning themselves with narrowing the gap
between the rich and the poor.
Remember, in America today the rich are getting richer, the poor are
getting poorer, and the middle class is getting squeezed. The Koch
brothers have a lot to do with that. They are pumping hundreds of
millions of dollars into rightwing organizations. And I didn't make a
mistake when I said hundreds of millions of dollars.
Instead of giving Americans a fighting chance to prosperity, the two
richest brothers in the world are focused on getting Republicans
elected. These Koch-funded organizations and politicians advocate only
for what makes the Koch brothers richer. The two richest brothers in
the world want to be richer, and it comes at the expense of the average
American.
The Kochs are the classic example of two men at the top of the ladder
who would pull that ladder up to make sure no one else can join them.
That is exactly what the Koch brothers are trying to do to middle-class
families. The only difference, of course, is that Charles and David
never even scaled the ladder in the first place. They were born at the
top rung. But somehow the Kochs have fooled themselves into thinking
they rose to the top by their own merits. They didn't.
More importantly, the Koch brothers have decided that they want their
inherited wealth, this company now they have at the top--they want to
make sure this ladder that should be reachable for everyone is
unreachable. They are determined to make that ladder totally
unreachable for others. These billionaires do this by rigging the
system even more in their favor, making sure the Kochs' interests are
being represented at all costs.
As has been reported--and not by me--the Koch brothers have what some
journalists are calling secret banks. Organizations serve as middlemen
to fund ultraconservative scare campaigns. Through these secret banks,
such as Freedom Partners and others, the multibillionaire Koch brothers
pump money into radical institutions and all these rightwing
organizations ultimately come to the same conclusion: America's best
bet for economic prosperity is to help the Koch brothers get richer.
So what do these groups do with the funds they receive from their
billionaire benefactors? Groups such as Americans for Prosperity--try
that one on for size, the Americans for Prosperity--lie to the American
people about ObamaCare, hoping families will not sign up for affordable
health care.
Extreme organizations such as Independent Women's Forum tell women
equal pay for equal work is not necessary because they say wage
disparity is a myth.
The Koch-backed Manhattan Institute is another one of their shell
organizations that tries to convince the country that out-of-work
American families don't need unemployment benefits. Why? Because they
are out of work because they are lazy.
And, of course, the Heritage Foundation uses Koch dollars to say
raising the minimum wage is bad for business and will kill the economy.
It is clear that the Kochs are using these puppet organizations in
their proxy war on the middle class. But Charles and David aren't just
using radical rightwing groups to keep average Americans from scaling
the rungs. They are using Republicans. They are spreading their money
around helping Republicans get elected.
Unfortunately, the Republican Congress has shown itself to be in
lockstep with the Koch brothers' radical agenda. The Republicans
continue to push repeal of the Affordable Care Act. I watched the
speech on the House floor yesterday, where one House Member indicated
that he tried almost 60 times to repeal the bill--almost 60 times.
What did Albert Einstein say? The definition of insanity is when
someone tries to do something over and over again and they get the same
result. They are insane. That is Albert Einstein, not me.
They are doing this regardless of the fact that even the Koch
brothers; that is, their business, Koch Industries, benefited from
ObamaCare.
Remember that ladder. The Kochs already got what they needed from
health care reform. They don't want other people to do the same. They
have benefited from ObamaCare. I laid that out a few days ago on the
Senate floor.
Senate Republicans have blocked the equal pay amendment three times--
three separate Congresses. They won't even let us discuss it. All but
half of Republican Senators voted against the extension of benefits for
the long-term unemployed, and turned their back on their own
constituents.
As for the minimum wage, my Republican colleagues have given no
indication to help struggling families with the minimum wage.
The Kochs' wealth is being used to squeeze the middle class very
much. As long as Charles and David Koch are at the top looking down,
who cares about the little people at the bottom, in their estimation.
It is shameful that Koch money has made its way into our Nation's
Capitol, our news, and our homes. It is frustrating that as Senate
Democrats look across the aisle, we don't see many willing partners in
defending middle-class families in Nevada and across the Nation. But we
are not going to be intimidated by these Koch surrogates in the media
or here in this very Chamber. We will continue to fight even harder to
protect Americans from the greedy grasp of these billionaire oil barons
and the wrath of their radical minions. Senate Democrats will continue
to pull that ladder out from the Koch brothers' fingers so every
American has a fair shot at climbing to the top.
Recognition of the Minority Leader
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader is
recognized.
Job Creation
Mr. McCONNELL. For days now Republicans have been coming to the floor
to ask the Democratic majority to work with us on jobs. This is the
issue Americans say they care the most about. So it is hard to see why
Senate Democrats seem so allergic to various jobs ideas we have been
proposing, not to mention dozens of job-creating bills already passed
by the House.
Look, our constituents want us to work together to rebuild the middle
class, to help create opportunities for the families struggling out
there just to pay the bills. In recent days we have given our
Democratic colleagues ample opportunity to do that. We have offered one
innovative proposal after another, proposals that haven't had much of a
problem attracting bipartisan support in the past, ideas such as
reducing the tax burden on small businesses, freeing them to grow, to
hire, to innovate, ideas such as approving the Keystone Pipeline, which
would create thousands of jobs right away; ideas such as repealing the
medical device tax which even Democrats acknowledge is killing jobs--
although they haven't acted to fix it yet--and ideas such as
eliminating ObamaCare's 30-hour workweek mandate, a rule that cuts
people's hours against their will, that disproportionately affects
women and is forcing too many Americans to look for extra work to get
by.
But we go even further than just tackling the causes of joblessness.
Our ideas go beyond just helping Americans secure jobs with a steady
paycheck and the hope of a better future. Because we have also put
forward legislation that offers Americans more choices and greater
flexibility in the workforce. This is something a lot of our
constituents are asking for, and we are responding to those concerns.
One bill we have proposed would let working moms and dads take more
time off to strike a better work-life balance. Another bill would
prohibit
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union bosses from denying pay increases to an employee who works harder
than her coworkers.
These are the kinds of practical, commonsense proposals our
constituents sent us here to actually pass. These are the things that
would make jobs more plentiful and life a lot easier for men and women
across our country. For some reason Senate Democrats are blocking all
of these ideas from getting a vote. Maybe it is because they are so
single-mindedly focused on an election that is still 7 months away.
I mean, they have already conceded that their ``agenda'' for the rest
of the year was drafted by campaign staffers. It is a stunning
admission. It explains their near-total lack of interest in practical
solutions to the everyday concerns of our constituents. It also
explains why the only jobs that Senate Democrats seem to be interested
in these days are their own.
This is a big problem. Not only does it reinforce the widespread
belief that Democrats are not serious about jobs, it also reinforces a
growing impression that Democrats are simply out of their depth when it
comes to our economy. Think about it: Washington Democrats are well
into their sixth year of trying to get the economy back on track--6
years.
Yet for many in the middle class things only seem to have gotten
worse. Average household income has fallen by nearly $3,600. The number
of Americans actually working in the labor force has dropped to its
lowest level since the Carter era. Millions are looking for work and
can't find it, and the new rules and regulations just keep on coming.
They have tried all their usual liberal solutions--higher taxes,
``stimulus,'' and more regulations. They have tried all the standard
stuff and it has not worked. Doing more of it won't work either.
This may be difficult for Washington Democrats to hear, but it is
time they switched from their failed ideological approach. It is time
for them to shelve their political games and work with us to pass
practical legislation for a change--legislation that can finally rescue
the middle class from so many years of economic failure.
I have laid out a number of commonsense proposals already. There is
more we can do if Democrats are willing to reach across the aisle and
help deliver for the American people. My constituents expect us to do
that. I am sure theirs do too. Honestly, there is no reason not to do
that.
I yield the floor.
Reservation of Leader Time
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
leadership time is reserved.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the time
until 10:30 a.m. will be equally divided and controlled between the two
leaders or their designees.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
(The remarks of Mrs. Murray pertaining to the introduction of S. 2243
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills
and Joint Resolutions.'')
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the nomination of
Michelle Friedland to the Ninth Circuit.
This nomination was approved in the Judiciary Committee on a strong
bipartisan vote of 14 to 3, including support from four Republican
members: Ranking Member Grassley, and Senators Hatch, Graham, and
Flake. She has earned the American Bar Association's highest rating of
``well qualified.''
If she is confirmed, which I very much hope she is, it would mark the
first time ever that the Ninth Circuit, the busiest circuit in the
country by some measures, has its full complement of 29 active circuit
judges.
Michelle Friedland earned her bachelor's degree, with honors and
distinction, from Stanford University in 1994. She was Phi Beta Kappa,
and became a Fulbright Scholar from 1995 to 1996, studying at Oxford.
She earned her law degree from Stanford Law School in 2000, where she
was second in her class, graduated with distinction, and inducted into
the Order of the Coif.
She then had two prestigious clerkships. The first was with Judge
David Tatel on the DC Circuit.
She then clerked for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who
attended Ms. Friedland's confirmation hearing this past November.
Although I could not attend that hearing, it said a great deal that
Justice O'Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court and a voice of
great moderation and pragmatism on the Court, came to the Judiciary
Committee and demonstrated her support in person for this nominee.
Ms. Friedland then served as a lecturer at Stanford Law School from
2002 to 2004 and subsequently joined the law firm Munger Tolles &
Olsen, where she is now a partner.
She has represented major clients, including Berkshire Hathaway,
Boeing, Abbott Laboratories, the University of California, and Solvay
Pharmaceuticals. She has worked on issues including criminal defense,
class action defense, tax, patent, copyright, and antitrust.
She has also done pro bono work, devoting time, for example, to the
Silicon Valley Campaign for Legal Services and Equality California.
She has won the President's Pro Bono Service Award and the Wiley W.
Manuel Award for Pro Bono Legal Services, both from the State Bar of
California.
She also has broad support in the legal community. One letter came
from 27 individuals who clerked on the Supreme Court--including for
Justices Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas--when Ms. Friedland clerked for
Justice O'Connor. They said that Friedland is ``respectful of
colleagues, fair-minded to attorneys and litigants, and sharp as a
tack.''
A second letter is from Kathryn Haun, who previously served in the
Justice Department under Attorney General Mukasey and in the National
Security Division. Today she is a Federal prosecutor in Northern
California.
Ms. Haun has known Michelle Friedland since they were classmates in
the same small section at Stanford Law School. Ms. Haun's letter says:
I clerked for Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, am a
member of the Federalist Society, and have always been a
registered Republican. Notwithstanding our political
differences, I believe [Michelle Friedland] would make an
outstanding federal appellate judge if confirmed. This is
because Michelle has a deep respect for legal precedent above
seeking a particular result in a given case.
A third letter is from the general counsel of Cisco, Edison
International, Google, Facebook, Rambus, and other companies. It speaks
very highly of this nominee, and says, quote: ``All parties appearing
before her, from individual litigants to small businesses to the
nation's largest corporations, would be confident that she will adjudge
their cases fairly and in accordance with the law.''
The Ninth Circuit is also the busiest circuit. It has over 1,470
pending appeals per panel. This is two and a half times the average of
the other circuits.
It comes as no surprise, then, that it takes much longer to resolve
an appeal in the Ninth Circuit than in the other circuits.
Specifically, the Ninth Circuit takes 13.3 months to resolve an appeal.
This is down from 17.4 months in 2011, but it is still 55 percent
greater than the average in the other circuits.
Thus, it is very important for businesses, individuals, and others in
all States in the Ninth Circuit that nominees to this court are
promptly taken up and confirmed.
I will conclude by remarking upon what I see as a real opportunity
for the Senate in the coming months.
When I was first elected to the Senate in 1992, it was called by some
the Year of the Woman. Senator Boxer and I were both elected that year,
as were Senator Murray and former Senator Carol Moseley Braun.
Yet after we were all sworn in, there were still only six women in
the Senate. I became the first woman ever to sit on the Senate
Judiciary Committee, after some very divisive hearings for
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Justice Clarence Thomas, in which the lack of women on the Judiciary
Committee became an issue.
At the time, the Federal courts were mainly the province of men
appointed by the two most recent Presidents.
About 92 percent of President Reagan's confirmed judicial nominees
were men. That number fell under President George H.W. Bush, but only
to 81 percent. Overall, only 12.6 percent of active Federal judges were
women when I was sworn in to the Senate.
Although women have been close to half of all law students for
decades, even today only 53 of 164 active circuit judges--or 32
percent--are women.
Right now, there are female nominees for the Third, Ninth, Tenth, and
Eleventh Circuits pending in the Senate--a total of six nominees, with
four simply waiting for a floor vote. To put these numbers in
perspective, there were only 6 women confirmed to the circuit courts
during all 8 years of the Reagan administration.
If all six of these pending nominees are confirmed, the number of
active female circuit judges would grow by over 11 percent. That is a
big deal, and it is a real opportunity to increase significantly the
number of women on the circuit courts.
Michelle Friedland is well qualified, she has bipartisan support, and
her confirmation would give the Ninth Circuit--the busiest circuit--a
full complement of 29 judges for the first time. I urge my colleagues
to support her.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today, we are again voting to overcome a
Republican filibuster of a highly qualified nominee for a judicial
emergency vacancy on the busiest circuit court in the country. For what
is already the third time this year, the majority leader has had to
file cloture on one of President Obama's circuit court nominees in
order to move the nomination forward. In stark contrast, the Senate
confirmed 18 of President Bush's circuit nominees within a week of
being reported by the Judiciary Committee.
Michelle Friedland, nominated to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Ninth Circuit, is an exceptionally talented attorney, and has
an exemplary record of service in the top echelons of the legal
profession. She clerked on the United States Supreme Court for Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor from 2001 to 2002 and on the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the District of Columbia Circuit for Judge David Tatel from 2000 to
2001. Ms. Friedland earned her B.S. with honors and distinction from
Stanford University in 1995. She studied at Oxford University from 1995
to 1996 as a Fulbright Scholar and went on to earn her J.D. with
distinction from Stanford Law School in 2000.
For over a decade, Ms. Friedland has worked in private practice at
Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, where she was named partner in 2010. She
has taught as an adjunct professor at the University of Virginia School
Law and as a Lecturer in Law at the Stanford Law School. Ms. Friedland
has experience in both the trial court and appellate levels, including
the United States Supreme Court. She manages an active pro bono
practice and frequently represents the University of California in
constitutional litigation. She received the President's Pro Bono
Service Award in 2013 from the State Bar of California, and the LGBT
Award from the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California in
2009. The American Bar Association unanimously awarded her their
highest rating of ``well qualified.''
It comes as no surprise to me that Michelle Friedland's nomination
has received significant support. Kathryn Haun, Assistant United States
Attorney and Former Counsel to then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey,
wrote to the Committee to express her support, saying ``Michelle and I
fall at opposite ends of the political spectrum . . . Notwithstanding
our political differences, I believe she would make an outstanding
federal appellate judge . . . Michelle has a deep respect for legal
precedent above seeking a particular result in a given case. She has a
balance and a willingness to listen to all arguments before formulating
a position on a particular issue. She displays, above all else,
intellectual honesty and personal modesty that suit her exceptionally
well for a federal appellate judgeship.''
Eugene Volokh, Professor of Law, at the UCLA School of Law, expressed
his strong support for Ms. Friedland to the Committee, writing
``Michelle is a brilliant and extremely accomplished lawyer, who will
make a superb judge. . . [She] has impressed not just those on her side
of the political aisle, but conservatives as . . . well.''
General Counsel from multiple fortune 500 companies including Google,
Cisco, and Facebook echo their support of Michelle Friedland, noting
that ``Her career has been marked by energy, integrity, and legal
excellence. She has represented a broad spectrum of clients in both the
private and public sectors . . . The careful, unbiased approach she
would bring to the types of issues that arise before the Ninth Circuit
are critical to our nation's values and to its economic health.''
In their letter of support, 22 former Supreme Court Law Clerks to
Justice O'Connor write, ``We have differing political views and
differing careers, but we can all agree that Michelle would be an
excellent federal appellate judge. We have . . . enjoyed her warm
collegiality, her honesty and fairness, and her dedication to law above
ideology. Michelle would be a tremendous addition to the Ninth Circuit
Court of Appeals, and we urge you to confirm her nomination.''
I ask unanimous consent that a list of letters of support be printed
in the Record at the conclusion of my statement.
If confirmed, Michelle Friedland would increase the gender diversity
on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She would be the seventeenth
female judge to ever sit on the Circuit. In comparison, 83 men have
been appointed to the Ninth Circuit over the course of its history. Her
confirmation would bring the percentage of active female judges sitting
on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to nearly 38 percent. Her
confirmation would also mark the first time, since the 29th judgeship
was added in 2007, that it has had a full complement of active judges
despite having the highest number of appeals filed, the highest pending
appeals per panel and the highest pending appeals per active judge of
any Circuit in the country.
Yet here we are, again voting to overcome a Republican filibuster of
an exceptionally talented nominee to a court that desperately needs to
be operating at full strength.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Letters received in connection with Michelle Friedland
July 26, 2013--Six Supreme Court Co-Clerks
August 26, 2013--Eugene Volokh, Professor of Law at the
UCLA School of Law and conservative legal commentator
August 26, 2013--Five fellow partners at Munger, Tolles, &
Olson LLP
September 4, 2013--Brian Fitzpatrick, Professor of Law at
Vanderbilt Law School
September 9, 2013--Anup Malani, Professor of Law and
Medicine at the University of Chicago
September 9, 2013--Edward Morrison, Professor of Law at the
University of Chicago and Former Law Clerk to Justice Scalia
September 12, 2013--Kathryn Haun, Assistant United States
Attorney and Former Counsel to Former Attorney General
Michael Mukasey
September 23, 2013--General Counsels from multiple American
companies including Google, Cisco, and Facebook
October 2, 2013--27 Supreme Court Co-Clerks
October 24, 2013--28 Former Law Students and Current
Attorneys
November 4, 2013--22 former Supreme Court Law Clerks to
Justice O'Connor
April 9, 2014--Nancy Duff Campbell and Marcia Greenberger,
Co-Presidents of the National Women's Law Center
April 9, 2014--Wade Henderson, President and CEO, and Nancy
Zirkin, Executive Vice President, Leadership Conference on
Civil and Human Rights
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