[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 59 (Thursday, April 10, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2337-S2359]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 NOMINATION OF MICHELLE T. FRIEDLAND TO BE UNITED STATES CIRCUIT JUDGE 
                     FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT--Resumed

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican whip.


                          A Shared Commitment

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I start by making an obvious point that 
every Member of the Senate is dedicated to helping law enforcement 
officials get dangerous criminals off the street and deliver justice to 
victims of sexual assault, every one of us.
  As we mark National Crime Victims' Rights Week and National Sexual 
Assault Awareness Month, let's all keep that shared commitment in mind.
  Ten years ago I was proud to join with my colleagues and President 
Bush to enact the Justice for All Act, which has made it easier for 
America's law enforcement agencies to protect the innocent, to identify 
the guilty, and to bring peace of mind to the victims of violent crime. 
Justice for All dramatically increased the resources available to test 
DNA samples from crime scenes, to improve our DNA-testing capabilities 
and to reduce the rape kit backlog which had become a national scandal.
  The backlog was--and remains--a national scandal of the highest 
order, but we are beginning to make some progress. In the city of 
Houston, for example, a backlog that once reached 6,600 untested rape 
kits--one of the largest in the country--is now in the process of being 
completely eliminated thanks in part to the support provided from the 
Justice for All Act.
  Just to refresh the memories of my colleagues and for those who might 
be listening, these rape kits consist of forensic evidence collected at 
crime scenes that will help by testing the DNA to identify the 
perpetrator and, in the process, potentially exonerate people who have 
been falsely accused. The DNA tests are that good and that effective. 
What is extraordinary about DNA testing in the field of sexual assault 
is that sexual assault offenders rarely commit that crime once. They 
are typically serial offenders. In other words, they keep at it until 
they are caught. As we have learned from law enforcement officials, 
when there is not an adult victim available, these offenders are 
opportunistic and they will attack children, the most vulnerable among 
us. So this is enormously powerful evidence that is available to law 
enforcement to exonerate the falsely accused, to make sure the guilty 
are identified with scientific precision, and to take serial offenders 
off the street so they can't commit other acts of violence.
  Last year I joined with the senior Senator from Vermont, the chairman 
of the Judiciary Committee, to introduce bipartisan legislation that 
would reauthorize the Justice for All Act and continue these beginning 
steps of progress. If it were up to me, we would have passed that bill 
a long time ago. If it were up to me, I would prefer to reauthorize the 
entire Justice for All Act right now--today. It has been hugely 
successful, and it commands strong support across party lines and 
across the country.
  That said, it doesn't appear we are going to be able to do that 
today, but we do have an opportunity to take immediate action on two of 
the law's most critical components. Indeed, they could and should be 
reauthorized right now--today. I am referring, of course, to the Debbie 
Smith Act and the Sexual Assault Forensic Exam Program, both of which 
have been invaluable tools in our efforts to eliminate the rape kit 
backlog and to improve public safety.
  Earlier this week our House colleagues passed a bill reauthorizing 
those provisions, and the Senate now has an opportunity to take up that 
more narrow House bill to reauthorize the Debbie Smith Act and the 
Sexual Assault Forensic Exam Program, even if we can't do the Justice 
for All Act today. I am hoping that colleagues here in the Chamber, and 
anyone who might be listening to my voice, will join us in this effort 
to do what we can do today to reauthorize the Debbie Smith Act and the 
Sexual Assault Forensic Exam Program and then, when it is possible for 
the Senate to act, to pass the Justice for All Act, the larger piece of 
legislation.
  As I said, I would prefer to reauthorize the entire Justice for All 
Act, and I know there are many of our colleagues who share that 
sentiment with me. But regardless of whatever minor disagreements 
Members may have, we should immediately--today--reauthorize the Debbie 
Smith Act and the Sexual Assault Forensic Exam Program.
  Again refreshing the memories of some of my colleagues, and others 
who may not be familiar with it, the Debbie Smith Act was named after 
Debbie Smith who has dedicated her life to making sure Congress keeps 
focused on this rape kit backlog problem and scandal. She is one of the 
biggest cheerleaders for this law that now bears her name. This is also 
the name for the portion of the law that allocates funds to the 
Department of Justice to use for grant programs to forensic 
laboratories, police departments, and other law enforcement agencies 
around the country that may not have the money or the expertise or the 
wherewithal to be able to test these rape kit backlogs.
  It is not just my position that these two provisions the House has 
passed should be taken up and passed by the Senate and then catch up in 
due course with the entire Justice for All Act. It is also the position 
of the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, the National Center for 
Victims of Crime, and, of course, Debbie Smith herself,

[[Page S2338]]

and I am confident many of my colleagues have heard from her.
  All of those folks support the provisions of the bigger bill. But if 
we can't do that today, they support the Senate's passing the 
provisions that have passed the House as soon as possible. We now have 
an opportunity today to do something to support countless victims of 
sexual assault during National Sexual Assault Awareness Month and 
National Crime Victims' Rights Week. All of these groups and 
individuals support the immediate reauthorization of the Debbie Smith 
Act.
  I am proud to stand here with the heroic people who have dedicated 
their lives to helping address this backlog scandal of untested rape 
kits, and even more proud to stand with those who are willing--and 
spending their time and treasure--to help folks who need to heal, who 
need justice, and who are asking for our support. In all my years of 
public service, Debbie Smith is among the most inspiring people I have 
ever had the privilege of meeting. I sincerely hope my colleagues will 
keep her in mind and others like her as we move forward with this 
legislation.
  Earlier this week, Debbie reminded me that the rape kit backlog is 
not just about numbers and DNA samples and scientific testing. It is 
about people, it is about justice, and it is about recovery. As she so 
eloquently put it:

       These aren't rape kits that need to be tested. These are 
     lives that need to be given back to their owners. These are 
     fragments of lives that have been torn apart.

  I hope my colleagues will remember those words as they contemplate 
how we should move forward on the House provisions that have been 
passed, as well as the larger Justice for All Act, both of which I 
support. By reauthorizing the Debbie Smith Act--and later, in due 
course, whenever we can do it, the larger Justice for All Act--Members 
of Congress can continue doing our part to help people like Debbie 
Smith heal wounds, repair lives, and make our country a safer place.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Booker). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I would ask unanimous consent that the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will report the nomination.
  The assistant legislative clerk read the nomination of Michelle T. 
Friedland, of California, to be United States Circuit Judge for the 
Ninth Circuit.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.


                              Immigration

  Mr. SESSIONS. I wish to share with my colleagues some recent 
developments that I believe are important on the immigration front. My 
office did a report and an analysis recently that pointed out that this 
administration, unlike what had been done historically, has been 
counting border apprehensions as ICE deportations from the United 
States. Classically, before that ICE officers--the Immigration Customs 
Enforcement officers--apprehended people inside the border and did 
removal proceedings and that was what was counted. So they have used 
those numbers to create the impression that a great deal more removals 
are occurring than actually are. That is not good. The administration 
should not be doing that, and it has created confusion. It is just one 
more example of this administration's willingness, unfortunately, to 
misrepresent and twist numbers to advance an agenda they believe ought 
to be advanced.
  We are a nation of immigrants. We believe in immigration, but we 
believe in a lawful system of immigration. Most Americans believe the 
lawlessness should end and we should have a system that creates a 
mechanism by which people apply and they are admitted based on a fair 
evaluation of the people most likely to be prosperous in America and do 
well and contribute to the Nation and should be given priority--and we 
are just not doing that.
  So the administration contends and says openly that we will not 
deport people, except those who commit serious crimes, which apparently 
does not include DUI's. The crimes almost always have to be a felony, 
it appears, in order for people to be deported, according to the 
administration. We will ignore the law for that company down the street 
in a high unemployment area which has five employees working illegally. 
They would not be removed. They will be allowed to stay and continue to 
work unlawfully, while Americans who cannot get a job are drawing 
unemployment insurance and other subsidies. This is happening all over 
America.
  So getting to this fundamental point: Government is not being 
operated in ways that it should, conducted by a President who is 
charged to see that the laws of the United States are faithfully 
executed. He has issued prosecutorial removal policies that go beyond 
creating a mechanism to enforce the law but in fact wipe out the law, 
eliminate the law.
  There has never been a requirement in the law that if someone is in 
the country illegally, they can stay as long as they don't get 
convicted of some other felony unrelated to an immigration violation. 
Indeed, under the policy as it is being executed, if an individual has 
false documents, which is a felony for an American citizen, that 
doesn't count as a deportable crime. It is only drug dealing or a crime 
of violence or robbery under the policies that we are carrying out.
  They say they are faithfully executing that policy in part, deporting 
the individuals who are convicted of serious crimes. A study came out 
from CIS, Center for Immigration Studies, that found 1 in 3 criminal 
alien encounters last year resulted in a release. They are being 
released, in one form or another, and are remaining in the country.
  We have so much going on that is very troubling to me. Former ICE 
Director John Sandweg said recently:

       If you are a run-of-the-mill immigrant here illegally, your 
     odds of getting deported are close to zero--it's just highly 
     unlikely to happen.

  Now that is the truth. I was a Federal prosecutor. I know how the 
system works and I have worked with ICE officers and Border Patrol 
officers and prosecuted their cases. This is what the reality is, and 
it is not right. It should not be.
  When we have the Vice President of the United States saying recently 
he considers the 11 million people here illegally as citizens anyway, 
what message does that send, colleagues, to an individual who would 
like to come to America permanently but has a visa to work so many 
months or be a student for so many months and the visa is over? What 
does the statement of the Vice President mean to him? It means he 
doesn't have to go home. All he has to do is just stay in the country. 
If he is in the interior and not caught at the border and came in by 
airplane, flew into Philadelphia or Denver, he gets to stay. As long as 
he doesn't get convicted of a felony, nobody is ever going to bother 
him. So this is an open border.
  If they get past the border, get into the interior, go to St. Louis, 
go to Salt Lake City, go to Little Rock, Arkansas, then they can stay. 
That cannot be the policy of the United States of America. It cannot be 
the policy of a nation that expects its laws to be respected that if 
someone can get past the border or they can get a visa into the country 
and overstay, nobody will have any intention of removing them or 
enforcing the agreement they made or enforcing the law. I feel strongly 
about this issue.
  People are unaware of how this is happening. I see in addition to the 
fanciful claims about who is being deported or removed, this was on the 
front page of the Washington Times today. Steven Dinan says the 
projections of the Washington Times show that Federal agents are `` . . 
. on pace this year to remove the fewest number of immigrants of 
President Obama's tenure.''
  It goes on to say:

       That slower pace contrasts with the President's argument 
     that he is enforcing the laws to the fullest extent possible 
     by targeting criminals and recent border crossers.

  The article goes on to say that the ICE officers are fully funded to 
remove at least 400,000 people, and at this rate they will be well 
below that figure. Why? Because it is the policy not to enforce the 
law. This is what is going on in this country.

[[Page S2339]]

  On the same page there is the headline of an article that ``Sheriffs 
warn of violence from Mexican cartels deep into interior of U.S.''
  It goes on to say:

       Outmanned and outgunned, local law enforcement officers are 
     alarmed by the drug and human trafficking, prostitution, 
     kidnapping and money laundering that Mexican drug cartels 
     are conducting in the U.S. far from the border.

  Not just at the border but away from the border. It goes on:

       U.S. sheriffs say that securing the border is a growing 
     concern to law enforcement agencies throughout the country, 
     not just near the U.S.-Mexico boundary.
       ``If we fail to secure our borders, then every sheriff in 
     America will become a border sheriff,'' said Sam Paige, 
     sheriff of Rockingham County, NC. ``We're only a two-day 
     drive from the border and have already seen the death and 
     violence that illegal crossings brings into our community.''

  Other sheriffs joined in expressing that similar concern.
  We are not where we need to be. Since the President took office, 
interior removals have been cut nearly in half. They have dropped by 44 
percent. More than half of the ICE removals since 2009 are the border 
apprehensions, where they just caught them at the border and sent them 
back. These are not interior deportations as the statistics used to be 
focused on. Two-thirds of all ICE removals last year were border 
apprehensions. So--I said ``half'' earlier--it is two-thirds of the 
numbers that they are counting as deportations and removal are border 
deportations that weren't previously counted as such.
  Ninty-four percent of the people removed last year--get this--were 
either apprehended at the border, which is not attributable to 
apprehension, or were convicted of a crime while in the United States.
  Do you hear that, colleagues? Ninety-four percent of the people who 
were removed were either people captured at the border or committing a 
serious crime, and even those who commit serious crimes are not 
deported. Most of the rest were repeat violators or fugitives.
  So 99.9 percent of the 12 million illegal immigrants and visa 
overstays, without known crimes on their record, including those 
fleeing from authority, did not face removal last year. So if someone 
was here as a visa overstay or an illegal entrant inside the country 
and did not commit a crime, 99 percent of that--99.92 percent of the 12 
million here were not involved or no action was taken to remove them. 
It just goes to show our law enforcement system is in a state of 
collapse. It is a deliberate plan by the President of the United 
States, and it is wrong. People need to be aware of it and need to 
stand up to it and I think the American people are beginning to do so.
  This administration has effectively declared that anyone in the world 
who illegally gains access to the interior of the United States through 
a border, through an airport, through a seaport, is free to illegally 
remain in the United States, free to claim certain tax benefits, free 
to work and take jobs that unemployed Americans need. This deprives 
millions of Americans of their jobs, wages and represents a dramatic, 
breathtaking nullification of Federal law.
  This law enforcement collapse is evident everywhere--872,000 aliens 
have been ordered removed but haven't left. So we order people removed. 
They get released on bail or get released in order to remove themselves 
or show up for removal. How many are showing up? Not many. It is called 
a catch and release, as has been referred to.
  There are 872,000--almost 1 million--who at one time or another have 
been ordered removed but haven't left, and 68,000 potentially 
deportable aliens deemed criminal by type were released by immigration 
officials last year. These were people who were charged with crimes and 
still didn't leave.
  The chief of the Border Patrol--this is the guy who runs the border 
effort with his team--predicted a tenfold increase in the presence of 
illegal youth crossing the border between 2011 and 2014. They have been 
told: Come on down, nothing is going to happen, and it has created more 
people coming, this lack of enforcement.
  The Los Angeles Times reports that the number of asylum claims at the 
borders have increased sevenfold since 2009. Well, the administration 
developed a policy of stopping everything. All someone has to do is 
say, I am claiming asylum, and the whole process stops. Time goes by. 
Often the individuals who claim asylum are released on bail and then 
they don't leave. We don't know where they go. This is in effect a 
postmodern view of challenging the very idea that we are a nation-state 
with real borders. Attorney General Holder and Cecilia Munoz, who is 
the President's Assistant and Director of the Domestic Policy Council, 
who used to be with La Raza, described amnesty as a civil right. If you 
come into the country illegally, the Attorney General of the United 
States declares that these individuals have a civil right to amnesty. 
How can this possibly be? This is the chief law enforcement officer in 
America?

  Vice President Biden recently said:

       You know, eleven million people live in the shadows. I 
     believe they're already American citizens . . . eleven 
     million undocumented aliens are already Americans.

  Goodness. The Vice President of the United States would make such a 
statement. It is stunning beyond belief. Apparently, if somebody is 
supposed to get on an airplane to leave this country because their visa 
is up and then they read the Vice President's statement, they could 
just say: Well, I will just stay. Why should I go back? I would rather 
stay now. I kind of like this place. If I go back, I will have to wait 
in line. I will have to compete within the system like everybody else 
who comes lawfully. Since I am here, I am not going to leave.
  Is it any wonder we have more people staying, as the border patrol 
chief said?
  President Obama made a series of nominations--Mr. Jeh Johnson, the 
head of Homeland Security, a lawyer at the Department of Defense and a 
political campaigner. He heads the Department of Homeland Security, 
which is a huge department. He can be counted on to know one thing: He 
is very close to the President, and he is to carry out the President's 
wishes. He doesn't know anything else about running a big, major law 
enforcement operation such as this. Mr. Perez, the former Assistant 
Attorney General at the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, 
was very active with the pro-amnesty group in Maryland before this. Mr. 
Rodriguez, who has been nominated to be the Director of USCIS--they 
were installed not to be good and smart law enforcement officers but to 
effectuate the President's agenda. You want to know the truth? That is 
the truth. They were put in there to carry out the agenda, not to carry 
out law enforcement.
  The morale at Homeland Security is the lowest of any major entity in 
the U.S. Government. They have actually sued supervisors because they 
are being blocked from enforcing the law as they have taken oath to do.
  I see my colleagues are here, and I will yield the floor. First, I 
will conclude by saying that I hope my colleagues will look at this. 
These facts are not disputed. This is not acceptable. It cannot be that 
the U.S. Government would carry on its business in this way. It is 
dangerous not only on immigration law but any other law that might come 
up in the future.
  Presidents cannot, Attorneys General cannot, and Homeland Security 
people cannot fail to enforce plain law without creating serious damage 
to the great American constitutional legal system that has protected us 
and produced our prosperity.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.


                                 Amtrak

  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I would like to start this afternoon by 
thanking Chairman Murray for her tireless work on the Budget 
Committee--on which I serve--to develop and pass a bipartisan budget, a 
budget that sets us on a path to return to regular order.
  Senator Murray has also been a tireless advocate for transportation 
and infrastructure programs, and as chair of the Transportation, 
Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Subcommittee of the 
Appropriations Committee--on which I also serve--she fought tirelessly 
to include adequate funding for Amtrak back in the fiscal year 2014 
omnibus and moving forward.
  The topic I would like to take up today is the role of Amtrak in our 
country and our communities and its appropriate role as a central piece 
of

[[Page S2340]]

Federal transportation policy going forward.
  Senator Murray has been a terrific advocate for investing across a 
wide range of transportation modalities. As a member of the 
Appropriations Committee, I look forward to working with her and our 
leading full committee chair Senator Mikulski to make sure we are 
successful in fighting ardently and steadfastly for Amtrak this year 
and into the future.
  I come to talk on the floor today about the importance of our 
national passenger rail system--Amtrak--because this is not just about 
getting people from point A to point B. Investing in Amtrak also means 
creating jobs, making our whole economy more dynamic, and making 
America more competitive.
  Amtrak is performing better and better each and every year. As the 
Presiding Officer knows all too well, ridership over the last decade 
has steadily increased. In fact, 10 of the last 11 years have seen 
record numbers, and last year we broke through 31.6 million riders on 
Amtrak. The trains are more and more crowded, but they are arriving 
more and more frequently on time and the quality of the train sets and 
the quality of the service provided by the conductors and the other 
folks who work for Amtrak has steadily increased.
  As the value proposition of Amtrak has increased, so has ridership. 
Record ticket sales and other revenues have made this possible. Today 
Amtrak covers nearly 89 percent of the cost of operating their trains, 
which is by far the best of any passenger rail operation in the United 
States. They are, in fact, on track to cover 90 percent, through 
revenues, of their total operating costs in 2014. Because of this 
success, since 2002 Amtrak has decreased its debt by more than half.
  My home State of Delaware and the Presiding Officer's home State of 
New Jersey are part of one of the oldest and most critical sections of 
our national passenger rail system, the so-called Northeast corridor, 
which goes from Boston to Washington. If it were its own separate 
economy, the Northeast corridor would produce $3 trillion a year--21 
percent of our Nation's total economic output--which would make it the 
fifth largest economy in the world if it were on its own. But it is 
not. It is an integrated part of our Nation, and its passenger rail 
infrastructure is an integrated part of our national commitment to 
efficient and effective transportation.
  In this region in particular, Amtrak is not a luxury; it is a 
fundamental and critical part of our economy and moving our community 
and our people forward. If Amtrak service were cut off in the region 
for just a day, it would cost our economy $13 million. One-third of all 
the jobs in the Northeast corridor--or 7 million jobs--are within 5 
miles of a station.
  Amtrak's impact on my home State of Delaware is particularly large 
because Amtrak employs over 1,000 men and women in the State of 
Delaware. Many of them work at two maintenance facilities--Wilmington 
and Bear--where they repair everything from train seats to the heavy 
trucks to the cars themselves. I have had a chance to visit them on a 
number of occasions. It is incredible to see the work ethic and 
capabilities of the men and women of Amtrak. These shops have been 
there for a long time. They have worked hard to modernize, to be 
relevant, and to contribute to the strengthening bottom line of Amtrak 
overall.
  I would like to mention ``Irish'' John, who is a good friend of mine 
and has been a leader for the sheet metal workers for a long time. 
Sheet metal workers with Amtrak were one of the unions that worked with 
management to find ways to significantly save costs on overhaul work on 
Acela train sets, which resulted in Amtrak choosing not to farm out 
their service work and instead do a $125 million job to overhaul 20 
Acela sets in-house. This is union labor, and this helps support good 
middle-wage jobs. This helps support good middle-class families and 
middle-class communities in Delaware and our region. This particular 
work on this Acela overhaul will last more than 3\1/2\ years and 
sustain dozens of jobs at our Bear repair facility.
  My friend Bill, who is with the IBEW Amtrak union, is another friend 
who has helped me understand the critical role of the employment Amtrak 
provides to our whole region--not just to Delaware, not just to the 
Philadelphia area, but to the whole Northeast corridor.
  When we talk about investing in Amtrak, we are not only investing in 
new options for commuters and businesses, we are talking about 
investing in our communities and in workers who will build and maintain 
the next generation of American rail. As I said, these are great, high-
skilled jobs. By investing in Amtrak's present and giving them a 
predictable future, we will preserve and continue these important 
skills and these important workers and their families in our 
communities.
  Amtrak's benefits go beyond just the immediate skilled workers and 
their families and the communities that benefit from them.
  In Delaware, the services Amtrak provides help to keep and draw in 
new businesses through a ripple effect in our whole economy. Last week 
there was an announcement of a new company that is spinning off out of 
Sallie Mae that will be locating its headquarters and 120 jobs in 
Wilmington. They have chosen a site specifically because it is walking 
distance from our Amtrak station--from the Joseph R. Biden Amtrak 
Station in Wilmington, DE.
  In Newark, the University of Delaware is building a new campus called 
the Science, Technology and Advanced Research--STAR--Campus, which will 
build partnerships between several important entities, such as the 
Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and the Aberdeen Proving 
Ground in Maryland. What makes that partnership possible is the 
backbone of the Northeast corridor--the connection between these 
different cities that has made all of us stronger and better because of 
passenger rail.
  I hope from these few examples it is clear that passenger rail is 
also a critical component of economic development. Passenger rail tends 
to link downtown urban areas and tends to be absolutely central to 
anchoring their revitalization, as the Presiding Officer knows so well.
  Passenger rail is also critical not just in the Northeast corridor 
but in communities across the country that rely on it to connect with 
other communities and our country's major economic centers.
  State-supported services have become a major source of ridership 
growth for Amtrak as well, with that ridership nearly doubling between 
1998 and 2013.
  Long-distance ridership across the great heartland of our country has 
also grown by roughly 20 percent without the introduction of any new 
services, frequencies, or equipment. In fiscal year 2013, long-distance 
ridership reached its highest point in 20 years.
  However, we are at the proverbial crossroads--or I suppose I should 
say crossing--now because ridership is soaring, Amtrak is more popular 
than ever before, and demand will continue to grow, but we are not 
keeping up with the investment in infrastructure that we need to 
sustain this growth into the future.
  For instance, right now there is nearly $6 billion in outdated, 
delayed investments that need to be made just in the Northeast corridor 
to bring it to what is called a state of good repair. I will focus on a 
few of the critical infrastructure needs in the Northeast corridor, but 
there are also needs across the country.
  Baltimore is a city I traveled through this morning on my way to this 
Capitol on the Amtrak train. In Baltimore, Senator Mikulski's home 
State, the B&P tunnels have stayed open since 1873. Although they have 
undergone periodic repairs, none of them were built to be permanent. We 
can't be competitive if we continue to rely on tunnels that have been 
around since roughly the time of our own Civil War. We need to invest 
in modernizing this infrastructure.
  Between the Presiding Officer's home State of New Jersey and the 
great State of New York, preliminary planning is underway on the 
Gateway Tunnel, which is a critical tunnel that will ease the 
bottleneck under the Hudson that causes delays throughout the whole 
region, limits the options of travelers, and ends up costing the 
economy more in the short and long run. We need to invest in our 
infrastructure.

[[Page S2341]]

  In Delaware, we have a bottleneck around our most popular station, 
the Joseph R. Biden Station in Wilmington. The rail lines north and 
south of that station slim from three lines to two, restricting service 
and preventing the addition of new rail service. Thanks in part to a 
Federal high-speed rail grant, construction will soon be underway to 
add a third track to alleviate this critical chokepoint, the main one 
just south of the station. Without new investment, that chokepoint will 
continue north of the station.
  And that is not to mention the hundreds of bridges and tunnels and 
other connection points--including the overhead centenary lines--that 
require repair and replacement on the Northeast corridor alone. We need 
to invest in our infrastructure not just in the Northeast corridor but 
across this whole country. We do spend a lot of time here on this 
floor, as we should, talking about our Nation's fiscal deficit and 
debt, but we should also focus on our physical deficit and debt--the 
delayed repair of critical pieces of infrastructure that we rely on for 
our economy and for our communities but that we are not focused on.
  If we invest in our infrastructure today, it will employ people in 
repairing it and lay the groundwork for improvement of our economy over 
the long term. I recognize the reality that while the budget picture 
has improved, it is not yet as good as it should be. We are still 
facing real fiscal challenges.
  I ride between Wilmington and Washington nearly every day on Amtrak, 
and our workers are responsible for repairing and retrofitting a lot of 
the trains on which I ride. I am impressed with their skill and the 
caliber of their repair work. As a rider and our State Senator, I see 
how critical Amtrak is to our economy, our communities, and to our 
country as a whole. I hope that is clear to the rest of the Members of 
this Chamber.
  I hope that anyone watching who has appreciated the value of Amtrak's 
connecting power that links this country together from east to west and 
north to south will communicate with their Senator and convey the 
importance of strong and sustained investment in the Northeast 
corridor, yes, but across the whole reach of our country. Only by 
strengthening Amtrak and ensuring the vibrancy of the entire Nation's 
system of passenger rail can we really ensure that American rail will 
be there for years and generations to come.
  With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to be allowed 
to speak as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                               ObamaCare

  Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I come to the floor today, as I have 
repeatedly since the health care law has been passed, with concerns I 
have and to share some information with the Senate because of my 
concerns that in order to help some people who did not have insurance, 
I am afraid we have hurt many people who did have insurance, did have 
care they liked. The President continued to focus on coverage, and I 
have more concerns, as a doctor, about people actually getting care, 
getting health care, the care they need from a doctor they choose at 
lower costs.
  So I come to the floor today to talk about a new story out this 
morning, actually in the Huffington Post, called ``How Obamacare Leaves 
Some Patients Without Doctors.''
  I recall how the President had said: If you like your policy, you can 
keep your policy. He said: If you like your doctor, you can keep your 
doctor. Yet we are hearing stories from all around the country of 
people who have found that not to be true.
  I have heard the majority leader come to the floor and say in a 
statement that so many stories are lies, they are made up. But I will 
tell you that this morning, in this publication, there is a lengthy 
story of several patients in California who have had pain, problems, 
medical concerns, signed up for insurance, and, as a result, have found 
out they have insurance, they have coverage, but they cannot find care.
  So I would like to share with the Senate today a story, and it has 
some of the concerns I raised during the debate and the discussion of 
the health care law. But the Speaker of the House at the time, Nancy 
Pelosi, from California--the State where this happened--said: First you 
have to pass it before you get to find out what is in it. Well, now 
people all across the country are finding out what is in it, and they 
are finding out they are terribly disappointed and they feel they have 
been sold a bill of goods and they are getting stuck with a bill, and 
they are finding out it is not very good for them.
  The report in this morning's Huffington Post starts out:

       In January, a doctor told [Ms.] Friedlander, who was 
     suffering from excruciating lower back pain, that she needed 
     surgery to remove part of a severely herniated disc.

  Well, she had Blue Shield insurance, as they report, through Covered 
California, which is California's version of ObamaCare, and she planned 
to use that coverage to pay for the operation. It makes sense.
  This is what happened. It says:

       But when she started to call surgeons covered by Blue 
     Shield, she ran into a roadblock. Surgeons who were covered 
     by her insurance--

  amazingly--

     operated out of hospitals no longer covered by her insurance. 
     . . .

  So if the surgeon was covered, the hospital was not or, vice versa, 
she could find a hospital that would cover her surgery but could not 
find a surgeon who was covered by her insurance that was on the staff 
of that hospital.
  It says:

       [Ms.] Friedlander spent days on the phone, hours on hold, 
     making dozens of calls across Southern California, trying to 
     match a surgeon with a hospital that would both be covered. 
     In total, she reached out to 20 [different] surgeons and five 
     [different] hospitals.
       ``No one could help me. Some expressed sympathy,'' 
     Friedlander, 40, told The Huffington Post in an email. ``They 
     told me, `I'm so sorry--it's all just so new. You're a victim 
     of the changes. No one knows what they're doing.' ''

  So what we have here is a victim of the Obama health care legislation 
because first we had to pass it before we get to find out what is in 
it.

       Unable to match a hospital and a surgeon that were both 
     covered, [Ms.] Friedlander started haggling between doctors 
     for a cash price for the surgery. She chose a surgeon who 
     wasn't covered by her insurance but who operated in a 
     hospital that was covered.

  Because she could not, with her insurance, get both the hospital and 
the doctor.

       She expects her insurance to pay the hospital bill, but she 
     had to pay her surgeon's bill herself.

  All out of her own pocket.
  The article goes on to report:

       . . . nationwide, about 70 percent of Obamacare plans--

  About 70 percent of the plans purchased on the Obama health care 
law--

     offer fewer hospitals and doctors than employer-sponsored 
     group plans or pre-ACA individual market plans, according to 
     a study by consulting firm KcKinsey & Company released in 
     December. This narrowed number of doctors and hospitals is 
     what [Ms.] Friedlander encountered when trying to match a 
     surgeon and hospital that would both be covered.

  What we are hearing today is that about 70 percent of ObamaCare plans 
offer fewer hospitals, fewer doctors, in spite of the President's 
promise to the American people that if you like your doctor, you can 
keep your doctor; if you like your plan, you can keep your plan.
  Now, Covered California says they are aware of the problem. A 
spokesman for the group--a senior medical adviser with the ObamaCare 
plan in California--says:

       We understand that some people are having trouble getting 
     access to the doctors and hospitals they need. And we're 
     working very hard to fix [that] as fast as we can.

  Well, perhaps if people had actually read the law, understood what 
was in it, they would have seen this coming.
  The President said your insurance premiums would drop. He said 
families would save $2,500 a family. But the article says:

       To make up for ACA costs and keep premiums low, Blue Shield 
     asked its doctors

[[Page S2342]]

     and hospitals to accept payments from the insurer at rates 
     [well] reduced--

  Reduced from what they normally got--

     reduced [by] up to 30 percent.

  The article goes on:

       Not surprisingly, some doctors and hospitals rejected Blue 
     Shield's reduced payment rates and decided not to re-sign 
     contracts with the insurer. At least three major Los Angeles 
     hospitals previously covered by Blue Shield--

  And, Madam President, I will tell you, these are first-class 
hospitals, these are highly thought-of hospitals, hospitals with 
incredibly good reputations.

       . . . three major Los Angeles hospitals previously covered 
     by Blue Shield--UCLA--

  The University of California-Los Angeles--

       Cedars Sinai and Good Samaritan--have opted out of the 
     insurer's new network. . . .
       According to [the communications manager from Blue Shield], 
     Blue Shield of California now has about 40 percent fewer 
     physicians and 25 percent fewer hospitals in its network than 
     last year.

  You listen to what is happening, and they talk about the significant 
gaps occurring in California.
  These are the concerns I hear about when I go home to Wyoming every 
weekend. These are the concerns I heard about this past weekend in 
Casper, in Douglas, in Riverton, in Thermopolis, and in Newcastle 
traveling around the State. People are not able to keep their 
insurance. They are not able to keep their doctors. It is happening all 
across the country, and we see this story out of California today.
  The interesting part of the issue with California is that--the 
article goes on and they talk to an insurance agent in Sacramento who 
says: `` . . . people who already had insurance''--`` . . . people who 
already had insurance''--``especially healthy, young people, may be 
paying more under Covered California''--``may be paying more''; not 
what the President promised--``for fewer hospitals and doctors.''
  That is not what the intent of the health care law was but it is what 
the health care law has delivered.
  This is what is happening to real people, real families, all across 
the country. The majority leader says: false, made up, whole cloth. But 
I will tell you, these stories will continue to occur.
  It is interesting, in today's article in the Huffington Post it says:

       And when signing up for a plan, it's difficult to determine 
     which doctors and hospitals are still covered.

  They are talking about California now. The article says, quoting an 
insurance agent in California:

       ``You can sign up on Covered California and think you're 
     totally fine, only to find out later that you're totally 
     hosed''. . . .

  This man, David Fear, goes on to say:

       Specialist doctors, such as surgeons, ob-gyns and 
     urologists, declined Blue Cross and Blue Shield's lower 
     payments most frequently. Fear estimates that about two-
     thirds of Blue Cross and Blue Shield's specialists have opted 
     out of the networks.

  It is not just that one patient whom I talked about. There is, like 
Ms. Friedlander, Ruth Iorio, a 35-year-old new mother from Los Angeles. 
She is struggling to find the care she needs in Blue Shield's smaller 
network.

       She signed up for Blue Shield through Covered California in 
     November because the Covered California website listed her 
     hospital--

  The Web site, the President's Web site, the Covered California Web 
site--

     listed her hospital, UCLA, as accepting Blue Shield. . . .

  Continuing:

       However, after Iorio gave birth in December, she was told 
     that her ob-gyn at UCLA was not covered by her insurance. So 
     she paid out of pocket.
       Iorio has not been able to find a urologist for her son or 
     an ob-gyn who is both covered by her insurance and practicing 
     in a hospital that is covered.

  The President said: You can keep your hospital, you can keep your 
doctor, you can keep your plan.

       She's called over a dozen doctors who are covered by her 
     insurance, and each has told her that if she or her son needs 
     an operation in the hospitals the doctor contracts with, it 
     won't be covered.

  So even if they get a doctor who is under their plan, they cannot go 
to a hospital to get actually a procedure done.
  As this lady says:

       ``My insurance is pretty useless. And I'm not fussy about 
     what doctor I see,'' Iorio said. ``I don't know what to do. I 
     may just drop it for myself and keep my son on it. It's 
     really depressing.''

  It is really depressing what the President and the Democrats have 
forced down the throat of the American people with this health care 
law.
  The article continues:

       Before joining Covered California, Iorio had an individual 
     Blue Shield plan that was cheaper than what she now pays and 
     that gave her wider access to doctors and hospitals.

  Cheaper, wider access. Exactly what the President had promised her is 
exactly what this woman has lost because of the health care law.
  She goes on and says:

       ``I'm paying $500 a month and every doctor I'm calling is 
     saying, `No, I can't see you,' '' she said. ``I feel like a 
     second-class citizen.''

  Is that what the President's health care law is all about: making 
people feel like second-class citizens, hearing from folks when they 
call and ask for help that, sorry, you are just a victim of the Obama 
health care law--a nation of more and more victims? It does seem, as 
you look around the country, for those who have been helped, we should 
not have had to hurt this many people because of a law the American 
people said ``we do not want'' and was forced, on single-party lines, 
down the throats of the American people.
  This law is bad for patients. We have seen that today. It continues 
to be bad for providers--the nurses, the doctors, who take care of 
those patients--and it is terrible for taxpayers. Tax rates will 
continue to go up. Taxes are continuing to go up as a result of the 
health care law and the expenses related to it. It has failed 
repeatedly in dealing with the needs of the American people, who knew 
what they wanted in the first place, which was they wanted the care 
they need from a doctor they choose at lower costs. Instead, they got 
this.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.


   Thomasina Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act

  Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I rise today to speak on behalf of S. 
1074, the Thomasina Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal 
Recognition Act of 2013. This is a bill granting Federal recognition to 
six Indian tribes. The bill has recently been reported out of the 
Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, and I want to thank Chairman 
Tester, the former chairwoman, Senator Cantwell, and all members of the 
Committee for this action.
  These six Indian tribes--the Chickahominy, Chickahominy Eastern 
Division, Upper Mattaponi, Rappahannock, Monacan, and Nansemond--are 
among the best known tribes in American history, but they have never 
received Federal recognition. Madam President, 566 tribes have received 
Federal recognition--the vast majority by congressional action--but 
these tribes have not been recognized.
  The story of these tribes and why they have never been recognized is 
why I take the floor.
  It is an amazing story but it is also a deeply tragic story. But the 
tragedy can be redeemed if Congress acts to correct a gross historical 
injustice that has deprived these tribes of their rightful place. This 
is about a full accounting of our past, but it is also about a fair and 
truthful recognition of living people who have maintained their own 
tribal identity, customs, and traditions against unbelievable odds for 
hundreds of years.
  The English settlers who arrived at Jamestown in 1607 established a 
settlement on an island, on land that was already under the control of 
the Powhatan Indians. The Powhatan Indians were a confederation of 
numerous Eastern Algonquian Indian tribes who had organized in the 
Chesapeake region.
  The interaction among these Powhatan Indians and these six tribes 
that were part of this Powhatan Confederacy and the English is known to 
virtually every American. The original settlement of England in the 
United States was on the verge of failure numerous times and had to be 
rescued by a commoner who was part of that group, John Smith.
  Only John Smith could keep this little settlement alive. Early after 
the arrival of the English, John Smith was captured by the Powhatan 
Indians and was on the verge of being executed by

[[Page S2343]]

Chief Powhatan because they were unsure about what they thought of 
these English settlers. In this wonderful story, as he was about to be 
executed, Pocahontas, the daughter of Chief Powhatan, saved his life. 
By saving his life, that act paved the way for the survival of this 
very struggling colony. That colony then grew into English-speaking 
America, as we know, with the arrival of later groups of English at 
Plymouth Rock and thereafter.
  That act by Pocahontas is known to virtually all Americans. Over the 
course of the next few decades, they went back and forth in the 
relationship between these tribes and the English colonists and then 
between these tribes and African slaves. The first Africans who came to 
the new world also came to Jamestown Island in 1619.
  But after Pocahontas' act, it was generally a peaceful relationship. 
There were some times of hostility, but in treaties in the 1640s and 
then again in a final treaty in 1677, the Treaty of the Middle 
Plantation, the Powhatan Confederacy and these six tribes basically 
said to their English colonist neighbors: We want to live in peace with 
you.
  Pocahontas got married to John Rolfe, an English tobacco planter. 
That was a seminal event in early Virginia colonial history. So by the 
1680s, 75 years after the settlement of Jamestown Island, the Powhatan 
Confederation was no more. But these Virginia Indians continued to live 
and maintain their tribal identity, but they lived in complete peace 
with the settlers that were their neighbors. The Treaty of Middle 
Plantation was signed 100 hundred years before the Declaration of 
Independence. That peace that was made between the Indians and the 
settlers paved the way for modern Virginia and modern English-speaking 
America. It has been continuous since 1677--the peace of these tribes. 
The relations between Virginians and the tribes have been strong. They 
have endured significant adversity. Their numbers of population have 
dwindled from 25,000 down to about 3,000 or 4,000 enrolled tribal 
members today. They converted to the religion of the English settlers, 
Christianity. They fought as American patriots in every war this 
country has been in, from the Revolutionary War to the wars in Iraq and 
Afghanistan. They faced discrimination as Indians, often kept out of 
schools in Virginia because of the color of their skin, because they 
were not deemed to be ``Caucasian'' by State leaders at the time.
  But the relationship is a peaceful one, and these tribes still exist. 
Two tribes in Virginia have small reservations, and the other tribes 
own land in common. They have tribal churches, tribal cemeteries, and 
community centers where they still gather. There is a wonderful 
tradition if you are the Governor of Virginia. On the day before 
Thanksgiving Day every year, the Virginia tribes come to the Governor's 
mansion and they present to the Governor deer, turkey, fish, and gifts 
as a tribute to the peaceful relationship between these tribes and the 
Commonwealth of Virginia since 1677. It was a beautiful aspect of my 
time as Governor. It was something we looked forward to every year. The 
members of these tribes look forward to it as well. Tribal members who 
have moved all across the country and all across the world come home 
for a homecoming, and it begins at the Virginia Governor's mansion.
  Now I get to the injustice. The interactions between these Indians 
and the first English settlers is known to everybody--that story about 
Pocahontas and John Smith, and then Pocahontas' wedding to John Rolfe 
and her moving to England and dying there. You can go to Pocahontas' 
grave at Gravesend, which is where the Thames River dumps into the sea. 
She died coming back to Virginia. The English tend her grave with 
reverence at a small Episcopal church in that seaside community.
  This is the most archetypal story of the interaction between European 
settlers and the Indians who were our native inhabitants. But despite 
the importance of this interaction, despite the fact that the tribes 
have lived and maintained their existence intact since before the 
settlers arrived here, the tribes have never been recognized along with 
the 566 tribes who have.
  Why? Why have they never been recognized? Well, unbelievably, the 
first reason they have not been recognized is: They made peace too 
soon. They made peace with the English. If they had waited until 1780 
and made peace with the Americans, that treaty, a treaty with the 
Americans, would have been the basis immediately for Federal 
recognition. But they became peaceful too soon with their European 
neighbors.
  Tribal recognition often begins with a treaty. But the treaties are 
treaties with the American government. All historians acknowledge that 
the treaties of 1646 and 1677 happened. There are copies of the 
treaties. The originals are still maintained. All acknowledge that 
these treaties and the Indians' decision to live in peace with their 
neighbors was a precondition for the modern Virginia. If there had not 
been peace, our history may well have been very different.
  I will tell you something else. These treaties are recognized by a 
government, the English government. When our tribes, which have never 
been recognized by the United States go to visit England, they are 
given a royal welcome and treated as the sovereign people they are by 
the government with which they made a treaty in 1646 and 1677. So that 
was the first ``mistake'' that was made: These tribes made peace too 
quickly.

  There is a second mistake that is in some ways even more difficult to 
acknowledge. Many of these tribes live in six counties in Virginia. 
Five of the county courthouses where all their birth, death, and 
marriage records were stored were burnt during the Civil War. But there 
were still some records that existed--some.
  But in a bizarre bit of our 20th century history, Virginia passed a 
law, the Racial Integrity Act, in the 1920s. Under a misguided and 
bizarre notion of ``racial purity,'' the eugenics movement, State 
officials determined that you were either white or you were colored. 
There was no such thing as an Indian. The leader of the State Bureau of 
Vital Statistics, a man named Walter Plecker--this is well documented--
sadly held the position of head of the Bureau of Vital Statistics from 
1924 to 1967, 41 years.
  Remaining records such as they were in that 41-year period, he 
undertook what is known in Virginia as the ``paper genocide.'' He 
systematically went into every remaining record he could find and 
recharacterized anybody who had claimed a descent and a tribal 
connection as an Indian to ``colored.'' Records were destroyed or 
altered in a very significant way.
  Both of these reasons have made tribal recognition through the BIA 
process--the Bureau of Indian Affairs--very difficult. Of the 566 
tribes that have been recognized, only about one-fifth have gone 
through the administrative process. That process usually requires heavy 
documentation.
  But the treaty was with the wrong government, and the birth, death, 
and marriage records were destroyed because of a racist State policy 
and the burning of courthouses during the Civil War. These six tribes 
should be rewarded, not punished, for making peace with their neighbors 
in the 1640s and 1670s, and they should not be held back because of a 
horribly misguided State policy that stripped them of the means to 
easily demonstrate by paper what all historians acknowledge to exist--
the continuous history of these tribes.
  We started, in Virginia, to correct this in the 1980s. In 1983, 
Virginia began a process of State recognition of all of these tribes. 
The six tribes have all been recognized by the State in the 1980s. All 
tribes that are part of this bill are now recognized by Virginia.
  A full effort to finally receive Federal recognition began in 1999, 
supported overwhelmingly by all Virginians, including the current 
entire Virginia congressional delegation, Democratic and Republican, 
House and Senate, and all 10 living Virginia Governors. Recognition 
bills have passed out of the House for these tribes twice. In the 112th 
Congress, a bill passed out of the House and then came to the Senate, 
and it passed out of the Senate committee, only to die because of 
inaction on the Senate floor.
  It is my deep hope that the 113th Congress will finally see the 
realization of this long-held dream. We should pass this bill because 
it is right. These tribes exist. They still live in Virginia

[[Page S2344]]

and uphold their tribal traditions. They deserve to have their 
existence acknowledged just like the hundreds of other tribes in this 
country.
  But there is a final reason why recognition has a very immediate 
importance to these Virginia tribes. If you walked 3 blocks from here 
down the Mall, you arrive at the National Museum of the American 
Indian. It is part of the Smithsonian, America's National Museum. The 
Smithsonian is every bit as much a part of our American Government as 
Congress is.
  It is a marvelous museum. It tells the story of our Indian tribes and 
their amazing history of adversity and triumph. The Smithsonian 
curators recognize what Congress has failed to do. Go to the second 
floor. There is a permanent exhibit on the second floor of the museum. 
The title of the exhibit is, ``Return to a Native Place: Algonquian 
Peoples of Chesapeake.'' That permanent exhibit in the museum, with the 
plastic dioramas, highlights the Powhatan tribes that are the subject 
of this bill.
  Here is how the museum describes the permanent exhibit dedicated to 
these tribes:

       Thru photos, maps, ceremonial and everyday objects, this 
     display provides an overview of the history of the Native 
     Peoples of the Chesapeake region from the 1600's to the 
     present day.

  So we do recognize these tribes--in a museum. We acknowledge that 
they are not just a part of history, but in the words of the museum 
display description, that the people continue to maintain their tribal 
identity to the present day. But while we recognize the tribes in the 
museum three blocks from the Capitol, we will not, we have not, and we 
do not yet recognize these tribes in law.
  Finally, the failure to recognize these tribes in law has an unusual 
and very tragic consequence. It also deals with the Smithsonian. There 
is another department in the Smithsonian that is far out of the prying 
eyes of tourists on the mall. It is the warehouse of the Smithsonian 
where they hold remains of archaeological exhibits. They hold all kinds 
of remains and all kinds of artifacts from archaeological exhibits from 
all over the United States and all over the world.
  One set of remains that the Smithsonian is holding is the bones of 
about 1,400 Virginia Indians that were disturbed and unburied during 
the course of archaeological expeditions in Virginia.
  The tribes that we are talking about today, the bones of their 
ancestors are held in a warehouse by the Smithsonian. For years, these 
tribes have gone respectfully to the Smithsonian, and they have asked 
them: Please return to us the bones of our ancestors. We want to bury 
the bones of our ancestors in accord with our tribal customs. We want 
to rebury the bones of our ancestors in accord with the customs of 
Christianity, which we embraced under the tutelage of the English 
settlers. But the Smithsonian will not return these bones to the 
tribes. It seems like such a reasonable request. It seems so 
reasonable, but the Smithsonian will not return the bones of these 
tribes for one reason: They are not federally recognized. The law 
governing the antiquities and objects held by the Smithsonian leads the 
Smithsonian to conclude that they can't give these bones back for 
reburial unless the tribes are federally recognized.

  Our great national museum recognizes the tribes in a great display 
behind plastic glass and talks about these tribes, but at the same time 
we recognize them for one purpose, we will not hand the bones back to 
these folks in a manner they deserve.
  To conclude, it is long past time that these tribes receive the 
tribal recognition that hundreds of other tribes have received. It is 
long past time that these tribes be accorded the same respect in 
America--for which they fought since the Revolutionary War--that they 
receive in England when they go visit. It is long past time that the 
bones of these Powhatan ancestors be returned to Virginia so that they 
can be buried by their families in the only land they ever knew as 
home.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                            Rwanda and Syria

  Mr. McCAIN. Today we commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan 
genocide. This week, again and again, I will rise to remind my 
colleagues and fellow citizens of the humanity we share and appeal to 
their conscience about the mass atrocities the Assad regime is 
perpetrating in Syria.
  This past Sunday the world joined Rwanda in marking 20 years since 
the beginning of the genocide that claimed the lives of more than 
800,000 innocent men, women, and children. As we reflect on our 
failures to stop the genocide there, I can't help but think of the 
lessons we learned from Rwanda and those we didn't.
  President Obama stated in his remarks on Sunday that the Rwandan 
genocide was ``neither an accident nor unavoidable. . . . The genocide 
we remember today--and the world's failure to respond more quickly--
reminds us that we always have a choice. In the face of hatred, we must 
remember the humanity we share. In the face of cruelty, we must choose 
compassion. In the face of intolerance and suffering, we must never be 
indifferent.'' I couldn't agree more with the President of the United 
States.
  The United States, along with the international community, failed to 
take the necessary action to prevent a tragedy in Rwanda. We chose to 
ignore the death of hundreds of thousands of people, and in so doing we 
forsook our humanity. And now we are dangerously close to doing the 
same in Syria.
  While I would like to believe that ``never again'' means something in 
this context, I look around the world today, and I am haunted by the 
fact that we simply haven't learned the fundamental lesson from Rwanda 
that preventing the slaughter of innocents means taking hard political 
action.
  Nowhere is this truer than in Syria, where President Bashar Assad's 
regime continues its brutal assault against the Syrian people with 
increasing ferocity. The slaughter of innocent men, women, and children 
is being carried out by Syria's national army and loyal paramilitaries 
as a result of state policy, and the terror continues to escalate every 
day that Assad's crimes go unpunished.
  The regime has accelerated attacks against civilians by 
indiscriminately dropping barbaric barrel bombs on mosques, schools, 
and bakeries, systematically detaining, torturing, and killing 
thousands of people--including hundreds of children--and starving 
entire neighborhoods to death. It was over 5 months ago that Secretary 
John Kerry wrote that ``the world must act quickly'' to stop a ``war of 
starvation'' being waged by Assad's regime against ``huge portions of 
the population.'' Yet the world did nothing, and hundreds have died of 
starvation--thousands--in those 5 months.
  Eventually the international community responded by passing 
resolution 2139 through the U.N. Security Council, which ordered the 
regime to promptly allow unhindered humanitarian access and threatened 
further consequences for noncompliance. This was 2 months ago, and yet 
again the world did nothing to back the resolution. In fact, the U.N. 
humanitarian coordinator, Valerie Amos, reports that the war of 
starvation has worsened since its passing. The number of Syrians cut 
off from aid since January has grown by over 1 million people. The 
Syrian Government continues to prevent supplies of food from entering 
opposition-held areas, in direct contravention of the U.N. resolution, 
and it is using U.S.-provided humanitarian aid as leverage in its war 
against the people. Meanwhile, Iran sends 30,000 tons of food supplies 
to Assad's regime. While children starve throughout Syria, the 
government is at least well fed.
  Although 800,000 people have not been slaughtered in mere months, as 
was the case in Rwanda, over the course of 3 years of conflict in 
Syria, we have witnessed 9 million people forced from their homes, with 
2.5 million refugees escaping the violence in neighboring countries, 
and an estimated 150,000 people dead, with casualties escalating daily.
  Regardless of the scale or scope, one fact is clear: The world is 
watching genocide in slow motion, but it seems that regardless of how 
many innocent men, women, and children die in Syria,

[[Page S2345]]

the world's conscience will not be tipped.
  What is happening in Syria should be an affront to our conscience, 
and it should be a call to action. Each day the media floods our 
newspapers and television screens with some gruesome and horrific 
evidence of Assad's war crimes. We cannot claim ignorance as we have in 
the past. Yet we do nothing. It is as if watching all the suffering and 
simply feeling bad about it has become an adequate moral response. 
Conventional wisdom tells us that this is because the American public 
is war-weary. We are scarred by our experience in Afghanistan and Iraq 
and thus unwilling to get involved in another conflict in the Middle 
East.
  This sentiment is reinforced by the President, who prides himself on 
having opposed the war on Iraq and getting America out of the region as 
quickly as possible regardless of the ramifications. He has emphasized 
the need to ``contain'' the conflict in Syria, calling it a ``civil 
war'' and neglecting the dangerous spillover effects we are already 
witnessing, including the destabilization of all of Syria's neighbors 
and the growth of an Al Qaeda safe haven in eastern Syria and western 
Iraq.
  Following the President's lead, the American public has largely 
applauded his restraint and opposed greater U.S. involvement in Syria. 
But in so doing we have again failed the legacy of Rwanda.
  Stopping the slaughter in Syria will require difficult political 
action, but it is not only profoundly in our national interest to act 
but also our moral obligation to do so. In his remarks on Sunday, 
President Obama said that we should be reminded of ``our obligations to 
our fellow man.'' As President, he is the one who should be showing to 
the American people why it is so vital to our national interest to 
carry out our moral obligations to our fellow man.
  Our policy should be determined by the realities of the moment, not 
by today's isolationism dictated by the past. The wars in Afghanistan 
and Iraq have nothing to do with how we carry out our responsibilities 
today. Let there be no mistake; we have a responsibility to stop 
genocide when we see it happening, as in Syria. ``Never again'' should 
mean something whether or not we are paralyzed by war-weariness.
  Of course we would all like to see the slaughter of Syria's innocent 
men, women, and children be stopped by diplomacy and through nonviolent 
means. We all want an end to the violence. We all want to believe that 
a political solution is possible. But there are only two ways to end 
the violence. One is for all parties to put down their weapons--
something President Bashar Assad and his Iranian partners are clearly 
unwilling to do, as they believe a military solution is possible. So 
that leaves us with only one other option: to neutralize the party 
dedicated to the slaughter of innocents and force them to put down 
their guns. There are options to achieve this goal that fall far short 
of putting boots on the ground. We do not need to concede and allow 
genocide to continue or to go to war to prevent it. There are steps in 
between that the United States, along with our international partners, 
can take to stand by our international commitments and guarantees of 
protection.
  President Assad has already shown that U.N. resolutions mean nothing 
to him and that he has no intention of negotiating his departure 
through the Geneva process. It is clear that military pressure is the 
only lever that will convince Assad that a political solution is in his 
favor. We must be ready to prove to Assad that not achieving a 
diplomatic solution will cost his regime dearly, and there are 
meaningful actions we can take to help in Syria that will not require 
us to rerun the war in Iraq. It is not a question of options or 
capabilities, it is a question of will.
  There is a famous quote that states, ``All tyranny needs to gain a 
foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.'' As we sit 
back and place our hopes on negotiations and meaningless guarantees of 
protection, we watch as hundreds of innocent men, women, and children 
are brutally slaughtered every day; reinvigorated Al Qaeda affiliates 
operate with more freedom than ever before; terrorist groups loyal to 
Iran proliferate and threaten our allies; and the region descends into 
chaos and turmoil that will inevitably reverberate in the United States 
of America. This is the price we will pay for choosing to remain 
disengaged, and the consequences to U.S. national interests will be 
felt.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record two articles. 
One is a Reuters story entitled ``Assad says fighting largely over by 
end of year,'' a statement by a former Russian Prime Minister with a 
quote:

       Assad's strength now lies in the fact that, unlike 
     Yanukovich, he has practically no internal enemies. He has a 
     consolidated, cleansed team.

  The second is ``Hezbollah confident in Assad, West resigned to Syria 
stalemate.''
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                      [From Reuters, Apr. 7, 2014]

  Assad `Says Fighting Largely Over By End of Year'--Former Russian PM

                          (By Steve Gutterman)

     Moscow.--President Bashar al-Assad has forecast that much of 
     the fighting in the Syrian civil war will be over by the end 
     of the year, a former Russian prime minister was quoted on 
     Monday as saying.
       ``This is what he told me: `This year the active phase of 
     military action in Syria will be ended. After that we will 
     have to shift to what we have been doing all the time--
     fighting terrorists','' Itar-Tass news agency quoted Sergei 
     Stepashin as saying.
       Stepashin, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and 
     former head of Russia's FSB security service, portrayed Assad 
     as secure, in control and in ``excellent athletic shape'' 
     after a meeting in Damascus last week.
       `` `Tell Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin) that I am not 
     Yanukovich, I'm not going anywhere','' Stepashin quoted Assad 
     as saying during their meeting, state-run news agency RIA 
     reported.
       Yanukovich fled to Russia in February after he was pushed 
     from power by protests that followed his decision to spurn 
     closer ties with the European Union and turn to Moscow. 
     Russian leaders have criticised him for losing control of his 
     country.
       Stepashin suggested Assad faced no such threat and was 
     likely to win a presidential election this year.
       ``There is not a shadow of a doubt that he knows what he's 
     doing,'' RIA quoted Stepashin as saying.
       ``Assad's strength now lies in the fact that, unlike 
     Yanukovich, he has practically no internal enemies. He has a 
     consolidated, cleansed team.
       ``Moreover, his relatives are not bargaining and stealing 
     from the cash register but are fighting,'' he said, appearing 
     to draw a contrast with Yanukovich and his family.


                          ``FIGHTING SPIRIT''

       Stepashin, who served as prime minister in 1999 under 
     President Boris Yeltsin and now heads a charitable 
     organisation called the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society, 
     added that ``the fighting spirit of the Syrian army is 
     extremely high''.
       Russia has been Assad's most powerful supporter during the 
     three-year-old conflict that activists say has killed more 
     than 150,000 people in Syria, blocking Western and Arab 
     efforts to drive him from power.
       Russia and the United States organised peace talks that 
     began in January between Assad's government and its foes. But 
     no agreement was reached and a resumption appears unlikely 
     soon, in part because of high tension between Russia and the 
     West over Ukraine.
       Russian officials say Moscow is not trying to prop up Assad 
     and but that his exit from power cannot be a precondition for 
     a political solution. Their assessments of his future have 
     varied with the fortunes of his military.
       Assad has lost control of large swathes of northern and 
     eastern Syria to Islamist rebels and foreign jihadis. But his 
     forces, backed by militant group Hezbollah and other allies, 
     have driven rebels back from around Damascus and secured most 
     of central Syria.
       The head of Hezbollah said in an interview published on 
     Monday Assad no longer faced a threat of being overthrown, 
     and would stand for re-election this year.
       Stepashin predicted Assad would win.
       ``The majority of the Syrian population will vote for 
     him,'' Itar-Tass quoted him as saying.
                                  ____


                      [From Reuters, Apr. 9, 2014]

     Hezbollah Confident in Assad, West Resigned to Syria Stalemate

                  (By Samia Nakhoul and Laila Bassam)

       Beirut.--Bashar al-Assad's Lebanese ally Hezbollah said his 
     Western foes must now accept he will go on ruling Syria after 
     fighting rebels to a standstill--a ``reality'' to which his 
     foreign enemies seem increasingly resigned.
       Echoing recent bullish talk coming out of Damascus, Sheikh 
     Naim Qassem, deputy leader of the Iranian-backed Shi'ite 
     militia which is supporting Assad in combat, told Reuters 
     that the president retained popular support among many of 
     Syria's diverse religious communities and would shortly be 
     re-elected.
       ``There is a practical Syrian reality that the West should 
     deal with--not with its wishes and dreams, which proved to be 
     false,''

[[Page S2346]]

     Qassem said during a meeting with Reuters journalists at a 
     Hezbollah office in the group's southern Beirut stronghold.
       He said the United States and its Western allies were in 
     disarray and lacked a coherent policy on Syria--reflecting 
     the quandary that Western officials acknowledge they face 
     since the pro-democracy protests they supported in 2011 
     became a war that has drawn al Qaeda and other militants to 
     the rebel cause.
       Syria's fractious opposition--made up of guerrillas inside 
     the country and a largely impotent political coalition in 
     exile--had, he said, proved incapable of providing an 
     alternative to four decades of rule by Assad and his late 
     father before him.
       ``This is why the option is clear. Either to have an 
     understanding with Assad, to reach a result, or to keep the 
     crisis open with President Assad having the upper hand in 
     running the country,'' said the bearded and turbaned cleric.
       Qassem's comments follow an account from another Assad 
     ally, Russian former prime minister Sergei Stepashin, who 
     said after meeting him last week that the Syrian leader felt 
     secure and expected heavy fighting to end this year.
       Officials said this week that preparations would begin this 
     month for the presidential election--a move that seems to 
     reflect a degree of optimism in the capital and which may 
     well end with Assad claiming a popular mandate that he would 
     use to resist U.N.-backed efforts to negotiate a transition 
     of power.
       Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah also said this week 
     that Assad is no longer at risk and that military gains mean 
     the danger of Syria fragmenting was also receding.


                          WESTERN RESIGNATION

       It is a view of Assad that--quietly--seems to be gaining 
     ground in Western capitals. Calling it bad news for Syrians, 
     the French foreign ministry said this week: ``Maybe he will 
     be the sole survivor of this policy of mass crimes''.
       France, which last year was preparing to join U.S. military 
     action that was eventually aborted, now rules out force and 
     called the stalled talks on ``transition'' the ``only 
     plan''--a view U.S. officials say is shared in Washington, 
     notably among military chiefs who see Assad as preferable to 
     sectarian chaos.
       While rebels do not admit defeat, leaders like Badr Jamous 
     of the Syrian National Coalition accept that without foreign 
     intervention ``this stalemate will go on''. A U.S. official, 
     asked about a deadlock that would leave Assad in control of 
     much of Syria, conceded: ``This has become a drawn-out 
     conflict.''
       Assad, 48, has weathered an armed insurgency which started 
     with protests in 2011 and descended into a civil war that has 
     sucked in regional powers, including Shi'ite Iran and 
     Hezbollah who back the Alawite president and Sunni states 
     like Saudi Arabia and Qatar behind the rebels.
       With Russia blocking a U.N. mandate, and voters showing no 
     appetite for war after losses in Afghanistan and Iraq, 
     Western governments have held back from the kind of military 
     engagement that could have toppled the well-armed Syrian 
     leader.
       More than 150,000 people have been killed in three years, 
     as Assad has lost the oil-producing and agricultural east and 
     much of the north, including parts of Syria's largest city, 
     Aleppo.
       But he did not suffer the fate of other autocrats in the 
     Arab Spring, whether the presidents of Tunisia, Egypt and 
     Yemen or Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader toppled and 
     killed by rebels who rode into Tripoli under cover of Western 
     air power.
       Instead, he has clawed back control near Damascus, where a 
     year ago rebels hoped for a decisive assault, and the center 
     of the country which links the capital to the coastal 
     stronghold of Assad's Alawite minority. His troops, backed by 
     Hezbollah fighters, took another key town on Wednesday.
       Though as much as half the country is being fought over, 
     Assad could hope to hold at least a roughly southwestern 
     half, including most of the built-up heartlands near the 
     coast, and more than half of the prewar population of 23 
     million.
       This leaves Western powers reflecting on a perceived loss 
     of influence in the Middle East. Many now see a new strategy 
     of ``containing'' Assad--and the fallout from a bitter war 
     that has created millions of refugees and legions of hardened 
     guerrillas.
       ``The U.S. has a stated policy of regime change, but it has 
     never devoted the resources to effect that change,'' said 
     Andrew Exum, a former U.S. official who worked on Middle East 
     issues at the Pentagon. ``The de facto U.S. strategy of 
     containment is very well suited for what is likely to be a 
     very long war.''


                      ``STALEMATE WILL CONTINUE''

       Qassem said the United States, which backed away from 
     military action in September after blaming Assad for gassing 
     civilians, was hamstrung by fears over the dominance in rebel 
     ranks of al Qaeda's Syrian branch, the Nusra Front, and 
     another group, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant 
     (ISIL).
       ``America is in a state of confusion. On the one hand it 
     does not want the regime to stay and on the other it cannot 
     control the opposition which is represented by ISIL and 
     Nusra,'' he said.
       ``This is why the latest American position was to leave the 
     situation in Syria in a state of attrition.''
       President Barack Obama said last month that the United 
     States had reached ``limits'' after the wars in Afghanistan 
     and Iraq and questioned whether years of military engagement 
     in Syria would produce a better outcome there.
       Qassem said: ``I expect that the stalemate will continue in 
     the Syrian crisis because of the lack of an international and 
     regional decision to facilitate a political solution.''
       U.N.-mediated talks at Geneva failed in February to bridge 
     a gulf between Assad's government and opponents who insist 
     that Assad must make way for a government of national unity.
       Western and regional powers who support the Syrian 
     opposition say it would be a ``parody of democracy'' to hold 
     an election in the midst of a conflict which has displaced 
     more than 9 million people and divided the country across 
     frontlines.
       Syria's electoral law effectively rules out participation 
     by opponents who have fled the country in fear of Assad's 
     police--candidates must have lived in Syria continuously for 
     10 years.
       ``My conviction is that Assad will run and will win because 
     he has popular support in Syria from all the sects--Sunnis 
     and secularists,'' Qassem said. ``I believe the election will 
     take place on its due date and Assad will run and win 
     decisively.''
       Fear of hardline Islamists has undermined support for some 
     rebels even among the 75 percent Sunni majority, and 
     bolstered support for Assad among his fellow Alawites, and 
     Christians.
       Qassem said it was too soon to speak of Hezbollah pulling 
     out of Syria, despite an increase in Sunni-Shi'ite tensions 
     within Lebanon caused by the intervention across the border 
     of a movement that is Lebanon's most accomplished military 
     force and also holds cabinet seats in the government in 
     Beirut.
       ``Until now we consider our presence in Syria necessary and 
     fundamental,'' Qassem said.
       ``But when circumstances change, this will be a military 
     and political matter that requires a new assessment.
       ``But if the situation stays as is and the circumstances 
     are similar, we will remain where we should be''.

  Mr. McCAIN. I won't include it in the Record, but there is an 
interesting article that states, ``Syria's Assad secure, will seek re-
election: Hezbollah leader.''
  To show, I think, the very incredible naivety, there is an article in 
the Washington Post by Secretary Kerry entitled ``Kerry: US strike in 
Syria wouldn't be devastating.''
  The Secretary of State says:

       ``It would not have had a devastating impact by which he 
     had to recalculate, because it wasn't going to last that 
     long,'' Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 
     ``Here we were going to have one or two days to degrade and 
     send a message. . . . We came up with a better solution.''

  We came up with a better solution. The President of the United States 
said that if Bashar Assad crossed a red line and used chemical weapons, 
we would act. He announced we would act. All our allies knew we were 
going to act. Then he took a walk with his national security adviser 
and said he was going to go to Congress. Meanwhile, Senator Kerry, in a 
bizarre, incredible act, issued a statement that any attack on Syria 
would be ``incredibly small.'' It is remarkable.
  Finally, our conscience should be shot, but it is not. We get kind of 
immune to day after day after day of these various reports of the 
slaughter that is going on.
  Look at the situation in Syria 3 years ago and look at it today: 
150,000 dead, millions displaced; entry of jihadist fighters from all 
over the world who continue brutal bombing with barrel bombs which will 
slaughter innocent men, women, and children; and our Secretary of State 
says: Well, it wouldn't have been much if we would have struck them 
anyway.
  This is a shameful chapter in American history, I say to my 
colleagues. Historians in future generations will judge us very 
harshly, and future generations and younger generations may have to pay 
the price for our inaction and our neglect of our basic human values.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1596

  Mr. MANCHIN. I thank my good friend Senator Pat Toomey from my 
neighboring State of Pennsylvania--I am from West Virginia--for working 
with me on this vital issue to make sure our kids remain safe in every 
single school across this country.
  I am a father of three, a grandfather of eight, and there is nothing 
more important to me than protecting my children and grandchildren. The 
bill Senator Toomey and I are working on is

[[Page S2347]]

common sense. Our bill makes sure all employees who work with our 
students pass a background check to make sure they have no criminal 
records or an abusive history. That includes everyone from principals, 
teachers, secretaries, cafeteria workers and janitors--anyone who has 
contact with our schoolkids. This is a real problem that demands our 
attention and demands it now.
  Since January 1, 130 teachers across America have been arrested for 
sexual misconduct. At this rate that is more than one teacher per day 
who will sexually assault a student. As a parent, as a grandparent, and 
as a representative of the great State of West Virginia, inaction is 
simply unacceptable.
  There are more than 4 million teachers and school staff employed by 
our public school districts throughout the United States, and there are 
millions of additional workers who have direct access to students, 
including bus drivers, cafeteria workers and janitors. Yet there is 
no--I repeat, there is no--national background check policy in place 
for people who work directly with our kids every day. Even worse, not 
all States require checks of child abuse and neglect registries or sex 
offender registry checks.
  A recent report by the Government Accountability Office found that 
five States--five States--don't even require background checks at all 
for applicants seeking employment in our school systems. In addition, 
not all States use both Federal and State sources of criminal data, 
such as a State law enforcement database or the FBI's interstate 
identification index.
  Our bill would simply require mandatory background checks of a State 
criminal registry, the State child abuse and neglect registries, an FBI 
fingerprint check, and a check of the National Sex Offender Registry 
for existing and prospective employees.
  Every child deserves to have at least one place where they feel safe 
and that harm cannot enter their life. For many of our kids these days 
that place is at school--not always in the home. This is truly a 
commonsense bill that aims to help protect our kids from sexual 
assault, predators, or any individuals who inappropriately behave in 
our schools.
  This is a piece of legislation that is long overdue. It is not an 
unfunded mandate. I know some people will say that, and the reason I am 
saying it is not an unfunded mandate is because the people who want the 
employment have to pay. They have to pay for the background check if 
they want in the system.
  I know there is a section in this legislation that says if a person 
has been an offender they have to be rehabilitated for 5 years--be 
clean, have a clean record for 5 years--before they can get in the 
system. I think that is common sense.
  I would like for all my colleagues, if they would, to please consider 
this piece of legislation. Again, I appreciate the hard work of my 
colleague Senator Pat Toomey, and at this time I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Hirono). The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Madam President, I thank my colleague from West Virginia, 
Senator Manchin, for his terrific efforts on this legislation. I also 
want to thank our other cosponsors, Senators McConnell and Inhofe, for 
their support as well.
  The tragic story that inspired this bill has a connection to my State 
of Pennsylvania and Senator Manchin's State of West Virginia, so it 
made it kind of a natural for us to work together on this. It is a 
terrible story indeed, and I want to summarize it because it goes to 
the heart of why I am here this morning.
  The story begins in Delaware County, PA, where one of the 
schoolteachers was found to have molested several boys and raped one. 
Prosecutors decided there was not enough evidence to actually press 
charges, but the school knew what had happened. So they dismissed the 
teacher for this outrageous behavior. But shockingly, and somewhat 
disturbingly, the school also helped this teacher get a new job so they 
could pass him along and let him become someone else's problem. It 
happened the new job was in West Virginia. The Pennsylvania school even 
went so far as to send a letter of recommendation for this monster to 
get that job in West Virginia, which he did get. He became a teacher, 
then a school principal, and while there he raped and murdered a 12-
year-old boy named Jeremy Bell in West Virginia.
  Justice finally caught up with that teacher, and he is now in jail, 
serving a life sentence for that murder. For Jeremy Bell, 
unfortunately, justice came way too late. But Jeremy Bell's father 
decided he would not rest until he had done everything he possibly 
could to minimize the chance that any other child or parent would ever 
experience a similar tragedy. Roy Bell is Jeremy's dad. He worked with 
Congress to create protections for children to ensure they would not be 
victimized at school, and the House of Representatives responded.
  In October of last year, the House unanimously passed the Protecting 
Students Against Sexual and Violent Predators Act. Unfortunately, there 
too, in a way, it was a few days too late. Jeremy Bell's dad passed 
away 3 days before the vote. But it passed the House, and it passed, as 
I said, unanimously in the House. Now we are here in the Senate with a 
chance to pass the same bill so it can become law.
  This is a bipartisan bill. It is a bill I introduced with Senator 
Manchin. It is a bill that has other cosponsors. I know there are some 
folks who say: Well, let's wait, we need more time. I say we have had 
enough waiting. We have waited too long. Let me explain why we 
shouldn't wait another day.
  I will start with two numbers. The first number is 130. Senator 
Manchin mentioned this number. Since January 1 of this year, 130 
teachers have been arrested across America for sexual misconduct with 
children. That is more than one teacher every day. And these are the 
ones who have been caught. How many more are happening?
  The stories are absolutely heartbreaking: A teacher's aide who 
undressed and sexually assaulted a mentally disabled boy in his care; a 
child whose abuse began at age 10 and only ended when at age 17 she 
found herself pregnant with the teacher's child; the 16-year-old raped 
by her instructor in a classroom closet; one teacher after another 
caught with images of child pornography; a special education 
kindergarten girl forced to go shirtless in class.
  These things are unbelievable. But every day we delay, we delay 
rooting out one of these predators.
  The other number I want to share is the number 73. According to the 
GAO--the Government Accountability Office--the average pedophile 
molests 73 children over the course of a lifetime. These predators are 
very devious. They are clever and they are smart. What they do is go 
where the potential victims are. And where are there potential victims 
for a pedophile? What better place than a school. So they do in fact go 
to schools, and from school to school and school district to school 
district. Every day we delay, we increase the risk a predator is moving 
on to the next of his 73 victims.
  So what can we do? Here is what our bill does. Our bill, the 
Protecting Students from Sexual and Violent Predators Act, is an 
important first step. It would require mandatory background checks for 
existing and prospective employees and then require the checks be 
periodically repeated, the timing of which would be left to the 
discretion of the States. There are five States that do not require 
checks at all.
  The bill would also check to make sure all employees or contractors 
who have unsupervised contact with children would be subject to this 
background check--not just teachers but coaches, schoolbus drivers, 
anyone who has unsupervised contact with the kids. There are 12 States 
that don't require that now.
  The bill requires a more thorough background check. For instance, in 
Pennsylvania, there is a background check requirement. But if you have 
lived in the State for more than 2 years, it does not require a 
background check on the Federal criminal database, and yet we know 
these people move across State lines.
  A fourth and important piece is that our bill forbids what has sadly 
developed its own name--passing the trash. This idea, this practice, 
unfortunately, of actually recommending the predator to another job in 
another school or another State so as to get rid of the problem and let 
him become someone else's

[[Page S2348]]

is so disturbing it is hard to imagine anyone would do this, but we 
know it happens. We know it happens. And a given State doesn't have the 
power to prevent some school district in another State from doing 
exactly this, as happened in the case of Jeremy Bell.
  There is a list of folks who under our legislation a school would 
simply not be able to hire: anyone ever convicted of any violent or 
sexual crime against a child. I think that makes a lot of sense. There 
are certain felonies that would also preclude a person from ever being 
hired: homicide, child abuse or neglect, rape or sexual assault, and a 
few others. In addition, a person who was convicted in the last 5 years 
of a felony physical assault or battery or a felony drug-related 
offense would create a 5-year prohibition against hiring such a person.
  The enforcement mechanism we have is withholding Federal funds, which 
would be the inducement for the States to adopt these requirements.
  Let me stress that this bill has broad support. I mentioned before 
this passed the House unanimously. There was not a single objection in 
the House. It has bipartisan support here in the Senate. Various child 
advocacy groups are fully in support: the National Children's Alliance, 
the Children's Defense Fund, and the National Center for Missing and 
Exploited Children. Prosecutors and prosecutor associations--the 
Association of Prosecuting Attorneys and the Pennsylvania District 
Attorneys Association--both fully endorse this legislation. Teachers 
groups: the American Federation of Teachers and the Pennsylvania School 
Boards Association.
  I forget how many former teachers in the House--I think 19 or so--all 
voted for this bill. I am willing to venture the overwhelming majority 
of the American people would support this effort to keep our kids as 
safe as we can.
  I would also stress there is nothing radical about these proposals. 
In the Senate we just passed a very similar background check 
requirement in the child care development block grant legislation, 
where we insist on almost identical background checks for employees of 
daycares. That makes perfect sense to me. It is a good step. It is very 
likely to help protect children in our daycares. But why in the world 
would we protect the kids in daycare and not provide comparable 
protection for kids who have gone on to later grades?
  This is a bipartisan commonsense bill that has passed the House 
unanimously. This is our opportunity to pass it in the Senate and send 
it to the President for his signature. I believe it is a moral 
imperative we do this to protect these kids. It didn't come soon enough 
for Jeremy Bell. And sadly, every day we learn there are more victims. 
But now is the time we can act.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the HELP Committee be 
discharged from further consideration of S. 1596 and the Senate proceed 
to its immediate consideration. I further ask unanimous consent that 
the bill be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider 
be considered made and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. HARKIN. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I certainly favor the goals of this 
legislation. The Senator will remember we passed a childcare bill that 
included many of the same background check provisions for childcare 
employees. Those provisions were negotiated between Democrats and 
Republicans on our committee to address issues that were raised about 
the implementation of any federally prescribed background checks for 
childcare settings.
  We would like to undertake a similar process in the K-12 context to 
ensure any concerns raised by either side be addressed. That is what 
the committee process is for.
  What the Senator from Pennsylvania is asking for in this bill will 
have an impact on nearly every public school in the country and every 
employee, not just teachers--not just teachers--who might have any 
unsupervised access to children. So that requires us to do some due 
diligence.
  I don't want anyone to misunderstand me. I am willing to work with 
the Senator from Pennsylvania and others on this legislation, but I do 
believe we need to take a closer look at it, talking with relevant 
stakeholders--States, school districts, employees--about the bill and 
some perhaps unintended consequences of it. We were able to do that in 
the childcare bill, and I believe we can achieve similar success with 
the legislation of the Senator from Pennsylvania. I am ready and 
willing to engage with the Senator, his staff, and his office in that 
process.

  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I support the Senator from Iowa and 
his request that this bill go to the Health, Education, Labor and 
Pensions Committee.
  In the Republican Conference, we talk a lot about the importance of 
taking legislation through committee so it can be amended and 
considered through the regular order. This is certainly important 
legislation. All of us would agree on that.
  The Senator from Pennsylvania and the Senator from West Virginia 
deserve a lot of credit for bringing this terrible story to our 
attention and proposing we address it. And I think we should. But the 
appropriate way to do that here, is to take it to the committee of 
jurisdiction to be considered in a markup, amended, and see if anyone 
has a better idea.
  My second reason for hoping this bill goes to the HELP committee is 
that I have my own idea. I think this bill poses an important question 
to the Senate about whether we want to constitute ourselves as a 
national school board. That is, in fact, what we would be doing if we 
passed it into law.
  In our country there are 100,000 public elementary and secondary 
schools. They all have a principal who is in charge of the employees in 
that school.
  This bill is about determining what kind of criminal background check 
those school employees should have. What is the principal supposed to 
do? Doesn't the principal have any responsibility for this? Can the 
principal just say that this is the job of the United States Senate, so 
I don't have to worry about that?
  There are 14,000 local school boards across West Virginia, Tennessee, 
Iowa, Pennsylvania, and all of our other States. What is the 
responsibility of these local school boards when it comes to 
determining the qualifications of their teachers or the health and 
safety of their students? Do the members of the local school board say: 
We don't have to worry about those questions too much because the U.S. 
Senate will determine for us what the qualifications for teaching will 
be or how we will keep students healthy and safe in our local public 
schools?
  There are 50 Governors of our states. I used to be one of them, as 
was the distinguished Senator from West Virginia. I got pretty tired of 
people flying to Washington, D.C. thinking that they were the only ones 
who had any sense of responsibility for the public school students in 
Tennessee. In fact, I felt like the more Washington, D.C. intruded into 
Tennessee by making decisions that we should be making for ourselves, 
the less responsible we felt for those decisions and the less effective 
we were at doing our jobs.
  I remember in the early 1990s there was a piece of legislation which 
whizzed through the Senate and the House just like this piece of 
legislation has been doing. It was called the Gun-Free School Zones 
Act, and it came after a particularly terrible shooting at a school. We 
still have those shootings today, and it wrenches our heart every time 
they happen.
  So, after the shooting, the U.S. Congress said: We will fix it. The 
Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional because it exceeded the 
authority of Congress under the commerce clause--that in effect it 
wasn't Washington's job; it was the job of the states and local 
communities to determine the issue of gun possession around schools.
  I submit that the safety of our schools is the job of the parents of 
those schools, of the principal in that school, of the community which 
supports that school, of the local school board, of the supporting 
organizations, and of the governor and the legislature of the state. If 
they can pretend they can kick that responsibility up to Washington, I 
think that is wrong. I do

[[Page S2349]]

not think that is within our constitutional framework in the United 
States. Those responsibilities belong locally.
  The Senator from Iowa and I have a terrific relationship and 
ideological differences on many occasions. I spent the morning debating 
with him about whether his proposal for early childhood education would 
in effect create a national school board.
  He basically made the same argument that is being made here. He said: 
If we are going to give states money from Washington for early 
childhood education, we have a responsibility to define how that money 
is spent, including the parameters for what the teachers' salaries 
should be.
  So if we can define what criminal background checks ought to be for 
school employees in Maryville, TN, public schools, we can define what 
the teachers' salaries ought to be in the Maryville, TN, public 
schools. If we can decide what the safety measures in the school ought 
to be, we can decide what the maximum size of classes ought to be. We 
can decide what the length of the school day ought to be and what kind 
of vision and health screenings we ought to provide. Those decisions 
are important for children as well. Whether the children are fed 
properly is important as well. Are we going to kick those decisions 
upstairs to the U.S. Senate and say: You set the rules for that.
  Physical activity programs. The distinguished Senator from Iowa has 
been a champion for more physical activity his whole career here. He 
would like to set that as a goal from Washington. I think that is the 
job of a local community.
  Professional development for school staff. If we make decisions about 
criminal background checks for staff, we can make decisions about their 
professional development as well.
  How about academic standards and curriculum? In the State of 
Tennessee and in many other States there has been a near rebellion over 
the so-called Common Core State Standards. The important issue is about 
how we raise standards for children who need to learn more to succeed. 
But the problem is that Washington got involved with the standards, and 
people in our State and many other States don't like national school 
boards and Washington-control of public schools.
  So I think we should stop and think about this. I would prefer to see 
the federal government in Washington act as an enabler of States and 
local school boards rather than a mandator.
  I would like to see us take this terrific focus the Senators from 
Pennsylvania and West Virginia have put on the importance of criminal 
background checks and the safety of our children by making it easier 
for States and local school boards to search a State criminal registry, 
a State-based child abuse and neglect registry, a fingerprint-based FBI 
criminal history, a search of the national sex offender registry.

  Forty-six States already require all public school employees to go 
through some form of a background check. Are we to say we know better 
than they do? If so, what does that say about our entire structure of 
public education and whether we should just tell the 14,000 local 
school boards in the U.S. to disband. We don't need you to make 
decisions about the safety of the schools in your district. We will do 
it in Washington. We don't need you to make decisions about academic 
standards and curriculum. We will do that here?
  I think we in Congress should be enablers, not mandators. I think we 
should take this powerful focus the two Senators have put on criminal 
background checks for school employees, take it to the HELP committee, 
and put a spotlight on making it easier and more important for all 
100,000 principals, all 14,000 local school boards, all 50 State 
Governors to do it, help parents to be aroused, and put the spotlight 
where the spotlight ought to be.
  If they want a gun-free school zone, put the spotlight on the school 
and the community around it. If they want a safe school, put the 
spotlight on the school and the community around it. If they want to 
have a criminal background check system to keep predators out of 
schools, put the spotlight on the principal, the school board, and the 
community around it. That is the way to effectively do it. That is the 
way to respect our federalist system of government and our 
constitutional framework. That is the way to avoid creating a national 
school board.
  So I look forward to working with the Senator from Iowa, the Senator 
from West Virginia, and the Senator from Pennsylvania. This is an 
important issue. I would like to see it become law. But I would like 
for our government in Washington to be more of an enabler of local 
school boards and school principals than a mandator from Washington.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Madam President, needless to say, I am extremely 
disappointed that we find ourselves here at this impasse with nothing 
accomplished, and who knows how long it will take to get something 
accomplished.
  I will point out that the Senate, I think just last week, voted for 
nearly identical background check language in the Child Care and 
Development Block Grant Act. We voted for this. This is the language 
vetted by this committee.
  If it is vital to keep kids safe at a daycare--which I think it is--
why isn't it just as vital to keep kids or their older siblings safe 
for the rest of the day? I don't think we need to go through the 
committee to answer that question. We have waited long enough.
  This is the 16th background check bill which has been introduced in 
the House or the Senate since 2009, and here we have nothing on the 
Senate floor. The committees had 5 years to act. The committees had 5 
months when they could have taken up this bill at any time, marked it 
up, and moved it through the process, but they didn't do this.
  As far as using the committee process, I am generally a fan of going 
through the committee. But let's not pretend that is how we normally 
operate around here. There are 27 bills so far in this Congress which 
have received floor consideration without going through a committee at 
all--7 under the jurisdiction of this committee. Last Congress there 
were 42 bills which received floor votes without going through 
committee.
  Let's be candid. In just the last week or so, and looking forward 
another week or two, we have more legislation under the jurisdiction of 
this committee. Whether it is paycheck fairness or a minimum wage bill, 
those are under the jurisdiction of this committee. They are going to 
be brought to the floor without having gone through the committee.
  By the way, those are bills we know are going nowhere. Those are 
political statement bills. So is it more important to get bills that 
are political statements to the Senate floor than it is legislation 
which could actually be signed to protect kids from violent predators? 
This seems to me to be a very misordering of priorities.
  I say to my colleague, for whom I have a great deal of respect and 
with whom I generally find myself in agreement, on this issue I happen 
to disagree with the senior Senator from Tennessee. In my view, this is 
not a mandate on the States.
  If a State chooses not to develop the background checks we have put 
into this bill, then we would withhold the ESEA funding, which is 3.5 
percent of total funding. That is not insignificant. But it leaves it 
up to the State to decide. We think kids ought to be safe in schools. 
If they disagree about the background checks, OK, then they don't have 
to take this funding. The Supreme Court, by the way, has agreed that 
this does not represent coercion. It does not amount to coercion when 
it is on this scale.
  The second point I would make in this regard is part of this 
legislation absolutely requires Federal legislation. As I mentioned 
briefly in my comments earlier, this all originated from a case where a 
school in one State sent a letter of recommendation to a school in 
another State for one of these monsters to be hired. Frankly, I don't 
know how the school in the State where this person ended up could have 
prevented that from happening. But Federal legislation can prevent 
that, and I think it should.
  So I am deeply disappointed we are not able to move to this today. I 
hope we will be able to soon.
  I think my colleague from West Virginia had a point he wished to 
make, so I yield the floor.

[[Page S2350]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, I first thank my colleague from 
Pennsylvania, Senator Toomey. I also thank the Senator from Tennessee, 
for whom I also have the greatest regard for his knowledge and 
commitment to our children and education, to which he has dedicated his 
life, and also the Senator from Iowa. This is very serious and very 
personal to both of us. Our States have been affected. But every State 
has been affected.
  I am not in favor of a national school board in any way, shape or 
form. I strongly believe in the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution and 
States rights. But I believe that certain standards have to be set, and 
we have done that before as far as on a national level.
  There are five problems we have always talked about, and those five 
problems apply to every child in America--not just every child in West 
Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee or Iowa but in America.
  The first is every child should have a loving, caring adult in their 
life. Those are not always the biological parents or family. It could 
be you. It could be somebody next door. It could be an extended family 
member.
  Every child should have a safe place in their life. Unfortunately, as 
has been said, it is not always the home. It might be the school.
  Every child should have a healthy start. Nutrition--for many children 
across America, their breakfast, lunch, and nutrition comes from the 
school.
  Every child should be taught to have a livable skill. Again, that is 
in the school. We depend upon that.
  And the fifth thing--which is the hardest to teach--is that every 
child should grow to be a loving, caring adult, and be able to give 
back. That is set by us. We set the standards for that. A child will 
emulate what they see. If they love it and respect it, they will do it.
  For us to say we don't believe raising to a Federal standard the 
well-being and safety of every child in a school system--guaranteeing 
that the person who is going to be teaching them, nurturing them, 
taking them to school, and feeding them has a clean background check 
and is not a child molester--is the least we can do. That is all we are 
asking for in this bill. I hope that it would get the attention it 
needs. Again, I am also very disappointed that we cannot move it 
forward, and I know that precedent has been set and has been 
articulated by the Senator from Pennsylvania. But I would hope that 
both the ranking member and the chairman of the HELP Committee would 
maybe reconsider and take another look at it.

  Thank you, Madam President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I am willing to support holding a hearing on the bill, 
moving it rapidly through the HELP committee, and moving it back to the 
Senate floor. I will make my argument in committee or on the floor, and 
I may win or I may lose. But I have thought about the gun-free school 
zones act for more than 20 years, and I thought about it from the point 
of view of a parent and of a Governor.
  The Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has conservative 
Republicans on one side and liberal Democrats on the other. I spend 
most of my days on the committee trying to argue my Democratic friends 
out of their good ideas that they want to impose on every local school 
district in America. There is a moral imperative to have high academic 
standards for children. There is a moral imperative to have physical 
education for children. There is a moral imperative to have breakfast 
for children. There is a moral imperative to help disabled children. 
There is a moral imperative to do all these things. We all feel that. 
But just because we in Washington contribute 10 percent of the money 
spent on elementary and secondary education doesn't mean we should 
substitute our judgment for that of the local school board and the 
principal who is accountable to that community for the safety of each 
child in their school. We ought to think about that before we start 
assuming these responsibilities because if we pass this bill into law, 
leave people to think that we solved the problem, and another problem 
happens, then who is going to be held accountable? The local principal? 
The local school board? The Governor? No. Maybe the Senate will be held 
accountable because we took it upon ourselves to say to the parents: We 
have kept your child safe.
  We should enable parents. We should enable schools. We should enable 
local school districts to create safe and effective schools with high 
standards. We should give parents choices of schools with effective 
teachers, but we shouldn't mandate it or define it from Washington. 
That is my argument, which I would like to be considered when we think 
about the extent to which we ought to say to a local school board or 
principal: We are going to define for you what a criminal background 
check should consist of for the people you hire in your schools.
  I pledge to work on it as rapidly as Senator Harkin can move it 
through the committee. I will make my argument, and we will come to a 
conclusion.
  I appreciate the Senators from Pennsylvania and West Virginia putting 
a focus on such an important issue, and I look forward to a speedy 
conclusion to the debate and a passage of an appropriate bill on an 
important issue. I just hope it enables instead of mandates.
  Thank you, Madam President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.


               Commemorating the Boston Marathon Tragedy

  Ms. WARREN. Madam President, 1 year ago I rose to speak in this 
Chamber. I rose with a heart heavy with mourning and yet filled with 
gratitude because 1 year ago cowards set off bombs at our beloved 
Boston Marathon, trying to terrorize our city, but Boston responded 
with courage and community.
  Today I rise with a heart filled with the spirit of healing and 
restoration to commemorate the anniversary of the Boston Marathon 
bombing and celebrate the strength and character of the people of 
Boston.
  One year ago terror knocked on Boston's door. It was not just the 
momentary terror of smoke and sound but the terror of uncertainty and 
speculation, the terror of siege and lockdown. Such terrors can break a 
people's spirit. They seek to do no less. But Boston was fearless.
  Our first responders, our protectors and investigators, our heroes, 
our citizen heroes, our families, our friends, and our neighbors--we 
did not waiver. In that moment when all the world had its eyes upon us, 
we responded with a cry of defiance, not of fear.
  Scripture says: ``Be brave, be strong. Let all that you do be done 
with love.'' In the last year we have seen what bravery and strength 
and love can do.
  Friends and family, classmates and teachers have come together to 
keep alive the memories of Krystle Campbell, Lu Lingzi, Martin 
Richards, and Sean Collier, and to celebrate their lives and to promise 
they will live on in our hearts.
  Investigators and prosecutors have pursued justice, impartial and 
fair but with righteous conviction and an unwavering sense of purpose.
  Healers and neighbors, friends and family have restored life and 
energy to those who thought it lost and in doing so have felt their own 
spirits lift.
  Inventors and doctors have returned a ballroom dancer to the dance 
floor and helped children run and play, focused not on what they have 
lost but on what they can do next.
  Families have rejoiced with graduations and birthdays, weddings and 
children, with the sweetest and most hopeful moments of life.
  In the last year we have found that when we are united as one 
community, bravery and strength and love can heal the body and restore 
the spirit.
  One hundred years after the original Patriots' Day of 1775, an orator 
celebrating the anniversary of the first battles of the Revolutionary 
War told the people of Massachusetts that ``our common liberty is 
consecrated by a common sorrow.'' From time to time, as a community and 
as a country we are reminded of this wisdom, through the awful grace of 
God. Our common tragedies and sufferings unite us as one people, and 
that unity brings with it strength and courage and ultimately renews 
our commitment to liberty.

[[Page S2351]]

  Now, with the strength of One Boston still with us, we look ahead to 
justice that has yet to be served, to healing that remains to be done, 
to a future of achievements, of celebrations, and of memories.
  May God bless those we have lost. May He inspire those who survived 
to carry forward. May He keep our community united in bravery and 
strength and love. And may He always watch over the people of Boston, 
of Massachusetts, and of the United States of America.
  Thank you, Madam President.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. MURPHY. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, Madam President.


                              Health Care

  There was a new announcement today from the Secretary of Health and 
Human Services that 7.5 million people have signed up for private 
health care through the exchanges by virtue of the Affordable Care Act. 
The initial estimates from CBO last fall were that in the best case 
about 6 million people were going to sign up. We have blown through 
that enrollment expectation, and still, on this floor and in committee 
hearings as recently as this morning, Republicans continue to criticize 
and critique this law with blistering attacks--not because they have 
data on their side, not because they have evidence on their side, but 
because their entire electoral strategy for the fall depends on an 
assault on the Affordable Care Act.
  The problem is that increasingly day by day, as more information 
comes out about the life-changing, life-altering success of this law, 
there simply is not the evidence to back up the claim from the 
Republicans that the Affordable Care Act isn't working. In fact, the 
reason why a new Washington Post poll shows that for the first time 
more Americans support the Affordable Care Act rather than oppose it is 
because they know the Affordable Care Act is working. Yet my good 
friend Representative Paul Ryan says that despite 7 million people 
signing up for the law, ``the architecture of this law is so 
fundamentally flawed that I think it is going to collapse under its own 
weight.''
  One of our own colleagues said, ``I don't think the 7 million 
enrollment figure means anything. They are cooking the books on this.''
  Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer says that the 7.1 million 
enrollment figure was a ``phony number'' and that all the changes and 
delays must mean the majority of the law is already on its way out.
  Well, that is the story Republicans are telling here in Washington, 
but our constituents in Democratic States and Republican States are 
telling a very different story.
  I would like to talk about the numbers for a second because data can 
be pretty tricky when it gets in the way of your political argument. As 
one of our former colleagues from New York said--and I am 
paraphrasing--we are all entitled to our own opinions, but we are not 
entitled to our own facts.
  Here we are. This is the percentage of uninsured in the United States 
by quarter. We start in 2008, which is essentially the beginning of the 
recession, and, as would be expected over the course of the recession, 
the number of uninsured rises from 14.5 percent to a peak of 18 
percent. But guess what happens when it hits the peak. The Affordable 
Care Act goes into operation. The Affordable Care Act begins to be 
implemented, and in a very short period of time from the beginning of 
enrollment until the end of the first period of enrollment being March 
31, the number goes from 18 percent uninsured to 15.6 uninsured. That 
is a remarkable decrease over a very short period of time that can only 
be explained by the fact that 7 million people now have access to 
private health care insurance, another 3 million people have access to 
Medicaid, and another 3 million people on top of that have access to 
insurance on their parents' plans.
  When we look at what has happened to young people over a similar 
period of time, we can see the same dynamic playing out. This is the 
rate of uninsured of 18- to 25-year-olds in this country. Here, they 
are at 28 percent. I mean, how on Earth, in the most affluent, most 
powerful country in the world, did we ever allow for more than one-
quarter of our young people to be uninsured? But we were at 28.4 
percent, and when the Affordable Care Act was passed and the first 
provision went into effect, it allowed people who were under 26 to stay 
on their parents' plans.
  Look. The number starts to move downward. It is a pretty consistent 
downward slope, moving from 28 to about 24. Then the ACA plans start, 
and then the number--just as in the uninsured data for the population 
at large--drops again from 24 down to 21. It was 28 percent at the 
passage of the law, and it is 21.7 percent today.
  Other studies show the same. This is survey data from Gallup, which 
is generally the gold standard on tracking the rate of uninsured in the 
country. But we also have a RAND study that was done. This is a very 
well-known consulting study which said that from the period of 
September of last year until mid-March, 9.3 million people who were 
uninsured became insured.
  So when Republicans say this data doesn't really tell you the true 
story because these are all people just shifting from one plan to 
another, that is not true. The RAND study tells us that 9.3 million 
people who were uninsured became insured. The RAND study also says that 
7.2 million people got access to employer-based insurance who didn't 
have it previously. And that data doesn't even include the surge of 
enrollment at the end of March. The RAND study only brings us up to 
about mid-March.
  So this is the real story. This is what the numbers and the data tell 
us: that people are getting access to insurance for the first time 
ever. The Affordable Care Act isn't just shifting people from one 
insurance plan to another insurance plan; it is actually having a 
remarkable effect on the number of insured in this country.
  I am not suggesting this trend line is going to continue along that 
axis, but, boy, if the next couple of years looks anything like the 
first 6 months of Affordable Care Act plans being available to people, 
we are going to see a revolution in this country in terms of the number 
of people who are outside our health care system. Yet this week was the 
52nd, 53rd, 54th vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act in the House of 
Representatives. The Presiding Officer and I sat through probably 40 of 
those votes and there is another one today.
  A budget presented, again, by Representative Paul Ryan would take 
away insurance from 7 million people who now have it, take away 
Medicaid coverage from 3 million more people who have it, would repeal 
a law that has provided $9 billion in savings for seniors when they are 
in the doughnut hole. And $9 billion is a big number and hard to 
comprehend. By the way, his bill would return that $9 billion to the 
drug industry because that is where it came from. It didn't shift money 
from one set of taxpayers to another set of taxpayers. The way we 
closed the doughnut hole was asking the drug industry to put up some 
money in order to help seniors.
  The irony of all ironies is that the Ryan budget--while repealing all 
of the provisions that have provided insurance to over 10 million 
people and discounted health care for millions more--would keep in 
place the $716 billion in Medicare savings that Republicans and outside 
groups have hammered Democrats for supporting over the course of the 
last 5 years.
  Over and over we have been told we are killing Medicare Advantage by 
asking Medicare Advantage to run their insurance plans for the same 
costs that Medicare charges. Yet despite all of the rhetoric, the 
Republican budget in the House would keep in place all of the Medicare 
cuts they have been running against outside of this building.
  What our constituents know is that despite bumps in the road, the 
Affordable Care Act works. Anytime you reorder one-sixth of the 
American economy, you are going to have problems and you are going to 
have people who are going to be unhappy. The reality is that for 
decades we had the most expensive health care system in the

[[Page S2352]]

world, times two, compared to any other industrialized nation, and we 
were getting results that didn't measure up to the amount of money we 
were spending. We had 30 million people who were uninsured, rates of 
infant immortality and infections that were way above countries 
spending half as much as we did. We had to make a change. That there 
were 54 votes in the House of Representatives to repeal the bill, and 
not a single effort to replace it, tells you that it has been Democrats 
who have been willing to step to the plate and do the tough reform 
necessary to try to make changes that were 100 years overdue. The 
numbers don't lie in the end.
  I get it that Republicans think they can win an election by 
continuing to hammer away at the Affordable Care Act, but there are 
7\1/2\ million people who now have private health care. There are 3 
million people who now have access to Medicaid. There are 3 million 
more young adults who can stay on their parents' plans. RAND and Gallup 
tell us that the number of people without insurance in this country is 
absolutely plummeting by the day. All of that is evidence that despite 
the best intentions from our Republicans to undermine the law the ACA 
works.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REED. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                    Emergency Unemployment Insurance

  Mr. REED. Madam President, it has been 103 days since emergency 
unemployment insurance expired and 3 days since the Senate sent a 
bipartisan agreement to the House which would restore these benefits 
for up to 2.7 million Americans. These benefits are fully paid for and 
would lift the entire economy. That is why the nonpartisan 
Congressional Budget Office has estimated that failing to renew the 
benefits for a full year would cost the economy 200,000 jobs. We 
recognize our bill is a partial restoration, not a full year. The 
restoration we proposed will increase jobs in the economy as attested 
by the CBO.
  Unfortunately, it appears that the House has no intent to take up the 
Senate-passed agreement to restore these benefits before they leave 
town for 2 weeks.
  That is right if the House fails to pass what the Senate has passed 
on a bipartisan vote--and this was a bipartisan, fiscally responsible 
measure--the Speaker, who says he wants job creation, will be rejecting 
a portion of those 200,000 new jobs projected by the Congressional 
Budget Office, which is headed by his own appointee.
  Contrary to the criticism that our proposal does not create jobs and 
doesn't do anything with jobs, it does. More importantly, it restores 
benefits to people who are desperately looking for work in a very 
difficult economy, and who need these benefits to keep searching for 
work as well as supporting their families.
  In my view, the failure to act is not defensible. Restoring these 
benefits is the right thing to do for job seekers and the smart thing 
to do for our economy. The very modest $300-a-week average benefit, 
which our bill restores, helps workers stay afloat and cover the 
necessities as they search for a job. That modest benefit gets pumped 
back into the economy at the local supermarket or gas station. It is 
just commonsense. People will get this--I hope--benefit, and they will 
go right along and take care of the daily needs of life. They are not 
in a position to stash it away--most of them--and they are not in a 
position to do anything else but to try to stay afloat through very 
difficult financial circumstances.
  Unemployment remains stubbornly high in my State, and across the 
United States. The March employment report, while positive, showed we 
still have much more to do to strengthen our economic 
recovery, especially for the 10.5 million Americans looking for work, 
including 3.7 million of the long-term unemployed. Again, this benefit 
we propose is particularly directed at these long-term unemployed 
Americans.

  That is why this is a critical effort in our attempts to strengthen 
our economy--restoring these benefits. We have never let these benefits 
lapse when the long-term unemployment rate is higher than 1.3 percent--
and today it is nearly twice that at roughly 2.6 percent. We have acted 
on a bipartisan basis, on a fiscally responsible basis, on a basis that 
recognizes not only the needs of families but the need to help further 
grow our economy. Now it is time for the House to act that way--
responsibly fiscally and responsibly to our neighbors and our 
constituents, on a bipartisan basis, to get this bill done quickly and 
get it to the President.
  It is my hope the House of Representatives stops blocking this. This 
is fully paid for. It is fiscally responsible. It is a bipartisan 
effort. It is what every one of our constituents says we should be 
doing more of--responsible, thoughtful, bipartisan legislation. We have 
done our part in the Senate and now it is up to the House. I hope they 
move quickly--this week indeed--to get this relief to millions of 
Americans.
  With that, I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Utah.


                               The Budget

  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I rise today to take a look back at the 
evolution of our Federal budget over the past few years, as we moved 
from deficits and debt not seen since the years surrounding World War 
II to our current budget predicament, which still involves deficits and 
debt that are far too high.
  The Federal deficit in fiscal year 2009 was nearly 10 percent of our 
economy. This was due partly to efforts to battle the financial crisis 
and partly to ineffective and reckless spending measures like the so-
called stimulus.
  Since then, the deficit has fallen. From the rhetoric of the 
administration and its allies here in Congress, you would think that 
deficit reduction has been accomplished almost exclusively through 
spending cuts. Indeed, in an effort to demonstrate his reasonableness 
in calling for even more tax hikes, President Obama often touts the 
``tough spending cuts'' that have taken place under his administration.
  Of course, after spending ballooned in fiscal years 2009 and 2010 to 
almost a quarter of the size of our entire economy, it eventually had 
to be curtailed. With a recovering economy, along with tax hikes 
engineered by the administration and its allies in Congress, deficits 
have admittedly come down.
  Unfortunately, however, as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget 
Office has told us, the deficit reprieve will be short lived. The CBO 
tells us clearly that after 2015, the deficit will rise again and, as a 
consequence, the Federal debt remains on an unsustainable path.
  As the CBO and every credible budget analyst has made clear, our 
fiscal path is unsustainable because our entitlements are 
unsustainable--that means Social Security, that means Medicare and 
Medicaid, and that means the Affordable Care Act.
  We know those programs cannot be sustained on their current 
trajectories. Yet the administration and its allies refuse to do 
anything about it.
  The Senate Democratic budget left entitlements virtually untouched. 
The President's budget offers little in the way of structural 
entitlement reforms necessary to put these programs on sound fiscal 
footing. In fact, with his latest budget, President Obama has even 
retreated on reforms that he has offered in the past.
  But let's look back on how our budget has evolved over the last few 
years. If you listen to my friends on the other side of the aisle and 
their supporters, the Federal Government has significantly scaled back 
on spending which, they say, is responsible for almost all the changes 
in the Federal deficit since the outsized deficits in fiscal years 2009 
and 2010.
  We hear from our friends on the other side of the aisle about how 
they have ``slashed'' spending. We hear about ``austerity,'' as though 
it is something inherently evil.

[[Page S2353]]

  For example, in June of 2013, the leftwing Center for American 
Progress said that ``we have enacted about $2.5 trillion in deficit 
reduction with about three-quarters coming from spending cuts.''
  In March of this year, Vice President Biden's former aide Jared 
Bernstein wrote in the New York Times that we have generated $2.5 
trillion in deficit savings, with 77 percent coming from spending cuts.
  In February of this year, the Senate Budget Committee chairman wrote 
to her Senate Democratic colleagues that since August 2010, we have had 
``$3.3 trillion in deficit reduction put in place over the last few 
years'' with 77 percent claimed as coming from spending reductions.
  Depending on who you listen to, deficits have been reduced by $2.5 
trillion or $3.3 trillion or maybe more. No matter the number, the 
claimed reduction stemming from spending cuts usually ends up at around 
75 percent or more. That would mean that deficit reduction has been 
accomplished by a 3-to-1 or higher ratio of spending cuts to tax highs. 
Of course, all of those deficit reduction and spending reduction claims 
represent promises for the future.
  They are measured relative to some artificial so-called budget 
baseline or yardstick, which can pretty much be anything that you want 
it to be. Pick one yardstick and you get one result. Pick a different 
yardstick and you get a different result. But it has been recorded that 
in fiscal year 2009, the Federal deficit was more than $1.4 trillion or 
almost 10 percent of GDP at the time.
  Also on the books is that in fiscal year 2013, our most recently 
closed fiscal year, the deficit was around $680 billion or just over 4 
percent of GDP at that time. Therefore, deficit reduction we have seen 
between fiscal years 2009 and 2013, which is a 4-year period, has been 
about $735 billion. That is not $2.5 trillion. That is not $3.3 
trillion.
  The larger deficit reduction numbers are derived almost entirely from 
future promises to reduce spending, promises that we are pretty darn 
sure are never going to be kept, based upon all of the past history of 
this country and the Democratic Party, by the way.
  Once again, in terms of real actual deficit reduction, the number 
comes in at roughly $735 billion. Keep in mind all the rhetoric about 
deficit reduction consisting of 3-to-1 spending reductions to tax 
hikes. Well, if that is what we would have enacted, we would imagine 
those ratios would have been at least somehow reflected in the deficit 
reduction realized over the past 4 years or so.
  If not, then, let's be clear that they are only promises to reduce 
spending, promises that the current and future Congresses can undo with 
the stroke of a pen. If past experience is the norm, you can count on 
it. You can count on undoing those promises. I have been in the 
Senate--this is my 38th year. I have heard countless promises to rein 
in spending in the future. The fraction of those promises that have 
ended up being kept is very small.
  Promises notwithstanding, let's go back over the past 4 fiscal years 
and see what has happened. As I said, from fiscal year 2009 to 2013, 
the deficit has gone down by $735 billion. No one disputes this, 
certainly not my friends on the other side of the aisle, who have used 
this number as justification for turning their spending engine back to 
full throttle.
  Given all that they said about spending cuts having been responsible, 
on a 3-to-1 basis for deficit reduction, the question becomes: Is 75 
percent of the deficit reduction we have seen over the last 4 years 
attributable to spending cuts or austerity? The answer is not even 
close. The $736 billion of deficit reduction has been accomplished with 
$670 billion of increased revenues, and only $65 billion of spending 
reductions, which on a basis of around $3.5 trillion of annual spending 
is a reduction of below 2 percent.
  I will say that again. The $735 billion of deficit reduction from 
fiscal year 2009 to 2013 has been accomplished by and large through 
higher tax revenue. Specifically, more than 91 percent of the deficit 
reduction has stemmed from higher taxes, and less than 9 percent from 
reductions in spending.
  Less than 9 percent of deficit reduction stems from spending cuts is 
a far cry from the 75 percent or more that my friends on the other side 
of the aisle claim. Those claims are based on promises of future 
spending reductions and budget projections. Yes, those claims are based 
on carefully crafted budget baselines or yardsticks that my friends 
creatively construct. All of this is future, which we all know will 
never come to pass.
  But if we had enacted budgetary changes aimed at reducing deficits 
that involved anything near a 3-to-1 ratio of spending cuts to tax 
increases, then you would think it would have at least started to slow 
up over the past 4 fiscal years. As I said, however, it is not even 
close. Of course, some of the revenue increases have reflected the 
economy recovering from the recession to its current state, which by 
the way remains sluggish.
  But the 2013 numbers begin to reflect recent tax hikes, engineered by 
my friends on the other side of the aisle. Moving forward, we can 
expect even more revenue to be extracted from economy from tax hikes, 
including the higher tax rates that were passed last year in the fiscal 
cliff deal, along with the myriad of taxes included as part of the 
Affordable Care Act.
  We have already seen in fiscal year 2014 through February Federal tax 
revenues hitting a record high for the first 5 months of the fiscal 
year relative to a similar period of any past fiscal year. Yet, even as 
the revenue gushes in, my friends on the other side of the aisle want 
to double down with even more tax hikes. Let's not think for a minute 
that their demand for higher taxes has anything to do with reining in 
the deficit or reducing our debts.

  Instead, the proposals from Democrats are for even more spending, 
more redistribution, and an even more bigger government. The 
President's recent budget is exhibit No. 1. Of course, you will not 
hear it being called ``inefficient and wasteful government spending.'' 
No, you will hear about investments. You will not hear the term 
``redistribution.'' No, you will hear about the wonderfully egalitarian 
goal of fairness, as judged by the norms of Democrats.
  You will not hear about big government controlling an outsized and 
increasing share of economic activity in our country. No, you will hear 
about how virtually every private sector company in virtually every 
sector of the economy acts abusively or out of greed, without regard 
for others, in search of tax loopholes to exploit to the detriment of 
the middle class.
  Once again, it is clear from the budget data already in the books 
over the past 4 fiscal years that the vast majority of deficit 
reduction, more than 91 percent of it, has come from increased revenue 
extracted from the private sector. Less than 9 percent has come from 
any kind of spending restraint. Those are facts. Those are the numbers 
on the books. Those data do not depend on CBO projections. They do not 
depend on picking a baseline. They do not rely on budget assumptions.
  What these numbers tell us is that virtually none of the so-called 
austerity or slashed spending that my friends on the other side of the 
aisle have pretended to endure have occurred in the real world.
  As we continue to hear from my friends on the other side of the aisle 
about how our budget challenge has faded away, and about the trillions 
and trillions of deficit reduction that has been accomplished through 
spending cuts, let's keep in mind our recent track record. That record 
is clear.
  I will say it again just to make sure the point is not lost on 
anyone.
  The spending restraint we have seen since the outside spending sprees 
in fiscal years 2009 and 2010 has been minor. The vast majority of 
deficit reduction we have seen to date, more than 91 percent of it has 
resulted from increased revenue. The past 4 fiscal years have shown no 
evidence of the ongoing promises of 3-to-1 spending cuts to tax hikes.
  We do not need to increase taxes yet again. We have already done 
that. We do not need to declare deficit and debt victory and turn the 
speeding spigots back on to maximum flow. Our fiscal challenge remains 
where it has been for some time now. We have unsustainable growth in 
our entitlement spending and we need to discuss and enact structural 
reforms to our entitlement programs in order to put them and our fiscal 
position on a more sustainable course.

[[Page S2354]]

  Democrats, of course, have other ideas. For instance, take a look at 
page 33 of the President's budget. The document discusses the future 
unsustainable deficits and debt and alludes to a large tax increase 
that is undefined. Here is what it says, ``Even with reforms to 
Medicare and other entitlements and tough choices . . . we will need 
additional revenue to maintain our commitments to seniors.''
  As I said, my friends on the other side never tire of asking for more 
money from our American people--never tire of it. For example, both the 
President's budget and the budget proposed by Senate Democrats last 
year envisioned revenue increases of over $1 trillion. That apparently 
is their answer to the entitlement question--not reforms, not 
structural changes, but ``additional revenues.''
  If you are going to try to fix our entitlement problems entirely on 
the revenue side of the ledger, it is going to take far more revenue 
than what my friends on the other side of the aisle have previously 
proposed. If that is the route they want to go, they should at least be 
honest with the American people about where the revenue will come from 
and who will be paying for it. The American people deserve to know. I 
think it is about time our friends on the other side explained it to 
them. Do not count on that.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. FLAKE. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call 
be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. FLAKE. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                                  Cuba

  Mr. FLAKE. Madam President, we heard news a week or so ago that the 
U.S. Government, through the Agency for International Development, was 
conducting a program in Cuba titled ZunZuneo.
  It was an attempt to set up a kind of alternative twitter account, 
and the intent was certainly noble--to increase access of ordinary 
Cubans to information that would help and assist them.
  I have no issue with programs such as this. I think overall they are 
good. The more we can have people have Internet access and meaningful 
content is good, but I and many others do have an issue with the Agency 
for International Development--USAID--undertaking this program.
  USAID's mission is to help with humanitarian needs and to promote 
democratic development around the world. It need not, should not, 
engage in covert--or in their case they are saying it wasn't covert, 
they are calling it discreet. Either way, it casts suspicion on other 
activities that USAID is undertaking around the world.
  USAID is in some very tough places around the world--delivering 
supplies into South Sudan, for example. We work with the people in 
Syria--not within the country but just outside the country. We work in 
many dangerous parts of the world, and the last thing we need is 
suspicion cast on USAID where people think it is an arm of the CIA. It 
just shouldn't be done. I think USAID does great work around the world 
and shouldn't involve itself with work of this type.
  With regard to Cuba itself, as I said, I think our goal should be to 
make sure that Cubans are better informed, that we have increased 
contact, and that we have more American influence there.
  That could be most easily forwarded by simply allowing Americans to 
travel to Cuba. It is the only country in the world where we have a 
policy that you have to get a specific license--where only certain 
classes of people are allowed to go there. That simply makes no sense 
at all.
  If our goal is to make sure that Cuban people are aware of what is 
going on in the world, that they get real information outside of the 
government sources--the government in Cuba denies Cuban people the 
ability to get good, meaningful information--we ought to be all about 
making sure they have access to that, but the best way to do that is 
simply allowing Americans to travel there. We do that with other 
repressive regimes around the world.
  It has been said--I think Freedom House has Iran as the only 
government that is more restrictive, more authoritarian, and more 
repressive than the Cuban regime. Yet we allow Americans to travel to 
Iran. In Iran, the Iranian Government may restrict who may come in--as 
will the Cuban Government, I am sure, once we lift our travel ban 
there. But that ought to be their province. I have often said if 
someone is going to limit my travel, it should be a Communist 
government, not my government.
  As we review this program and as we talk about it in the coming 
weeks--we had a hearing this morning with the head of USAID testifying 
about it--I hope we simply keep in mind the best way to help the Cuban 
people to have access to information and to have contact with 
Americans, to be subject to American influence, freedom, and economic 
opportunity, is to allow Americans to travel freely there. That would 
do more than any program we could install, any program administered by 
USAID, the State Department, the CIA or anybody else--just allow 
Americans to travel to Cuba.
  Mr. DURBIN. Would the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. FLAKE. I yield to the Senator.
  Mr. DURBIN. I will make a statement in the nature of a question since 
we discussed this this morning. We had a lengthy discussion in the 
Foreign Relations Committee about this twitter project, whatever it 
was, and whether it was wise--and I think it was the consensus of our 
committee--that if it opens up Cuban people to other ideas and more 
information, it is a positive thing.
  You and I discussed afterward the fact that there are other things we 
can do. I think you just alluded specifically to them on the floor, and 
I wanted to associate myself with your thinking on this and hope that 
after some 50-years-plus, some fresh thinking on our foreign policy in 
terms of Cuba may lead to what we ultimately want, and that is giving 
the Cuban people an opportunity to be part of a real democracy and have 
real freedoms. Isn't that right?
  Mr. FLAKE. It is. I thank the Senator.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.


                              Quorum Call

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll and the following 
Senators entered the Chamber and answered to their names:

                           [Quorum No. 1 Ex.]

     Carper
     Durbin
     Flake
     Hirono
     Reid
     Tester
     Walsh
     Warren
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. A quorum is not present.
  The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I move to instruct the Sergeant at Arms to 
request the presence of absent Senators, and I ask for the yeas and 
nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The question is on agreeing to the motion.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Boxer) 
and the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) are necessarily absent.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), 
the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. 
Hoeven), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), and the Senator 
from Missouri (Mr. Blunt).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 55, nays 37, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 107 Ex.]

                                YEAS--55

     Baldwin
     Begich
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coons
     Donnelly
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Heller
     Hirono
     Johnson (SD)
     Kaine
     King
     Klobuchar
     Landrieu

[[Page S2355]]


     Leahy
     Levin
     Manchin
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Walsh
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--37

     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Barrasso
     Boozman
     Chambliss
     Coats
     Cochran
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     Enzi
     Fischer
     Flake
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson (WI)
     Kirk
     Lee
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rubio
     Scott
     Sessions
     Thune
     Toomey
     Vitter
     Wicker

                             NOT VOTING--8

     Blunt
     Boxer
     Burr
     Coburn
     Cruz
     Hoeven
     Markey
     Moran
  The motion was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. A quorum is present.
  The majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. REID. We are here this afternoon because Republicans are holding 
the confirmation of two important nominations. Earlier today the Senate 
voted to invoke cloture on Michelle Friedland to the Ninth Circuit 
Court of Appeals. So the only question is, when will she be made a 
Federal judge in the Ninth Circuit.
  There are some who say that 30 hours should run. They can speak for 
themselves why they insist on doing so. There is no question it is not 
to debate the nomination. It is just to do nothing, to stand around 
here and do nothing.
  Few, if any, Senators have come to the floor to express any reason to 
oppose this good woman. She was nominated 9 months ago by President 
Obama. So it is time to confirm this well-qualified nominee. Enough 
stalling has taken place.
  She graduated second in her class at Stanford University Law School. 
She clerked for Sandra Day O'Connor in the Supreme Court. She has been 
a partner in a prominent law firm.
  The Ninth Circuit is the busiest circuit in the entire country. The 
Senate confirmed 18 of President Bush's circuit court nominees within a 
week of being reported out of committee. This woman, as I already 
indicated, was 13 months ago. We have 30 other judicial nominees 
pending on the calendar. We have 85 vacancies on the Federal courts. 
There is no reason to delay this nomination.
  There is no reason to delay the nomination of David Weil to lead the 
Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor. He is a Boston 
University professor, a Harvard University researcher.
  I am sure it is a little difficult for people watching this to 
understand why Republicans are demanding that we waste time, because 
that is all it is. But I guess the American people have become 
accustomed to wasting time. That is what they have tried to do for 5 
years. We have wasted time because of issues such as this. The staff 
has to be here. We have wasted so much time that we could be working on 
important issues.
  The Republicans have come to the floor saying: We want amendments. 
The reason we don't deal with that kind of stuff is because we spend so 
much time on this. We have wasted thousands of hours during the 5 
years, and that is very unfortunate. The Republicans are stalling so 
much.


                       Unanimous Consent Request

  I ask unanimous consent that the time until 4:00 today be equally 
divided and controlled in the usual form; that at 4:00 p.m. all 
postcloture time be yielded back and the Senate proceed to vote, with 
no intervening action or debate, on Calendar No. 574; further, 
following disposition of the nomination, the Senate proceed to vote on 
cloture for Executive Calendar No. 623; if cloture is invoked, all 
postcloture time will be yielded back and the Senate will proceed to 
vote on confirmation of the nomination; that if confirmed, the motion 
to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no 
intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to 
the nomination; that any statements related to the nomination be 
printed in the Record, the President be immediately notified of the 
Senate's action and the Senate then resume legislative session.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Reserving the right to object, and I would offer an 
alternative; but before I do that, I wish to say to my colleagues in 
the U.S. Senate that, first of all, there is controversy about this 
nominee. Let's make that clear. And second, the majority leader said 
maybe the people of this country don't really understand what is going 
on.
  They understand what is going on. We are working under the rules that 
the majority changed by ignoring the rules of the U.S. Senate in 
November. So as the majority leader knows, we have not yielded back 
postcloture time on judicial nominations since the so-called nuclear 
option was triggered last November.
  We have followed the rules of the U.S. Senate for regular order on 
all judges before the Senate in the last 5 months, just exactly the way 
the rules were changed in November. So there is 30 hours of postcloture 
debate on this nomination.
  Therefore, I would ask the consent request be modified so that the 
vote on confirmation would occur at 5:30 p.m., Monday, April 28, when 
we return from the April recess. This would allow the Senate to process 
the pending cloture nomination on the wage and hour nominee this 
afternoon and set that confirmation vote also for Monday, when we 
return on April 28. That is the alternative I offer to the majority.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the majority leader so modify his 
request?
  Mr. REID. I reserve my right to object.
  Madam President, obviously this is not a dissertation on logic, 
because if it were, why in the world would we want to waste 30 hours 
doing nothing? And that is what we are doing, 30 hours.
  I know my friend from Iowa has been on the Judiciary Committee a long 
time. I appreciate all he has done, but it is apparent the only reason 
the Senator from Iowa expresses delay is for delay itself, no other 
reason.
  Now, I may have missed it. There could have been someone talking 
about what a bad person she is or why she is not qualified, but I must 
have missed that. I heard little, if any, opposition. In fact, I have 
heard none for this nominee. I have heard only obstruction for 
obstruction's sake, delay for delay's sake.
  This has been going on for 5 years. It appears that the Senator 
wishes his caucus to be the caucus that ``just says no,'' and that is 
what they did here.
  So, Madam President, I object to the modification.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the original request?
  Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Reserving the right to object, and I will object, but 
to remind everybody, when the majority leader says that nothing is 
being done on judges, we have confirmed 233 judges and only disapproved 
the 2; so don't ever try to sell the American people on the idea that 
the Senate is not doing its work on getting judges approved.
  I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. As I indicated, this is something without logic. We have 
had a lot of judges approved after wasting hundreds of hours of time 
doing nothing. We have judges reported out of the Judiciary Committee 
unanimously, led by our good friend, the senior Senator from Vermont, 
the chairman of the Committee, who does such an admirable job. They 
were reported out unanimously, and they stall--the Republicans stall, 
delay, obstruct, and then we have a vote here and it passes very 
easily. Their only purpose for the delaying is for delay's sake. They 
are obstructing this as they have obstructed everything over the last 5 
years.
  I know people complain about the rule change that was made. Where 
would we be in this country without having changed that rule?
  I got a letter today from Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, outlining 
nine important people in the Department of Defense who need to be 
confirmed. Most of the positions have been without anybody there for 
more than a

[[Page S2356]]

year. We have numerous ambassadors to important countries around the 
world, and they are not being confirmed because they are being stalled. 
Why? Why could we not have these people go do their work? They have 
been nominated. Countries all over the world are without ambassadors 
from the United States. Where would we be if we had not changed that 
rule?
  Now we are slogging through these nominations. It is kind of slow 
because of the inordinate amount of time that we are caused to eat up. 
But the longer my friend from Iowa talks, the more reason there is that 
maybe we should have changed the rules more than we did.
  So, unless something changes, we will have a vote tomorrow at 5:00 
p.m. We will have three votes here tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. on Friday.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I think it is important to put all of this in context. 
My good friend, the majority leader, broke his word last year when he 
said we had settled the issue of what the rules were going to be for 
the Senate for this Congress. He then broke the Senate rules in order 
to change the Senate rules, setting a very unfortunate precedent, and 
continues to abuse the Senate rules by using the device called filling 
the tree to prevent Members of the Senate, from his party and from our 
party, from even offering alternatives.
  Despite this heavyhanded behavior, he expects the minority to simply 
expedite consideration of, in the case of the matter we are discussing, 
a lifetime appointment. As Senator Grassley has pointed out, we are 
simply exercising our rights under the rules of the Senate. I might say 
many of these nominees would have been confirmed last December had we 
not experienced this event perpetrated by the majority in a heavyhanded 
attempt to alter the balance, to change the nature of the Senate with a 
simple majority. It was an unfortunate decision, but those kinds of 
decisions have consequences. And all we have done here is exercise, as 
Senator Grassley pointed out, the rights that Senators have under the 
rules of the Senate. If the majority leader doesn't like the way the 
Senate is working, I would recommend that he change his behavior.
  You know, we don't have a rules problem. We have a behavior problem.
  We have had a couple of examples of trying to edge back to normal 
here, where we brought up a bill that was actually open for amendments, 
and amendments were processed from Members on both sides. But it seems 
of late we are back to the old Senate. All we are about is scoring 
partisan points and denying Members the opportunity to offer 
amendments.
  I think most Members on both sides of the aisle came here to be 
Senators, which involves having your committee work taken seriously and 
having the opportunity to offer amendments taken seriously. This body--
when it was at its peak and operating the way it should under Members 
of majorities of both parties--has been a more civil place in which 
rights were respected.
  The Senator from Iowa--the ranking member of the Judiciary 
Committee--is pointing out that we are simply exercising our rights 
under the rules of the Senate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Warren). The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. I am a patient man. At least I try to be. For my friend to 
come here and have the audacity to talk about my breaking my word--the 
trouble with that statement is that the whole Senate is here to see 
what happened.
  He said something and I said something. What he said was that we are 
not going to have all of these filibusters on motions to proceed.
  For the viewing audience, we wasted so much time just trying to get 
on a bill. It is not that easy. You have to file something in the 
Senate, and then you have to wait a day to get on the bill. If they 
object--and they object hundreds of times--it takes 2 days to get on 
the bill. Then we vote, wait 30 hours, and then we are only on the 
bill. To get off the bill, we have to go through that process all over 
again, and we have done that hundreds of times.
  There have been more filibusters on President Obama's judicial 
nominations than in the entire history of the country for other 
Presidents. We have been a country for a long time--roughly 240 years. 
There have been more filibusters for President Obama in the course of 5 
years than for the previous 235 years.
  I went to New York and had the good fortune to watch a wonderful 
play--``All the Way''--about LBJ. That good man--during the time he was 
majority leader for 6 years--had to overcome one filibuster.
  As the majority leader in the Senate--because of the performance we 
have had over here--I had to overcome over 500 filibusters. This is for 
the country. It is not for me. We have been stymied on everything we 
have tried to do--everything.
  We know--it is public record now--that 3 days after Obama was elected 
the first time, a meeting was held here in Washington, and it has been 
written up all over the place. Karl Rove called the meeting with 
others. They made the decision that their goal was to make sure this 
man never got reelected. To the credit of the Republican leader, he 
said: Our goal is to make sure he is never reelected.
  Well, Obama surprised everybody--except us--and was overwhelmingly 
elected by the American people.
  They also said in that same meeting: The way we are going to stop him 
from being reelected is to object to everything, and that is what they 
have done. It is unprecedented in the history of our great Republic.
  I have been here a while. I know how people used to work together, 
but you can't work together if one side says no to everything. Once in 
a while we have had the good fortune to be able to piece together some 
work with the Republicans. It is getting harder and harder to do, but 
we have been able to get it done a few times.
  They have wasted the time of the American people. If there is an 
objection to this woman, then come to the floor and talk about what is 
wrong with her. She attended one of the finest law schools in America. 
A battle goes on every year, whether it is Harvard, Yale or Stanford, 
and they flip back and forth. It doesn't matter. She is a very fine 
academic. She clerked for one of the finest Supreme Court justices we 
have had in the history of the country--by the way, a Republican.
  What is wrong with her? What do we gain by holding this up? The 
country gains nothing. As I have indicated, we have about 140 
nominations that are being held up over here. My friend, the Republican 
leader, said: Hey, listen, we would have approved them all in December 
anyway. Please. Who in the world thinks that there is a bit of 
creditability to that?
  I say to everybody that I am sorry. In 25 hours, I guess, we can come 
here to vote on these people. All we need is a majority, and that is 
the way it is. I am so sorry for the inconvenience to everyone, but the 
Republicans know that for them it is pretty easy. They can just walk 
out of here. They don't have to be here, but we do because it is our 
burden to run the country. They can walk away and take their little 
trips and go home. We are not going to be able to do that. We have to 
vote and approve these two people.
  We have a very good judge we need to approve. We have somebody for 
the Wage and Hour Division at the Department of Labor. That job has 
been vacant for a long, long time.
  Again, I am sorry for the inconvenience to Members, but we have an 
obligation. We have been elected to be Senators.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I have just a couple of brief 
observations that are relevant to the point. No. 1, we have approved 
more judges at this point for President Obama than President Bush had 
approved at the same time in his Presidency.
  No. 2, the majority leader has a curious definition of filibuster. 
The reason the majority leader has had difficulty getting onto bills is 
because as soon as we get on bills, there are no amendments allowed. 
Once you get past the motion to proceed--I would say to the people who 
may be listening and are not as deeply steeped in Senate rules--there 
is a 2-step process. You vote to get on a bill, and then you are on the 
bill.
  What happens is that once we get on the bill, the majority leader has 
made

[[Page S2357]]

it impossible for Members of his party or ours to offer amendments more 
often than the last six leaders combined. In other words, he gets to 
decide whether anybody's amendments are considered--either on his side 
or our side. That is what has degraded the Senate. That is what has 
turned the Senate into looking more like the House. In fact, I am told 
of late that the House has voted on more amendments than the Senate. 
The assistant majority leader used to say--and he was quite right at 
the time--if you want to have a chance to vote, come to the Senate; 
that is what the Senate is about. That is not what it has been about in 
recent times.

  All that is really required to get the Senate back to normal is for 
the one Member of the Senate who has the right of prior recognition and 
the right to set the agenda to open the Senate and let Members of both 
parties offer amendments.
  When we used to be in the majority, I would tell our Members that the 
price of being in the majority is you have to give the minority their 
votes. It is an unpleasant experience for us, but that is the way the 
Senate operates, and that is the way you move a bill to completion.
  There were a couple of times this year when it looked like we were 
going to get back to normal. I still hope it is not too late for that. 
It would be in the best interests of the institution and the best 
interest of both the majority and minority to begin to restore the 
institution to the way it used to operate.
  Mr. REID addressed the Chair.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I believe I have the floor.
  Do I have the floor?
  Mr. REID. I have the floor. The Senator yielded the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader had not yet yielded the 
floor.
  Mr. REID. I apologize.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, if the Senator would yield for a 
question.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I am happy to yield for a question.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, the majority leader said that there is 
urgent work the Senate needs to turn to, which is why we ought to amend 
the ordinary rules of the Senate which call for a 30-hour postcloture 
period.
  I ask the distinguished Republican leader if he is aware of any 
urgent work that the majority leader has planned for us to turn to that 
would be a reason to expedite this particular nomination?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I am sure the majority leader will announce at some 
point what we are going to do next, but I am not quite sure what that 
is at this particular point.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, if the Senator will yield for another 
question, I ask the distinguished Republican leader if he is aware--and 
I am confident he is--that the majority leader and other leaders of his 
party had a press conference last week, I believe it was, announcing 
their agenda from this point through the election in November, which 
involved issues such as the vote we had yesterday, the vote on the 
increase in the minimum wage, the vote on extending long-term 
unemployment, and the like. I believe there was a quote in the 
article--if the Senator will remember like I do--that basically said: 
We are not interested in legislating. We are just basically interested 
in posturing and politics to help distract the American people from the 
unpopularity of this President's policies and this party's policies.
  Does the Senator remember something to that effect?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I do. The Senator from Texas is entirely correct. 
There was a rather candid admission at a press conference that the 
whole agenda was basically crafted by the Democratic Senatorial 
Campaign Committee and that getting an outcome was sort of irrelevant. 
It was mainly about scoring political points for the fall election here 
on the floor of the Senate.
  If that is one of the urgent items the majority leader has in mind 
that would somehow be prevented if we had a vote on this judge on the 
Monday after the recess, it is perplexing to reach the conclusion that 
this is a matter of great urgency for the American people if there is 
no interest whatsoever in getting an outcome.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I have heard my friend the Republican 
leader come to the floor often and say: Why don't we work on Fridays? 
Most people work on Fridays. I want to make sure I am right, but I have 
not seen or heard a single Republican come to the floor and say a 
single word about the nominee of the Ninth Circuit--positive or 
negative. They have not said a single word.
  A lot of words are being thrown about here--posturing. I wonder if 
somebody who is a long-term unemployed worker, someone who has been out 
of work a long time--I will give a profile of someone. Not everybody 
fits this description. Let's take the example of somebody who is 55 
years old and was laid off because of the recession and can't find a 
job because he or she is overqualified, overeducated--lots of different 
issues as to why they can't find work.
  We decided that it was important that they get an unemployment 
benefit extension. About 2 million people agree with that for sure 
because they are the ones who lost those benefits. I don't think that 
is posturing. We voted on that, and it passed here. I think we had to 
have five cloture votes to get there. But because of some very strong-
willed Republicans, we were able to do that, and I admire those five 
who joined with us. They didn't want to do it by name. They said 
something we did yesterday. That something that we did yesterday said 
that if a woman works the same job that a man works, that woman should 
be paid the same as a man.
  Is that posturing? I don't think so. My daughter doesn't think so and 
my granddaughters don't think so. They think it is pretty fair. More 
than half of the people who are going to college now are women. Over 
half of the people in medical school and law school are women. 
Shouldn't they be paid the same as men? Is that posturing? I don't 
think so.
  Again, there is diversion and distraction from the issue at hand. 
They wanted to offer amendments, and one was a 350-page amendment that 
covered everything. In fact, I said it even included the kitchen sink. 
They are not serious about this. They only want to move from what we 
are trying to do.
  Do we have anything urgent to do when we get back? If we didn't have 
to go through all of this nonsense--and that is what it is--we would be 
voting today on minimum wage. That vote would help 1 million people get 
out of poverty and 26 million people would get a raise.
  Why did we pick the number of $10.10 an hour? Because that gets 
people out of poverty. It is really important that we understand that 
this is part of the mantra of the program that Karl Rove and others 
decided they would do 5 years or more ago, and that is to oppose 
everything that President Obama has done.
  You cannot talk about what went on before because never in the 
history of our great Republic have we had a party--a minority party--
determined to do nothing in the hope that it will get them the majority 
in November. We will find out if their noble experiment works; that is, 
oppose everything and people will like us a lot. I don't think that is 
going to work. We are here to do the work of the American people. Is it 
right that we have more than 100 people who are being held up for no 
reason other than they want to make sure that if we have somebody who 
is going to be a circuit court judge, we have to file cloture--that is 
2 days--and then we have 30 hours, and then we have--simply moving to a 
piece of legislation, we waste a week getting to it because of their 
obstruction and delay. So it is unfortunate.

  My friends talk about all the great things they have done. I will 
tell my colleagues the great things they have done. I can give lots of 
examples. We tried to do a highway bill--a highway bill--which is 
important for this country. We have a deficit in infrastructure of $3 
trillion. It wasn't much better a couple of years ago. So we brought 
that bill to the floor, and we had this great amendment process. They 
wanted to debate amendments. What did they do? They wanted to stop 
women from getting contraceptives. That held up things for a month--a 
month--before they finally got some sense and withdrew that.
  The Republicans made a decision a little more than 5 years ago to 
oppose

[[Page S2358]]

everything President Obama wanted or tried to do, and they have stuck 
with that. It has not been good for the country, and we have situations 
just like we have here.
  (Mr. SCHATZ assumed the Chair.)
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, would the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. REID. Sure.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, the majority leader says there is 
important work for the Senate to do, and I can think of one urgent 
thing we could do today if the majority leader would consent.
  The House has passed the reauthorization of the Debbie Smith Act.
  To remind colleagues, this is money Congress appropriated to the 
Department of Justice for grants to local law enforcement agencies and 
forensic labs to test unprocessed rape kits. This is a national 
scandal, the number of unprocessed rape kits which have prevented law 
enforcement from identifying a serial perpetrator of sexual assault, 
many sometimes not just involving adults but also children.
  The House has passed the reauthorization of that bill. All it takes 
is for the majority leader and the Senate to consent to take up that 
bill today and pass it to get it to the President's desk.
  I think that, perhaps, is the most important and most urgent thing we 
could be doing right now. So I ask the majority leader if he would 
consent to taking up that bill and passing it in the Senate right now.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the committee, of which I am almost certain 
my friend is a member--the Judiciary Committee; is that right?
  Mr. CORNYN. I am on the Judiciary Committee.
  Mr. REID. He is also a former supreme court justice of Texas.
  They have reported the bill out of the Judiciary Committee, and my 
friend was part of that reporting situation. Part of what they reported 
out has the Debbie Smith language in it, but it has more stuff in it 
than just that. So I would be happy to take a look at that. We can talk 
to the chair of the committee and the ranking member, who is on the 
floor here today, and if they would be willing to separate this stuff 
here and have it rather than what was reported out of the committee--
they can take a look at this. Senator Leahy was on the floor. He is not 
here now, but I would be happy to take a look at that.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, if I may ask one more question of the 
majority leader, one final question.
  Mr. REID. I am sorry, I didn't hear that.
  Mr. CORNYN. Will the majority leader yield for one last question?
  Mr. REID. Yes. But before doing that, I have just been informed that 
this bill that was reported out of the committee on which the senior 
Senator from Texas serves--we have cleared it on our side. If they want 
to clear it today, we will get this out today. All they have to do is 
clear it on their side. We have cleared it.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, if I could ask the majority leader through 
the Chair, there is the Justice for All Act which, as the leader points 
out, includes things other than the Debbie Smith Act, which has not 
cleared the Senate, which, if it did clear the Senate, would include 
the Debbie Smith Act. That would be a positive development.
  There is a separate bill--if the Justice for All Act is not cleared, 
there is a separate bill which would reauthorize the Debbie Smith Act 
which has passed the House. So we could take up just the Debbie Smith 
reauthorization that the House has passed and get that done today, 
which I would urge the majority leader to consider, if we can't clear 
the larger bill, the Justice For All Act. But, frankly, I would be 
happy with either one. But if we could just do the Debbie Smith Act 
today, I think we could call that great progress and a great win for 
justice and for some of these people who have been waiting too long for 
the law enforcement community to be able to identify the perpetrators 
and get these folks off the street.
  Mr. REID. The bill that 55 Senators have cleared over here is a bill 
to protect crime victims' rights, to eliminate the substantial backlog 
of DNA samples collected from crime scenes and convicted offenders, to 
improve and expand the DNA testing capacity of Federal, State, and 
local crime laboratories, to increase research and development of new 
DNA testing technologies, to develop new training programs regarding 
the collection and use of DNA evidence, to provide postconviction 
testing of DNA evidence to exonerate the innocent, to improve the 
performance of counsel in State capital cases, and for other purposes. 
We will pass that right now. We are happy to do it.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, if I may respond to the majority leader, 
the bill he is referring to is the Justice for All Act, which I 
support. But there has been some reason why that bill has not come to 
the floor and received floor time. I am worried that if we wait to pass 
that, we will delay the passage of the Debbie Smith Act, which is a 
component of that act, which we could take up, having passed the House, 
and we could take that up today and then deal with the Justice for All 
Act in due course.
  So I ask the majority leader if he would grant unanimous consent to 
take up and pass the House-passed reauthorization of the Debbie Smith 
Act, and I ask unanimous consent to that effect.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. This is what we deal with here. We have a piece of 
legislation that has been reported out of the committee. It has been 
cleared by the Democrats here in the Senate, and the Republicans are 
now saying: Well, we like that, but we don't want to do it that way; 
let's do it some other way.
  The point is the committee met and reviewed the House legislation and 
decided they wanted to do more than what the House did. I think we 
should go forward with what the committee says.
  I hear my friend the Republican leader and other Republican Senators 
say: Let's have the committees do their work.
  They have done their work. We approved their work. We are ready to 
pass this right now, which includes the Debbie Smith language but does 
a lot more.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican whip.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I asked the distinguished ranking member 
of the Judiciary Committee to remind me what the challenge is with the 
Justice for All Act. We have a Member on our side who is unfortunately 
not here today because of medical concerns who has concerns about that 
bill, so we cannot pass that bill by unanimous consent over that 
Senator's objection. What we can pass is the Debbie Smith Act, which is 
a piece of this. There is no objection to that, that I know of. Then we 
could get this rape kit issue addressed today, while we take up the 
concerns of the absent Senator, who is necessarily not here because of 
medical issues, when he returns and when the Senate returns.
  So I would reiterate my unanimous consent request that the Senate 
take up and pass by unanimous consent the House-passed Debbie Smith 
Act.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, more 
diversion and delay. The Judiciary Committee took what the House did, 
reviewed it, and said: We can do better.
  It is here on the floor right now. Now they are saying: Even though 
the Judiciary Committee did it--and we are being told all the time to 
let the committees do their work--we don't like what they did. Let them 
do something else.
  The Debbie Smith Act is important, but the Justice for All Act is a 
lot better than that. Why don't we approve that?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. REID. Yes, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, the majority leader thinks this is a zero 
sum game. This could be a win-win. Debbie Smith, whom I have met and I 
daresay virtually every Member of this body knows, is a passionate 
advocate for this cause, hence the naming of this statute, this law, on 
her behalf. She recognized that these unprocessed rape kits are a 
national scandal and that people like her who had been victims of 
sexual assault needed help from the Federal Government to help provide 
funds to local law enforcement agencies to test and process these kits 
so as

[[Page S2359]]

to identify the perpetrators and get them off the street.
  So what Debbie Smith has asked me and I daresay the majority leader 
and all of us to do is to take up this piece of the bill. We can do 
that, and I think we will have done a good thing today. If we can't 
take up the Justice for All Act because of other concerns people have--
this shouldn't be a zero sum game. We could pass the Debbie Smith Act 
today, and then we could take up the Justice for All Act when we return 
following the recess. It doesn't have to be a zero sum game.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. This has been cleared on this side for more than 2 weeks--
more than 2 weeks. This is what is going on in the Senate. The 
Republicans basically oppose everything. That is what they decided they 
were going to do, and they do it. And they come back and say: We 
reported this out of the committee.
  I read what is in it. It is a very good piece of legislation. But 
they said: We don't like that. Let's forget about the committee process 
and do something with what the House did.
  We have a committee structure here that I have tried to follow. I 
admire the work done by Senator Leahy. He led this piece of legislation 
out of his committee. I accept it and I approve it, as do all other 54 
Democratic Senators.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 
15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________