[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 20 (Monday, February 6, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S921-S926]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Repealing ObamaCare

  Mr. HELLER. Madam President, I want to take a few moments to discuss 
an issue, one that is on everybody's mind; that is, the status of 
ObamaCare. Congress has taken the first step to repeal ObamaCare. I was 
in the House of Representatives when ObamaCare was passed into law. I 
opposed the law five times while I was in the House before it was 
passed with zero bipartisan, zero Republican support and was signed 
into law by the President.
  I opposed ObamaCare because I feared that this law would increase 
costs, make it harder for patients to see a doctor, increase taxes on 
the middle class, increase taxes on seniors, and hurt the economy.
  Over the last 7 years, all of these fears have become a reality. A 
new Congress and a new administration have heard the people's response 
loud and clear, and that response is that we must repeal ObamaCare. 
Repealing ObamaCare means repealing all of the taxes that go with it--
not part of them, not some of them, but all of them.
  ObamaCare increased taxes on hard-working Americans by $1.1 trillion. 
Higher taxes lead to more money being taken out of the pockets of hard-
working families. Health care costs have increased to a degree where I 
have heard from Nevadans across the State, of all ages and backgrounds, 
all with similar concerns.
  What I wish to do is take a moment to read an email that I received 
just last week from a 13-year-old boy who lives in Las Vegas. He said:

       I wanted to write an email to express my concerns about 
     Obamacare and hopefully persuade you in making a change.
       My family used to have health insurance until ObamaCare 
     kicked in and forced my family to drop our insurance since it 
     tripled the cost and wasn't affordable. We are getting 
     penalized now for not having insurance.

  Think about that. ObamaCare kicked their family off their insurance 
by tripling the costs, making it unaffordable, and then ObamaCare 
penalized that family for not having insurance.
  Going back to the young boy, he said:

       Since then we have had medical bills piling up. This is an 
     issue with a lot of people and I don't know a lot about 
     policies but I do know that something needs to change for the 
     good of the people.
       I've heard President Donald Trump will be addressing this 
     issue. I just hope you will represent Nevada in favor of 
     getting rid of ObamaCare.

  I can assure my constituents back home in Nevada, and especially this 
young man who is advocating for his family, that I am committed to 
repealing ObamaCare. This young man's parents had employer-sponsored 
health care coverage that took care of their family when they needed 
medical care. And as a result of ObamaCare, the costs were too high to 
afford the health insurance they had.
  One of the biggest drivers of cost increases on the middle class is 
the 40-percent excise tax on employee health benefits, better known as 
the Cadillac tax. In Nevada, 1.3 million workers who have employer-
sponsored health insurance plans will be hit by this Cadillac tax. 
These are public employees in Carson City. These are service industry 
workers on the Strip in Las Vegas. These are small business owners and 
retirees across the State.

  We are talking about reduced benefits, increased premiums, and higher 
deductibles. When I first started working on this issue, I knew the 
devastating impact this tax would have on Nevadans, but also in order 
to get anything done, we needed a bipartisan effort to reduce this tax 
and to eliminate it.
  I recruited a good friend by the name of Senator Martin Heinrich from 
New

[[Page S922]]

Mexico, and together we were able to gain huge support on both sides of 
the aisle. During the highly partisan reconciliation debate in 2015, 
where Congress successfully delivered an ObamaCare repeal bill to 
President Obama's desk, Senator Heinrich and I pushed our colleagues to 
include our legislation to fully repeal the Cadillac tax as an 
amendment.
  Our amendment passed with overwhelming bipartisan support by a vote 
of 90 to 10. With this nearly unanimous vote, we were are able to delay 
the Cadillac tax until 2020.
  This Congress, Senator Heinrich and I have reintroduced Senate bill 
58, the Middle Class Health Benefits Repeal Tax Act, which fully 
repeals this bad tax. I hope that my Senate colleagues on the other 
side of the aisle will join Senator Heinrich on this bipartisan piece 
of legislation and on this issue to support our bill and get rid of 
this Cadillac tax once and for all.
  I know that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will have a 
lot of differing opinions on the Affordable Care Act, but one thing we 
can agree on is that the Cadillac tax should be fully repealed.
  Now that we have passed an ObamaCare repeal resolution, we will move 
to the next phase of the repeal process. The budget we just passed 
included reconciliation instructions for the Senate Finance Committee 
and the HELP Committee to repeal ObamaCare.
  We made a promise to repeal ObamaCare, and now it is time to keep 
that promise. This includes my legislation to fully repeal the Cadillac 
tax. The goal of health reform should be to lower costs for those who 
already have health benefits and to expand access to those who do not 
currently have coverage. ObamaCare did not achieve either of those two 
goals.
  I am committed to ensuring that all Americans have access to high-
quality, affordable health care. We must start by repealing the 
Cadillac tax.
  I thank Senator Heinrich for his continued leadership on this issue. 
I want to thank him, and I want to say that Senator Heinrich continues 
to put his constituents above politics. I know that he shares my 
commitment to repeal this bad tax.
  I also want to thank Congressman Kelly and Congressman Courtney for 
their leadership on the House side. I know that we are all eager to 
work together to get this bill to the finish line.
  Madam President, I yield to the senior Senator from Texas.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, last night we all witnessed a rather 
extraordinary event. Certainly for the first time in my time in the 
Senate, we saw rule XIX of the Standing Senate Rules invoked. That rule 
says: ``No Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form 
of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or 
motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.''
  I certainly agree with the ruling of the Chair and the decision of 
the Senate as a body that that line was crossed last night. A Senator 
can't evade that rule by somehow claiming: These weren't my words; I 
was reading what somebody else said.
  Specifically, in the case of our former colleague, now deceased, 
Senator Ted Kennedy claimed that the nominee for Attorney General was 
somehow a disgrace to the Justice Department and ought to resign. That 
certainly crossed that line.
  Our colleagues want to point to a letter written by Coretta Scott 
King. That was part but not the whole of the speech given by the 
Senator from Massachusetts. I hope that maybe we have all been 
chastened a little bit, and maybe we have all learned a little bit of a 
lesson here.
  I yearn for the day when the Senate and, frankly, the country as a 
whole would pull back from the abyss of recrimination, personal 
attacks, and we would get back to doing what this institution was 
designed to do--which is to be a great body for deliberation and 
debate--and we would treat each other with the civility with which we 
would all want to be treated.
  We are at a pretty challenging time in our Nation's history, when 
many people who were surprised and disappointed at the last election 
are unwilling to accept the results of that election and the verdict of 
the American people. I can only hope that, after the passage of some 
time, they will return to their senses, and they will agree that no one 
is well served by this race to the bottom in terms of decorum and in 
terms of rhetoric, in terms of how we treat one another. The American 
people are better served when we treat each other with civility and 
respect and when we don't make personal attacks against Senators 
because of the positions that they take.
  This debate over the nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions has taken on 
some rather unusual twists and turns. I want to comment briefly on some 
of the remarks made by our colleague from Minnesota about voting rights 
because I think this is exemplary of the way that Senator Sessions' 
record on voting rights has been misrepresented.
  We all know that in 2006--those of us who were here in the Senate, 
including Senator Sessions, including the Democratic whip and myself--
we all voted to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act. That included 
section 2 and section 5, which was later struck down. Section 2 is the 
provision of the Voting Rights Act that applies to the entire Nation, 
and it authorizes a lawsuit to vindicate voting rights that are 
jeopardized by some illegal practice. Section 5, which was the subject 
of the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Shelby County case 
that was decided in 2013--that was directed not at section 2, which 
applies to the entire Nation, but to section 5, which applied only to a 
handful of jurisdictions around the country. It was based on voting 
practices that existed in the middle 1960s.
  I would be the first to admit that the record of vindicating the 
rights of minority voters in 1965 was nothing to be proud of. We have 
come a long way in this country, and it has been because of the Voting 
Rights Act. It has been because of our collective commitment to the 
right of every citizen to vote that I believe those statistics which 
existed in the mid-sixties are no longer valid today.
  In fact, if you look at many of the jurisdictions covered in the 
1960s, including places like Alabama, where Senator Sessions is from, 
they have records of minority voting that are superior to jurisdictions 
that are not covered by section 5. How our colleagues across the aisle 
can somehow condemn Senator Sessions for the Supreme Court's decision 
in the Shelby County case, when he voted for the reauthorization of the 
entire Voting Rights Act, section 2 and section 5, strikes me as 
extremely misleading and unfortunate, but it does seem to characterize 
the nature of the debate about this nominee.

  During his confirmation hearing, I said: Well, those who don't know 
Senator Sessions are interested to learn his record and his resume, but 
those of us who worked with him--we don't need to read his resume. We 
don't need to hear a recitation of his record. We know the man. We know 
what is in his heart. And he is a thoroughly decent and honorable 
Member of the Senate, and he will do an outstanding job, I believe, 
restoring the reputation of the Department of Justice, as one dedicated 
to the rule of law above all else.
  There is always a risk--and this happens in Democratic 
administrations, as well as Republican administrations--when the 
Attorney General feels like they are an arm of the White House. That is 
not the job of the Attorney General. The President has a lawyer, White 
House Counsel. The Attorney General is supposed to have some measure of 
independence even though he or she is appointed by the President and 
serves at the President's pleasure.
  That is why we ask questions of people, like Deputy Attorney General 
Sally Yates: Can you tell the President no? Well, she said she could. 
And then ultimately, unfortunately, in the case of the Executive order 
that was issued by President Trump later on, said--even though this 
order was vetted by the Office of Legal Counsel and determined that 
this was a legal Executive order both in content and in form, she said: 
I still disagree with the President's Executive order, and I am going 
to order the Justice Department lawyers not to defend it.
  Well, that is the kind of politics that we need none of in the 
Department of Justice. We have plenty of politicians in this country. 
We have plenty of politicians in the Congress and in the White House. 
We don't need another

[[Page S923]]

politician as Attorney General. In fact, we need a nonpolitician, an 
apolitician, somebody who believes that their allegiance to the rule of 
law, irrespective of who is involved, whether it is the President of 
the United States or the least among us--that is what the rule of law 
is all about. And that is one reason why I feel so strongly that 
Senator Sessions will be an outstanding Attorney General, because I 
believe he will restore the Department of Justice to an institution 
that believes in and enforces the rule of law above politics, and that 
is a fundamentally important thing to do.
  We know Senator Sessions, as I said earlier, brings a lifetime of 
relevant experience to this job: former Federal prosecutor, former U.S. 
attorney for the Department of Justice. He said those were some of the 
best years of his life.
  I once had a colleague who now serves on the Fifth Circuit. When he 
became a U.S. district judge in San Antonio, he was recalling his days 
as U.S. attorney. He said--I still remember this after all these many 
years--he said he never had a prouder moment in his life than when he 
appeared in court and he said: ``I am here and I am ready on behalf of 
the United States of America.''
  Senator Sessions is here, and he is ready to serve the American 
people as Attorney General. And we know from his service at the 
Department of Justice, as attorney general of Alabama, and now for the 
past 20 years in the Senate, that he is devoted to the rule of law and 
keeping our country safe. So it has really been sad to see interest 
groups vilifying him over and over again or people mischaracterizing 
him, as they have on his voting rights record, things that he is not 
responsible for after voting to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act in 
2006. He didn't decide the Shelby County case.
  This is a man we have worked with for--some for 20 years, people who 
have been here that long with him, and we know Jeff Sessions to be a 
man who has dedicated his life to public service. Our colleagues across 
the aisle have offered him an occasional compliment, like the 
Democratic leader, who once called him straightforward and fair. The 
assistant Democratic leader called him a man of his word. But now the 
decision to drag out Cabinet nominations as long as possible and to 
waste valuable time that could be used on other bipartisan 
legislation--we know our Democratic colleagues have chosen to slow-walk 
the process, and I think it is a shame, particularly in the case of 
somebody whom we all know so well and who is dedicated to the 
Department of Justice and the restoration of the rule of law.
  Several of us have talked from time to time about how the holding up 
of these nominees is unprecedented. At this point in President Obama's 
term, 21 Cabinet members were confirmed. Senator Sessions, when we vote 
on his nomination tonight, will be No. 8--21 to 8. You have to go back 
to George Washington to find a slower confirmation timeline for a new 
administration. There is no good excuse for it, particularly in light 
of the fact that now, under the Reid precedent, our colleagues across 
the aisle know that all of these nominees, particularly in the case of 
Senator Sessions, will be confirmed. So holding up the nomination just 
for delay alone makes no sense at all.
  Well, some have said holding up Senator Sessions' nomination is 
somehow similar to the confirmation process for Loretta Lynch, but that 
really rings hollow on examination. Let me remind them what happened 
when Loretta Lynch was nominated as Attorney General. At the time, our 
Democratic friends were filibustering a bipartisan bill that later 
passed 99 to 0. They were filibustering a bipartisan anti-trafficking 
bill for no good reason. That is my view; they may think they had a 
good reason. I think actually what it had to do with was the Hyde 
amendment and the longstanding limitation on the use of taxpayer funds 
for abortion that had gone back to roughly 1976. They wanted to 
eliminate that restriction in this anti-trafficking bill, so they 
refused to consider that legislation, which many of them had 
cosponsored, to help thousands of victims of sexual exploitation, 
slavery, and human trafficking find a path to healing and restoration. 
So the majority leader, in an action that I completely endorsed, simply 
said that as soon as they dropped the filibuster, we would move on with 
the Loretta Lynch nomination. They did finally, and we processed her 
nomination. So in no way were those two situations similar.
  Today, our colleagues across the aisle want to keep a new President 
from surrounding himself with the men and women he has selected to help 
run the country. I think if there is one thing that should give people 
more confidence in the new administration, it is the quality of the men 
and women he has chosen for his Cabinet, and I would add Vice President 
Pence, somebody we know here, having served 12 years in the House of 
Representatives.
  So the delay is really for no good reason at all and will have no 
achievable results. They are not going to be able to block the 
nomination but, rather, just try to score political points. And 
preventing an exemplary nominee from filling an important national 
security position I believe makes our country less safe.
  I will give our colleagues across the aisle some credit for allowing 
the confirmation of Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Gen. John 
Kelly at the Department of Homeland Security and finally, after a long 
weekend, Mike Pompeo as Director of the CIA. Those are essential 
components of the President's national security Cabinet, but it also 
includes the Attorney General of the United States, someone whose 
nomination has been delayed until we vote on him tonight. After 9/11, 
the Attorney General became more than just a law enforcement officer; 
he became a counterterrorism official as well, integrally tied, with 
supervision of the FBI, to our efforts to protect the American people 
from terrorists who would kill us or our allies.
  So there is really no good excuse for delaying the confirmation of 
Senator Sessions, and I am confident that tonight we will finally do 
what we should have done at least 3 weeks ago--confirm Senator Sessions 
as the next Attorney General of the United States. And I believe it is 
past time that we do so.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I would like to respond to the statement 
made by the Republican whip, my friend from Texas, Senator Cornyn. This 
is day 20 of the Trump administration. Day 20. Not quite 3 weeks since 
President Trump was sworn in as President of the United States. This 
evening at about 7 p.m., we will vote on his nominee for Attorney 
General. So in the first 20 days of his administration, he will have 
his Attorney General.
  What the Senator from Texas failed to relate was the experience we 
went through not that long ago when President Obama wanted to fill the 
vacancy of the Attorney General's office with Loretta Lynch, a woman 
who had served as prosecutor, U.S. attorney, lifelong professional in 
the Department of Justice, who went through the regular hearing process 
in the Judiciary Committee, was reported from the committee, and she 
was sent more than 20 additional questions by Senator Jeff Sessions of 
Alabama--more questions which of course, she dutifully answered, as she 
was required to do. Then she was reported to the calendar, where she 
sat for 2 months. A 2-month vacancy in the Attorney General's office. 
Why? Was there something substantively wrong or controversial about 
Loretta Lynch? If there happened to be, I never heard it.
  Where then was that argument about national security and leaving the 
Attorney General nomination in limbo when it was President Obama 
seeking to fill that spot? Well, we didn't hear it at all. In fact, the 
Senator from Texas said: Oh, it was related to another bill and whether 
that bill was going to be called; it was actually Senator Reid who was 
holding it up.
  From where I was sitting--and I came to the floor at one point and 
said: What are we waiting for? This lady is eminently qualified. She 
has been reported by the committee. She has answered all the questions. 
She languishes on the calendar.
  She wasn't alone in this experience, incidentally. The Executive 
Calendar, as the Obama Presidency ended, was filled with nominees who 
were held for

[[Page S924]]

no obvious reason by the Republicans. They had been reported from the 
committees. They were ready to fill judicial vacancies across the 
United States and other posts. And the official position of the 
Republican Senators happened to be: We are not going to ever let people 
vote on them because we are hoping and praying we will get a Republican 
President who can fill those same vacancies with people of our 
political persuasion. That was the reality.
  That was the same reality that left Merrick Garland, President 
Obama's nominee to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court, languishing 
for almost 1 year. The Republicans and the leaders in the Senate would 
not give him a hearing or a vote. And Senator McConnell came to the 
floor and said: I won't even meet with him.
  So when I hear these protests now from the Republican side of how we 
are not moving quickly enough on these nominations, we are. And I think 
we are moving in the appropriate way. We are asking hard questions.
  And I don't subscribe to the position of the Senator from Texas, who 
preceded me here, when it comes to the Voting Rights Act. I listened as 
Senator Sessions of Alabama said that he believed the Shelby County v. 
Holder decision was a victory for the South when it ended preclearance 
of legislation that could have a direct impact on the voting rights of 
individuals. And I do recall what happened when the Federal court took 
a specific look at North Carolina's legislation statutes as it related 
to voting and said the North Carolina legislature had ``with surgical 
precision'' found ways to exclude African Americans from voting--not 20 
years ago but just a few months ago, before this last election.
  This is a critical issue, and it is interesting to me that last night 
the dustup on the floor involving the Senator from Massachusetts, 
Senator Warren, was about the same issue, the Voting Rights Act.
  In a letter sent by Coretta Scott King to Strom Thurmond--then 
chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee--when Senator Sessions, 
before he was Senator, was being considered for Federal judgeship--
this is what Coretta Scott King said in the letter. I am not going to 
read the personal and controversial sections that have been pointed out 
before, but it is critical to what her message happened to be. She said 
to Strom Thurmond in a letter about Senator Sessions moving to the 
Federal bench:

       Free exercise of voting rights is so fundamental to 
     American democracy that we cannot tolerate any form of 
     infringement of those rights. Of all the groups who have been 
     disenfranchised in our Nation's history, none has struggled 
     longer or suffered more in the attempt to win the vote than 
     black citizens. No group has had access to the ballot box 
     denied so persistently and intently.

  It was a critical issue over 30 years ago when Mr. Sessions was then 
being considered for a Federal judgeship. It is a critical issue to 
this day because of two things: a decision by the Supreme Court, which 
basically took away one of the major powers of the Voting Rights Act, 
and, secondly, a coordinated effort by Republicans across the United 
States to suppress the vote of minorities and particularly African 
Americans.
  I point directly to that North Carolina decision for what I just 
said. What they have tried to do is to systematically reduce the 
likelihood that poor people and minorities will vote. As chairman of 
the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil 
Rights, and Human Rights, I held public hearings in Ohio and Florida. 
Those hearings were held in those States because they had proposed new 
restrictions on voters.
  So, both in Cleveland and in Florida, I brought the election 
officials--Democrats and Republicans--before my subcommittee, put them 
under oath and asked: What was the incidence of widespread voter fraud 
in the elections in your State which led you to make it more difficult 
and challenging for the people of your State to vote?
  The answer was: There were none. There were no examples of widespread 
fraud. There were only a handful of prosecutions for voter fraud. That 
told the story. This didn't have anything to do with voter fraud. This 
had to do with discouraging turnout in areas that were more friendly to 
Democratic candidates, period. So when we make a big issue of the 
position of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions on the Voting Rights Act, it 
is with good cause.
  It is historically an issue which has haunted the United States since 
the Civil War, when excuses after excuses were made for African 
Americans seeking the right to vote, and people were denied the right 
to vote with poll taxes and literacy tests and ridiculous standards to 
this very day, when the Republican Party strategy is to diminish the 
African-American vote by voter suppression.
  Is it important that we know the position of Senator Jeff Sessions on 
the Voting Rights Act? To me, it is one of the most important questions 
to be asked. The fact that it evoked controversy on the Senate floor 
with Senator Warren last night is an indication of how seriously we 
take it. Yes, we have added a few more hours to the debate. I disagree 
with the Senator from Utah and the Senator from Texas who say: You know 
how it is going to end; why are you wasting our time?
  I don't think it is a waste of time to have a fulsome debate in the 
Senate on something as fundamental as protecting the right of every 
American citizen to vote.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. TESTER. Mr. President, will the Senator from Illinois yield for a 
question?
  Mr. DURBIN. I will be happy to yield.
  Mr. TESTER. I say to Senator Durbin, there has been a lot of talk 
about the fact that the number of Cabinet appointees were much higher 
in the Obama administration than they are now. Could you take us back 8 
years ago? I mean, we just confirmed a lady to be Secretary of 
Education who has never spent 1 minute in a public school classroom, on 
a school board, teaching, student, otherwise. There are claims out 
there about some of these nominees being involved in insider trading. 
There are claims out there that some of these nominees did not pay 
their taxes.
  Could you take us back 8 years ago and tell us how those folks were 
treated, if there was anything wrong with them when they came to this 
floor?
  Mr. DURBIN. Through the Chair, I will respond to the Senator from 
Montana. Here is the difference. Eight years ago, when Barrack Obama 
was elected President and was to be sworn in on January 20, he brought 
together his team to serve in his Cabinet and said to them: The first 
thing you need to do is to follow the law. You need to file all the 
papers required of you by the ethics standards of the United States 
Government.
  So, I am told that on January 8, almost 2 weeks before he was sworn 
in, their paperwork was on file. So they had complied with the law and 
they were awaiting their opportunity for a hearing. Contrast that with 
the current situation. There are still proposed Cabinet members by 
President Trump who have not filed their required ethics disclosures.
  Why is it important? Because we believe that though we can't reach in 
and require the President to file his income tax returns, which he has 
steadfastly refused to do, we know what the standards are when it comes 
to many of those departments.
  The standards are very demanding. There has to be a disclosure and 
there has to be a process of divestment. If I am about to become the 
head of an agency and my personal wealth includes holdings that have a 
direct impact on that agency, I am required by law to divest myself of 
those holdings. The more complicated my portfolio and net worth might 
be, the more challenging this is.
  Penny Pritzker, a very wealthy individual from Chicago, was chosen by 
President Obama to be the Secretary of Commerce. It took her 6 months, 
I say to the Senator from Montana, to fully comply with the law so she 
could go through the hearing--6 months. Now we hear complaints from the 
Republicans: Well, why aren't the Trump nominees going through more 
quickly? Why aren't our billionaires put on the fast-track?
  I am sorry, but Trump billionaires are subject to the same rules as 
all billionaires. They have to file the necessary documents. I might 
add, you can go back a little further in history and find 
disqualifications for Cabinet positions. Oh, you hired someone in your

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household to work for you and you did not pay their Social Security, 
their FICA? Sorry, you are disqualified from being in a Cabinet.
  Now we have Trump nominees where that is happening--not with 
frequency, but it is happening--and it doesn't seem to be even close to 
a disqualification. So it clearly is a double standard. I would say to 
the Senator from Montana, the fact that the Obama nominees moved 
through as quickly as they did showed they took the law seriously, they 
made the disclosures they were required to make, and in virtually every 
case had unique qualifications for the job.
  To put Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education next to Arne Duncan, who 
headed up the Chicago Public School System as Secretary of Education, 
is to show that contrast.
  Mr. TESTER. I want to thank the Senator from Illinois for his history 
lesson on the confirmation process over the last 8 years, at least in 
the Senate.
  I want to speak today on behalf of the thousands of Montanans who 
have asked me to oppose the nomination of Mr. Sessions as the Attorney 
General of the United States. As this country's top law enforcement 
official, the Attorney General must stand up and fight for all 
Americans. The Attorney General must provide a voice for the folks who 
often are not able to speak for themselves.
  The Attorney General must enforce the law as it is written, not how 
the President wishes it was written. I believe Mr. Sessions has proven 
time and time again that he does not fulfill these qualifications, and 
therefore I will oppose his nomination for Attorney General.
  Mr. Sessions opposed the reauthorization of the Violence Against 
Women Act. This landmark legislation protects women from domestic 
violence and sexual assault and brings perpetrators to justice. In my 
State of Montana, this law helped provide over $10 million every year 
to support women and children. Those are critical resources that make a 
real difference in the lives of women, children, and their families, 
and they keep our communities safe.
  The Violence Against Women Act supports shelters like the Friendship 
Center in Helena, which is literally saving lives and protecting women 
and children from violence every day--in fact, they help over 1,000 
Montanans each and every year--or programs like Rocky Boy Office of 
Victims Services, which is in the Rocky Boy Indian Reservation.
  Thanks to the Violence Against Women Act, this has helped reduce the 
number of sexual assaults on that reservation. If he is confirmed, I 
would invite Mr. Sessions to Red Lodge, Missoula or Browning, and the 
many other places in our State to see how the Violence Against Women 
Act is saving lives and making communities safer. I invite him to sit 
down with the survivors at any of the YWCAs in Montana and explain to 
them why he opposes the Violence Against Women Act.
  As Attorney General, Mr. Sessions will be responsible for 
administering critical resources through the Violence Against Women 
Act, resources that will save lives, but as a Senator, Mr. Sessions has 
turned his back on the survivors of domestic violence. I am not 
confident he will be there for them as Attorney General.
  I will not support a nominee for Attorney General who opposed 
legislation that helps us better investigate and prosecute violent 
crimes against women, but that is not all. I am not convinced that Mr. 
Sessions will stand up for the privacy laws of law-abiding Americans. 
Less than 2 years ago, right on this Senate floor, Mr. Sessions fought 
to preserve the most intrusive aspects of the PATRIOT Act.
  That was not the first time he supported unchecked government 
surveillance. Mr. Sessions has voted in support of the most intrusive 
aspects of the PATRIOT Act seven times--seven times.
  He is a staunch advocate for the NSA's bulk data collection, which 
violates the privacy of millions of Americans. If Mr. Sessions is 
confirmed as Attorney General, will he push back and fight our 
government that undercuts our freedoms? Will he fight on behalf of 
government officials who listen into our phone calls, or scroll through 
our emails or preserve our Snapchats?
  Will he intervene if the government once again spies on citizens 
without a warrant? I think the answer to that, quite frankly, is no. 
When government agencies like the NSA collect bulk data, they do so at 
the expense of our freedoms. If Mr. Sessions is not willing to protect 
our Fourth Amendment rights, can we expect him to fight for other 
constitutional rights?
  Will he fight for the First, the Second, the Fifth? Again, the answer 
is no. We need an Attorney General who will fight and protect our 
individual freedoms, not one who is willing to sacrifice it.
  I am not alone. Thousands of Montanans have contacted my office 
opposing Mr. Sessions. Here are some of the things Montanans have 
written to me. Anne from Missoula wrote me:

       Please vote against the nomination of Jeff Sessions for 
     Attorney General. He has a history of supporting the 
     weakening of our civil liberties. Voting rights should be 
     strengthened, not weakened. His support of the Patriot Act 
     and opposition of the Violence Against Women Act are just a 
     few of the many egregious positions that he has taken.

  Susan from Bigfork:

       Please vote no on Jeff Sessions for Attorney General. She 
     is an inappropriate choice due to women's issues and civil 
     liberty issues. He has shown poor choices in protecting 
     voting rights and women's choices.

  Jerilyn from Belgrade:

       Jeff Sessions is completely the wrong person to be Attorney 
     General. His record on civil rights and women's issues belong 
     in a different century.

  Amy from Whitefish:

       Vote no to the nomination of Jeff Sessions, who has shown 
     himself time and again to be no friend to equality or civil 
     liberties. Please know that we in Montana expect you to 
     uphold our desire for all members of this great Nation 
     regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, religious affiliation 
     or sexual orientation, to be treated with respect and 
     dignity.

  Charles from Livingston:

       He voted no on the Violence Against Women Act.

  That ``he'' being Mr. Sessions. Mr. Sessions voted no on adding 
sexual orientation to the definition of hate crimes. He voted yes on 
loosening restrictions on cell phone wiretapping.
  Now, I agree with Anne and Susan and Amy and Jerilyn and Charles and 
thousands of other Montanans. Because of that, I will not support Mr. 
Sessions, and I will urge my colleagues to oppose his nomination.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Ms. BALDWIN. Madam President, I rise to urge my colleagues to join me 
in opposing the confirmation of our colleague Jeff Sessions to be 
Attorney General of the United States.
  I have great respect for Senator Sessions' long history of public 
service, and I am pleased to have had the opportunity to work with him 
where we have found common ground. However, Senator Sessions and I have 
frequently and sometimes vehemently disagreed on important issues, 
including matters like civil rights and voting rights, hate crimes 
laws, immigration, and criminal justice reform.
  I want to acknowledge that Senator Sessions' nomination is supported 
by many, including many in the law enforcement community in my home 
State of Wisconsin. It is vital that the Attorney General have a good 
working relationship with the law enforcement community, and I have no 
doubt that Senator Sessions will be a strong voice for law enforcement, 
if he is confirmed.
  But the role and the responsibility of our Attorney General is bigger 
than any one group. Our Attorney General must work on behalf of all 
Americans. The Department of Justice has a broad jurisdiction. So I 
have also heard from over 16,000 Wisconsinites who are opposed to his 
confirmation, many of whom expressed profound concerns about what it 
would mean for racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants, including 
DREAMers, and others, were he to become our Attorney General. Hundreds 
of national civil and human rights organizations have expressed their 
opposition on similar grounds.
  After reviewing his record, getting a chance to meet with him in my 
office, and considering everything that I have heard from my 
constituents, I simply do not believe that Senator Sessions is the 
right choice to be Attorney General of the United States. I have that 
belief for a number of reasons.
  First, I am concerned that Senator Sessions will not be the 
independent

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champion for the rule of law that we need with Donald Trump in the 
White House. In any administration, the Attorney General's first duty 
is to the Constitution and to the people of the United States. This 
President has already issued a number of orders--legally questionable 
orders--including one affecting our visa and refugee programs that a 
number of Federal courts have already temporarily blocked. We need an 
Attorney General who will ensure that the President's actions do not 
run roughshod over protections guaranteed by our Nation's laws and 
Constitution. I am not convinced that Senator Sessions will be that 
kind of Attorney General.
  Second, I do not believe that Senator Sessions will be the champion 
of the civil rights of all Americans that an Attorney General must be. 
The Department of Justice plays a central role in enforcing our 
Nation's civil rights laws, from investigating hate crimes to 
safeguarding the right to vote, to fighting discrimination against 
women, racial and religious minorities, and people with disabilities. 
At a time when there has been a disturbing increase in hate-motivated 
crimes, discrimination, and harassment, including, particularly, 
against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, and people of 
the Muslim faith, it is even more important that the Department of 
Justice be strong and proactive.
  I have heard from constituents in Wisconsin who have faced bigotry 
and hate-motivated speech in the wake of the election of Donald Trump. 
Among them is a family from Fitchburg, WI, with 11 adopted children, 
including children from Ghana and China.
  This family received an anonymous letter proclaiming ``Trump won'' 
and calling them race traitors and telling them to go home. This and 
other reports from Wisconsinites and, frankly, from people throughout 
the United States breaks our hearts.
  Senator Sessions fought against efforts to strengthen and make more 
inclusive Federal hate crimes laws and criticized voting rights laws as 
``intrusive.'' He has shown hostility to the rights of LGBT individuals 
and attacked the reproductive health care rights of women.
  Now more than ever we need a Justice Department that places a 
priority on enforcing our civil rights and voting rights laws, 
proactively combatting hate violence and fighting for the equality of 
all Americans. I am simply not convinced that Senator Sessions will be 
the champion vulnerable Americans need as Attorney General with an 
unflagging commitment to make our country a fairer and more equal 
place.
  Third, I believe Senator Sessions will not take a fair or humane 
approach as Attorney General with regard to immigration. I was deeply 
troubled by candidate Trump's ugly and divisive rhetoric on 
immigration, and I am appalled by the actions that he has taken thus 
far as President.
  Senator Sessions was one of his campaign's key advisers on 
immigration and has been a vocal opponent of bipartisan, comprehensive 
reforms that would address our broken immigration system.
  The Department of Justice is responsible for adjudicating immigration 
cases and ensuring fairness and due process in the treatment of 
undocumented individuals and refugees.
  The Department also plays a key role in our national security 
apparatus, helping to fight terrorism, and keeping the homeland safe.
  The President's recent orders on immigration have furthered 
divisions, created chaos and confusion, proven to be legally and 
constitutionally questionable, and are inconsistent with core American 
values. In the opinion of many national security experts, they will 
make our Nation less safe, not more.
  I simply do not believe that Senator Sessions, with his history of 
hostility to immigration and support for this President's approach, is 
the right person to lead the Department of Justice, as it discharges 
its critical duties on immigration and national security.
  America has made great progress over the last 8 years with an 
administration that has taken seriously a shared responsibility to pass 
on to the next generation a country that is more equal, not less.
  All Americans deserve a strong commitment from America's top law 
enforcement official to act on violence born out of hatred based on 
race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any 
other characteristic.
  At a time when voting rights and the constitutional right of women to 
make their own health care decisions are under attack across our 
country, we need an Attorney General who will stay true to these 
constitutional freedoms and not be driven by politics.
  For me, the vote on Senator Sessions' confirmation is a moral choice. 
I am guided by my strong belief that all Americans deserve equal 
opportunity and freedom to pursue their hopes and dreams. I cannot 
support this nomination for Senator Sessions to be Attorney General, 
and I urge my colleagues to oppose him.
  Now I would like to take a moment to discuss what happened last night 
here on the Senate floor. Last night, the Republican leadership of this 
Chamber stopped one of my colleagues from reading the words of Coretta 
Scott King.
  Coretta Scott King wrote a letter and a statement to the Senate 
Judiciary Committee back in 1986, expressing her opposition to Jeff 
Sessions' nomination to serve as a Federal judge.
  Coretta Scott King believed, as I do, that the right to vote is a 
fundamental right afforded to every American. It is a right that people 
have lost their lives seeking and defending.
  Mrs. King wrote in her testimony regarding Jeff Sessions' record:

       Blacks still fall far short of having equal participation 
     in the electoral process. Particularly in the South, efforts 
     continue to be made to deny Blacks access to the polls, even 
     where Blacks constitute the majority of the voters. It has 
     been a long up-hill struggle to keep alive the vital 
     legislation that protects the most fundamental right to vote. 
     A person who has exhibited so much hostility to the 
     enforcement of those laws, and thus, to the exercise of those 
     rights by Black people should not be elevated to the Federal 
     bench.

  Mrs. King's words matter. They matter to me, and they matter to 
millions of Americans. Mrs. King's words should matter in this debate, 
and they deserve to be heard. I believe it is simply wrong to silence 
legitimate questions about a nominee for U.S. Attorney General, and I 
hope that her words can be heard as this debate continues.
  Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.