[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 20 (Monday, February 6, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S934-S943]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                        Nomination of Tom Price

  Mr. President, I am pleased today to come to the floor in support of 
another friend, someone I am honored to have worked with for many 
years, and that would be Dr. Tom Price. When I first heard that 
President Trump nominated Dr. Price to serve as Secretary of Health and 
Human Services, I was reassured to know that one of the most capable, 
well-prepared individuals President Trump could have chosen would fill 
such an important post.
  Health care is highly complex, highly specialized, and it has a 
significant impact on our Nation. Our Federal Government's involvement 
in health care has changed dramatically over the last few decades, and 
that change has accelerated in the last few years. Health care makes up 
one-sixth of our economy, and the Department of Health and Human 
Services has a tremendous impact on all parts of all sectors of health 
care. Who better than a doctor should head an organization that covers 
the wide variety of major health care programs?
  Let me mention just a few that a doctor should be in charge of. One 
would be Medicare, another is Medicaid. And then there is our vast 
biomedical research functions at the National Institutes of Health, 
usually referred to as NIH. Then there is our domestic and 
international public health work at the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention, or CDC; the review of innovative and lifesaving drugs and 
devices at the Food and Drug Administration, or FDA; or how about our 
preparedness in the development of medical countermeasures at the 
Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA; and 
many other programs impacting the Nation's health that also provide an 
alphabet of initials.
  Who better to understand the most important side of health care, the 
patient, than one who is, at the end of the day, the person that takes 
care of the patient? The patient is the biggest factor in all health 
policies. These policies are too often put together here in Washington. 
Hundreds of bureaucrats sit in offices, deciding what patients ought to 
have done to them. Sitting here in offices without being doctors, 
without having treated patients, I will be glad to have someone in 
charge there who, instead, considers what the patient wants done.
  In the Senate HELP Committee hearing with Dr. Price, he spoke about 
his

[[Page S935]]

view on the importance of the patient in health care. He reiterated 
that again before the Finance Committee when he said: ``[It is] 
imperative that we have a system that's accessible for every single 
American, that's affordable for every single American, that 
incentivizes and provides the highest quality health care that the 
world knows and provides choices to patients so they are the ones 
selecting who is treating them, when, where, and the like.''
  Tom Price is an ideal candidate for this role. Not only does he know 
the health care system as a physician, he knows it as a policymaker who 
has been a thought leader in health care here in Congress. His resume 
is well rounded. He has practiced and taught medicine, he was a 
business owner, and he served as a legislator.

  Let me repeat. He has not only practiced medicine, he has taught 
medicine, and he has been a business owner of a large business that 
dealt with health care and he served as a legislator.
  His confirmation will also mark the first time since the George H.W. 
Bush administration that a physician has led this agency. Our health 
care system is in a significant time of transformation. Well before 
ObamaCare, there was a need to make changes that would give people more 
options in health insurance and to find a way to contain costs.
  We have even more work to do now as patients find themselves with 
fewer choices and higher costs. The new Secretary's role will be a 
difficult one. In the last year, our health insurance markets have 
teetered into unstable ground, especially in the individual market. 
Even with absolutely no change in the law, more and more people will 
lose access to health insurance coverage.
  It has been suggested that the Republicans should just let the 
current system keep going for another year or so until the Democrats 
would be begging us to make changes, but we are not going to do that. 
We are not going to have those people go through that kind of 
suffering, even though there is a risk to it. We are not going to sit 
and wait for the system to crash. We will be working in Congress to 
repeal ObamaCare and reform our health care system by putting the 
patient first.
  It will be critical to have a partner in the administration to make 
changes and implement the law in a way that reflects the intent of 
Congress and provides for full, open, and transparent input from the 
public. I understand that some of my Democratic colleagues have decided 
that being a Republican is a disqualifying characteristic for any 
Cabinet Secretary. It is all too easy to resort to vilification of our 
political opponents, but I will just point out the words of David Lloyd 
George, who is not a conservative, who said: ``A politician is a person 
with whose politics you don't agree; if you agree with him, he is a 
statesman.''
  Tom Price's nomination is something that I believe would have been 
relatively noncontroversial, even a few years ago. I know that when I 
voted in favor of the confirmation of Sylvia Burwell as the Secretary 
of Health and Human Services for President Obama's Cabinet, I looked at 
her qualifications, not her politics.
  If we look at Dr. Price with the same lens, I am hopeful we will see 
a bipartisan vote for this confirmation. The nomination of Tom Price is 
a great opportunity for our country to benefit from his knowledge, to 
benefit from his dedication, to benefit from his lifetime of service, 
and to benefit from his commitment to working with us all to improve 
health care in the United States.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, in 1986, Coretta Scott King, the widow 
of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, wrote a letter urging 
Congress to block the nomination of Jeff Sessions for Federal judge. 
The Senate Judiciary Committee would ultimately reject that nomination.
  Here we are three decades later. Senator Sessions, who cannot erase 
his troubling record on civil rights, is again undergoing a 
confirmation hearing as President Trump's nominee for Attorney General. 
I would like to read an excerpt from Mrs. King's letter, and I ask 
unanimous consent that the letter in its entirety be printed in the 
Record following my remarks.
  Mrs. King wrote:

       I write to express my sincere opposition to the 
     confirmation of Jefferson B. Sessions as a federal district 
     court judge for the Southern District of Alabama. My 
     professional and personal roots in Alabama are deep and 
     lasting. Anyone who has used the power of his office as 
     United States Attorney to intimidate and chill the free 
     exercise of the ballot by citizens should not be elevated to 
     our courts. Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of his 
     office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly 
     black voters. For this reprehensible conduct, he should not 
     be rewarded with a federal judgeship.
       I do sincerely urge you to oppose the confirmation of Mr. 
     Sessions.

  When Senator Elizabeth Warren tried to read this exact same letter 
last night here on the Senate floor, Republicans voted to silence her, 
citing that she was in violation of Senate rules aimed at preventing 
Senators from impugning the motives of their colleagues.
  The move by some of my colleagues to silence the words of Senator 
Warren and Mrs. King last night is troubling not only because this is a 
threat to our democratic values, but also, frankly, because it is 
hypocritical. During a scathing speech last year in this same Chamber, 
the Senator from Texas went so far as personally attacking the 
Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell and accusing him of lying. 
In May of last year, the Senator from Arkansas, also here on the Senate 
floor, delivered a speech directly criticizing former Senate Minority 
Leader Harry Reid, using the terms ``vulgar,'' ``incoherent,'' and 
``cancerous'' to describe him.
  He said on the Senate floor:

       I am forced to listen to the bitter, vulgar incoherent 
     ramblings of the minority leader. Normally, like every other 
     American, I ignore them.

  I bring this up because neither of these Senators were silenced. 
Neither were told to sit down and take their seat. Silencing Senator 
Warren for reading Mrs. King's letter under the guise of following 
Senate rules is hypocritical and rightfully leads some to question 
whether the majority leader may have a different standard of expected 
conduct for female Senators compared to their male counterparts.
  I have already announced that I will vote against the nomination of 
Senator Sessions. After this episode last night, I believe now more 
than ever this position will require an unwavering commitment to 
protect American's constitutional rights, and to stand up against 
discrimination and hate.
  Like the thousands of New Mexicans I have heard from, I lack that 
confidence in Senator Sessions. I urge the American people to read and 
share Coretta Scott King's letter and continue to make your own voices 
heard because we will not be silenced. We will persist.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

         The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social 
           Change, Inc.,
                                 Atlanta, Georgia, March 19, 1986.
     Re Nomination of Jefferson B. Sessions U.S. Judge, Southern 
         District of Alabama Hearing, March 13, 1986

     Hon. Strom Thurmond,
     Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Thurmond: I write to express my sincere 
     opposition to the confirmation of Jefferson B. Sessions as a 
     federal district court judge for the Southern District of 
     Alabama. My professional and personal roots in Alabama are 
     deep and lasting. Anyone who has used the power of his office 
     as United States Attorney to intimidate and chill the free 
     exercise of the ballot by citizens should not be elevated to 
     our courts. Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of his 
     office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly 
     black voters. For this reprehensible conduct, he should not 
     be rewarded with a federal judgeship.
       I regret that a long-standing commitment prevents me from 
     appearing in person to testify against this nominee. However, 
     I have attached a copy of my statement opposing Mr. Sessions' 
     confirmation and I request that my statement as well as this 
     letter be made a part of the hearing record.
       I do sincerely urge you to oppose the confirmation of Mr. 
     Sessions.
           Sincerely,
                                               Coretta Scott King.

[[Page S936]]

     
                                  ____
    Statement of Coretta Scott King on the Nomination of Jefferson 
   Beauregard Sessions for the United States District Court Southern 
                          District of Alabama


          Senate Judiciary Committee, Thursday, March 13, 1986

       Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: Thank you for 
     allowing me this opportunity to express my strong opposition 
     to the nomination of Jefferson Sessions for a federal 
     district judgeship for the Southern District of Alabama. My 
     longstanding commitment which I shared with my husband, 
     Martin, to protect and enhance the rights of Black Americans, 
     rights which include equal access to the democratic process, 
     compels me to testify today.
       Civil rights leaders, including my husband and Albert 
     Turner, have fought long and hard to achieve free and 
     unfettered access to the ballot box. Mr. Sessions has used 
     the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of 
     the vote by black citizens in the district he now seeks to 
     serve as a federal judge. This simply cannot be allowed to 
     happen. Mr. Sessions' conduct as U.S. Attorney, from his 
     politically-motivated voting fraud prosecutions to his 
     indifference toward criminal violations of civil rights laws, 
     indicates that he lacks the temperament, fairness and 
     judgment to be a federal judge.
       The Voting Rights Act was, and still is, vitally important 
     to the future of democracy in the United States. I was 
     privileged to join Martin and many others during the Selma to 
     Montgomery march for voting rights in 1965. Martin was 
     particularly impressed by the determination to get the 
     franchise of blacks in Selma and neighboring Perry County. As 
     he wrote, ``Certainly no community in the history of the 
     Negro struggle has responded with the enthusiasm of Selma and 
     her neighboring town of Marion. Where Birmingham depended 
     largely upon students and unemployed adults [to participate 
     in non-violent protest of the denial of the franchise], Selma 
     has involved fully 10 per cent of the Negro population in 
     active demonstrations, and at least half the Negro population 
     of Marion was arrested on one day.'' Martin was referring of 
     course to a group that included the defendants recently 
     prosecuted for assisting elderly and illiterate blacks to 
     exercise that franchise. In fact, Martin anticipated from the 
     depth of their commitment twenty years ago, that a united 
     political organization would remain in Perry County long 
     after the other marchers had left. This organization, the 
     Perry County Civic League, started by Mr. Turner, Mr. Hogue, 
     and others, as Martin predicted, continued ``to direct the 
     drive for votes and other rights.'' In the years since the 
     Voting Rights Act was passed, Black Americans in Marion, 
     Selma and elsewhere have made important strides in their 
     struggle to participate actively in the electoral process. 
     The number of Blacks registered to vote in key Southern 
     states has doubled since 1965. This would not have been 
     possible without the Voting Rights Act.
       However, 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.
       The irony of Mr. Sessions' nomination is that, if 
     confirmed, he will be given life tenure for doing with a 
     federal prosecution what the local sheriffs accomplished 
     twenty years ago with clubs and cattle prods. Twenty years 
     ago, when we marched from Selma to Montgomery, the fear of 
     voting was real, as the broken bones and bloody heads in 
     Selma and Marion bore witness. As my husband wrote at the 
     time, ``it was not just a sick imagination that conjured up 
     the vision of a public official, sworn to uphold the law, who 
     forced an inhuman march upon hundreds of Negro children; who 
     ordered the Rev. James Bevel to be chained to his sickbed; 
     who clubbed a Negro woman registrant, and who callously 
     inflicted repeated brutalities and indignities upon 
     nonviolent Negroes peacefully petitioning for their 
     constitutional right to vote.''
       Free exercise of voting rights is so fundamental to 
     American democracy that we can not 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. Over the past century, a 
     broad array of schemes have been used in attempts to block 
     the Black vote. The range of techniques developed with the 
     purpose of repressing black voting rights run the gamut from 
     the straightforward application of brutality against black 
     citizens who tried to vote to such legalized frauds as 
     ``grandfather clause'' exclusions and rigged literacy tests.
       The actions taken by Mr. Sessions in regard to the 1984 
     voting fraud prosecutions represent just one more 
     technique used to intimidate Black voters and thus deny 
     them this most precious franchise. The investigations into 
     the absentee voting process were conducted only in the 
     Black Belt counties where blacks had finally achieved 
     political power in the local government. Whites had been 
     using the absentee process to their advantage for years, 
     without incident. Then, when Blacks; realizing its 
     strength, began to use it with success, criminal 
     investigations were begun.
       In these investigations, Mr. Sessions, as U.S. Attorney, 
     exhibited an eagerness to bring to trial and convict three 
     leaders of the Perry County Civic League including Albert 
     Turner despite evidence clearly demonstrating their innocence 
     of any wrongdoing. Furthermore, in initiating the case, Mr. 
     Sessions ignored allegations of similar behavior by whites, 
     choosing instead to chill the exercise of the franchise by 
     blacks by his misguided investigation. In fact, Mr. Sessions 
     sought to punish older black civil rights activists, advisors 
     and colleagues of my husband, who had been key figures in the 
     civil rights movement in the 1960's. These were persons who, 
     realizing the potential of the absentee vote among Blacks, 
     had learned to use the process within the bounds of legality 
     and had taught others to do the same. The only sin they 
     committed was being too successful in gaining votes.
       The scope and character of the investigations conducted by 
     Mr. Sessions also warrant grave concern. Witnesses were 
     selectively chosen in accordance with the favorability of 
     their testimony to the government's case. Also, the 
     prosecution illegally withheld from the defense critical 
     statements made by witnesses. Witnesses who did testify were 
     pressured and intimidated into submitting the ``correct'' 
     testimony. Many elderly blacks were visited multiple times by 
     the FBI who then hauled them over 180 miles by bus to a grand 
     jury in Mobile when they could more easily have testified at 
     a grand jury twenty miles away in Selma. These voters, and 
     others, have announced they are now never going to vote 
     again.
       I urge you to consider carefully Mr. Sessions' conduct in 
     these matters. Such a review, I believe, raises serious 
     questions about his commitment to the protection of the 
     voting rights of all American citizens and consequently his 
     fair and unbiased judgment regarding this fundamental right. 
     When the circumstances and facts surrounding the indictments 
     of Al Turner, his wife, Evelyn, and Spencer Hogue are 
     analyzed, it becomes clear that the motivation was political, 
     and the result frightening--the wide-scale chill of the 
     exercise of the ballot for blacks, who suffered so much to 
     receive that right in the first place. Therefore, it is my 
     strongly-held view that the appointment of Jefferson Sessions 
     to the federal bench would irreparably damage the work of my 
     husband, Al Turner, and countless others who risked their 
     lives and freedom over the past twenty years to ensure equal 
     participation in our democratic system.
       The exercise of the franchise is an essential means by 
     which our citizens ensure that those who are governing will 
     be responsible. My husband called it the number one civil 
     right. The denial of access to the ballot box ultimately 
     results in the denial of other fundamental rights. For, it is 
     only when the poor and disadvantaged are empowered that they 
     are able to participate actively in the solutions to their 
     own problems.
       We still have a long way to go before we can say that 
     minorities no longer need be concerned about discrimination 
     at the polls. Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and Asian 
     Americans are grossly underrepresented at every level of 
     government in America. If we are going to make our timeless 
     dream of justice through democracy a reality, we must take 
     every possible step to ensure that the spirit and intent of 
     the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fifteenth Amendment of 
     the Constitution is honored.
       The federal courts hold a unique position in our 
     constitutional system, ensuring that minorities and other 
     citizens without political power have a forum in which to 
     vindicate their rights. Because of this unique role, it is 
     essential that the people selected to be federal judges 
     respect the basic tenets of our legal system: respect for 
     individual rights and a commitment to equal justice for all. 
     The integrity of the Courts, and thus the rights they 
     protect, can only be maintained if citizens feel confident 
     that those selected as federal judges will be able to judge 
     with fairness others holding differing views.
       I do not believe Jefferson Sessions possesses the requisite 
     judgment, competence, and sensitivity to the rights 
     guaranteed by the federal civil rights laws to qualify for 
     appointment to the federal district court. Based on his 
     record, I believe his confirmation would have a devastating 
     effect on not only the judicial system in Alabama, but also 
     on the progress we have made everywhere toward fulfilling my 
     husband's dream that he envisioned over twenty years ago. I 
     therefore urge the Senate Judiciary Committee to deny his 
     confirmation.
       I thank you for allowing me to share my views.

  Mr. HEINRICH. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I have heard from literally thousands of 
my constituents who have contacted my office in unprecedented numbers 
with

[[Page S937]]

fears about a Justice Department headed by Senator Jeff Sessions as 
Attorney General of the United States.
  My constituents and Americans all across the country are concerned 
about the independence and integrity of the Justice Department under 
President Donald Trump.
  We are only 3 weeks into the Trump administration, and what we have 
seen so far has been alarming. We have 3 years and 49 weeks left to go 
in President Trump's term of office, and we have already seen in 3 
weeks President Trump issue an illegal and immoral ban on Muslim 
refugees. We then saw President Trump fire Acting Attorney General 
Sally Yates from her job overseeing the Department of Justice--an 
action reminiscent of Watergate's infamous ``Saturday Night 
Massacre''--because she refused to defend in court his unconstitutional 
and un-American Executive order.
  Sally Yates's job and the job of the entire Justice Department is to 
uphold the rule of law. The Attorney General of the United States is 
the lawyer for the people of the United States--not Donald Trump's 
personal lawyer. It is called the rule of law, not the rule of Trump, 
but it is the rule of law that is at stake when the nomination of 
Senator Sessions is in question to run the Department of Justice.
  I have told my constituents that Senator Sessions must be judged 
based on the totality of his record: as a U.S. attorney, as Alabama's 
attorney general, and as U.S. Senator.
  A review of that record, including 2 days of hearings before the 
Senate Judiciary Committee, demonstrates anything but the commitment to 
the equal and impartial administration of justice and an independence 
from the President that we must demand from the Nation's top law 
enforcement officer.
  Senator Sessions' record spanning decades in public office reflects 
hostility to important constitutional rights, hostility to laws 
intended to protect people of color, hostility to laws intended to 
protect women, hostility to laws intended to protect the LGBTQ 
community, and hostility to laws intended to protect immigrants against 
discrimination and violence.
  Senator Sessions has fought against civil rights efforts. He has 
fought against protecting voting rights, and as a U.S. attorney, 
Sessions tried to prosecute three civil rights workers who were helping 
elderly and disabled African-American voters to cast absentee ballots.
  During his 1986 judicial nomination hearing, he called the Voting 
Rights Act ``an intrusive piece of legislation.'' And in his testimony 
to the Judiciary Committee, Senator Sessions would not commit to 
continue the Justice Department's efforts to challenge restrictive 
State voter ID laws. Senator Sessions has fought against comprehensive 
immigration reform, against criminal justice reform, and against 
commonsense gun control measures.
  As for a woman's right to choose, Senator Sessions has said: ``I 
firmly believe that Roe v. Wade and its descendants represent one of 
the worst, colossally erroneous Supreme Court decisions of all time.'' 
At his confirmation hearing, Senator Feinstein pressed him on his 
statement, asking him whether it was still his view. ``It is,'' Senator 
Sessions replied.
  It is simply unimaginable that we would have an Attorney General of 
the United States holding such a view of Roe v. Wade and the rights of 
women to control their own reproductive health. Roe v. Wade is the law 
of the land, and it should remain that way forever.
  Mr. President, I would also like to address the actions last night by 
the Senate majority leader to silence the remarks of my colleague from 
Massachusetts, Senator Elizabeth Warren.
  Coretta Scott King was attending the New England Conservatory of 
Music in Boston when she met a divinity doctoral student at Boston 
University in 1952, in Boston. One year later, Coretta Scott married 
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as they took their degrees from Boston to 
begin a cause found in the South that became a national and 
international movement.
  The two shared their life, a cause that would change the world. The 
voices and legacy of Coretta Scott King and Dr. Martin Luther King, 
Jr., are as much a part of Massachusetts history as the American 
Revolution, John Adams, and President John Kennedy.
  What Senator Warren was doing last night was standing up for equal 
justice the way Massachusetts has always stood up for equal justice, 
the way Senator Ted Kennedy stood up for equal justice. We have a deep 
and proud history in Massachusetts of fighting for what is right. The 
abolitionist movement was born in Massachusetts.
  In past generations, when young women wanted the right to vote, a 
group of committed activists in Massachusetts formed the Suffragette 
movement, and they changed the U.S. Constitution so women can vote.
  When young people in Massachusetts were upset with the voting rights 
laws for minorities in America's southern States, they became the 
Freedom Riders, and they changed the laws of the United States.
  I make these remarks from the desk once held by Massachusetts Senator 
Edward Brooke. Senator Brooke was the first African American elected to 
the Senate. He was a Republican. He was also a civil rights activist, 
and he also received his law degree at Boston University, in 
Massachusetts.
  From the Founding Fathers to the movement for universal health care, 
to the first same-sex wedding in the United States, and to the Senate 
floor last night, Massachusetts has always been at the heart of 
America's quest for equal justice.
  Leader McConnell used an arcane Senate rule to silence Senator 
Warren, but the people of Massachusetts and all people of good 
conscience will never be silenced when confronted with our moral 
responsibility to speak out.
  Senator Warren deserves an apology for being silenced when she 
attempted to share this very relevant, very powerful part of our 
national history last night. The American people deserve to hear the 
important words of Coretta Scott King. So here they are:

       Dear Senator Thurmond:
       I write to express my sincere opposition to the 
     confirmation of Jefferson B. Sessions as a federal district 
     court judge for the Southern District of Alabama. My 
     professional and personal roots in Alabama are deep and 
     lasting. Anyone who has used the power of his office as 
     United States Attorney to intimidate and chill the free 
     exercise of the ballot by citizens should not be elevated to 
     our courts. Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of his 
     office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly 
     black voters. For this reprehensible conduct, he should not 
     be rewarded with a federal judgeship.
       I regret that a long-standing commitment prevents me from 
     appearing in person to testify against this nominee. However, 
     I have attached a copy of my statement opposing Mr. Sessions' 
     confirmation and I request that my statement as well as this 
     letter be made a part of the hearing record.
       I do sincerely urge you to oppose the confirmation of Mr. 
     Sessions.
       Sincerely, Coretta Scott King

  Coretta Scott King was right in the 1960s. Coretta Scott King was 
right in 1986. Coretta Scott King is right today.
  Based on the totality of Senator Sessions' record, I have no 
confidence that he shares a commitment to justice for all Americans. I 
do not believe he will fight to defend the most vulnerable in our 
society. I do not believe he will stand up to President Trump when the 
time comes, as it surely will come.
  The great Robert F. Kennedy, a U.S. Attorney General himself, once 
said ``that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists 
on.''
  We must insist that our top law enforcement officer upholds the law 
for all Americans. I do not have assurance that Senator Sessions will 
meet that challenge.
  I will be voting no on Senator Sessions' nomination this evening, and 
I urge all of my colleagues to do likewise.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, yesterday I spoke at length about my fear 
that Senator Sessions' would not have the ability to act as an 
independent Attorney General. The Attorney General is not the 
President's lawyer. He or she is the chief law enforcement officer of 
the United States. And he or she must faithfully serve all Americans. 
Even if Senator Sessions could demonstrate independence from President 
Trump, my review of his extensive record leaves me unconvinced that he 
is capable of serving and protecting all Americans.
  In 1986, Senator Ted Kennedy called Jeff Sessions a ``throwback'' 
because of his conduct on civil rights issues. I regret to say that, 
since the Judiciary

[[Page S938]]

Committee's bipartisan rejection of Senator Sessions' nomination to be 
a district court judge in 1986, Senator Sessions has not allayed our 
concerns. In his 20 years in the Senate, he has not shown a commitment 
to protecting the most vulnerable in our communities. Time and again, 
when the rights of women, LGBT individuals, and disenfranchised 
communities have been debated here in the Senate, Senator Sessions has 
not sought to protect their civil and human rights. Too often, he has 
been the one standing in the way.
  That is why National Nurses United has written to me to express their 
opposition to Senator Sessions. They wrote: ``We provide the best care 
we possibly can, without regard to race, gender, national origin, 
religion, socio economic circumstances, or other identifying 
characteristic. That is what caring professionals do. Unfortunately, 
that is not what Jeff Sessions has done in his role as a public 
servant.'' I ask unanimous consent that their full letter be printed in 
the Record at the conclusion of my remarks. That is why my friend John 
Lewis testified before the Judiciary Committee in opposition to Senator 
Sessions. Congressman Lewis stated that, ``When faced with a challenge, 
Senator Sessions has frequently chosen to stand on the wrong side of 
history.'' Senate Republicans should be listening to these concerns and 
those of protesters in our streets and airports standing up for our 
Constitution. We should not subject those concerns to a gag rule.
  Yet Senator Sessions and his supporters have painted a different 
picture of his record. They have argued that he has a strong record on 
civil rights. So I asked Senator Sessions in written questions to 
identify areas in which racial inequalities persist. He could have 
talked about sentencing or about areas where the Civil Rights Division 
has found patterns and practices of police departments violating 
people's rights or about the kind of voter suppression efforts that an 
appeals court found ``target[ed] African Americans with almost surgical 
precision.'' Senator Sessions did not identify a single example of 
racial inequality in modern America. That is astonishing. No one can 
uphold the rights of all Americans if he is unwilling to pay attention 
when those rights are being violated.
  Some have suggested that Senator Sessions' record on civil rights has 
been criticized unfairly and he is held to a different standard because 
he is a conservative from the South. I disagree. When the Judiciary 
Committee rejected Senator Sessions' district court nomination in 1986, 
one of the votes against him came from Senator Heflin, who was a 
conservative from Alabama. Moreover, I and most other Democrats just 
voted to confirm as U.N. Ambassador another conservative Southerner: 
Nikki Haley. In 2015, then-Governor Haley made the decision to remove 
the Confederate flag from the South Carolina Statehouse grounds. She 
said, ``[I]t should never have been there'' and that she ``couldn't 
look my children in the face and justify it staying there.'' When 
Senator Sessions was asked about this and other efforts to remove the 
Confederate flag from public buildings, he argued that such efforts 
``seek to delegitimize the fabulous accomplishments of our country.'' 
It can come as no surprise that the civil rights community is concerned 
by his nomination.
  But I will speak to my own experiences with Senator Sessions' views 
on civil rights laws. In 2009, Senator Sessions opposed expanding hate 
crime protections to women and LGBT individuals, groups that have 
historically been targeted based merely on who they are. He stated, ``I 
am not sure women or people with different sexual orientations face 
that kind of discrimination. I just don't see it.'' Thankfully, a 
bipartisan majority of Senators saw it, and the Matthew Shepard and 
James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act is now law. These 
protections are needed now more than ever. According to recent FBI 
statistics, LGBT individuals are more likely to be targeted for hate 
crimes than any other minority group in the country.
  Judy Shepard, Matthew's mother, wrote a letter last month opposing 
Senator Sessions' nomination. She was concerned not just by Senator 
Sessions' opposition to the law that bears her son's name, but by how 
Senator Sessions viewed such hate crimes. She wrote:

       ``Senator Sessions strongly opposed the hate crimes bill--
     characterizing hate crimes as mere `thought crimes.' 
     Unfortunately, Senator Sessions believes that hate crimps 
     are, what he describes as, mere `thought crimes.'
       ``My son was not killed by 'thoughts' or because his 
     murderers said hateful things. My son was brutally beaten 
     with the butt of a .357 magnum pistol, tied him to a fence, 
     and left him to die in freezing temperatures because he was 
     gay. Senator Sessions' repeated efforts to diminish the life-
     changing acts of violence covered by the Hate Crimes 
     Prevention Act horrified me then, as a parent who knows the 
     true cost of hate, and it terrifies me today to see that this 
     same person is now being nominated as the country's highest 
     authority to represent justice and equal protection under the 
     law for all Americans.''

  But that was not all. Senator Sessions also said that ``the hate 
crimes amendment . . . has been said to cheapen the civil rights 
movement.'' I asked him about this comment and whether he still felt 
that way at his hearing, but he did not respond to the question. I 
asked him a second time, in a written follow-up, what he meant by that 
comment. He replied that ``Those were not my words,'' but again did not 
explain what he had meant by that remark. So I asked him a third time. 
The third time, he finally conceded. He wrote to me that ``it is not 
correct to say it cheapens our commitment to civil rights.'' If it is 
not correct to say that, then why did Senator Sessions quote it in the 
first place--and why did it take him three tries to acknowledge the 
error?
  Senator Sessions also opposed the 2013 Leahy-Crapo Violence Against 
Women Reauthorization Act, which overwhelmingly passed the Senate with 
support from a majority of Republican Senators. During his hearing, and 
again in written questions, Senator Sessions refused to commit to 
defend this important law's constitutionality. He said only that he 
``will carefully study'' it to discern whether it is ``reasonably 
defensible.'' His refusal to voice support for VAWA is all the more 
troubling in light of reports that the Heritage Foundation's budget 
blueprint, which is reportedly being relied on by the new 
administration, calls for eliminating all VAWA grants. I asked Senator 
Sessions to commit to stand up for victims and preserve these critical 
programs. Again, he refused.
  Amita Swadhin, who appeared before the Judiciary Committee and 
bravely shared her story of being raped as a child, explained why this 
issue is so important: ``We need an Attorney General who will continue 
the progress we have made since the initial passage of VAWA, someone 
committed to improving and enforcing our laws to ensure the most 
vulnerable victims of crime can come forward to seek accountability and 
to access healing.'' This law and these grants are a matter of life and 
death to many people across the country. We need an Attorney General 
who understands that. The National Task Force to End Sexual and 
Domestic Violence, which has never before taken a position on an 
Attorney General nomination, wrote to the Judiciary Committee because 
they do not believe Senator Sessions understands that. The letter 
states:

       ``Senator Sessions' senate record of strenuous objection to 
     protections for historically marginalized populations, 
     coupled with his record of selective prosecutions, 
     demonstrate his unwillingness to protect marginalized 
     victims' access to justice and disqualify him from holding 
     the position of Attorney General of the United States, a 
     position charged with the responsibility of securing justice 
     for all.''

  I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record at 
the conclusion of my remarks.
  Senator Sessions and his supporters have tried to minimize his 
opposition to the Leahy-Crapo VAWA bill by pointing out that he did 
vote in committee for the Republican substitute amendment. Let me 
explain what that amendment would have done. It would have cut 
authorization levels by 40 percent, hampering efforts to prevent 
violence and provide services to victims in need. It would have removed 
all provisions intended to ensure that victims can receive services, 
regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity. It would have 
removed important provisions to let tribal justice systems reach the 
many criminal and civil cases that fell through the cracks. That 
amendment would have gutted core elements

[[Page S939]]

of the VAWA reauthorization that go to the heart of what VAWA does. A 
vote for that amendment hardly demonstrates a commitment to victims.
  Another issue that concerns me is criminal justice reform. For years, 
I have worked with a bipartisan group of Senators to reduce mandatory 
minimum sentences for drug offenses. These sentences have created 
perverse disparities within our justice system. Racial minorities still 
receive nearly 80 percent of them. Our bipartisan effort has had the 
strong support of the Justice Department and many others in law 
enforcement, but not Senator Sessions. In recent years, no one in the 
Senate has fought harder against even modest sentencing reform than he 
has.
  I am also concerned about Senator Sessions' commitment to ongoing 
civil rights litigation. I asked whether he would maintain the Justice 
Department's position in certain important cases. He would not commit 
to maintaining the Department's position, even in voting rights cases 
where courts have already found that certain voter ID laws are 
discriminatory.
  Senator Sessions would not commit to even maintaining cases that are 
already at the Supreme Court. Last month, the Supreme Court heard oral 
argument in Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District. The Justice 
Department filed an amicus brief in support of the petitioner, arguing 
that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires states to 
provide more than de minimis educational benefits and in fact ``give 
eligible children with disabilities an opportunity to make significant 
educational progress.'' Even though it would be extraordinary for the 
Justice Department to take a new position after oral argument has 
already been heard, Senator Sessions would not commit to maintaining 
the Department's position in this case.
  I pointed to a lawsuit the Justice Department filed last year in 
Georgia alleging that Georgia's treatment of students with disabilities 
violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. In this lawsuit, the 
Justice Department noted that some of the facilities used by students 
with disabilities ``are located in poor-quality buildings that formerly 
served as schools for black students during de jure segregation.'' I 
asked Senator Sessions whether he would continue to pursue this case, 
and bring others like it where States are in violation of the ADA. He 
refused to commit to continuing this case. The ADA also contains a 
waiver of State sovereign immunity, which is a critical tool for 
enforcing that landmark law. Twice during the Bush administration, the 
Justice Department argued, and the Supreme Court agreed, that the 
waiver was a valid exercise of Congressional power under section V of 
the 14th Amendment, but Senator Sessions would not commit to defending 
the constitutionality of that provision.
  Senator Sessions' record on disability rights is also of concern 
because of the way he spoke about students with disabilities. He once 
argued that mainstreaming causes a ``decline in civility and discipline 
in classrooms all over America.'' As with my hate crimes amendment and 
VAWA, the problem is not just that Senator Sessions has opposed 
protections for the most vulnerable, it is also the language that he 
uses when opposing them, which denigrate those the laws seek to 
protect. That is why a group of 18 disability rights organizations have 
written to Senate leadership expressing their strong opposition to 
Senator Sessions' nomination.
  Senator Sessions has also demonstrated a shockingly brazen attitude 
when I asked him about the offensive rhetoric used by some of his 
political associates. I asked him whether he would condemn certain 
remarks by David Horowitz, Frank Gaffney, and others. Senator Sessions 
received awards from these individuals. He regularly attended their 
conferences. He has given media statements in support of their 
organizations and the views they put forth. Yet, when Senator Sessions 
was directly asked to respond to some of their statements, he 
effectively shrugged his shoulders. These included comments: referring 
to Muslims as ``Islamic Nazis'' who ``want to kill Jews, that's their 
agenda''; alleging that President Obama ``is an anti-American radical 
and I'm actually sure he's a Muslim, he certainly isn't a Christian. . 
. . He's a pretend Christian in the same way he's a pretend American''; 
alleging that two Muslims members of Congress have ``longstanding 
Muslim Brotherhood ties''; arguing that a Muslim member of Congress 
should not be allowed to serve on the House Intelligence Committee 
because of his ``extensive personal and political associations with . . 
. jihadist infrastructure in America''; claiming that married women by 
definition cannot be raped by their husbands; calling for ``railroad 
cars full of illegals going south; and calling President Obama a 
traitor.
  Senator Sessions responded that he does not hold those views. That is 
fair enough. But he did not explain why he chose to associate with such 
individuals. When someone accuses President Obama of treason, it is not 
at all enough to say, ``I do not hold that view.'' That is why, last 
month, Muslim advocates and 36 other civil rights organizations, 
including the Leadership Conference on Civic and Human Rights and the 
NAACP, wrote a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee expressing 
strong concern that ``Senator Sessions has closely aligned with anti-
Muslim hate groups, accepted their awards and accolades, and publicly 
praised their leadership. Senator Sessions' appointment will only 
embolden these groups and activists and serve to further fan the flames 
of anti-Muslim bigotry already burning in this country.'' If Senator 
Sessions cannot condemn David Horowitz and Frank Gaffney, who the 
Southern Poverty Law Center has repeatedly called ``extremists'' who 
run hate groups, for calling President Obama a traitor, it is fair to 
ask whether he will have the courage to stand up to the President of 
the United States, as Sally Yates did.
  The Attorney General is charged with enforcing the laws that protect 
all Americans. No one can fulfill that obligation who is not clear-eyed 
about the threats facing the most vulnerable in our communities. We 
need an Attorney General who will aggressively confront those who 
appeal to hate and fear. I do not believe that person is Senator 
Sessions. The Senate and the Judiciary Committee have heard from a 
multitude of civil rights, civil liberties, and domestic violence 
organizations, as well as nurses and numerous faith leaders, who oppose 
this nomination. This Senator stands with them.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                       National Nurses United,

                                 Washington, DC, February 7, 2017.
     Hon. Patrick J. Leahy,
     U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Leahy: We write on behalf of the more than 
     150,000 registered nurse members of National Nurses United to 
     urge you to vote against the confirmation of Senator Jeff 
     Sessions, President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for Attorney 
     General. Much has been said by many others against 
     confirmation of this nominee, so we will be brief.
       Our members work as bedside healthcare professionals in 
     almost every state in the nation. We work in every hospital 
     setting, from small rural facilities to large urban public 
     health systems, in prominent research hospitals affiliated 
     with prestigious public and private universities, as well as 
     Veterans Affairs hospitals and clinics. We care for Americans 
     on every point of the demographic spectrum, at their most 
     vulnerable. We provide the best care we possibly can, without 
     regard to race, gender, national origin, religion, socio 
     economic circumstances, or other identifying characteristic. 
     That is what caring professionals do. Unfortunately, that is 
     not what Jeff Sessions has done in his role as a public 
     servant. And to vote in favor of confirming him as the chief 
     law enforcement officer of the United States would abdicate 
     your responsibility to provide the oversight necessary to 
     ensure that basic legal rights are enforced evenhandedly and 
     for the protection of all people.
       As Senate colleagues, you no doubt know Senator Sessions' 
     record as a lawmaker, as well as his record as the U.S. 
     Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama and as the 
     Alabama Attorney General. It was, of course, his record in 
     the U.S. Attorney's office and his many publically verified 
     racially insensitive comments that resulted in a majority of 
     the Senate Judiciary Committee voting against confirmation 
     for his nomination to be a U.S. District Court judge in 1986. 
     This `no' vote happened while the Judiciary Committee was 
     majority Republican. Even Senator Howell Heflin, a fellow 
     Alabamian, voted against him, citing ``reasonable doubts'' 
     over whether he could be ``fair and impartial.''
       Senator Sessions has oft asserted that his comments over 
     the years were taken out of context, or intended as humor. 
     But his record tells the truth. Early in his career he

[[Page S940]]

     charged civil right leaders (``the Marion Three'') with 
     voting fraud related to their efforts to assist African 
     American voters. The fact that the defendants in that case 
     were acquitted didn't deter Mr. Sessions. Later, as Attorney 
     General of Alabama, he initiated another voter fraud 
     investigation involving absentee ballots cast by black voters 
     that, again, resulted in findings of no wrong doing. During 
     that same timeframe, he was criticized for declining to 
     investigate church burnings, and he ``joked'' that he thought 
     Ku Klux Klan members were ``OK, until [he] learned that they 
     smoked marijuana.''
       Against that background, Senator Sessions aggressively 
     interrogated Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the Court's first 
     nominee of Latino heritage. Further betraying a deep belief 
     in natural division between racial groups, he grilled Justice 
     Sotomayor about whether she could be fair to white Americans, 
     despite her 17-year record as a jurist and having received 
     the American Bar Association's highest rating. And he 
     expressed grave concerns that she would engage in judicial 
     ``empathy'' on the high court, favoring persons of certain 
     races or ethnicities over others. He then voted against her 
     confirmation.
       Senator Sessions' prejudices are not only against people of 
     color. As an organization representing a predominately female 
     profession we are compelled to express our outrage that 
     Senator Sessions defended Donald Trump's statements about 
     grabbing women by the genitals, by saying that such conduct 
     would not constitute sexual assault. The fact that he took a 
     different position during his Committee hearing is of no 
     comfort. It only shows that he will say whatever he believes 
     will help land him in the seat of power to determine whether, 
     and against whom, to enforce our laws. His comments last fall 
     dismissing President-elect Trump's despicable treatment of 
     women is consistent with his vote in 2013 against the 
     Violence Against Women Act. As nurses, we see close up the 
     devastating effects of domestic violence against our 
     patients, and we are disturbed by Senator Sessions' alleged 
     concern that the protection of that statute should not extend 
     to victims of violence on tribal lands.
       Moreover, confirming Senator Sessions to the job of the top 
     prosecutor would exacerbate our national crisis over race 
     issues in policing and our criminal justice system. He 
     personally blocked the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, 
     a bipartisan effort spearheaded by Sens. Charles Grassley (R-
     Iowa), Mike Lee (R-Utah), and John Cornyn (R-Texas), and 
     Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). The fact that law 
     enforcement leadership throughout the nation supported the 
     reform effort made no difference to Senator Sessions. And 
     unfortunately, his actions as U.S. Attorney for the Southern 
     District of Alabama only further illustrate his indifference 
     to this crisis. For example, drug convictions made up 40 
     percent of his cases when he served in that position--twice 
     the rate of other federal prosecutors in Alabama.
       Despite the current trend of focusing resources on violent 
     crime, and away from out-dated drug war policies, Senator 
     Sessions continues to oppose any attempts to legalize 
     marijuana and any reduction in drug sentences. As Attorney 
     General, he could direct federal prosecutors throughout the 
     country to pursue the harshest penalties possible for even 
     low-level drug offenses, a step that would further exacerbate 
     our national record of incarcerating non-violent offenders--
     the vast majority of whom could be successfully treated, at 
     far lower cost to society, with appropriate healthcare 
     treatment.
       Nor should Senator Sessions be trusted to ensure equal 
     access to voting rights. He has publically called the Voting 
     Rights Act ``intrusive,'' and has insisted that its proactive 
     protections of racial minorities were no longer necessary. 
     This is especially disturbing as Senator Sessions voiced 
     public support for voter-ID laws, while his home state 
     recently tried to close over thirty DMV offices, many in 
     majority-black areas, shortly after instituting strict voter-
     ID requirements. We are reminded of the words of Coretta 
     Scott King in her letter opposing Jeff Sessions' nomination 
     to the federal district court in 1986: ``The irony of Mr. 
     Sessions' nomination is that, if confirmed, he will be given 
     a life tenure for doing with a federal prosecution what the 
     local sheriffs accomplished twenty years ago with clubs and 
     cattle prods.''
       We will not attempt to address all the positions Senator 
     Sessions has taken that are out of step with the reality of 
     the difficult times we are in, but as nurses we must include 
     our grave concern that as Attorney General he would not be 
     vigilant in enforcing environmental protections. In a July 
     2012 Senate hearing on climate science, Senator Sessions 
     dismissed the concerns about global warming expressed by 98% 
     of climate scientists, and asserted that this is ``[a] danger 
     that is not as great as it seems.'' These positions are 
     frightening. Climate change is a public health issue that 
     cannot be overstated. As nurses we have been seeing for some 
     time increases in the frequency and severity of respiratory 
     diseases such as asthma, bronchitis, and emphysema, as well 
     as an increase in cancers and aggravation of cardiovascular 
     illness. The effects of air pollution are particularly acute 
     in pediatric patients. They have higher respiratory rates 
     than adults, and consequently higher exposure. Our elderly 
     patients are also especially vulnerable. Respiratory symptoms 
     as common as coughing can cause arrhythmias, heart attacks, 
     and other serious health impacts in geriatric patients. As 
     global warming progresses, we are seeing sharp increases in 
     heat stroke and dehydration, both of which are sometimes 
     fatal.
       In our disaster relief work through our Registered Nurse 
     Response Network, we have been called upon to assist the 
     victims of Hurricane Katrina and Super Storm Sandy--events 
     that many scientists believe would not have been of the 
     magnitude they were if not for rising temperature.
       Current and future generations cannot afford to have a fox 
     minding the hen house on the important issues of civil and 
     criminal protections under the control of the Attorney 
     General. We urge you to set aside your personal loyalty to 
     Senator Sessions and evaluate honestly his record and fitness 
     for this critically important job. We urge you to vote 
     against his confirmation.
           Sincerely,
                                               Deborah Burger, RN,
                             Co-President, National Nurses United.
                                                    Jean Ross, RN,
     Co-President, National Nurses United.
                                  ____

         National Task Force to End Sexual & Domestic Violence
       Dear Member of the Judiciary Committee: We, the steering 
     committee of the National Task Force to End Sexual and 
     Domestic Violence (NTF), a coalition of national, tribal, 
     state, and local leadership organizations and individuals 
     advocating on behalf of victims of sexual assault, domestic 
     violence, dating violence and stalking, write to express our 
     opposition to Senator Jeff Sessions' nomination for Attorney 
     General of the United States of America. We have arrived at 
     this position based upon a review of his record as a state 
     and federal prosecutor, during which he applied the law 
     unevenly, and as a U.S. Senator, during which he supported 
     laws that would afford only some members of our society equal 
     protection of the law. The role of Attorney General requires 
     a demonstrated commitment to providing equal protection under 
     the law--particularly to people who face discrimination 
     because of their race, religion, gender, gender identity, 
     sexual orientation, disability or other identities. We 
     respectfully submit that Senator Sessions' record speaks for 
     itself and that his history of differential application of 
     the law carries with it the potential to harm victims and 
     survivors of gender-based violence, particularly survivors 
     from historically marginalized communities. Thirty years ago, 
     this Committee rejected Senator Sessions' nomination to the 
     federal bench due to well-justified concerns regarding his 
     problematic record on civil rights and troubling history of 
     making racially insensitive statements. These aforementioned 
     concerns, combined with his equally troubling comments on the 
     nature of sexual assault and other concerns raised below, 
     make Senator Sessions an unqualified choice to serve as U.S. 
     Attorney General.
       The position of Attorney General of the United States of 
     America, created by the Judiciary Act of 1789, bears the 
     responsibility of representing the United States in all legal 
     matters in which the country has an interest. Chief among 
     those interests is the affording of equal protection under 
     our criminal, civil and civil rights laws to all members of 
     our society. Under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 503, the President's 
     appointment of an Attorney General must be with the ``advice 
     and consent of the Senate.'' The process ensures that the 
     person holding the post of Attorney General is one fit for 
     such duty, a person with the intellectual, moral and 
     steadfast ethical capacity to uphold the laws and interests 
     of the United States and to apply the laws equally to all 
     members of society.


     Failure to Speak Up for Victims of Violence and Discrimination

       A threshold qualification for the position of Attorney 
     General is a deep understanding of the laws s/he is sworn to 
     uphold. Of critical relevance are Senator Sessions' recent 
     comments on the nature of sexual assault in response to the 
     release of a 2005 video in which President-Elect Donald Trump 
     describes grabbing women's genitalia without their consent. 
     When asked whether he would characterize the behavior 
     described by President-elect Trump as sexual assault, Senator 
     Sessions responded, ``I don't characterize that as sexual 
     assault. I think that's a stretch. I don't know what he 
     meant--.'' Federal statutes enacted prior to Senator 
     Sessions' tenure as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District 
     of Alabama criminalize ``abusive sexual conduct.'' The 
     applicable definition for conduct prohibited by 18 U.S.C. 
     Sec. 2244 is clearly stated: ``the intentional touching, 
     either directly or through the clothing, of the genitalia, 
     anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks of any person 
     with an intent to abuse, humiliate, harass, degrade, or 
     arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person.'' Thus, 
     the Senator is either unaware that abusive sexual contact is 
     illegal under federal law, or he feigned ignorance of the 
     laws he was sworn to uphold as an officer of the court for 
     the sake of political expedience.
       The Department of Justice has the exclusive authority to 
     enforce the United States' criminal statutes, including 18 
     U.S.C. Sec. 2244. The Department of Justice also has 
     exclusive jurisdiction over the prosecution of domestic and 
     sexual violence in the District of Columbia, most sexual 
     assaults perpetrated in Indian Country, and concurrent 
     jurisdiction over domestic violence offenses committed in 
     Indian Country. Any candidate for Attorney General of the 
     United States, particularly a former U.S. Attorney, should 
     possess

[[Page S941]]

     a thorough understanding of the legal definition of sexual 
     assault under federal law and under the laws of the 
     jurisdictions in which the Office of the U.S. Attorney has 
     prosecutorial responsibility. The National Task Force has 
     worked collectively for decades to ensure that legal 
     definitions in the U.S. Code and under state and local laws 
     make it absolutely clear that sexual assault is a crime. The 
     job of the Attorney General is to enforce the law without 
     fear or favor. Thus, we expect the Attorney General to 
     enforce federal laws addressing sexual assault without 
     introducing nonexistent ambiguity, because of the 
     perpetrator's identity. Senator Sessions' cavalier statement 
     about sexual assault leaves us fearful that he will not 
     vigorously prosecute sexual assault crimes, a practice 
     unbefitting of the nation's chief law enforcement officer.
       Additionally, Senator Sessions' poor history with respect 
     to fighting for fairness and equity has us justifiably 
     concerned that he will not step in to vindicate the rights of 
     survivors of campus sexual assault and other victims of 
     discrimination. The Justice Department has jurisdiction to 
     enforce a myriad of civil rights statutes, including Title VI 
     of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education 
     Amendments of 1972. These statutes bar discrimination in 
     education based on race, color and national origin and sex 
     (respectively) by educational institutions that receive 
     federal funding. On college and university campuses alone, we 
     know that 20 percent of women are victimized by sexual 
     assault. Absent an Attorney General's commitment to ensuring 
     that educational institutions root out bias and violence and 
     hold perpetrators accountable, victims of discrimination, 
     harassment or violence based on sex, race and/or national 
     origin will be unable to pursue their education in an 
     atmosphere of educational equity. Teachers surveyed since the 
     election have described thousands of incidents of ``bigotry 
     and harassment,'' stemming from incidents involving ``racist, 
     xenophobic or misogynistic comments,'' and/or ``derogatory 
     language directed at students of color, Muslims, immigrants, 
     and people based on gender or sexual orientation.'' It is 
     imperative that the person nominated to the position of 
     Attorney General possess a demonstrated record of work and 
     support for these impacted communities, including people of 
     color, immigrants, Muslims and religious minorities, members 
     of the LGBT community, and people with disabilities.
       Regrettably, Senator Sessions' career is replete with 
     actions taken and statements made in opposition to equitable 
     educational access. While Attorney General of Alabama, 
     Senator Sessions fought equitable educational access for 
     poor, minority and disabled students in Alabama even after 
     being ordered by a federal court to remedy the yawning 
     financial disparities between Alabama's richest (and whitest) 
     and poorest school districts. Additionally, his 
     mischaracterization of the Individuals with Disabilities in 
     Education Act as creating ``special treatment for certain 
     children,'' and being responsible for ``accelerating the 
     decline of civility and discipline in classrooms across 
     America,'' is appalling. In light of these remarks, we are 
     concerned not only about the Senator's willingness to use the 
     civil rights statutes to protect survivors of both campus 
     sexual assault and other forms of harassment and violence in 
     the education context, but also his commitment to ensuring 
     equal access and safety under certain programs in the 
     Violence Against Women Act for victims of sexual and domestic 
     violence who have disabilities.


                        Fair Application of Law

       We have additional concerns regarding the Attorney 
     General's role with respect to the fair, even and unbiased 
     application of the law. Victims and survivors come from all 
     racial or ethnic backgrounds, faith practices, sexual 
     orientations, and gender identities: 33.5% of multiracial 
     women have been raped, as have 27% of American Indian and 
     Alaska Native women, 15% of Hispanic, 22% of Black, and 19% 
     of White women. Additionally, 53.8% of multiracial women and 
     39.3% of multiracial men experience intimate partner physical 
     violence, intimate partner sexual violence and/or intimate 
     partner stalking in their lifetimes, as do 46.0% of American 
     Indian and Alaska Native women, 45.3% of American Indian and 
     Alaska Native men, 19.6% of Asian and Pacific Islander women 
     (data for Asian and Pacific Islander men is not available), 
     43.7% of Black women, 38.6% of Black men, 37.1% of Hispanic 
     women, 26.6% of Hispanic men, 34.6% of White women and 28.2% 
     of White men. We know firsthand that many survivors from 
     vulnerable populations hesitate to contact law enforcement or 
     do not trust the court system to address their victimization 
     because they fear, based on prior experience, that any 
     justice system response may not help them. We expect anyone 
     who serves as Attorney General to create a Justice Department 
     accessible to all; the 5th and 14th Amendments of the U.S. 
     Constitution demand no less.
       Senator Sessions' well-documented prosecutorial record, as 
     U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama and as 
     Attorney General for the State of Alabama, demonstrate his 
     propensity to inequitably apply the law to the disadvantage 
     of historically marginalized populations. Senator Sessions' 
     history leads us to question whether he will vigorously seek 
     to ensure that all victims and survivors of gender-based 
     violence, particularly vulnerable populations and those at 
     the margins of society, have access to vitally needed 
     services and legal protections.


Senator Sessions' Opposition to Protections for the Immigrant and LGBT 
                              Communities

       We are concerned that the positions that Senator Sessions 
     has taken on immigration and LGBT individuals pose grave 
     threats to vulnerable victims of gender-based violence. His 
     consistent support of immigration policies that increase the 
     barriers to safety for undocumented victims of sexual and 
     domestic violence victims pushes immigrant victims further 
     into the shadows and harms families and communities by 
     allowing perpetrators (batterers and rapists) to abuse, 
     traffic and assault with impunity. During the consideration 
     of two major comprehensive immigration reform bills, as well 
     on various other occasions, Senator Sessions has sponsored 
     amendments and stand-alone legislation to limit the 
     availability of critical safety net assistance for immigrants 
     and increase barriers to protections from abuse and 
     exploitation by penalizing local jurisdictions that fail to 
     engage in immigration enforcement activities. He has made no 
     subsequent statement that indicates that he would rethink 
     these punitive policy positions were he to be confirmed.
       His failure to support, and sometimes active opposition to, 
     progress and protections for the LGBT community leave us 
     gravely concerned that if confirmed, he would not stand up 
     for the rights of the LGBT community generally, and 
     particularly with respect to LGBT victims of violence. He 
     opposed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes 
     Prevention Act, which is of particular concern as we witness 
     a spike in harassment of minorities and bias crimes over the 
     last several months. Additionally, he supported a 
     constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. He also 
     opposed the repeal of ``Don't Ask Don't Tell.'' Senator 
     Sessions' record sends the message to marginalized survivors 
     that their experiences will not be understood, nor will their 
     rights be protected, if he is confirmed as the Attorney 
     General.


              Opposition to the Violence Against Women Act

       We are also concerned that the nominee voted against the 
     Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) Reauthorization of 2013. 
     Seventy-eight out of one hundred senators supported the 
     bipartisan bill; Senator Sessions was in the distinct 
     minority. The 2013 Act addresses the gaps in law that were 
     uncovered through outreach to and surveys of programs and 
     service providers and domestic and sexual violence victims 
     themselves.
       Our analysis revealed that many survivors were not able to 
     access services and justice to the extent they needed. Of 
     particular note, we found that LGBT survivors often lacked 
     access to justice and support based on their gender identity 
     or their sexual orientation. We also learned of the 
     deplorable lack of access to justice faced by survivors of 
     domestic violence and sexual assault on tribal lands. VAWA 
     2013 included provisions that removed one of many barriers 
     that prevent access to justice for American Indian and Alaska 
     Native domestic violence survivors. The 2013 statute's 
     provisions expand and ensure that immigrant survivors can 
     access VAWA protections, allowing survivors to come out of 
     the shadows, help hold batterers and abusers accountable, and 
     enable law enforcement to protect community safety. VAWA 
     2013's goal of ensuring equal protection of the law was 
     rejected by Senator Sessions, who cast the bill's 
     advancements toward inclusion and equal protection as 
     political maneuvering and, in that light, voted against the 
     bill. The Attorney General is tasked with ensuring that 
     VAWA's protection and programs are available and accessible 
     to all. Senator Sessions' opposition to the VAWA protections 
     and his prosecutorial record leave us gravely concerned that 
     he would not vigorously or consistently apply these 
     protections.


                               Conclusion

       The 14th Amendment provides the inalienable right that 
     every person receive equal protection under the law. Senator 
     Sessions' senate record of strenuous objection to protections 
     for historically marginalized populations, coupled with his 
     record of selective prosecutions, demonstrate his 
     unwillingness to protect marginalized victims' access to 
     justice and disqualify him from holding the position of 
     Attorney General of the United States, a position charged 
     with the responsibility of securing justice for all. 
     Selective application of the law and outward hostility 
     towards victims of sexual and domestic violence in 
     historically marginalized populations has a chilling effect 
     on their willingness and ability to seek services and 
     protection. It drives sexual violence, domestic violence, 
     dating violence and stalking underground, something we have 
     made great strides to avoid. The Attorney General of the 
     United States must be an individual committed to protecting 
     the inalienable right of equal protection under the law to 
     all within United States' jurisdiction. Moreover, his 
     minimizing comments about the nature of sexual assault call 
     into question his dedication to enforcing the law and 
     providing justice to victims of this serious crime.
       In short, we oppose Senator Sessions' confirmation as 
     Attorney General of the United States and we ask you, as a 
     member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to ask him direct 
     questions regarding the concerns raised in this letter, and 
     to advise the President, pursuant to the prescription of 28 
     U.S.C.

[[Page S942]]

     Sec. 503, that Senator Sessions' is unqualified to hold this 
     post.
           Yours truly,
      The National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, after a great deal of careful thought and 
consideration, I have decided to oppose Senator Sessions' nomination to 
be the next Attorney General of the United States.
  I have long served with Senator Sessions. While he and I have 
frequently disagreed on certain legal and civil rights issues, I have 
never doubted the sincerity or heartfelt nature of his positions. I am 
deeply concerned, however, that he cannot be the effective check on the 
Executive Branch that our nation currently needs.
  In just the short time since President Donald Trump took office, our 
Nation has faced upheaval and challenges to the way our government 
typically runs. The President's unprecedented refusal to divest himself 
of his business holdings while in office has created legal and 
constitutional conflicts that are unique in our Nation's history. His 
use of social media to antagonize American businesses has already 
caused needless volatility in our economy, which is the cornerstone of 
global financial stability. Most recently, he has unilaterally enacted 
a ban on travel to the United States from several Muslim-majority 
countries--creating chaos in airports, separating families, and 
tarnishing our Nation's image around the world. It is of great concern 
to me that Senator Sessions has already stated his unwillingness, if 
confirmed, to recuse himself from investigations into potentially 
unlawful activities of the Trump campaign and Trump administration.
  Moreover, Senator Sessions and I disagree on how the law should treat 
immigrants, refugees, the LGBTQ community, women, and racial 
minorities, among others. These disagreements go to the heart of the 
Justice Department's law enforcement and civil rights functions. For 
instance, in 2013, Senator Sessions voted against a bipartisan effort 
to reform our Nation's immigration laws. This effort garnered 
overwhelming support from both sides of the aisle and would have done 
much to address the immigration problems facing us today. He also voted 
against the 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, 
which provides much-needed support to and protections for some of the 
most vulnerable people in our communities--and is overseen by the 
Justice Department that he hopes to administer. Additionally, his 
statements and votes in opposition to reaffirming the prohibition on 
torture run counter to our values and basic precepts of international 
law. And he has voted against every recent effort in this Chamber to 
establish the most basic, commonsense laws that would keep our 
communities safe from the threat of gun violence. He also has called 
into question the Voting Rights Act and praised the Supreme Court's 
harmful decision striking down a key section of this law.
  These are just some of the clear disagreements I have with the 
positions Senator Sessions has taken over the years, which cause me to 
doubt his ability to effectively lead the Justice Department. Our next 
Attorney General should be a champion for all Americans' civil rights 
and civil liberties. The occupant of that office should give Americans 
confidence in our judiciary, our elections, and the impartial due 
process that is the hallmark of the rule of law. Therefore, I cannot 
support Senator Sessions' nomination to be Attorney General of the 
United States.
  Mr. MARKEY. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Toomey). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of the 
nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions to be the next Attorney General of 
the United States.
  I enthusiastically support this nomination, because I know Senator 
Sessions to be an independent-minded man of great integrity. He is 
someone who understands and respects the rule of law. He values it 
deeply, in fact. He is someone who understands the difference between 
making law and enforcing the law. He understands the difference between 
setting policy and enforcing laws that contain policy, and he is 
someone who understands that, as a lawyer, the very best way to serve 
your client often involves offering honest, independent advice--honest 
independent advice of the sort that might not always occur to the 
client on the client's part.
  I have listened to the remarks of some of my colleagues, and I have 
to state that I have served with Senator Sessions for the last 6 years, 
ever since I first became a Member of this body, and I don't recognize 
the caricature that has been painted of him over the last 24 hours. So 
I want to address head-on several of my colleagues' expressed concerns 
about his nomination.
  Some of my colleagues have expressed and relied upon what really 
amount to policy concerns--policy disagreements between themselves and 
Senator Sessions--as a reason to oppose his nomination.
  As I explained it in our Judiciary Committee markup last week, I have 
disagreed with Senator Sessions not just 1 or 2 times but on many, many 
occasions and not just on a few isolated issues that are only 
tangentially related to something important to me but on circumstances 
and issues that are very important to me and that are at the center of 
my legislative agenda. We have disagreed, for example, about sentencing 
reform. We have disagreed about immigration reform, and several 
important national security issues implicating constitutional law, and 
constitutional policy. All of these issues are very important to both 
of us--to me and to Senator Sessions. They can be emotional issues, and 
they happen to be issues on which Senator Sessions and I disagree, not 
just a little bit, but we happen to disagree taking almost 
diametrically opposed positions in many of these areas.
  Notwithstanding these disagreements--disagreements that I have seen 
in every one of the 6 years I have served in this body so far--I have 
never seen Senator Sessions raise his voice in anger against a 
colleague. To be sure, Senator Sessions makes his arguments vigorously, 
passionately, and forcefully, and yet he does so in a way that ensures 
that he will always treat his colleagues, even though he disagrees with 
them, with dignity and respect. You may not persuade him that your 
position is right and his is wrong, but he always gives you the 
opportunity to make your case. I think Members of this body know that. 
Those Members of this body who have actually taken the time to get to 
know Senator Sessions and actually have the opportunity to work with 
him, even the opportunity to disagree with him know that. Senator 
Sessions interacts with his colleagues in a way that demonstrates a 
degree of respect for differences of opinion that are seldom seen here. 
In fact, I can't think of a colleague who better exemplifies the 
principles of collegiality to which we aspire in this body than does 
Senator Sessions.
  Perhaps even more importantly, Senator Sessions obviously understands 
the difference between lawmaking on the one hand and law enforcement on 
the other hand. This is plain from testimony he provided before the 
Judiciary Committee.
  As just one example, he told us:

       To go from the Legislative branch to the Executive branch 
     is a transfer not only of position, but of the way you 
     approach issues. I would be in an executive function and 
     enforcement function of the law this great legislative body 
     might pass.''

  His commitment to the rule of law and even application of the law is 
also plain from his public record, from his record serving in other 
positions. His record, for example, as U.S. Attorney for the Southern 
District of Alabama, and his record as attorney general for the State 
of Alabama.

  To put the matter quite plainly, a great number of Senators have 
served in the Cabinet over the years. The standard has never been that 
a Senator is somehow unfit for the executive branch--for a Cabinet 
position in the executive branch--if he or she has disagreed with you 
on important issues. If that were the standard, no Senator would ever 
be confirmed because we debate important public policy issues

[[Page S943]]

every single day, and it is never the case that we will find any among 
us, even colleagues, with whom we agree most of the time who are going 
to agree with us 100 percent of the time. So I urge my colleagues to 
put aside any policy differences they might have with Senator Sessions 
when considering his nomination and when deciding how they are going to 
vote in response to his nomination, because those simply are not 
relevant to his job and, at a minimum, ought not to be disqualifying 
factors relevant to his job.
  As to independence, some of my colleagues doubt that Senator Sessions 
will be an independent voice at the Department of Justice. 
Respectfully, I can say with full confidence that anyone who actually 
knows Senator Sessions knows that he is fiercely independent-minded. He 
never shies away from expressing his closely held, sincerely developed 
views on any issue, even when political pressure might suggest a 
different course of action be in order. It is clear that Sessions will 
apply his independent-mindedness to his job after he is confirmed as 
Attorney General of the United States.
  During his testimony before the Judiciary Committee, he repeatedly 
outlined the importance of having an independent Attorney General, and 
he explained how he would fulfill this obligation, how he would become 
precisely such an Attorney General, one who would exercise a degree of 
independence and not simply be a rubber stamp.
  For example, he told us that every Attorney General ``understands, I 
think, that if a President wants to accomplish a goal that he or she 
believes in deeply, you should help them do it in a lawful way but make 
clear and object if it is an unlawful action.'' He described that 
role--being able to tell the President ``no,'' that is--as ``the 
ultimate loyalty to him.''
  He testified: ``I hope that President Trump has confidence in me so 
that if I give him advice that something can be done or cannot be done, 
that he would respect that.''
  Sessions also explained that if the Attorney General were asked ``to 
do something plainly unlawful, he cannot participate in that. He or she 
would have to resign ultimately before agreeing to execute a policy 
that the Attorney General believed would be unlawful or 
unconstitutional.'' Senator Sessions made this point repeatedly. He 
made it with great emphasis and in such a way that it is unmistakably 
clear to me that this is the Attorney General he would aspire to be and 
that he would in fact become after being confirmed.
  Now, some may argue that you cannot necessarily trust his testimony 
because no Attorney General nominee would declare an intention to be a 
rubberstamp to the nominated President. Others may argue that Senator 
Sessions was too involved in the Trump campaign to be impartial. This 
is one of those points that you either believe or don't believe. You 
can't reason your way to an answer. You have to know the person.
  So I urge my colleagues to reflect on their experiences with Senator 
Sessions. If I know one thing about him, he is not a ``yes'' man. If I 
know one thing about him, it is that of all the people with whom I have 
served in the Senate, he is one of the very last who I would ever 
expect in any context to sell out his sincerely held views on the basis 
of political expediency. Instead, Senator Sessions takes his 
professional responsibility very seriously.
  When he was a lawyer, he took seriously his obligations to his client 
and the law. As a Senator, he has taken seriously his obligations to 
the people of the State of Alabama. I know he will do the same thing at 
the U.S. Department of Justice.
  He told us that ``the Attorney General ultimately owes his loyalty to 
the integrity of the American people and to the fidelity of the 
Constitution, and the legislative laws of the country.'' This 
demonstrates that Senator Sessions understands, as any good lawyer 
does, that every lawyer has a client, and you understand how best to 
represent that client and that client's interest. You have to 
understand the nature of the attorney-client relationship. You have to 
know who the client is, you have to know how to interact with that 
client, and you have to be willing to push back on that client, even 
when--especially when--it is difficult, because that is the job of the 
lawyer. The obligations incumbent upon the lawyer provides that the 
lawyer sometimes has to push back on the client.
  At the end of the day, it seems to me that some of my colleagues 
perhaps just want an Attorney General who will be openly, 
affirmatively, presumptively, perennially hostile to the President's 
agenda. Now, that has never been the standard, and it is not a workable 
way of arranging the executive branch of the U.S. Government. The 
President should be allowed to assemble his or her team so long as the 
President picks people who are qualified, people who are willing and 
able to fulfill their constitutional responsibility, and people who do 
not have anything disqualifying in their backgrounds that would suggest 
that they cannot be trusted with this type of very substantial 
responsibility. Senator Sessions plainly satisfies these criteria.
  So I support Senator Sessions' nomination. I do so wholeheartedly. I 
do so, I would add, with a somewhat heavy heart, knowing that as we 
take this step and confirm Senator Sessions as the next Attorney 
General of the United States, we will be losing a colleague--not just 
any colleague but a colleague that has been a dear friend to me, who 
has been a kind mentor and a good example to me at every stage of my 
service in the Senate. He has done this not only when we have agreed, 
but he has done this especially when we have disagreed. That is what I 
love so much about Senator Sessions--that he has taught me much about 
how to get along with and respect people who sometimes reach different 
conclusions than I reach on my own.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  I yield the floor.