[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 54 (Tuesday, March 28, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2023-S2027]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Order for Recess

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate recess from 
12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m. today for the weekly conference meetings.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BLUNT. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise to speak on the nomination of Judge 
Neil Gorsuch to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.
  It is important to reflect for a moment on how we have reached this 
moment. It has been more than a year since the untimely passing of 
Justice Antonin Scalia in February of 2016. Under article II, section 2 
of the U.S. Constitution, President Barack Obama had a duty to make a 
nomination to fill that vacant seat. He met that obligation by 
nominating Chief Judge Merrick Garland in March of 2016.
  Yet the leader of the Senate Republicans, Majority Leader McConnell, 
announced that, for the first time in the 230-year history of the 
Senate, he would refuse the President's nominee, Judge Garland, a 
hearing and a vote. Senator McConnell further said that he would refuse 
to even meet with Judge Garland. It was a transparent political 
decision made by the Republican leader in the hopes that a Republican 
would be elected President and fill the vacancy. It was part of a 
broader Republican political strategy to influence, if not capture, the 
judicial branch of government on every level of the court system.
  Not only did the Senate Republicans keep a Supreme Court seat vacant 
for over a year, they turned the Senate's Executive Calendar into a 
nomination obituary column for 30 other judicial nominees who had been 
reported out of the Judiciary Committee with bipartisan support. They 
were hoping a Republican President would fill all of those seats, and 
they were prepared to leave them vacant for a year or more to achieve 
that end.
  What kind of nominees were they hoping for? Nominees who had been 
blessed by special interests, by big business, and by Republican 
advocacy organizations.
  It was last year that then-Candidate Donald Trump released a list of 
21 potential Supreme Court candidates who were handpicked by two 
Republican advocacy groups--the Federalist Society and the Heritage 
Foundation. I am not speculating on the fact that they were chosen by 
those two groups, as President Trump publicly thanked the groups for 
giving him a list of names with which to fill the vacancies on the 
Supreme Court. It was unprecedented for anyone, including a candidate 
for President, to outsource the judicial selection process to special 
interest

[[Page S2024]]

groups, but President Trump did it. True to his word to these special 
interest groups, he nominated one of the names on the list--Judge Neil 
Gorsuch.
  The first telephone call Judge Gorsuch received about his nomination 
was not from the White House; it was from the Federalist Society, which 
was one of these Republican advocacy groups. Eventually, Judge Gorsuch 
made it to the interview stage with President Trump's inner circle. He 
met with Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, and President Trump himself. 
Those men each took the measure of Judge Gorsuch and gave him their 
approval to serve for a lifetime appointment on the highest Court in 
the land. President Trump, who had announced numerous litmus tests for 
judicial nominations, appeared very satisfied with Neil Gorsuch as his 
nominee.
  The President's Chief of Staff, Reince Priebus, even said: ``Neil 
Gorsuch . . . represents the type of judge that has the vision of 
Donald Trump.''
  There was certainly no political subtlety in that evaluation.
  After Judge Gorsuch's nomination was announced, a dark money machine 
shifted into gear. A national campaign, which cost at least $10 
million, was launched to support the Gorsuch nomination. Because it is 
dark money, there is no disclosure about who is bankrolling this 
effort, but it is a safe bet that the suppliers of dark money have at 
least a passing interest in cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
  Despite this unprecedented and unsettling process that led to Judge 
Gorsuch's nomination, the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee 
gave Judge Gorsuch a courtesy that Republicans denied to Judge 
Garland--a hearing and a vote. Why? Because Senate Democrats take the 
Constitution seriously. We do not turn our backs on the constitutional 
responsibility of advice and consent, even though that is exactly what 
our Republican colleagues did when it came to Merrick Garland.
  Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee met for 4 days to consider 
the Gorsuch nomination. In leading up to the hearing, I made it clear 
on the Senate floor that I thought that Judge Gorsuch had a burden to 
bear at that hearing.
  On February 2, I said here on the floor that Judge Gorsuch needed to 
demonstrate that he would be a nominee who would uphold and defend the 
Constitution for the benefit of everyone, not just for the advantage of 
a privileged few who happened to engineer his nomination.
  I also said that Judge Gorsuch needed to be forthright with the 
American people about his record and his views. I made it clear that 
avoiding answers to critical questions was unacceptable.
  I said that he needed to demonstrate that he would be an independent 
check on President Trump and every President and that he was prepared 
to disappoint the President and the rightwing groups that handpicked 
him if the Constitution and the law required it.
  Judge Gorsuch was given a full and fair hearing. He was given every 
opportunity to explain his judicial record and his views and to meet 
the expectations I laid out for him. I came away from this hearing 
firmly convinced that I must oppose the nomination of Neil Gorsuch.
  Here are the reasons:
  Judge Gorsuch favors corporations and elites over the rights and 
voices of Americans, often using selective textualism to advance his 
agenda. Judge Gorsuch's hearing reinforced my fear that he would lean 
toward corporations and special interest elites at the expense of 
American workers and families.
  Big business and special interests have found a friend under the 
Roberts Supreme Court. I noted at the hearing a study by the 
Constitutional Accountability Center that found that under Chief 
Justice John Roberts the Supreme Court has ruled for positions that 
have been advocated by the Chamber of Commerce 69 percent of the time.
  I am concerned, based on a review of his record, that Judge Gorsuch 
is likely to increase the pro-business leanings of the Roberts Court. 
In a series of decisions--and I have read many of them--involving 
workers' rights, discrimination claims, consumer rights, and access to 
the courts, Judge Gorsuch has, time and again, favored corporations. He 
has often substituted his own judgment for those of the agencies that 
are tasked with protecting the workers.
  No case was more egregious than the TransAm Trucking case, which was 
brought up repeatedly at the hearing. The facts are pretty well known 
by now. In January, Alphonse Maddin, a truck driver from Detroit, was 
stuck on the side of Interstate 88 in my home State of Illinois, and it 
was 14 degrees below zero outside. The brakes on his trailer were 
frozen. After waiting for a repair truck for several hours without his 
having any heat in the cab of his truck, Alphonse Maddin's body was 
starting to go numb. He called the trucking company one more time. They 
said: You have two options--stay in that truck or drag that frozen 
trailer down the interstate highway.
  Both of those options were a risk to health and safety and common 
sense. So, instead, Al Maddin unhitched the broken-down trailer and 
drove to a gas station to fuel up and get warm and then returned to the 
disabled trailer. For this, the company fired him, and that firing 
blackballed him from ever working as a truck driver again.
  Al Maddin came by my office and explained what he did. He had heard 
that there was some Federal agency that might consider what he had 
considered to be an unfair firing, so he went down to the agency and 
took out a ballpoint pen and filled out the complaint in longhand 
without the advice of counsel or any help. He was shocked when he won.
  The case went further on appeal. Seven different judges heard Al 
Maddin's case. Six of them agreed that what had happened to him was 
unfair and unlawful. The only judge who found for the trucking company 
was Neil Gorsuch.
  Judge Gorsuch's dissent claimed that he was merely looking at the 
plain text of the law and the dictionary's definition and that was why 
Al Maddin had been fired. But the Tenth Circuit majority said that Neil 
Gorsuch was cherry-picking one dictionary's definition to come to his 
conclusion. Other dictionaries and the law's purpose of protecting 
health and safety had been ignored by Judge Gorsuch.
  Republican nominees like Judge Gorsuch often claim they are using the 
supposedly neutral philosophies of originalism and textualism to guide 
their decision making, but Al Maddin's case shows how Judge Gorsuch 
used a selective choice of text to advance a pro-business agenda at the 
expense of this American worker.
  There are many other cases in Judge Gorsuch's record that demonstrate 
this trend, leading the Associated Press to say that Gorsuch's workers' 
rights opinions are ``often sympathetic but coldly pragmatic, and 
they're usually in the employer's favor.''
  Take a look at the Hobby Lobby case. In that case, Judge Gorsuch 
expanded the idea that a corporation--a business--is a person. Why? He 
wanted to permit a for-profit corporation to impose its owners' 
personal religious beliefs on more than 13,000 employees who worked at 
that corporation and to limit their access to healthcare under 
insurance policies.
  In finding for the corporation, Judge Gorsuch barely acknowledged 
that this decision burdened these thousands of employees and their 
personally constitutionally protected religious beliefs and choices.
  Judge Gorsuch also has a troubling record when it comes to protecting 
the rights of Americans with disabilities and those who are victims of 
discrimination. It was quite a scene when, last week, in the midst of 
our hearing on Judge Gorsuch, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous 
ruling that rejected a standard that had been created by Judge Gorsuch. 
I am sure that has never happened in history. This standard, which 
Judge Gorsuch had promoted for a case in which he wrote the majority 
opinion, weakened protections for students with disabilities under the 
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
  In 2008, Judge Gorsuch wrote in the Luke P. case that, under the 
IDEA, schools need only to provide educational benefits to students 
with disabilities that are merely more than de minimis.
  At issue was the legal responsibility of a school district to provide 
educational opportunities for a child with

[[Page S2025]]

disabilities. In this case, Luke was a boy from Colorado who had 
suffered from severe autism. With the assistance and support of his 
teachers, Luke had made significant progress in school--in kindergarten 
and first grade. Then, when his family moved to a new home, he had to 
change school districts. At his new school, Luke began to lose the 
skills he had gained. His behavior was worse.
  After unsuccessful attempts to address these concerns, Luke's parents 
decided that they ``could not in good conscience continue to expose 
their son, Luke, to this environment that was so detrimental to his 
educational and behavioral development.'' They decided to enroll Luke 
in a residential school that was dedicated to the education of children 
with his type of autism spectrum disorder.
  A due process hearing officer, a Colorado State administrative law 
judge, and a Federal district court all found that the school district 
had failed to provide the education that was guaranteed to Luke under 
the Federal law of IDEA and that it was, therefore, required to 
reimburse the cost of the private residential school placement that 
Luke needed.
  His parents were desperate to give Luke a chance in life, but then 
Judge Gorsuch ruled against them. In so doing, he created a new, lower 
standard for school districts in the process.
  I asked Judge Gorsuch about this. He claimed he was just following 
the law and precedent, but as I pointed out at the hearing, that was 
not accurate. A legal analysis showed that Judge Gorsuch was the first 
judge in that circuit to add the word ``merely'' to the standard.
  Luke P.'s father, Jeff, testified at the hearing and said that Judge 
Gorsuch's ``subtle wordcraft'' had the effect of ``further restricting 
an already restricted precedent with, unfortunately, my son in the 
bull's-eye of that decision.''
  What did Chief Justice John Roberts of the U.S. Supreme Court say of 
the Gorsuch standard? Here is what he said: ``When all is said and 
done, a student offered an educational program providing `merely more 
than de minimis' progress [Gorsuch's words] from year to year can 
hardly be said to have been offered an education at all.''
  The Supreme Court sent a strong message when they released this 
opinion in the midst of Judge Gorsuch's hearing. The Court unanimously 
said that the Judge Gorsuch standard was inconsistent with the law. On 
this issue, Judge Gorsuch, the nominee, is somewhere to the right even 
of Justice Clarence Thomas. This case is not an outlier. In fact, an 
analysis of his disability decisions shows that Judge Gorsuch has ruled 
against disabled students in 8 out of 10 IDEA cases.
  There was also a consistent pattern of Judge Gorsuch's record on 
discrimination and retaliation involving employers. Bloomberg BNA 
analyzed this record and found that he ruled for employers 8 out of 12 
times.
  For example, he ruled against a sex discrimination claim brought by a 
UPS saleswoman; a disability discrimination claim that was brought by a 
college professor; an age discrimination claim that was brought by two 
maintenance workers; a race discrimination claim that was brought by an 
African-American grocery store employee who was called a ``monkey'' by 
his supervisor; a gender and disability discrimination claim that was 
brought by a female county accountant with multiple sclerosis; and a 
discrimination claim that was brought by a transgender woman who sought 
to use the restroom of her gender identity.
  The case of Grace Hwang was particularly troubling to me. Ms. Hwang 
had been a college professor for 15 years. Then she was diagnosed with 
cancer. She needed a bone marrow transplant, so they gave her 6 months 
of sick leave. As it was about to expire, they told her to return to 
the classroom. Just at this same time, a flu epidemic was sweeping 
across the campus. Ms. Hwang asked to extend her leave and work from 
home so she wouldn't get infected. She felt especially vulnerable, 
having just had a bone marrow transplant.

  The university denied her request and terminated her employment 
because she asked to be protected from this flu epidemic. Judge Gorsuch 
authored an opinion upholding the dismissal of Ms. Hwang's disability 
discrimination complaint.
  Judge Gorsuch would not let a jury consider the reasonableness of her 
request. Instead, he wrote that six months' leave was ``more than 
sufficient'' and wrote that the purpose of disability law is ``not to 
turn employers into safety net providers for those who cannot work.''
  Grace Hwang's children said that Judge Gorsuch's opinion ``removed 
the human element from the equation. It did not bring justice.''
  Also, during the hearing, Judge Gorsuch refused to distance himself 
from the extreme and bigoted views of one of his college professors and 
his dissertation supervisor, Professor John Finnis, a man whom he has 
publicly praised.
  Overall, Judge Gorsuch's record raised serious concerns about what 
his confirmation would mean for the vulnerable and the victimized.
  We also came to learn that Judge Gorsuch was an aggressive defender 
of Executive power when he worked at the Justice Department during the 
Bush administration. In June 2004, after the terrible Abu Ghraib 
torture scandal, I offered the first legislation to ban cruel and 
inhuman treatment of detainees. This legislation ultimately became the 
McCain torture amendment, which, despite a veto threat by President 
Bush, passed this Senate in 2005 by an overwhelming 90-to-9 vote.
  But Judge Gorsuch advocated that the President should issue a 
statement claiming that the McCain amendment was ``essentially 
codifying'' torture techniques like waterboarding. This is despite 
overwhelming evidence from Senator McCain and others in Congress that 
this amendment was intended to do the exact opposite by outlawing 
cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.
  Judge Gorsuch testified that he was simply an attorney working for a 
client, but Gorsuch's email correspondence revealed that he was viewed 
as a ``true loyalist'' to the Republican administration. And this is a 
client that the judge actively lobbied to serve, even though their 
troubled record on torture was already a matter of public record.
  These documents from Gorsuch's tenure at the Department of Justice, 
which were not available during his earlier confirmation hearing for 
the Tenth Circuit, provide a revealing look at his beliefs on Executive 
power. They raise deeply troubling questions about what Judge Gorsuch 
would do if he is called upon to stand up to this President or any 
President who claims the power to ignore laws that protect fundamental 
human rights.
  For the majority of questions from Democratic Senators at his 
hearing, Judge Gorsuch failed to meaningfully respond. He had a 
standard set of evasions and nonanswers that he used whenever he was 
asked about fundamental legal principles and landmark cases. It didn't 
take long before this Senator, and many others, could finish his 
sentences before he started.
  In ducking these critical questions, Judge Gorsuch ended up saying 
nothing to assuage my concerns about Reince Priebus's pronouncement 
that Judge Gorsuch ``has the vision of Donald Trump.''
  The Supreme Court must serve as an independent check on President 
Trump, not a rubberstamp. But Judge Gorsuch wouldn't even comment on 
the original meaning of the Constitution's emoluments clause, 
apparently for fear of possibly implicating the President who nominated 
him.
  Judge Gorsuch might not be the first nominee to avoid answering 
questions about his views, but he went further than others. As a 
result, members of the committee can look only to his judicial record 
and his work for the Justice Department to decide their vote for this 
lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court.
  His record on the bench and his record at the Justice Department make 
it clear that Judge Gorsuch is not the right person to serve in the 
highest Court in the land. We all want judges to follow the law and 
apply the facts fairly, but it is naive to believe that this is some 
kind of robotic exercise. Every judge brings some values to the court. 
In close cases, those values can tip the meaning of the law or even the 
facts before the court. One key purpose of these hearings is to provide 
reassurance that the nominee's values are in

[[Page S2026]]

the American mainstream. I did not find this assurance in Judge 
Gorsuch's testimony last week, and I certainly didn't find it in his 
record. He received a fair hearing, but he did not earn my vote.
  Because Republicans control the Senate, we can expect Judge Gorsuch 
to be reported out of the Judiciary Committee next week and then to 
receive a vote on the Senate floor. But no one should be surprised that 
Judge Gorsuch will need to meet the threshold of 60 Senate votes in 
order to be confirmed.
  Majority Leader McConnell has made clear time and again that 60 votes 
is the standard for matters of controversy in this Senate. I will cite 
a few of the leader's more memorable quotes.
  On December 2, 2007, Senator McConnell said: ``I think we can 
stipulate once again for the umpteenth time that matters that have any 
level of controversy about it in the Senate will require 60 votes.''
  On October 28, 2009, Senator McConnell said: ``Well, it's fairly 
routine around the Senate that controversial matters require 60 
votes.''
  Then again, on July 17, 2007, Senator McConnell said: ``Sixty votes 
in the Senate? As common as gambling in Casablanca.''
  Sixty votes is a threshold that Supreme Court nominees have met for 
the past quarter century. If a Supreme Court nominee cannot garner 60 
votes in the Senate, then the President should put forward a new 
nominee.
  We are at a unique moment in history. The President has already fired 
an Attorney General and had his unconstitutional Executive actions 
blocked by many Federal courts. The President, in the first few weeks, 
has also launched unprecedented attacks on the integrity of the Federal 
judiciary. And now the Federal Bureau of Investigation has confirmed it 
is investigating Russian involvement in his election.
  A new bombshell is revealed almost every day.
  In this context, the Senate cannot simply rubberstamp a lifetime 
Supreme Court appointment for the President. Neil Gorsuch is the man 
Donald Trump urgently wants on the Supreme Court. That should give many 
Americans pause. It certainly gives pause to me.
  I cannot support the nomination of Neil Gorsuch. I will vote no when 
his nomination comes before the Judiciary Committee next week, I will 
vote no on cloture, and I will oppose his nomination on the Senate 
floor.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, the most solemn and serious and consequential 
act that the United States can undertake at any moment is to make the 
decision to send Americans into war. From time to time, war may be an 
unfortunate decision but a necessary decision--a necessary and 
potentially tragic function of any republic. And it might be 
necessitated by the need to safeguard the rights and the freedoms of 
the government's own citizens from foreign states--from those who would 
harm us. Yet we should enter into those wars and enter into any 
alliances that could lead to war only after utmost deliberation and 
strategic consideration, focusing specifically on the well-being of the 
American citizens--those people whom we are sworn to protect, those 
people whose safety is at stake whenever we go to war.
  That is why, for the past several months, I have asked that the 
Senate have a rollcall vote on the measure to ratify Montenegro's 
accession to the North Atlantic Treaty, and that is why I will be 
casting my vote against expanding NATO later today.
  Of course, treaties and alliances with other countries can be 
beneficial; there is no question about that. But the Founders of this 
country understood that their seriousness needs also to be considered--
that the seriousness of a treaty needs to be taken into account in the 
same way that you have to consider very carefully the seriousness of 
going to war, and for the very same reasons. That is why both of these 
powers--the power to make and ratify treaties and the power to declare 
and execute war--are given not to one single branch of the Federal 
Government, but rather they are shared by the legislative and executive 
branches acting together. In addition to this, treaty ratification 
requires not just a majority vote, but a two-thirds supermajority vote 
within the Senate.
  The United States should enter into treaties and alliances with 
foreign nations that will enhance the ability of American citizens to 
exercise their rights and freedoms and to safeguard those same people. 
At the heart of the NATO alliance is the article 5 guarantee for 
collective defense, stating, in essence, that an attack against any one 
NATO ally will be perceived and responded to as an attack against all. 
This means that the United States is obligated by treaty to make war 
because of an attack on an ally, and those allies are obligated to us 
for the same purpose and to the same extent. This, of course, is a very 
significant agreement. It is one that we should never take lightly. It 
is never one that we should just assume into existence any time we have 
a decision to make.
  Simply put, I don't see how the accession of Montenegro--a country 
with a population smaller than most congressional districts and a 
military smaller than the police force of the District of Columbia--is 
beneficial enough that we should share an agreement for collective 
defense. Montenegro becoming a member of NATO is certainly attractive 
to European countries because it makes the United States the security 
guarantor of yet another country in a region prone to instability and 
ethnic unrest, but that doesn't automatically make it of interest to 
the American people. It doesn't automatically mean that the benefits 
outweigh any risks to the American people by bringing this country into 
NATO.
  On the other hand, I believe the risks could outweigh the benefits to 
the detriment of the American people and result in more of our 
servicemembers being deployed overseas and at risk. The resolution of 
ratification on which the Senate is voting states that ``an attack 
against Montenegro, or its destabilization arising from external 
subversion, would threaten the security of Europe and jeopardize United 
States national security interests.''
  This makes NATO responsible not only for external security but for 
combating destabilization in a historically volatile part of the world. 
Undertaking obligations like this only increases the likelihood of 
Americans being placed in harm's way, of our brave young service men 
and women having to go into a potential field of battle.
  Further, expanding NATO does not address some of the systemic 
problems that U.S. administrations from both sides of the aisle have 
long pressed to their European counterparts: the failure of many NATO 
countries to meet decades-old defense spending obligations and the 
increasingly concerning behavior of some NATO members.
  For example, several weeks ago it was announced that American 
military personnel are now being used in northern Syria for the purpose 
of preventing infighting between one of our NATO allies--Turkey--and 
our Kurdish allies in the coalition against ISIS. This was followed in 
short order by a diplomatic crisis between Turkey and the Netherlands--
both NATO allies--in which the Turkish President accused the Dutch 
Government of fascism. European Commission President Jean-Claude 
Juncker in February rejected calls from the Trump administration, which 
were similar to pleas from the Obama administration, for European 
countries to increase their own defense spending in fulfillment of 
their existing obligations through NATO.
  Addressing such issues is much more vital to the future of NATO and 
American interests in Europe than further rounds of expansion.
  Finally, some of my colleagues have argued that we should move 
forward with Montenegro's accession into NATO because the Russians 
oppose it, just as the Russians have opposed all previous rounds of 
expansion. This is not the basis for a sound foreign policy. While the 
United States should not let another country have a veto over our 
national security decisions, it would be equally unwise for the United 
States simply to engage in certain actions just because geopolitical 
adversaries might oppose them. Such reactionary statecraft contradicts 
the ideals of prudence and practicality that our Founders hoped would 
guide our foreign policy.

[[Page S2027]]

  On a more practical level, it still doesn't mean that we should just 
be willing to put our Armed Forces in a position where our brave young 
men and women might have to go into harm's way as a result of the fact 
that a geopolitical adversary takes the opposite viewpoint.
  Further, elected officials should not have their patriotism or 
loyalty to country questioned because of their understandable concerns 
about national security, treaty obligations, and war. There are many 
thoughtful leaders and policy experts who have legitimate concerns--
both, about Russia's behavior and about the direction of NATO--and who 
support meaningful pressure against Russia through economic and 
diplomatic means, as well as the modernization of our strategic 
deterrent and missile defense systems.
  This vote, of course, is likely to pass and Montenegro will become 
the newest member of NATO this year. It is my sincere hope that the 
country will be a constructive force in addressing the operational and 
mission problems that I have described and that the Trump 
administration will press for needed reforms. But I also hope that 
American diplomatic leaders and Congress will work to identify and act 
on the security interests most relevant to the American people and 
think more strategically about our alliances and treaty partners in the 
future.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about 
the importance of the Senate's vote to ratify the accession of 
Montenegro into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO. I am 
confident we will see an overwhelming, bipartisan majority of our 
colleagues here in the Senate support Montenegro's effort to join NATO. 
This is in Montenegro's interest, it is in Europe's interest, and it is 
in the national security interest of the United States.
  NATO is the most successful security alliance in history, and it is 
essential to the stability, freedom, and prosperity that Europe enjoys 
and that the United States has enjoyed, and, really, to that stability 
that has existed since after World War II. NATO has provided the 
security and stability for the freedoms we enjoy and the prosperity. 
Montenegro's accession to NATO will help the alliance become more 
resilient, and it will deter Russian aggression on Europe's eastern 
flank, which is why the alliance invited Montenegro to become its 29th 
member last year.
  I agree that Montenegro is a small country, but it is geopolitically 
important. Its membership in NATO will complete the alliance's control 
of the Adriatic coastline, and that will strengthen NATO's southern 
border.
  Since its independence from Serbia 10 years ago, Montenegro has 
pursued inclusion in Euro-Atlantic institutions, and it has been a good 
partner to NATO. For example, Montenegro has contributed ably to the 
mission in Afghanistan, which is the only time article 5 of NATO has 
been invoked. It was after the attacks of 9/11 on the United States, 
and our response was to go into Afghanistan. Montenegro joined us, 
along with our other NATO allies in this effort. Montenegro also 
imposed sanctions on Russia for its aggression in Ukraine.
  Montenegro's accession to NATO is also critically important for the 
wider Balkan region, which faces increasing Russian influence and 
interference. After all, remember that the two major wars of the last 
century, World Wars I and II, started in the Balkans. We need to do 
everything we can to maintain stability there. This is one of the 
things that I believe Montenegro's accession to NATO will help us do. 
We saw the increasing Russian influence and the increasing effort to 
destabilize the Balkans last year in Montenegro's fall elections.
  Since those elections, Montenegrin authorities have arrested several 
people in connection with a coup attempt and a plot to assassinate 
Montenegro's Prime Minister. There is indisputable evidence that ties 
both violent plots back to Russia, which was trying to eliminate a 
high-profile supporter of Montenegro's accession to NATO and install, 
instead, a pro-Kremlin political party there. Montenegrin police are 
still working with international authorities to locate the suspected 
Russian masterminds of these efforts.
  But when the bipartisan codel from the Senate and House, led by 
Senators McCain and Whitehouse, went to the Munich Security Conference 
in February, we had a chance to meet with Montenegro's Prime Minister 
Djukanovic. He told us in very vivid detail about the efforts to 
assassinate him and about Russia's efforts to install instead a pro-
Russian government. Do we really think that Mr. Putin, who desires 
nothing more than to weaken the NATO alliance, would work so hard to 
disrupt Montenegro's inclusion in NATO if he didn't think it would 
strengthen the alliance?
  Approving Montenegro's accession to NATO would signal support for 
Montenegro's independence and sovereignty and for their continued 
efforts to move towards the West and away from Russia. It would also 
demonstrate our solidarity with countries like Montenegro that Vladimir 
Putin is trying to bully, especially in light of our own recent 
experience with Russian meddling in our Presidential election. Now is a 
critically important time to send Russia the message that we will not 
tolerate this behavior. Last fall, a bipartisan group of diplomats, 
national security experts, and former administration officials sent a 
letter to Congress urging quick action on Montenegro's accession.
  Earlier this month, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson wrote a letter 
to Senator McConnell and Senator Schumer detailing the reasons 
Montenegro's accession to NATO is in our interest and urging that we 
schedule a prompt floor vote on the accession. Virtually all NATO 
members have already formally blessed Montenegro's inclusion in the 
alliance. So it is just the United States that hasn't taken this 
important step forward.
  The case for the Senate to support Montenegro's NATO accession is 
overwhelming. That is why it is so frustrating that it has taken so 
long. With Senator Johnson, I cochaired the Foreign Relations Committee 
hearing on this subject back in September of last year. In December and 
again in January, the Foreign Relations Committee approved Montenegro's 
accession protocol, and efforts were made to secure the necessary 
agreement for the full Senate to do the same. These efforts have been 
blocked by just a few Senators, despite the overwhelming bipartisan 
support for approval.
  I am glad that Montenegro's accession is finally getting the vote in 
the Senate that it deserves. The United States has long stood for 
freedom and democracy in Europe, and I urge my Senate colleagues to 
stand strong for freedom and democracy now by voting to approve 
Montenegro's accession to NATO.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cruz). The Senator from South Dakota.