Congressional Record, Volume 163 Issue 177 (Wednesday, November 1, 2017)

[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 177 (Wednesday, November 1, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6954-S6962]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

Freedom to Negotiate

Labor unions and strong labor laws have helped build the middle class
in America and protect the rights of workers for generations.
In the 1970s, union participation was around 30 percent, and it was a
golden era for the American middle class. Wages went up. Families had
benefits and vacations. Parents could pay for college. They could put
food on the table and have money left over. The vast, thriving middle
class was built on the blood and sweat of labor unions and those who
organized the labor unions, often at their physical peril, back in the
thirties.
Unfortunately, over the last few decades, union membership has
declined and, along with it, middle-class wages and opportunities. In
the seventies, union membership was near 30 percent, but it had fallen
to just 11 percent of all workers by 2014. That decline is mostly
because the union movement and, concurrently, the middle class, with
which it is allied, have been under attack from big corporate special
interests and the conservative movement for the better part of the last
three decades. It is well funded by a small group of very rich and, I
might say, greedy people, and it is patient.
Their goal is to, by any means necessary--Congress, the courts,
whatever--break up existing unions and prevent new unions from forming.
They will pursue any avenue in order to disrupt the ability of workers
to organize and collectively bargain for a fair share of the profits
they create so that they can make an extra buck.
These forces will do whatever it takes to keep rigging the system in
their favor, like asking the Supreme Court to rule on Janus v. AFSCME,
a case backed by the Koch brothers--$40 billion each, maybe more;
plenty of money--but they hate giving any money to workers. And there
is no record evidence of a single lower court ruling in its favor.
If anyone doubts the politicization of the Supreme Court, just look
at their being willing to hear this case twice, which comes with a
crazy legal theory that a First Amendment basis should be used to
destroy collective bargaining. It is merely designed to eliminate the
freedom of people to come together in unions. If the Supreme Court
endorses the arguments of Janus, it will be a dark day for the American
worker.
Chief Justice Roberts, who said he would be fair and call balls and
strikes, in my view, has lost all pretence of fairness. He wants to
keep the Court nonpolitical, but he keeps pushing cases like this.
Since his confirmation, under Chief Justice Roberts, the Court has
methodically moved in a pro-corporate direction in its constantly and
consistently siding with the big corporate interests over the interests
of workers. Already, it has been the most pro-corporate Court since
World War II. A decision in favor of Janus will be a shameful capstone
on that already disgraceful record.
I would say to all of those wealthy people who have plenty of money
and to all of those corporate executives who get paid in the tens of
millions, who are desperate to take money away from middle-class people
whose incomes are declining, that you are creating an anger and a
sourness in America that is hurting our country in so many different
ways.
American workers deserve a better deal, and Democrats are going to
offer it. We are calling it freedom to negotiate. We are offering the
middle class, and those who are struggling to get there, a better deal
by taking on companies that undermine unions and underpay their
workers, and beginning to unwind a rigged system that threatens every
worker's freedom to negotiate with their employer.
Our plan would, among other things, strengthen penalties on predatory
corporations that violate workers' rights; ban State right-to-work laws
that undermine worker freedoms to join together and negotiate;
strengthen a worker's right to strike for essential workplace
improvements; and provide millions of public employees--State, local,
and Federal--with the freedom to join a union and collectively bargain
with their employers.
Over the past century, labor unions have fought to stitch into the
fabric of our economy a basic sense of fairness for workers. Each
worker left on his or her own has no power against the big corporate
interests that employ them, but together unions and workers who unite
in unions can have some say.
No one taught me better about the lack of fairness than a 32BJ worker
I met several years ago at the JFK International Airport, who was named
Shareeka Elliot. When I first met Shareeka, she was a mother of two
children who was struggling to make ends meet. She was working the
graveyard shift cleaning the terminals at JFK and serving hamburgers at
McDonald's during the day. She was forced to rely on public assistance
since she had gotten so little in wages from those jobs. She lived in a
house with six other family members to be able to pay the rent. She was
not a freeloader. She was working two jobs, but she got minimum wage
and could hardly support herself. She barely saw her children and spent
most of her free time in getting to this job--this poorly paid, minimum
wage job. She had to take a bus for 2 hours from East New York to the
JFK International Airport.
She was not angry, by the way, as she was a churchgoing lady. She had
faith in God to provide, but she suffered so.
By the way, 30 years ago, if you had cleaned bathrooms at an airport,
you would have been employed by the airlines or by the terminal. But
because these companies have learned to farm out the labor to
subsidiaries, to franchises, and to other corporations that have no
accountability, now cleaning those toilets is a minimum wage job.
Over the last 4 years, though, I have seen Shareeka and her coworkers
start to rebuild their dreams. She said to me: Senator, if I only could
get minimum wage, I might be able to take my kids out to a restaurant--
I never could--or buy them toys for Christmas. I never could do that.
Shareeka joined the union, and they fought for a $15 minimum wage. In
some parts of the country, that may seem like a lot of money. In New
York City, I can tell you that it does not go that far. Costs are
higher. Shareeka was able to quit her second job and spend time with
her daughters, like all parents want to do. Shareeka and her coworkers
won a union contract, and now they are able to gain the tools they
needed to protect themselves and do their work in a safer environment.
Shareeka is a metaphor for ``American workers,'' so many of whom have
lost good-paying jobs that have gone overseas or that have been closed
due to automation. When they organize in these new types of jobs, they
can get the kinds of wages people used to get in the jobs that have
gone away.
It is pretty simple: When workers have the freedom to negotiate with
their employers, they have safer working conditions, better wages, and
fairer overtime and leave policies. Shareeka's story is a testament to
that fact.
Our better deal, the freedom to negotiate, will do for so many
Americans what Shareeka's union did for her in New York. It will turn
things around for our country. Maybe middle-class wages will start
going up, and maybe people will start having faith in the future again.
We Democrats--hopefully, maybe, joined by a few courageous
Republicans--are going to fight to get it done.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gardner). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague Senator
Brown for leading the effort on the floor to speak out against the
latest attacks on union rights that are in front of the Supreme Court
right now. I am very proud to join him to highlight the contributions
unions have made to our middle class, to the economy, and to our
country. I want to express my commitment to stand up against any
attempts to undermine workers' rights to join a union and bargain
collectively.

[[Page S6955]]

Since day one, President Trump has broken his campaign promise, which
was to put our workers first, by rolling back worker protections and
putting corporations and billionaires ahead of our working families,
and now we are seeing corporate special interests doubling down on
their attempts to undermine the rights of workers to band together. So
it is critical now more than ever that we are committed to protecting
our workers and their ability to advocate for safe working conditions,
better wages, and a secure retirement.
Unions helped create the middle class in this country and helped a
lot of our families in the last century become financially secure. But
over the last few decades, as workers' bargaining power and union
density have declined, we as a country have seen a decline in the
middle class and a rise in income inequality in this country. As we all
know, too many families today are struggling to make ends meet.
Meanwhile, corporations' profits are at an alltime high.
I will continue to fight back against any attempts by this
administration and by special interests to rig the rules against the
people who go to work every day. I will keep fighting for policies that
will help families save just a little more in their bank account,
whether it includes raising the minimum wage or fighting for equal pay
for equal work or strengthening our workers' rights to seek out and
join a union and bargain collectively. I urge all of our colleagues who
want to help working families to get ahead to join me in that effort.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. DUCKWORTH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. DUCKWORTH. Mr. President, I am here to speak out in favor of
working families and how we can empower American workers to obtain good
jobs, to secure a safe retirement after a lifetime of hard work, and to
give them the freedom to join together to negotiate for better pay and
safer working conditions.
Unions in the United States are important for our families and for
our Nation's economy. Organized labor is one of the greatest forces
driving the middle class, which is especially important for our
veterans and members of the military. Union jobs help provide our
servicemembers and veterans with the economic opportunities that they
have earned. Union jobs help working moms and dads put food on the
table, and union jobs help power the engine of our economy--our middle
class. That is why I am working every day to protect the rights of
working people and why I stand shoulder to shoulder with organized
labor.
We must work together to combat the assault on the protections that
workers have fought so hard to secure. It is more important than ever
that we here in Washington work to expand economic opportunity for
hard-working Americans, many of whom come from a union home. That means
passing labor law reform to make it easier, not harder to join a union.
That also means expanding the use of project labor agreements for major
construction projects and opposing efforts to repeal prevailing wage
laws. It also means defending the Davis-Bacon Act. The Federal
Government can and should be a model employer that encourages companies
to pay fair wages.
It is important to note the great progress that collective bargaining
is making for all people. More families today have two working parents
than ever before, and women's growing role in our unions have increased
to nearly half of the labor workforce. In Illinois alone, 44 percent of
union workers are women. The labor movement, which had a pivotal role
in creating national minimum wage, the 40-hour workweek, overtime pay,
and standards for workplace health and safety, is now also impacting
women workers and their families in a significant way.
The collective voice that working Americans have is responsible for
improving sick leave and paid family leave policies at the State and
local levels. These efforts can also lead to reducing our Nation's
long-lasting wage gaps between gender and race. Labor unions tend to
raise wages and improve benefits for all represented workers,
especially for women, and women of all major racial and ethnic groups
experience a wage advantage when they are in a union. There is still a
long way to go in the wage gap fight, but unions are leading the way to
make those gaps smaller.
Unfortunately, organized labor is under attack. In Illinois, the
anti-union surge is on the rise. Nationwide, so-called right-to-work
efforts are growing. We need to be clear on one thing: These laws do
absolutely nothing to strengthen workers' rights, despite their
misleading names and rhetoric.
Make no mistake, opponents of organized labor are well funded and
relentless in advancing union-busting campaigns. We must work together
and challenge these growing dangers to America's middle class.
The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide a case that could determine
the future of American unions. A slim majority of conservative Justices
may hand down an anti-worker decision that would dramatically undo
existing precedent and sabotage the ability of unions to effectively
represent hard-working, everyday Americans. Workers should not be able
to reap all the benefits of union negotiations while refusing to pay
dues that made those efforts possible. Make no mistake, a decision
sanctioning this practice would strip away freedom from millions of
Americans. It would steal their freedom to join together to bargain for
better wages, it would steal their freedom to join together to insist
on worker protections, and, ultimately, it would betray middle-class
America, which relies on organizing to effectively negotiate with
powerful corporations.
Another way we can support our union workers is by making a serious
investment in our Nation's infrastructure, which leads to more good-
paying jobs and greater economic opportunity for working families.
Improving our Nation's infrastructure is really just common sense. That
is why I introduced a bill, which was passed into law, to cut redtape
and reduce delays on construction projects in Illinois and our
surrounding States. Upgrading our transportation systems will help
Illinoisans and all Americans who depend on our roads and transit
systems to get to work every day, as well as businesses that need our
airports, highways, and our freight network to ship their products.
I am working each day to support our hard-working, middle-class
families. Through organizing, unions have become champions for working
families both in and out of the Federal Government.
I thank our union representatives for all the work they do for our
families, our communities, and our Nation.
Thank you.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, last year, powerful corporate interest
groups actually stole a Supreme Court seat and handed it over to their
handpicked choice, Neil Gorsuch. Now those powerful corporate groups
are about to use that seat to deal a devastating blow to hard-working
teachers, firefighters, nurses, and police all across this country.
On September 28, the Supreme Court announced that it would hear a
case called Janus v. AFSCME Council 31. AFSCME 31 is a union
representing public sector workers in Illinois. This case will
determine whether the public sector unions that represent teachers,
nurses, firefighters, and police officers in States and cities across
the country can collect fees from all the employees in the workplaces
they represent.
Many expect that Justice Gorsuch will deliver the deciding vote in
that case, that he will force unions to represent employees who do not
pay dues and, in doing so, cut off sustainable funding for public union
organizing.
Judges are supposed to be impartial, but there is no reason to expect
that Justice Gorsuch will be impartial in this case. On the afternoon
of September 28--the very same day that the Supreme Court announced
that it would hear the Janus case--Justice Gorsuch attended a luncheon
at the

[[Page S6956]]

Trump International Hotel. And he didn't just attend an event at a
hotel that makes money for the President. Nope. He gave the keynote
speech for a rightwing group funded by one of the Koch brothers and by
the Bradley Foundation--billionaires and wealthy donors who are pumping
money into the people behind the Janus case.
It is no surprise that these rich guys want to break the backs of
unions. After all, unions speak up, unions fight back, and unions call
out billionaires who rig the system to favor themselves and to leave
everyone else in the dirt.
What is at stake in the Janus case is basic freedom--the freedom to
build something strong and valuable, the freedom to have a real voice
to speak out, the freedom to build a future that doesn't hang by a
thread at the whim of a billionaire. And just as the Supreme Court
decides to take up a decision that puts the freedom of millions of
working people in jeopardy, Justice Gorsuch shows up as the star
attraction for a billionaire-sponsored outing to celebrate an
organization that is sponsoring an operation to put workers' freedom on
the chopping block.
With this kind of brazen disregard for fairness and impartiality, it
is no wonder that Gallup Polls have found that fewer than half of all
Americans approve of the way the Supreme Court is now handling its job.
In a shameless decision to abandon even the appearance of neutrality,
Justice Gorsuch makes it clear that he is on the attack against
American unions and American workers.
In the Trump administration, workers have been under repeated attack.
Since taking office, President Trump has signed several laws sent to
him by the Republican Congress, laws that directly undermine the wages,
benefits, health and safety of American workers. In just 10 months,
they have rolled back rules designed to make sure that Federal
contractors don't cheat their workers out of hard-earned wages. They
have delayed safety standards that keep workers from being exposed to
lethal, carcinogenic materials. They have given shady financial
advisers more time to cheat hard-working Americans out of billions of
dollars in retirement savings, and the list goes on.
This is a democracy, and in a democracy, the government in Washington
is supposed to work for the people who sent us here. So why is it that
the Federal Government seems to be working against the interests of 150
million Americans who work for a living? Well, there is one reason--
money.
Money slithers through Washington like a snake. Its influence is
everywhere. There are obvious ways that we know about--the campaign
contributions from giant corporations and their armies of lawyers and
lobbyists--but it is also the think tanks and the bought-and-paid-for
experts who are funded by shadowy money, whose point of view seems
always to help the rich and powerful get richer and more powerful.
Powerful interests invested vast sums of money in electing President
Trump, and with each of his anti-worker actions, their investments are
paying off. Powerful interests also spent vast sums of money to push
Federal judges who will tilt our courts even further in favor of
billionaires and big businesses.
They did it when they spent millions of dollars to hold open a
Supreme Court seat for over a year. They did it when they spent
millions more to promote Neil Gorsuch to fill that seat. Now that the
Court is poised to deliver a massive blow to public sector unions and
workers, their investment is paying off big time.
The stakes here couldn't be higher. Millions of teachers, nurses,
firefighters, and police officers are looking to the Court for a fair
hearing of the case. They are holding out hope that their freedom to
come together and to stand up for themselves in the workplace, their
freedom to fight for higher wages, their freedom to fight for more
generous benefits, and their freedom to fight for a better future for
themselves and their children will be preserved.
Unless we make real change, working people are just going to get
kicked again and again, and we can make change. We can make the change
right here in Washington. We can stand up and fight for our democracy,
and we can start by demanding that everyone in our government is
accountable, including the President of the United States and the
Supreme Court of the United States.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CASEY. 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. CASEY. I also ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning
business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, 40 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled
that nonunion public workers who benefit from the work conducted by a
union to negotiate contracts that they benefit from should have to pay
a fee to cover costs associated with this work. If all workers benefit,
it is only right that everyone contributes a fair-share fee.
However, in recent years, there has been a well-funded effort by
special interest groups backed by corporate billionaires to dismantle
unions and silence the voice of workers. There have been a number of
attempts to overturn the 1977 decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of
Education. Other efforts have targeted State legislatures where they
have had success in many States. In other States like Pennsylvania,
these efforts were blocked.
Workers already have the right to decide whether to join a union.
They have the right to decide. It is common sense that if these workers
benefit from the higher wages and better working conditions that result
from contract negotiations undertaken by the union, that those workers
should have to chip in for the cost of these negotiations. That is just
fair. These negotiations get results and they benefit workers. They
benefit workers who are in the union and benefit workers who are not in
the union.
The right to bargain collectively has been an integral part of
raising income and growing the middle class over the course of the last
century. Being able to organize and bargain collectively allows workers
to demand higher wages and salaries and of course boost their incomes.
These workers have more money to provide for their families, to
increase consumption, which in turn increases both production and
employment. Putting more money in the hands of workers is good for
workers and for the country.
Over the last several decades, we have seen the balance of power
across our Nation tilt more and more in favor of the wealthy and the
largest corporate interests at the expense of working Americans.
The Supreme Court has not been immune from this trend. Under Chief
Justice Roberts, the Court has become an ever more reliable ally for
big corporations. A major study published in the Minnesota Law Review
in 2013 found that the four conservative Justices currently sitting on
the Court--Justices Alito, Roberts, Thomas, and Kennedy--are among the
six most business-friendly Supreme Court Justices since 1946. So four
of the six most business-friendly are serving on the Court at the same
time.
A review by the Constitutional Accountability Center--which is an
ongoing review and is updated with every case the Supreme Court
decides--shows the consequences of the Court's corporate tilt, finding
that the chamber of commerce has had a success rate of 70 percent in
cases before the Roberts' Court--a significant increase over previous
courts.
These are all critical cases. These are cases of critical importance
to everyday Americans. These are cases involving, for example, rules
for consumer contracts, challenges to regulations ensuring fair pay and
labor standards, attempts by consumers to hold companies accountable
for product safety, and much more.
Well-funded corporate special interests do not have the best
interests of working families at heart. They are pushing these efforts
to reduce their bottom line by reducing the incomes of working
families.
That is why we are standing today to make sure that the voice of
working Pennsylvanians and Americans are heard. To increase incomes and
strengthen the middle class, we need to

[[Page S6957]]

stop the assault on workers and labor unions, whether it happens in
Congress or in State legislatures or, indeed, in the U.S. Supreme
Court.
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. PETERS. 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. PETERS. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in proud support of
America's workers--the men and women who build our cars and our homes,
who move American-made products across oceans, lakes, and highways, who
teach our children every school day, who take care of our families when
they get sick, and who keep us safe in our communities. I have seen
firsthand the importance of unions, both in my home State, where I grew
up, and across the country.
This is deeply personal for me. My father Herb was a public school
teacher and an active member of the Michigan Education Association. My
father-in-law Raul was a proud member--and continues to be a proud
member--of the United Auto Workers.
My mother Madeleine found economic opportunity as a nurse's aide. As
part of providing the best care possible to patients, she fought for a
better workplace for her colleagues, and then she went on to help
organize her workplace. She later served as a union steward with the
SEIU.
My parents raised me in a middle-class, union household. They
instilled in me the need, both, to stand up for rights and to never
take those rights for granted.
Standing together for fair wages, safer workplaces, and better hours,
Michigan's strong labor movement built the American manufacturing
sector and a middle class that made the United States a global economic
powerhouse.
My parents and their fellow union members embraced the union values
that built Michigan: the ability to earn a good life where you grow up,
hard work, fairness, and looking out for your neighbor--whether it is
your neighbor on the assembly line or in your neighborhood. These are
not just union values. These are American values, and I learned to
cherish them at a very young age. Now, I am sorry to say, these values
are under attack, and I can't help but to take it personally.
This year we have seen new and unprecedented attempts to undermine
our Nation's workers and their ability to collectively bargain. Earlier
this year, my Republican colleagues passed legislation to repeal
Federal rules that simply required businesses to disclose previous
workplace safety and fair pay violations before they could contract
with the Federal Government. The reason for this rule was fairly
straightforward: We should not be sending taxpayer dollars to employers
that can't keep their employees safe or that cheat them out of their
hard-earned dollars. Yet Republicans repealed the rule.
Now, across the country, we are seeing a wave of so-called right-to-
work legislation, which in practice means you can work more hours for
less pay. In Michigan we are seeing the impact of this misguided
legislation.
Supporters of these policies told us that wages and job growth would
increase if Michigan just passed laws to crack down on union
membership. Well, Michigan has the law, but workers and their families
aren't seeing any of the promised benefits.
In the years since passage of the law, the economic data clearly
shows that, yes, corporate profits are up but not wages. In fact, when
comparing Michigan to States that haven't attacked union membership,
studies suggest that we have fallen behind pro-union States when it
comes to worker pay.
I am deeply concerned by the ongoing efforts to implement national
anti-union laws, including the Janus v. AFSCME case that the U.S.
Supreme Court will rule on in the very near future. A negative ruling
in this case would be a huge loss for American workers and would
undermine the right to collectively bargain.
We should be doing everything we can to support American workers and
their right to fight for better working conditions, fair pay, and the
ability to care for their families. Instead of attacking our Nation's
labor unions, we should be celebrating them.
For generations, unions have helped America build the world's most
robust middle class and a powerful economy, second to no other nation.
Unions have not only helped workers to take home more pay and have a
safe place to work, but they have also built communities. Unions teach
their members valuable skills and help them earn a secure retirement
and have quality healthcare.
Big corporations are not trying to undermine unions because they are
looking out for newly hired employees. They are fighting against unions
because of what unions stand for--the right to collectively bargain for
better pay, increased workplace safety, hard-earned retirement
benefits, and quality healthcare.
I ask my colleagues to take a moment to consider our history and the
hard-working men and women who built this great Nation of ours. Union
members are our neighbors, our firefighters, our police officers, our
teachers, our nurses, our brothers and sisters, our moms, and our dads.
They build our cars, our homes, and our infrastructure.
I urge all of my colleagues to honor these men and women by opposing
any and all efforts to expand harmful policies designed to undermine
American workers.
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. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lee). Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I wish to thank my colleagues for joining
me on the floor today to stand with American workers. We organized a
group of close to a dozen Senators who have heartfelt and strong views
about the dignity of work, who understand so well that workers are
working harder and smarter but earn less and less money, in spite of
their hard work, in spite of their commitment.
I have been joined on the floor already by Senator Schumer from New
York, Senator Murray from Washington State, Senator Duckworth from
Illinois, Senator Warren of Massachusetts, Senator Casey from
Pennsylvania, and Senator Peters from Michigan, and speaking after I
speak will be Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Senator Merkley of
Oregon and Senator Durbin of Illinois. I thank them for standing up for
American workers.
People in Ohio and around the country, as I said, work harder, and
they work longer than ever, but they have less and less to show for it.
Over the last 40 years, GDP has gone up, corporate profits have gone
up, executives' salaries have gone up all because of the productivity
of American workers. Again, GDP goes up, corporate profits go up,
executive salaries explode upward. Workers are more productive, but
workers have not shared in the economic growth they have created. Hard
work just doesn't pay off like it did a generation ago.
It is no coincidence that over that same timeframe, we have seen
attack after attack after attack on the labor movement. Corporate
special interests have spent decades stripping workers of their freedom
to organize for fair wages and for benefits. The case the Supreme Court
just agreed to take up, Janus v. AFSCME, is yet another attempt to chip
away at workers' power in the workplace.
These are public service workers. These are public schoolteachers,
librarians, police officers, school nurses, firefighters, and postal
workers. They are not looking to get rich in these jobs. They are just
looking to be paid what they earn, the same as any other worker in this
country.
Make no mistake, an attack on public sector unions is an attack on
all unions. An attack on unions is an attack on all workers, whether
they belong to a union or not, and I mean all workers, whether you
punch a timeclock or whether you fill out a timesheet or swipe a badge,
whether you make a salary or earn tips, whether you are on payroll, a
contract worker,

[[Page S6958]]

a temp, working behind a desk, cutting hair, working on a factory
floor, or working behind a restaurant counter. I mean all workers.
The fact is, all workers across this country--as profits go up, as
GDP goes up, as executive compensation goes up, as workers get more
productive, all workers across this country are feeling squeezed. Work
doesn't pay off the way it used to.
We have seen what happens when workers have no power in the
workplace. Increasingly, corporations view American workers as a cost
to be minimized instead of a valuable asset in which to invest.
Look at the news we got last month. This piece of news, when I
mention this to some of my colleagues, when I mention it around the
State of Ohio, peoples' mouths drop. The Bank of America, Merrill Lynch
downgraded the fast food restaurant Chipotle because the company pays
its workers too much.
Remember what happened with American Airlines a few months ago.
American Airlines announced it was doing a companywide pay increase,
and the stock market punished them by knocking their stock down.
Imagine that. So when a company wants to do the right thing, Wall
Street says: No, you are not going to do the right thing. Wall Street
is saying: We want all the money. Don't give any of this money to
workers--workers making $10 or $12 or $15 an hour. Think about that.
Wall Street and Merrill Lynch didn't say they paid their workers too
little, they paid their workers too much. That is why the labor
movement matters.
Pope Francis spoke about how unions perform ``an essential role for
the common good.'' He said that the labor movement ``gives voice to
those who have none . . . unmasks the powerful who trample on the
rights of the most vulnerable workers, defends the cause of the
foreigner, the least, the discarded.''
I just had the pleasure, for the last few minutes in my office, to
speak with Bishop Murry of Youngstown, OH, and we were talking about
the Pope and about steelworkers in Youngstown and about the struggles
of workers and wages and layoffs and all the things that have happened
to--where the winds of globalization have buffeted the workers in that
community. Bishop Murry, as does Pope Francis, understands what too
many in this town don't; that workers feel invisible, entire
communities feel invisible. They feel like they are getting used and
abused and some other words I can't say on the Senate floor.
What, exactly, is the point of creating economic growth if workers
don't share in it, if ordinary families still can't get ahead?
Everybody here loves to talk about tax reform and bring the corporate
rate down, but nobody is talking about paying workers more or giving
workers more job security or what we should be doing--in working with
companies and creating good jobs.
My legislation, the Patriot Corporation Act, says if corporations do
the right thing--if they pay their workers well, if they pay benefits,
if they do the kinds of things American corporations should do--then
they get a lower tax rate because they have earned it.
We seem to have forgotten that all work has dignity. We have
forgotten, as the Pope said, that ``the person thrives in work. Labour
is the most common form of cooperation that humanity has generated in
its history.'' Think about that. ``Labour is the most common form of
cooperation that humanity has generated in its history.''
What Washington and Wall Street don't seem to understand is that
workers drive our economy, not corporations. You focus on the middle
class, you grow the economy from the middle out, not cut taxes on the
richest people and expect the money to trickle down into more money in
workers' pockets and more people are hired. You grow the economy by
treating workers well, by investing in workers. That is why we need
unions to ensure that we spread economic growth to the people creating
it, to the people working too many hours for too little pay.
I think about workers like Stephanie in Columbus. She has worked for
25 years as a childcare attendant for students with special needs. She
wrote, saying: ``Every day I wake up before the sun rises to prepare
for three daily shifts aiding students with special needs on their way
to and from school.''
That is the person whom--because she belongs to a union, that is the
person whom corporate America, that the rightwing of the Republican
Party wants to attack? That is the kind of person--Stephanie in
Columbus--they want to attack?
She worries that cases like this that undermine her union ``could
severely limit our voice on the job and hurt our ability to best serve
the children we care so much about.'' She said: ``Unions provide a
pathway to the middle class for all people.''
Think about a janitor I met in Cincinnati. I was speaking at a
dinner. There was a table down front with seven middle-age women--a
pretty diverse group. There was one empty seat at the table. It was
told to me by some others that this group of women were janitors,
custodians in downtown Cincinnati, southwest Ohio, and these women had
signed their first union contract with downtown Cincinnati business
owners. So there were 1,200 janitors working in these downtown
businesses--in these big buildings downtown--and they had signed their
first union contract.
I asked if I could sit at their table, and they said yes. I said to
the woman next to me: What is it like to have a union?
She said: I am 51 years old, and this is the first time I will have a
1-week paid vacation in my life.
Think about that. We don't think--I am guessing that most of my
colleagues think: Well, you know, people have paid vacations and people
have paid sick leave. Well, much of the country doesn't, No. 1; and No.
2, those who do often have that because they had a strong union--a
union that negotiated sick leave pay for them, a union that negotiated
vacation days for them, a union that negotiated family leave for them,
and then, when those workers at a company get it, the other
nonunionized workers and companies get it, and then those companies
compete with other companies.
So the fact is--there is a bumper sticker that says: ``If you enjoy
your weekend, thank a labor union.''
Labor unions brought to this country things like weekends and more
leisure time and decent pay and all that. That is why unions matter.
That is why this decision in the Supreme Court matters.
If the Supreme Court rules against AFSCME, it will starve the union
for resources they use to organize and grow and advocate for more
workers. At the risk of being disrespectful, it would be nice if those
nine members of the Supreme Court would follow the admonishment of Pope
Francis, the words of Pope Francis, who admonished his parish priests
to go out and smell like the flock. Find out where people live and
work. Find out what people do.
Find out the living conditions of people.
Abraham Lincoln in the White House one day was talking to his staff.
His staff said: You have to stay here in the White House. You have to
win the war. You have to free the slaves. You have to preserve the
Union.
Lincoln said: No, I have to go out and get my public opinion baths.
It could be important if the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court--who
has an Ivy league education, went to the best colleges and the best law
schools, grew up in a wealthy family, has done very well as a
professional, and is a very smart man--if he would go out and smell
like the flock, if he would go out and get his public opinion bath,
maybe he would hear some stories, as I have heard in my time in the
Senate.
He would hear stories from people who talk about how important it is
that Stephanie has union protection. He probably has never really
thought much about the fact that janitors, who have worked 30 years as
janitors--35 years for some of those women--but never had a paid day
off, never had a paid vacation. He might learn something from them and
think a little differently about this.
If the Supreme Court rules against AFSCME, it is the opposite of what
we need. We should be making it easier, not harder, for workers to come
together and negotiate. That is why, this week, I am introducing
legislation to strengthen the National Labor Relations Act, to make it
harder for employers to deny workers the freedom to collectively
bargain by playing games with their job titles and classifications.

[[Page S6959]]

Instead of stacking the deck even further in favor of corporate CEOs,
we need to make it easier for workers to organize. That is how we make
hard work pay off.
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. WHITEHOUSE. 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. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, the Janus decision coming up in the
U.S. Supreme Court, which Senator Brown has just spoken about, is one
that merits the attention of people who are concerned about the country
and the Court.
I wish to make two points in my remarks. The first has to do with the
very difficult to explain--or at least very difficult to comfortably
explain--pattern of 5-to-4 decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, in
which the five consist entirely of Republican appointees.
The Supreme Court makes a lot of decisions, of course. But there is
something that is particularly interesting about the 5-to-4 decisions,
where the five Republican appointees line up and roll the other
appointees. When we start looking at those decisions, there are some
really significant patterns that emerge. The first pattern goes to
issues in which the court is treading into the world of politics.
Bear in mind that when Sandra Day O'Connor left the Court, it lost
its only member who had ever run for office. What Justice O'Connor left
behind was the first Court in the history of the United States that had
exactly zero experience with elections and politics. There has never
been as ignorant and green a Court in the history of the United States
when it comes to politics; yet there has rarely been a Court so
flagrantly eager to jump into politics and make very consequential
decisions.
When we look at the 5-to-4 decisions--which I think are probably the
bulk of those--each one aligns with the political interests of the
Republican Party--each one. It is not one or two or even three. It goes
on and on and on.
The oldest one in the series is probably Vieth v. Jubelirer, which
was the decision in which the five Republicans said: This whole
gerrymandering thing is just too difficult for us. We are going to
declare open season. There is going to be no judicial remedy. We can't
figure out one, so we don't have one.
It is not just me who is saying that. The ABA section on election law
said in its volume: Look, basically, it is game over for court review
of gerrymandering. What immediately happened after that was the
Republican Party went to work with that green-light signal and did the
REDMAP project, which created massive, bulk gerrymandering through the
battleground States. This was not an easy plan because, in some cases,
they had to spend millions of dollars to win one or two State
legislative seats, so they could then control the State legislature, so
they could then change the districts consistent with the bulk
gerrymandering scheme.
The result is what happened in States like Senator Brown's, where,
when he was reelected, he was on the ballot with President Obama, who
was also reelected, and the majority of the votes cast in his State for
Members of Congress were cast for Democrats, but against that
background, many more Republicans than Democrats actually went to
Congress in that election.
A similar thing happened in Pennsylvania. My recollection is that on
the same set of facts, Senator Casey, a Democrat, was reelected;
President Obama, a Democrat, was reelected; a majority of Pennsylvania
votes were cast for Democratic Members of Congress; the delegation was
13 Republicans and 5 Democrats. Somebody is messing around, and it was
a 5-to-4 Republican Supreme Court that opened that can of worms and
unleashed REDMAP on the political landscape.
They have a chance to review that now. Senator McCain has written a
bipartisan brief asking them to wake up and smell the coffee about what
has gone wrong here. We will see if they do or not, but, clearly, that
was a decision that benefited the Republican Party's polls, and,
clearly, it was 5 to 4.
Then you go to the Voting Rights Act cases. There were two of them.
In the first one, Bartlett v. Strickland, the five Republican members
teed up a new standard, which they mentioned, but they didn't really
act on it. Then, when it came to the home run pitch, Shelby County v.
Holder, they created this new theory about which very conservative
judges, like Posner, said that, basically, it stands on thin air. It
has no basis whatsoever in any real legal theory. They knocked out the
part of the Voting Rights Act that requires States with a wretched
history of abuse of minorities and Democratic voters at the polls to
get preclearance from the Department of Justice or from a court before
they can change their State laws to scare people or keep people away
from the polls.
With that knocked out, guess what. All these legislatures across the
South went straight to work. They passed law after law after law to
deny people access to the polls, and over and over again, the courts
that reviewed those and the appellate courts that reviewed the district
court decisions found that the laws had been intentionally
discriminatory, that the legislature had intended to keep people away
from the polls, that they had intended to discriminate against Democrat
and minority voters, and that they had chosen to do that deliberately.
Of course, you can go back after all that litigation and clean it up
and try to get the laws stricken and all of that. But in the meantime,
you have had election after election in which the effect at the polls
was had.
They couldn't have been more wrong about the notion that if you
lifted the preclearance requirement, everybody was going to be fine.
Those were just the bad old days; it was a whole new America; racism
didn't exist; efforts by one party to keep the other parties away from
the polls weren't anything to worry about. Move along, move along;
nothing to see here, folks. They were just plain dead wrong. They had
absolutely no clue, and they have been proven dead wrong since. But,
again, both of those cases were 5 to 4, all Republicans together.
Then, of course, the big whammy came when the big special interests
that so often are the core backers of the Republican Party decided that
they felt really constrained by having to live under campaign finance
limits. They wanted to be able to spend unlimited money in elections.
Well, that is fine. It reminds me a little bit of the story of the
French philosopher who touted the majesty and equality of the French
law, which forbid both rich and poor alike from sleeping under bridges
and begging for bread. Well, guess who actually sleeps under bridges
and begs for bread. It is not rich and poor. And guess who can take
advantage of a rule that you can spend unlimited money in politics.
Only those who meet two conditions: One, they have unlimited money to
spend, and, two, they have a good reason to spend it. In other words,
really big special interests.
The Court's decision, presuming that this spending was going to be
either independent or transparent, has been turned into a mockery by
events since. They obviously did not know what they were talking about.
Facts have borne out that they did not know what they were talking
about. They were completely dead wrong.
Interestingly, since then, despite the presumption of their decision
having been cut completely out from underneath it, the Court has shown
no interest in a correction. They have shown no interest in correcting
their error. They seem completely happy, the 5 to 4--the five
Republican appointees--completely happy to have the landscape of
American politics polluted with this money.
There again, it wasn't just one decision. It was a bunch of them.
Citizens United was the big one; Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Bullock
another; McCutcheon v. FEC yet another; Davis v. FEC yet another;
Arizona Free Enterprise Club's FreedomClub PAC v. Bennett yet another--
all 5 to 4, all the Republicans lining up, all throwing out precedent
or laws that had stood for 100 years.
So Janus fits right into this pattern of 5-to-4 decisions. Indeed, it
is actually a little bit worse because something weird happened early
on when one of those 5 to 4--the Republican five Justices on the
Supreme Court--signaled to the corporate supporters of

[[Page S6960]]

this ideology that he was interested in taking a whack at unions in a
particular way.
There is a pet peeve of the union-busting rightwing and the corporate
sector, which was a decision from 1977 called Abood v. Detroit Board of
Education. That decision allows unions to collect some dues from
nonmembers on the grounds that their work for their members has benefit
to other members. So you break out their wages work, which helps
everybody, from their political work, which you can disaggregate from,
and it allows you to collect certain dues--not complete dues, but
certain dues--from nonunion members. What Abood did was to help unions
keep revenues from the service that they give to nonmembers who benefit
from their work. Without that rule, employees would be encouraged to be
free riders and just get the benefit of what the union is doing without
making any contribution to support it whatsoever. Of course, if that
were to happen, the balance of power between corporations and unions
would shift further toward corporations.

The story is told quite well in the New York Times by a reporter
named Adam Liptak, who is a Supreme Court reporter. I will read his
story.

In making a minor adjustment to how public unions must
issue notifications about their political spending, Justice
Alito digressed to raise questions about the
constitutionality of requiring workers who are not members of
public unions to pay fees for the unions' work on their
behalf. . . . Justice Sonia Sotomayor saw what was going on.
``To cast serious doubt on longstanding precedence,'' she
wrote in a concurrence, ``is a step we historically take only
with the greatest caution and reticence. To do so, as the
majority does, on our own invitation and without adversarial
presentation is both unfair and unwise.''
Michael A. Carvin, a leading conservative lawyer, also saw
what was going on. He and the Center for Individual Rights, a
libertarian group, promptly filed the challenge Justice Alito
had sketched out.

I would say that he had invited.

Indeed, Mr. Carvin asked the lower courts to rule against
his clients, a Christian education group and 10 California
teachers, so they could high-tail it to the Supreme Court.

Let me interrupt my reading of the story for a second and make the
point that this lawyer wanted to lose his case in the lower courts. It
is rare for lawyers to go into a court wanting to lose. You have to
have kind of a weird motive to take a case into court that you want to
lose. The obvious motive here is that Mr. Carvin had heard the signal
from Justice Alito that he was willing to rule his way if he would just
bring the right case. So it didn't matter whether he won or lost.
Losing is actually quicker. It gets you right up to the Supreme Court.
He is not interested in litigating the matter truly on the merits; he
is only interested in getting as quickly as possible to the Supreme
Court. Why? Because he knew that 5 to 4, he would get the right
decision.
When you are a lawyer, the most sickening feeling you can have is to
go into court with the belief that the judges you are going to argue
before are prejudged against you. The confidence that Carvin must have
had to want to lose a case deliberately below so that he could hightail
it at high speed up to a court that he knew was going to rule his way
because they told him they would--that is not American justice in the
way it should be delivered.
As it turned out, they took up the case. It was called Friedrichs. It
was going to be 5 to 4, just as expected, and then Justice Scalia
unexpectedly passed away. If you read about how the press took that, it
was very clear that the fix had been in on this case.

``Corporate America had high hopes,'' the Journal said,
because ``the Supreme Court appeared poised to deliver long-
sought conservative victories.''

Since when should a court be poised to deliver long-sought
conservative victories, not fair, dispassionate adjudication? But that
is the reporting of the friendly Wall Street Journal. And those long-
sought conservative victories were going to take the form of `` `body
blow[s] that business had sought against consumer and worker
plaintiffs.' The cases `had been carefully developed by activists to
capitalize on the court's rightward tilt.' ''
Come on. This is not adjudication any longer; it is just the exercise
of political power. And these 5-to-4 partisan decisions by the Supreme
Court are degrading the reputation of the Supreme Court, they are
degrading the integrity of the Supreme Court, and they are degrading
the role of the judiciary in our vaunted scheme of constitutional
government in the United States of America.
With that, I yield to my distinguished colleague from Oregon.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, our Nation was founded on a powerful
principle encapsulated by the first three words of our Constitution:
``We the People.'' We are meant to be a nation, in the words of Abraham
Lincoln, ``of the people, by the people, and for the people,'' not a
nation by and for the most powerful, not a nation by and for the most
privileged. Yet time and time again, we are seeing a complete and total
corruption of the vision of our Constitution.
We saw this earlier this year with one TrumpCare bill after another
designed to rip healthcare away from 20 to 30 million Americans to
deliver tax giveaways to the richest in America. We have seen it just
recently in the consideration of a budget that reversed that and said
that in order to give $4.5 trillion of tax giveaways almost entirely to
the richest Americans, we will take $1 trillion out of Medicaid and
half a trillion out of Medicare. We have seen this powerful conversion
of standing our Constitution on its head, and now we have the Supreme
Court fully participating in this effort in a case called Janus v.
AFSCME. It is the very epitome of the principle of a nation so
corrupted that it honors the opposite of what our Constitution stands
for.
The sole purpose of this case, Janus v. AFSCME, is to undercut the
ability of workers to organize. This is an assault on the freedom of
working Americans to associate with their coworkers. It is an assault
on the freedom of working Americans to negotiate a fair wage. It is an
assault on the freedom of Americans to fight for fairer benefits and a
safe workplace. Bottom line: It is an assault on the freedom of workers
to participate in the wealth they work so hard to create.
In short, this is the right to exploit that our Supreme Court--
majority of five--is so determined to elevate. I have read the
Constitution, and I have never seen embedded in it a right to exploit,
a right to cheat, a right to take advantage of. Yet here is the
majority of the Court prepared to fight for exploitation on behalf of
the 1 percent of Americans at the very top.
The key strategy in this case is to attack the finances of workers
when they organize. Former President Jimmy Carter once said: ``Every
advance in this half-century--Social Security, civil rights, Medicare,
aid to education, one after another--came with the support and
leadership of American labor.'' It has been workers banding together to
say: We can create a better foundation for families to thrive. And that
hasn't just created a better foundation for those who belong to unions;
it has created a better foundation for all workers. We saw them
successfully band together and fight for a 40-hour workweek, fight for
minimum wage, fight for sick leave, and fight for healthy and safe
working conditions--again, benefits that every worker enjoys because
workers were able to organize and fight to receive and win these
provisions.
What is really going in the Janus case? Any organization, in order to
function, has rights and responsibilities. Rights are the rewards you
get for participating, and responsibilities are the requirement that
you be part of the team and you contribute to the effort.
When I was small, probably just 2 or 3 years old, my mother had a
book she would read to me that involved the animals in the barnyard.
Animal after animal was asked to participate in making the bread, and
animal after animal turned it down, but when the bread was baked, they
wanted a full share even though they had refused to participate in the
effort to create it. This is what Janus is all about. It is about the
right to the rewards, divided from any responsibility to get the work
done.
When workers organize, they say: We are going to have to be able to
have the finances to drive this organization, and to do that, we need
to have every worker contribute a fair share. Those fair share fees
mean that all the workers

[[Page S6961]]

are in it together, they are all contributing, and they all benefit
from the rewards.
Forever, the courts have said: Yes, with the reward goes the
responsibility. That is true of any organization. It is fundamental in
how organizations work. If you don't show up here on the floor, you
don't get to vote. Every organization has its responsibilities that go
with its rewards. But the 1 percent have chosen a strategy that says:
We will take one organization in America--and that is workers
organizations--and we will drive an absolute wedge between the
responsibility and the reward.
These fees that we are talking about, these fair share fees, are not
fees that go to political purposes. They don't go to donations to
candidates. They don't go to organizing campaigns walking door-to-door
for candidates. They don't go to advertising on the television or the
web. They are simply the cost of having a team that works to negotiate
an agreement with a company.
I find it absolutely evil that a majority of the Supreme Court is
excited about embracing this right to exploit other workers by saying
in this one case in America, you get the rewards without the
responsibilities. If the Court was applying that to a stockholder in a
company, the equivalent would be to say that the stockholder doesn't
have to contribute to the costs of the management of the corporation,
so they can demand back their share of what the management spends on
their salaries, on their office spaces, on their private jets, and on
their trips to do whatever they do, of the time they spend negotiating
acquisitions to build the size of the company or striking deals to sell
their products. That would be the equivalent, that a stockholder gets
the rewards of all of that negotiation without having to participate in
the cost. But this is not a situation in which five Justices want to
apply consistent principle because their goal isn't to honor the
Constitution, and their goal is not fairness; their single goal is to
demolish the ability of workers to organize, to get a fair share of the
wealth they work to create.
We can see that already our Nation is in trouble on this principle.
For the three decades after World War II, we had workers who had the
strong ability to organize and demand a fair share, and we saw a
revolution in the prosperity of workers in those three decades from
1945 through 1975. Individuals who had lived in shacks, individuals who
had been wiped out by the Great Depression suddenly were able to buy,
on a single worker's income--it didn't even take two incomes--a three-
bedroom ranch house with a basement and a single-car garage and were
still able to save money for an annual camping trip and perhaps to save
some to help their children launch themselves into life. That is what
we had when workers got a fair share.

Yet, in the midseventies, the multinational companies said: Do you
know what? Let's undercut the American worker by making our goods
overseas in China and importing them. That way, we will demolish the
jobs here in America, and we, the company, will have made things at the
lowest price in the world, have sold them at the world market price,
and have made a lot more money. This strategy worked for the
multinational companies. They made vast sums of money for their
stockholders and for their executives.
This application of different rules for foreign workers and domestic
workers really gave a huge advantage to our competitor overseas and to
a company that spanned both shores and could move its production
overseas. So we saw the loss of 50,000 factories; we saw the loss of 5
million factory jobs; we saw the loss of an enormous number of supply
chain jobs; and we saw, without those payrolls being spent in the
community, an enormous loss of retail jobs in the community, but it
made the wealthy wealthier, and that was the goal of the strategy.
So here we are, facing this case that will come before the Court
later this year, but the members of the Court have, essentially,
already declared their positions. Four members of the Court were on the
previous version of this when the Court tied 4 to 4, and Neil Gorsuch,
who was added to the Court, has been very clear on which side of this
he stands.
Should we put an asterisk by Neil Gorsuch's name? Should a 5-to-4
decision, with Gorsuch being in the majority, even carry weight here in
our society? This is the seat that for the first time in U.S. history
was stolen from one President and delivered to another. The majority of
this body right here stole the seat, undermining the integrity,
dishonoring the oath, the responsibility for advice and consent, and
damaging the legitimacy of the Supreme Court. It was done because it
was a strategy to enable the 1 percent to rip off ordinary working
Americans. The prize for that was a position on Citizens United that
now allows the wealthiest Americans to continue to fund campaigns
across this country to drown out the voices of ordinary people and a
position on this case, the Janus case, that says that we will take one
organization in America, that of the workers, and divide the rewards
from the rights.
We know who is behind this strategy. It is the Koch brothers through
their organizations, the National Right to Work Foundation and the
Liberty Justice Center. They were behind the strategy for the theft of
the Supreme Court seat. They were behind the massive increase in third-
party spending that polluted the campaigns across this country. They
are behind this strategy to destroy the vision that is embedded in our
Constitution.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said: I am opposed to this legislation because
it gives employers the right to exploit. Eleanor Roosevelt was a real
champion for workers, and she called a spade a spade. The right to
exploit is not a right that any Member of this body should pursue, and
it certainly should not be pursued by the Supreme Court.
We know that there is a chapter 2 to this strategy. The first is to
get the Supreme Court so that you can divide the rights from the
responsibilities; therefore, you as a worker do not have to contribute
to the cost, but you will benefit from the rewards. Pretty soon, very
few people will be contributing; therefore, it will undermine the
financial ability of the union to negotiate.
Then they have a second strategy. This fundraising letter was sent
out last year by the State Policy Network. By the way, the State Policy
Network is an alliance of 66 State-based think tanks that are designed
and funded by the Koch brothers and their friends to undercut the
ability of workers to get a fair share of the wealth that they create.
They said: Here is our plan to defund and defang our opponent, the
unions--to deal a blow to the left's ability to control government.
Ah, they are fancy words, but what they really meant was our goal is
to take and undo the ability of workers to organize so as to get a fair
share of the wealth they create. It is one evil act after another that
is funded by the Koch cartel.
In our Nation, we have stood up to this type of abuse time and again.
The American historian who created the phrase the ``American dream''
said, in each generation, there is a group of Americans who rises up to
take on the forces that appear to be overwhelming us. We need to call
on the people of the United States who believe in the vision of our
Constitution, to be that group to rise up and take on this effort to
turn our Constitution on its head--to strip ``we the people'' out of
our Constitution and replace it with ``we the powerful''--and to stand
up against this type of right to exploit, whether it is a bill here on
the floor of the U.S. Senate or it is a begotten majority of the
Supreme Court.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I am not the first guy to stand up here
and make this observation, but I have serious concerns with how the
nominee confirmation process has been going in this Congress.
There is a blatant lack of respect for the Senate nomination process
and an unprecedented level of obstructionism. I have been here for a
number of years, so I know what to compare it with. I have never seen
so many people being delayed in their confirmations, knowing that they
are, ultimately, going to be confirmed and that they are well-qualified
civil servants.
The Democrats are forcing cloture votes on nominees who have well
over 60 votes in support. Last week, we held a cloture vote on Scott
Palk. Scott Palk is from Oklahoma. He is a guy who everybody likes. He
doesn't have

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any enemies out there. In fact, he was actually nominated by President
Obama. He was not even nominated by this President. He ended up getting
79 votes. Still, the stall was there, and we had to wait and wait and
wait. Meanwhile, things are not getting done that should be getting
done. Furthermore, the agency positions that we have hardly ever held
rollcall votes on are being forced to occupy floor time. There is no
reason for these votes except to delay the work of the courts and our
agencies.
I am very supportive of the leader's commitment to our courts and how
he has prioritized judicial nominees. These nominations are extremely
important and will ensure that the rule of law is upheld for, possibly,
decades to come, benefiting all Americans.