[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.