[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 6145-6148]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              MINIMUM WAGE FAIRNESS ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED

  Mr. REID. I move to proceed to Calendar No. 354, the minimum wage 
legislation.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the motion.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 354, S. 2223, a bill to 
     provide for an increase in the Federal minimum wage and to 
     amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to extend increased 
     expensing limitations and the treatment of certain real 
     property as section 179 property.


                                Schedule

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, following my remarks and those of the 
Republican leader, the time until 10:30 a.m. will be equally divided 
and controlled.
  At 10:30 a.m. there will be a vote on the Ninth Circuit judge, whose 
name is Michelle Friedland. Until cloture is invoked there will be up 
to 30 hours of debate prior to vote on the confirmation of the 
nomination. So we have two votes we need to have before we leave here 
this week. We can have a vote at 4:00 tomorrow afternoon and the second 
vote would be around 7:00 or thereabouts tomorrow afternoon or tomorrow 
evening. We have to finish these two matters before we leave this week.
  The schedule is up to--not Republicans but a few Republicans--so I 
would suggest the Republicans deal with their own, and we can finish 
this morning if we need to. We certainly could.
  Mr. President, I would be happy to yield to my friend, the dignified 
and really superb Senator from Georgia.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Georgia.


                      Welcoming the Guest Chaplain

  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I thank the leader for the introduction 
and I am very pleased to introduce today the Reverend Raphael Warnock, 
the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. He is a gifted 
author, a gifted and prolific preacher, and a great citizen of the 
great State of Georgia and the great city of Atlanta.
  Following in the traditions of the King family and the preachers of 
Ebenezer Baptist Church, he is the fifth pastor in the history of 
Ebenezer to carry out the mission of Ebenezer with great humility and 
great ability and great love, and is a great pastor in our eyes. I am 
pleased to welcome him to the U.S. Senate, and I know we will all be 
blessed in his presence today.
  I yield back.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader is recognized.


            46th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1968

  Mr. REID. Tomorrow marks the 46th anniversary of the signing into law 
the Civil Rights Act of 1968, better known as the Fair Housing Act. 
This landmark legislation took a stand against housing discrimination 
and gave American families a fair shot at finding housing that was 
suitable to their needs. It is fitting we recognize this anniversary 
now, especially in light of the equality legislation we have been 
trying to pass here in the Senate recently.


                          The Economic Ladder

  One of the first well-known billionaires we heard a lot of talk about 
on the planet was the outspoken oil tycoon J. Paul Getty. He once 
quipped: ``Money is like manure. You have to spread it around or it 
smells.''
  Well, Charles and David Koch have certainly spread the money around, 
but it still stinks. It stinks because of what they do with their 
money. The Kochs are singlehandedly funding an attack on this Nation's 
middle class, instead of concerning themselves with narrowing the gap 
between the rich and the poor.
  Remember, in America today the rich are getting richer, the poor are 
getting poorer, and the middle class is getting squeezed. The Koch 
brothers have a lot to do with that. They are pumping hundreds of 
millions of dollars into rightwing organizations. And I didn't make a 
mistake when I said hundreds of millions of dollars.
  Instead of giving Americans a fighting chance to prosperity, the two 
richest brothers in the world are focused on getting Republicans 
elected. These Koch-funded organizations and politicians advocate only 
for what makes the Koch brothers richer. The two richest brothers in 
the world want to be richer, and it comes at the expense of the average 
American.
  The Kochs are the classic example of two men at the top of the ladder 
who

[[Page 6146]]

would pull that ladder up to make sure no one else can join them. That 
is exactly what the Koch brothers are trying to do to middle-class 
families. The only difference, of course, is that Charles and David 
never even scaled the ladder in the first place. They were born at the 
top rung. But somehow the Kochs have fooled themselves into thinking 
they rose to the top by their own merits. They didn't.
  More importantly, the Koch brothers have decided that they want their 
inherited wealth, this company now they have at the top--they want to 
make sure this ladder that should be reachable for everyone is 
unreachable. They are determined to make that ladder totally 
unreachable for others. These billionaires do this by rigging the 
system even more in their favor, making sure the Kochs' interests are 
being represented at all costs.
  As has been reported--and not by me--the Koch brothers have what some 
journalists are calling secret banks. Organizations serve as middlemen 
to fund ultraconservative scare campaigns. Through these secret banks, 
such as Freedom Partners and others, the multibillionaire Koch brothers 
pump money into radical institutions and all these rightwing 
organizations ultimately come to the same conclusion: America's best 
bet for economic prosperity is to help the Koch brothers get richer.
  So what do these groups do with the funds they receive from their 
billionaire benefactors? Groups such as Americans for Prosperity--try 
that one on for size, the Americans for Prosperity--lie to the American 
people about ObamaCare, hoping families will not sign up for affordable 
health care.
  Extreme organizations such as Independent Women's Forum tell women 
equal pay for equal work is not necessary because they say wage 
disparity is a myth.
  The Koch-backed Manhattan Institute is another one of their shell 
organizations that tries to convince the country that out-of-work 
American families don't need unemployment benefits. Why? Because they 
are out of work because they are lazy.
  And, of course, the Heritage Foundation uses Koch dollars to say 
raising the minimum wage is bad for business and will kill the economy.
  It is clear that the Kochs are using these puppet organizations in 
their proxy war on the middle class. But Charles and David aren't just 
using radical rightwing groups to keep average Americans from scaling 
the rungs. They are using Republicans. They are spreading their money 
around helping Republicans get elected.
  Unfortunately, the Republican Congress has shown itself to be in 
lockstep with the Koch brothers' radical agenda. The Republicans 
continue to push repeal of the Affordable Care Act. I watched the 
speech on the House floor yesterday, where one House Member indicated 
that he tried almost 60 times to repeal the bill--almost 60 times.
  What did Albert Einstein say? The definition of insanity is when 
someone tries to do something over and over again and they get the same 
result. They are insane. That is Albert Einstein, not me.
  They are doing this regardless of the fact that even the Koch 
brothers; that is, their business, Koch Industries, benefited from 
ObamaCare.
  Remember that ladder. The Kochs already got what they needed from 
health care reform. They don't want other people to do the same. They 
have benefited from ObamaCare. I laid that out a few days ago on the 
Senate floor.
  Senate Republicans have blocked the equal pay amendment three times--
three separate Congresses. They won't even let us discuss it. All but 
half of Republican Senators voted against the extension of benefits for 
the long-term unemployed, and turned their back on their own 
constituents.
  As for the minimum wage, my Republican colleagues have given no 
indication to help struggling families with the minimum wage.
  The Kochs' wealth is being used to squeeze the middle class very 
much. As long as Charles and David Koch are at the top looking down, 
who cares about the little people at the bottom, in their estimation.
  It is shameful that Koch money has made its way into our Nation's 
Capitol, our news, and our homes. It is frustrating that as Senate 
Democrats look across the aisle, we don't see many willing partners in 
defending middle-class families in Nevada and across the Nation. But we 
are not going to be intimidated by these Koch surrogates in the media 
or here in this very Chamber. We will continue to fight even harder to 
protect Americans from the greedy grasp of these billionaire oil barons 
and the wrath of their radical minions. Senate Democrats will continue 
to pull that ladder out from the Koch brothers' fingers so every 
American has a fair shot at climbing to the top.


                   Recognition of the Minority Leader

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader is 
recognized.


                              Job Creation

  Mr. McCONNELL. For days now Republicans have been coming to the floor 
to ask the Democratic majority to work with us on jobs. This is the 
issue Americans say they care the most about. So it is hard to see why 
Senate Democrats seem so allergic to various jobs ideas we have been 
proposing, not to mention dozens of job-creating bills already passed 
by the House.
  Look, our constituents want us to work together to rebuild the middle 
class, to help create opportunities for the families struggling out 
there just to pay the bills. In recent days we have given our 
Democratic colleagues ample opportunity to do that. We have offered one 
innovative proposal after another, proposals that haven't had much of a 
problem attracting bipartisan support in the past, ideas such as 
reducing the tax burden on small businesses, freeing them to grow, to 
hire, to innovate, ideas such as approving the Keystone Pipeline, which 
would create thousands of jobs right away; ideas such as repealing the 
medical device tax which even Democrats acknowledge is killing jobs--
although they haven't acted to fix it yet--and ideas such as 
eliminating ObamaCare's 30-hour workweek mandate, a rule that cuts 
people's hours against their will, that disproportionately affects 
women and is forcing too many Americans to look for extra work to get 
by.
  But we go even further than just tackling the causes of joblessness. 
Our ideas go beyond just helping Americans secure jobs with a steady 
paycheck and the hope of a better future.Because we have also put 
forward legislation that offers Americans more choices and greater 
flexibility in the workforce. This is something a lot of our 
constituents are asking for, and we are responding to those concerns.
  One bill we have proposed would let working moms and dads take more 
time off to strike a better work-life balance. Another bill would 
prohibit union bosses from denying pay increases to an employee who 
works harder than her coworkers.
  These are the kinds of practical, commonsense proposals our 
constituents sent us here to actually pass. These are the things that 
would make jobs more plentiful and life a lot easier for men and women 
across our country. For some reason Senate Democrats are blocking all 
of these ideas from getting a vote. Maybe it is because they are so 
single-mindedly focused on an election that is still 7 months away.
  I mean, they have already conceded that their ``agenda'' for the rest 
of the year was drafted by campaign staffers. It is a stunning 
admission. It explains their near-total lack of interest in practical 
solutions to the everyday concerns of our constituents. It also 
explains why the only jobs that Senate Democrats seem to be interested 
in these days are their own.
  This is a big problem. Not only does it reinforce the widespread 
belief that Democrats are not serious about jobs, it also reinforces a 
growing impression that Democrats are simply out of their depth when it 
comes to our economy. Think about it: Washington Democrats are well 
into their sixth year of trying to get the economy back on track--6 
years.
  Yet for many in the middle class things only seem to have gotten 
worse.

[[Page 6147]]

Average household income has fallen by nearly $3,600. The number of 
Americans actually working in the labor force has dropped to its lowest 
level since the Carter era. Millions are looking for work and can't 
find it, and the new rules and regulations just keep on coming. They 
have tried all their usual liberal solutions--higher taxes, 
``stimulus,'' and more regulations. They have tried all the standard 
stuff and it has not worked. Doing more of it won't work either.
  This may be difficult for Washington Democrats to hear, but it is 
time they switched from their failed ideological approach. It is time 
for them to shelve their political games and work with us to pass 
practical legislation for a change--legislation that can finally rescue 
the middle class from so many years of economic failure.
  I have laid out a number of commonsense proposals already. There is 
more we can do if Democrats are willing to reach across the aisle and 
help deliver for the American people. My constituents expect us to do 
that. I am sure theirs do too. Honestly, there is no reason not to do 
that.
  I yield the floor.


                       Reservation of Leader Time

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
leadership time is reserved.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the time 
until 10:30 a.m. will be equally divided and controlled between the two 
leaders or their designees.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (The remarks of Mrs. Murray pertaining to the introduction of S. 2243 
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the nomination of 
Michelle Friedland to the Ninth Circuit.
  This nomination was approved in the Judiciary Committee on a strong 
bipartisan vote of 14 to 3, including support from four Republican 
members: Ranking Member Grassley, and Senators Hatch, Graham, and 
Flake. She has earned the American Bar Association's highest rating of 
``well qualified.''
  If she is confirmed, which I very much hope she is, it would mark the 
first time ever that the Ninth Circuit, the busiest circuit in the 
country by some measures, has its full complement of 29 active circuit 
judges.
  Michelle Friedland earned her bachelor's degree, with honors and 
distinction, from Stanford University in 1994. She was Phi Beta Kappa, 
and became a Fulbright Scholar from 1995 to 1996, studying at Oxford.
  She earned her law degree from Stanford Law School in 2000, where she 
was second in her class, graduated with distinction, and inducted into 
the Order of the Coif.
  She then had two prestigious clerkships. The first was with Judge 
David Tatel on the DC Circuit.
  She then clerked for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who 
attended Ms. Friedland's confirmation hearing this past November.
  Although I could not attend that hearing, it said a great deal that 
Justice O'Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court and a voice of 
great moderation and pragmatism on the Court, came to the Judiciary 
Committee and demonstrated her support in person for this nominee.
  Ms. Friedland then served as a lecturer at Stanford Law School from 
2002 to 2004 and subsequently joined the law firm Munger Tolles & 
Olsen, where she is now a partner.
  She has represented major clients, including Berkshire Hathaway, 
Boeing, Abbott Laboratories, the University of California, and Solvay 
Pharmaceuticals. She has worked on issues including criminal defense, 
class action defense, tax, patent, copyright, and antitrust.
  She has also done pro bono work, devoting time, for example, to the 
Silicon Valley Campaign for Legal Services and Equality California.
  She has won the President's Pro Bono Service Award and the Wiley W. 
Manuel Award for Pro Bono Legal Services, both from the State Bar of 
California.
  She also has broad support in the legal community. One letter came 
from 27 individuals who clerked on the Supreme Court--including for 
Justices Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas--when Ms. Friedland clerked for 
Justice O'Connor. They said that Friedland is ``respectful of 
colleagues, fair-minded to attorneys and litigants, and sharp as a 
tack.''
  A second letter is from Kathryn Haun, who previously served in the 
Justice Department under Attorney General Mukasey and in the National 
Security Division. Today she is a Federal prosecutor in Northern 
California.
  Ms. Haun has known Michelle Friedland since they were classmates in 
the same small section at Stanford Law School. Ms. Haun's letter says:

       I clerked for Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, am a 
     member of the Federalist Society, and have always been a 
     registered Republican. Notwithstanding our political 
     differences, I believe [Michelle Friedland] would make an 
     outstanding federal appellate judge if confirmed. This is 
     because Michelle has a deep respect for legal precedent above 
     seeking a particular result in a given case.

  A third letter is from the general counsel of Cisco, Edison 
International, Google, Facebook, Rambus, and other companies. It speaks 
very highly of this nominee, and says, quote: ``All parties appearing 
before her, from individual litigants to small businesses to the 
nation's largest corporations, would be confident that she will adjudge 
their cases fairly and in accordance with the law.''
  The Ninth Circuit is also the busiest circuit. It has over 1,470 
pending appeals per panel. This is two and a half times the average of 
the other circuits.
  It comes as no surprise, then, that it takes much longer to resolve 
an appeal in the Ninth Circuit than in the other circuits. 
Specifically, the Ninth Circuit takes 13.3 months to resolve an appeal. 
This is down from 17.4 months in 2011, but it is still 55 percent 
greater than the average in the other circuits.
  Thus, it is very important for businesses, individuals, and others in 
all States in the Ninth Circuit that nominees to this court are 
promptly taken up and confirmed.
  I will conclude by remarking upon what I see as a real opportunity 
for the Senate in the coming months.
  When I was first elected to the Senate in 1992, it was called by some 
the Year of the Woman. Senator Boxer and I were both elected that year, 
as were Senator Murray and former Senator Carol Moseley Braun.
  Yet after we were all sworn in, there were still only six women in 
the Senate. I became the first woman ever to sit on the Senate 
Judiciary Committee, after some very divisive hearings for Justice 
Clarence Thomas, in which the lack of women on the Judiciary Committee 
became an issue.
  At the time, the Federal courts were mainly the province of men 
appointed by the two most recent Presidents.
  About 92 percent of President Reagan's confirmed judicial nominees 
were men. That number fell under President George H.W. Bush, but only 
to 81 percent. Overall, only 12.6 percent of active Federal judges were 
women when I was sworn in to the Senate.
  Although women have been close to half of all law students for 
decades, even today only 53 of 164 active circuit judges--or 32 
percent--are women.
  Right now, there are female nominees for the Third, Ninth, Tenth, and 
Eleventh Circuits pending in the Senate--a total of six nominees, with 
four simply waiting for a floor vote. To put these numbers in 
perspective, there were only 6 women confirmed to the circuit courts 
during all 8 years of the Reagan administration.

[[Page 6148]]

  If all six of these pending nominees are confirmed, the number of 
active female circuit judges would grow by over 11 percent. That is a 
big deal, and it is a real opportunity to increase significantly the 
number of women on the circuit courts.
  Michelle Friedland is well qualified, she has bipartisan support, and 
her confirmation would give the Ninth Circuit--the busiest circuit--a 
full complement of 29 judges for the first time. I urge my colleagues 
to support her.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today, we are again voting to overcome a 
Republican filibuster of a highly qualified nominee for a judicial 
emergency vacancy on the busiest circuit court in the country. For what 
is already the third time this year, the majority leader has had to 
file cloture on one of President Obama's circuit court nominees in 
order to move the nomination forward. In stark contrast, the Senate 
confirmed 18 of President Bush's circuit nominees within a week of 
being reported by the Judiciary Committee.
  Michelle Friedland, nominated to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals 
for the Ninth Circuit, is an exceptionally talented attorney, and has 
an exemplary record of service in the top echelons of the legal 
profession. She clerked on the United States Supreme Court for Justice 
Sandra Day O'Connor from 2001 to 2002 and on the U.S. Court of Appeals 
for the District of Columbia Circuit for Judge David Tatel from 2000 to 
2001. Ms. Friedland earned her B.S. with honors and distinction from 
Stanford University in 1995. She studied at Oxford University from 1995 
to 1996 as a Fulbright Scholar and went on to earn her J.D. with 
distinction from Stanford Law School in 2000.
  For over a decade, Ms. Friedland has worked in private practice at 
Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, where she was named partner in 2010. She 
has taught as an adjunct professor at the University of Virginia School 
Law and as a Lecturer in Law at the Stanford Law School. Ms. Friedland 
has experience in both the trial court and appellate levels, including 
the United States Supreme Court. She manages an active pro bono 
practice and frequently represents the University of California in 
constitutional litigation. She received the President's Pro Bono 
Service Award in 2013 from the State Bar of California, and the LGBT 
Award from the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California in 
2009. The American Bar Association unanimously awarded her their 
highest rating of ``well qualified.''
  It comes as no surprise to me that Michelle Friedland's nomination 
has received significant support. Kathryn Haun, Assistant United States 
Attorney and Former Counsel to then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey, 
wrote to the Committee to express her support, saying ``Michelle and I 
fall at opposite ends of the political spectrum . . . Notwithstanding 
our political differences, I believe she would make an outstanding 
federal appellate judge . . . Michelle has a deep respect for legal 
precedent above seeking a particular result in a given case. She has a 
balance and a willingness to listen to all arguments before formulating 
a position on a particular issue. She displays, above all else, 
intellectual honesty and personal modesty that suit her exceptionally 
well for a federal appellate judgeship.''
  Eugene Volokh, Professor of Law, at the UCLA School of Law, expressed 
his strong support for Ms. Friedland to the Committee, writing 
``Michelle is a brilliant and extremely accomplished lawyer, who will 
make a superb judge. . . [She] has impressed not just those on her side 
of the political aisle, but conservatives as . . . well.''
  General Counsel from multiple fortune 500 companies including Google, 
Cisco, and Facebook echo their support of Michelle Friedland, noting 
that ``Her career has been marked by energy, integrity, and legal 
excellence. She has represented a broad spectrum of clients in both the 
private and public sectors . . . The careful, unbiased approach she 
would bring to the types of issues that arise before the Ninth Circuit 
are critical to our nation's values and to its economic health.''
  In their letter of support, 22 former Supreme Court Law Clerks to 
Justice O'Connor write, ``We have differing political views and 
differing careers, but we can all agree that Michelle would be an 
excellent federal appellate judge. We have . . . enjoyed her warm 
collegiality, her honesty and fairness, and her dedication to law above 
ideology. Michelle would be a tremendous addition to the Ninth Circuit 
Court of Appeals, and we urge you to confirm her nomination.''
  I ask unanimous consent that a list of letters of support be printed 
in the Record at the conclusion of my statement.
  If confirmed, Michelle Friedland would increase the gender diversity 
on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She would be the seventeenth 
female judge to ever sit on the Circuit. In comparison, 83 men have 
been appointed to the Ninth Circuit over the course of its history. Her 
confirmation would bring the percentage of active female judges sitting 
on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to nearly 38 percent. Her 
confirmation would also mark the first time, since the 29th judgeship 
was added in 2007, that it has had a full complement of active judges 
despite having the highest number of appeals filed, the highest pending 
appeals per panel and the highest pending appeals per active judge of 
any Circuit in the country.
  Yet here we are, again voting to overcome a Republican filibuster of 
an exceptionally talented nominee to a court that desperately needs to 
be operating at full strength.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

         Letters received in connection with Michelle Friedland

       July 26, 2013--Six Supreme Court Co-Clerks
       August 26, 2013--Eugene Volokh, Professor of Law at the 
     UCLA School of Law and conservative legal commentator
       August 26, 2013--Five fellow partners at Munger, Tolles, & 
     Olson LLP
       September 4, 2013--Brian Fitzpatrick, Professor of Law at 
     Vanderbilt Law School
       September 9, 2013--Anup Malani, Professor of Law and 
     Medicine at the University of Chicago
       September 9, 2013--Edward Morrison, Professor of Law at the 
     University of Chicago and Former Law Clerk to Justice Scalia
       September 12, 2013--Kathryn Haun, Assistant United States 
     Attorney and Former Counsel to Former Attorney General 
     Michael Mukasey
       September 23, 2013--General Counsels from multiple American 
     companies including Google, Cisco, and Facebook
       October 2, 2013--27 Supreme Court Co-Clerks
       October 24, 2013--28 Former Law Students and Current 
     Attorneys
       November 4, 2013--22 former Supreme Court Law Clerks to 
     Justice O'Connor
       April 9, 2014--Nancy Duff Campbell and Marcia Greenberger, 
     Co-Presidents of the National Women's Law Center
       April 9, 2014--Wade Henderson, President and CEO, and Nancy 
     Zirkin, Executive Vice President, Leadership Conference on 
     Civil and Human Rights

                          ____________________