Sam Brownback

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Yes, I will.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I do, and I appreciate the opportunity to say so on the Senate floor as well. I don't want to see this process manipulated and the Senator put in a position where he is not comfortable with trying to get done what we all want. I don't think that is right. I don't think that is the comity of the Senate, and I stand with my colleagues who signed that letter as well. Again, I thank the Senator for moving this forward. If we can get this immigration bill moving forward, it would be a major accomplishment for us and for the Nation.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I stand to deliver some good news today to the Senate and hopefully contribute to the debate we are going to have probably in July on the overall issue of stem cells, embryonic stem cells, human cloning, adult stem cells, and cord blood. I wish to start by saying I think everybody is of good heart and good mind in this body and that they want to try to do something to help people in this country. While we have some differences of opinion on embryonic stem cells and on human cloning, there is strong bipartisan support in the adult stem cell and cord blood area. The differences come down to the basic view of the youngest of human life. This is a long debate. It has been going on for some time. We have differences of opinion. I view human life as sacred at all of its stages and all of its places. Period. It is unique, it is beautiful, it is a child of the living God. It deserves our respect and protection under law at the very earliest stages of life and at the very latest stages in life. It is life in this country and a life in other countries. It is life seeking to come to this country in whatever form it may be. This life is unique and sacred. We can try to divide it under law. We can say it is property at this stage of life; it is not worth living at that stage of life. All of those, I think, are false distinctions. Life is sacred, period, per se because it is human and it is sacred, period, because it is human. That is the point of view from which I come. That is the point of view from which I think a lot of Americans come. When people think about it, when they look at this issue they say: How else would you divide a baby? It is pretty hard to do unless you start where life begins and you end where life ends and you don't draw distinctions in between. Others are willing to draw that distinction in between and say a human life is not sacred, per se, at certain early stages, or if it is so decrepit at other stages of life. I think those are false distinctions. I don't think they stand the test of science. I don't think they will stand the test of time. I don't think they will stand the test of reason if one really thinks it through. That is really where we get to the point of distinction on this debate, on human embryonic stem cells, on cloning humans for stem cells. Scientifically, it may be doable. Ethically, is it moral? Is this human life a person or a piece of property? In our jurisprudence system, they are one of the two: They are either a person or a piece of property. Everything in this room--the Presiding Officer is a person; what he has on is property. People in this room are people, everything else is property. What is the youngest of human life? Is it person or property? We have had this debate before in this country. We have looked at it; we have drawn distinctions. At points in time, even in our Constitution, we have said a person was only three-fifths of a person, and yet we knew at that time: How can you be three-fifths of a person? That didn't stand the test of time and reason then, and it doesn't stand the test in this country now. Some will say that the youngest of human life is property and at some point in development it becomes a person. Yet in our jurisprudence system, we don't recognize the transition that you can go from property to personhood and, if so, where on Earth would you draw that line? When would it happen? The biology is quite clear on this point. If you start out a person, you end up a person. If you start out a human being, you don't become a plant. If you start out a human being, you don't become a desk. If you start out a human, you end up a human. The biology on this is clear. If you are a human embryo and you are given nurture, you end up, by anybody's definition, a full-scale human being. You don't transition. You don't start out as a piece of property or an egg that is going to become an eagle and end up a person. It is one person. At one point in time, we have all started out as an embryo. Whether you are Sam Brownback, the Presiding Officer, or anybody in this room, we all started out being a human embryo. We didn't start another way. If you destroy us at the earliest stage, you never end up with us at this stage. That is a basic fundamental of the argument. It is an old, old, old debate for human societies. We have had this debate. Typically, in fighting around the world, people try to dehumanize the other side. I remember watching a film on Rwanda, ``Hotel Rwanda,'' about the Rwandan genocide. I was just in Rwanda last year and in the Holocaust Museum. The one side persecuting the other side, killing nearly 800,000 in 3 weeks, in the very typical fashion of human beings demonizing the other side and calling them less than human, they were subhuman--they were roaches is what they actually referred to them as. One can look at old war propaganda and typically one side tries to demonize the other side, calling them something less than human, they are subhuman. That is a very old human debate about whether this is really a person. The truth is, the debate never stands up under any examination. Of course, the Hutus and Tutsis are humans. Of course, in our earliest Constitution, a slave was treated as three-fifths of a person; they are a full person. They are entitled to personhood. They are entitled to legal status in this Nation. Of course, any time in the history of mankind when we have deemed somebody less than a full person, we have always lived to regret it, and we always said later on: Wasn't that a horrific episode in human history where somebody was treated less than a human? Now we are back at that old debate. People are of different minds. They are not of ill will toward anybody. Many are seeking cures to very difficult diseases, to very difficult problems and human maladies and saying: If we can only go here, if we can only research on human embryos that are just frozen; they are not going to come out of the Cryovac; they are going to stay frozen; if we can only do that, if we can just take an egg and fuse it with a cell from my body and create a clone just for a little period of time, we are going to be able to solve all these human maladies; we are going to solve cancer, and we are going to fix Parkinson's disease, and we are going to solve spinal cord injuries. Then, it comes back, back, back to the same old debate: What is the human embryo that is frozen? Is this a human embryo created by the cloning process? Is it a person or piece of property? People of good will differ on that division. It is an old debate, and I think the only place to stand is that this is a person and deserves our respect. That debate is renewed in this bioethics issue. We have been going at it about 6 years now. In August of 2001, the President articulated a strategy of funding both embryonic stem cell research and adult and cord blood research, funding both of them. We have since that time funded embryonic stem cell research to the tune of half a billion dollars, $500 million. So this isn't something people can say we haven't done. We have. Those are Federal funds. No private or State money is included in that money. This is just Federal money, half a billion dollars. When we started this debate 6 years ago, I stated that for us to research on young human beings is illegal under our law, immoral under our rationale, under our legal system and, really, the law we know in our hearts and unnecessary because we have another way. We can go through adult stem cell work, we can go through cord blood work, and we can come at conclusions that will be successful in treating these human maladies. The illegal and immoral remain today. We do not allow people to research on the youngest of human beings. It is immoral how you treat the youngest of human beings because if you destroy me at that stage of embryo, I never get to become a full-scale human and realize the potential I have or other people have. Today, I want to emphasize the unnecessary part of this debate. When we started this debate in 2000, they said there was a lot of promise with adult cord blood, but we don't know if you are right. We actually think we are going to be able to come up with conclusions and solutions using embryonic stem cells or cloning, but you can't come up with them using adult stem cells. There is not enough malleability. They are not what they call in the terminology, pluripotent. In other words, if it is a nerve adult stem cell, it can't make bone. It can't make fat tissue. It turns out there is a lot more pluripotency or plasticity to these adult stem cells than originally thought, to the point where we have 70 peer-reviewed publications, treating 70--we just celebrated this 2 weeks ago--70 different human maladies with adult stem cells or cord blood. My good news today is on the illegal, immoral, and unnecessary, we now have a lot of information on the unnecessary side of this debate so that we can go forward full scale in saying we are going to successfully treat these human maladies, and we have 70 treatment areas. Some of these are nothing short of miraculous. I have a very busy chart here, but that is because this is very busy subject. This is a chart indicating 70 current human--these are not animals--human clinical applications using adult stem cells today. These are the various areas: anemias, autoimmune diseases, bladder diseases. We now have people growing bladders from their own stem cells, taking them out of the body--I believe this is a Florida researcher--putting them on a skeleton and then growing artificial bladders so that people, instead of having pouches on their side, can now have their own bladder grown. This is really taking place. Cancers, cardiovascular: I want to talk about a group having their hearts regenerated by their own stem cells, but will save that for another day. Immune deficiencies, liver diseases, neural degenerative diseases, including spinal cord injuries--I will talk about a specific example today: a young lady walking again with the use of braces. Ocular, wounds and injuries, and metabolic disorders: Those are the general categories that I want to put forward to show the unnecessary side of embryonic stem cells. This is a good news topic with which we can move forward. I have been challenged by some of my colleagues about the scientists who oppose embryonic stem cell research. I have submitted a list of 57 scientists and doctors for the Record in a previous speech who oppose destructive human embryonic stem cell research--oppose it. Embryonic stem cell research is not the right way to go, as a moral issue, for a number of reasons, but there are also a number of reasons why it is unnecessary for us to move forward in this particular category. There is also the problem--and we saw this on the use of tissues from aborted fetuses, the fetal tissue debate, and, unfortunately, when you use these young stem cells, embryonic stem cells, they tend to form tumors. Embryonic stem cells are very fast-growing, and they form tumors instead of the type of tissue we want. They too frequently are uncontrollable, and they will form tumors. That continues to be the problem in that particular area. I want to point out this chart to my colleagues regarding this issue. It is not necessary. It is unnecessary for us to do embryonic or cloning research. On the moral issue, it is illegal. But it is also unnecessary because we are getting human treatments to the very things my colleagues said that we needed to do embryonic stem cell research for and that they say we needed to do human cloning to get all of these cures. I am saying it is not necessary. We don't have to go that route, because we are getting the treatments using this ethical route. So we have this big ethical debate and quagmire, and we have a legitimate route with adult stem cells where we are getting successful treatments for people. Why would we engage in and go the unethical route when we have this big debate and divide? Why would we not just go very aggressively where we are getting human clinical trials with adult stem cells, especially when we are not getting any in the embryonic area? Why wouldn't you fully engage that and say, Well, OK, then we don't have to engage the moral debate. We don't have to say somebody is subhuman and to get to a point in our research. We can say we have a legitimate route to go. Now I want to talk about the good news highlights here. I want to put up some real patient stories for my colleagues. We had a press conference last week where we had five individuals independently treated with adult stem cells or with their cord blood. This is umbilical cord blood from mother-child that has been saved and preserved and people are being treated successfully in these areas. I want to put up a picture of Ryan Schneider from Batavia, IL. This is a miraculous story. A beautiful Christmas picture you can see here. It is a picture of him last Christmas, taken just 10 weeks after Ryan's stem cell treatment. There is already a noticeable improvement that he has. This is a young man who has an incredible story. I met him last week and his parents, and I want to say God bless him to him and his parents who really fought through a tough problem of cerebral palsy with him. His medical problems began at birth. His parents, Mary and Steve, noticed that he was having difficulty with feedings. He was falling behind in his motor skills. His mother is a very sensible woman. She heard the usual arguments of, ``Well, every kid is different, let's wait and see.'' But based on her experience, including raising Ryan's older sister, Katie, his mother knew that something wasn't right. By the age of 2 he only had two words and he was not gaining weight at all. She writes: Pointing, whining, and screaming were his only method of communication. I had him evaluated through the early intervention program and he started speech therapy. So she starts working. Nine months later he had only gained 1 pound, and after he started speech therapy he spoke only 40 words with no sentence structure, and only close family understood the words. His upper body strength was weakening. His hands were in fists most of the time. It hurt him to straighten out his hands and arms. It is the little things that only a parent would notice that set the bells off ringing. I presented these concerns to Ryan's pediatrician who referred us to a neurologist. Having five children, I can just see this developing, and I can see a mother looking at this child and knowing something is not quite right here. On July 21, 2005, we got the diagnosis of cerebral palsy. My husband and I felt like we had been punched in the stomach. Who wouldn't, as a parent. Ryan Schneider was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, a disease that affects close to half a million Americans. Mayoclinic.com describes cerebral palsy as: a general term describing a general group of disorders which affects the child's ability to coordinate body and movement. These disorders are caused by damage to a child's brain early in the course of development. Damage can occur during fetal development, during the birth process, or during the first few months after birth. The group of disorders range from mild to severe. Physical signs of cerebral palsy includes weakness and floppiness of muscles, flaccidity, and rigidity. In some cases neurological disorders such as mental retardation or seizures also occur in children with cerebral palsy. This doesn't sound like something you would want to confront in your family. Mayoclinic.com also cites that it is not curable--is not curable. Well, the Schneider family has a story to tell today. Thanks to their persistence and the work of Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg at Duke University, young Ryan has a new outlook on life. Thanks to the amazing work of cord blood adult stem cells. Ryan's mother, on the birth of Ryan, saved the cord blood. That is something I would urge anybody who is watching or thinking about it, to save the cord blood. This is a valuable asset. Ms. Schneider continues about what she did: The light went on the morning following Ryan's diagnosis. I sat up in bed, looked at my husband and said, the doctor said brain injury. We saved his cord blood. I wonder if they are using it to treat cerebral palsy. This is the day after. The mother sits up in bed: We saved it. What can we do? After days of net researching and many phone calls to leading researchers in stem cell therapy, I found very little hope or information and a lot of, ``No, I won't do the transfusion.'' No one would give my son his own cord blood. You can get donated blood products from strangers in time for surgery or trauma. This is absurd. I called Dr. Harris at the cord blood bank where Ryan's stem cells were banked. He suggested I get in touch with Dr. Kurtzberg at Duke University. I have had Dr. Kurtzberg in to testify--an amazing lady, great stories, and she works with these impossible cases. Remember, cerebral palsy was incurable. Was--was incurable. She agreed to do the transfusion, and the transfusion took place on October 11, 2005. Given this opportunity, I set up a protocol system of my own. Pre- and post-infusion evaluations and progress monitoring is being done by Easter Seals. I requested extensive metabolic and chromosomal blood work to be done to rule out any other possibilities with his pediatrician. So this is a mother working with this doctor saying, OK, we are going to really measure it and see if this is what is happening. Ryan's mother continues: My thought was if this works for Ryan, it could change his life and the lives of many other children in the future. Although my efforts were applauded, this should not be the job of a parent, but of the medical community and the Federal Government to allocate research dollars. Until this is a proven treatment, insurance companies typically will deny benefits, leaving a huge financial burden on the family and precious few places to receive hope. Six months post-infusion, the progress Ryan has made is more than remarkable; it is phenomenal. He is no longer in need of any physical or observational therapy, as his dexterity in his hands and arms has returned. His feeding issues are gone--were gone within 30 days. He is now at a normal rate of growth. He speaks clearly for a 3 year old, and he does so in sentences. His vocabulary is on target and age appropriate, and he is totally engaged in his surroundings. His pediatrician, neurologist, behavioral psychologist, Easter Seals OT, physical therapist and the feeding clinic are in agreement that these changes have occurred post cord blood transfusion. They can offer us no other explanation, yet we must all err on the side of caution, preventing false hope until proper research is completed. So you basically see a mother looking for any researcher in the country who will do this. When I talked to the mother last week, she said Dr. Kurtzberg said to her, Yes, I will do the transfusion. The worst thing that can happen here is nothing. This is his own cord blood. The worst thing that can happen is nothing. But without it, he is going the wrong way. Let's try it. The OB-GYN that delivered Ryan and collected his cord blood asked me, ``What in the world made you think of that? It is wonderful and very exciting news.'' I got that kind of reaction from the other doctors in Ryan's case and thought, ``How could I not think of it?'' When your child is in trouble, you use all available resources to fix the situation to the best of your ability. All of Ryan's doctors are given updates and progress reports as they come. I have come in contact with Dr. Mindy Lipson-Aisen, the National Director of the United Cerebral Palsy Foundation. She would like to see a study begin with this treatment and has offered a grant to make that happen. The Easter Seals Dupage have been very accommodating with Ryan's needs. Based on conversation with them, I am sure that additional funding would be available. Clearly, more adult stem cell work in this area is something that we need to do, with half a million CP patients in the country and more coming all the time. Why not head this off? We owe our thanks to the mice and men that helped us get this far, but it is not about them, it is the children and others that may benefit. The resource and treatment accessibility needs to be changed. Funding research for children in need who have access to their cord blood in either a private or public bank will be a low-risk, high- yield and ethical place to start. Ryan and others should not be referred to as an anecdotal response as a society. We all deserve better than that. Part of my point in mentioning Ryan's story is that as we divert resources from these areas that are working in adult cord blood research and putting half a billion dollars in very speculative, embryonic stem cell research that is still producing tumors, or even in more speculative cloning research, kids like Ryan don't get the treatment from a protocol that has been developed and is actually working. So why do we take a half a billion dollars from Ryan to put it over here in this speculative area that has moral questions as well, and kids like Ryan don't get treatment or we don't develop a protocol or we don't expand it across the country? What sense does that make that we would do that? For the sake of research? I am for research, but I am more for treating kids like Ryan and getting more of them cured from CP and other diseases. Funding adult stem cells which are working is more important than saying, OK, we are going to prove that something doesn't work over here. We are going to prove that this doesn't work with embryonic stem cells or we are going to prove that this doesn't work with cloning when I could instead be really treating a bunch of kids like Ryan. Why would we do that? Ryan was on the cover of The Hill newspaper last week flexing his muscles. His mother said his arms used to retract. Now he is on the front cover of The Hill, he has his arms outstretched, and he is showing his muscles like a good 3-year-old. His sister complains that he bugs her all the time, which to a parent is usually a very healthy sign that this is working. These are real people getting real treatments and real cures. I want to go now to an example that is another miraculous example of a treatment area. I am only giving you two stories of the five that were in last week, and these are only two areas in the 70 that are getting treated with adult cord blood. This is Jacki Rabon, a paraplegic, an amazing case and amazing young lady. She lives in central Illinois. I have a picture of Jacki here. This is a picture after her adult stem cell treatment. I want to give you the background on her. Jacki Rabon is an 18-year-old paraplegic. She was on Capitol Hill last week with her mother and sister touting adult stem cell advances in the area of spinal cord injuries. Three years ago, Jacki was a very active 16-year-old who played volleyball in school, and was an outstanding player. In fact, she had hopes of going to college on a volleyball scholarship. All that changed. She was riding in an SUV on a gravel road when it flipped multiple times. She landed on her back on that country road. She spent the next month in the hospital. Jacki writes: That day changed my outlook. I was living a nightmare after this tragedy. I really thought my life was over. I couldn't imagine not playing volleyball anymore, jumping on my trampoline with my young nephew, chasing after my niece, or just taking a walk around my small community. Not only does something like this change the victim, but it also seriously disrupts and affects your family. I am a paraplegic with no feeling below the belly button. I had to learn to become independent again; to dress, bathe, transfer from place to place, and take care of my personal hygiene and toiletry issues. It was so difficult, and I struggled with these once simple tasks. After I accomplished these, I was released and allowed to come home. I was simply told, You will never walk again. That was my prognosis. A 16-year-old paraplegic, an accident, ``You will never walk again.'' Jacki continues: I got back to school a few months later and that was another adjustment. Everything looks and works differently when you are sitting in a wheelchair. I had to deal with a lot of depression and sadness, but I tried to continue with my life the best that I could. I truly believe that my faith got me through. If it wasn't for this amazing love of God, my strong will and determination, I don't know if I could have proceeded with what my life had become. But I have great determination along with the comforting faith and I didn't intend on giving up that easily. I wanted to give life another opportunity with my new ``lifestyle.'' I would like to pause in the telling of Jacki's story for just a moment. I have asked my colleagues to imagine what goes through the mind of a 16-year-old in this predicament. Beyond the physical pain, try to imagine the mental anguish. You have your life in front of you-- endless opportunities in America--and it is taken up in a snap, in an accident--gone. You wake up one morning; all is normal. You get up and you brush your teeth, put on your clothes; you go for a jog and continue on with the day. The next morning you wake up and you cannot move, cannot brush your teeth, cannot put on your clothes or go for a jog. Your entire life has changed. You desperately long for a cure. You would follow almost anyone or believe almost any story if it seemed credible, if it might produce a cure, if the person had the right credentials and respect. Unfortunately, some people are putting forward stories and saying we are going to cure this with embryonic stem cells or human cloning, but these areas are not working. You hear, ``If only we have more Federal research money it will work.'' But I want to point out here, in Jacki's particular case, that she had a place to go and an area to try. I want to point out this work was done by a Portuguese doctor, Dr. Lima, and talk to you about Jacki finding Dr. Lima in Portugal and what happened. Jacki continued, after going through this despair and depression. She writes this. My world changed again in the fall of 2004. My pastor was watching a PBS show when the special called ``The Miracle Cell'' was aired. It was about a procedure called ``Olfactory Mucosa Transplantation'', being done in Portugal by Dr. Carlos Lima. It involved removing tissue from a patient's olfactory sinus area and transplanting it into the spinal cord at the initial injury site. My pastor called the house and urged us to turn on the show. We did and were glued to the story. I listened to amazing recovery of returned sensation and even the ability to walk again with continued rehab from others after having this surgery. I remember thinking, ``There's my chance!'' I knew I wanted to pursue this possibility for me. My mom and I started researching this procedure on the Internet and collected as much information as we could. We discovered a Spinal Cord Injury Institute getting ready to open in Detroit, Michigan that summer. This institute was closely associated with Dr. Lima. We called to see if we could get an appointment to go and meet Dr. Steve Hinderer and asked about the procedure in depth and inquire about my chances of getting it done. I did go to Detroit and was told that I could well be a good candidate. I was given the guidelines and criteria for having this done. After many months of additional testing, x- rays, etc. I was accepted. This was very exhilarating for me. I had read about the success stories of the individuals that have gone before me. Their various success stories gave me so much hope!! I had so much support from my family, friends, church, community and surrounding areas to raise the $50,000.00, needed to have this surgery. Without this overwhelming support I could not have gone forward with this incredible opportunity. I went to Portugal in October 2005. I had the procedure done on October 29th. My experience in Portugal was not all pleasant. My mom and I had to deal with the language barrier and the unfamiliar culture. I returned to the states on November 5th. I rested at home for a few weeks, then went to Detroit to the Institute for aggressive rehab. Rehab was very tiring and indeed very aggressive. It was an exhausting experience but a very rewarding one. It was there that I took my first steps on the parallel bars. I was up!!! My progress since undergoing this surgery has been amazing!! I have a lot of hip movement, some tingling and heaviness in my legs. I have continued with my rehab regimen at home. I have leg braces that were fitted to me. I can walk on parallel bars and have begun walking with a walker. I am up on my feet again!!!! That's the most satisfying feeling. Unless you have been confined in a wheelchair for an extended amount of time, you can't really know how rewarding it is to be standing again. This brings me to the ongoing debate over adult stem cell research. I did not think a lot about this issue before the accident but now it has sparked a great interest within me. First, I am very much against embryonic stem cell research and advancement. I do not support this aspect at all. The killing of human life is appalling to me. But with adult stem cell and non-embryonic stem cell research I have become an advocate. My personal experience with adult stem cell transplantation should awaken the United States to the unlimited possibilities. This technique is simply ``your body healing itself''. Medical research in the United States has always been respected and admired for the advances toward cure for cancer, arthritis treatments and medication, heart disease and other well-known diseases and ailments. But when it comes to spinal cord injuries, the U.S. is very much in the negative category. We as taxpayers pay more money in the daily care of a spinal cord injury victim than we do on a cure. Now why is that???? The medical society treats the injury at the onset, then teaches the individual to live in a wheelchair and function accordingly. Then they are sent home and told, ``You will never walk again''. I experienced that first hand. But I am walking again. I have goals of walking by the end of the year with my braces and crutches. This was made possible by the procedure in Portugal and aggressive rehab. But I had to leave the comfort of my home and country and travel to a foreign area to get this done. Now that is sad, isn't it? This tragedy that happened to me can happen to anyone. It could be your wife, husband, son, daughter or friend. What would you want for them? Simply a statement, ``You'll never walk again'' or ``Never give up hope--there is a better option for you.'' Wake up, United States!!!! We are missing out. Let's look at the issue in a more personal level--I can walk again. Sincerely, Jacki Rabon, Waverly, IL. Jacki was up last week. She now has feeling in her hips. She is out of the wheelchair. She can walk with braces. She needs more of these treatments. My point in saying this, why are we sending her to Portugal to do this procedure when this should be done in the United States and researched in the United States? She is probably going to need more of these treatments to get the spinal cord to fully fuse. They take these cells out of the base of the nose, grow them, put them right in the spinal cord area where it has broken, and they start to knit the spinal cord back together. But it is probably not going to be just one treatment. It is probably going be multiple treatments. She had to do fundraising to raise $50,000 to go overseas to do this. It was not covered by an insurance company. Why wouldn't we develop protocols here to get this done with adult stem cells instead of diverting research money into speculative areas like embryonic stem cells and human cloning? We should put funding into areas to help people like Jacki. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a table on the level of funding we have done on embryonic and nonembryonic areas.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise today in full support of S.J. Res. 12, the flag desecration resolution introduced by Senator Hatch. The Senate has given this bill adequate consideration and it is now time to pass it and send it to the States for ratification. I have heard a lot of critics of the flag amendment incorrectly characterize it as stifling free speech. Nothing could be further from the truth. First, the amendment itself does not prohibit anything. The constitutional amendment we are considering today restores to Congress the power to protect the flag--a power the Congress freely exercised until 1989, when the Supreme Court handed down 5 to 4 decision in Texas v. Johnson. This decision struck down a flag protection statute in Texas, and effectively invalidated similar statutes in 48 States and the District of Columbia, as well as the Federal statute. In 1990, in another 5 to 4 decision, the Court struck down a revised Federal statute. The Court's decision in Texas v. Johnson was notable for a powerful dissent authored by Justice Stevens. I would note that Justice Stevens provides consistently one of the most liberal votes on the Court. Justice Stevens found that neither the States nor Congress had acted improperly in passing the statutes in question. He was on the mark in his dissent when he said: The case has nothing to do with disagreeable ideas; it involves disagreeable conduct that, in my opinion, diminishes the value of an important national asset. Justice Stevens is absolutely correct in recognizing that a prohibition on certain forms of conduct is a power long held by Congress and the States and in no way infringes on the right of any individual to express an idea. He went on to say: Had he chosen to spray-paint--or perhaps convey with a motion picture projector--his message of dissatisfaction on the facade of the Lincoln Memorial, there would be no question about the power of the Government to prohibit his means of expression. The prohibition would be supported by the legitimate interest in preserving the quality of an important national asset. Then-Chief Justice Rehnquist also questioned the communicative value in desecrating the flag, saying that such conduct ``is most likely to be indulged in not to express any particular idea, but to antagonize others.'' Prior to these rulings, Congress, with the support of a majority of the American people, had the power to protect our Nation's symbol. Respect for the flag is not something that falls along ideological lines or party affiliation; it is shared by Americans from all walks of life. In these polarized times, the flag remains a unifying symbol. Last month, as chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, I chaired a markup of this bill. We had an energized debate, and passed the amendment with a bipartisan 6-to-3 majority. Two-thirds of the membership of my subcommittee not only supported the amendment but were, and are, proud cosponsors. I would like to thank my good friend and ranking member, Senator Russ Feingold for his cooperation in scheduling a markup. He doesn't support the amendment, but I know he believes amending the Constitution is a very serious matter, and I appreciate his cooperation in having a fair and honest debate. I would also like to thank Senator Feinstein. She is one of the strongest supporters of this amendment and is also a member of the Constitution Subcommittee. I commend her for ignoring powerful special interest groups and diligently fighting for what's right. We should be very careful in considering amendments to the U.S. Constitution. It is not something that should ever be taken lightly, but the Court has left us with few options. It is unfortunate that we have to consider this amendment, but I do believe that in light of the Supreme Court's decisions it is the appropriate action. The amendment has broad bipartisan support here in the Senate, and is supported by Americans from both ends of the political spectrum. Poll after poll indicates that the people of this country want their flag protected. I have been contacted by numerous veterans groups from my home State of Kansas, as well as across the country voicing strong support for this amendment. We ask a lot from our men and women in uniform. They sacrifice their safety and risk their lives so that each of us can remain free in this great Republic. Their defense of the principles and liberties embodied in the red, white, and blue preserve the freedoms enumerated in the Constitution. Passing this amendment and sending it to the States allows for the American people to have their voices heard on this important issue. The House passed the flag amendment by a two-thirds majority vote last year, and it is now our turn to do the right thing and give the States and the people of this great Nation the opportunity to decide whether to grant protection to our national symbol. If ratified by three- fourths of the States, then we can debate an appropriate statute concerning treatment of the flag. There is a lot of misinformation regarding this amendment that should be cleared up. If ratified, the text of the Constitution would not prohibit flag burning. The amendment states: The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States. Even if the amendment passes, the Congress may decide not to prohibit flag desecration. But we will have corrected a wrong decision by the Supreme Court. Article V to the Constitution does not give nine unelected Justices the right to amend our founding document. This power rests solely in the democratic process. Restoring this power to the people and their elected representatives in Congress preserves this process. Protecting the integrity of our national symbol should not be left to a handful of unelected judges. Why would any Member of this body vote to limit our power and expand the power of the Court? The Founding Fathers wisely devised a process for the people through their elected representatives--not the courts--to amend the Constitution. It is our duty as elected Members of Congress to exercise this constitutionally granted power when necessary and appropriate. Justice is not served when we remain silent and allow unaccountable judges to exercise this power for us. If, as Members on both sides the aisle repeatedly claim, we truly oppose judicial activism, we should send this amendment to the States for ratification. I am proud to have cosponsored this amendment in every Congress since I became a Member, and to have consistently cast my vote in support each time the bill has made it to the floor. I urge my colleagues to support this bill, so that the American people can choose whether or not to bestow protection to their flag. There is no symbol that has the power to unify us like the flag, which is why a majority of Americans continue to support this amendment. It is time to restore the traditional meaning of the first amendment and send the flag desecration resolution to the States for ratification. I urge my colleagues to vote for this important amendment. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Oklahoma for his great work on this amendment. This legislation passed the Constitution Subcommittee 6 to 3. It passed the full Judiciary Committee and is now ready for this body to vote, and we need to have a positive vote on it. I flew in to Washington today. There were cloudy skies, but one could still see the monuments when flying in. The beauty of the monuments never ceases to strike me. Whether it is the White House, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, National Cathedral, there are just certain landscape features one looks at. When you are flying in on the so-called river run that the pilots so often do, you get to see these monuments, and it is just so striking. I was preparing for this debate and thinking about the Lincoln Memorial. What if somebody today, yesterday, or some other time had taken spray paint and sprayed on the Lincoln Memorial: ``We want freedom'' or ``Death to tyrants'' or ``Down with the flag''? Let's say they wrote that in big spray paint on the Lincoln Memorial and defaced the memorial and then was caught and was brought to trial and claimed: Wait a minute, I have a first amendment right to say what I want to say, and I believe it is important that I say it anywhere, and I want to say it on the Lincoln Memorial. I want to make my message known, and I am going to spray-paint it all over here; this is free speech, and I ought to be able to do that and this is the place to do it, and Lincoln would approve of that; he believed in free speech, so he wouldn't mind that the memorial was sprayed upon, that it was defaced. We would all recognize that as being something wrong, violating the law, and something there should be a law against. We don't have a problem with a person standing on the Lincoln Memorial and shouting at the top of his lungs for as long as he wants whatever he wants to say--if it is about the war in Iraq, if it is about the President, if it is about somebody in the Senate, if it is about myself, if it is about the Chair, if it is about anything he wants. We don't have any problem with that. But if he defaces the memorial, we do. It is interesting, that was the dissent Justice Stevens used in the Texas v. Johnson case. He made that same point. We have no problem with a person speaking on the Lincoln Memorial. We have a problem with him defacing the Lincoln Memorial. We have no problem with people speaking against the flag. We have a problem with them defacing the flag. Justice Stevens in his dissent--which I think was rightly said--said: Had he chosen to spray paint or perhaps convey with a motion picture projector his message of dissatisfaction on the facade of the Lincoln Memorial, there would be no question about the power of Government to prohibit this means of expression. The prohibition will be supported by the legitimate interests in preserving the quality of an important national asset. That is what we are talking about today: preserving the quality of an important national asset that people follow into battle, that we have had and honored for years and years, and until recently the court has held up as saying: Yes, this is something that should be protected and is protected by the laws of the land, and these laws are appropriate and are not limitations on free speech. I think if you follow this court ruling, where does it end? If you say actions are speech, wouldn't you have a legitimate objective in defacing the Lincoln Memorial, particularly if it was some form of political free speech that you wanted to express and put forward? We have held many hearings on this topic. This is not a complicated issue. It is about whether we are going to have some authority and ability to be able to limit and to be able to honor and to uphold something so precious as our American flag. I think we should do that. I think because of the people who follow this flag and because we are a nation of symbols, and symbols are what unite us, and because of the words and thought that are conveyed by this flag, we should be able to uphold this mighty national asset. I think it is important that we be allowed to do that. I have had a chance to speak on this at length in committee. I have carried the amendment in our subcommittee. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and let the States vote on it. Let the States decide what they would choose to do.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. If we have time on our side, but I don't know if we have other colleagues wishing to speak.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Not now. I have limited time, and I want to make this statement, if I may. That we can, at the appointment of our military leaders, start pulling our troops away from the Sunni Triangle so we can have the Iraqis taking over more and more of the security in more dangerous areas. I think that is an important thing for us to say here in this debate as well, that in opposing setting a timeframe for pulling out, we are not opposing changing tactics, or if our military leaders say it is time, we can start pulling troops down, let's do it. I want that to take place. But it should be the military leaders doing this, without the dictates of us saying here that we are just going to set an arbitrary timeframe for us to pull on out of this region. I think it sends the exact wrong signal, particularly at this point in time when we have momentum that we have gained and we have an Iraqi government in place. Frankly, through the help of this debate, we are sending a message to the Iraqi people and their government that the United States is not in this for an unlimited period of time. We do expect the Iraqis to step up. You have to step up in taking more of this on and moving more of this forward. I think this should be done on our working with and listening to the military leaders of what they would say would be the right route for us to go on this and not us setting an arbitrary date. This has been, in my estimation, a very good debate to have. But I think it is important at the end of the debate that we have a very strong and clear vote on this that we are staying, and we are going to see this through to the end. We are not dictating to the military leadership an arbitrary time period, and we are going to win this war on terrorism, period, and that we have the resolve to win this war on terrorism. I think that is important for us to do. I want to thank my colleague from South Dakota for chairing this debate at this point in time. I do hope that my colleagues join me again tomorrow in voting against this resolution with this timeframe.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, it is time we had this debate and time we had this debate in front of the people of the United States and in front of the world. Rest assured that the terrorists are watching this debate. Those who seek harm for us in Iraq and in many regions of the world are watching this debate, and they are testing and sensing our sense of resolve or lack of resolve in this war on terrorism. They are very much playing off us and saying the weakness of the United States is its willingness to stay the course or its lack of resolve or the shifting of public opinion, and that is what they drive at more than anything else, seeing that the weakest part of the U.S. military is public opinion, U.S. public opinion, so that our forces are not defeated on the battlefield. We have lost valiant soldiers, but we win the battles. What they are targeting is weakening U.S. public opinion and U.S. resolve. That is what they are targeting with the attacks, with the IEDs, with the roadside bombs. It is not going force on force and saying: OK, we are going to drive Americans out of this portion of Iraq; we are going to keep them out of this particular area. Much of it is saying: Look, we know the United States. We know they are a democracy. They respond to public opinion. What we have to do is have this be costly enough to the United States in American blood that public opinion shifts and they pull away. And once they leave, we take over. So their actual target is U.S. public opinion. We need to disappoint the terrorists on that particular issue, that U.S. public opinion and U.S. resolve remains in place to see this through. We are in a decades-long struggle with terrorism. It had been going on since before we had the attack on 9/11. It had been going on for a decade prior to that. We had the attack on Khobar Towers. We had the USS Cole attack. We had two embassies in Africa attacked. Hit, hit, hit, and ineffective, feckless responses on our part I think further emboldened the terrorists to take this even further. Hit, no response; hit, ineffective response; hit, ineffective response; and then 9/11, and after that, there was no way you were going to stop the United States from responding. We said: Look, that is it, we are going and we are going to deal with this. We went into Afghanistan, the headquarters. And after that we said: Where else are terrorists working out of? And the war effort moved to Iraq. Let's look at it from the point of view of the terrorists. I think they misjudged us in thinking we wouldn't respond. We did respond, and we responded aggressively and we responded effectively. We sent a very strong message. But now if we pull out or if we set a timeframe for pulling out that says just wait a definite period of time, 1 year, wait that period of time and the United States starts pulling back, how do the terrorist groups read that? My colleague from Massachusetts would have a certain point of view on that; maybe others would, my colleague from Michigan. I respect the motivation. I am delighted we are having this debate. It is important we have this debate with our Nation and with the world now. The conclusions I draw from this are different. If we set timeframes, it says to them that they have us where they want, and they can start declaring victory in their own words saying: Look, we have them down; in a year's period of time, they are gone; all we have to do is wait that period of time. We have to see this through to a successful conclusion. That does not mean, in any respect whatsoever, that I oppose us repositioning troops, pulling down the number of troops in Iraq or taking our troops away from the Sunni Triangle and handing more of that over to the Iraqis. It seems to me that our timeframes, as set by our military leaders--as set by the military leaders--that they would be the ones to recommend saying it is time we can pull troop levels down.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I would rather reserve the balance of our time for other speakers.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from South Dakota for yielding time to me on this very important topic that we are dealing with today, and I also thank my colleagues from Massachusetts and from Michigan for raising these issues. As Senator Thune was stating, this is an important debate. It is time we had this debate. It is the right vehicle for us to have this debate, and I think it is helpful for us to have this debate for the United States as we move forward.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I yield the floor. The Senator from Virginia.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I am in the Dole seat for Kansas. When Senator Dole left, I ran for his seat and was fortunate enough to be elected to that seat. I worked with Senator Dole for many years, when I was secretary of agriculture for Kansas. I first met him when I was Kansas State president of the Junior Farmers of America. I have had a wonderful relationship with Senator Dole. He is an outstanding American, and he is an outstanding Kansan. He deserves tribute. We in the Senate are certainly blessed and honored each time we have the opportunity to rise on our feet on this floor and address this august body. At this moment, I feel particularly blessed and honored to be able to recognize my predecessor, Senator Robert Joseph Dole. Today, we rise to mark the decade anniversary of Senator Dole announcing his retirement to this body. On June 11, 1996, Senator Dole, as the Republican nominee for the Presidency, announced that he would resign his seat in the U.S. Senate. And some asked, Why would he retire with 2 full years left in his term and only 6 months left in the campaign? ``I thought that was what was best for Kansas.'' For while he was many things--a legislator, a statesman, a decorated war hero, a leader--Senator Dole believed in his State and he believed in service to his State and he thought this was the best for his State, and that he would run just as a man, an ordinary citizen. It was a tremendous tribute to his service and his believing in the service of this body, that if you couldn't be here full time to do this work, he thought it would be better that he would leave it and bring somebody else in so that he could pursue the Presidency full time. The motto of our State is ``Ad Astera, per Aspera.'' That is a Latin phrase meaning ``to the stars, through difficulty.'' Perhaps, considering our State's motto, one could consider it also the motto for Bob Dole. He was born in 1923 in Russell, KS. Bob Dole was a teenager during the worst environmental disaster of my State's history--that was the Dust Bowl. He was 11 years old on April 14, 1935, which was referred to as ``Black Sunday.'' On that day, a wall of dust covered the prairie of western Kansas, turning day into night. Some thought it was the end of the world. During those years, childhood friends of Bob Dole recalled postponing basketball games in the middle of them, four or five times during the game, just to sweep the piling dust off the floor. Some fled the dust. Others were withered by it. Bob Dole was formed by it. Years later, he would recount that ``growing up on the edge of the Depression-era Dust Bowl, I was taught to put my trust in God and not government, and never to confuse the two.'' Per Aspera. As a young man, Bob Dole rose to meet the greatest challenge his great generation would face--World War II. Bob was a second lieutenant in the Army's 10th Mountain Division. He served in the mountains of Italy, where he and his unit faced some of the fiercest and challenging fighting of the war. Bob fought bravely. He was wounded. He fought again. He crawled from the security of his foxhole during intense fighting to assist a critically wounded radio operator, and in the process was shot in the back by a Nazi machine gunner. This time few thought he would survive. Bob Dole was hospitalized for a total of 39 months. He gave up the use of his right arm. Ad Astra--to the Stars. For his wounds, Bob was awarded two Purple Hearts. For his valor, Bob Dole was awarded the Bronze Star with an Oak Cluster. Ad Astra--to the Stars. Returning to his native Kansas, Bob turned to his family, to his neighbors, and to his friends for support. Later, he remarked: ``I was sustained by neighbors, who were anything but stingy with their love and encouragement. I learned then, if I hadn't already known it, that there is no such thing as a wholly self-made man or woman.'' He picked up where he left off and earned his undergraduate and law degrees from Washburn University in Topeka, KS. From there, Bob Dole began his political rise to the stars. Ad Astra. Bob served in the Kansas State House as the Russell County attorney, and on January 3, 1961, Bina Dole's little boy was sworn into the 87th Congress of the United States. Within a decade, Dole had distinguished himself as a legislator and was sent by his fellow Kansans to serve here in this body. And here in this Chamber, Bob Dole continued to serve the people of Kansas and this great Nation. He served them as chairman of the Finance Committee. He served them as the minority leader of the Senate. He served them as majority leader. He served them for nearly three decades, until exactly one decade ago today, when he retired. Today, Bob Dole's service is neither over nor forgotten. Having been recognized with the Presidential Medal of Freedom--a civilian honor, to match his military honors--he has continued to serve. He served as chairman of the International Commission on Missing Persons in the former Yugoslavia and the National World War II Memorial. He even gets a great deal of constituent casework of people contacting to ask if he could help out with this or that--and of course he does. He spearheaded the World War II Memorial effort, and what a beautiful memorial to the greatest generation it is. Also, I believe Bob served as the spokesman for a number of different commercial causes which have continued. And his humor continues unabated as well. I remember when serving as secretary of agriculture in the State of Kansas that Senator Dole would address a number of farm audiences-- sometimes from the back of a pickup truck. He would see a number of members of that audience who would often loosen up their belts and their overalls because they knew they were going to be in for an entertaining speech, a lot of times about 30 minutes or 25 minutes of jokes and one-liners and 5 minutes of politics. They loved it. He loved it. They loved him. He loved them. It was a beautiful symbiotic relationship that Bob Dole had with his State, with my State of Kansas. He also continues to serve as a trusted adviser and friend to guys like me. I have been honored to be able to serve in his seat. It is difficult to follow somebody of his legendary status and his ability as a legislator, his ability as a leader, and the contribution that he has made to this society, to this Nation, and to this world. Yet we try-- and try with his advice. He is an important American of distinction. He is someone who truly deserves to be recognized. He is one who has touched many lives individually and millions of lives collectively. He is the epitome of the greatest generation, the generation that served the rest of mankind, to be beat off Fascism, Hitler, Communism, and gave us the freest world that we have known. There are still wars to be fought, still battles to be fought, and we pick up the flag and carry it each and every day, but we owe so much in tribute to legendary leaders such as Bob Dole. Senator Dole, on behalf of our country and our State, certainly from me personally, I say, thank you and God bless you.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, if Members of the Senate vote as their States have voted on this amendment, the vote today will be 90 to 10 in favor of a constitutional amendment. Forty-five States have defined marriage as the union of a man and a woman. I want to show my colleagues an outdated map. It shows the number of States that have weighed in on the topic of marriage. Yesterday, Alabama voted by 81 percent to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. The dark green States are those that have already passed; light green are those where it is pending, and only five States have not defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman. So if Senators would represent their States, this amendment would pass 90 to 10. It would pass with the definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman. And if anybody wants to define it otherwise, it will have to go through the State legislature, not the courts. So there is nothing to oppose in this amendment. If your State wanted to go at it by a different route, it says it has to go through the legislature. It can't be forced by the court. What is wrong with that? I find it a sad prospect that we might not be able to pass this 90 to 10. Marriage is a foundational institution. It is under attack by the courts. It needs to be defended in this way by defining it as the union of a man and a woman as 45 of our 50 States have done. If it is going to be defined otherwise, it must be done by the legislatures and not by the courts. This morning we are going to vote on a constitutional amendment to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. This is about who is going to determine the definition, whether it is the courts or the legislative bodies. The amendment is about how we are going to raise the next generation. How are they going to be raised? It is a fundamental issue for our families and for our future. It is an issue for the people. It is not an issue that the courts should resolve. Those of us who support this amendment are doing so in an effort to let the people decide. There has been a lot of eloquent debate about this constitutional amendment. I have been on the Senate floor most of the time. I have heard very little debate against the amendment. I have heard a lot of people complaining that we ought to take up something else, that this is not so important. I look at it and say, we have this many States that have deemed it important enough that they would put it on their ballots. This is important. We have had basically one, two, maybe three speakers say they really question the amendment, but most of them say we shouldn't spend our time on this amendment. We shouldn't spend our time on the estate tax. They don't mention the native Hawaiian bill that is coming up, or suggest that we should not spend our time on that. We are going to have this vote. People are going to be responsible for this vote. We are making progress in America on defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman, and we will not stop until it is defined and protected as the union of a man and a woman. We have far more States now that have voted on this issue than the last time we voted on it. We now have far more court challenges taking place to this fundamental definition of how we look at the union of marriage. Marriage is about our future. I continue to be struck by the opponents of this amendment who say it is an effort to promote discrimination. The amendment is about promoting our future, our families, how we raise that next generation, and about allowing a definition of a fundamental institution to be made by the people rather than by the courts. I have shown a number of charts demonstrating that the best situation for our children to be raised is in a home with a mother and father. Children need these two parents. It is not that you can't raise good children in a single-parent household; you can. Many struggle heroically to do so. Yet we know from all the data that the best place is with a mother and father. Children do best academically and socially, and they are more likely to be raised in financially stable homes when a mother and father are both present. More importantly, they have the security of knowing there are two people in their lives who provide security and stability, two people who provide something, each differently, but that is very important. These two people become one. They are united. They become one bonded together. This past weekend, my mother-in-law and father-in-law celebrated 56 years of marriage. While often they may disagree with one another--sometimes pretty heatedly, sometimes one could call it almost barking at each other--they are inseparable. They are one. It is a beautiful thing to see. It is the way that we should uphold these institutions. Their children and their grandchildren and great- grandchildren get to see these two people, two old trees leaning against each other, holding each other up, physical bodies not anything near what they used to be, but supporting and helping and setting a foundation for all future generations to look at and say: That is the way it ought to be done. Life hasn't always been easy for them. There have been difficulties through time. They have had some hardships, working together. My father-in-law has done very well, served in Korea, during which time they were separated by many miles. My parents have been married over 50 years. You look at them and say: That is the way it should be, where two become one. Out of that union comes more people, more children, raised with a solid set of foundational values that you hope can be good citizens. We are all going to have difficulties and problems, but isn't that something that we can do and we should do for the next generation? We have an important issue in front of us, the definition of marriage. We have a country that is watching and that knows what they believe marriage should be defined as, the union of a man and a woman, as 45 States have defined it. The courts are moving otherwise. We say let the legislatures decide, and that it is an important issue, meritorious of our vote. To those who oppose this amendment, I think they will have to explain to a lot of people why they oppose marriage as the union of a man and a woman and why they don't think the State legislatures should be the ones responsible for defining this but, rather, that this should be defined by the courts. I don't think their position is across America. This is important. I hope my colleagues support this constitutional amendment. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I ask when 7\1/2\ minutes have been used, I be informed.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BROWNBACK. How much time is remaining on our side of the aisle?

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. I thank the Chair. I ask if you would let me know when I have used 15 minutes of that time.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I believe under a previous agreement I am recognized for a period up to 20 minutes; is that correct?

Mr. BROWNBACK. I thank my colleague from Colorado, Senator Allard, for his carrying of this amendment. When the issue first surfaced a couple of years ago, Senator Allard was the first one to put forward a constitutional amendment on the issue of marriage, a very simple one to define the union of marriage as a man and a woman. The issue has taken many twists and turns since that time. The institution itself has been weakened over a number of years, and this is an effort to help it, help strengthen that institution and to have the definition of this institution done by legislative bodies and not by courts. This is a very simple amendment. It is hard for me to understand why anybody would oppose it when 45 of 50 States have defined marriage as the union of a man and a woman, and this simply says that if States want to define it differently, they have to go through the legislative process and not the courts, so that the Court can't force it. It must be done by a legislative body. And if some States decide to do that, then that is provided for in this amendment. So the five States that have done something different are provided for in the amendment. Yet the basics of it say marriage is the union of a man and a woman, as it has been as an institution for thousands of years. So I thank my friend from Colorado for carrying this. It is a difficult topic. I would never have dreamed in my life, in coming to the Senate, that this would be a difficult topic, one that would be debated. When I came into the Senate in 1996, this was not discussed at all in the campaigns. It was not discussed in the campaign in 1998. It has only been of a recent vintage that this has come forward. Yet it has come forward because of the importance of the topic. I want to discuss two points. This issue is going to be defined by the courts or the legislative bodies, period. We seek to have it defined by legislative bodies. We think that is the appropriate thing when you are dealing with such a fundamental institution of society as marriage. It should be defined by the people and the legislative bodies and not the courts. The situation in Europe, as it evolved, went through the court process. Therefore, we seek for these changes, if they are to be made, to go through the legislative body. I believe that marriage is such a foundational institution it should be defined as the union of a man and woman, and I will cover that in my discussion. No. 2, this is important on how we raise the next generation in the United States. That is why we have favored the institution of traditional marriage, the union of a man and a woman, because we know in all the social data in all societies at all times that the best place to raise children is in the union of a man and a woman and in that sacred institution is the best place to raise your next generation, with that bonding together for life and children raised in that setting. That is something for which we have got social data, but also we know that in our hearts. We know, sitting here right now, that, yes, that is the best place. I know that. I know that in my own heart. Yet I want to take us through what has happened to this weakened institution of marriage, what has happened then to our next generation. Here I am using the Moynihan principle. Senator Moynihan, who was in this body, since deceased, had a basic principle that he looked at. One of the key things we should look at is how we raise the next generation. It is something that any legislative body should be most concerned about because it affects what you are going to do in the future. It affects what the country is going to be in the future. And so we should maximize and look with great intensity at how you are impacting that next generation. I have to say, with the weakening of the institution of marriage over the past 30 to 40 years, with this redefining of marriage, which would define marriage out of existence, which is what we have seen in other countries, you are going to harm your next generations and succeeding generations that you raise. I want to back that up. I am going to go through a series of charts to paint the picture of what has happened to marriage in America today and why we would encourage the institution of marriage as the union of a man and a woman. This doesn't need explanation. You can see where we are. With a 4- percent rate of out-of-wedlock births in 1930, we are at about a third of the children in the United States today born to unmarried women. That is not to say you cannot raise great children in this setting because you can. A number of women struggle heroically to raise children, and good children, in this setting, as they can do. As I will show in these charts, it becomes far more difficult, and that is why institutions such as this and across the States, across the country, favor traditional marriage because you get more adults per child involved in that child's life and they are bonded together. They are thick. The blood is thick. They care for each other and they work to raise this child as my wife and I are working together to raise our children. It is tough. It is tough raising children. You need more adults per child, and you need adults who are committed for life so that that child does not have to worry about what is going to happen tomorrow or what is going to happen in the future. They know there are two parents who love that child unconditionally and are committed to that child unconditionally and they are going to work for that child and that is why we favor the institution of marriage. Yet you can see we are getting fewer and fewer children raised in that type of situation. Now, then I mentioned, well, OK, you can raise good children in a single-parent household. Yes, you can. But the situation becomes more difficult. Developmental problems are less common in two-parent families. Lower half of class academically, as you can see in the green, is not as high in two-parent families; developmental delays, 10 percent. You are looking at, again, almost double the situation, and you are looking at double the problems with emotional behavior problems, single-parent versus two-parent families. That doesn't mean that you don't have problems in two-parent families. You do. It is just your numbers go down. So when you are looking at this in a macrosituation, as a Government, you are saying we want more children in these two-parent households. The next chart shows that nearly 80 percent of all children suffering long-term poverty come from broken or never married families. This is something I want to develop a little further as well. We have a Brookings scholar, Ron Haskin, who testified at a hearing I hosted about welfare reform and the need to encourage marriage for those who are receiving welfare. And he says this: There are only two ways known to man and to God to reduce poverty. No. 1 is work and No. 2 is marriage. Here's what I want to show is if people will get married and stay married the number of children suffering in long-term poverty goes down substantially, if you will do that. And I want to develop this a little bit further. Children in poverty--this is in the year 2000. You can see, if a child has been a child of a first marriage, less than 12 percent in poverty. You can see, if a child is in a situation where the mom has never married, 67 percent of your children in poverty come in that situation. Again, that is not casting aspersions on anybody. It is simply saying these are the facts of what happened. Now, it is a bit of a sidebar, but it points to the policy impact of harming marriage. In other words, if we take policies that are harmful to marriage, it hurts children and it hurts marriage. If we take this policy move of defining marriage out of existence, saying it can be any two or more people who care for each other, it will fundamentally hurt your institution of marriage by a policy move. Now, I want to reflect a policy move we did in welfare. In welfare, basically, we said--it is a very busy chart--we said to people if you get married, we are going to cut your welfare support. If you get married, we are going to cut your welfare support. What this shows are the various welfare programs in the country and it is those when you are going from $20,000 income per year, very low, to $40,000, which is where you get if two people get married, and I will develop this further, you fall off into the abyss as far as support you get from child care development funds, women and infant children, Federal housing, food stamps, all these things, you fall off the cliff to the point that you have an effective tax rate, if you get married and your income gets to $40,000 by being married, an 88-percent maximum tax rate for you getting married in the welfare system. Therefore, it is no wonder that the people who get married are much more in the upper income and much less in the lower income. This is a stark chart that should scare us all. This is income levels to percentage unmarried. And you can see at the lower income level, you are up as high as 70 percent not married, not getting married. Our public policies say, if you get married, we are going to throw you off welfare, and so fewer people get married. And it has an impact. I want to show this final one quite quickly. This is the effective tax rate, maximum highest tax rate of you getting married on welfare and it is 88 percent, the impact of divorce on income of families with children. Again, I want to hit this pretty fast. When families separate, it drives income down, hurts children generally, although not in all situations, but I am painting the macropicture. Now, what has happened to our children in this society since, say, 1960. The number of children--I showed an earlier chart--about a third are born out of wedlock. In the 1940s, it was about 4 percent. You can look at 1960, the number of children, either born out of wedlock or in previous years the parents were divorced, in 1960, we are up to 16, 17 percent, and today you are looking at over half. In America today, about half of the children under age 18 will spend a significant portion of their life in a single-parent household. Again, you can raise good children in that setting, but the numbers start moving against you. OK. What does that have to do with same-sex marriage. The issue is we are looking at the policy choice of why we define marriage as the union between a man and a woman or any sort of grouping. The experience in other countries has been, when you redefine marriage broadly and you broaden it and say it can be any type of relationship between two or more people, you get fewer marriages and you hurt your children. That has been the situation. I will go to several other countries that have redefined marriage, defined marriage out of existence. In the Netherlands, since proposals for same-sex marriage began to be debated, the out-of-wedlock birthrate has soared. It was a fairly stable country in out-of-wedlock births and was at low rate. We will show in the next chart the same-sex marriage union, and the discussion, said to society: It really does not matter. The marriage institution is not a sacred institution; it is just whatever we define it to be. That tradition is tradition. We are going to go a different way. What happened to out-of-wedlock birthrates? You can see the situation in the Netherlands, which is particularly important because it was one of the lowest out-of-wedlock birthrate countries in Europe for a number of years, shows that until 1980, below 5 percent of the population was born out of wedlock. When we get the court cases which we have in the United States today saying marriage should be redefined, we see the impact, as well as a Supreme Court case that rules against marriage being the union of a man and a woman. Then we get symbolic marriage registration, registered partnership, same-sex unions, and now we are up to 35 percent as seen in this skyrocketing chart. One can say, that is the way it is, this number puts children in more disadvantaged situations, which is where our concerns should be, as to how you raise that next generation. I will show another chart. We not only know this in the Netherlands but we know from Scandinavian countries, the Nordic countries that redefined marriage, experiences in Scandinavia and the Netherlands make it clear that same-sex marriage could widen the separation between marriage and parenthood here in the United States. We know in some Nordic countries, you have counties now where 80 percent of the first-born children are born out of wedlock, and two- thirds of the second children are born out of wedlock. That has a significant impact, I argue, a devastating impact, on how that next generation is raised, given the difficulty of raising children in that one-parent union. So if we redefine marriage, and define it downward, far less heterosexual marriages will be the broad policy impact of doing this. That has been the experience in other countries. You get more children raised in a sub-optimal atmosphere and you will have more difficulties with that next generation of children. This is important. This is critical. I hear my colleagues complain, important issues? I remind my colleagues we spent 2 weeks before break on immigration, which is a critical topic, and we will take up the budget this next week, another a critical topic, yet I don't think one can look at an institutional question more profound, more important and active than what is taking place right now on the issue of marriage. Marriage is a foundational institution. If we get more of it, we will have more stronger, healthier children, raised in better situations for the future of the country. If we get less of it, such as what this policy decision would do if we do not define marriage as a union of a man and a woman, we will have more problems on a trajectory we are already headed on. The institution of marriage has been weakened in the United States. The institution of marriage has been weakened over the past 40 years. But the answer is not to kill it. The answer is to strengthen it. And it takes steps like the commonsense approach Senator Allard from Colorado is putting forward, defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman, saying only State legislatures, not the courts, can redefine it another way. That should please everyone. Yet, I am afraid many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are going the opposite and claiming some sort of hyperbole about this being bigotry. It is not. It is people deeply concerned about the future of the country and the future of the next generation, concerned that they will say it is just politics. It is not. You have 45 of 50 States that have defined marriage as a union of a man and a woman and have spent significant resources to define and support the institution of marriage because of its importance to the society and to the Republic. This is a key, important debate. I am delighted the leadership is calling this up. I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will support it. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Reserving the right to object, and I will object, this issue is going to come up in front of the body on the overall energy situation. The Republican leadership is working on that, as well as on a stem cell compromise, as well as on the supplemental bill, which will be considered and brought forth in due order. This is not agreed to by the Republican leadership to come up; therefore, I do object.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, a couple of my colleagues have spoken in favor of the constitutional amendment that is up today. They have given eloquent statements. We have others who are coming. What I wanted to do while we wait on additional Members who are coming over to the floor is cover a couple of points I believe have been touched upon, but I think they deserve emphasis. I appreciate my colleagues on the other side of the aisle raising a number of issues that they are saying we are not dealing with. I urge them to vote for cloture on these issues when they come up because we will bring these issues up--on the budget; the supplemental is in a conference; we will have an Energy bill that is going to be coming up. I hope they will vote for cloture to go to that Energy bill so we can actually get it up to vote on it on the floor. I know a number of them are supportive of the Native Hawaiian issue and are complaining because these issues are not in the top 20 issues in the United States, of the people's concern. Yet they are not raising the Native Hawaiian issue which will come up this week as well. I urge them to vote against that if they think it is not a high-priority issue. I do think there is some speaking out of both sides of the mouth when you raise all these issues we should be covering and then vote against cloture, preventing us from covering those issues, and then complain about a marriage amendment that they are saying doesn't rise to the level of interest in the United States. I think it is of a high interest in the United States or you wouldn't have seen all these States that covered it. There is another issue that has been covered some. I hope we can address that issue. It is the issue of religious freedom. If you do not define marriage as the union of a man and a woman, but define it to require that you have to recognize same-sex unions, that is the basis-- one of the bases on which Catholic Charities was driven out of the adoption business in Boston. They were required by law to do something against the tenets of their faith. I hope that can be developed some a little later on. My colleague from Missouri is here. He is one of the strong supporters of this amendment. I yield the floor to the Senator from Missouri, Senator Talent.

Mr. BROWNBACK. That is another indication that 20 States have directly voted on this issue. If we would have Senators who follow what the States have done, we would have 90 votes for a constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. I thank my colleague for his strong support. I believe the people of Alabama are going to do it today as well. I have another colleague who will be speaking shortly. In the interim, I want to develop an argument that has been put forward but I think is an important one to further raise and develop. It is one I have mentioned previously on religious freedom. We have the article that has been mentioned by several by Maggie Gallagher on why Catholic Charities was run out of Boston because they didn't support homosexual adoptions. Rather than breaking one of the tenets of their faith, they said we can no longer do adoptions. There is an argument that churches that do not perform same-sex unions will not be allowed to perform any marriages. I think this bears looking at because it is a serious issue that has a legal history and pedigree to it. It is one we should be concerned about taking place. I was in a church last Saturday night. My oldest daughter was the maid of honor in a wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony. That church has a very clear conviction that marriage is between a man and a woman. They would not agree to doing marriages between same-sex couples. Then does that mean that they cannot perform any marriages? OK, some say it is too strong of an argument. Yet you have that history in the adoption field, and you have a legal pedigree that is there to develop on top of that. I think that bears watching. There is another argument I want to further develop while my colleagues are coming to the floor; that is, this one on ``slippery slope.'' People say this is one that isn't going to happen. It is not going to develop. Yet I think the legal pedigree is there for a slippery slope to develop. Some will be recognizing different groups that have stepped forward already to say that if two people of the same sex can be married, why can't there be additional people? What is the legal bias against having more than two people in a marital arrangement? This even has a term now, polyamorist. They have already had one court case trying to gain recognition for a marriage of a woman and two men. They say in some of their advocacy that they are waiting for same-sex marriage to pass to begin agitation to legalize more than two people getting married. If you think that is not going to happen, you had the minority opinion in the Supreme Court case that recognized that, what is your legal basis of stopping that, too, if it can be two men or two women? Why is it only two? That is what this group is starting to agitate for. They are saying that granting same-sex marriage is supported on equal protection grounds. How is the court going to deny them? There are plenty of polyamorists out there. The problem goes further. We have an advocacy group called the Alternatives to Marriage Project which supports polyamory and other innovations to parental cohabitation. The Alternatives to Marriage Project is quoted frequently in the mainstream media. Believe it or not, some of the most powerful factions of family law scholars in the law schools favor legal recognition of both polyamory and parental cohabitation. Even law review articles have been published advocating for both. Again, they argue that if two men can get married and two women can get married, if this is an equal protection argument, why is it limited to just two? What is the legal basis or foundational basis in society for this? I raise that as a point because this area of law is starting to develop. Even the influential American Law Institute came out with proposals that would grant nearly equal recognition to cohabitation. So this is developing in the law. I raise these items as issues knowing that some people will scoff at it. You can look at what happened in the world in the past year or so as well. Sweden passed the first same-sex partnership plan in the world and had serious proposals floated by parties on the left to abolish marriage and legalize multipartner unions. So this is out there and it is one of those things we should watch. My colleague from Alabama has arrived. I yield the floor to him for his comments on the constitutional amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I appreciate my colleague from Missouri putting this forward. We will have further debate this evening from 6 to 6:30, and hopefully some a little later on. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that would address one of the most critical issues facing Americans today, that of rising health care costs. America's collective health care bill represents an increasing percentage of the GDP and, at the same time, mortality rates remain stubbornly high. It is apparent that the time has come for innovative health care solutions that will save money and save lives. Today, I am introducing the Independent Health Record Bank Act of 2006, a market-driven approach that will save both money and lives by creating a self-sustaining National Health Information Network for doctors and patients. Rather than continuing to get by with a patchwork system of paper records that contributes to medical errors and high cost, this legislation creates a nationwide system of secure electronic health records. Under the Independent Health Record Bank Act, ownership of the record is truly independent and consumer-focused, as this type of bank provides the objective service of sustaining individual electronic health records, much like the way financial institutions maintain assets. This consumer-driven approach will offer Americans portable and electronic health records over their lifetime at little to no cost, with specific, established measures for privacy and security. We saw in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when medical records and lab results were literally washed away, that the current system of paper records can prove to be cumbersome at best, and fatal at worst. Americans should have the ability to access their health records as easily as they access their bank accounts--through the use of a national IT network administered by cooperative, not-for-profit institutions. I urge my colleagues to support this effort through cosponsorship of this important legislation.