Sam Brownback

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Will the distinguished chairman yield for a question?

Mr. BROWNBACK. I want to follow up on a question by my colleague from Minnesota. I think this is the point. He points out that you have a couple of filibusters on major issues to change the country. The issues that were filibustered ultimately got through, and I believe these judges will ultimately get through when the public gets the Record and has a chance to read it. These issues were things that were changing the country--when you talk about the law, civil rights laws, things that were being brought forth. Isn't that what is really being addressed here today? We are not talking about 4 judges or 29 who are being blocked on circuit courts. This is really about a group trying to block a certain set of individuals who may, as some say, have deeply held beliefs being on the Federal bench and trying to purge that set of philosophies or thoughts from the Federal bench. Isn't this a much bigger issue than the appointees? Those law changes were bigger than filibustering one law. This is about the impact on all of society, on a whole culture.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, will the Senator from Pennsylvania yield for a question?

Mr. BROWNBACK. It is what I am saying. And it is bad that we are seeing this route taking place. This is going to lead us down a bad road. We are already started down the road. Now we appoint legislators for life with superpowers, and we are unable to pull them out other than maybe for moral turpitude. You have people who become--in essence, they can almost be dictatorial or tyrannical, and they are appointed for life. That is why so many people are so passionate about what takes place on the bench today, because now you have a superlegislator who does not answer to the public. It starts to get irritating to a lot of people. This is not the way we should be going. We should be backing up and saying these are three coequal branches of government with different jobs--not legislators each, but a legislative and executive and a judicial branch. This is the problem. If we keep going down this trail, and you have to examine political philosophy because judges can write laws or you can discover rights, including rights of privacy in the Constitution, and what other rights can you discover in the Constitution, and it will be important to know the political philosophy. Say we get one or two Supreme Court nominees to come up. Now we have somebody such that we are looking at a superlegislator for life in the highest court of the land who can, with a couple of other people, rewrite this document--not just legislate but rewrite the constitutional document. That is why we have the huge fights on this floor. We used to say in the past--thanks to the question my colleague raised, we say, I disagree with the philosophy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I disagree with the philosophy of someone else, but they said they would uphold the law. They are confined, as I am as a legislator, with a set of power and authority. I do not agree philosophically, but they are qualified and will do a good job and I don't have a good reason to vote against them.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I would be happy to yield for a question.

Mr. BROWNBACK. It is not mainstream.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Absolutely. That is the point. We will be in such a mammoth fight and engaging the entire country with this, how will you ever get that person through? It does go to this constitutional case that is being considered by the Supreme Court now on the flag salute, ``One Nation under God.'' Here was a continuation of the discovered set of laws that somehow discovered that our kids cannot say our flag salute, ``One Nation Under God.'' Ninety percent plus of the public is for the flag salute. I am confident that percentage is ahead of that. In this body, there is outrage. And the Ninth Circuit, in a consistent opinion with 40 years of discovery law, says: No, you cannot do that. So now you put somebody in a legislative role--circuit court, lifetime appointment, cannot remove them--and the Ninth Circuit, which gets overturned all the time--as a group of legislators they get overturned all the time by the Supreme Court. Now, say you get a Supreme Court position that opens. They are not going to get overturned by anyone. And you get people fearful of the tyranny of the judiciary which the Founding Fathers were fearful of themselves. They wanted the judiciary to be the most limited because they have the lifetime appointments. They have a pretty big set of powers. They feared tyranny could become an issue because it was a lifetime appointment and was not subject to the checks and balances of the people. People check and balance everyone in this body. But do they check and balance the judiciary? Where is the populace's ability to check and balance? That is why this is an important debate and why so many are concerned. What we should be doing is backing up and saying, no, this is about the strict construction of the documents that pass through the legislative bodies that are in the Constitution that go through an extraordinary process. Where, as the Senator from Pennsylvania pointed out, the Supreme Court discovers a new right in this Constitution, if we had written that in there, it would have taken a vote of two-thirds of this body, three-fourths of the States, to become law. This is a big, lengthy process and, as such, we have a limited number of constitutional amendments, as it should be. It is a strong document, standing over two centuries, and yet a court can discover this. We should back up and stand on the issue of, this should be about strict construction of what is taking place. This is a very important key fight to have. With that, I yield the floor. There are several other Members who seek to speak.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I appreciate my colleague from South Carolina carrying the comments and the load for several hours in the early morning as we approach 4:15 in the morning. We are talking about something of great importance. He has real wisdom in his words, too, about the point that the process on which we are embarked has no upside to it. When you have good people, qualified people blocked from the Federal bench not by majority vote but by filibuster, you are headed down a bad path. This bad path doesn't have a good ending. We will continue to have division in this body. I don't doubt we can be blocked on these for some time, but that is certainly going to carry over into the next election cycle, and this doesn't have an upside to it. Plus, we have good people waiting. We have people who are qualified and are not going to be serving on the Federal bench. We have a lot of hurt feelings. We have a lot of accusations made without truth. We have harsh words, harsh comments, and that all leads to a downward cycle. There isn't an up cycle here. I wish to take a few minutes to describe why I think we got to this point. We didn't used to be here. We have approved people of strong judicial opinions in recent times. They have generally been from the left, and those have been approved during the Clinton years. Lord knows we are talking about circuit court nominees now. What if we got a Supreme Court nominee? Does the body get tied up for 2 years? We have actually had one Supreme Court Justice who has been filibustered in the past. Why did we get to this point? It used to be if people had a litmus test on candidates, that was seen as a terrible thing and they were castigated. I don't know if the Presiding Officer or others remember when Ronald Reagan was accused of having a litmus test. That was just a horrible thing. His administration denied it. They didn't put forward people under a litmus test, and we were moving forward. Now people are being subject to a litmus test. They are being blocked. They are qualified, and they are being stopped. How did we get to this point? I want to take a shot at that and develop it from the standpoint of a case that is currently before the Supreme Court. It is the case of Michael A. Newdow v. The U.S. Congress, United States of America, George W. Bush, President of the United States, State of California, Elk Grove Unified School District. That would be the operative group in the Newdow case, the flag suit case. It is the case most people are familiar with where the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals determined it was unconstitutional for our children in school to say the Pledge of Allegiance. The reason it is unconstitutional is because of something Dwight Eisenhower signed into law when he was President of the United States in 1954, and that is where the Congress of the United States added the phrase: ``One Nation under God.'' That phrase was so offensive to Mr. Newdow or his child who was in the school that he said: I can't stand this any longer. He was joined by some other people and took this case to the Court. The Ninth Circuit said you are right. You should not have to. This is not right for our children to say one nation under God. That evoked quite a comment across the country. It evoked quite a comment by this body. I believe this body voted 99 to 0 to say that the flag salute is right; we should say this; it should be allowed by our children. There were a lot of protestations and the people commented that it was terrible that the Ninth Circuit would be so out of whack, so lacking of mainstream thought, so out of context and touch with the American public that they would rule against something that 98 percent of the American public is for, the flag salute. The problem with the public outpouring on Newdow and the problem facing the Supreme Court now on this Newdow case is that they were following precedence being developed over a period of 40 years, that the Supreme Court, circuit courts, and others had been working for a period of 40 years to remove the recognition of a higher moral authority from the public square. They were saying this is something we do not want in the public square. It started in 1962 that these series of cases is built upon. In 1962, Engel v. Vitale was the case that really started this whole string going. That was when our children were allowed to say a prayer at the beginning of the schoolday, and Engel v. Vitale said that was unconstitutional. It was followed by School District of Abington Township v. Schempp. There the Court held that the Bible readings in public school also violated the first amendment. It was followed, in 1992, by Lee v. Weisman, a case about prayer that was being held at a graduation exercise. The Court held that was unconstitutional. It was followed, in 2000, by Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe where prayer was being removed from being said at a football game. That is followed by the Newdow case now before the Court. I predict it will be followed by a case that will call for this body to remove ``In God we trust'' off the mantle that is here. I predict it will be followed by a case that will call on us to remove off of our money any reference to a higher moral authority, ``In God we trust'' being taken off of the back of the one dollar bill. It will follow, follow, follow. Well, people do not agree with that. Massive amounts of people in this country do not agree with that. People have mounted up now. Actually, some people do agree. Some people say, yes, we should remove the recognition of some higher moral authority, of God, from the public square. So we are engaged in this great ideological fight. I contend that this battle, this fight, of blocking these justices started about 40 years ago. Some of us participating in this form of debate feel as if the last couple of days have been along that 40-year line. What we are seeing is the courts injecting itself here into a societal issue that many people feel deeply about and immersing itself in this. Then both sides get fired up and we get good people such as Charles Pickering and Priscilla Owen and others--particularly a guy like Charles Pickering. He is probably the most instructive of the cases here. We have gone through ad nauseam his qualifications, but I want to make this point of him: First in his law school class, highest rating by Martindale Hubbell, unanimously approved by the Senate for a district court judge in 1990, affirmed on appeals 99.5 percent of the time, reversed only 26 times out of approximately 5,300 cases, received the ABA, the American Bar Association, highest rating, well qualified. So what is the problem with this picture? Mr. Pickering was president of the Southern Baptist Convention for Mississippi, so he is a man of faith. As such, when we have these 40 years of cases coming up that say we have to remove God from the public square and run into a guy such as Charles Pickering who says, I will uphold the law--and he has upheld the law because, if he had not, he would have been overturned many more times--he says I will uphold the law but I really think this line of cases and some of these discovered rights the court has done in just these last 40 years, I think they are wrong personally. I disagree with these. I will uphold the cases. But they run into people who are saying we are trying to remove God from the public square and we are going to try to remove people who believe in God from serving in the public square. You run into this clash, and you get this great clash in the civilization and you get this great clash in the culture. Now you have the courts injecting themselves in a great culture conflict that we are involved in in this country today. One of the key division issues in our country today is issues of culture. People ask what is that? Culture, it is difficult to say what that is, but people are concerned about it. There is not a company in this country that is not deeply concerned about its corporate culture. There is not a family in this country who is not concerned about its family's culture. There is now in the country itself concern about what its culture is going to be. The central issue is, are you going to recognize a higher moral authority or not? Is the motto ``in God we trust'' true or not? You get a guy qualified such as this who would say, yes, that motto is true. I believe it to be true. I will uphold the laws as ruled to date, but I do believe this motto is true. And it runs right smack into this series of cases and we are going to see it front and center again in Newdow. We will see it again and again. That is the problem actually with this, because it divides us on something that should not. It divides us on something that should unite us. It divides us in a way that I do not think is healthy for the country. I do not think this is good at all. I think it divides us on something that as a policy matter is not good and that is why I think it is also bad politics when this happens. I think bad policy is bad politics. That is why we have this level of fighting today. That is why I am speaking on the floor of the Senate at about 4:30 in the morning. We are going to continue to have this fight. Regardless of the vote that we take later this morning, how it takes place, probably really regardless of the dispensation of these four and future ones coming on, this is the cultural clash that we have. It is not healthy but it is going to continue.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise to introduce a joint resolution regarding the status of Jerusalem, and its potential in catapulting the Middle East Peace process forward. Just prior to returning from the summer recess, I traveled to Israel for five days on one of the most important official trips I have made since coming to the Congress in 1994. I have been to Israel before, but this trip had a special meaning for me both in terms of who and what I saw. I arrived in the aftermath of the bus bombing in Jerusalem that killed Yeshiva students going to the Wailing Wall. The same week I was there, Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Mazen lost a no confidence vote and conceded to a shake up of the Palestinian cabinet. A wave of Palestinian terrorism ensued and it appeared that no Palestinian leader, at that time, had the will or the desire to contain terrorism much less stamp it out so that President Bush's Roadmap for Peace could proceed. On my way from the airport in Tel Aviv to the hotel in Jerusalem, I made a brief visit to a town called B'nei Berek, a small Orthodox suburb of Tel Aviv. B'nei Berek was established shortly after the founding of Israel. In the intervening 50 year period, this town has turned into a thriving city of over 200,000 people--a very special place for the Orthodox community in Israel. While I was there I met with one of the most respected and senior Rabbis in Israel. This man lived in a very modest apartment on an average street, and you would never know that he was one of the most important theological scholars in Israel. His home was lined with volume after volume of theological text, but he spoke plainly and deliberately about the importance of his faith and the role of faith in the lives of the Jewish people. The history of the Jewish people seemed to be etched onto his face and into his eyes. On this same trip I met with the Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Former Israeli Defense Force General Ephraim Eitam and Ambassador John Wolf, who is charged with monitoring the implementation of commitments in the peace process. One evening, I went on a tour of the Western Wall and the tunnels that run underneath the current level of buildings around the old city wall. The tour took over an hour and explored some of the most exciting history about Israel, Jerusalem and the Temple. There is a point in the tunnels that leads to an old entrance into the old city that, if opened, would lead to a special place below where the Temple once stood. This place, I'm sure my colleagues as children in Sunday school learned, is called the Holy of Holies. The Temple was built around this place, and it could not be entered except by the High Priest on Yom Kippur. It is the place, described in the Book of Genesis, where Abraham was to sacrifice his son Isaac. It is also the place where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. This was a unique experience. Jerusalem is a special place. It is extremely important to the peace process. In my hand is the ``Jerusalem Resolution,'' a proposition which I hope will propel the peace process forward by moving two big issues forward. This resolution seeks to make it U.S. policy that prior to the recognition by the U.S. of a Palestinian State, the U.S. Embassy must be moved to Jerusalem and that Jerusalem be declared as the undivided capital of Israel. This resolution would establish an important, tangible asset on both sides for advancing the peace process. For the past decade, we have attempted to forge a peace agreement between the Palestinians and Israelis on a design of land for peace. This model has failed. We should attempt a new way. If we address two major issues at the outset of vital interest to the ultimate desire for peace, we can help to create a powerful momentum for peace. This bill pushes for the resolution of the status of Jerusalem in conjunction with the recognition of a Palestinian state. Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people for three thousand years, and is the center of Jewish faith and culture. Jerusalem is the seat of Israel's Government, and is the only capital city designated by the host country in which the U.S. does not maintain an embassy nor recognize it as the capital. In this resolution, three months prior to the recognition of a Palestinian state, the United States must move its embassy to Jerusalem and the status of Jerusalem must be resolved by the international recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. I hope that my colleagues will join me in my effort. The peace process is in need of a major paradigm shift. We can't continue to bog ourselves down in the mechanics of the process. We must think grand about this problem and move beyond the status quo. This resolution is a challenge to this body to change its perspective on this issue. I hope in the coming months we can engage in serious debate over peace and the way toward it in the Middle East.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. I object.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I thank the Chair. I now yield to the Senator from Illinois for 7 minutes.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Thank you, Madam President. I am being joined by my colleague from Kansas, Senator Roberts, my colleague from Illinois, Senator Fitzgerald, and Senator Nickles will join us in our time period to talk about the judicial crisis we have in this country and the difficulties that have been created now by an unprecedented act of the filibustering of circuit court judges. I will take a narrow look at this as an issue that has been building for the last 40 years, and what has happened during that 40-year time period that the crisis in the court has developed. We stand on the shoulders of greatness. It was with courage and honor and convictions and convictions in religious beliefs that our forefathers formed this union of States we now call the United States of America. Indeed, the foundation of our country was formed with an understanding that there is a recognition of a higher moral authority. It is over our mantle, the one right here that I look at which says, ``In God We Trust.'' Yet if we are to continue down the precedent set in 1962--and I will go into that--it will be likely that in the near future we will have to take these words down and remove them as being illegal. This body itself committed a criminal act under a determination made by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals when we opened up and said the Pledge of Allegiance; a criminal activity because in 1954 President Eisenhower, the great Kansan, with a legislative body inserted, the unbelievable words, ``one Nation, under God.'' The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, to which two of the nominees would go, has declared that unconstitutional. It would be one thing if we said this is just an unusual aberration, but what we have to say and see is that this is a continuation of a 40-year march that the court has been on to purge any recognition or acknowledgment of God in the public square. We are on 40 years of judicial activism in this regard. I will go through that. The Ninth Circuit is applying the endorsement test, first articulated in the 1985 school prayer case of Wallace v. Jaffree. Let's be honest about the logic behind the test. It is an absolute demand that religious ideas and language be thoroughly eliminated and cleansed from government activities. If consistently applied, the endorsement test basically drives God out of public school and out of our public life. For too long we in this body have been silent and stood by while the courts have slowly chipped away at our responsibility to this Nation. And today we see the effects of our apathy. At this critical time in our Nation's history, the Senate stands locked in a controversy surrounding the confirmation of judges. But this stalemate also underscores the large issues at stake and the serious choices we face as a nation. If we look at the judicial trends for the past 40 years, the courts have increasingly veered off course. As far as religion is concerned, the courts have been on a relentless drive to remove God from the public square. It started in 1962 in Engel v. Vitale when 39 million students were forbidden to do what they and their predecessors have been doing since the founding of our Nation, publicly calling upon the name of the Lord at the beginning of each school day as we do in this body. The following year in the School District of Abington Township v. Schempp, the Court held that Bible readings in public schools also violate the first amendment. In 1992, in Lee v. Wiseman, prayer was removed from graduation exercises. And in 2000, in the Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, prayer was removed from being said at football games. None of these restrictions were affirmatively adopted by any legislative body. The legislative bodies, either at the Federal or State level did the opposite. The Congress added the phrase ``under God'' in 1954 to the Pledge of Allegiance, and did so with the explicit intention of fostering reverential patriotism--nothing more, nothing less. It was done to reflect the values of the American people that were as valid in 1954 as they are today. Yet this year, the Court will continue to decide these issues, irrespective of what the American people believe in and want. Along the way during this 40-year time period, the Court also discovered the constitutional right to abortion and more recently struck down State anti-sodomy laws. As the Court has sought to remove God from the public square, we should examine the impact it has had on our culture, that amorphous atmosphere that helps form our souls and our identities. The culture, the following charts demonstrate, has clearly deteriorated. More and more Americans are slipping into depression, alcoholism, and suicide. Our Nation's schools are plagued with students who not only fall behind in educational standards but who are suffering from societal problems that we have allowed to take place in this country. Prior to the two major cases outlawing prayer in 1962 and 1963, our students enjoyed more stability. Since then, there has been more violence, sexual activities in schools, which have had corrosive effects on our culture. For example, look at this chart showing suicides increased dramatically for teenagers between 1960 and today, nearly tripling the age bracket of suicide for children in our schools. Similarly, drug use has gone up significantly since the 1960s. Alcohol use also went up among those between the ages of 12 and 17, as this chart shows. Here are examples of societal consequences since the 1960s. Since the passage of Roe v. Wade, legalizing abortions, abortions have increased dramatically. By the 1990s, abortions, private sources show, have more than doubled during that period of time. We are at 1.5 million a year. Bill Clinton called for abortion to be safe, legal, and rare. It is none of the three. We see a dramatic increase in divorces that have taken place in this country since 1960. This chart goes back to 1940, but from 1960 forward we are at a point in the 1990s where one in every two marriages end in divorce in America. Is that a healthy culture? We have seen same trends in violent crimes taking place. From 1960 to where we are today, we have seen more than a doubling, tripling of violent crimes taking place. I ask the simple questions of my colleagues: Is there a direct correlation? Did the removal of prayer in the classroom or prohibitions on other public displays of religious convictions lead to the kind of moral decay reflected in the charts? Did the removal of honor and recognition of a higher moral authority impact our children? Or is it mere coincidence that our culture has declined as the courts deliberately and quietly shifted this country away from our motto, ``In God we trust.'' However one may interpret the empirical data and whatever conclusions one may draw of the cause and effect, we cannot ignore the key principles in the Constitution and under the establishment clause. While it may seem like inherent contradiction, Americans believe it both appropriate and necessary for government to limit abuses of religious liberty while at the same time making the effort to support sound religious convictions. I am joined by several of my colleagues in the Senate who want to go further in making points about the judges who are being appointed. One thing is consistent with the judges, and that is they are people who have, in many cases, strong convictions, strong religious convictions, and they are being tested and tested out because of their faith. Is that where we are going with this removal of God from the public square? This is a dangerous precedent and dangerous way we are going. I yield the floor to my colleague from Kansas, Senator Roberts.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Lugar, who does such an outstanding job on so many issues and really is a national treasure for us on international affairs and international issues, for allowing me recognition to speak on this bill. I thank the cosponsors, Senators Santorum and Boxer, for their work in bringing this issue in front of the body. I urge its passage. I urge usage of the Syria Accountability Act by the President. Several of these issues have already been covered. I wish to address them with some specificity by saying 43 and counting--43 and counting. That is the number of dictatorships that are left in the world. There were 45 at the start of this year. Two have changed over. Dramatic changes are taking place in some other countries. But there are 43 dictatorships. One of the harshest is Syria. It is a state sponsor of terrorism, one of five countries in the world that we recognize is a state sponsor of terrorism. We are facing terrorists coming from Syria on a daily basis in Iraq. You can hardly visit with any of our leadership working on the issue of Iraq and bringing democracy to that country without hearing them talking about foreign terrorists coming into Iraq. The largest percentage of those is coming through Syria. Another percentage is coming from Iran, which is another country that needs to go through a democratic metamorphosis and become a democracy. Iran is not a democracy today. We need to confront that. We need to confront, for the safety of our troops, these foreign terrorists coming in from Syria who are being sponsored by the Syrian Government. We know for some period of time Syria has sponsored Hezbollah, one of the leading terrorist organizations in the world, certainly very active in the Middle East, active in Lebanon, active in Israel, active, it appears, in support of going into Iraq. We know the historical legacy of Syria associated with Iraq and the Baathist Party regime that controlled both countries. It did control Iraq; it doesn't now. It is a ruthless, dictatorial, Stalinesque type of organization. They use political prisoners, torture, all sorts of means to maintain control by the Baathist leadership. The Syria Baathist leadership is the same sort of leadership we saw in Iraq. They are a bad lot. It is time we put pressure on Syria to change. President Bush last week made a beautiful speech to the National Endowment for Democracy calling for democracy throughout the world and saying that is the natural state of mankind, to be free and at liberty. Yet we see a dearth of liberty and freedom throughout much of the Middle East, particularly in countries such as Syria. I hope the President will use the Syria Accountability Act to bring greater pressure on the dictators in Damascus, on bringing them a clear point that we will not tolerate this use of terrorism; we will not tolerate their attacks on our troops; that we will not tolerate a regime that is a dictatorship; that the people of Syria deserve better. The people of Lebanon deserve better than to be minding the dictator paymasters that exist in Damascus. The President really needs to use this power that is being given by the Congress to the administration for these sanctions in Syria. I urge that we pass this act. I urge the President to use these sanctions. And I urge us to use all the means at our disposal to tighten the noose around the leadership of the dictators in Damascus. What they are doing in Syria, what they are allowing to flow out of their country, that would stop. This is one of the few countries left in the world that continues to be state sponsors of terrorism on a very aggressive basis. It must stop. We must show resolve in that. I state my support for the bill and yield the floor.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, if I can ask for permission to speak up to 3 minutes on a personal tribute in morning business and that the floor not be lost to the Senator from North Dakota.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, will the Senator from North Dakota yield for a question?

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise to honor Dr. S. King Sanders, who passed away October 30, 2003. I hope my colleagues will join me in expressing condolences to his family in this great loss. King Sanders left a worthy and memorable legacy for his wife, Rose; his children, Courtney and Michael, and other family members and friends to remember him by. He was a vocational Christian minister for 30 years, working as a director of missions and then a pastor in New Mexico for 20 of those years. During the last 14 years of his life, King also worked in the public policy arena. He served as liaison to the New Mexico legislature on behalf of that State's Baptist convention for eight years. Beginning in 1997, he worked here in Washington for the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. His behind-the-scenes work in our Nation's Capital supported the efforts of the ERLC and others to make this country all it should be. He used his abilities and position in the effort to protect all human life, from conception to natural death. King worked to help expand religious freedom to all people in this country and around the world. He was concerned about marriages and families, and sought to strengthen them and protect them from the ravages of harmful forces in our culture. He also worked earnestly to motivate citizens to become more involved in the political process. For King, relationships were foremost. He loved people and served them in many ways. He constantly expressed concern for others, even in the midst of the health problems that plagued him near the end of his life. His love for others and his concern for their welfare were based on his relationship with God by faith in Jesus Christ. King Sanders was the best of what this country is all about. He wanted America to be a great force for good in the world, and he wanted the lives of Americans to be blessed. All who knew him will miss him, and we pay tribute to his influential life and legacy. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. I thank the distinguished chairman and look forward to working with him on this matter. conservation cropping systems project

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, the Senate Agriculture appropriations bill only includes $25 million for the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program. The Bush administration has said that $25 million is not a level adequate to achieve the objectives of this important program. I agree with the administration that $25 million is woefully inadequate and would like to see the Senate fund this program at the $300 million level for which it was originally authorized. However, at a minimum, I contend that the Senate should accept the $56.8 million currently in the House bill. McGovern-Dole food aid is vitally important because it: one, provides humanitarian assistance by reducing incidence of hunger among the nearly 300 million chronically hungry school-age children and also promotes maternal, infant, and child nutrition programs for pregnant women, nursing mothers, infants and children five years old and under, two, enhances literacy and primary education by increasing school attendance of those 120 million school-age children who currently do not attend school--sixty percent of which are girls, and three, reduces terrorism by fostering goodwill toward the United States. I would like to know the chairman's position on funding for McGovern- Dole food aid.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I wish to recognize the city of Emporia, KS, for its significant role in the establishment of Veterans Day. The people of Emporia take great pride in their city's contribution to the founding of this national holiday, and, while they may be modest, I would like to trumpet the work of my fellow Kansans. As all of us in this Chamber are aware, Veterans Day was once Armistice Day, a day set apart by this Congress to commemorate the end of World War I, which our Nation once hoped would be ``the war to end all wars.'' Just a few years after Armistice Day was made a legal holiday, our Nation was engulfed in the Second World War. Shortly thereafter our soldiers were fighting bravely to repel the communist advance on the Koran Peninsula. These two conflicts added millions to the number of war veterans in the United States. Certainly, it seemed appropriate that these new veterans, like the veterans of World War I, should be honored for their service to our country. The man who initiated the effort to honor all of these veterans was a Kansan. Congressman Ed Rees, a native of Emporia, acted on the call of his constituents, particularly that of his fellow Emporian, Alvin J. King, to introduce legislation to officially change Armistice Day to Veterans Day. In 1954, another Kansan, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, signed this legislation into law. Since 1954, Veterans Day has been a day set apart to honor the valor and sacrifice of all America's veterans. At all times our Nation relies on the courage and selflessness of the members of our Armed Forces, so I am thankful that Congressman Ed Rees, at the behest of his fellow Emporians, worked so diligently to establish one special day when all our veterans are recognized for their faithful service to the United States. I thank the people of Emporia, and I thank the millions of war veterans who inspired them.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, responding to the good Senator from California, I note the abstinence funding is only 33 percent of the bill. The remaining two-thirds of the money can be used in other models other than the abstinence model. There are other funds in the bill that can't be used for other types of treatment, but we set aside a certain portion for the abstinence model because it has proven to be so effective. The other point the Senator from California mentions is flexibility. Ambassador Tobias, who runs the global AIDS program, is opposed to this amendment because it restricts his flexibility. I quote from the letter he sent to the appropriations chairman: Given the various cultures, traditions, and religions that are reflected in the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, it is essential that we be enabled to work with multiple prevention approaches and partners to affect behavior change. Restricting such flexibility, as this Amendment intends, would undermine our ability. . . . I urge a vote against the Feinstein amendment.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 2047

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I would like to speak in opposition to the Feinstein amendment. I have deep respect for Senator Feinstein. I have worked with her on a number of issues. I respect her thinking process, her compassion, and her view. However, on this issue, I have to differ with her, and I wanted to articulate several reasons why. No. 1, we have voted on this issue already. This issue came up earlier when we had the debate on the major initiative put forward by the administration on HIV/AIDS. This was a major issue of debate at that point in time when we were trying to get the authorizing piece of this bill through. This is the appropriations piece. But when we were trying to get the authorizing piece of the bill through, we had a major debate about this. We had a number of people here at that time talking with us about the role of abstinence. The leading country that has been successful in the major area where we are targeting our efforts in the HIV/AIDS pandemic has been Uganda. The Ugandan model is ABC, and it leads with abstinence. The day of the vote on this, we had the First Lady of Uganda here speaking with a number of us, talking about the central role of abstinence and the historic drop in the level of HIV/AIDS that had taken place in their country. These are very impressive numbers, best of any country around the world that has had the high infection rates. Their infection rate dropped from 21 percent to 7 percent in just 9 years. She was saying specifically it was the abstinence portion. It was the abstinence focus. If you want to stop the spread of AIDS, the best way to do it is abstinence. She was here and speaking to us with great clarity about that issue. We had the debate, and we voted at that point in time with a majority saying we want a certain amount of money to go for the abstinence program. I have great respect for the Senator from California. The Feinstein amendment would take money away from the abstinence focus in this program. In effect, she would open it up to more areas and dilute the abstinence base funding so that it will be reduced. In effect, we will be changing the course we set in the authorizing language: that we want a certain amount of money, about a third of this pool, to go to abstinence, and we would be changing course and reducing that level from the authorizing language. The administration and the Ambassador for Global AIDS Coordination, Ambassador Tobias, has written to the Senate Foreign Operations chairman, Senator McConnell, in strong opposition to this amendment. He says in his final paragraph: Finally, the effect of this amendment would be to decrease the amount that could be spent on abstinence-until-marriage programs as a prevention model, and I believe that would not be in the interest of best public health practice. This is the person implementing this legislation, the amount of funding we are putting forward. He thinks the money targeted by the authorizing committee is appropriate and best suited for us to meet the objectives. Mr. President, my objective is to reduce AIDS infections around the world, and the best model is Uganda. It has gone from 21 percent to 7 percent and the lead program they did it with was abstinence. We have a proven model. We voted on this previously. I urge my colleagues, with all due respect to the Senator from the State of California, not to change minds on this issue but, rather, to stay with what we already discussed and decided on and stay with the funding levels we currently have. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. The House passed FY04 Transportation bill contains a provision to assist the States in initiating a Fair Competitive Bid Procedure for State-assisted intercity rail passenger operations. The objective of the provision is to allow States the option of providing competitive intercity passenger rail. The House provision provides limited funding that will permit the Secretary of Transportation to initiate a new Fair Competitive Bid Procedure that the States can utilize. The Secretary will then monitor the progress of this demonstration and make monthly reports to the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations. I believe this is an excellent idea and was considering offering a similar amendment to this bill. However, I do not wish to delay the proceeding today, and this is already an item to be considered in conference. I would like to know if the chairman has an opinion on the House State-assisted intercity rail service provision.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I thank the distinguished chairman and look forward to working with him on a fair bid proposal.