Thomas Coburn

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, this is a real straightforward amendment. The Defense Department spends more on conferences than all the other programs combined. It has grown significantly in the last 5 years. Every dollar that is spent on a conference in Las Vegas, the Presiding Officer's home, or in Hawaii or south Florida is a dollar that doesn't go to our troops. We are not saying eliminate the needed conferences. We are saying do some sacrifice when it comes to conferences so we have money to fund our troops appropriately. Be wise, use digital video conferencing where you can, and make some sacrifice within the ease of travel and conference fun and fair for our troops. It is $70 million a year. Less than 5 years ago it was $58 million. Can we not, can we not spend less on conferences, do it a different way, and still accomplish what we need for the troops?

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, all this amendment says is that with the exception of anything related to national security, whatever they report ought to be made available to the American public. It is real simple. They have the Web site capability. If they report it, and it doesn't have anything to do with national security in terms of protecting our security, they ought to report it to the rest of the Members of Congress as well as to the rest of the American public.

Mr. COBURN. I will accept a voice vote.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, the only problem with that is I think the Senate ought to have a rollcall vote on whether improper payments which have been made by the Department of Defense ought to be held in conference. I would like to have a recorded vote to empower the chairman of the committee to hold this in conference. All this says is, let's look at improper payments of the Department of Defense. They make more improper payments than anywhere in the Government. They only look at three areas out of all the areas. The law says they should report improper payments. That is all I am asking for. Let's make them report the improper payments under the Improper Payments Act of 2002 which says they should.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, this is a simple amendment. This is transparency. This is about adding an amendment to this bill that says the earmarks we put in, we know where they go. They are transparent. We know who did them, and we know who gets the money. It allows the Defense Department to look at them in comparison to what the overall mission of the Defense Department is. It talks about the cost of administering the earmarks, assessment of the utility of the earmarks, and it is something the American people ought to see. We know some earmarks are great for the Department of Defense, but we also know some are terrible. We ought to be evaluating the pertinency and the value of those earmarks, and we ought to know whether they are valuable at a time when we are having trouble funding the war.

Mr. COBURN. I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside, and I call up amendment No. 4785.

Mr. COBURN. I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, I call up amendment No. 4787.

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that amendment be set aside.

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, is there an amendment pending at this time?

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, this is a philosophical debate. There are two questions we ought to ask ourselves: How many people think it is in the best interests of our young people to be sexually active outside of marriage? Is there anything positive that ever comes from that? Is there positive self-esteem? Is there disease? Are there consequences to the fact that when our young people make a decision to become sexually active, almost always there is a negative downside? Everybody in this body desires the best for our children. We desire the best for one another's children. We desire the best for every child. I have delivered over 4,000 babies. Most of those were Medicaid or teenage moms. I have been doing that for 23 years. I know the attitudes. I know what is going on. I can see. I have also seen every complication that can come about when we take the parents out of the loop, when we rationalize, well, if the parents aren't going to do it, the Government is going to do it for them. What we do is divide. We make division between children and parents. We do something out in the dark. I will never forget, I was in Stigler, OK, a small community. A farmer comes in there crying, with a bag in his hand. This was when I was a Congressman. He said: Congressman, how did this happen? My 13- year-old last night came home from the health department. She went with a friend. She came home from the health department with contraceptives and condoms, oral contraceptives and condoms. He said: How is it that I can pay my taxes and I am undermined by the local health department in what my child gets? She wasn't even going for her as an appointment. But she is sold on the fact that she needs to do this. She had good enough training that she came to her parents with that and said: Here is what happened to me. The point is, as a practicing physician, I use every tool I can with young women to make sure they are well informed. But there is a tipping point about what the best medical advice is. This is debatable. But I would tell you the best medical advice we could give our young men and women, the best absolute medical advice is to stay abstinent until you are in a married relationship. Everybody in this body probably agrees with that. If that is true, if risk avoidance is the best message, why do we turn around and give 1200 percent more money to risk reduction than we do risk avoidance? For every dollar we spend on abstinence education, we spend $12 on teaching people how to lower the risk. What is the message we are sending with that? We are going to spend $600 million this year on what this amendment does already. That is what we are going to spend. If you add up everything associated with this amendment, we are going to spend another $600 million. First, where are we going to get the money? We don't have it so we are going to borrow it from the very children we say we want to protect to do this. No. 2, we are winning the war in this country on teenage pregnancy. We are winning the war. We have the highest level of virgin 16-year- olds we have had in 30 years in this country, both men and women, both girls and boys. I don't know if 1200 percent more of that is because we have comprehensive sex education or whether 100 percent of it is because of abstinence. I don't know that. But what I do know is, I am not going to vote for anything that destroys relationships as I have seen in my practice for young women for years. Does that mean somebody who can't get available maternal child health should be denied it? No. Does that mean somebody who seeks out the right guidance should be denied it? No. This isn't a debate about not doing what we are already doing. We are already doing it. The question is, should we do more? Should we penalize the best medical advice that is out there, which is to abstain? The consequences of that would be disastrous. The moral rationalization is if you make a mistake, there are no consequences. I have seen the consequences. Condoms on teenagers work about 50 percent of the time, if you add up all the studies. The STD rate for teenagers, even when used perfectly, for human papilloma virus is still 38 percent, the No. 1 cause of cervical cancer. We can rationalize our moral principle away or we can say: Here is where we should go. We are not talking about changing anything. The President was widely attacked that he hadn't increased moneys for all this. We don't have money to increase anything in this country. We are fighting a war. We have had Katrina. We are running a $350 billion deficit. We don't have money. So if we are going to do this, what program are we going to cut? Or are we going to offer another $600 million? By the way, the title X program hasn't been authorized in 16 years and we are still appropriating moneys. There is a difference in philosophy. It doesn't mean I am right or wrong. It doesn't mean those who oppose me are wrong or right. But what I have seen from experience is when we honor virtue, when we mentor integrity, when we encourage the right choices, what we get is right choices, honor, and integrity. When we rationalize the consequences of violating principles that are for a healthy productive life, we get a consumption of errors. I have so many stories I would love for this body and the American people to know about the people I have cared for, the consequences of when we rationalize a moral principle of being pure until you are in a married relationship. Is that prudish? Does it happen? It happens a lot more than we give credit for. The question we ought to ask ourselves is, would it happen more if we set the example, if we didn't glorify the other position, if we didn't rationalize the position? I am opposed to the amendment on three grounds. One, we are already spending a ton of money on comprehensive sex education. I am not opposed to that. I teach condoms. I teach barrier methods. I also teach the consequences and the failure rates. I teach the consequences of oral contraceptives. We only have about 10 kids a year die in this country because they are given birth control pills that the parent didn't even know about and they have a thromboembolic event because there is a family history that was never related. So it is OK to sacrifice those 10 young girls because we didn't want their parents, who could have made a decision, to know. We could have done that, but we are not going to do that. We are going to rationalize the behavior of something that is not as good for our children, that is not the best medical advice, and we are going to sacrifice those lives. I am going to oppose it because we are already doing it, No. 1. No. 2, we already have a markedly distorted ratio against the best medical advice on which we all agree, the best thing our kids could do is not be sexually active outside of a monogamous, long-term relationship. We all agree to that. There is not anybody who disagrees with that. And finally, why is it here? Why is it on this bill? It is because we don't want this bill. Some of us don't want this bill to pass. I will relate to you a story about a gal. I will call her Julie because I can't mention her name. Julie is dead. Julie was 16 years of age. Her parents didn't know she had a termination to her pregnancy. When I saw her in the ER at 2 o'clock in the morning, she had a fever and a little bit of bleeding. She had a botched abortion with an infection developed, what is called disseminated intravascular coagulation. And basically 3 days later, despite all the heroic events, she died. Why did she die? She died because we separated the choices that she made from her parents without their involvement. Would she have died if somebody had cared to know what her immediate post-op followup condition was? No. Had she had intervention earlier, would she have died? No. Her parents will never get over the fact that they weren't there. They blame themselves. I oppose this amendment and hope other Members will do so as well.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 25, 2006, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on ``Regulation of Hedge Funds.''

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs' Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia be authorized to meet on Tuesday, July 25, 2006, at 10 a.m. for a hearing entitled, Supporting the Warfighter: Assessing the DoD Supply Chain Management Plan.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Airland Subcommittee of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 25, 2006, at 9:30 a.m., in open session to receive testimony on the F-22A Multiyear Procurement Proposal in review of the Defense authorization request for fiscal year 2007.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation's Aviation Subcommittee be authorized to meet on Tuesday, July 25, 2006, at 10 a.m. on the Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO).

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I want to take a few moments to discuss the comments we just heard. I will go back to the litmus test. My belief is there is no way Jerome Holmes could have given an answer in response to questions that were asked by Senator Leahy that would have met with Senator Leahy's approval. We had a hearing on Mr. Holmes. The great concerns we have heard on the floor, nobody came to ask any of those questions. No one showed up other than myself and two other Members to hear Jerome Holmes' response, both in terms of his comments and beliefs about affirmative action, but also about the beliefs he has. This is a man who has experienced racial discrimination. This is a Black man who rose to heights without the assistance of anyone else other than his sheer will and great effort on his part and the character instilled in him by his parents. There are multiple allegations that have been raised. I will hold back on answering those specifically with Mr. Holmes' responses. I yield to the senior Senator from Utah 20 minutes. If he needs additional time, I will be more than happy to yield that to him. Would the Chair please notify us when we have 10 minutes remaining?

Mr. COBURN. Will the Senator yield for an inquiry of the Chair?

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I don't know quite where to begin. If you are sitting out in America today and you heard what you just heard, what you heard was, I am going to point out how bad you are. Here is what is wrong, here is the choice. What you heard was a partisan rant about the situation we find ourselves in today rather than a constructive hand that says, let's work together to get things done. We heard a debate about stem cells so it could be used politically. We heard a lot of words that were interchanged, stem cells versus embryonic stem cells. We heard words that President Bush does not care about people with illnesses, Republicans do not care about people with illnesses. We heard words that 70 percent of Americans support stem cell research. The fact is when you as Americans are asked, do you think your taxpayer dollars ought to be used to destroy embryos for embryonic research, that number changes to 38 percent. Half truths are just that. The time we are supposed to be using is on the nomination of a great American by the name of Jerome Holmes. What we saw is, Members are going to vote against him because they have a litmus test. That is what is going to drive our country farther apart rather than bring us together. If you don't match up and you don't pass the litmus test, then you can't be voted for. The problem is, that works both ways. If the Senate is going to change its approach to judicial nominees, and you have to match either a liberal or conservative dogma, what will happen to our courts? What will happen to our country? The fact is Jerome Holmes is a man of absolute character, impeccable credentials, and has integrity that nobody questions. Except by a sleight of hand and backhanded inference that he doesn't care about minorities, even though he is African American, he does not care about minorities because he happens to have published a difference of opinion on the legal basis for affirmative action, that is the litmus test. That is why he is not going to be voted on. Here is a man who grew up in less than ideal circumstances, graduated cum laude, went to Georgetown University, has advanced degrees from Harvard, has been a prosecutor, has been a defender, has been an advocate for those who are less fortunate, and will be the first African American ever to be on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Yet as we heard, he measures up in everything except one thing: He doesn't buy into what some want him to buy into on one issue. Who better to question his own opinion--not his legal opinion but his own personal opinion? Is it the fact that you can't have a personal opinion about anything and become a judge in this country? How would we know anything about them? It takes great courage for an African American, a lawyer, to say, I think there are some things that are wrong with the affirmative action plan. He did not say: I don't think we should have equality. He did not say: I don't think we should make up for past deeds that have not been rectified. What he said was: Here is what the Supreme Court did. I think they should have gone a little further. And on that basis alone he does not meet the absolute litmus test that is going to be required. Well, think what happens if every judge who is conservative has to be pro-life. Do they have to be pro-life? No. We have to get away from this idea that you have to fit a certain mold politically before you can be a judge in this country. And, if we do not, we are going to destroy this country. What we want is people of integrity who understand the limited role of a judge; and that is not to put your personal opinions in but to, in fact, take the Constitution, take the statutes, and take the treaties, follow Supreme Court precedent, and make sure everybody who comes into your courtroom gets a fair chance, given what those rules are. They are not to make new law. They are not to put their opinions in. They are not to change based on what they feel rather than what the law says. The only way we can have blind justice is to make sure those litmus tests are not a part of the selection. And what we heard today was the opposition--wouldn't go into details--come and aggressively tell us why you do not want Jerome Holmes to be an appellate judge on the Tenth Circuit. We are not going to hear that. We are not going to hear that at all. Instead, we are going to hear a political debate about the politics of division in our country rather than the healing hand of reconciliation that should be about the leadership in this body and Congress. How do we reconcile our differences to move the country forward instead of divide? How do we gain advantage in the next election by making somebody look bad. That is what we just heard. How do we make somebody look bad? It is easy to make somebody look bad. It is a lot harder to build them up and say, in spite of our differences, we can walk down the road together to build a better America for everybody. We did not hear that this morning. What we heard was the politics of division. First of all, I think it is improper to do that when we are considering the nomination of such a great American as Jerome Holmes. I want to comment a minute on the stem cell debate. I am a physician. I think it is so unfortunate that we are gaming this. All of us, as families and members of this society, have members in our families who have diseases for which future research is going to unlock wonderful and magnificent cures. There is no question about that. But there is a question about an embryo. I personally believe to destroy an embryo is to take a life. That is my personal belief. You can have a different position than that, and it does not make you a bad person. It just means we have different positions. It does not make you incapable of making good decisions in the future if you have a different position than I do. But there are some facts that are not out, and I would hope the American public would listen to them. Embryonic stem cells have tremendous potential. There is no question about it. But they also have potential tremendous danger. And there will be no cure that will come from embryonic stem cells that does not come along with potential danger, and that is called rejection because it will not be your tissue, it will be the tissue of a clone, which will still have foreign DNA in it that is foreign to you. So any cure that comes out of embryonic stem cell research will be faced with a lifelong utilization of medicines to keep you from rejecting that treatment. Now, the difference between an embryonic stem cell and a cord blood or adult stem cell or an amniotic membrane stem cell or chorionic stem cell is that it is your tissue, there is no rejection. There is no potential for rejection if you use your own stem cells to treat yourself so you do not have to have a lifelong utilization of medicines. And the complication of those medicines is tremendous. The other thing we did not hear today, which is the most promising for everything that we have in terms of research, is called germ cell stem cells, that have absolutely all the potential of embryonic stem cells with none of the downside and none of the rejection and none of the carcinogenesis or teratogenesis, which means the forming of tumors--has none of the downside--so, in fact, we now have in front of us, in the last 9 months, in this country an ethical alternative that solves all the problems associated with embryonic stem cells and gives us all the potential. But we did not hear a thing about that today. We did not hear it because we were creating a wedge issue for the elections rather than solving the problems of health care in this country. We did not hear about the fact that you can take a stem cell from the duct of the pancreas and recreate beta islet cells to have people--children and adults--who are insulin dependent today have reproduction of their insulin on their own from their own cells. We did not hear that. What we heard was division rather than reconciliation. I think it is highly unfortunate that we take time when we should be talking about the merits of what do we want in our judges. I do not care if a judge is liberal or conservative. I do not care if a judge is a Republican or a Democrat. What I do care about is do they buy the fact that they have a limited role? Do they understand what that role is, that they are there to follow stare decisis, precedent set by the Supreme Court, and the only books they get to look at is what the law, the Constitution, and the treaties say? That is what they get to decide it on, and the facts of the case. It should not matter what their political affiliation is. It should not matter what their philosophy is of life. What should matter is, how do they see their role? Jerome Holmes is a man who understands the role of a judge. He will make a fine judge. There is not anybody who knows this man who has come forward, in any of the testimony or any of the history, who has raised an issue about his integrity, his competence, or his character. But we have one issue. He has written his real opinion. If we say judges cannot have an opinion outside of their job, then we are going to have terrible judges--terrible judges. And if we use only political marks--you have to line up on all the politically correct stuff from my viewpoint or somebody else's viewpoint to be a judge--we are going to have terrible judges. But, more importantly, we are going to have a divided country. What we need in our country today is leadership that brings us together, not leadership that divides us. We need leadership that looks at a vision of America as to what we need 30 years from now, and what do we do today to get there, rather than to concentrate on our differences today so we can have a political advantage in the next election. The American people understand that. They can be manipulated. We saw that today. But America is great when America embraces its heritage. And that heritage is self-sacrifice and service for the next generations. It is not about, how do I make myself better today; how do I create an advantage for me politically today. It is about putting me second and our country first. It is about putting my party second and our country first. It is about creating a future for the very lives we are saying we want to cure with stem cells so they have something to look forward to. Those who vote against Jerome Holmes do not have that vision for America. They have a vision of alienation, of division, of failure for our country. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN. I thank the Chair. I will not take all the time. I want to go back to what we said earlier this morning. If we are going to do a litmus test on judges, if we are going to say a judge cannot have an opinion outside of his role of a judge, we will destroy this country, whether it is a conservative litmus test or a liberal litmus test. The fact is, as to Jerome Holmes, there have been very few appointments or nominees for this position at the appellate level that compare to the qualifications of Mr. Holmes. He also has the life experiences that will make him even more valuable on the court in terms of his compassion. He has experienced discrimination as an African male. He has risen to heights on his own, struggled--advanced degrees from Harvard, law degree from Georgetown, cum laude from his alma mater. There are very few people who will measure up to him. Now, does he fit every litmus test? No, he doesn't fit every litmus test that I might have for a judge, but that is not the basis under which we should be considering judges. He does, in fact, have the one key characteristic that is necessary, and it has been attested to by the people who know him. It has been attested to if you just heard him in the hearings. But of all those who have come to the floor to oppose him, members of the Judiciary Committee wouldn't even come and confront him with concern. They didn't come to the hearing. They didn't hear what he had to say. They had their minds made up. The fact is, this is an excellent nomination. It is someone of whom we in our country should be proud, who recognizes the diversity of our country, and despite what the Senator from Massachusetts said, he can be entrusted with the future of this country, our Constitution, and the limited role of a judge in applying the law. With that, Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of our time and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, could the Chair advise the time remaining on both sides?

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote on the confirmation of Jerome Holmes be at 11:45 a.m. today with the remaining time under the majority.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tem. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. COBURN. I thank the Chair. I ask unanimous consent that letters from judges, Democrats, Republicans, businesses, the Governor of Oklahoma, be printed in the Record in support of Mr. Holmes.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, it is amazing the way things get twisted. I want to read exactly what Jerome Holmes said in his comments about racial bias. The Senator from Massachusetts just stated that he would ignore reality. Here is what he said in his article. One need not doubt the lingering effects of racism in our society to reject the above claims. Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy and other scholars remind us that racial prejudice still exists in the jury box. He didn't deny it. He said it did. You just heard the opposite of that. What he said is: As an African American, I am among the first to condemn it. We did not hear any of that. And what was just said about what Jerome Holmes wrote, he condemns it. He can't be trusted. That was what we just heard. What you just heard was a litmus test that if he doesn't agree down the line with those who have a completely different political philosophy, he is unqualified. Here is a Black man who has been discriminated against tons in his life. It makes no intuitive sense that he would oppose a jury system that ferreted out racial discrimination. So that is unfounded. His comments on the death penalty, Judge Holmes said we should use DNA but that should come through the legislature as direction, as a directive of the legislative bodies in terms of creating parameters, also, which you would say is to his credit because what he said is: I recognize the limited role of the judiciary in how we make decisions. We should be dependent in certain areas on directions from the legislative body. In other words, what we rule on is the laws of this country which the legislative body and the executive branch determine. So all he is doing is deferring. It has nothing to do with whether DNA should be used to protect the life of somebody wrongly convicted and under threat of the death penalty. The other quote we heard is it is impossible for him to have an open mind because he disagrees with the Senator from Massachusetts on an issue. Well, if we use that standard in this body, nothing would ever happen. If we disagree, then we can't have an open mind, we can't listen, we can't learn. He won't come unbiased to the court. There is not one judge anywhere in this country who does not have biases. The question is can they separate their biases through the commitment of their oath of office to say: Here is our function. Here is how we function. Here is how we carry out our obligations. Nobody meets the standard that the Senator from Massachusetts just set up. There would be nobody with whom I might have a philosophical difference that I could not raise that same example. I am hopeful that the Members of this body will overwhelmingly endorse Jerome Holmes, the first African American to be appointed to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. For the very reasons that Senator Kennedy raised, Jerome Holmes disproves every one of those arguments. It gives me great pleasure to yield to the senior Senator from Oklahoma at this time and to thank him in the process and to also recognize and thank the President for the nomination of Jerome Holmes.