Richard Durbin

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Washington (Ms. Cantwell) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Washington (Ms. Cantwell) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Whitehouse) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, at his first official news conference 1 month ago, President Biden said: I got elected to solve problems and the most urgent problem was COVID-19 and the economic disruption facing millions and millions of Americans. If we were to measure President Biden using only those standards, the first hundred days of the Biden-Harris administration have been a historic success. But this new administration has done far more in its first hundred days than just tackle the pandemic; it helped small families and small businesses that are hurting financially because of the coronavirus. President Biden is reestablishing America's role as a leader in the world and repairing alliances that were damaged dangerously under his predecessor. Equally important, Joe Biden is restoring credibility and dignity to the Office of the President itself. As President Biden prepares to deliver his first joint address to Congress on Wednesday, it is worth considering how far we have come in 100 days. President Biden inherited a nation torn apart by political division, an out-of-control pandemic, and an economy that was in a deep, deep hole. Hundreds of thousands of American small businesses had been closed when he took office. The pandemic caused most of this. Millions of Americans had lost jobs. We lost 140,000 jobs in December alone. President Biden promised aggressive government action to stop the spread of the coronavirus and to stabilize the economy, and he and the Democrats in Congress are making good on those promises. Let's remember where we came from. When Joe Biden took office, the United States was averaging 195,000 new COVID infections every day, and 3,000 Americans were dying every day. Today, we have come down from 195,000 daily infections to 57,000 and from 3,000 COVID deaths every day to 700--still too many, but dramatic progress was made under this new President. Remember where we came from. When Biden took office, the United States of America had one of the highest COVID infection rates in the world. Two numbers tell the story of the first year of COVID-19 infection under the previous President. The United States of America has about 5 percent of the world's population, but we had, when Biden took office, 20 percent--20 percent--of the COVID-19 infections in the world and 20 percent of the deaths. Now there is hope. This President listened to the medical experts--he didn't come up with his own theories of the case--and he expanded vaccine distribution. The day Joe Biden took office, on that day, January 20 of this year, to that day, the United States had administered 1.6 million COVID vaccine shots total in the Nation, 1.6 million. We are now seeing 3 million vaccinations administered every day. President Biden promised to deliver 100 million COVID-19 doses in his first hundred days. He didn't do that; he delivered 200 million doses. Forty percent of all Americans, the majority of U.S. adults, have had at least one dose of the vaccine. Every American over the age of 16 is eligible now for the coronavirus vaccination free of charge. Greatly expanding COVID vaccinations and testing are at the heart of the American Rescue Plan that President Biden proposed and this Congress passed last month, sadly without one single Senate vote from our Republican colleagues; nor were there any House Republican votes in favor of it. The American Rescue Plan, exclusively passed with Democratic votes, also included $1,400 emergency stimulus checks to a majority of Americans, assistance for schools, small businesses, and State and local governments. Enhanced unemployment benefits, which were scheduled to stop last March, will continue until September. This is an economic lifeline for millions of Americans who lost their jobs during the pandemic. The American Rescue Plan expanded the child tax credit and makes it fully refundable so that families who need it most can benefit from it now. America's child poverty rate today is one of the highest in the developed world. This action taken in President Biden's American Rescue Plan could cut child poverty in America by 40 percent. We have been waiting for more than 40 years for the benefits of a tax cut for the rich to trickle down and solve these problems, to help working families, and to end poverty. It didn't work. Income inequality in America grew under the Republican plan, and now it is greater than it was at the start of the Great Depression. But in less than 40 days, the American Rescue Plan is already working. Here are the indications: Last month, the number of families behind in rent fell by 2 million. The share of adults who say they don't have enough to eat fell from 1 in 7 to 1 in 11 The U.S. economy added 916,000 jobs. In December, economic projections from the Federal Reserve had a forecast of the U.S. economy growing by 4.2 percent in 2021. After we passed the American Rescue Plan, that estimate jumped to a healthy, strong 6\1/2\ percent. Last month, consumer confidence in America hit its highest level since the pandemic shut down the economy a year ago. President Biden is also restoring America's role as a global leader. He used his first speech to a global audience at the Munich Security Conference in February to announce: ``America is back, [and] the transatlantic alliance is back.'' And ``diplomacy is back at the heart of U.S. foreign policy.'' President Biden is consulting with our allies, not insulting them, and he is countering authoritarian strongmen instead of cozying up to them. Earlier this month, the Biden administration announced new sanctions against Russia and expelled Kremlin diplomats over Russian interference in the 2020 election. The SolarWinds cyber-espionage campaign that targeted important U.S. Federal Agencies and Fortune 500 companies and other hostile acts certainly merited that action by the United States against Russia. Once again, America has a President willing to defend this Nation against attacks by a hostile government. President Biden is also reasserting American leadership in the fight against climate change. On his first full day in office, he began the process to rejoin the Paris Agreement. Remember when President Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement, making the United States the only Nation in the world that hadn't signed up for this effort? On Earth Day last week, President Biden hosted a virtual summit of leaders from 40 nations and announced that the United States will cut its carbon emissions by half by 2035. Under Joe Biden, America is ready to lead the global effort to avoid climate catastrophe and create good, new green jobs and industries of the future. Don't we owe that to our kids and grandchildren? President Biden is returning normalcy and dignity to the Office of the President. At a townhall meeting in Wisconsin in February, the President told the Nation: The next four years, I want to make sure all the news is about the American people. He has replaced ego with empathy, chaos with competence, and division with decency and unity. White House briefings are filled with information, not insults. The @POTUS Twitter account no longer fires off tweets in the middle of the night that are unsettling to Americans and even our allies. One of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle complained. He recently bemoaned President Biden's Twitter feed when he said ``unimaginably conventional.'' He meant that as a criticism. Most American people find it a relief. Polls show that the majority of Americans approve of President Biden's leadership on the coronavirus and the economy. A new poll by the Kennedy School at Harvard finds that among young people between the ages of 18 and 29, 56 percent--a solid majority--say they are hopeful about America's future. That is the highest for any President in the 21-year history of the poll. The challenges that President Biden and Vice President Harris inherited were historic. They won't be solved in a hundred days, maybe not in a hundred weeks. But in his first hundred days as President, Joe Biden has kept his promises and has begun to restore the most precious commodity of all--America's sense of hope and common purpose. Those qualities built this Nation, and they will build our future. (Ms. HIRONO assumed the Chair.)

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Maryland (Mr. Cardin), and the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Laura Gentile, Margarett McIntosh, and Emily Tucker, who are fellows and Federal Agency detailees with the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, have floor privileges for the duration of this Congress.

Mr. DURBIN

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

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, today is Earth Day, our planet's largest annual civic event. More than 1 billion people in 192 nations are expected to participate in activities to draw attention to the urgency of the climate crisis and environmental degradation. From the South Side of Chicago to South America and South Asia, ordinary citizens-- schoolchildren, scientists, environmental activists, business and government leaders, and others--are calling for help for our ailing planet. This year, the most important Earth Day gathering is just 16 blocks from where we meet. At the White House today, President Biden is hosting a 2-day virtual summit of leaders from 40 Nations--leaders from the highest emitting countries, China, India, Russia, as well as leaders from countries that suffer the worst consequences, such as Bangladesh and Kenya. The leaders are coming together, after a year of staggering pandemic hardship and climate-related crises, to renew their commitment to save our planet from irreversible climate catastrophe. With this Earth Day Leaders Summit, President Biden is sending the world a clear message: The United States is back and is ready to be a leader again in combating climate change. The White House Leaders Summit is meant to encourage countries to make strong commitments under the Paris Agreement to prevent the global average temperature from rising more than 1.5 degree Celsius above preindustrial levels. This sounds technical and dry and wonky, but here is what it means. At 1\1/ 2\ degrees Celsius of warming, much of the world will likely see sea level rise that swallows coastlines, leaves millions of homes underwater, and produces recordbreaking droughts, floods, and other climate catastrophes. Hundreds of millions of people will be pushed into poverty because of this, and climate-related famine and conflicts would trigger a global refugee crisis worse than anything we have ever seen. That is the future if we do nothing. That is something we must avoid, and the United States needs to show leadership. President Biden does that today with this meeting. One of his first official acts as President, on his first full day in office, was starting the process of recommitting the United States to join every nation in the world in the Paris Agreement. If you will remember, the previous President decided that America would step away from that. At the White House Leaders Summit, the President will announce a new goal: to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent by the year 2030. The Biden administration's leadership stands in sharp contrast to what we have seen over the last 4 years. We saw a President withdraw from the Paris Agreement, ridicule science at every opportunity, deny the existence of a growing climate threat, and even censor the remarks of government scientists that might suggest otherwise. Fortunately, the disengagement by the previous administration didn't prevent the American people, scientists, real business leaders and entrepreneurs, and cities and States from ignoring President Trump and moving ahead. There is no substitute, though, for leadership at the top. The American Jobs Plan, which President Biden plans to pass, and I hope there is support, is a plan to secure America's global economic leadership, strengthen America's working families, and build the infrastructure of the future we can count on. The American Jobs Plan, of course, will rebuild America's crumbling rail lines, roads, bridges, ports, and water systems; strengthen America's power grid; and invest in 5G broadband internet for every community in America. The previous President promised it but didn't deliver. This President wants to deliver, with our help. I have heard those on the floor who then criticize that part of the American Jobs Plan, which goes further. President Biden also wants to invest in green energy, wind, solar, and other renewable energy projects. To hear that described by some of his Republican critics, it is just pure socialism. Socialism? It is a realistic response to the 21st challenge of climate change. The American Jobs Plan includes billions of dollars to retrain any workers who are dislocated if they work in the fossil fuel industry and to find better, well-paying jobs with a future in clean energy and other fields. Just this week, the president of the United Mine Workers of America--a sixth generation West Virginia coal miner--announced that his union was going to support President Biden's American Jobs Plan in exchange for training his coal miners in how they can be effective and also have good jobs in a cleaner energy future. That union understands clean energy. Most Americans do. I hope Senators on both sides of the aisle will. American business gets it. I have introduced two bills that would bring efficiency and innovation of the marketplace and the financial clout of the Federal Government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create a more sustainable economy that works for the people and the planet. My bills are called the America's Clean Future Fund Act and the Climate Change Resiliency Fund for America Act. We talked about investing in American infrastructure so we can tackle climate change and create renewable energy jobs and the industries of the future. But I want to make it clear that our highest priority is to create those jobs right here in America. I hope my colleagues will work with us and won't filibuster the President's efforts to move our economy forward in a dramatic way. We can't afford denial, defeatism. We can't afford people who say it is too late to do anything about climate disaster. We owe it to our children, grandchildren, and future generations to do everything in our power to save this planet from what is obviously coming our way. Safe, effective vaccines have brought us so far in fighting this pandemic. We have developed in a short period of time under this President not only the vaccines but also their delivery and administration to the people of our country at a rate no one ever expected. The research that led to this was good scientific research. Two of the leading vaccines were developed using something called messenger RNA--mRNA--and it worked. The basic science that led to the discovery of mRNA was largely funded by American taxpayers--government programs--and applied by the private industry with great success. And now, because of our investment in science and belief in science, people's lives are being saved in the United States and around the world. Imagine solutions we can find if we harness the power of public partnerships together with science and citizen engagement to address climate change. The first Earth Day was 51 years ago. It was proposed by a Senator from Wisconsin named Gaylord Nelson. It brought 20 million Americans together at the time, put preservation of our planet on the national agenda, and ushered in a decade of remarkable environmental progress. That decade saw the creation of some of our most important protections of clean air, land, and water. Ten years later, Gaylord Nelson looked back on that first Earth Day and the decade that followed. His words bear repeating today, And this is what he said: ``So long as the human species inhabits the Earth, proper management of its resources will be the most fundamental issue we face. Our very survival will depend upon whether or not we are able to preserve, protect, and defend our environment. We are not free to decide about whether or not our environment matters. It does matter. Apart from politics, it is fundamental to survival. We disregard the needs of our ecosystem at our mortal peril.'' That was the lesson of Earth Day, and it should never be forgotten.

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar) and the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Smith) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, if you believe the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act is a good piece of legislation--and, obviously, over 90 Senators voted to move to proceed to this bill--then you can't vote for the Lee amendment because the first thing he does before he puts out his own idea of what we should consider instead is to strike key sections of the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act that require the Attorney General to issue guidance to establish online reporting of hate crime incidents, collect data on hate crime incidents, and expand public education in campaigns. The Lee amendment strikes that. He doesn't want us to do that. He wants us to assign the Attorney General the responsibility, in the next 180 days, to survey every COVID-19 restriction in every State in the Union. I urge a vote against the Lee amendment. Vote on Amendment No. 1425

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar) and the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Smith) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar) and the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Smith) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar) and the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Smith) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it has been many years ago that I went to law school, and I still remember some of the courses and some of the teachers and certainly some of my grades. One of the most interesting courses that should have been required of every student in every law school in America basically was about this document, this Constitution, because in its simplicity, you are sometimes put off by the fact that there is real wisdom behind the words, and applying them in real life can take twists and turns. I found one way, a quick course in constitutional law, where average people come to understand the Bill of Rights better than most, and I found this when I was practicing law in Springfield, IL. I would get a telephone call from a parent who would say to me: Durbin, you have got to help me. They arrested my 17-year-old son for possession of marijuana. What are his rights under the Constitution? Did they give him a Miranda warning? I started hearing things from parents coming back to me about this document, which I was surprised--surprised to hear. The point I am trying to make is this: The many years ago when I was practicing law in Springfield, IL, we were going through a learning process about drugs and addiction, and it has continued to this day. In fact, I don't believe there is a single Senator on either side of the aisle who would say: You know, I have been here 20 years or plus, and I have never changed my views on drugs. Maybe some feel that way. I am not one of them. There have been dramatic changes in the American attitude toward drugs. I think we know that, obviously. There have been changes in many States. In my State of Illinois, I think about that parent who called so many years ago--in a State where the sale and possession of marijuana and products made with marijuana is now legal and taxed. Things have changed dramatically when it comes to drugs. There are very few people who hold to the old school, which says: Simple possession of one marijuana cigarette, and we are going to put you in jail and throw away the key. No, it has changed a lot. In fact, it has changed in Washington so much so that there was a bill called the FIRST STEP Act. The FIRST STEP Act was a bill that I worked on with Senator Grassley and Senator Lee and Senator Booker, who is here today, that basically said: We are changing our attitude toward drugs. Simple possession of a small amount of drugs will not require a mandatory minimum sentence because we have seen the terrible outcome otherwise. We put that bill together on a bipartisan basis, and President Donald Trump signed the bill into law. He not only signed it but came before us in the State of the Union Address and was proud of the fact that he had changed and reformed drug laws. So when I hear the arguments made on the floor that perhaps some nominee coming before us may have changed her or his opinion on drugs as, say, America has, by and large, think about what has happened with this opioid crisis now that it is no longer just an--I say ``just,'' underlined--an inner-city crime but a crime that affects families who live in wealthy suburbs. We now are looking at addiction so differently. So let's go to this issue of Vanita Gupta and her positions on drugs. In questions for the record, Senator Cornyn, the senior Senator from Texas, asked Vanita Gupta what research, books, studies, and other material did you rely on before concluding that ``all drugs should be legal''? Gupta said that she has never said that all drugs should be legal or completely decriminalized. In his floor speech last week, Senator Cornyn claimed 15 times that Gupta had lied in response to this question. Senator Cornyn held up a poster purportedly showing that Gupta had denied ever making a 2012 statement in favor of decriminalizing the simple possession of small amounts of drugs. The Senator said: If you publish an op-ed saying the sky is purple and now you say the sky is blue, don't tell us you never thought the sky was purple. Senator Cornyn's claim, I am afraid, is false. Vanita Gupta was completely honest and forthright. Cornyn's poster left out the very next sentence of Gupta's response, in which she clearly acknowledged her past position on decriminalizing the simple possession of drugs. Gupta stated, and I quote: ``I have never advocated for the decriminalization of all drugs, and I do not support the decriminalization of all drugs. In 2012, nine years ago, I coauthored an article that advocated for states to decriminalize and defelonize simple possession of all drugs, particularly marijuana, and for small amounts of other drugs.'' Does this sound like a person who is on a crusade to promote fentanyl, opioids, heroin? It sounds like a person who might have voted for the FIRST STEP Act, signed into law by President Donald Trump, who said we have to take an honest look at what arrest and imprisonment for simple possession of drugs has done to America. When one out of three Black adult males, has, unfortunately, a history of incarceration, it raises a question about overincarcerating for possession--possession-- of drugs. So I think this argument that she cannot be trusted on the issue of drugs falls apart when you read what she actually said. Then there is the question of defunding the police. I don't know who dreamed up that phrase. I don't think much of it. I have never espoused it nor argued for it because I think it is so misleading, and, in many respects, it has been exploited. Republicans like to claim that Vanita Gupta supports efforts to defund the police. She has never called for defunding the police. Suggesting she has done so, including an ad by the conservative, dark money-funded Judicial Crisis Network--they pop up around here whenever mysterious groups want to spend millions of dollars to discredit someone. These claims in that ad are patently false. A Washington Post editorial wrote of the Judicial Crisis Network claim: ``Awkwardly, there's zero proof of that, including in the ad's own footnoted citation.'' The Washington Post called Judicial Crisis Network's ad a ``baseless smear campaign,'' ``categorically dishonest,'' and ``mainly notable for the magnitude of lies and distortions it crams into 30 seconds.'' And listen to the response and the source. The executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police, Jim Pasco, called this ad that claimed that Gupta wanted to defund the police--do you know what he called it?--``partisan demagoguery.'' And yet we still hear it on the floor of the Senate as if it is gospel truth. The Fraternal Order of Police supports Vanita Gupta's nomination to this position in the Department of Justice, and they aren't the only ones. Virtually every major law enforcement group supports Vanita Gupta. You wouldn't know that, would you, when you hear on the floor that she wants to legalize all drugs and take the money away from police. Those simplistic statements belie the truth and the fact that these organizations support her. The Republicans, starting with Senator McConnell and continuing to this moment, will not acknowledge the obvious. These are hard-nosed organizations that don't give their endorsement out easily, and they weren't fooled by Vanita Gupta. They know Vanita Gupta. In a letter to the Senate endorsing Gupta's nomination, the president of the Major County Sheriffs' Association of America--that is a pretty hard-nosed group. Here is what they wrote: ``During our meetings, Ms. Gupta emphasized that she does not support efforts to defund the police.'' They addressed it directly. They didn't beat around the bush. You don't expect them to; do you? During her tenure at the Justice Department, Vanita Gupta worked closely for law enforcement, which is why the Senate has received numerous letters of support for her nomination from law enforcement groups. I can go through the list, and it is long. I won't. Trust me, it has all been entered into the Record. Every Senator--Democrat and Republican--has had a chance to see it. But I think there is something more fundamental to this nomination, which we are considering Wednesday, April 21, in the year 2021. Late yesterday afternoon, a verdict in a trial in Minnesota captured the attention of America and other places around the world. We all know what it was about. It was about the death of George Floyd and the culpability of a law enforcement officer in his death. It was a trial that was followed as closely as any trial that I can remember, and the verdict against the police officer gave some people the hope that we are finally going to walk down that path again of civil rights and be honest about it and demand equality under the law for everyone in this country in the enforcement of law. I hope that happens, and I hope that we can be a part of it--and we should be--in the U.S. Senate. But I will tell you, and I can predict with certainty, that it is going to be a rocky path for those advocates for asserting civil rights. History has shown it, and many of us have lived it, at least as witnesses, that those who step out and speak out for civil rights and human rights often pay a heavy price. One of the people in our history--our recent history--who has done just that is Vanita Gupta, the nominee who is before us today. I mentioned earlier, and I want to commend to my colleagues and anyone else, this book ``Tulia,'' written by a man named Nate Blakeslee. It is a story of a town in Texas. I want to briefly describe to you why they would write a book about this town in Texas.

Mr. DURBIN. Sure. Let me read the summary of this book and the book cover. I have had a chance to read parts of it but not in its entirety. Here is what it says: ``Early one morning in the summer of 1999, authorities in the tiny West Texas town of Tulia began a roundup of suspected drug dealers. By the time the sweep was done, over 40 people had been arrested and one out of every five black adults in town was behind bars, all accused of dealing cocaine to the same undercover officer, Tom Coleman. Coleman, the son of a well-known Texas Ranger, had been named Officer of the Year in Texas. Not until after the trials, in which Coleman's uncorroborated testimony secured sentences as long as 361 years, did it become apparent that Coleman was not the man he claimed to be. By then, two dozen people were imprisoned, and the town of Tulia had become a battlefield in the national debate over the war on drugs.'' And there they sat, dozens of them, in prison, accused of serious drug crimes. And then a young lady graduated from law school and went to work in the area of civil rights. Six months out of law school, she traveled to Tulia, TX. Her assignment? Bring justice to the situation. I can't imagine, 6 months out of law school, barely having passed some State's bar exam, to be given that assignment. The woman, of course, was Vanita Gupta, and she got on a plane from New York. Her civil rights organization sent her to Tulia, TX, to take on this injustice. By then, they were all sitting in jail. Most of them were African American. And she was sent to Tulia, TX, to rescue them and try to help them. Well, she quickly assessed the situation, decided writs of habeas corpus would have to be filed to try to get reconsideration of the charges against these individuals, and then she quickly realized she was in over her head. She couldn't do this alone. There were too many cases. So she went back to New York and started calling law firms, saying: I need your help. I need pro bono attorneys, volunteer attorneys who will help me do this case. She tackled it and took it on, and at the end of the day, this brave young woman, whom we are about to vote on in an hour and a half, was responsible for leading a team that liberated these prisoners. The Republican Governor of the State of Texas officially pardoned them for the drug crimes they had been charged with, and the State of Texas offered damages to them for what they had suffered. I can't imagine Vanita Gupta, fresh out of law school, heading down to this town of Texas and tackling this. How about that for your first assignment? Most new lawyers are stuck in a library looking up footnotes and cases. She didn't waste any time but to go down there. The reason I raise that is, at this moment today, not even 24 hours after the verdict in the trial in Minneapolis, we are going to need people just like her who have the courage to stand up for civil rights, against what seem to be insurmountable odds, to bring back this Nation of ours--Black and White and Brown--together in moving forward. I don't believe she should be discredited, dishonored by what is said on the floor of the Senate. She should be praised for her courage and determination. She went on to serve in the Department of Justice as the head of the Civil Rights Division. She took that responsibility, and that is not an easy assignment. Many times, that division is called on to deal with police departments and law enforcement and to tell them the bad news that sometimes they had done things that are just plain wrong and unacceptable. She did it. She did it with class, with integrity, and the same law enforcement organizations have endorsed her today. The Republicans who criticize her and they have come to the floor and called her a ``radical cultural warrior''--``radical cultural warrior.'' Recently, she was just called on the floor ``a clear-and- present danger.'' I find it hard to imagine that anyone could read or know of any section of what she did in this book and describe her as a ``radical cultural warrior.'' She brought justice to a situation where few people could have done it and did it fresh out of law school. She is an extraordinary person. She is a courageous person. She is a person of integrity and honesty and dedication to public service. I am happy to support her nomination. I will yield for a question.