Richard Durbin

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Boxer) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Boxer) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator for coming to the floor. I know how much he supports this bill to end human trafficking, sex trafficking, and what a frustration he must feel--and which I share--that we have been unable to bring a bill before us that has strong bipartisan support and with few amendments is likely to be considered and would pass very quickly in the Senate. I thank him for pointing out what I tried to point out this morning. In this 112-page bill, there is one sentence related to the Hyde amendment, which changes what we have been doing here for more than 30 years and which is holding up the passage of this important bill. What we have been pleading with the Republican leaders to do is to remove this sentence, and then let's pass this bill.

Mr. DURBIN. Well, there may be partisan differences over this one sentence, but there is bipartisan support for ending the trafficking and helping the victims. Thank you, because I know you want to offer another amendment about runaways, which is very important. I have met so many of them, as you have. It is a heartbreaking story how so many are abused and exploited. Thank you for your leadership and for bringing this issue to our attention today.

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. DURBIN. Mr. President, this is the Executive Calendar of the U.S. Senate. This Executive Calendar tells us the nominations that are pending before the U.S. Senate where action is needed. There is one name to be found on this calendar on page 4--a name which has been sitting on this calendar longer than any nominee for Attorney General of the United States of America over the last 30 years. This name has been sitting on this calendar for 20 days, which doesn't seem like an extraordinarily long period of time. However, it turns out that the previous nominees for Attorney General were moved so quickly on this Senate calendar that the last five combined, by Democratic and Republican Presidents, took less time to be confirmed than this one name. What is that name? It is Loretta E. Lynch of New York to be Attorney General--a name that was submitted to the U.S. Senate by President Barack Obama to make history--a name, a nominee to make history. This is the first African-American woman in the history of the United States to be nominated to serve as Attorney General. It is a civil rights milestone that her name has been submitted. I sat through the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, and it was a packed room. All the TV cameras were there. Loretta Lynch came and sat at the table, with her father behind her, with her family around her, with close friends gathered from all over the United States, and this woman calmly, in a dignified way, gave the most compelling testimony I have heard of any witness before the Senate Judiciary Committee, including those who came before us seeking to be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. She was excellent. No one laid a glove on her. No one raised any concern about her nomination. And then, when the public witnesses were invited to come in from both the Republican and Democratic sides to comment on her nomination, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont asked all of them gathered: Is there any one of you who opposes the nomination of Loretta Lynch to be Attorney General? Not one. Not one. Yet, here we are now, with this nomination pending longer than any Attorney General nomination in the last 30 years. Why? Why has the Senate Republican leadership decided to target this good woman and to stop her from serving as the first female African-American Attorney General of the United States of America? There is no good reason. There is no substantive reason. She has been an extraordinary prosecutor in New York. She has the support of so many outstanding organizations. The National District Attorneys Association supports Loretta Lynch, as do the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys. The FBI Agents Association supports Loretta Lynch, and a long list of Republican- and Democratic- appointed former U.S. Attorneys, including Patrick Fitzgerald from my State of Illinois, and former FBI Director Louis Freeh, appointed by a Republican President, and Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson from the George W. Bush administration. The list goes on and on. The fact is there is no substantive reason to stop this nomination. The Republican majority leader announced over the weekend that he was going to hold this nomination of Loretta Lynch until the bill which is pending before the Senate passes, whenever that may be. So Loretta Lynch, the first African-American woman nominated to be Attorney General, is asked to sit in the back of the bus when it comes to the Senate calendar. That is unfair. It is unjust. It is beneath the decorum and dignity of the U.S. Senate. This woman deserves fairness. She seeks to lead the Department of Justice, and the U.S. Senate should be just in its treatment of her nomination. To think that we would jeopardize her opportunity to serve this Nation and to make history is fundamentally unfair. What is the issue? The issue is this important bill. It is a bill which relates to human trafficking. As chairman of the constitution subcommittee, I have held hearings on this subject and it is heartbreaking to hear how primarily young women have been enslaved and exploited not just around the world but in the United States. I support this legislation. I think we should move it forward. What is holding this up is very simple: one sentence. Out of a 112-page bill, there is 1 sentence on pages 50 and 51 that relates to the issue of abortion. I needn't tell anyone following this debate how controversial and divisive that issue can be and has been for so many decades in the United States. The fact is that issue has nothing to do with human trafficking. It should be debated at another moment, another time, on another bill. But, sadly, this 1 sentence in this 100-page bill is holding it up from being considered on the floor. If the senior Senator from Texas, who is the lead sponsor on this bill, would come to the floor and simply remove this one sentence, this bill would pass. It would pass this afternoon, overwhelmingly. There is no question about it. He knows it. We have told him that. We have offered that to him, but he refuses. So this good bill language is on the calendar, the Senate is mired in controversy, and Loretta Lynch sits on the calendar for another day. It has been 130 days since President Obama announced the nomination of this woman to serve as our Attorney General. That is more than three times the period of time it took for us to confirm Attorney General Ashcroft. It is more than 2\1/2\ times as long as it took to confirm Attorney General Mukasey and twice as long as it took to confirm Attorney General Holder. It is time for us to give Loretta Lynch an opportunity to continue to serve America and to make civil rights history by allowing this African-American woman to step forward and serve. It is time to stop holding her hostage to a political debate on the floor of the U.S. Senate that has nothing to do with her obvious qualifications to serve this Nation. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Utah not only for his leadership on this issue but for the fact that we have been able to work together on an issue that is not considered to be simple in nature. It is challenging, complex, and controversial in some respects. As the Senator mentioned at the outset, we have done it on a bipartisan basis. If one looks at the cosponsors of the Smarter Sentencing Act, they span the political spectrum. I was standing at our press conference--as the Senator from Utah was speaking--next to Senator Ted Cruz. Some said: Durbin and Cruz are on the same bill? As the saying goes around here, obviously one of us has not read it. The fact is that we both read it, and we both understand the importance of this undertaking. Our criminal justice system in America is in crisis. The United States of America holds more prisoners, by far, than any other country in the world. The Federal prison population has grown by 750 percent since 1980 and our Federal prisons are approximately 30 percent over capacity. Over the past 30 years, spending on Federal incarceration has increased more than 1,100 percent. Our exploding prison population now consumes a quarter of the Justice Department's discretionary budget. These runaway expenditures are undermining other law enforcement efforts. The U.S. attorney's office and the Drug Enforcement Administration have already lost hundreds of positions, and resources for State and local law enforcement have decreased dramatically. The biggest drivers of growth in the Federal prison population are drug sentences. There are almost 50,000 more drug offenders in Federal prisons now than 20 years ago--50,000. This problem is made even worse by mandatory minimum sentences which have grown by 155 percent over the past 15 years. One-third of all Federal prisoners are now subject to mandatory minimums and 50 percent of those are drug offenders. These mandatory penalties don't allow our courts to distinguish between the big-time career offenders, who ought to be the focus of our effort, and lower-level offenders. Now, that just is not very smart, and it is not effective when it comes to holding offenders accountable and protecting public safety. We are expected to be joined at any minute by the Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Booker, and I thank my friend for joining us in this effort to spotlight this important issue of criminal justice reform. I will turn the floor over for my colleague and the lead sponsor of this bill, Senator Lee, to respond to the question of the importance of this undertaking.

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, if I could ask the Senator from Utah if he would yield for a moment.

Mr. DURBIN. Senator Booker has joined us, and we are happy to have his cosponsorship on this legislation. I hope he might be able to make some of his own observations on the very issue the Senator from Utah has been discussing.

Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator from Utah. When I was a Member of the House of Representatives many years ago, we were told there were some dramatic changes when it came to the use of narcotics in America. In fact, they came to us and said: We are worried. There is a new form of cocaine called crack cocaine. It is dirt cheap. It is $5 for a hit. It is deadly addictive, and if a woman is addicted to it and happens to be pregnant, it could seriously damage the baby she is carrying. We did something at the time which seemed like the right thing to do. What we did was to establish a sentencing standard for crack cocaine dramatically larger than powder cocaine--100 times larger. I voted for it, and the belief was that we were sending a clear message to anyone in America: If you get caught with crack cocaine, we are going to throw the book at you. That is what we voted for. I remember that the rollcall in the House of Representatives was bipartisan. We felt--all across the spectrum: Let's get the message out and get it out now before crack cocaine causes its damage. Under the law at the time, it took 100 times more powdered cocaine than crack to trigger the same mandatory minimum sentences--100 times. For example, possessing 5 grams of crack carried the same 5-year mandatory minimum sentence as selling 500 grams of powdered cocaine. That was the 100-to-1 crack-powder sentencing disparity. The crack-powder disparity disproportionately affected African Americans, who made up more than 80 percent of those convicted of Federal crack offenses. At a hearing I held in 2009, former Bush administration DEA head Asa Hutchison, known to many of us as a former colleague in the House, testified: ``Under the current disparity, the credibility of our entire drug enforcement system is weakened.'' What was happening? African Americans were noting what was going on here. They were being sent, as Senator Booker said, over to the prison system and put away for years and years for the use of a tiny amount of crack cocaine because of the sentencing guidelines that we established in the House of Representatives. The Smarter Sentencing Act addresses this issue. I might add that in 2010, I joined with Senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican from Alabama, in sponsoring the Fair Sentencing Act. We decided that we would address this issue of the 100-to-1 disparity and try to make sense out of it. I support 1 to 1. I think that is what the science backs. But we reached a political agreement--that is the nature of the Senate and the House. The bill unanimously passed the Senate and the House and was signed into law by the President. The Fair Sentencing Act reduced the sentencing disparity between crack and powdered cocaine. The Smarter Sentencing Act--the bill we are considering today-- addresses this again. It would allow some inmates who were sentenced before the Fair Sentencing Act to petition for the sentence reductions that this law put in place in 2010. This provision would not automatically reduce a single sentence of anyone serving under the old 100-to-1 standard, but it would allow Federal judges and prosecutors to conduct a case-by-case, singular, individual review as to whether the individual should have their sentence reduced. Responding to our decreased reliance on prisons, the Smarter Sentencing Act would direct the Justice Department to report to Congress on how the cost savings from our bill would be used to reduce crime and prevent recidivism. Let's respond to a few misstatements that have been made about the Smarter Sentencing Act. One of our colleagues said: ``We are not sending huge numbers of nonviolent drug offenders to Federal prison under lengthy mandatory minimum sentences.'' I ask the Senator from New Jersey how he would respond to that comment? (Mr. GARDNER assumed the Chair.)

Mr. DURBIN. I want to address that because it is a problem in my State and across the United States. We are finding that high school students are turning to heroin. It is affordable, sadly. It is affordable, and they are using it as an alternative to other drugs. We certainly know the peril and dangers from narcoterrorism. The Smarter Sentencing Act which we are cosponsoring only reduces mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses. There is a separate mandatory minimum of 20 years that applies when the drugs have resulted in death or serious bodily injury. Any dealer who sells drugs that killed or hurt someone, such as an accidental overdose, will still be subject to the same mandatory minimum of 20 years. Our bill does not touch that provision of the law. As for narcoterrorism, a special Federal sentencing guideline applies. The truth is charges under that statute are very rare. Between 2008 and 2012, only three cases--three--out of almost 200,000 were sentenced under that guideline. But the Smarter Sentencing Act does not change the sentencing guideline enhancement for narcoterrorism or any of the enhancements for terrorism. We don't cut corners when it comes to that serious crime. In fact, our bill directs the sentencing commission to ensure that severe sentences for ``violent, repeat, and serious drug traffickers who present public safety risks remain in place.'' Also, there will continue to be dozens of statutory penalties and sentencing enhancements in the sentencing guidelines allowing judges to impose heightened sentences for violent and repeat offenders. The Smarter Sentencing Act which we are describing doesn't automatically reduce a single sentence and it doesn't eliminate any mandatory minimum or reduce any maximum sentence at all. Our bill simply restores the traditional authority of a Federal judge to impose a sentence that fits the crime and the criminal, based on the circumstances of the case, while maintaining a floor below which no one person can be sentenced. Can the Senator from New Jersey discuss the impact the Smarter Sentencing Act will have on communities that have been most negatively impacted by the crisis in our Federal justice system?

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I listened to the impassioned speech by my colleague from Texas on the issue of human trafficking. There is no dispute here. This legislation is bipartisan. Democrats and Republicans are prepared to support the bill that has been offered on human trafficking by Republican Senator Cornyn and Democratic Senator Klobuchar. There are amendments pending I think which improve the bill--one by Senator Leahy about runaway children. In fact, we are so prepared to do this that we have put together a comprehensive substitute amendment to what has just been described which could be quickly passed on the floor. I do not believe there would be more than a handful of Senators voting no. I certainly would support the passage of the Leahy version. What is the difference? Senator Cornyn has injected into this important issue a side issue, but not an inconsequential one, on the Hyde amendment. Henry Hyde was a Congressman from Illinois who served in the House of Representatives with me for a period of time. He authored the Hyde amendment that said no Federal funds shall be used to pay for abortion procedures except in very limited circumstances--rape, incest, and the life of the mother. That has been put in appropriations bills every year since--without question, without challenge. What Senator Cornyn is trying to do is to make this permanent law, and make it part of a human trafficking bill. I do not doubt this is an important issue. I know it is because I have served in the House and the Senate. But I do question whether we should make every bill that comes along a vehicle or carrier for debating abortion or other really controversial issues. This question of passing a human trafficking bill to protect the scores--thousands--of victims of human trafficking is one which would pass in a heartbeat in the Senate if the Senator from Texas would remove this controversial section. Senator Leahy has offered that substitute. I hope we will have an opportunity to vote on it, and vote on it soon. As to whether this is a reflection of a dysfunctional Congress, well, most of the people back in Illinois and Chicago whom I run into-- particularly this weekend--have raised that issue from time to time, and I can see where the argument could be made. We now have a Congress controlled by Republicans--the House and the Senate--and the White House, obviously, with a Democratic President. It is a tough political terrain under the best of circumstances, and we certainly have not been facing the best of circumstances for a long time. There are just a lot of differences between the House and the Senate and the President and the White House, and many of those are manifest. What was the first bill the Republican majority in the Senate called--No. 1, Senate bill 1? The Keystone Pipeline--a bill to authorize the construction of a pipeline owned by a Canadian company in the United States. That was the highest priority for the Senate Republicans. The President said at the outset: Do not try to preempt my authority as President. I will veto it. But they insisted. We went through several weeks--2 or 3 weeks--of amendments, and we cooperated on the Democratic side. I think there might have been 30 or more amendments offered during that period of time. In the end, the bill passed with six or eight Democratic votes, was sent to the President, and was vetoed. So the first 3 weeks were spent on this politically controversial issue, for which, at the end of the day, the President's veto was sustained, and it was wiped off the slate. Then we went into a rather bizarre chapter here where the House Republicans insisted that before--before--they would fund the Department of Homeland Security--you know, the folks at the airport, the people who are guarding our borders--before they would fund the Department of Homeland Security to guard us against terrorism, we had to vote on five separate riders relative to the President's immigration Executive orders. They held up this appropriation--giving partial funding to it week after week after week--until we finally said: Enough is enough. Fund this agency that keeps us safe. Stop playing political games with this issue. It went back and forth and back and forth. Another 3 weeks were wasted on this issue before finally--finally--on a bipartisan basis we passed this measure funding the Department of Homeland Security and said to the House of Representatives: Please, stop putting extraneous issues on important matters like funding our government. I thought perhaps we turned the corner and moved in a more positive way, but we are mired now over this one, small provision in this bill which Senator Cornyn could remove in a heartbeat. Then last week came a blockbuster issue. I did not realize a week ago today that still a week later I would be going on Chicago television being questioned about a letter signed by 47 Republican Senators which was sent to the Ayatollah of Iran, a letter sent by 47 Republican Senators to the Ayatollah of Iran telling him and his government not to negotiate with the President of the United States in an effort to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The author of this letter, Senator Cotton of Arkansas, and those who signed it, went to great lengths describing how they would, in fact, have the last word on anything negotiated by this President and that they planned on being around for a long, long time, urging the Ayatollah to not enter into negotiations with the President of the United States of America. There is no historic precedent for what just occurred--none. We have never had 47 Senators of any party send a letter to a head of state and say: Stop negotiating with the United States of America. And they did it. The press reaction across the United States has been overwhelmingly negative to this action that was taken by these 47 Senators. I could go through the long list here of what newspapers across America have said about that letter. The Detroit Free Press said: ``A blot on the 114th U.S. Senate.'' The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: ``The senators who signed the letter should be ashamed.'' The Salt Lake Tribune: ``Cringe-worthy buffoonery on the global stage'' is how they described that letter. The Courier-Journal in Louisville, KY, asked the question: ``Has Congress gone crazy?'' when they reflected on this letter. The Courier- Journal went on to call those who signed it: ``Senate Saboteurs.'' Those are their words, not mine. The Salt Lake Tribune said: ``. . . the foolish, dangerous and arguably felonious attempt by the Obama Derangement Caucus of the Senate. . . .'' The Kansas City Star said: ``Was Iran letter traitorous or just treacherous for GOP [Senators]. . . .'' The Los Angeles Times called it ``insulting.'' They said: ``The Republican senators' meddling in that responsibility is outrageous.'' It goes on and on. I won't read them all. It doesn't get any better. It gets worse. And to think that 47 Republican Senators would try to preempt any President of the United States. Today in Geneva, Switzerland, former Senator and current Secretary of State John Kerry sits down at a negotiating table across from Iran. On our side of the table are major allies trying to stop the development of a nuclear weapon in Iran. They will struggle. Maybe they will never reach an agreement. But what the 47 Senators said in a letter to the Ayatollah of Iran will not help. What is the alternative? If these negotiations fail, the alternative is Iran develops a nuclear weapon and endangers not only Israel but the Middle East and far beyond, and triggers an arms race in the Middle East for nuclear weapons. That is an outrageous, unacceptable outcome. Or, military action. Military action by Israel, perhaps, as Prime Minister Netanyahu suggested 2 weeks ago; military action by the United States. Is it worth our time to be negotiating to try to find a peaceful resolution, to try to find a way for Iran to stop developing nuclear weapons with verifiable inspections? We won't take them at their word. There have to be inspections. Or is it better, as these 47 Republican Senators insisted, to walk away from the table? I think it is far better to continue these negotiations. I don't know if they will end up with a good agreement, but don't we owe it to our President, our Secretary of State, our government, our country, to at least see these negotiations through and then to read the agreement before 47 Senators send a letter condemning it and rejecting it? It was a sad day. But now let's turn the corner. The first thing we should do this week--the absolute first thing we should do--is approve the President's nominee to be Attorney General. Loretta Lynch appeared before our Judiciary Committee. Senator Hatch was there, and I think he may even concede what I am about to say: No one laid a glove on this magnificent lady--a prosecutor with a spotless record; an African American with a life story about witnessing the civil rights movement as it unfolded in this country in the 1960s; an extraordinarily good person--good family, good background, impeccable credentials. There wasn't a single thing said about her that would stop anyone voting for her. Now her nomination has been sitting for 128 days since it was announced. They are trying to set a record on the Republican side: No nominee for Attorney General has languished that long in the last 30 years. If they have a complaint about this lady, let them say so. Their complaint: She was chosen by President Barack Obama. That is not good enough. This week, let us rise above the politics which have dominated the Senate since this session began. Let us do something constructive-- approve this Attorney General, take this offensive section out of this bill, and move it for passage. We can get it done in a matter of hours. I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, last week Chicago--and America--lost a civil rights leader and an icon. Rev. Willie T. Barrow passed away at the age of 90. Known as the ``Little Warrior,'' Reverend Barrow stood up to anyone who would deny equality. In 1936, 10 years before the Montgomery bus boycott, 12-year-old Willie Barrow challenged the segregated Texas school system that refused to bus African-American kids to school. In a recent interview, Reverend Barrow described it this way. One day, Barrow had enough and confronted the bus driver and school officials. ``You got plenty room,'' Barrow said she told the bus driver and school officials. ``Why you want me to get off? Because I'm black? We got to change that.'' She was right. And from that moment, she dedicated her life to fighting for social justice and standing up for the most vulnerable in our society. In 1945, she came to Chicago and worked as a youth minister and a field organizer with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. At the height of the civil rights movement, she followed Dr. King to Atlanta, where she organized meetings, rallies and transportation for volunteers who came to participate in the marches and sit-ins. She also helped organize the 1963 march on Washington. Reverend Barrow didn't just fight for racial equality, she fought for women's rights, labor rights and gay rights too. While she helped Rev. Jesse Jackson start Operation Breadbasket on the South Side of Chicago, she was fighting sexism within the civil rights movement. During meetings, some even asked Reverend Jackson why he brought his secretary. But as Operation Breadbasket evolved into the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, Reverend Barrow became the first woman to lead the organization. As the chairman of the board and CEO, Reverend Barrow brought women together from the Chicago Network--an organization comprised of Chicago's most distinguished professional women--to talk about their leadership roles and the underrepresentation of women on corporate boards. Around Chicago, she was known as ``godmother'' for the work she did with many young community activists--including Barack Obama. She took on causes ranging from AIDS awareness to traveling on missions of peace to Vietnam, Russia, Nicaragua, Cuba and South Africa when Nelson Mandela was released from prison. Last Sunday, 70,000 people gathered in Selma, AL, to remember and celebrate the civil rights leaders who marched 50 years ago. Sadly, Reverend Barrow couldn't be there. But 50 years ago, Reverend Barrow was on the front lines, marching alongside Dr. King and future Congressman John Lewis. Years ago, I made the trip to Selma and stood on the Edmund Pettus Bridge where Reverend Barrow marched and John Lewis was beaten unconscious and nearly killed by Alabama State troopers. It was profoundly moving to see the places where leaders like these risked their lives to redeem the promises of America for all of us. And it's because of civil rights leaders like Reverend Barrow that our Nation has made progress in the pursuit of social justice. But we know that bridges run both ways. We can move ahead, or we can turn back. Without the courage, the leadership, and the determination of Rev. Willie T. Barrow, the fight to move forward just got a little harder.

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 Vermont (Mr. Sanders) 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 order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I am proud to join several of my colleagues this morning in submitting a substitute amendment to the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015. Human trafficking is a global scourge, and we should be working on a bipartisan basis and on a bicameral basis to stop it. However, I am deeply concerned to learn that our friends on the other side of the aisle have inserted a worrisome provision into this year's version of the bill. This provision would expand upon the so-called Hyde amendment which restricts funds for women's reproductive health choices. The new language, which has been offered by Senator Cornyn from Texas, would set a new, dangerous precedent by enabling Hyde restrictions to apply to nontax funding streams set forth in this bill. This language paves the way for political leaders in the future to interfere even more with a woman's basic personal health decisions, and it sets the tone for a dramatic expansion of abortion restriction for years to come. I am upset about this provision in that it shouldn't be in this bill. This bill is not about abortion, it is about human trafficking. Instead, this provision has now become another opportunity for political speeches and delay. The good news is the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act can still be bipartisan, and we have high hopes it will be. Democrats are ready to work with Republicans to fix this bill and move past the partisan obstacle which literally stopped us this week from doing anything. The substitute amendment removes the Hyde restrictions from the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act. It includes two important bipartisan pieces of legislation, the Runaway and Homeless Youth and Trafficking Prevention Act, originally offered by Senator Leahy, and the Stop Exploitation Through Trafficking Act sponsored by Senator Klobuchar. We know that colleagues can work on a bipartisan basis to effectively address this issue. I urge my colleagues, when we look at what we have done so far in this session of Congress, we have very little to show for the time we have spent here. This is an opportunity to pass a bipartisan human trafficking bill--not a grab bag for every notion or idea any Senator has on any subject, but one that addresses a very serious issue. I also know that another Senator from Louisiana on the Republican side has an amendment which he wishes to offer on this bill which, again, has nothing to do with human trafficking. Senator Vitter offers an amendment that would deny citizenship at birth to children born in the United States unless one of the parents of the child is a U.S. citizen, national permanent resident, or an actively serving armed services member. As the ranking member of the constitution subcommittee on the Judiciary Committee, let me begin with the obvious for my colleagues in the Senate: Birthright citizenship is a constitutional right. Congress can't amend that amendment with a statute. I would think that every Senator knows that. To put this provision before us is merely to try to provoke a debate on a bill which has no impact on the Constitution. The citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment states: ``All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.'' I urge my colleagues, particularly the one offering this amendment, to pick up the Constitution and read it. The 14th Amendment is as clear as can be. The citizenship clause has been restated and established by four centuries of Anglo-American jurisprudence. The 14th Amendment raised the short-lived exception to birthright citizenship that was established by the infamous Dred Scott decision of 1857. We certainly remember that. It was one of the provocations that led to a civil war in this country. We should take this issue extremely seriously. The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that the 14th Amendment applies to U.S.-born children of noncitizens. What part of that does the author of this amendment not understand? The Court rejected arguments that the son of Chinese nationals, who were forbidden under the Chinese Exclusion Act from ever becoming U.S. citizens, could be deprived of citizenship because of his parents' status. The Supreme Court ruled that: ``Nothing is better settled at the common law than the doctrine that the children, even of aliens . . . are subjects at birth.'' Subsequent decisions have backed that up. The famous case of Plyer v. Doe basically said--the Court reasoned that even if the Court wanted to control the conduct of adults, ``legislation directing the onus of the parent's misconduct against his children does not comport with fundamental concepts of justice.'' The law is clear. So this amendment being offered by Senator Vitter is a provocative, unnecessary, and basically feckless effort to stall an important bill that should be passed on a bipartisan basis. I hope my colleagues, whatever their feelings on this issue, will understand, you cannot amend the Constitution by a statute. I thought that was in basic Senate 101, but we have to get back to it to make clear that my colleagues understand this important human trafficking bill should not be bogged down or stopped with issues such as abortion--as important as it is--which should be saved for a separate debate, or this effort to amend the U.S. Constitution with an amendment on the floor to a statute. That certainly is not a good way for us to accomplish things in the Senate.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I have been coming to this floor for a long time. The Presiding Officer is new to the body so I know he has been spared my speeches on the subject talking about for-profit colleges. This is an industry that lures students with flashy ads and misleading promises, gobbles up the Federal loan and grant money these students can bring to them and then ends up producing students--if they are lucky enough to get a diploma--who can't find good-paying jobs. To understand the for-profit college industry in America today, you only need to know three numbers--and for those who are listening, this will be on the final. Here are the three numbers: For-profit colleges enroll ten percent of college students in the United States of America. When you think of for-profit colleges, think of University of Phoenix, DeVry, Kaplan. There are a lot of them. Ten percent of college students go to these schools. These schools, the for-profit schools, receive 20 percent of the Federal aid to education. Why do they get so much if they only have 10 percent of the students? They charge so much. Their tuition goes through the roof. Ten percent of the students, 20 percent of the Federal aid to education. But this is the number I don't want you to forget--44. Forty-four percent of all student loan defaults are students of for- profit schools. What does that tell us? It tells us these students are getting in over their heads. They are borrowing too much money. It tells us these students are dropping out and unable to pay their loans or end up with a worthless diploma and can't find a job. How can the Senate stand back and say this is acceptable? For-profit colleges are the most heavily subsidized private companies in America today--the most heavily subsidized. In the home State of the Presiding Officer and mine, we have some farmers. Our farmers get kicked around a little bit about all of the Federal money they receive. Our farmers don't hold a candle to the for- profit colleges and universities. These folks have turned siphoning money out of the Federal Treasury into an art form. The money they pay the CEOs who engineer these arrangements is in the millions of dollars each year, all Federal dollars, virtually all, 90, 95 percent of Federal dollars. How can you call yourself a private, for-profit company, when 80 to 90 percent of your money is coming directly from the Federal Government? As a matter of fact, this industry, the for-profit college industry, if we took the money we spent in subsidies to these schools, would be the ninth largest Federal agency in Washington. Yet many flinty conservatives who hate subsidies and hate deficits look the other way: Oh, it is a private company--10 percent of the students, 20 percent of the aid in Federal education, 44 percent of all the student loan defaults--and they are getting 80 to 90 percent from the Federal Treasury and we are supposed to look the other way? From time to time, students come and sit in our galleries. Many of them are soon to graduate from high school. They will be inundated by these for-profit schools. As soon as you reach a certain age, you can't log onto your computer without these schools roaring at you about the great deals they have to offer. I took a look back in recent memory. They actually ran an ad before the Presiding Officer was elected, and it was an ad that was on local television here. It showed a very attractive young lady in her pajamas, lounging on her bed, and she had her laptop computer. She said in this ad: I am going to college in my pajamas. I am going to a for- profit college--I don't even have to get out of my pajamas, I can go to college. That is a bad joke, and unfortunately too many people are lured into this belief: I can just log on and get a degree. Well, it turns out many times it is too darned expensive--and it is worthless, if you ever get it. The stories that come to my office of young people who signed up for these for-profit schools and ended up with more debt than they could ever possibly imagine are horrifying. Imagine a 30-year-old woman in the suburbs of Chicago with over $100,000 in debt and a worthless degree from Westwood College, one of the for-profit colleges in the Chicagoland area. She watched all these crime shows on television, and they told her she could go into law enforcement with this degree. She spent 5 years, over $100,000 in debt, and not a single law enforcement agency in the Chicagoland area would recognize that degree. Was she ever told that along the way with all those fancy ads? Never. So I say to students: Think twice about these for-profit schools. But I want to say a word about one particular instance that bothers me a lot. Corinthian was one of the largest--most people didn't know Corinthian as a for-profit school, but they knew some of the schools that were involved in it. Everest Colleges were owned by Corinthian. Well, it turned out that Corinthian ran into a problem. Corinthian Colleges was falsifying information they gave to the Federal Government. The Federal Government asked Corinthian Colleges, as it asks all of these other for-profit colleges: How many of your students get jobs after they graduate? Corinthian was falsifying the students getting jobs. In fact, Corinthian had this arrangement with many companies. They would give them $1,000 and say: Can you hire our graduates for a month? You can let them go, but hire them after graduation for a month or two, and we will give you some money to do it. The companies went along with that, subsidized employees, then they let the employees go. Then Corinthian would report to the Federal Government: our graduates are working. Well, when we called them on it and they couldn't produce the real information, Corinthian stock started plummeting and eventually went out of business. It was more than 1 year ago that I wrote to the Department of Education asking them to investigate Corinthian Colleges about falsifying job placement rates. It was originally reported by the Huffington Post. According to the Department, they looked into it. Corinthian was, in fact, lying, falsifying placement rates and creating attendance records at several of its institutions. Corinthian would use inflated placement rates to lure other unsuspecting students into the school. After the Department of Education placed financial sanctions on the company and delayed their title IV disbursements, Corinthian reported they didn't have enough cash flow and would have to close. That is exactly what would have happened. Unfortunately, the Department of Education kept the school afloat even after this, shoveling hundreds of millions of dollars to the failed Corinthian company, allowing it to continue advertising and signing up students. At a point when private investors were jumping ship, the Department of Education was jumping in. Now, in a transaction blessed by the Department of Education, most of the former Corinthian campuses have been sold to ECMC. This is a corporation that has served historically as a debt collector for the Department of Education. This is one of the companies that goes after students when they are not paying their student loans. Now this debt collection agency is going to own one of these for-profit colleges, what is left of Corinthian. We are told this new debt collection university will operate as a not-for-profit entity. That was enticing, and I thought, well, at least they are not in the for-profit world. Despite being a not-for-profit company in name at least, I am troubled that ECMC is already--just weeks into owning and operating these schools--failing to live up to the promises they made to the students and to me. This is an example. I wrote ECMC's head, David Hawn, in December, asking him to discontinue Corinthian's use of mandatory arbitration clauses as part of the school's enrollment agreement. What are these clauses? These clauses, signed by students, take away the rights of students to bring grievances before a court. And once students end up in arbitration proceedings, they find the rules stacked against them and in favor of the corporate players. The associations that represent not-for-profit schools have informed me that their member schools do not use these mandatory arbitration clauses. These clauses are essentially only used by companies in the for-profit college sector. I told Mr. Hawn if he was truly going to run a not-for-profit institution, he should follow the clear model of nonprofit education--no mandatory arbitration clauses for students. In his response to me, Mr. Hawn certainly said the right thing. He told me that ECMC had ``eliminated Corinthian's policy of binding mandatory arbitration.'' The reason this is important is that if a student has been defrauded, and they signed one of these mandatory arbitration clauses, they can never get their case and their facts before an impartial jury or judge. It is going to be decided in an arbitration hearing instead. Mr. Hawn summed up their policy and the issue as follows: Bottom line: We believe that students have an unquestioned right to seek redress for grievances, including the right to file a lawsuit. We will not stand in the way of any student who wants to pursue litigation based on his or her personal experience. It couldn't have been stated more clearly and better. It meant that this debt collection company that is taking over the failing for-profit school is saying that we are truly not-for-profit and we are truly going to play this on the square. If students feel they have been treated unfairly, they have every legal right to go to court so they do not end up with tens of thousands of debt because we defrauded them. I felt pretty good about that response. Well, then we read the fine print. We found out that ECMC uses a combination of carrots and sticks to try to keep students out of court. First, ECMC's new enrollment document requires students to irrevocably waive their right to seek a trial by jury and waive their ability to join any class action lawsuit against the school. That isn't what Mr. Hawn told me was going to happen. In other words, students who were wronged by ECMC have to challenge the school alone. They have to stand by themselves, and they can't make a court case in front of a jury. Then there are carrots. ECMC's enrollment agreement does everything it can to scare students into arbitration. They offer to pay half the cost of a student's filing fee for arbitration if--and only if--the student waives his or her right to appeal the arbitrator's decision to court or bring a lawsuit against the school. And if a student demonstrates hardship, for example, because the student is saddled with enormous student loan debt and no job, ECMC will offer to pay the entire arbitration filing fee but, again, only if the student will forfeit their right to bring a lawsuit, which means the arbitrator's decision becomes binding. I see another colleague of mine on the floor, and I know she wants to make a statement, so I will wrap up here. Meanwhile, Corinthian executives seem to be off the hook. They have faded into obscurity. They took millions of dollars in Federal subsidies, they lured students into worthless schools, and the students ended up with the debt and worthless diplomas. They falsified the results of their activities to the Federal Government. Then they basically went bankrupt, took their million dollar salaries, and faded away. What is left behind? How about all the students with all the debt for the worthless courses at the worthless school? That is the reality of the for-profit college industry, and Corinthian is exhibit A. It doesn't appear that any prosecution of these individuals who ran Corinthian into the ditch is likely. They have literally taken their money, and they are off to some other pursuit. Maybe they are looking for some new Federal subsidy that can make them rich. But the former students are left with worthless educations and more debt than they can ever repay--students such as Dawn Thompson from my State of Illinois. Dawn has a parallel degree from Everest--part of Corinthian--but never ever could find a job in her field. She has over $100,000 in student loan debt to become a parallel. How about that? She has Federal and private loans. After graduating, she was working a minimum-wage job now as a bank teller. She tried to file for bankruptcy a couple of years ago and--you guessed it--student loan debt is not dischargeable in bankruptcy. Dawn, it is with you for your lifetime. It is one of the few debts that are not dischargeable. Dawn Thompson thought at that point her only option was to go back to school. She went back to Everest, the original school she went to. She thought that getting a master's degree from Everest would make a difference. It did. Her student loan debt went from $100,000 to $170,000. She is still struggling to find a job. How can we stand by and let this happen? How can the Federal Government recognize these as real schools? How can we allow students to be misled into believing these are real colleges and universities? How can we continue to give these outrageous scandalous subsidies to these worthless companies where the CEOs are taking out millions of dollars? It is time for us to do something about this. Shame on us if we sit here and make speeches about how bad the deficit is and how much we care about struggling students and ignore the obvious. For-profit colleges and universities as an industry are basically an industry that needs to be thoroughly investigated, carefully monitored, and most of their players need to go out of business--and not at the expense of the students. We are talking about 10 percent of students, 20 percent of the Federal aid to education, and 44 percent of student loan defaults from for-profit colleges and universities. It is time for the Senate, when it reauthorizes the Higher Education Act, to change this. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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 California (Mrs. Boxer) and the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) are necessarily absent.