Jim DeMint

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, this immigration debate has proved divisive on many levels, but I believe there can be a shining beacon of agreement. In all of this back and forth, one group has been voiceless: the infants and young children longing for a loving home who don't care about or understand borders. In 2004, I introduced the Intercountry Adoption Reform Act, known simply as ICARE, in the House of Representatives. I am pleased to rise today to join my colleague, the Senior Senator from Louisiana, who is introducing ICARE in this Congress as an amendment to the Immigration Reform Act. Adoption represents the very best of the generous American spirit. In 2004 alone, Americans opened their homes through adoption to over 23,000 orphaned children from overseas. We must ask, how many more children would be with a loving family today if the maze of government regulation was not so complex? The ICARE amendment takes two important steps to break down the roadblocks these children face on their journey to find a permanent family. First, and most importantly, it affirms that foreign adopted children of American citizens should be treated in many respects like we treat children born abroad to an American citizen. Under existing law, these children are treated as immigrants, having to apply for, and be granted, immigrant visas to enter the U.S.--a process that we all know to be cumbersome, time-consuming, and expensive. Had they been born abroad to American citizens, they could simply travel back to the U.S. with a passport and enter as citizens. This amendment eliminates this discrepancy and injects common sense into the way our law views these children. Second, this amendment streamlines the existing foreign adoption functions of the Federal Government. Rather than having to navigate through three Federal agencies the Departments of State, Health and Human Services and Homeland Security--adoptive parents would instead have to deal with only one: a consolidated office of intercountry adoptions located within the State Department. I believe this is an essential step to cut through the layers of redtape that currently bind adoptive parents trying to give the gift of a family to a child from overseas. Mr. President, our laws simply must do a better job of accommodating the unique circumstances surrounding intercountry adoption, and I believe that is exactly what this ICARE amendment will do. That is why, today, I ask my colleagues to join the Senior Senator from Louisiana and myself in affirming our commitment to protect these children and provide them with a loving home.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of the point of order and my colleagues' efforts to point out that this immigration bill is ill conceived and, I am afraid, misrepresented and oversold. I would like to say up front that I appreciate all of my colleagues' attempts to solve a big problem for our country. Illegal immigration is a huge problem which we must address. But, unfortunately, as this bill has moved along, I am afraid it has gotten worse instead of better. I am afraid that we are failing to look out 10, 15, 20 years to see the financial tsunami, the category 5 fiscal crisis we have as nation, and we are adding costs without thinking about it. I am afraid the supporters of this legislation would have us believe that it is a rather harmless effort to incorporate illegal immigrants into our culture and that this bill will not have a detrimental impact on our society and, more importantly, on the Federal Government's finances. The truth is this bill would add billions of dollars of debt. And tomorrow, our children and grandchildren will have to pay for our irresponsibility today. Let me point out a few examples. This legislation would allow an unprecedented wave of immigrants, and we cannot possibly assimilate that many immigrants in that period of time. The Heritage Foundation estimates that the number of legal immigrants entering this country under this legislation would be 66 million over the next 20 years. And this doesn't include the continued stream of illegal immigrants who are projected despite what we say we are doing to the border. This bill also does not prohibit tax credits for illegal work done during illegal periods that these immigrants were here. We are going to force them to do their tax returns, and some will pay taxes. But most, we suspect, will actually qualify for an earned income tax credit worth perhaps thousands of dollars. One projection is that illegal immigrants--the average in the United States since 1986-- could qualify for up to $88,000 in earned income tax credits. We must not force our fellow citizens and taxpayers to pay their bill. In addition to this bad policy, it would also allow immigrants to get Social Security benefits for the work they performed while in this country illegally. The Senate rejected efforts to prevent Social Security benefits from being awarded to immigrants for the time they worked illegally in this country. We need to realize that they will be working with stolen Social Security numbers, which often causes chaos in the lives of Americans who have had their identities stolen. We cannot reward this behavior with Social Security checks. The bill would also provide some immigrant workers with greater job protection than American workers. The bill supposedly would protect U.S. workers by ensuring that new immigrants would not take away jobs. However, the bill's definition of ``U.S. worker'' includes temporary foreign guest workers, so the protection is meaningless. Foreign guest farm workers, admitted under this bill, cannot be ``terminated from employment by any employer . . . except for just case.'' In contrast American agriculture workers can be fired for any reason. Hence, there is really no protection for Americans, who could be terminated for almost any reason, while providing more protection for those who are here under temporary work visas. In addition, this legislation straps States and local governments with additional unfunded burdens that could cost $16 billion over the next ten years, while providing no relief. This is perhaps the biggest hidden cost in all of this legislation. The tremendous expenses from these illegal workers, who are here, whether it be health care or education or the many things they have to provide can not be easily paid for. I can tell that I am running out of time, but I think it is important to note. The Congressional Budget Office's projections are that this bill will cost our country $54 billion in mandatory spending over 10 years and $63.8 billion in discretionary spending over the next 10 years. However, the bill will only raise $66 billion in revenue. Put simply this bill will give us $51 billion more debt in 10 years and, I am afraid, even more debt over a 20-year period. We cannot increase our debt so significantly. I rise in support of this budget point of order, and I thank my colleague for raising it.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I am so appreciative of Senator Grassley coming to the floor to set the record straight. It is so difficult to sit back in our offices and watch the debate and hear our Democratic colleagues distort so many facts. I would like to straighten out a little bit of the record myself. Unfortunately, the Wall Street Journal this week, along with a lot of other publications, has also tried to set the record straight. I hear my Democratic colleagues saying the President and the tax package has been a great benefit to the wealthy and hurt the poor. But since the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, the tax burden has actually shifted more to the wealthy. The percentage of Federal taxes paid by those with incomes of $200,000 and above has risen 40.5 percent to 46.6 percent. In fact, today, out of 100 Americans, the wealthiest 3 are now paying close to the same amount, about half of the total taxes as the other 97 Americans. We have shifted the tax burden more to the wealthy. The richest income group pays the largest share of tax burden than at any time in the last 30 years, with the exception of the late 1990s. The record is clear. The record is also clear that this tax package and economic growth package is not for the rich. It is for the people who need jobs in this country. It is for the little guys, the 5 million people who have gotten jobs because of our economic growth. Those who say this tax cut is increasing the deficit need to look at the expanded tax revenues last month alone, the second highest tax revenue in history because of this economic boom. Those who are focusing on this tax rescission package and saying we should not be keeping the tax rate the same low rate for capital gains and dividends need to know that half of Americans now own stocks. They are savers and investors. Our goal as a nation should be to try to make every American a saver and investor. In fact, if some of the Democrats had voted with us just a few weeks ago, we could have stopped spending the Social Security retirement funds of Americans and made every American a saver and investor. The number of people owning stocks in America has risen, more than doubled since 1983 when it was about 40 million, and now it is over 90 million, and we have seen incredible growth. My colleagues also need to know the statistics of those who do own stock. They are not just rich Americans; they are retired Americans. They are people with incomes below $50,000, about a third of them below $50,000. So the facts just need to be straightened out. I think we also need to take our Democratic colleagues to task on things they have said about this economic package and what the real facts are. This chart shows a Democratic contention here that the Republican budget will undermine potential GDP and hurt economic growth. You can go back to 2001 when the first package passed and see the GDP growth consistent over the years. We can also go to a quote Democrats had on this floor which said: ``The President has put us on a fiscal course that means lower employment.'' Here we see from this chart that employment continues to go up in this country. Let's put up a couple more charts quickly. The Democrats said the Republican budget will crowd out private sector investment. But since these tax cuts took effect, private sector investment has grown at one of the fastest rates in recent years. Another quote from the Democrats: ``The Republican budget will raise equilibrium real estate rates.'' The interest rates have continued to fall with the housing boom across the country. Ownership has grown. The facts are, frankly, indisputable. I agree with Senator Grassley. It is a shame for folks to come down and distort the reality of what is happening and what we are doing to help the American people at every level. One out of every two households in America is earning stock, and allowing them to keep more of what they are earning through those stocks only makes common sense. Mr. President, I yield to Senator Lott, who I think would like to continue to set the record straight.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask to be recognized for 10 minutes in morning business.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time until 5:30 p.m. be equally divided between the two leaders or their designees in morning business.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I rise to introduce legislation to strengthen our nation's emergency departments, which are the backbone of our health care safety net. Events of recent years--9/11, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita--have allowed all of us to see our emergency departments in action, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. With every natural disaster or terrorist attack, emergency physicians, on-call specialists and nurses are on the front lines. Many times, it's their expertise that recognizes a problem. For example, it was the diagnosis and prompt communication of the incidence of anthrax that prevented more deaths a couple years ago here in D.C. Likewise, should we face pandemic influenza, it is likely to be discovered first in our emergency rooms. Federal law requires that each person who comes to an emergency department be stabilized. Yet health plans are paying less and less of this cost, and many of the 45 million patients without health insurance can't pay at all. In fact, more than one-third of all emergency department patients are uninsured or are Medicaid or SCHIP enrollees. This results in huge amounts of uncompensated care in our nation's emergency departments, which threatens their viability and everyone's access to emergency care. Unfortunately, America's emergency patients are suffering because emergency departments are not supported well enough to handle day-to- day emergencies, let alone a pandemic flu or terrorist attack. Patients wait hours to see physicians, ``boarding'' sometimes for days in emergency departments and diverted in ambulances to other hospitals. This gridlock threatens access to emergency care for everyone--both insured and uninsured. Emergency departments are under-funded and suffer from severe staffing shortages. A new study just released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the American College of Emergency Physicians found that three-fourths of emergency medical directors reported inadequate on-call specialist coverage, compared with two-thirds in 2004: a sure sign that a bad situation is getting even worse. Frivolous lawsuits and the nation's broken medical liability system are also driving up the costs of health care for everyone and threaten to leave already disadvantaged patients without access to necessary health care services. But, even in the best of times, the number of visits to emergency departments continue to increase, while the number of emergency departments in hospitals continue to decrease. In fact, we've even seen a number of emergency departments have to close their doors. Surprisingly, there are no standard measures to report the extent of overcrowding in emergency departments. During the last Congress, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) surveyed hospital emergency departments and reported back to Congress--providing us with the data needed to begin to address these issues. The GAO report told Congress that patient ``boarding'' in the emergency department was the most common factor associated with overcrowding. The term ``boarding'' refers to those patients who have been admitted to the hospital but have not yet been moved from the emergency department to an inpatient hospital bed. When these patients remain in the emergency department long after the decision to admit them is made (at times on gurneys in halls and elsewhere)--it diminishes the space to care for other patients, and adversely impacts the staff and other resources. My bill requires Medicare to establish regulations to reduce or eliminate overcrowding and boarding of emergency department patients. We have the data to recognize this problem. Hopefully, national standards coupled with incentive payments for those hospitals implementing the standards and documenting improvement will improve the quality of care in this country. My legislation, the ``Access to Emergency Medical Services Act,'' directly addresses the issues of low reimbursement, emergency department overcrowding, and increasing medical liability insurance costs. First, my bill expands the current liability protection granted to commissioned officers and employees of the Public Health Service to include Medicare participating hospitals or emergency departments subject to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA). This would also cover physicians and physician groups employed by, under contract, or on-call for duty to stabilize an individual with an emergency medical condition. This safeguard does not prevent someone from taking legal action. Rather, the bill requires that any tort or medical liability case must be brought against the United States, which in turn must defend any civil action or proceeding. Awards for malpractice judgments would be paid from a specific fund established for this purpose. Second, my bill increases physician payments by 10% for services provided to Medicare beneficiaries in the emergency department of a hospital or critical access hospital. EMTALA is an unfunded federal mandate. Current law does not require health insurance companies, governments or individuals to pay for services that have been provided. As a result, emergency physicians bear the brunt of uncompensated care. This increased reimbursement recognizes and funds this mandate, and I hope it will go a long way toward improving physician recruitment and retention. Finally, my bill provides financial incentive payments to hospitals that meet standards for prompt admissions of emergency department patients requiring inpatient hospital services. The bill would increase payments to these hospitals by 10 percent for Medicare beneficiaries' emergency department visits. The payments would be made only if the hospital certifies, subject to audit, that it met the standards for prompt admission. The issues addressed by my bill impact each one of us. When you, or a family member, need the emergency room, you don't want to worry about it being crowded, closed, under-funded, or not having the staff it needs. Emergency physicians, nurses and on-call specialists are the heroes in America's hospitals, working under incredibly difficult conditions on patients who need critical attention. Congress needs to step up and take action. The ``Access to Emergency Medical Services Act'' is an important first step to address these issues.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I will conclude again with the hope and the request that we can debate this honestly. Certainly we do not want patients being hurt and not being compensated, but we also don't want many more patients not finding a doctor, not being able to afford their health care or to get health insurance. These are things we can fix if we work together. If you notice on my chart, I don't accuse this of being Republican or Democrat. It is just an issue we need to address. We need to do something commonsense with medical malpractice. Please, let us put the bill on the floor next week for debate. I yield the floor.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 more minutes.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, next week this Senate is going to consider one of the most important issues that we will consider as a Congress and as a nation, and that issue is health care. All of us know that the cost of health care, the cost of health insurance, and, in many cases, access to doctors around the country is becoming a serious problem. Many are uninsured. It is an issue we talk about a lot in the Senate, but it is an issue we haven't done a lot about. This is like some other issues, I am afraid, where our tongue doesn't exactly match our action. We heard a lot of talk on the Senate floor about jobs and jobs going overseas, but when the proposals come up to make America the best place in the world to do business, to lower the cost of doing business in this country, to continue investment tax credits, to put some caps on frivolous lawsuits, to reduce the costly and unnecessary regulations, and even to do things that make energy less expensive so we can manufacture in this country, I am afraid my colleagues, particularly my Democratic colleagues, block those actions and, again, unfortunately, pit business against people and profits against jobs. What we know and most Americans know is that people have jobs with businesses, and businesses that don't have profits don't create jobs. Our rhetoric needs to match our action. We need to stop blocking legislation that needs to be done and blaming other folks when it doesn't get done. We have seen the same thing happen with energy, unfortunately. For the last several decades, my Democratic colleagues have blocked the development of America's energy supplies, blocked our own energy independence, even back in the seventies, when President Carter stopped the development of nuclear power generation and our European allies moved on to where now 80 percent of their electricity comes from clean and efficient nuclear power. Even the founder of Greenpeace has come back and said it was a mistake to stop that. Yet today we make electricity with natural gas, which is increasing the demand for natural gas and has raised the prices so that many of our manufacturers can no longer compete because of the high cost of energy in this country. And the price keeps going up. We have seen the same thing happen with oil and gas where for years we blocked the development of our own energy supplies, our own oil supplies, and now we are down here trying to blame the President and others for the high cost of gasoline. If we track what happens on many of the votes--I know I have heard on this floor that the oil reserves in Alaska wouldn't make that big a difference. But we know that only a 2- or 3-percent increase in our supply at this time would dramatically reduce the cost of gasoline. Yet on all of these dates over the years, going back to 1991, consistently our Democratic colleagues have voted to block the development of oil reserves in ANWR, and we see the price of gasoline going up consistent with those votes. I have heard on this floor for a number of years that the 5-percent additional supply that would be provided by ANWR would make no difference in the cost of gasoline. Yet we saw during Katrina, when we lost 5 percent of our supply, what it did to the cost of gasoline and what it is doing today. We can't continue to block what needs to be done and then blame other people when we have problems because it doesn't get done. Today I wish to talk particularly about health care because we have gotten word from our Democratic colleagues that they are going to block several important provisions that we are going to try to get on the floor for debate next week. One of those is medical malpractice. A very important component in the cost of health care is the fact that we are suing doctors out of business. We have 20 States now that are considered in crisis because of medical liability. We have another 24 that show warning signs, which means the loss of doctors, the loss of access to care, and less insurance available. South Carolina is in that group. Let me share some statistics that should get folks' attention: 59 percent of physicians believe that the fear of liability discourages discussion and thinking about ways to reduce health care costs. The costs of defensive medicine are estimated to be between $70 billion and $126 billion a year. I think I need to say that again. The cost of defensive medicine is up to $126 billion a year to try to cover doctors from liability because of unlimited lawsuits against doctors. Blue Cross, a major insurer, when surveyed said it is already a serious problem as far as adding to the cost of health insurance premiums. There are many things we can do to fix that, but folks need to understand the real costs because I know my Democratic colleagues will say that it is not a factor. The only people getting rich from medical malpractice are the personal injury lawyers. Keep these things in mind during our debate next week: More than 70 percent of the claims against doctors or hospitals are dropped or dismissed before they reach a verdict, but even if they are dismissed, the claims costs are $18,000 in legal expenses. In 2004, medical liability costs that were settled--when cases are settled--the legal costs were $60,000. In the cases where they actually went to trial but the doctor or hospital won, the average cost jumped to $94,000. The Wall Street Journal points out a number of facts like these, but one of them should really hit home. They were using Texas as an example because Texas has made some reforms that we will be considering for our country that have made a big difference. Hospital premiums to protect against lawsuits more than doubled in Texas between 2000 and 2003. But I think probably the most disheartening statistic I have seen is that between 1999 and 2002, the annual per-bed cost for litigation protection for nursing homes went from $250 to $5,000. That is what nursing homes have to pay just for liability coverage for malpractice lawsuits. That is at a time when we have a new and large wave of retirees whom we need help when it comes to nursing homes. Yet we are suing them out of their hospital beds. We know we can fix this. Part of the problem, I am afraid, is right here in Congress. As I said before, the only people really getting rich from the system we have now are personal injury lawyers. One statistic to remember is between 2003 and 2004, personal injury lawyers gave $102 million to House and Senate candidates. They got a good payback. In fact, it was a 10,000-percent rate of return because during that same period, over $18 billion in malpractice awards were given during 1 year--over $18 billion. We cannot continue to allow this to be a part of our health care system and then come down here and complain about the cost of health care. We know that many doctors are leaving rural areas and no longer delivering babies. This is a fact. This is not political rhetoric. We know that in many places around the country, if someone is injured badly with a head injury in a car accident and they go to an emergency room, there are no neurologists there because they won't take calls because they are likely to get paid very little from Medicaid or another insurance company, but they could lose millions of dollars because of lawsuits. There are some commonsense things we can do, and we have seen this happen in Texas with their reforms that we will be looking at next week. I implore my colleagues to consider what Texas did, and before we get into all the misrepresentations, the malpractice bills we are going to talk about next week do not put any limits on economic damages and allow up to $750,000 for pain and suffering. So a person who is injured could get their salary for life, all their health care paid for, and up to $750,000 additional money for pain and suffering in Texas. What that has done in just 1 year is cut their lawsuits in half. The cost of liability insurance has been reduced almost 20 percent in just a short period of time.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I rise to introduce legislation to strengthen our nation's emergency departments, which are the backbone of our health care safety net. Events of recent years--9/11, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita--have allowed all of us to see our emergency departments in action, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. With every natural disaster or terrorist attack, emergency physicians, on-call specialists and nurses are on the front lines. Many times, it's their expertise that recognizes a problem. For example, it was the diagnosis and prompt communication of the incidence of anthrax that prevented more deaths a couple years ago here in D.C. Likewise, should we face pandemic influenza, it is likely to be discovered first in our emergency rooms. Federal law requires that each person who comes to an emergency department be stabilized. Yet health plans are paying less and less of this cost, and many of the 45 million patients without health insurance can't pay at all. In fact, more than one-third of all emergency department patients are uninsured or are Medicaid or SCHIP enrollees. This results in huge amounts of uncompensated care in our nation's emergency departments, which threatens their viability and everyone's access to emergency care. Unfortunately, America's emergency patients are suffering because emergency departments are not supported well enough to handle day-to- day emergencies, let alone a pandemic flu or terrorist attack. Patients wait hours to see physicians, ``boarding'' sometimes for days in emergency departments and diverted in ambulances to other hospitals. This gridlock threatens access to emergency care for everyone--both insured and uninsured. Emergency departments are under-funded and suffer from severe staffing shortages. A new study just released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the American College of Emergency Physicians found that three-fourths of emergency medical directors reported inadequate on-call specialist coverage, compared with two-thirds in 2004: a sure sign that a bad situation is getting even worse. Frivolous lawsuits and the nation's broken medical liability system are also driving up the costs of health care for everyone and threaten to leave already disadvantaged patients without access to necessary health care services. But, even in the best of times, the number of visits to emergency departments continue to increase, while the number of emergency departments in hospitals continue to decrease. In fact, we've even seen a number of emergency departments have to close their doors. Surprisingly, there are no standard measures to report the extent of overcrowding in emergency departments. During the last Congress, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) surveyed hospital emergency departments and reported back to Congress--providing us with the data needed to begin to address these issues. The GAO report told Congress that patient ``boarding'' in the emergency department was the most common factor associated with overcrowding. The term ``boarding'' refers to those patients who have been admitted to the hospital but have not yet been moved from the emergency department to an inpatient hospital bed. When these patients remain in the emergency department long after the decision to admit them is made (at times on gurneys in halls and elsewhere)--it diminishes the space to care for other patients, and adversely impacts the staff and other resources. My bill requires Medicare to establish regulations to reduce or eliminate overcrowding and boarding of emergency department patients. We have the data to recognize this problem. Hopefully, national standards coupled with incentive payments for those hospitals implementing the standards and documenting improvement will improve the quality of care in this country. My legislation, the ``Access to Emergency Medical Services Act,'' directly addresses the issues of low reimbursement, emergency department overcrowding, and increasing medical liability insurance costs. First, my bill expands the current liability protection granted to commissioned officers and employees of the Public Health Service to include Medicare participating hospitals or emergency departments subject to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA). This would also cover physicians and physician groups employed by, under contract, or on-call for duty to stabilize an individual with an emergency medical condition. This safeguard does not prevent someone from taking legal action. Rather, the bill requires that any tort or medical liability case must be brought against the United States, which in turn must defend any civil action or proceeding. Awards for malpractice judgments would be paid from a specific fund established for this purpose. Second, my bill increases physician payments by 10% for services provided to Medicare beneficiaries in the emergency department of a hospital or critical access hospital. EMTALA is an unfunded federal mandate. Current law does not require health insurance companies, governments or individuals to pay for services that have been provided. As a result, emergency physicians bear the brunt of uncompensated care. This increased reimbursement recognizes and funds this mandate, and I hope it will go a long way toward improving physician recruitment and retention. Finally, my bill provides financial incentive payments to hospitals that meet standards for prompt admissions of emergency department patients requiring inpatient hospital services. The bill would increase payments to these hospitals by 10 percent for Medicare beneficiaries' emergency department visits. The payments would be made only if the hospital certifies, subject to audit, that it met the standards for prompt admission. The issues addressed by my bill impact each one of us. When you, or a family member, need the emergency room, you don't want to worry about it being crowded, closed, under-funded, or not having the staff it needs. Emergency physicians, nurses and on-call specialists are the heroes in America's hospitals, working under incredibly difficult conditions on patients who need critical attention. Congress needs to step up and take action. The ``Access to Emergency Medical Services Act'' is an important first step to address these issues.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, the amendment I have sent to the desk adds a reserve fund to the budget resolution for Social Security that would allow Congress to begin saving Social Security surpluses for future Social Security recipients. If the Finance Committee does not report back, then nothing happens. The amendment does nothing to change Social Security--no privatization, no stock market investment, and it does not add to the deficit. The amendment only creates a budget mechanism to allow Congress to consider ways to begin saving the Social Security surplus. I suspect most Members of this body, Republican and Democrat, are on record on the Senate floor or in a campaign saying that it is wrong to spend the Social Security surplus on other Government programs. While we don't yet agree on how to fix Social Security, every Member and I believe every American knows that it is wrong to continue to spend Social Security taxes on other Government programs. This amendment would open the door to consider ways to stop spending Social Security money. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I have a modified amendment that I would like to send to the desk

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. DeMINT

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

Mr. DeMINT. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 5 minutes as in morning business and that this time be counted against the Republican time in the debate.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I have had a chance to listen to the debate on the PATRIOT Act in my office. I had not planned to speak. But hearing continued attacks on the President on security issues, particularly port security, while some from the other side seem intent on stopping one of the most important security pieces of legislation we have, the PATRIOT Act, compelled me to come to the floor to straighten out the facts. It is important that we have an honest and fair debate. I appreciate those on the other side who have participated in the debate in an honest way. But I have heard enough of my colleagues from the other side use information and perhaps take different positions than they did only a year or so ago. I am compelled to point some of these things out. I will give one example. This week in a Commerce Committee hearing, we were talking about port security. Senator Boxer said: Our ports are a soft target. Al Qaida told us that when we found that out through [their] documents. . . . . So you take the Dubai situation plus our lack of action on security. . . . . And I'm going to oppose this deal. That is fair enough unless we put it in perspective. This week, Senator Boxer actually voted to filibuster the PATRIOT Act, which is dedicated in large part to security in our ports. An entire title of the PATRIOT Act is focused on port security. Originally introduced as the bipartisan Reducing Crime and Terrorism in America's Seaports Act of 2005, title III strengthens criminal sanctions and takes a number of steps to improve our Nation's ability to secure our ports and to thwart terrorism. Yet Senator Boxer voted to filibuster the enactment of this essential port security provision the day after lamenting the vulnerability of American ports. The truth is, to anyone who has watched this over time, very often our Democratic colleagues, with all due respect, block the very thing they blame Republicans for--in this case, blaming the President. Not only did Senator Boxer vote to filibuster the PATRIOT Act, but after the 9/11 attacks, Senator Boxer was one of four Democratic cosponsors of a bill that would have specifically permitted noncitizens to serve as airport security screeners. Senator Boxer cosponsored legislation to allow noncitizens to do for air travel what essentially the Coast Guard does for port security. Now she wants to block foreign companies from using American workers to manage our port terminals. It is difficult to reconcile the two positions. Republicans want a fair and nonpartisan 45-day security review and a good but honest debate. It is not fair or honest to take a position this week that was very different than one that had been taken before. To Republicans, port security is not a passing political issue but a cornerstone of our commitment to protect the American people. That is why Republicans are working to pass the PATRIOT Act. We demand a fair and impartial 45-day security review of the proposed acquisition of the P&O Navigation Company of Britain by the Dubai Ports World. I don't mean to be unfair to Senator Boxer, but it is an example of folks maybe taking a different position, trying to blame the President for something, in fact, that they have blocked in the past. This is from an editorial in the Los Angeles Times, February 26: . . . Now there is a Republican in the White House, and of all the grandstanding surrounding the Dubai Ports World deal, none tops Boxer's performance. She said last week that she would support legislation preventing any foreign firm, state- owned or not, from buying port operations. Memo to Boxer: 13 of the 14 container terminals at the ports of [Los Angeles] and Long Beach, the biggest port complex in the United States, are run by foreign-owned companies. She later told The Times that she meant such deals should get greater scrutiny, not be banned. Still, this is the sort of proposal one would expect from a Senator from a landlocked state like Vermont, not one where international trade plays a vital role in the economy. The article goes on to talk about the 180-degree switch of opinions. Again, I don't mean to pick on one Senator. My plea to the other side, and my side as well, as we look at this vital issue of security in our country, don't look for political opportunities to blame one side for something we actually created ourselves. On the security issue, there is no better example of colleagues who have blocked security in many ways and now are attempting to suggest the President is not strong on security. President George Bush is the world leader in the war on terror and has probably done more to secure the borders of our homeland than any President or any Member of Congress. It is time we give him that respect. Mr. President, I thank you for the time, and I yield the floor.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, today the Democratic leader, Harry Reid, gave what was billed as a ``prebuttal'' to the President's upcoming State of the Union Address. I am, frankly, astounded that he would criticize a speech so harshly that has not even been given yet. I will let the President speak for himself when he addresses the Nation tomorrow night, but this misleading partisan rhetoric put forth on this floor by the Senator from Nevada cannot go unanswered, rhetoric which, unfortunately, further proves Democrats will say anything but do nothing. Today, we heard many of the same tired cliches from the minority leader. He talks about a credibility gap. Well, the largest credibility gap in American politics is between what Democrats say and what they do. Democrats promised months ago to bring forth their own legislative agenda, but the Nation is still waiting. Day after day, the Democrats launch attack after attack on Republicans and our agenda, but how are we to take them seriously when they cannot articulate a clear plan of their own? They will say anything to get a media sound bite, but when it comes to solving today's challenges, Democrats do nothing. It has been 4 years since 9/11, and after all their rock-throwing, Democrats still have no plan for victory in the war on terror. In fact, they have undermined the war effort with partisan attacks on the President. They have complained about the economy since President Bush took office, but almost everything they do makes it harder for American businesses to compete. Democrats spent the last year criticizing Republican efforts to strengthen Social Security but still offer nothing to fix this system in crisis. They even refuse to guarantee benefits for today's seniors and blocked a bill that would have stopped Congress from spending Social Security dollars on other Government programs. They have decried looming deficits but offer no map to a balanced budget, instead calling for higher taxes and more spending programs. How are we to take seriously a party that has no legislative agenda, that has no solutions or ideas to solve America's greatest challenges? In stark contrast to the Democrats' invisible agenda, Republicans have clearly articulated and delivered a bold agenda to secure America's future. And while we have had some victories in recent years, the truth is that Democrats have fought bitterly to block progress for America every step of the way. Then these same Democrats come to this floor and blame inaction on Republicans. To give just one example, Republicans have been working for decades to secure America's energy independence. However, Democrats, at the behest of extreme environmental activists, oppose real solutions to high energy prices such as increasing production of domestic oil and natural gas supplies and removing barriers to oil refinery investment such as onerous permitting requirements and a proliferation of boutique fuel blends. Just last month, Democrats blocked energy exploration and production on the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge which would provide millions of barrels of oil a day, or about 4.5 percent of the current U.S. consumption, with no significant environmental impact. It is not just in Alaska where Democrats oppose efforts to access our Nation's energy resources. It has been estimated that enough natural gas lies under the Outer Continental Shelf and in the interior Western States to supply 27 years' worth of natural gas consumption, the primary fuel used to heat Americans' homes. Yet Democrats support policies that have closed these areas to exploration and production. The administration has attempted to cut regulatory redtape, reduce regulatory costs, and streamline regulatory processes to allow more sensible use of the Nation's energy resources, while maintaining environmental standards--efforts that have been largely rebuffed by Democrats in Congress. The obstacle to America's energy independence is clear: it is the blockade formed by the Democratic Party. In seeking to appease far-left interest groups, Democrats have blocked Republican efforts to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and have needlessly allowed energy prices to climb higher and higher for America's families. Senator Reid likes to say Democrats can do better. I think he is right, Democrats should do better. They have been conducting a war of rhetoric for years without offering anything positive to the public debate. Americans are rightly frustrated with a Democratic Party that will say anything but do nothing. Now let me address what has become the favorite sound bite of the Democratic Party. Senator Reid said it today and many times over the last week, what he likes to call the ``culture of corruption.'' Apparently, Democrats believe this media strategy will carry them to a sweeping electoral victory in November. I have news for my Democratic colleagues: The problem of outside influence on Congress is not a partisan issue. This is a bipartisan problem and requires a bipartisan solution. For those hoping to usher in a new Democratic majority in Congress on a media sound bite, history teaches us that elections are won on ideas, not rhetoric. Americans are far too smart and today's challenges are far too serious for Democrats to expect they can coast to a victory in November with no solutions and no ideas. Republicans learned this lesson long ago from one of our greatest teachers, Ronald Reagan. President Reagan always talked about ideas that still resonate with Americans today: limited government, personal freedom and responsibility, and peace through strength. Republicans did not win on rhetoric in 1994. We won because Americans agreed with our solutions: lower taxes, fiscal responsibility, traditional values, and strong national defense. President Bush has connected with the American people because he has run his campaigns on ideas. He promised to lower taxes, and he has. He promised to aggressively fight the war on terror to protect American families, and he has. He promised to nominate judges who will follow the law instead of creating it, and he has. Yet, as Senator Reid demonstrated today, Democrats still do not understand that Americans want solutions, not more partisan rhetoric. I know there are some Democrats who do have some good ideas and desire to work together to improve the lives of Americans. I have talked to many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who do seem to understand the reality, but their leadership refuses to allow them to break from the party line. I urge the Democratic Party to think long and hard about the war of rhetoric they are waging. It is poisoning the atmosphere in the Senate, and it is turning off Americans from the public debate. The consequences of these actions will be fewer and fewer Democrats returning next year. This has been proved out during the last elections, as I and my fellow freshman Republican Senators can testify. If Democrats sincerely want the opportunity to govern again, they need to abandon this ``say anything, do nothing'' stance and put forward some ideas and solutions. Regardless, the Republican Party will not wait around. We will continue to secure America's future with a bold, positive agenda.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask the Senator to add to her request that following the Democratic-allowed time that has already been agreed to, Senator Inhofe be recognized for up to an hour.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I do add that to the request.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 15 minutes.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, on January 4, 2005, I was privileged to take the oath of office as a U.S. Senator. I raised my right hand and, along with my colleagues, Republican and Democrat, pledged to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. Now, as this distinguished body considers the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito, I am reminded again of what that obligation means. The legal experts have had their say, so today I wish to speak not as a legal scholar but as a commonsense American citizen. When our Founding Fathers framed our Constitution, they gave us an incredible gift: a democracy with checks and balances. We will always be indebted to those visionary leaders who understood that we would need a constant, fixed star by which to navigate the unpredictable and changing seas that we would encounter as a nation. Today, over 200 years later, the wisdom of our Founders is clear as our Constitution continues to serve as a protector of liberty and individual freedom. But as this confirmation process continues to unfold, I fear that we have strayed far from where the Founders intended us to be. I am afraid we have done a grave disservice not only to Judge Alito but to other qualified public servants who will certainly think twice before subjecting themselves to the dehumanizing process this has become. As I watched Judge Alito's hearings before the Judiciary Committee, I was struck by the harsh attacks some leveled against him. I was proud of my fellow Senator from South Carolina, Mr. Lindsey Graham, who expressed the outrage of the American people and apologized to Judge Alito and his family for the behavior of those on the committee, who seemed more intent on slandering him than fairly examining his long, distinguished legal career. Sadly, partisanship prevailed, and Democrats chose to vote in lockstep against this committed public servant. Every Democrat on the Judiciary Committee voted against this well-qualified judge. Now, as this nomination comes before the full Senate, the unfair rhetoric continues. I find it sad that yesterday my colleague from Massachusetts, Senator Kerry, took to the floor of this Chamber to insinuate that he could, as he said, ``almost imagine Karl Rove right now whispering to Judge Alito, `just say that you have an open mind, say whatever it takes.''' This accusation is insulting not only to Judge Alito--a man who, by all reports, is a fair and honest public servant--but to the intelligence of every American who shares Judge Alito's understanding that the proper role of a judge is to interpret the law, not make it. These types of slanderous accusations also fly in the face of diverse and numerous independent groups that have stepped forward to defend Judge Alito's character and qualifications. Many of his former colleagues, including several judges who have served with him, testified under oath that he is fair and independent. The American Bar Association, hardly known as a bastion of the rightwing, unanimously agreed to give Judge Alito their highest ranking of ``well qualified'' for his ``integrity, professional competence, and judicial temperament.'' A bipartisan group of 51 former Judge Alito clerks wrote that the judge was ``guided by his profound respect for the Constitution and the limited role of the judicial branch,'' that he ``applied precedent faithfully and fairly.'' Where Congress had spoken, ``he gave the statute its commonsense reading,'' avoiding both ``rigid interpretations that undermined the statute's clear purpose,'' and attempts to ``distort the statute's plain language to advance policy goals not adopted by Congress.'' Their conclusion: In short, the only result that Judge Alito ever tried to reach was the result dictated by the applicable law and the relevant facts. Mr. President, I ask you, under our Constitution, what more could anyone--any Republican or Democrat--ask of a judge? Judge Alito's hearings did serve a useful purpose. We now see a new litmus test being used by the Democrats as their standard for nominees. They have decided that the judiciary should be used to advance their own liberal policies. They are looking for a court that will act as a superlegislature, enabling them to reform laws in a way that Americans have rejected at the polls through the democratic process. The Democrats lecture us that we must restore constitutional checks on the expansion of Presidential power, while in the same breath assigning to the judiciary a constitutional prerogative reserved solely for Congress. I am having a hard time reconciling these two ideas, and I suspect the American people are, too. True to their strategy in recent years, the Democrats will say anything but do nothing except block what should be done. Theirs is the philosophy of judicial activism that has led to decisions to ban the Pledge of Allegiance in our schools and allow local governments to take an American's home just to increase tax revenue. Increasingly, judges have legislated precedents that have little basis in written statute or the Constitution but instead are based on their own personal opinions. This point was vividly made when Senator Kohl called for ``an expansive and imaginative'' interpretation of the Constitution, and further stated that the approach of a judge ``just applying the law, is very often inadequate to ensure social progress [and] right historic wrongs. . . .'' Judge Alito eloquently addressed this flawed argument when he stated that while previous court decisions are deserving of our respect, if a decision is not supported by the text of the Constitution and the laws passed by Congress, then it should be overturned. Furthermore, he correctly pointed out that it was exactly this process, not an ``imaginative interpretation,'' that capably righted historic wrongs in the landmark civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education. To quote Judge Alito: When Brown was finally decided, that was not an instance of the court changing the meaning of the equal protection clause; it was an instance of a court writing an incorrect interpretation that had prevailed for a long period of time. It is clear that we are facing the grave danger of the slippery slope in which bad precedent--by which I mean precedent not clearly derived from the Constitution or a law passed by Congress--builds upon bad precedent. Before you know it, the original meaning of the law or phrase in question is lost to history. The Democrats are simply on the wrong side of this important debate. The Constitution is not a list of suggestions. It is the constant fixed star that should guide every action we take. The issue before us today reaches far beyond the confirmation of Judge Alito. He has more judicial experience than any Supreme Court nominee in the last 75 years. There is no question that he is eminently qualified to sit on the Nation's highest Court. Today we are debating which of these two diametrically opposed philosophies will prevail in the confirmation of future judges--the philosophy in which unelected judges create new law or the philosophy that returns a runaway judiciary to acting within the bounds of the checks and balances established by the Constitution. In my travels in South Carolina, time and again, South Carolinians have asked me to fight for judges who will place the rule of law above their personal opinions. I support Judge Alito because he has shown that he will do just that. The consistent winner in his court has not been a person of business, a branch of Government, or political ideology. It has been the Constitution and our democracy. When the speeches are done and the vote is called, I hope there will be those on the other side of the aisle who will put aside partisan politics. I pray that we can join together in affirming the rule of law by voting yes to confirm Judge Samuel Alito as the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The American people deserve no less. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, today, we resume consideration of the nomination of Judge Alito to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. The order from yesterday allows the Democrat side to begin debate this morning at 10 o'clock and speak for up to 1 hour. Then the majority will have the hour from 11 to 12, and we will continue alternating 1-hour blocks of time between the two sides throughout the day. Members should plan their schedules accordingly to use the allocated time to make their statements. We will continue to work toward a final time for a vote on the nomination. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, a vote for this amendment is a vote to restore the original purpose of an ethics rule. It was a rule developed to keep special interests from unduly influencing Members of the Senate by forbidding us from receiving outside income while serving here, on either side of the Congress. But, as the Government often does, we seem to have forgotten the original purpose of this rule and are now focusing on a technical interpretation. We are asking for some common sense. The patients of a doctor delivering babies, many times a poor Medicaid mother, are not going to influence the votes of Members of the Senate. Senator Lott has mentioned a number of exceptions that already occur. The House, acting on the same rule, decided to allow Dr. Coburn to continue to deliver babies because of the benefit to this institution as well as the benefit to his patients. Senator Lott mentioned other exceptions we already make for each other. We can receive millions from a book. But even more important, every Member of this Senate receives compensation every time we travel to speak to a group in different parts of this country. It is compensation only to cover expenses, but it is still compensation. And many Members of this Senate are still involved with businesses and take passive income and help to make some management decisions. It is compensation, but it is not direct compensation. Senator Coburn's situation is very similar. He is providing an important service, often to poor mothers, and he does not want to make a profit, only to cover his expenses. My appeal to my colleagues tonight is to remember the purpose of these ethics rules. These women are not going to influence votes. The only time he spends is when we are not in session here. Let's straighten out one other thing, if we could. This amendment is not to help Dr. Coburn. It is about allowing him to help others, which is what he is doing on the weekends. He is not making any profit from doing this. He is serving others as he has done for years. But it is also about helping us, as an institution, to keep contact with people in the real world and the problems they have--on his own time. I encourage my fellow colleagues to remember the purpose, to use some common sense, and to allow Dr. Coburn to continue to serve his constituents in ways that many of us are often doing in different ways.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 minutes as in morning business.