Bill Frist

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, for clarification, I just filed cloture on four defense nominations that have been pending since last year.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate en bloc consideration of H.J. Res. 81 and H.J. Res. 82, which were received from the House.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the joint resolutions be read a third time and passed, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the resolutions be printed in the Record.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, this morning, we are returning to the border security bill which has been pending since last Wednesday. Last night, the minority leader filed a cloture motion on the chairman's substitute amendment. I was a little surprised when I heard this happened, although I was not on the floor when it was filed. I certainly understand the rules that permit the minority leader to file this motion. I know it is a rare occurrence when the minority leader files such a cloture motion, and at this point he did on the bill. I believe we can make real progress on addressing the amendments if we allow them to come forward, debate them openly, and then vote on them. We do still have the first amendment which was offered to the bill last week pending before the Senate; that is, the Kyl-Cornyn amendment on which we voted on the motion to table last night, 0 to 99--a unanimous vote. The motion had been made and it was not tabled; therefore, it is the pending amendment. We have three other amendments Senators have offered and debated, but we have not been given the opportunity to vote on those. As I said at the outset of the debate last week, my intention was to give ample time to have amendments come forward, to debate, to fully understand what is in the Judiciary bill, to modify the Judiciary bill by debate and amendment. I encourage Members to come to the floor to do just that, to offer their amendments. Members show up, and then there is an objection to even offering the amendments from the other side. I specifically set aside these weeks for the Senate to debate this particular issue, the border security and immigration issue, because it is one that is important to the safety of the American people, the security of the Nation, and fairness to immigrants. We are a nation of laws, and we are a rich nation of immigrants. Both of those principles need to be respected in the debate, but we can only do so by making sure that the laws we pass are upheld and that we address the people who have broken the law. That can be done in a comprehensive bill, and we have to have debate and amendment. The debate over security on our borders and handling immigration has generated a lot of ideas. The debate has matured, and we have had good debate on the floor. Now we have the attention of all 100 Senators and people around the country looking at what we do. They expect us to legislate, to address the very real problems that are out there today, and that requires debate and amendment. If you look at other large bills we have done, the Medicare prescription drug bill, we had 128 amendments considered; the Energy bill, we had 60 or 70 amendments considered; on the highway bill, 47 amendments; bankruptcy reform, 61 amendments. It is important that we debate these amendments and act on them. We just can't sit on the side lines; the problem is too big, too important. It is growing. An estimated 3 million people crossed our southwestern borders illegally last year, and we don't know who they are. We don't know what their intentions are. We need to bring a rational, fair framework to assist a system that is just flatout broken. That is our responsibility. Today is a new day, and we are just getting started. With that, I hope we will have the opportunity to start afresh. The two managers last night indicated they would be working together and would try to work out a list of amendments to be voted upon. I assume those would include the amendments that were offered last week. I would hope that they are. I encourage them to work out a process to give Senators on both sides of the aisle the chance to offer amendments and to have them voted upon so that we can complete that path to finishing a bill which is critically important to the safety and security of the American people.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, in response to my colleague and the manager of this bill, it is clear that by protocol, precedent--and I would even take it back to something more basic than that--and simple fairness and respect for individual Members, Members be allowed to come forward and offer their amendments and then, yes, discuss it with the Democratic leader, the Republican leader, and especially the managers of the bill. But to think that the minority party can cherry-pick which amendments will be considered and no other amendments will be considered is totally outside of the realm of both practice, protocol and, again, fairness of the body itself.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I think our point has been made. If we are going to address an issue that deserves to be addressed and that the American people expect us to address, we have to change course here from the last several days. It is going to require amendments and debate and allowing amendments to come to the floor. There is no comparable bill. The Medicare bill had 128 amendments; the highway bill had 47; the Energy bill had 70. But to think we can make progress on a bill flying through the Senate without the opportunity for debate and amendment is unrealistic. It is outside of the realm of what the American people expect and what our responsibilities are as Senators.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, as I said in my remarks a few minutes ago, the disappointing thing to me is the situation we are in, in that in all likelihood, unless we have a radical departure in the next hour, the course we are on is to leave here in a few days having accomplished nothing for the American people. The American people expect more. We all know that the institutions of government in today's world are watched by the American people because we were elected on their behalf to identify problems, to struggle and work through those problems through a process that has worked well for a couple hundred years, and that is debate and amendment. We have a bill on the floor that came out of the Judiciary Committee, a process I am actually proud of. It has been confusing to people, I know, but I basically said: There is a problem out there that we know is there. It is getting worse. It affects the safety and security of the American people, plus the compassionate side, people dying crossing the borders, plus 12 million people who are having to wake up every day in the shadows out of fear that in some way somebody is going to come and touch them in a devastating way or not being able to report a domestic violence incident because it exposes them. That is wrong. We have the opportunity--because of leadership, and working with the Democratic leadership, we got a bill to the floor, knowing 3 to 4 months in advance that we would be here now spending time on it--to fix the problem, to solve the problem. And maybe it is the surgical personality in me that says, if somebody in the room has cancer, you cut it out. You just don't sit there and talk to them and say: Come back in a few weeks or a few months or a few years, because they die from not acting and fixing it. That may be too much my approach, but stepping back from that, I know this is a process here whereby if we start now and take the first amendment from last week, the Kyl amendment, which was introduced and has been discussed and debated, and last night we voted not to table it--why don't we take it and vote on it and go straight through, and then we would have the opportunity to effect a bill. I think we can improve the bill. I think it would get 60 votes for cloture, and then we could have a bill that would solve the problems that are out there.

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

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, as a prelude, we have a number of requests and items of business to take care of. I will explain here shortly. Motion to Commit Mr. President, I move to commit the bill to the Judiciary Committee to report back forthwith with an amendment in the nature of a substitute.

Mr. FRIST. All right. Mr. President, what we have just done, so our colleagues will understand, is as follows: Tomorrow morning, notwithstanding the fact we have yet to vote on even the very first amendment offered, we will have a cloture vote that--

Mr. FRIST. I will stand corrected. No, I will not stand corrected. On the very first amendment that was offered we still have not had a vote. And, yes, there have been several other amendments that have been addressed. We will have a cloture vote, which was filed by the minority leader, on the underlying Specter substitute amendment, and that will be the first vote tomorrow morning. I suspect that cloture vote will fail. And we have been very clear about our desire on this side to consider amendments from Senators on both sides of the aisle and our willingness for votes. We discussed that over the course of the day. It appears that this will not be likely and, therefore, we will be prevented from making any real progress on the bill. So moments ago I offered a motion to commit, which incorporates an amendment by Senators Hagel and Martinez and others who have been working on this amendment over the course of the day. The fact that those cloture motions were filed tonight means that we would have the cloture vote on that motion on Friday. And depending on the outcome of that cloture motion, we could have a second cloture vote on the underlying bill, the so-called Frist bill, as well. So we will have the Specter cloture vote tomorrow morning, and then one or possibly two other cloture votes on Friday morning.

Mr. FRIST. I am happy to yield.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, through the Chair--and we had discussed the possibility of that a little earlier--I think it is best for us to make that decision tomorrow, only because the Hagel-Martinez amendment is a negotiated compromise amendment that none of our colleagues have had the opportunity to really see yet. I have had numerous phone calls over the course of tonight as well. I think it is important people have the opportunity to look at that carefully tomorrow and see how much time it takes for people to have both the opportunity to look at it themselves, as well as their staff. We ought to keep that potential on the table.

Mr. FRIST. Through the Chair, that is correct.

Mr. FRIST. There may be some other cloture motions to consider on Friday, which I will come to here shortly.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. But before doing that, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 251, S. 1086. I ask unanimous consent that the committee- reported amendment be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, just a moment of explanation because I think this bill is, in substance, broadly supported. I am disappointed to hear the objections tonight. Let me comment very briefly on the bill because it is an issue that I think this body does feel strongly about and that we need to move forward on because it can make a difference. This particular bill is child predator legislation, and we all need to be working together to keep our children safe from child predators. American families, as we all know, should not have to live in fear of sexual predators lurking in neighborhoods and enticing our children. In the last 24 hours, we have all seen--actually here in the Senate and in this town--we have learned some shocking and tragic news about the growing problem of online child pornography. The abuse of the Internet has really, unfortunately, become the gateway to more serious violent sex offenses against both children and adults. On Tuesday night, we learned of the arrest of another online child predator and the tragic plight of a child predator victim. The predator was an official from the Department of Homeland Security who was arrested for seducing a child over the Internet. Allegedly, this individual initiated a sexually explicit online chat with a detective posing as a 14-year-old girl. He allegedly described in graphic detail the sexual acts he wanted to perform with her and offered to exchange sexually explicit photos. Fortunately, law enforcement intercepted this individual before he could victimize an innocent child. But for too many innocent children, the child predators are not caught until it is too late. Yesterday we also heard from one of the victims: 19-year-old Justin Berry from California who courageously testified before a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on sexual exploitation of children over the internet. For 5 five years, Justin was the victim of an online child pornography ring. At 13, this lonely teenager innocently hooked up a web camera to his computer, hoping to meet other teenagers online. Instead, he heard only from adult child predators who struck up friendly chats and offered him compliments and gifts. One day, one predator offered to pay him $50 to take off his shirt in front of the webcam. Eventually, these predators lured him into performing pornographic acts in front of the webcam for an audience that grew to more than 1,500 people who paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars. These shocking stories are not isolated incidents. They are symptomatic of a larger problem. I believe we should seize this opportunity to transform these tragedies into positive action. The bill I called up tonight--S. 1086, the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act--would help protect our kids against child predators. It was introduced by Senator Hatch. It has 33 bipartisan cosponsors. It was reported unanimously by the Senate Judiciary Committee. It is supported by the Fraternal Order of Police, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Boys and Girls Club of America, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, and the National District Attorneys Association. And it is supported by the families of child predator victims. Among its many provisions, the bill will create a national sex offender registry accessible on the Internet and searchable by zip code; Require convicted sex offenders to register, including child predators who use the Internet to commit a crime against a minor; Make failure to register a felony; Encourage information sharing among local, State and Federal law enforcement; and Toughen criminal penalties for violent crimes against children under 12. Here in the Senate, we need to act to address this issue. In light of the events this week, we should not delay. We should act now before another innocent child becomes a victim of a child predator. It is an issue we do need to address, and I believe it will pass in an overwhelmingly bipartisan way. In light of the events of this week, we should not be delaying it any longer. I look forward to working with my colleagues on the other side in getting this bill passed as soon as possible.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now return to legislative session.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration and the Senate proceed to S. Res. 371.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed en bloc to the consideration of S. Res. 427 through 433, which were submitted earlier today.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table en bloc.