Orrin Hatch

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, 2 weeks ago, President Trump nominated Tenth Circuit judge Neil Gorsuch of Colorado to fill the vacancy left by the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Judge Gorsuch, in my opinion, is the ideal choice to fill this seat. He has impeccable credentials and a decade-long record on the bench demonstrating a keen understanding of the proper role of a judge. Given the increasingly contentious nature of the confirmation process, it is not surprising that many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and their special interest group allies are stretching to find anything objectionable about Judge Gorsuch, no matter how ridiculous. Today, I wish to address one of their latest, most outlandish claims: that Judge Gorsuch would not serve as an independent check on the executive branch. For example, last week in Politico, Senator Schumer, the distinguished Senator from New York, declared in an opinion piece: ``The most important factor in assessing a Supreme Court nominee . . . is whether or not the potential justice will be an independent check on an executive who may act outside our nation's laws and the Constitution.'' Senator Schumer doubled down on these comments in the New York Times. There, he argued that it was impossible for him to discern Judge Gorsuch's judicial independence when they met in person. Why? Because Judge Gorsuch refused to say how he would rule on specific issues or how he would review particular government actions. These misleading narratives are an irrelevant, wasteful distraction from our consideration of Judge Gorsuch's sterling record and the merits of confirming him to the Supreme Court. Last month, I warned that the left would use these diversion tactics in an attempt to discredit the President's nominee. Shortly before Judge Gorsuch's nomination was announced, I predicted in an opinion piece in the Washington Post that advocates and interest groups would want to know how the nominee would decide particular cases before those cases ever reached the Court to make sure the nominee is on the right team. I was right. Our Nation's Founders would have been embarrassed by such questions. Instead, the questions we ask should focus on whether the nominee will interpret and apply the law faithfully and neutrally no matter what the issue is. After all, that is what our Constitution demands. Our Founders are not the only ones who would be embarrassed. I have been in the Senate for the last dozen Supreme Court confirmations. Every nominee we have considered has rightly refused to answer such questions. Consider, for example, Justice Ginsburg's response at her confirmation hearing. She said: A judge sworn to decide impartially can offer no forecasts, no hints, for that would show not only disregard for the specifics of the particular case, it would display disdain for the entire judicial process. Just last month in a speech in Arizona, Justice Sotomayor had an even stronger warning against asking and answering such questions. She said: What you want is for us to tell you how as a judicial nominee we're going to rule on the important issues you find vexing. . . . Any self-respecting judge who comes in with an agenda that would permit that judge to tell you how they will vote is the kind of person you don't want as a judge. So let's stop with this nonsense of trying to get Judge Gorsuch to prejudge issues that could come before the Court. I hope my colleagues appreciate the irony in asking a judge to say how they would rule on particular issues in order to prove that the judge is judicially independent. I agree with Justice Sotomayor: A nominee who will tell you how she would vote is the kind of person you do not want as a judge. But if judicial independence really is the most important factor, as Senator Schumer suggests, then this confirmation process should be the easiest one in the Senate's history. Over 11 years on the Tenth Circuit, Judge Gorsuch has consistently demonstrated in his judicial opinions and other writings that he deeply values the constitutional separation of powers between the three branches of the Federal Government. Judge Gorsuch understands that the Constitution gives each branch distinct roles: Congress makes the laws, the President enforces those laws, and the courts interpret those laws and the Constitution. The branches may act only according to the powers the Constitution grants them, with the remaining powers and rights reserved to the States and ultimately to the people. With respect to the power of the executive branch, Judge Gorsuch has a strong record of reining in actions which violate the Constitution and the law. Perhaps the best example is his opinion in the immigration case Gutierrez-Brizuela v. Lynch. There, the Attorney General attempted to apply a new agency rule retroactively prohibiting a noncitizen from receiving relief under Federal immigration law. Writing for the Tenth Circuit, Judge Gorsuch ruled that such action exceeded the executive's power to enforce the law. In a separate opinion, he noted that there is an elephant in the room: the so-called Chevron deference doctrine, which requires courts to defer to Federal agency interpretations of the law we pass. He expressed constitutional concerns about Chevron deference. Judge Gorsuch wrote: [T]he fact is Chevron . . . permit[s] executive bureaucracies to swallow huge amounts of core judicial and legislative power and concentrate federal power in a way that seems more than a little difficult to square with the Constitution of the framers' design. Maybe the time has come to face the behemoth. Judge Gorsch then proceeded to provide a textbook explanation of the proper separation of powers under our Constitution. As he stated, the Founders included a strong separation of powers in the Constitution because ``[a] government of diffused powers, they knew, is a government less capable of invading the liberties of the people.'' As my colleagues know, I am no fan of Chevron deference. Last Congress, I introduced the Separation of Powers Restoration Act to get rid of it. As I noted when I introduced the legislation, regulators have taken advantage of the courts' deference under Chevron to shoehorn the law for their own political agenda, expanding their authority well beyond congressional intent. But the Constitution's separation of powers makes clear that it is the responsibility of the courts, not the bureaucracy, to interpret the law. So I am pleased Judge Gorsuch understands that the Constitution requires Federal judges to serve as an independent check on how Federal agencies interpret the laws we enact. Separation of powers is not just about ensuring that the executive branch performs its proper role of executing the law; separation of powers is also about making sure Federal judges understand their proper role under the Constitution. As Chief Justice Marshall famously explained in Marbury v. Madison, judges have a constitutional duty to say what the law is. Simply put, judges must be faithful interpreters of our laws and the Constitution. Under our constitutional separation of powers, it is not the role of Federal judges to make or change laws by imposing their own policy preferences. It is not their role to look beyond the law to consider their personal views and feelings. And it is not their role to choose winners and losers based on subjective beliefs that favor one group over another. In my 40 years in the Senate, I have reviewed the record of hundreds of nominees for the Federal bench. I don't think I have ever reviewed the record of a nominee who better understands his proper role under the Constitution than Judge Gorsuch. Consider, for example, Judge Gorsuch's touching tribute to Justice Scalia that was published last year in the Case Western Reserve Law Review. In that speech, Judge Gorsuch eloquently explained how judges should not be in the business of ruling in ways that reflect their own political views or policy preferences. Judges, after all, are not elected legislators. Instead, judges should interpret the law as written. They must start with the text of the statute and then utilize the traditional tools of statutory interpretations to discern the meaning of any particular law. Judge Gorsuch understands, to borrow from Alexander Hamilton, that the judiciary should be the least dangerous branch. These aren't just words; Judge Gorsuch's judicial record confirms that he lives this judicial philosophy of restraint and humility. In an essay I published last week on SCOTUSblog, I reviewed a number of judicial opinions by Judge Gorsuch that demonstrate his commitment to the separation of powers and the proper role of a judge in our Federal system. I will not go through all of those cases here, but I ask unanimous consent that the essay be printed in the Record.

Mr. HATCH. To be sure, that Justice Gorsuch would be a fierce defender of the separation of powers does not mean his rulings will match his policy preferences. As Justice Scalia wisely remarked, good and faithful judges will not always like the conclusions they reach in interpreting the law. And it certainly does not mean that his rulings will match my policy preferences or those of my colleagues. As I have repeatedly stated on this floor over decades, that is not the proper inquiry when we assess the qualifications of a nominee to the Federal bench. Federal judges must be judges, not super-legislators. The bottom line is, even a casual review of Judge Gorsuch's opinions should eliminate any concerns my colleagues may have concerning Judge Gorsuch's commitment to the Constitution's separation of powers. Any review would lead to that conclusion. In his opinions, Judge Gorsuch has resisted executive branch efforts to make laws as opposed to merely enforcing those laws. Judge Gorsuch's opinions and other writings make the compelling case for separation of powers in a way that finds few rivals on the current Federal bench. If my colleagues are truly concerned about the proper separation of powers between the three branches of government, there is a simple solution: Confirm Judge Gorsuch as an Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. While we are setting the record straight on ObamaCare, my colleagues on the other side have repeated a particular false claim that needs correction. My Democrat friends are fond of characterizing the repeal of ObamaCare as a tax cut for high-income earners and a tax increase for low- and middle-income taxpayers. That claim is simply false. According to JCT, the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Affordable Care Act imposed significant and widespread tax increases on taxpayers earning less than $200,000 a year, despite President Obama's repeated promises that the law would not do so. In fact, in 2017, a single provision--the reduction in the deductibility of catastrophic losses-- is projected to raise taxes on 13.8 million taxpaying families and individuals, mostly from the middle class. That is more than the number of taxpayers who receive exchange credits and other premium subsidies under current law. That is just one example. There are others. Fortunately, we have been able to forestall the impact of a number of the ObamaCare tax provisions. We have fought and negotiated long and hard to do so, but virtually all of those taxes are still looming on the ObamaCare horizon. Most of us on the Republican side have been fighting these taxes more or less since the day ObamaCare was signed into law. We have highlighted their harmful impact on the economy and decried the crony capitalism that was behind the effort to draft and enact them. Given this long history, at least in my view, it is essential that we repeal all of these taxes, along with the rest of ObamaCare. It is difficult to imagine how Republicans, who are now in the majority in large part due to the promises we made to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, can now sift through ObamaCare's taxes and decide which ones are the least objectionable so that we can use them to pay for our own healthcare reforms. ObamaCare isn't problematic simply because healthcare costs are not going up; it was fundamentally flawed at the outset. The way the law was drafted was, and still is, a problem. The way the law was negotiated--with stakeholders being played against each other--was, and still is, a problem. Of course, the way the law was paid for was, and still is, a problem. The ObamaCare taxes are a big part of this equation. In my view--and, I think, the view of the vast majority of my Republican colleagues--they have to go. As I said, there really are not widespread disagreements among Republicans on these issues. Overall, we broadly agree on the fundamental issues surrounding ObamaCare, and, as I noted last week, it is not all that problematic to have some differences of opinion on the initial stage, so long as we can overcome those differences in the end. I think we can do that. More importantly, I think we will. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, the Senate is now considering H.J. Res. 40, a resolution of disapproval regarding a misguided Social Security Administration regulation that infringes on many Americans' Second Amendment rights. As a cosponsor of the Senate companion to this resolution, which was filed by Chairman Grassley, I would like to add my voice to that of the many advocates, including the National Disabilities Rights Network and groups such as the National Rifle Association that work to protect the rights of law-abiding gun owners who have expressed support for this important legislation. I would also like to express my appreciation to Chairman Grassley and others for their leadership on this issue. This ill-advised regulation not only stigmatizes individuals with disabilities, it also violates the Second Amendment and due process rights of many Americans, and it should be repealed. As a longtime supporter of Americans' constitutional right to keep and bear arms, I was deeply troubled by this regulation, which allows the Social Security Administration to report individuals they consider, in the words used in the regulation, to be ``mentally defective'' to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, if they have ``mental impairments,'' receive disability insurance benefits, and receive those benefits through a representative payee. When someone receives benefits through SSA's representative payee program, SSA field office employees have deemed them unable to manage their finances. However, SSA's representative payee program itself is, by many accounts, ineffectively administered. You don't have to take my word for it. As recently as 2013, the Government Accountability Office identified that SSA ``struggles to effectively administer its Payee Program.'' There are unexplained and large discrepancies across various regions of the country that SSA serves in numbers of beneficiaries who are assigned by SSA field offices to be in the payee program. Yet, despite these known gaps and discrepancies, SSA apparently thought that this system was sufficient to determine whether some beneficiaries should be afforded a constitutional right. Let's be clear. Under SSA's rule, individuals who are not found by SSA employees or any other competent authority to be a danger to themselves or others but rather simply need help managing their finances will be prohibited from legally purchasing a firearm. While we all want to make sure that the NICS system works effectively to prevent violent criminals and those who actually do pose a threat from purchasing firearms, this regulation is exceedingly overbroad. Moreover, it is not at all clear to me that SSA employees in field offices should be put in charge of deciding who can legally purchase a firearm. Of course, the bureaucrats at SSA who were prodded by the Obama administration to write the rule say they will create some sort of internal structure to allow beneficiaries to appeal the decisions of SSA employees. Of course, that means SSA would need to construct a new costly adjudication system to review decisions that its employees are not well-equipped to make in the first place. This is particularly strange, given that it is standard practice at SSA to decry the agency's funding levels while also claiming it is already unable to adequately serve its beneficiaries due to budgetary shortfalls. All of this simply does not add up. The SSA is not at all equipped for this kind of decisionmaking; moreover, the standards that would apply under the regulation for SSA to report a beneficiary to the NICS represent a much lower bar than the one anticipated in the applicable Federal statutes to determine the eligibility to purchase a firearm. That being the case, we need to pass Chairman Grassley's resolution of disapproval, which has already been approved by the House of Representatives with bipartisan support. I encourage my colleagues to join me in voting in favor of this resolution. I thank my friend from Oregon for allowing me to go forward on this short set of remarks. I yield the floor.

Mr. HATCH

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

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, we are currently in the midst of the longest transitional leadership gap at the Department of Treasury in our Nation's history. The Senate has never let this much time go without a Treasury Secretary. In fact, the Senate has never left Treasury without a confirmed Secretary in between administrations for this long. Yet, despite the obvious need to fill this position, we have had to deal with continual and pointless delays, courtesy of some of our colleagues. I will not begrudge any Senator for taking advantage of the privileges offered to them under the rules of the Senate; however, I think we have ample reason to question some of our colleagues' judgment and priorities with regard to how we have dealt with the nomination of Steven Mnuchin to the Office of Treasury Secretary. Let's get the obvious points out of the way. Mr. Mnuchin has 30 years' experience working in a variety of capacities in the financial sector. He has experience managing large and complicated private-sector enterprises and in negotiating difficult compromises and making tough decisions--and being accountable for those decisions. He has the support of a number of key organizations and associations within the finance industry, and experts across the ideological spectrum have endorsed his nomination. Long story short: Under any objective standard, Mr. Mnuchin has ample experience, credentials, and qualifications for this important position. Yet my colleagues have done all they can under the rules-- even to the point of casting aside some longstanding customs and traditions of the Senate--in order to delay his confirmation. I will not relive the entire chain of events that got this nomination through the Finance Committee, bringing us to this point. For now, I would urge my colleagues to look fairly at the record. In every case, as the committee processed his nomination, Mr. Mnuchin responded to questions and allegations with full and complete answers and demonstrated no signs of acting or responding in bad faith toward the committee or its members. People are free, I suppose, to walk into the confirmation process with an assumption of bad faith. But throughout my time in the Senate-- and keep in mind, I have been here a long time--that isn't usually how we operate around here. My colleagues on the other side have put forward a number of claims and allegations about Mr. Mnuchin. They have essentially thrown everything, including the kitchen sink, at this nominee in a desperate attempt to block his confirmation. Well, so far, nothing has worked. That is because none of the allegations my colleagues have raised can withstand even a modest amount of scrutiny. But that hasn't stopped some of them from trying. I have found it particularly interesting to see my friends raise concerns about matters that did not bother them in the least when it came to voting for Democratic nominees for Treasury Secretary. Indeed, with regard to Mr. Mnuchin, my Democratic colleagues have created a wholly new set of standards from those that were applied to the most recent previous Treasury Secretary. Many issues that seemed to be of little or no concern to my colleagues and my friends on the other side during the confirmation process for Secretary Jack Lew have been considered disqualifying for Mr. Mnuchin. By the way, many of these problems existed in the prior Treasury Secretary too. But we, in good faith, brought him through and allowed him to go through without a lot of fuss and bother. Let me review just a few of the discrepancies that are claimed. Mr. Mnuchin placed some investments offshore, in full conformity with the law and not for the purpose of avoiding U.S. taxes. But my friends have simply asserted that no one uses offshore financial vehicles unless they are trying to avoid U.S. taxes, and, therefore, Mr. Mnuchin's investments disqualify him to serve as Treasury Secretary. Yet Secretary Lew, prior to his confirmation, actually made investments in the famous Ugland House in the Cayman Islands, which President Obama described as ``outrageous'' and ``the biggest tax scheme in the world.'' My Democratic colleagues knew this, but did not care, and happily confirmed Secretary Lew with hardly a mention of this matter. We allowed him to go through, in the interest of civility and getting along with our colleagues. Democrats have argued that Mr. Mnuchin unduly profited from the housing market collapse. Yet Secretary Lew, prior to his nomination, ran ``proprietary trading'' groups at Citigroup, where they invested in a hedge fund that bet heavily on the collapse of the housing market. My Democratic colleagues knew this, but did not care, and happily confirmed Secretary Lew without really ever acknowledging this part of his record. Democrats claim that Mr. Mnuchin unfairly foreclosed on homeowners, despite evidence to the contrary. Yet Secretary Lew, prior to being nominated, ran a Citigroup division that was, according to arbitration panels at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and later the SEC, ``defrauding investors.'' When asked about the toxic securities sold by his Citigroup unit, Secretary Lew's answers varied between not remembering any specific securities to claiming he somehow wasn't involved in the investment decisions made at the Citigroup unit he oversaw. My Democratic colleagues knew this, but they did not care, and happily confirmed Secretary Lew without anything resembling full and complete answers to these questions. Despite ample evidence to the contrary, Democrats claim that Mr. Mnuchin ran a ``robo-signing'' foreclosure machine. Yet Citigroup, while Jack Lew was in senior management, sliced and diced mortgages and was alleged to have ``robo-signed'' mortgage documents. Democrats knew this, but they did not care, and happily confirmed Secretary Lew without ever really asking him about these issues. I can go on and on. There are many other issues that my colleagues were willing to overlook, if not outright ignore, with regard to Secretary Lew that have resulted in hyperbolic attacks on Mr. Mnuchin. I wish to remind my colleagues that despite the numerous concerns that I and others have had about Secretary Lew and the many significant disagreements that I had with President Obama's agenda, I voted in favor of Secretary Lew's confirmation. On this very floor, I stated the following: I have always believed that . . . [the] President--any President, regardless of party--is owed a certain degree of deference when choosing people to work in his administration. Therefore, though I personally would have chosen a different person for this position, I intend to vote in favor of Mr. Lew's confirmation. I wasn't alone. Many other Republicans also voted to confirm Secretary Lew, despite serious reservations, in recognition that the President had a right to appoint who he wanted to--as long as they were not crooks and people of unsavory reputation. Well, Mr. Lew was not either of those. My, how times have changed. As is typically the case, when a group of Senators is unable to make a believable case against a nominee, they tend to just raise every possible issue and hope something gains traction. When in the end nothing works, they cling to whatever allegation came last and hope it is enough to change the outcome. That is why, over the past couple of weeks or so, we have heard an awful lot about ``robo-signing.'' Here is the basic rundown of what has happened on this issue: My friends on the other side got an answer to a poorly and vaguely worded question that was not the answer they wanted to receive. The answer from Mr. Mnuchin, that OneWest Bank did not engage in ``robo-signing'' under his leadership, was truthful and defensible, but it did not conform to the Democratic talking points drafted for this nominee. Since that time, Senate Democrats have repeatedly referenced new stories that purportedly prove that not only did Mr. Mnuchin run a bank that engaged in the nefarious, yet not well-defined practice of ``robo- signing'' mortgage documents, he lied about it in his answers to the committee. However, I would urge my colleagues on both sides to actually look at the supposed evidence from those news articles. Put simply, to say that my Democratic friends are trying to make a mountain out of a molehill would be an insult to moles everywhere. There is no molehill to be found here. To make the case that Mr. Mnuchin was untruthful in his answers, the articles rely on quotes mined from a single deposition of a OneWest employee. Quoted out of context, the employee seems to have said that she rapidly signed several hundred foreclosure-related documents a week without fully verifying their accuracy. That is the supposed smoking gun on the Mnuchin ``robo-signing'' question. However, if you read the full deposition, the employee makes it absolutely clear that she was not the employee responsible for verifying the accuracy or validity of everything in the documents. She was part of a process that included several steps and multiple employees to verify the accuracy of different parts of the documents. We don't even have to dig for this explanation. It is not a matter of any interpretation. That explanation, in plain English, is right there in the deposition my colleagues and the news articles have been using as ``evidence'' that Mr. Mnuchin lied to the Finance Committee. Nothing--not a single thing--in the deposition quoted in those news articles could be considered evidence of ``robo-signing'' on the part of OneWest Bank. While I can understand that my colleagues don't like seeing or hearing anything that contradicts their preconceived notions, particularly when it comes in the form of an answer to one of their questions, that is no basis or justification to make wild and brazen accusations that a nominee has been lying. And make no mistake, that is precisely what they are doing with Mr. Mnuchin. On a related note, it is really amazing to me that my friends on the other side are now feigning outrage over alleged lack of responsiveness to their questions after having gone through the last 8 years with Treasury Secretaries who routinely ignored questions and requests for briefings posed by myself and a number of my other Senate colleagues. But I digress. I certainly sympathize with the many people who suffered through the foreclosure crisis and with Democrats in Congress who were, and continue to be, frustrated that Treasury officials in the Obama administration failed to construct effective homeowner relief programs, despite having made numerous promises to do so. However, given that frustration, it is odd to me that my colleagues remain so opposed to Mr. Mnuchin's nomination when he was very much engaged in the practice of making mortgage modifications work during his time as the head of OneWest Bank. Moreover, Mr. Mnuchin worked diligently with regulators and others to clean up the system under which foreclosure documents were being processed. You don't have to take my word for it; you can examine the numerous letters of support we have received from a range of people and organizations, from community groups to community bankers, which attest to Mr. Mnuchin's success in turning a bank that was plagued by toxic loans and numerous processing errors into a viable financial services firm that provides jobs and support to communities. Along the way, Mr. Mnuchin's companies significantly outperformed rivals in the industry in terms of offering loan modifications to help keep Americans facing foreclosure in their homes. Mr. Mnuchin has acknowledged that his efforts were not without errors and that he genuinely regrets any mistakes that were made. He has also made clear that OneWest was committed to providing remediation in order to compensate those who were affected. It should also be noted that in the vast majority of independent evaluations of OneWest's practices, the banks's error rates were routinely below the average for the industry and often zero. I think people should quit using false arguments against this man. All of this was discussed out in the open during the Finance Committee's hearing on the Mnuchin nomination. Nothing was hidden. No one was misled. Unfortunately, rather than focusing on the actual facts surrounding OneWest's performance under the nominee's leadership, my friends on the other side opted to try to smear Mr. Mnuchin. In essence, they have tried to relitigate the foreclosure crisis, with Mr. Mnuchin's company confusingly placed in the crosshairs. This is a company that, according to a letter from Faith Schwartz, former executive director of the Hope Now Alliance, ``was committed to avoiding foreclosures where possible.'' As I said, with Mr. Mnuchin, my colleagues are applying a clear double standard for confirming a Treasury Secretary. For Republican Treasury Secretary nominees, any allegation, no matter how careless or untrustworthy the source, is enough to inspire the Democrats' outrage and trigger a seemingly endless bout of name-calling. For Democratic nominees, on the other hand, even proven instances of questionable actions and poor judgment on the part of the nominee fail to even make a blip on their radar screens. I have spent quite a bit of time in recent weeks decrying the antics of my Democratic colleagues with regard to President Trump's Cabinet nominations. Frankly, I am tired of talking about it. My colleagues are, of course, free to do whatever they think will help them hobble the new administration and score points with their political base, even if it breaks from the longstanding customs and traditions of the Senate and even if it puts our financial stability and the stability of our relations with Finance Ministers of other countries at greater risk. However, they should know that these tactics do absolutely nothing to help American families seeking greater opportunities and economic growth. They don't help us fix our broken Tax Code, reform our failing health care system, and empower businesses and job creators to grow and expand. The bottom line is this: Mr. Mnuchin is clearly qualified to serve as Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. Some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle made clear they intend to vote no on the nomination, and that is their right. However, while each Senator has a right to vote according to his or her own judgment, Senators do a disservice to the country and the Senate as an institution when they concoct stories and antics designed merely to delay a vote for the sake of delay. Going forward, I hope my colleagues will recognize the problematic precedence they are setting with regard to these nominees and opt to change course. I intend to vote in favor of confirming Mr. Mnuchin, and so should everybody else in the U.S. Senate. I urge all of my colleagues to do so. When I first met Mr. Mnuchin, I hadn't met him before. I didn't even know his name. I have to say I was really impressed. I said to him: Why are you doing this? You are going to lose a lot of money because you are going to have to sell your holdings and get rid of them. Why are you doing this? He looked at me, looked me square in the eyes, and he said: I am doing it because I love my country, and I want to help. I want to help turn it around. I was pretty impressed with that. I have been pretty impressed with Mr. Mnuchin ever since. I think we need a terribly smart guy who is honest, who is decent, who has made a great success of his life, who understands where money comes from and where it goes, who literally is willing to sacrifice and lose some of his savings and money in order to save this country and because he wants to work with our good President, who every day is going through calumny and slanders like I have never seen anybody go through before. The slowdown in the Senate that is occurring here is unbelievably stupid. Yes, I know they want his first 100 days to not be successful, but gee-whiz, to do this kind of maneuvering and this kind of playing around with the facts is beneath the dignity of my colleagues on the other side. If my side was doing this, I would be chewing them up. The fact is, we didn't do this. The past two Treasury Secretaries--I personally said ``We are going to support them'' even though we could have pulled this kind of stuff on them, and the facts were true. Both of them were good people. Both of them had made a couple of mistakes. Both of them made mistakes in their filings. But they were good men, good people, and so is Mr. Mnuchin. Wouldn't it be wonderful if both sides would treat people with respect and dignity? I have to admit, sometimes our side could do better, but what we have been going through for the last almost 2 months now is pathetic. I think it is all done in the hope that they can ruin the first 100 days of this President. Well, there are 200 days, and we are going to keep going. They are not making any headway with the President where they could make headway. He is someone who actually came from their side of the floor--at least at one time when I knew him long ago. He is a person with an open mind. He is a person who has supreme intelligence. He is a person who is bringing with him some of the best people in this country, not the least of whom is Mr. Mnuchin. I think they ought to wake up and quit this slandering and even libeling this really fine man who is willing to sacrifice much of his personal fortune to serve in this government as the Treasury Secretary. We are lucky that people like this are willing to do it, to take all the guff and calumny and slander and libel they have to go through. Thank goodness we have people like Mr. Mnuchin who are willing to do this. I don't intend to see him fail, so I hope we can all vote for him tonight and send a message. I hope some of my colleagues on the other side will vote for him. They should. They should, in good faith. Yes, they can play this game of having a lot of votes against him, but some of them should vote for him. The truly honest, the truly fair, and the truly good people--I think all of them are good people on the other side and on this side, but it is not showing up as well as I would like it to show up in these confirmation fights. In this particular one, there is a fellow who is willing to sacrifice immensely to be able to help our country, who is known on Wall Street, who is known as one of the bright lights up there, who has been immensely successful, and he has had a wide variety of experiences in the area of finance. We ought to be getting on our knees and thanking him for being willing to go through this and being willing to serve his country. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Well, let me just go back. Let's just get that out of the way right now. Private placements are a commonplace and appropriate means for companies to raise additional capital from a small number of investors. I know because I used to practice law and I did a number of private placements in my experience. The facts in this matter are relatively simple: The Australian company, Innate Immunotherapeutics, had a relatively small number of U.S. investors at the time. It is my understanding that all of the investors who had participated in a previous share offering were offered an opportunity to purchase additional stock as part of a private placement arrangement. Dr. Price purchased additional stock at the price that was offered to all the investors in that group. Once again, private placements are commonplace investments, not nefarious conspiracies that some of our colleagues would have us believe. And I can certainly testify to that. According to all the available details, this particular investment was in compliance with all of the laws and regulations that govern those types of deals. In fact, as private placement investments go, this one appears to be fairly unremarkable, unless, of course, you just assume without evidence that there simply had to be something fishy going on--an assumption that I don't think could be made. Put simply, this investment arrangement was a perfectly normal, commonplace affair. There is certainly no evidence to suggest that there was any insider trading, as some of my colleagues have alleged. On top of that, Dr. Price's statements before the Finance Committee, despite many claims to the contrary, appear to be truthful unless you simply want to assume without evidence that he has to be lying. What a situation that our colleagues try to put this good man in. It is disreputable, in my opinion. By all accounts, Dr. Price purchased the Innate stock at the same price offered to all other participants in the private placement which, by the way, also included a few thousand investors from Australia and New Zealand. That is what he told the committee and that, by all appearances, is the truth. We certainly haven't seen any evidence to the contrary. Sure, my colleagues on the other side have thrown a lot of dots on the wall, apparently hoping they can create a cloudy impression that something nefarious just had to be going on with this investment, even though they haven't come close to connecting any of the dots. They have parsed words, they have divined alternative meanings behind the nominee's statements. But let me be clear, no one has produced any credible evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Dr. Price. Those of us who know him know that he never did any wrongdoing and, frankly, never intended to do anything that was wrong. That being the case, it is utterly shameful that my colleagues would go to such elaborate lengths in order to malign not only a nominee for a Cabinet position but a sitting Member of the U.S. Congress. There ought to be some courtesy here, and I am kind of shocked that there isn't. Of course, we went through a fairly ugly episode the other night about the same issue, though that one hit a little closer to home as the nominee under attack was a fellow Senator. I don't want to rehash that argument here today. Instead, I will say this. I know some people like to fight around here. For some, it seems the fighting is half the reason they are here to begin with, and neither party is blameless in that regard. Do you know what? If my colleagues wanted to have a fierce and lively debate about this nominee's qualifications or his views on policy, I welcome that debate. He is a tremendous human being, a tremendous doctor, with all kinds of experience, and has been a wonderful Member of the House of Representatives for both parties--as a Republican. If they want to fairly debate his record as a legislator and a public servant, I am game. I will be glad to do it with them, but to throw accusations at a congressional colleague, and even go so far to accuse him--without evidence--of criminal wrongdoing is, in my view, beneath the dignity of the Senate. That is precisely what has happened to Dr. Price. Ultimately, my colleagues' specious arguments and their desperate attempt to block Dr. Price's confirmation would all seem far more sincere if he were the one nominee or even one in a small handful of nominees they deemed unfit to serve, but that is not what is happening. My colleagues on the other side have appeared to be apoplectic about almost every single nominee we have had before us. The confirmation of any of President Trump's Cabinet nominees, it seems, will bring about untold destruction, the likes of which America has never seen. With so many of these nominations, the entire process has been wrought with fever-pitched arguments, accusations, and apocalyptic visions of a future world gone mad. We hear it in committee. We are hearing it on the floor. Then the Senate votes, the nominees are confirmed, and my colleagues immediately switch gears to do the very same thing with the next nomination. Some of them even switch gears and come up to the nominee with smiles on their faces and congratulate him or her. One can only wonder how so many Senators can keep their outrage settings turned to 11 without getting completely exhausted around here. I expect they are able to do so because their outrage is more show than anything else. Indeed, I suspect that the outrage that has been on display has less to do with the particular nominees and more to do with a longer term political agenda. In service of that partisan agenda, my colleagues appear to be more than willing to cast aside the traditions, respect, and assumptions of good faith that have long been the hallmark of the Senate confirmation process and of the Senate itself. I am very concerned with the way this has gone on here. I am concerned with the way my colleagues are treating another respected colleague from the House. We have seen it in committee. We are seeing it on the floor. In my view, it is a tragic shame. The bottom line is, Dr. Price is, by any reasonable objective standard, qualified to serve as HHS Secretary. Some people would say he is qualified just because he has made it all the way to Congress and he ought to be treated with equal respect, but I will not even go that far. I will just say, by any reasonable and objective standard, he is qualified to serve as HHS Secretary. There is nothing in his past record or statements that disqualifies him to serve in that capacity. In a better world, he would be confirmed already. People would be shouting hooray that this good man will take the time and spend the effort to take this very thankless, very difficult job--and to leave Congress in the process. I suspect he will be confirmed in short order. Once again, I do urge my colleagues to vote with me to confirm Representative Price. I really believe we ought to get past this is picayune stuff that has been going on, on the floor. We ought to get past that and truly, truly support a good man from the other body who we all know is honest and decent and allow him to see what he can do to straighten out this tremendously complex Department of Health and Human Services. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise to speak about two of President Trump's nominees. I will first address Nominee Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Then I will discuss the nomination of Tom Price to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, which is currently pending before the Senate. Last week, President Trump nominated U.S. Circuit Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the vacancy left by the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. I want to address both the process and the substance of what lies ahead for the Senate. The Constitution gives to the President the power to nominate and, subject to the Senate's advice and consent, the power to appoint judges. The first step in the Senate exercising its power of advice and consent is to decide the best way to handle a nomination made by the President. The Constitution does not mandate a one-size-fits-all process. In fact, the Senate has handled the Supreme Court nominations in at least a dozen different ways. Nearly 1 year ago, shortly after Justice Scalia's death, I explained on the Senate floor the two reasons the next President should choose his replacement. First, the circumstances and timing of the Scalia vacancy supported separating the confirmation process from the Presidential election season, which was a hard-fought Presidential election. When he chaired the Judiciary Committee in 1992, then-Senator Joe Biden urged the Senate not to consider a Supreme Court nomination in that Presidential election year. Each of his four reasons applied, with even greater force, to the circumstances we faced last year. Second, I said that elections have consequences. The American people were increasingly concerned about the illegal and unconstitutional actions of the Obama administration, actions that the courts struck down dozens of times. The two Presidential candidates last year represented very different ideas about the power and proper role of judges in our system of government. The American people, therefore, had a unique opportunity to address the future course of the judiciary in general and the Supreme Court in particular. Not surprisingly, the percentage of American voters who said that the Supreme Court was a very important issue tripled between 2008 and 2016. The issue was always when, not whether, the Senate would consider a nominee to fill the Scalia vacancy. Plunging into a divisive, ideological confirmation battle in the middle of a confrontational and ugly Presidential campaign would have done more harm than good to the judiciary, the Senate, and the country. We were right to avoid such damage and, as a result, today we can focus properly on the appointment of Justice Scalia's successor. Democrats and their left-leaning allies, however, sound as though they exist in some kind of parallel universe. In editorials since the election, for example, the New York Times claims that Republicans stole this Supreme Court seat from President Obama. I am sure they are in denial about the election results, and some observers have called this bizarre fiction sour grapes. I think that gives sour grapes a bad name, between you and me. No judicial position, including the Supreme Court seat occupied by Justice Scalia, belongs to any President. President Obama exercised the power that the Constitution gives him by nominating someone to that vacancy. The Senate exercised the power that the Constitution separately gives us by not granting consent to that nomination. I have news for my Democratic colleagues: Not getting your way does not mean that anyone stole anything; it just means that you did not get your way. When Chairman Biden refused to give a hearing to more than 50 judicial nominees during the 103rd Congress--a record, by the way, that still stands--the New York Times never said that those seats were being stolen from President Bush. When Democrats blocked a confirmation vote 20 times during the 108th Congress, the Times never accused Democrats of theft but was right there egging them on. Republicans last year decided to defer the confirmation process without knowing who would win the election. Democrats this year are objecting because of who won the election, even though at the time, it looked as though Hillary Clinton was a sure winner. I think we should stop the nonsense and act like grownups because we have work to do. Turning to that work, the task before us is to determine whether Judge Neil Gorsuch is qualified to serve as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Qualifications for judicial service include both legal experience and judicial philosophy, and I believe we should look at a nominee's entire record for evidence of these qualifications. Judge Gorsuch's legal experience is well documented and widely acknowledged. Judge Gorsuch clerked for two Supreme Court Justices, spent a decade in private practice, and then served as Acting Associate Attorney General. His qualifications for the U.S. Court of Appeals were so obvious that the Senate confirmed him in 2006 without even a roll call vote. Let me put that into perspective. During the 4 years that Republicans were back in the majority, 2003 to 2006, the Senate took roll call votes on 86 percent of judicial nominations. Democrats were demanding roll call votes even when, as happened 82 percent of the time, the nominations were unopposed. In other words, it was a very rare exception for a judicial nomination to be confirmed without a roll call vote at all. That is how self-evidently qualified this nominee was for the appeals court. In 11 years on the appellate bench, he has authored hundreds of majority or separate opinions, many of which have been widely praised. There is no question that Judge Gorsuch has the legal experience to serve on the Supreme Court. As I have said many times, the conflict over judicial appointments is really a conflict over judicial power. The more important qualification for judicial service, therefore, is a nominee's judicial philosophy, or his or her understanding of the power and proper role of judges in our system of government--in other words, the kind of Justice he will be. Federal judges have two basic tasks. They can perform those tasks in two basic ways. Their tasks are to interpret and apply the law to decide cases. They can perform those tasks impartially or politically. An impartial judge interprets statutes and the Constitution to mean what they already mean, while the political judge interprets them to mean what he wants them to mean. When an impartial judge applies the law, he deliberately excludes his own views and does not put his thumb on the scale to make sure the results of the case benefit a particular party or group. The political judge accepts, and even embraces, that his background and biases shape his decisions and considers how individual decisions will affect other parties, groups, or issues. Our system of government, and the liberty it makes possible, requires impartial judges in all cases. In his farewell address in 1796, President George Washington said that the heart of our system of government is the right of the people to control the Constitution. One of his original Supreme Court Justices, James Wilson, described our system of government by saying that here, the people are masters of the government. Our liberty can be secure only if the people control the Constitution, only if the people remain masters of the government. That cannot happen if judges control the Constitution because then, government will be the master of the people. That is why the kind of judge Presidents appoint is so important. Impartial judges let the people govern; they let the people govern themselves. Political judges do it for them. The best way to tell which kind of Justice the nominee before us will be is to assess the kind of judge he already is. One of the most obvious places to look is in the opinions he has been writing for more than a decade. Last year, for example, the Tenth Circuit had to decide whether to use the Constitution to create new categories of lawsuits against law enforcement officers. Judge Gorsuch agreed that the courts should resist doing so and wrote: Ours is the job of interpreting the Constitution. And that document isn't some inkblot on which litigants may project their hopes and dreams . . . but a carefully drafted text judges are charged with applying according to its original public meaning. In other words, the Constitution is not a blank check a judge may write to whomever, and for whatever amount, they like. It is not a shape-shifting blob that judges can manipulate into whatever they want it to be. In this view, Judge Gorsuch was merely echoing America's Founders. Thomas Jefferson, for example, argued that if the Constitution means whatever judges say it means, the Constitution will become ``a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.'' He was right. The Constitution, after all, is the primary way the people set rules for government, including for the judiciary. If the people are to remain masters of the government, they must remain masters of the Constitution, and that includes not only what it says but also what the Constitution means. Impartial judges take statutes and the Constitution as they are, not for what they say but also for what they mean. Political judges act as if the people and their elected representatives established a Constitution or enacted statutes that are merely collections of words with no meaning until judges fill in those blanks. Judge Gorsuch is an impartial judge. Anybody looking at the record has to know that. He knows that he is to interpret but cannot make the law. He knows that the Constitution must control judges, not the other way around. Last year, Judge Gorsuch delivered a lecture about Justice Scalia's legacy at Case Western University School of Law. In that lecture, Judge Gorsuch embraced a defined judicial philosophy and made clear the kind of judge that he is. I referred to this lecture in my remarks last week, and this week I sent it to each of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I truly hope each and every Member of this body will read it carefully because it helps answer the most important question before us in exercising our power of advice and consent: What kind of Justice will this nominee be? In his lecture, Judge Gorsuch said--and I will refer to the chart again--``Judges should be in the business of declaring what the law is using the traditional methods of interpretation, rather than pronouncing the law as they might wish it to be in light of their own political views, always with an eye on the outcome.'' Some Senators and liberal groups have already stated that they oppose this nomination. Perhaps they think judges should be in the business of pronouncing the law as they might wish it to be in light of their own political views. Judge Gorsuch said in his lecture that the task of a judge is to interpret and apply the law rather than, as he put it, ``to amend or revise the law in some novel way.'' Perhaps his critics believe the opposite, that judges actually do have the power to amend and revise the law in novel ways. Last year, Judge Gorsuch echoed America's Founders in saying that the power of the legislative branch to make law and the power of the judicial branch to interpret law should be kept separate and distinct. Confusing them, he said, would be a grave threat to our values of personal liberty and equal protection. Perhaps his critics believe it does not matter whether judges make or interpret the law. Last year, Judge Gorsuch said that judges must ``assiduously seek to avoid the temptation to secure results they prefer.'' What the law demands, he said, is more important than the judge's policy preferences. Perhaps his critics think judges should give in to that temptation, putting their preferred results ahead of what the law demands? The more we find out about Judge Gorsuch and his judicial philosophy, the more we should ask what his opponents and critics really find so objectionable. If Democrats and their leftwing allies believe that judges, rather than the people, should control the Constitution, they should come right out and say so. If they believe that the political ends justify the judicial means, that judges may manipulate the law to produce politically correct results, then they should be honest about it and defend that radical idea to the American people. As I close, I want to offer some wisdom from Daniel Webster, who served in the House and Senate and twice as Secretary of State under three different Presidents. In a speech on March 15, 1837, he said: Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters. Well, there are also judges who mean to be good masters, but they do indeed mean to be masters. They mean to govern well, but they do mean to govern. That kind of judge compromises the heart of our political system and undermines the liberty that it makes possible. Judge Neil Gorsuch has no intention of governing, of being any kind of master of the Constitution or of the people. He is, instead, an impartial judge, the kind who follows rather than controls the law. He will be the kind of Justice that America needs on the Supreme Court.

Mr. HATCH. I thank you, Madam President.

Mr. HATCH. I still have one more speech to give.

Mr. HATCH. I will try to make this very brief.

Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I would like to turn to the business currently before the Senate and express my support for the nomination of Representative Tom Price to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services at this critical juncture. HHS encompasses an extremely large and diverse set of agencies, including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration, just to name a few. All told, its annual budget is more than $1 trillion--that is trillion with a ``t.'' The various programs and agencies that fall under HHS's purview have an enormous impact on our Nation's fiscal and economic outlook. I am not exaggerating when I say that HHS affects the daily lives of more American taxpayers than any other part of the Federal Government. Management of all these agencies is not for the faint of heart. Once confirmed, Dr. Price will have his work cut out for him, but I believe he is more than up to the challenge. He has proven that over the years. Dr. Price has extensive insight into our Nation's health care system, having practiced medicine for two decades in a variety of settings. That experience has informed his years of service in the House of Representatives, which included a tenure as chairman of the House Budget Committee and in the leadership in the Ways and Means Committee. While many who come to Washington are content to sit back and talk about our Nation's problems, Dr. Price has always sought to find solutions. At a time when our health care system is in distress, I believe Dr. Price will put his vast experience to good use and be decisive in not only working with Congress to find solutions but implementing them as well. My view on his qualifications is shared by a great number of people, including many who see the problems in our health care system up close. For example, former HHS Secretaries Mike Leavitt and Tommie Thompson enthusiastically support his nomination. Major stakeholder organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, most surgical specialty groups, and others, also support him. In their letter of support, the Health Care Leadership Council, which represents a wide range of health care providers, said that ``it is difficult to imagine anyone more capable of serving his nation as the Secretary of HHS than Congressman Tom Price.'' I couldn't have said it better myself. Of course, none of this seems to matter to some of my colleagues on the other side. They aren't coming to the floor to criticize Dr. Price's abilities or qualifications; instead, most of what we have heard for weeks now is focused on a vague patchwork of allegations of ethical impropriety on the part of the nominee. I have participated in quite a few confirmation debates during my time in the Senate, and even over this agency. One thing I have learned is that if the opponents of a particular nomination keep moving their focus from one set of allegations to another, more often than not, they don't have a leg to stand on. That is very much the case with regard to the attacks that have been hurled at Dr. Price. First, we heard about supposed conflicts of interest in his finances, until it was pretty clear that Dr. Price had followed all the required ethical guidelines and disclosure requirements of the House. After that, he was accused of lying to the Senate Finance Committee during our vetting process because he had to file an amended disclosure to include some mistaken omissions. Of course, this is not altogether an uncommon occurrence, particularly given the fact that the Finance Committee's vetting process is uniquely exhaustive. It happens in almost every case where you have people who have had a complicated life or work life. Furthermore, he was asked about this during his confirmation hearing, and his answers were reasonable, and I haven't heard anyone credibly argue that he was intentionally trying to mislead the committee. I will set aside the fact that the particulars of Dr. Price's disclosures to the Finance Committee--information which is typically kept private among members and staff--were apparently managed and embellished in order to create and reinforce a partisan narrative with the media. Instead, I will simply say that the Finance Committee's bipartisan vetting process for nominees has historically operated on an assumption of good faith, both on the part of the nominee and the members of the committee. The fact that my colleagues on the committee, in many respects, have decided to cast all that aside in recent weeks is not evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Dr. Price. When the overblown claims about his disclosures failed to gain traction, my colleagues on the other side turned their focus to a particular investment in an Australian biomed company in 2015. Their claim: Dr. Price received a ``sweetheart deal'' from the company which allowed him to purchase stock at a discounted price. They also argue that he lied during his confirmation hearing when he said he paid the same price for the stock as everyone else at that time. Now, my colleagues would have everyone believe that private placement investment arrangements are inherently shady and nefarious. Let's just get that out of the way right now. Private placements are a commonplace and appropriate means for companies to raise-- Madam President, let me yield the floor to Senator Scott.

Mr. HATCH. I sure appreciate my colleague because I have run out of time here and I still have things to say.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. I will be happy to yield.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask consent that floor privileges be granted until June 30 to Christopher Walker, an academic fellow on my staff.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I want to thank the distinguished majority leader and the minority leader. I didn't expect this today; I was just happy to be in the Chair. But it was certainly nice of them to say such nice things. That means a lot to me, and I am sure it will mean a lot to my wife Elaine and our family. I have a great deal of respect for both leaders. Senator McConnell is a very close friend and a wonderful leader. I don't think we have had a better leader than he in my time in the Senate. I will not go on and on, but Senator Schumer and I have been friends for a long time, and I believe he is one of the great Senators here. I hope we will be able to work together on a lot of things in the future. I hope we can get out of this rut we are in right now so we can work together, so we can feel good about being here, and so we can help this country. I thank both the majority leader and the minority leader for their kind remarks. I didn't expect those, and I was a little shocked that they would say these things this morning, but I am very grateful to both of them. I want to thank both of them for being my friends. I yield back to the minority leader.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, this has been a nice morning for me. To have both the majority leader and the minority leader say such nice things means a lot to me. Having said that, let me just say I am concerned about this body and how it is going. I am also concerned about the President. I personally wish he would choose his words a little more carefully because everybody in the world pays attention to the President of the United States. On the other hand, I kind of find it refreshing that he doesn't take any guff from anybody. I like that. He is a person who speaks his mind, but I have also seen him change his mind after saying he was for something and change it when he got more facts. He is a brand new President coming right out of the private sector. He is picking excellent people for his Cabinet. I don't know that I have ever seen any President pick better Cabinet members than he has, not the least of whom will be the two who should go through before the end of this week. Congressman Price is a tremendous choice. As both leaders had indicated, he probably has as much knowledge about our health care system as anyone on Earth. Steve Mnuchin--I didn't even know Steve Mnuchin, but I spent hours with him. I have to say he is brilliant. I said to him: You know, Steven, you are going to lose a lot of money by taking this job. He said: I don't care. I want to serve my country. I was refreshed by this attitude to the point that I am going to help him every way I can to become the greatest Treasury Secretary we have ever had. I will tell you one thing, he does understand a lot about money. He understands a lot about Wall Street. He understands a lot about business acquisitions and business matters. He is a practical person, as is our President. I don't know that we should be so sensitive sometimes because he oftentimes repeals what he said afterward, and I find that refreshing too. I happen to like this President. I think he is a refreshing new leader for this country. He is not going to play these same old games that almost everybody who has been President has played. He reminds me a lot of President Reagan in that regard. Of course, Reagan had been a Governor before he came here and a good Governor, but he didn't take himself too seriously, and he would say some things that got him in trouble from time to time too. They all have, haven't they? I guess, being President, every word you say is being carefully weighed. This President is going to have to realize that as well. I think he will. He is a very bright man. I think we are lucky that we would have somebody come out of the private sector into the White House, with all the flaws, and flaws that people are finding with Donald Trump, and be willing to take the criticisms and fight back sometimes. Is he perfect? No. Is he ever going to be perfect? No, he is not, but neither will any of us ever be perfect. I will say this. A lot of us have more experience than he has. On the other hand, in my eyes, isn't it wonderful to have someone who has been immensely successful in the private sector--who has had some very tough realities in the private sector, who has had his ups and downs in the private sector, who understands pain, who understands exhilaration-- isn't it wonderful to have someone like that who just may be able to pull this country out of the stinking mess it is in, a mess caused by a superabundance of bureaucracy, by arrogant Members of Congress, and by very liberal States that are dependent upon the Federal Government rather than upon themselves? I could go on and on and on. Let us give this President a little bit of a chance. Above all, let us give him his Cabinet and let us quit playing these games. I know some on the Democratic side must feel they are making headway by playing these silly games, knowing that these Cabinet officials are going to go through while they stopped them from being able to do the job that needs to be done. They have made it more difficult than any President I recall in my time in the U.S. Senate. They are treating this President in a very belligerent, awful way. So I think we ought to give a little bit of leeway for him to make some verbal mistakes from time to time--even though we all wish he wouldn't. I will say I think it is time for this body to start working and, more importantly, start working together. There is nothing we cannot do if we work together. We can save this country if we work together. We could have a better attitude in this country if we will work together. We can be an exemplar for the rest of the world if we work together. Look, there is no excuse for these two big fights that are going on. I like big fights on the floor. I like big fights in committees. Sometimes out of those fights comes very good legislation or very good approaches to government. It is good for us to go at each other from time to time. But to make it impossible for a President to have his Cabinet early on? There is something wrong with this approach. Some people are using this particular situation to enhance their ability to run for President. I will say it would be wonderful if, once again, we could get Democrats and Republicans to work together. I remember in the early days, when I became one of the youngest committee chairmen of a major committee in history, when I became chairman of the Labor and Human Resources Committee--which is now the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee--there were nine Republicans. Senator Kennedy came over from the Judiciary Committee, which he had chaired, to become my ranking member. There were seven Democrats, including Senator Kennedy, but two of our Republicans from the Northeast were from States that were quite liberal then. I couldn't blame them, but I knew that Kennedy had the 9-to-7 ideological edge. I was going to be chairman, and I could determine some things, but I wasn't going to be able to get much done unless I had some help from Senator Kennedy. Senator Kennedy was not known for being cooperative up to that time. He was not known as a person who really aligned with Republicans to try to get things done. He was known as a bomb thrower and as somebody who really was one of the most articulate, liberal Democrats in this body. In his own way, he was a very interesting and good Senator, but he was not known for bipartisan work at that time. When he came over and said: I will work with you, there are some things I can't do--meaning the unions, the feminists, et cetera--but I will help you, that is how the Hatch-Kennedy relationship began and began to bear fruit. It could not have happened, except for two tough people with differing principles who were willing to get together and set aside their differences and do some things that were not only important to the country but beneficial to the country. We were known as the odd couple. He would laugh about that in public and say: We are known as the odd couple. I would always point to him and say: We all know who the odd one is, don't we. He would laugh. He was a fun guy to be with. When he was serious about something, he could be a formidable challenger, but he earned the right to be that. He didn't just pop off because he wanted to be President. He earned the right, he earned our respect, and he earned my respect. From that time forth--he was considered a very great Senator at that time, but he was not considered a great legislator. He went on from there and became a great legislator. I know because we worked together on things that are law today and good laws today. He had to learn to be able to compromise to be able to get this type of work done--and so did I. We have to earn respect here. It isn't just by popping off on the Senate floor, it is by working as hard as we can to do the best we can for our constituents, for the people in this country of both parties-- of all parties--in the interest of everybody. I wish we could get more of that back. I miss Senator Kennedy. I could talk to him. I could pull him off his liberal perch. I could get him to do things that nobody could get him to do up until that time, and he could get me to do some things I wasn't inclined to do at the beginning. But as we worked them out, we found out that some of the things we both agreed on--by pulling each other together--became some of the most important bills in history. I would like to see more of that here. I wish to see us all start working together. A good way to do that would be to give the President the Cabinet he needs and wants. Maybe that is one reason why he is saying some things that those on the other side are finding fault with and maybe on my side are finding fault with. He doesn't have his Cabinet. As President, he doesn't have the advisers he needs. We are not helping him here--as President. We are not helping him get the people around him whom he needs. We are delaying, obfuscating, and fighting against people whom we shouldn't be fighting against. In terms of Congressman Price and Steven Mnuchin, these are two extremely important men for two extremely important positions who are left floundering because we are unwilling to get the job done. If there were real arguments against them, that is another matter, but some of the phony arguments that have been brought up are just pathetic. I remember when one of the Democrats wanted to be Treasurer of the United States. He had some real flaws. He even hadn't paid taxes in some ways, but he was a good person and wanted to serve his country. We worked out the difficulties, and he was able to serve as Secretary of the Treasury. I can name a number of others. If we want perfection here, we are crazy. Nobody is perfect, and everybody has some things that they wish they didn't have in their biography. But I can say this: I was very disappointed in this body for holding up Jeff Sessions, who is a really good person. I haven't always agreed with Jeff Sessions, but I knew one thing: He was honest in his beliefs, and he was courteous in making his arguments. He did a lot of things that really were right. Frankly, the fact that we differed was kind of irrelevant because he was worthy of his position. I could go through a number of others. Let me just say that I happen to be one of the people who really like the minority leader in this body. I think he could become one of the great leaders of this Senate. He is smart; we all know that. He is aggressive; we all know that. He has had some degree of success around here; we all know that. He represents a huge constituency; we all know that. He is a good man; we all know that. And he has a good family; we all know that. Let's get rid of some of the picayune fights around here, and let's start working together. The majority leader, Senator McConnell, in my opinion, is the best majority leader we have had here in a long, long time. He is smart. He understands the system. He loves the Senate. He is a very honest and good man. He is tough as nails. I am sure he has flaws, just like all the rest of us. But these are two really potentially great leaders who could not only bring us together but could help us to save this country at a time when it needs saving, where we have $100 billion in unfunded liabilities--I mean trillion dollars; not billion, trillion dollars--where we are deeply in debt. We are now $20 trillion in debt. These two gentlemen could bring us together and could help solve these problems if we would put the politics aside, for the most part. We have to have some politics here, or this would be an uninteresting body, but we don't have to have it on everything. If these two gentlemen could get together--they are both bright, they are both smart, and they both have given a lot of time to the U.S. Senate. I like both of them. I could say I love both of them. If they would really start working together, we could turn this country around. But to do that, the distinguished Senator from New York is going to have to be concerned about the national debt and the annual deficit, and the distinguished Senator from Kentucky is going to have to worry a lot about what motivates the Democrats and what we can do to find common ground with the Democrats. I believe these two men can do that, and I am hoping with all my heart they will, and I am praying for them every day, that they might get together and that we might put aside party politics in favor of bringing this country out of the mess it is in. I believe they can do that, and I believe we can help them do that. I would like to see it done because we can't keep going the way we are going. I actually believe the President will grow into becoming a great President, too, if we will help him a little bit rather than just fight everything he does or everything he says or try to criticize him every time he opens his mouth. I would like to see us show some respect for the President too. I have a lot of respect for these two leaders. They are great men. But I would like to see them be greater so that they will work together. You will notice I am just saying ``work together.'' I would like it to be this way, all the way together, but I will take this, if we could just get people to work together around here. I have said enough. I just want these two leaders to know that I am pulling for both of them, and I am hoping we can still have our fights and still have our arguments and still have the enjoyable aspects around here of comradeship and working with each other. But I am hoping we can set aside some of these animosities and give the President his Cabinet and his leaders so that he has at least a shot at pulling this country out of the mess it is in. It is going to take a President Trump. It is not going to take another one of those--I believe President Trump is the person who is right for this time. I believe he will do a terrific job if we will help him. We will have differences, but I believe he will pay more attention, and I believe we will get better people to come into the government to help him to do this work and his job. I may be a little bit naive in thinking that we can do all of this, but I think we can. And that is said by somebody who was told: You don't want to work with Senator Kennedy because he is a rock-ribbed liberal who doesn't really care about what Republicans like. Well, I found that by working with him and he found that by working with me we were able to do things that helped our country. It was partly because he was a prestigious Senator, no question, and partly because I am an active, hard-working, fighting Senator who kind of appealed to him because he knew he had somebody who would help fight these things through, and I was smart enough to be able to help him to get things done in better ways than they would have been done. Well, I have said enough. I just love this body. I personally have been very moved by the kindness of the two leaders, and I just hope we can get together and do these things the right way. We are not going to go anywhere with constant bickering and fighting and the constant running for President that we have around here. I don't mind that. I mean, I think there is something to that, but it can't be every time a person opens his or her mouth. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise to briefly discuss a number of ongoing efforts in the early days of the 115th Congress. It is a strange time to be working on Capitol Hill, as strange as I have seen in my four decades in the Senate. That is true for a number of reasons. Let me give you an example. Republicans currently control the Senate, the House, and the White House, and are in widespread agreement about most major policy issues. Sure, there are details that need to be worked out, both on the process and the substance on things like tax reform, trade, and of course health care reform, but by and large Republicans all have the same ultimate goals for these key areas. Yet despite the overwhelming consensus that exists on most of these issues, there seems to be an obsession with advancing a narrative of a deeply divided Republican majority. According to this popular narrative, House and Senate Republicans have completely different views on tax reform, Republicans in Congress oppose everything President Trump wants to do on trade, and Senate Republicans are deeply at odds on how to press forward on repealing and replacing ObamaCare. As chairman of the Senate committee that is right in the middle of all these issues, I get asked to comment on these matters, literally, dozens of times every day. The questions take many forms. Senator X says Congress should do ``blank'' with ObamaCare. What do you think? Can the House's tax reform plan pass in the Senate? President Trump said ``blank'' today. Is that going to fly in your committee? These questions may seem straightforward. However, the underlying question behind all of these lines of inquiry is: Will you publically disagree with or criticize another Republican so we can write another story about Republican divisions? Matters such as repealing and replacing ObamaCare or reforming the Tax Code are certainly important topics that are rightly under intense public scrutiny. However, given that these monumental efforts are still in the early stages, the fact that there are some relatively minor differences of opinion shouldn't be all that noteworthy. The existence of these differences in the initial stages of the process doesn't significantly jeopardize the success of these efforts. The purpose of the legislative process-- particularly the process we use in the Senate--is to allow differences to be aired and worked through so, at the end of the process, consensus can be reached. Differing views on some issues at the beginning of the process are to be expected. Once again, they are hardly noteworthy. Case in point, Republicans are united in our desire to repeal and replace ObamaCare. The vast majority of us want reforms that are more patient-centered and market-driven. As far as I know, pretty much all of us want to return most of the authority for regulating the health care system back to the States. On some of the other questions, let me make clear what my position is just so there is no confusion on these points. I believe we should repeal ObamaCare--including the taxes--and provide for a stable transition period. I believe the work to replace ObamaCare should also begin immediately, meaning that our repeal bill should include as many ObamaCare replacement policies as procedures allow. A more complete replacement can and should be crafted in the coming months as we work through some of the more complicated issues. That has been my position since roughly March of 2010, when the final pieces of ObamaCare were signed into law. I have repeated it numerous times over the years. Moreover, I believe most Republicans in Congress share that same view. Do some Republicans have different views regarding the proper order and procedure for this endeavor? I am sure they do. But I don't know of a single Republican who does not want to get rid of ObamaCare. I certainly don't know any Republicans who are fine with the status quo in our health care system. That being the case, no one should be trying to parse anyone's words or split hairs in order to manufacture divisions in the Republican ranks on repealing and replacing ObamaCare. I have little doubt that we can work through whatever differences do exist, and, more importantly, I think we will. I am not going to speculate today on the floor about what the final process or product will look like, but I will say that at the end of the day, only 3 numbers matter: 218, 51 and 1. Those are the numbers of supporters we need at each step to pass an ObamaCare repeal and replacement. At this point, given what we currently know, I strongly believe that the process I described earlier--a full repeal and a responsible transition, coupled with a sizable downpayment on replacement, followed by a committed effort to implement additional replacement policies in the coming months--provides the best path forward to achieving those thresholds. Like I said, most Republicans in Congress agree with me. We can discuss other ideas, and I am happy to engage in that discussion, but those numbers--218, 51, and 1--have to be the standard by which we judge any alternatives. And while I would love to see the final product pass with even larger numbers, and even with some Democrats onboard with us, those numbers give us a clear picture as to how much consensus is necessary. Once again, I think we can get there, and I am continually working with colleagues in both the House and Senate to make sure we do. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, the Committee on Finance has adopted rules governing its procedures for the 115th Congress. Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 2, of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the accompanying rules for the Senate Committee on Finance be printed in the Record.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I take umbrage with what the minority leader said. I sat here and listened to the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, who went on and on and on. Many of her remarks were criticizing a fellow colleague in the Senate. I don't know about the other side, but I find it offensive for either side to be criticizing, as was done here tonight, a sitting Member of the Senate. I am absolutely astounded that the Democrats, my friends on the other side, have taken to the war tables a desire to defeat Jeff Sessions. I have been here a long time, and I have to say that I knew Jeff Sessions even before he came here, and I have known him since he has been here. And, yes, I differ with him on a number of issues, but I would never say things about him as have been said by my colleagues on the other side. I think that we all ought to take some stock in what we are doing here. Jeff Sessions is a very fine person. Think of his wife. She is a really fine person. Jeff has been here 20 years. He has interchanged with almost all of us. Sometimes you agree with him, and sometimes you disagree with him, but he has always been a gentleman. He has always been kind and considerate of his colleagues. I can't name one time when he wasn't. Yet we are treating him like he is some terrible person who doesn't deserve to be chosen by the current President of the United States to be Attorney General of the United States. I think we ought to be ashamed of ourselves--I really do--on both sides. And frankly, we have to get to where everything is not an issue here. I know some of my friends on the other side and I have chatted, and they are not happy with the way this body is going with good reason. Everything doesn't have to lead to a gun fight on the floor, but that is where we are going. And frankly, sometimes there is an awful lot of politics being played here on both sides. Look, I happen to like the senior Senator from Massachusetts. I think she is an intelligent, lovely woman in many ways. But I have to tell you, I listened to her for quite a while, and she didn't have a good thing to say about a fellow Senator. Frankly, I don't think that is right. If we don't respect each other, we are going down a very steep path to oblivion. I would hope that both sides would take stock of these debates. We can differ. We understand that the Democrats are not happy with the current President. We are happy with him. We can differ on that, and we can fight over various issues and so forth. But to attack a fellow Senator without reservation seems to me the wrong thing to do. It may not have risen to the level of a violation of the rules, but I think it comes close, and I have sat here and listened to most of it and, frankly, I don't believe that the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts was right in any respect. I have been here a long time and I have seen some pretty rough talk, but never like we have had this first couple of months here. We have gone so far on both sides that we are almost dysfunctional. I admit it was tough for the Democrats to lose the Presidential election. Most people thought that Hillary Clinton would win. I was not one of them. I thought there was a real chance because I knew a lot of people would not say for whom they were going to vote. I think, correctly, I interpreted that meant that they were going to vote for Donald Trump, and the reason they were is that they are tired of what is going on. They are tired of what is hurting this country. They are tired of the picayune little fights that we have around here. I think we have to grow up. I suggest that all of us take stock of ourselves and see if we can treat each other with greater respect. I have to say, I resented--as much as I like the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, I resent the constant diatribe against a fellow Senator. Even if everything she said was true, it wasn't the right thing to do. I don't think any of us should do that to them, either. We can differ, we can argue, we can fight over certain words and so forth, but I have been appalled at the way the Democrats have treated Jeff Sessions. I have found Jeff Sessions--having worked with him for 20 years and having disagreed with him on a number of things--to be a gentleman in every respect and to present his viewpoints in a reasonable and decent way. I would hope that my colleagues on the other side would consider voting for Jeff Sessions or at least treating him with respect. I admit that I think some of this comes from the fact that they are very upset at Donald Trump, and it is easy to see why. He won a very tough, contested election against one of their principal people. That is hard to take, maybe. That doesn't justify what has been going on against Jeff Sessions. We ought to be proud that Jeff has a chance to become the Attorney General of the United States, and he is going to be. That is the thing that really bothers me. Everybody on the other side knows that we have the votes to finally do this. Yet, they are treating it as though this is something that they have to try and win--which they are not going to win--and, in the process, treating a fellow Senator with disdain. It is wrong. We should all take stock of ourselves. I am not accusing my colleagues of not being sincere, but they have been sincerely wrong. I am personally fed up with it. If we want to fight every day and just go after each other like people who just don't care about etiquette and courtesy, I guess we can do that, but I think it is the wrong thing to do. I hope all of us will stop, take note of what has been going on, and on both sides start trying to work together. I know it was tough for my Democrat friends to lose the Presidential election. I know that was tough. And they didn't think they were going to, and, frankly, a lot of us didn't think they were going to. I did think that. But, then again, I was one of two Senators who supported Donald Trump, in my opinion, with very, very good reason. I am sure that doesn't convince any Democrats on the other side. The fact is that we have to treat each other with respect or this place is going to devolve into nothing but a jungle, and that would truly be a very, very bad thing. I am not perfect, so I don't mean to act like I am, but I have to say that all of us need to take stock. We need to start thinking about the people on the other side. We need to start thinking about how we might bring each other together in the best interests of our country and how we might literally elevate the Senate to the position that we all hope it will be. I love all of my colleagues. There is not one person in this body that I don't care for a lot. I disagree quite a bit with some of my colleagues on the other side, and even some folks on our side, but that doesn't mean that I have to treat them with disrespect. I yield the floor.

Mr. HATCH

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

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I rise today to honor the memory of LaVell Edwards, a giant of the gridiron who guided the Brigham Young University football program through decades of unprecedented success. Surrounded by his family, Coach Edwards passed away peacefully on the morning of December 29, 2016. Born to Philo and Addie Edwards in 1930 in Orem, UT, he excelled in football and basketball at Lincoln High School. Following graduation, he decided to attend Utah State University to play football. LaVell figured that if he played for BYU, the hometown school, he would have lived at home and been required to milk the family cows, so he went north to Logan. At Utah State, he met the love of his life, Patti Covey. A few months after the two went on a blind date, they were married in Beaver Dam, UT. Following graduation, LaVell served in the Army for 2 years. After receiving an honorable discharge from the military, he became head football coach at Granite High School in Salt Lake City. After eight seasons as head coach, LaVell was hired at BYU by Hal Mitchell in 1962. LaVell humorously remarked that he was hired only because Coach Mitchell wanted to run the single wing offense and Coach Edwards was the only Mormon running that offense at the time. After 10 seasons as an assistant coach at BYU, he was promoted to head coach in 1972. Prior to his promotion, BYU had never achieved much success in football. In LaVell's words, it was a matter of when, not if, he would be fired. So he decided to do something that few other coaches were doing at the time: make the forward pass the focal point of the offense. LaVell's bold move revolutionized the game of football. His quarterbacks ended up throwing for over 100,000 yards, and four of them won the Davey O'Brien Award, given annually to college football's best quarterback. One of his quarterbacks even won the Heisman Trophy, which is awarded each year to college football's best player. LaVell's high-powered offense boosted the team to national prominence and culminated in BYU's 1984 national championship victory. Following this historic season, Coach Edwards was named the AFCA National Coach of the Year. With LaVell at the helm, BYU consistently finished in the top 25. He would eventually lead the Cougars to 19 conference championships and 257 victories, making him the seventh winningest coach in college football history. He coached 31 all- Americans, 6 College Football Hall of Famers, and 2 Outland Trophy winners. Coach Edwards himself was ultimately inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2004. Despite his tremendous success on the field, LaVell always remained humble. He also never lost his sense of humor. Although college football fans typically remember Coach Edwards for his trademark sideline scowl, he was renowned for his wit. He quipped on this fact, saying, ``Someone once said I'm a happy guy; I just forgot to tell my face.'' With his disarming humor and clever one-liners, LaVell could lighten the mood and make almost anyone laugh. Coach Edwards also had a remarkable ability to delegate. Although he knew football forward and backward, he surrounded himself with capable coaches and he let them do their jobs. His assistants were some of the best ever in college football, partially because he let them have free reign. This quality allowed him to focus on the personal element of football. He valued all of his players, and by all accounts, his door was always open to them. Indeed, many of his players have spoken about having frequent meetings with him that helped change their lives for the better. At his funeral, hundreds of former football players showed up--Hall of Famers, top-notch-rated people in almost every case. I was there at the funeral on Saturday. Coach Edwards simply cared about people, and I was fortunate to witness this up close. In the 100th Congress, I had the pleasure of working with him when he was president of the American Football Coaches Association. Together, we helped to pass legislation that allowed the AFCA to establish multiemployer pensions for college football coaches. Given the uncertain nature of the coaching profession, this legislation was an important achievement for coaches and their families across the country. Although football was important to LaVell, his faith was first and foremost. While he was coaching at BYU, LaVell served as a lay bishop in a Mormon student congregation. He thoroughly enjoyed the interactions he had with those students. Throughout his life, he served his church in many other positions of responsibility. Following his retirement from coaching in 2000, LaVell and Patti served a public affairs mission in New York City for the Mormon Church. He served honorably in that capacity and even put his experience as a football coach to good use. I might add that he invited me to come up and go to dinner with a number of dignitaries in that area so that he could chat with them and tell them a little bit about his faith and his beliefs, and it was a privilege to do so. He and Patti were terrific missionaries and good people. While a missionary, LaVell aided in the establishment of Harlem's first high school football program in decades. Coach Edwards and Patti also met with many different political and religious leaders, and, as he put it, they looked to ``build bridges'' between these leaders and his church. Madam President, LaVell Edwards was a champion on and off the field. Not only was he one of the most successful coaches in college football history, he was also one of the greatest men I ever knew. I will be forever grateful for my own friendship with LaVell, and I pray that we will always remember the humility and humor that were the hallmarks of his life. It was one of the privileges of my life to have a personal relationship with him and Patti. They are two of the finest people I have ever met. I have to say that LaVell would drop anything to support his religious beliefs, and he was a tremendous influence on literally hundreds, if not thousands, of football players and others who watched what he said, watched what he did, and loved how well he did those things. I personally was befriended by him on a number of occasions, and it meant a lot to me. It means a lot to me to this day not because he was so important, he was one of the greatest coaches who ever lived, and he was in the Hall of Fame, but because he was down-to-earth, a person who loved to play golf, loved all sports, and loved being with people. And when he supported you, it was really support. All I can say is, he is one of the greatest men I have ever met in my life. He had a great influence on so many people--still does. His wife is every bit as great as he has been. Both are tremendous human beings who have made this world a better place to live. From a football standpoint, I think most coaches who knew him would say he was unexcelled, and I agree that is true, but that was minor compared to the type of life he lived, the type of things he did, the type of honors he shared, the type of kindness he showed, the ability to talk to people and help them through the problems they had, and, of course, the overall genuine goodness of a fellow whose life was well spent, who touched so many lives, literally hundreds of thousands of lives over the years, and who had this tremendous sense of humor that made being around him a real pleasure. I am grateful I knew LaVell Edwards well. I am grateful for the life he lived. I am grateful for the example he set. I am grateful for the joy he brought to so many people. And I wish his dear wife Patti well. I just hope that these words will be a little bit of consolation for her. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HATCH

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

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the nomination of Judge Neil M. Gorsuch to serve as the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Judge Gorsuch has been nominated to fill the seat left vacant by the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Justice Scalia was a dear friend of mine, and his death was a great loss to me and to our country, not just to me personally but for the whole Nation. Justice Scalia joined the Supreme Court after years of unbridled activism by the Court, during which time Justices imposed their own left-wing views--completely unmoored from the law as written--on the American people. In response, he led a much needed revolution based on the enduring principle that the role of a judge is to say what the law is, not what a judge wishes it were. As the intellectual architect of the effort to restore the judiciary to its proper role under the Constitution, Justice Scalia was a singularly influential jurist. To say that he leaves big shoes to fill is an understatement. Any worthy successor to his legacy will not only be committed to continuing his life's work but also capable of delivering the sort of intellectual firepower and leadership that Justice Scalia provided for decades. Of all the potential candidates for this position, this vacancy, Neil Gorsuch stands out as the jurist best positioned to fill this role. His resume can only be described as stellar: Columbia University, a Marshall Scholarship to study at Oxford, Harvard Law School, clerkships for Judge Sentelle on the DC Circuit and for Justices White and Kennedy on the Supreme Court, a distinguished career in private practice and at the Department of Justice, and more than a decade of service on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Even among his many talented colleagues on the Federal bench, his opinions consistently stand out for their clarity, thoughtfulness, and airtight reasoning. In the words of one of his colleagues appointed by President Carter, Judge Gorsuch ``writes opinions in a unique style that has more verve and vitality than any other judge I study on a regular basis.'' He continued: ``Judge Gorsuch listens well and decides justly. His dissents are instructive rather than vitriolic. In sum, I think he is an excellent judicial craftsman.'' This view of Judge Gorsuch's capabilities is broadly shared across a wide swath of legal observers. Consider some other descriptions of his qualifications from outlets that could hardly be considered conservative. The New York Times reported on his ``credentials and erudition.'' The Los Angeles Times called him a ``highly regarded . . . jurist,'' and ABC News described how ``in legal circles, he's considered a gifted writer.'' I think there can be no doubt that Judge Gorsuch has the credentials to make him a capable and effective member of the U.S. Supreme Court. Nevertheless, I have long held that a nominee's resume alone--no matter how sterling--should not be considered sufficient evidence to merit confirmation to the Supreme Court. Rather, we should also consider a nominee's judicial philosophy. In this analysis, Judge Gorsuch has developed a record that should command ironclad confidence in his understanding of the proper role of a judge under the Constitution. Judge Gorsuch's opinions and writings show a clear fidelity to a judge's proper role. While his body of work is replete with examples of this fidelity, I want to point to one example in particular, a lecture he delivered last year in the wake of Justice Scalia's death that is one of the most thoughtful and persuasive cases for the proper role of a judge that I have ever read. In it, he affirmed his allegiance to the traditional account of the judicial role championed by Justice Scalia, which he described as such: The great project of Justice Scalia's career was to remind us of the differences between judges and legislators. To remind us that legislators may appeal to their own moral convictions and to claims about social utility to reshape the law as they think it should be in the future. But that judges should do none of these things in a democratic society. That judges should instead strive (if humanly and so imperfectly) to apply the law as it is, focusing backward, not forward, and looking to text, structure, and history to decide what a reasonable reader at the time of the events in question would have understood the law to be--not to decide cases based on their own moral convictions or the policy consequences they believe might serve society best. As Justice Scalia put it, ``If you are going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you're not always going to like the conclusions you reach. If you like them all the time, you are probably doing something wrong.'' This is exactly the kind of judicial philosophy we need our judges to espouse, and Neil Gorsuch is exactly the man to embody it on the Supreme Court. If there is one line in that lecture to which I could draw attention, it is the quotation of Justice Scalia's formulation of the very basic notion that a good judge will oftentimes reach outcomes that he does not personally agree with as a matter of policy. Such a notion should be uncontroversial. Indeed, many of Justice Scalia's brightest opinions came in cases in which I suspect he would have voted differently as a legislator than as a judge. Yet such a concept might seem wholly foreign to a casual observer of media coverage of the Supreme Court, in which cases are invariably viewed through a political lens. Decisions and Justices are regularly described as liberal or conservative, with little attention paid to rationale and methodology, the matters properly at the core of a judge's work. This phenomenon reflects a regrettable dynamic observed by Justice Scalia himself. As the late Justice observed, when judges substitute their personal policy preferences for the fixed and discernible meaning of the law, the selection of judges--in particular, the selection of Supreme Court Justices--becomes what he called a mini- plebiscite on the meaning of the Constitution and laws of this country. Put another way, if judges are empowered to rewrite the laws as they please, the judicial appointment process becomes a matter of selecting life-tenured legislators practically immune from any accountability whatsoever. If we value such a system of judicial review, a system deeply at odds with the Constitution's concept of the judiciary, then one can easily see why judicial selection becomes a matter of producing particular policy outcomes. Thus, it is easy to see why many on the left who believe in such a system demand litmus tests on hot-button policy issues. To them, a judge is not fit to serve unless they rule in a way that produces a particular policy. Simply put, this is a terrible way to approach judicial selection. It undermines the Constitution and all of the crucial principles that it enshrines from the rule of law to the notion that our government's legitimacy depends on the consent of the government. A good judge is not one that we can depend on to produce particular policy outcomes. A good judge is one we can depend on to produce the outcomes commanded by the law and the Constitution. Neil Gorsuch has firmly established himself as that kind of a judge. In Neil Gorsuch's America, the laws that bind us are made by the people's elected representatives, not unelected, unaccountable judges. In Neil Gorsuch's America, the powers and limits of each branch of government are decided by the Constitution, no matter whether their enforcement produces a liberal or conservative outcome. In Neil Gorsuch's America, the basic freedoms of the American people enumerated in the Bill of Rights are carefully protected, whether they are in fashion lately with the left, the right, both or neither. In Neil Gorsuch's America, the views that matter are yours and mine, not those of a handful of lawyers in black robes in Washington. For these reasons, I applaud the President for his absolutely stellar choice. Judge Gorsuch will do us proud as our next Supreme Court Justice. I will do everything in my power to ensure his confirmation. I will have more to say on this in the future, but I yield the floor at this time.