Ted Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. The next half hour is allocated to the Senator from New York; is that correct?

Mr. KENNEDY. I ask unanimous consent to be able to proceed on Senator Schumer's time.

Mr. KENNEDY. I know my friend from New York is on his way, but that point should not be lost. Here we have just within the last several days an issue that can make such a difference to every parent in this country who has a teenage child. Every single day, 4,000 children start to smoke, and 2,000 become addicted. We have the opportunity with this judgment to have a major national program to discourage young children from going into it, and the Government says: No, we are going to go for not even a slap on the wrist. We have evidence today about the increase in the cost of health insurance by more than $1,000 a year. That is something families understand. We have the increased cost of education. That is something families understand. Then there are the pension problems of workers who have worked and contributed to their pensions over the years, and they are now virtually evaporating. These are real issues of real people. But, no, the President and the Republicans want us to spend our time on these controversial judges that fail to meet the fundamental requirement of core commitment to the values of the Constitution and the understanding of the legislative process which protects the lives, the well-being, and the future of our country and families in this Nation. For all of those reasons, this nominee should be rejected, and we ought to get about the country's business and get away from these controversial judges who are clearly outside of the mainstream of judicial thinking. I yield the floor.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I strongly support the Violence Against Women Act of 2005, and I commend Senator Biden, Senator Specter, and Senator Hatch for their bipartisan leadership on these major issues. Violence against women is a very real and very serious continuing problem in the United States. The statistics are shocking. Every 15 seconds, somewhere in America, a woman is battered, usually by her intimate partner. Every 90 seconds, somewhere in America, someone is sexually assaulted. On average, three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in America every day. One out of every six American women have been the victims of a rape in their lifetime. These statistics are not just numbers. These violent acts are happening to mothers, sisters, daughters, and friends. We cannot tolerate this violence in our communities. In 1994, Congress allocated funds to initiate efforts to prevent violence against women and families. The programs established under the Violence Against Women Act, and later expanded and reauthorized in 2000, have worked, and so will this legislation, because it takes needed additional steps to prevent such violence. It enhances law enforcement and judicial procedures to combat violence against women, and it also reinvigorates programs to help older and disabled victims of domestic violence. Forty-four percent of the Nation's mayors identified domestic violence as a primary cause of homelessness. This bill eases housing problems for battered women. Victims of domestic violence need time off from work to obtain medical attention, counseling, and other support. This bill will provide that flexibility. Doctors, nurses, and other health professionals are often the first responders for treating the injuries women suffer from domestic and sexual violence. It is essential for those who help them to be able to respond effectively and compassionately. When health providers screen for domestic violence and follow up on such cases, women are more likely to be safer over the long term. This bill includes new funds for training health professionals to recognize and respond to domestic and sexual violence, and to enable public health officials to recognize the need as well. The research funds provided by this bill are vital because we need the best possible interventions in health care settings to prevent future violence and help the victims. Violence against women can occur throughout women's lives, beginning in childhood, continuing in adolescence, and in numerous contexts and settings. It is important for any bill on such violence to focus on girls and young women as well, and this bill does that. In 1994, we included an important innovative provision in the bill to fund a National Domestic Violence Hotline. When the hotline opened in February 1996, victims of domestic violence across the nation finally had help available toll-free, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. This legislation increases funding for that very important support. Another important section of the bill provides greater help to immigrant victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, trafficking and similar offenses. This section builds on the current Act and is designed to remove the obstacles in immigration laws that prevent such victims from safely fleeing the violence in their lives, and to dispel the fear that often prevents them from prosecuting their abusers. Eliminating domestic violence is especially challenging in immigrant communities, where victims often face additional cultural, linguistic and immigration barriers to seeking safety. Abusers of immigrant spouses or children are liable to use threats of deportation against them, trapping them in endless years of violence. Many of us have heard horrific stories of violence in cases where the threat of deportation was used against immigrant spouses and children--``If you leave me, I'll report you to the immigration authorities, and you'll never see the children again.'' Or the abuser says, ``If you tell the police what I did, I'll have immigration deport you.'' Congress has made significant progress in enacting protections for these immigrant victims, but there are still many women and children whose lives are in danger. Our bill extends immigration relief to all victims of family violence, including victims of elder abuse, incest and stalking. It ensures economic security for immigrant victims and their children by providing work authorization for victims with valid immigration cases. It makes it easier for victims of trafficking to obtain federal benefits if they assist in the investigation or prosecution of trafficking crimes. I commend the sponsors of this legislation for working with us on this issue and for making domestic violence in immigrant communities an important priority in our overall effort to combat violence against women. We have a responsibility in Congress to do all we can to eradicate domestic violence. Our bill gives the safety of women and their families the high priority it deserves, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I strongly support the Violence Against Women Act of 2005, and I commend Senator Biden, Senator Specter, and Senator Hatch for their bipartisan leadership on these major issues. Violence against women is a very real and very serious continuing problem in the United States. The statistics are shocking. Every 15 seconds, somewhere in America, a woman is battered, usually by her intimate partner. Every 90 seconds, somewhere in America, someone is sexually assaulted. On average, three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in America every day. One out of every six American women have been the victims of a rape in their lifetime. These statistics are not just numbers. These violent acts are happening to mothers, sisters, daughters, and friends. We cannot tolerate this violence in our communities. In 1994, Congress allocated funds to initiate efforts to prevent violence against women and families. The programs established under the Violence Against Women Act, and later expanded and reauthorized in 2000, have worked, and so will this legislation, because it takes needed additional steps to prevent such violence. It enhances law enforcement and judicial procedures to combat violence against women, and it also reinvigorates programs to help older and disabled victims of domestic violence. Forty-four percent of the Nation's mayors identified domestic violence as a primary cause of homelessness. This bill eases housing problems for battered women. Victims of domestic violence need time off from work to obtain medical attention, counseling, and other support. This bill will provide that flexibility. Doctors, nurses, and other health professionals are often the first responders for treating the injuries women suffer from domestic and sexual violence. It is essential for those who help them to be able to respond effectively and compassionately. When health providers screen for domestic violence and follow up on such cases, women are more likely to be safer over the long term. This bill includes new funds for training health professionals to recognize and respond to domestic and sexual violence, and to enable public health officials to recognize the need as well. The research funds provided by this bill are vital because we need the best possible interventions in health care settings to prevent future violence and help the victims. Violence against women can occur throughout women's lives, beginning in childhood, continuing in adolescence, and in numerous contexts and settings. It is important for any bill on such violence to focus on girls and young women as well, and this bill does that. In 1994, we included an important innovative provision in the bill to fund a National Domestic Violence Hotline. When the hotline opened in February 1996, victims of domestic violence across the nation finally had help available toll-free, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. This legislation increases funding for that very important support. Another important section of the bill provides greater help to immigrant victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, trafficking and similar offenses. This section builds on the current Act and is designed to remove the obstacles in immigration laws that prevent such victims from safely fleeing the violence in their lives, and to dispel the fear that often prevents them from prosecuting their abusers. Eliminating domestic violence is especially challenging in immigrant communities, where victims often face additional cultural, linguistic and immigration barriers to seeking safety. Abusers of immigrant spouses or children are liable to use threats of deportation against them, trapping them in endless years of violence. Many of us have heard horrific stories of violence in cases where the threat of deportation was used against immigrant spouses and children--``If you leave me, I'll report you to the immigration authorities, and you'll never see the children again.'' Or the abuser says, ``If you tell the police what I did, I'll have immigration deport you.'' Congress has made significant progress in enacting protections for these immigrant victims, but there are still many women and children whose lives are in danger. Our bill extends immigration relief to all victims of family violence, including victims of elder abuse, incest and stalking. It ensures economic security for immigrant victims and their children by providing work authorization for victims with valid immigration cases. It makes it easier for victims of trafficking to obtain federal benefits if they assist in the investigation or prosecution of trafficking crimes. I commend the sponsors of this legislation for working with us on this issue and for making domestic violence in immigrant communities an important priority in our overall effort to combat violence against women. We have a responsibility in Congress to do all we can to eradicate domestic violence. Our bill gives the safety of women and their families the high priority it deserves, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, today is National Hunger Awareness Day, and it is an opportunity for all of us in Congress to pledge a greater effort to deal effectively with this festering problem that shames our Nation and has grown even more serious in recent years. It is a chance to live out our moral commitment to care for our neighbors and fellow citizens who have fallen on hard times. The number of Americans living in hunger, or on the brink of hunger, now totals 36 million, 3 million more since President Bush took office. That total includes 13 million children, 400,000 more since 2001. Day in and day out, the needs of millions of Americans living in hunger are widely ignored, and too often their voices have been silenced. Their battle is a constant ongoing struggle. It undermines their productivity, their earning power, and their health. It keeps their children from concentrating and learning in school. We all need to do more to combat it--government, corporations, communities, and citizens must work together to develop better policies and faster responses. In Massachusetts, organizations such as the Greater Boston Food Bank, Project Bread, the Worcester County Food Bank, and many others serve on the frontlines every day, and they deserve our full support, but they should not have to wage the battle alone. In 1996, the Clinton administration pledged to begin an effort to cut hunger in half in the United States by 2010, and the strong economy enabled us to make significant progress toward that goal. Hunger decreased steadily through 2000. We now have 5 years left to fulfill that commitment. The fastest, most direct way to reduce hunger in the Nation is to improve and expand current Federal nutrition programs. Sadly, the current Administration and the Republican Congress propose to reduce, not increase, funds for important programs such as Food Stamps, and the Community Nutrition Program. The Food Stamp Program is designed to be available to all eligible individuals and households in the United States. It provides a basic and essential safety net to millions of people. In 2003, on average, over 21 million Americans received food stamp benefits. Over half of all food stamp recipients are children. Now, the administration plans to reduce, or even cut off, food stamps for recipients who rely on Medicare to afford the prescription drugs they need. That is why I have introduced legislation to ensure that individuals who receive Medicare prescription drug benefits do not lose their food stamps. This legislation ensures that seniors do not have to choose between food and medicine. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation. It is time to do more for the most vulnerable in our society. National Hunger Awareness Day is our chance to pledge to eradicate hunger in America and to mean it when we say it. Mr. President, I would like to congratulate Senator Dole and Senator Lincoln for giving focus and attention to National Hunger Awareness Day and for all they do on this particular issue. I had the opportunity yesterday to visit The Greater Boston Food Bank in Massachusetts--a successful food bank. We have 517,000 people who are hungry in eastern Massachusetts alone, over 173,000 of those individuals are children, and over 50,000 are elderly. One thing we know how to do in this country is grow food. We can do that better than any other place in the world. Secondly, we know how to deliver packages of food with Federal Express, other kinds of delivery services, virtually overnight. The fact that we have hunger in this Nation, we have children who are hungry, frail elderly who are hungry, working families who are hungry, or other homeless people who are hungry, we as a nation are failing our humanity. We know what can be done. It needs the combination of a governmental framework, private framework, and a very important involvement from the nonprofit framework and other groups at the local level, religious groups that have done such important work. So I commend my friends and colleagues for bringing focus and attention to this issue. It has enormous implications. We find out in terms of education provided to the children, the needy children at breakfast for them early in the morning, the results in terms of their willingness, ability, and interest in cooperating with their teacher and learning go up immensely. We have information that documents all of that. Try to teach a hungry child to learn, and any teacher will tell you the complexities and difficulties and the frustrations in doing that. I thank my two friends and others who are part of this movement. I look forward to working with them on a matter of enormous importance and consequence.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, before speaking on what I want to address to the Senate, and that is the pending business on the nominee, I want to bring to the attention of my colleagues an excellent editorial in the New York Times today: ``Crushing Upward Mobility.'' It is basically an analysis of a regulation that was put forward by the Department of Education that will save the Department of Education some resources, but at the cost of those middle-class families, working families, who are eligible for student loan programs. That is not the direction in which we should be going. At the current time, we have a number of these young students who are paying 9.5 percent on guaranteed student loans. Can you imagine having a deal like that? You put out money and the Federal Government guarantees that you have nothing to lose, and it still costs these students 9.5 percent. We ought to be doing something about that, like taking the profits and making a difference in terms of lowering the burden on working families and middle-income families who are trying to help their children go on to college, rather than put more burden on them. This is an excellent article. I ask unanimous consent that the editorial be printed in the Record.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I intend to introduce later on in the afternoon the technical language and legislation that will block that particular provision by the Department of Education from going into effect. Mr. President, Janice Rogers Brown's nomination to the DC Circuit is opposed more strongly by civil rights organizations than almost any other nominee I can recall to the Federal courts of appeals. She is opposed by respected civil rights leaders, including Julian Bond, the chairman of the NAACP, and Reverend Joseph Lowery, president emeritus of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who worked with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in the civil rights movement, and who has fought tirelessly for many years to make civil rights a reality for all Americans. Her nomination is also opposed by the Congressional Black Caucus, the National Bar Association, the Coalition of Black Trade Unions, the California Association of Black Lawyers, and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, the second oldest sorority founded by African-American women. Justice Brown's nomination is opposed by Dorothy Height, president emeritus of the National Council of Negro Women, and a leader in the battle for equality for women and African Americans. Dr. Height has dedicated her life to fighting for equal opportunities for all Americans. She is universally respected by Republicans and Democrats, and last year she received the Congressional Gold Medal, and President Bush joined Members of Congress in honoring her service. In opposing Justice Brown's nomination, Dr. Height says: I have always championed and applauded the progress of women, and especially African American women; but I cannot stand by and be silent when a jurist with a record of performance of California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown is nominated to a Federal court, even though she is an African American woman. In her speeches and decisions, Justice Janice Rogers Brown has articulated positions that weaken the civil rights legislation and progress that I and others have fought so long and hard to achieve. Justice Brown's nomination is opposed equally strongly by over 100 other organizations, including 24 in California, representing seniors, working families, and citizens concerned about corporate abuses and the environment. Some of Justice Brown's supporters suggest that she should be confirmed because she is an African-American woman with a compelling personal story. While all of us respect her ability to rise above difficult circumstances, we cannot confirm nominees to lifetime positions on the Federal courts because of their backgrounds. We have a constitutional duty to confirm only those who would uphold the law and would decide cases fairly and reject those who would issue decisions based on personal ideology. It is clear why this nomination is so vigorously opposed by those who care about civil rights. Her record leaves no doubt that she would attempt to impose her own extreme views on people's everyday lives instead of following the law. The courts are too important to allow such persons to become lifetime appointees as Federal judges. Janice Rogers Brown's record makes clear that she is a judicial activist and would roll back not only civil rights but laws that protect public safety, workers' rights, and the environment, as well as laws that limit corporate abuse, which are precisely the cases the DC Circuit hears most often. Our decision on this nomination is profoundly important to America's everyday life. All Americans, wherever they live, should be concerned about such a nomination to the DC Circuit, which interprets Federal laws that protect our civil liberties, worker safety, our ability to breathe clean air and drink clean water in our communities. The DC Circuit is the crown jewel of Federal appellate courts and has often been the stepping stone to the Supreme Court. It has a unique role among the Federal courts in interpreting Federal power. Although located here in the District of Columbia, its decisions have national reach because it has exclusive jurisdiction over many laws that protect consumers' rights, employees' rights, civil rights, and the environment. Only the DC Circuit can review the national drinking water standards under the Safe Drinking Water Act to ensure clean water for our children. Only the DC Circuit can review national air quality standards under the Clean Air Act to combat pollution in our communities. This court also hears the lion's share of cases involving the rights of workers under the Occupational Safety and Health Act which helps ensure that working Americans are not exposed to hazardous conditions on the job. It has a large number of cases under the National Labor Relations Act. As a practical matter, because the Supreme Court can review only a small number of lower court decisions, the judges on the DC Circuit often have the last word on these important rights. Because of the court's importance to issues that affect so many lives, the Senate should take special care in appointing judges for lifetime positions on the DC Circuit. We must be completely confident that appointees to this prestigious court have the highest qualifications and ethical standards and will fairly interpret the laws, particularly laws that protect our basic rights. The important work we do in Congress to improve health care, reform public schools, protect working families, and enforce civil rights is undermined if we fail in our responsibility to provide the best possible advice and consent on judicial nominations. Needed environmental laws mean little to a community that cannot enforce them in Federal courts. Fair labor laws and civil rights laws mean little if we confirm judges who ignore them. In the 1960s and 1970s, the DC Circuit expanded public access to administrative proceedings and protected the interests of the public against the egregious actions of many large businesses. It enabled more plaintiffs to challenge agency decisions. It held that a religious group, as a member of the listening public, could oppose the license renewal of a television station accused of racial and religious discrimination. It held that an organization of welfare recipients was entitled to intervene in proceedings before a Federal agency. These decisions empowered individuals and organizations to shine a brighter light on governmental agencies. No longer would these agencies be able to ignore the interests of those they were created to protect. But in recent years, the DC Circuit has begun to deny access to the courts. It held that a labor union could not challenge the denial of benefits to its members, a decision later overturned by the Supreme Court. It held that environmental groups are not qualified to seek review of Federal standards under the Clean Air Act. These decisions are characteristic of the DC Circuit's flip-flop. After decades of landmark decisions allowing effective implementation of important laws and principles, the court now is creating precedence on labor rights, civil rights, and the environment that will set back these basic principles for years to come. It is, therefore, especially important to ensure that judges appointed to this important court will not use their position to advance an extreme ideological agenda. Janice Rogers Brown would be exactly that kind of ideological judge. How can we confirm someone to the DC Circuit who is hostile to civil rights, to workers' rights, to consumer protections, to governmental actions that protect the environment and the public in so many other areas--the very issues that predominate in the DC Circuit? How can we confirm someone who is so deeply opposed to the core protections that the DC Circuit is required to enforce? It is hard to imagine a worse choice for the DC Circuit. Perhaps most disturbing is the contempt she has repeatedly expressed for the very idea of democratic self-government. She has stated that where government moves in, community retreats, and civil society disintegrates. She has said that government leads to families under siege, war in the streets. In her view, when government advances, freedom is imperiled, and civilization itself is jeopardized. These views could hardly be further from legal mainstream. They are not the views of someone who should be confirmed to the second most important court in the land and the court with the highest frequency of cases involving governmental action. Congress and the White House are the places you go to change the law, not the Federal courts. She has criticized the New Deal which gave us Social Security, the minimum wage, and the fair labor laws. She questioned whether age discrimination laws benefit the public interest. She has even said that today's senior citizens blithely cannibalize their children because they have the right to get as much free stuff as the political system will permit them to extract. No one with these views should be confirmed to any Federal court, and certainly not to the Federal court most responsible for cases respecting governmental action. It is no wonder that an organization seeking to dismantle Social Security is running ads supporting her nomination to the second most powerful court in the country. Of course, like every nominee who comes before the Senate, Justice Brown assures us that she will follow the law. But merely saying so is not enough when there is clear and extensive evidence to the contrary. The Senate is more than a rubberstamp in the judicial confirmation process. We must examine the record and vote our conscience. Justice Brown and her supporters ask us to believe that her contempt for the role of government and government regulation and her opinions against workers' rights and consumer protections are not an indication of how she would act as a Federal judge. It is hard to believe that anyone would repeatedly use such extreme rhetoric and not mean it. It is even harder to believe that her carelessness and intemperance somehow qualify her to be a Federal judge. Moreover, Justice Brown's decisions match her extreme rhetoric. She has written opinions that would undermine these basic protections. I was especially troubled by her opinion in a case in which ethnic slurs have been proven to create hostile working conditions for Latino workers. Justice Brown wrote that the first amendment prevents courts from stopping ethnic slurs in the workplace even when those slurs create a hostile work environment, in violation of job discrimination laws. Her opinion even went beyond the State law involved in the case and suggested that title VII and other Federal antidiscrimination laws may not prohibit this kind of harassment in the workplace. Her opinion contradicts decades of precedent protecting workers from harassment based on race, gender, ethnicity, and religion. Fortunately, a majority of California's Supreme Court disagreed with her views. We cannot risk giving Justice Brown a lifetime appointment to a court on which she will have a greater opportunity to apply her extreme views on our Federal civil rights laws. This Nation has made too much progress toward our shared goal of equal opportunity to risk appointing a judge who will roll back civil rights. Other opinions by Justice Brown would have prevented victims of age and race discrimination from obtaining relief in State court. She dissented from a holding that victims of discrimination may obtain damages from administrative agencies for their emotional distress. Time and again, she has issued opinions that would cut back on laws that rein in corporate special interests. When there is a choice between protecting the interests of working Americans and siding with big business, Janice Rogers Brown sides with big business, and she does so in ways that go far beyond the mainstream conservative thinking. She wrote an opinion striking down a State fee requiring paint companies to pay for screening and treating children exposed to lead paint. Most of us are familiar with the dangers of lead paint. It is a contributing cause to mental retardation with regards to children. Many of the older communities all over this country have paint that has a lead content, and children have a habit of picking off the pieces. Even if it is in playgrounds, they have a way of ingesting these pieces. We find that children develop severe illness and sickness and in too many instances mental retardation. We tried here for years to eliminate the issues of lead in paint. We have made some important progress. As I understand it, one of the proposals was a small State fee requiring paint companies to pay for screening and treating children exposed to lead paint, and she struck down that State fee. Fortunately, she was unanimously reversed by the California Supreme Court. But because the United States Supreme Court hears so few cases, there is no guarantee that her mistakes will be corrected if she receives a lifetime position on the DC court. In another case, she wrote a dissent urging the California Supreme Court to strike down a San Francisco law providing housing assistance to low-income elderly and disabled people. Justice Brown has also clearly demonstrated her willingness to ignore established precedent. She wrote a dissent, arguing that the California Supreme Court ``cannot simply cloak ourselves in the doctrine of stare decisis,'' which is the rule that judges should follow the settled law. That is the basic concept of upholding the law, interpreting law, stare decisis, following the law which currently exists. She wrote a dissent urging the California Supreme Court, saying we cannot simply cloak ourselves in that doctrine. She again showed her willingness to disregard legal precedent just this year. In People v. Robert Young, Justice Brown tried to overturn a precedent protecting the rights of racial minorities and women not to be eliminated from juries for discriminatory reasons. In a concurring opinion not joined by any of her colleagues, she criticized the precedent stating that for the purposes of deciding whether a prosecuting attorney had discriminated in selecting a jury, black women could not be considered a separate group. The California Supreme Court had held two decades ago that prosecutors may not exclude jurors solely because they are black women. Justice Brown argued that this precedent should be overruled because she saw no evidentiary basis that black women might be the victims of a unique type of group discrimination justifying their designation as a cognizable group. It is not just Senate Democrats who are troubled about the record of Janice Rogers Brown. Conservatives have also expressed concern about the judicial activism of Janice Rogers Brown. The conservative publication National Review had this to say: Janice Rogers Brown . . . has said that judicial activism is not troubling per se; what matters is the ``worldview'' of the judicial activist. If a liberal nominee to the courts said similar things, conservatives would make short work of her. Even conservative columnist George Will has said that Janice Rogers Brown is out of the mainstream. In the past, some members of the press, and even some in Congress, have accused us of bias when we raise questions about a nominee. That is nonsense. Justice Brown has received the same treatment as other nominees. We have asked about her record, looked at her statements, and reviewed her opinions. We have raised questions when her record cast doubt on her commitment to the rule of law. During the recent debate on judicial nominees, almost all of us, Republicans and Democrats, have emphasized that we want an independent judiciary. If that is truly what we believe, we must vote no on the nomination of Janice Rogers Brown. She opposes many of our society's most basic values shared by both Republicans and Democrats. Throughout its history, America has embraced the ideals of fairness, opportunity, and justice. We all believe our laws are there to help ensure everyone can share in the American dream and that everyone should be free from discrimination. Janice Rogers Brown has expressed hostility to some of the protections most important to the American people, including those that protect workers, civil rights, and the environment. We believe that judges should be impartial, not beholden to powerful corporate interests. If we believe in these basic protections, it makes no sense to confirm a judge who would undermine them and turn back the clock on many of our most basic rights. The Senate's role in confirming judges to the Federal courts is one of our most important responsibilities under the Constitution. We count on Federal judges to be openminded, fair, and respect the rule of law. Despite what Justice Brown thinks, laws passed by Congress to give Government a role in protecting the environment, immigrants, workers, consumers, public health and safety, have helped to make America a stronger, better, and more fair country. A nominee so deeply hostile to so many basic laws does not deserve to be appointed to such an important Federal court. Last month, we celebrated the 51st anniversary of the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Nothing can be a more important reminder of the role of our courts in upholding individual rights. In confirming Federal judges, we must ensure that they will uphold the progress our country has made in so many areas, especially in civil rights. Justice Brown's record and her many intemperate statements give me no confidence that she will do so, and I urge my colleagues to vote against her nomination. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, earlier this year, Mort Caplin, a founding partner of the law firm Caplin & Drysdale in Washington, DC, and the outstanding IRS Commissioner under President Kennedy, delivered the Erwin Griswold Lecture at the annual meeting of the American College of Tax Counsel, which was held in San Diego. In his eloquent and very readable address, Mr. Caplin summarizes the evolution of our modern tax system, the current challenges it faces, the recent efforts by Congress to achieve reform, the alarming drop in compliance and revenue collection, and the ethical responsibilities of the tax bar. Mr. Caplin's remarks are especially timely today as Congress struggles to deal with its own responsibility for the effectiveness, integrity and fairness of our tax laws. All of us in the Senate and House can benefit from his wise words, and I ask unanimous consent that his lecture be printed at this point in the Record.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, hate crimes are a violation of everything our country stands for. They send the poisonous message that some Americans deserve to be victimized solely because of who they are. They're basically acts of domestic terrorism. Hate crimes have an impact far greater than the impact on their individual victim. They're crimes against entire communities, against the whole Nation, and against the fundamental ideals on which America was founded. The vast majority of Congress agrees. Last year, Senator Smith and I offered the same measure. The Senate passed it as an amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill by a nearly 2-1 bi-partisan vote of 65-33. By a vote of 213-186, the House instructed its conferees to support it in the conference report on the bill. Unfortunately, House leaders insisted that the provision be dropped in conference. This week, Senator Smith and I are introducing the identical bill. The provision is supported by a broad coalition of law enforcement and civil rights groups, including the National Sheriff's Association, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Anti-Defamation League, and the National Center for Victims of Crime, and I'm optimistic the bill would have the same broad support it did before. Those who commit hate crimes prey on the vulnerable and terrorize them, because they can't protect themselves. If our Nation stands for anything, it's to protect the vulnerable. We know that hate crimes are a serious problem that continues to plague us. According to FBI statistics, over 9,000 people were victims of hate crimes reported in the United States in 2003. That's almost 25 people victimized a day, every day, based on their race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnic background, or disability. Sadly, these F.B.I. statistics show only part of the problem, because many hate crimes go unreported. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit organization that monitors hate groups and extremist activity, estimates that the actual number of hate crimes committed in the United States each year is closer to 50,000. Congress can't ignore the problem. Our bill will strengthen the ability of Federal, State, and local governments to investigate and prosecute these vicious and senseless crimes. Current Federal law, obviously isn't adequate to protect our citizens. It contains excessive restrictions requiring proof that victims were attacked because they were engaged in certain ``federally protected activities.'' It doesn't include violence committed because of person's sexual orientation, gender, or disability. It covers only hate crimes based on race, religion, or ethnic background. The federally protected activity requirement is outdated, unwise, and unnecessary. In June 2003, three men saw 6 Latino teenagers in a family restaurant on Long Island. The teenagers, 3 boys and 3 girls, between 13-15 years old, knew each other from church and baseball teams. They were there together to celebrate the birthday of one of the girls, whose parents made her take her 13 year old sister along as ``chaperone.'' A parent dropped them all off in his mini-van and promised to pick them up after dinner and a movie. But, moments after leaving, he received a panicked phone call from one of the children, telling him they'd been attacked. As the group entered the restaurant, three men were leaving the bar, after drinking there for hours. For no apparent reason, they assaulted the teenagers, pummeling one boy and severing a tendon in his hand with a sharp weapon. During the attack, the men screamed racial slurs and one identified himself as a skinhead. The children, who had never experienced anything like this, have been traumatized ever since. Two of the defendants were tried under current Federal law for committing a hate crime and were acquitted. The Jurors said they acquitted them because the government had not proved the attack took place because the victims were engaged in a federally protected activity--using the restaurant. The bill we introduce today eliminates the federally protected activity requirement. Under this bill, these defendants who walked out of the front door of the courthouse free that day would almost certainly have left in handcuffs through a different door. The bill also recognizes that hate crimes are committed against people because of their sexual orientation, their gender, and their disability. Current Federal law didn't protect gay campers in Honolulu from attempted murder when their tents were doused with a flammable liquid and set on fire because they were gay. It didn't protect Brandon Teena, in Humboldt, NE who was raped and beaten by two male friends when they discovered that he was living as a male but was anatomically female. The local sheriff refused to arrest the offenders, and they later shot and stabbed Brandon to death. Current law did not protect a 23-year-old mentally disabled man in Port Monmouth, New Jersey who was kidnapped by 9 men and women and tortured for three hours before being dumped in the woods because he was disabled. Our bill will close all these flagrant loopholes. In addition to removing the federally protected activity requirement and expanding the class of protected people: The bill protects State interests with a strict certification procedure that requires the Federal Government to consult with local officials before bringing a Federal case. It offers Federal assistance to help State and local law enforcement investigate and prosecute hate crimes in any of the categories. It offers training grants for local law enforcement. It amends the Federal Hate Crime Statistics Act to add gender to the existing categories of race, religion, ethnic background, sexual orientation, and disability. A strong Federal role in prosecuting hate crimes is essential for practical and symbolic reasons. In practical terms, the bill will have a real world impact on actual criminal investigations and prosecutions by State and Federal officials. The presence or absence of the ``federally protected activity'' requirement frequently determines whether state and local resources must be used to prosecute these crimes or whether the Federal Government can bring its full weight to bear on the case. Hate crime investigations tend to be expensive, requiring considerable law enforcement legwork and extensive use of investigative grand juries. State officials regularly seek federal assistance in bringing hate crime offenders to justice under current law. This bill expands the opportunity for the Justice Department to provide that support. Our bill fully respects the primary role of State and local law enforcement in responding to violent crime. The vast majority of hate crimes will continue to be prosecuted at the state and local level. The bill authorizes the Justice Department to assist state and local authorities in hate crimes cases, it authorizes Federal prosecutions only when a State does not have jurisdiction, or when it asks the Federal Government to take jurisdiction, or when it fails to act against hate-motivated violence. In other words, the bill establishes an appropriate back-up for State and local law enforcement to deal with hate crimes in cases where states request assistance, or cases that would not otherwise be effectively investigated and prosecuted. The symbolic value of the bill is equally important. Hate crimes target whole communities, not just individuals. They are intended to send messages of fear that extend beyond the moment and beyond the individual victim of the attack. Attacking people because they are gay, or African-American, or Jewish, or any other criteria in the bill is bigotry at its worst. Hate crimes are designed to de-humanize and diminish, and we must say loud and clear to those inclined to commit them that they'll go to prison if they do. The vast majority of us in Congress recognized the importance of making that statement last year. This year, we can make the statement even louder, by turning this bill into law.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, hate crimes are a violation of everything our country stands for. They send the poisonous message that some Americans deserve to be victimized solely because of who they are. They're basically acts of domestic terrorism. Hate crimes have an impact far greater than the impact on their individual victim. They're crimes against entire communities, against the whole Nation, and against the fundamental ideals on which America was founded. The vast majority of Congress agrees. Last year, Senator Smith and I offered the same measure. The Senate passed it as an amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill by a nearly 2-1 bi-partisan vote of 65-33. By a vote of 213-186, the House instructed its conferees to support it in the conference report on the bill. Unfortunately, House leaders insisted that the provision be dropped in conference. This week, Senator Smith and I are introducing the identical bill. The provision is supported by a broad coalition of law enforcement and civil rights groups, including the National Sheriff's Association, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Anti-Defamation League, and the National Center for Victims of Crime, and I'm optimistic the bill would have the same broad support it did before. Those who commit hate crimes prey on the vulnerable and terrorize them, because they can't protect themselves. If our Nation stands for anything, it's to protect the vulnerable. We know that hate crimes are a serious problem that continues to plague us. According to FBI statistics, over 9,000 people were victims of hate crimes reported in the United States in 2003. That's almost 25 people victimized a day, every day, based on their race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnic background, or disability. Sadly, these F.B.I. statistics show only part of the problem, because many hate crimes go unreported. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit organization that monitors hate groups and extremist activity, estimates that the actual number of hate crimes committed in the United States each year is closer to 50,000. Congress can't ignore the problem. Our bill will strengthen the ability of Federal, State, and local governments to investigate and prosecute these vicious and senseless crimes. Current Federal law, obviously isn't adequate to protect our citizens. It contains excessive restrictions requiring proof that victims were attacked because they were engaged in certain ``federally protected activities.'' It doesn't include violence committed because of person's sexual orientation, gender, or disability. It covers only hate crimes based on race, religion, or ethnic background. The federally protected activity requirement is outdated, unwise, and unnecessary. In June 2003, three men saw 6 Latino teenagers in a family restaurant on Long Island. The teenagers, 3 boys and 3 girls, between 13-15 years old, knew each other from church and baseball teams. They were there together to celebrate the birthday of one of the girls, whose parents made her take her 13 year old sister along as ``chaperone.'' A parent dropped them all off in his mini-van and promised to pick them up after dinner and a movie. But, moments after leaving, he received a panicked phone call from one of the children, telling him they'd been attacked. As the group entered the restaurant, three men were leaving the bar, after drinking there for hours. For no apparent reason, they assaulted the teenagers, pummeling one boy and severing a tendon in his hand with a sharp weapon. During the attack, the men screamed racial slurs and one identified himself as a skinhead. The children, who had never experienced anything like this, have been traumatized ever since. Two of the defendants were tried under current Federal law for committing a hate crime and were acquitted. The Jurors said they acquitted them because the government had not proved the attack took place because the victims were engaged in a federally protected activity--using the restaurant. The bill we introduce today eliminates the federally protected activity requirement. Under this bill, these defendants who walked out of the front door of the courthouse free that day would almost certainly have left in handcuffs through a different door. The bill also recognizes that hate crimes are committed against people because of their sexual orientation, their gender, and their disability. Current Federal law didn't protect gay campers in Honolulu from attempted murder when their tents were doused with a flammable liquid and set on fire because they were gay. It didn't protect Brandon Teena, in Humboldt, NE who was raped and beaten by two male friends when they discovered that he was living as a male but was anatomically female. The local sheriff refused to arrest the offenders, and they later shot and stabbed Brandon to death. Current law did not protect a 23-year-old mentally disabled man in Port Monmouth, New Jersey who was kidnapped by 9 men and women and tortured for three hours before being dumped in the woods because he was disabled. Our bill will close all these flagrant loopholes. In addition to removing the federally protected activity requirement and expanding the class of protected people: The bill protects State interests with a strict certification procedure that requires the Federal Government to consult with local officials before bringing a Federal case. It offers Federal assistance to help State and local law enforcement investigate and prosecute hate crimes in any of the categories. It offers training grants for local law enforcement. It amends the Federal Hate Crime Statistics Act to add gender to the existing categories of race, religion, ethnic background, sexual orientation, and disability. A strong Federal role in prosecuting hate crimes is essential for practical and symbolic reasons. In practical terms, the bill will have a real world impact on actual criminal investigations and prosecutions by State and Federal officials. The presence or absence of the ``federally protected activity'' requirement frequently determines whether state and local resources must be used to prosecute these crimes or whether the Federal Government can bring its full weight to bear on the case. Hate crime investigations tend to be expensive, requiring considerable law enforcement legwork and extensive use of investigative grand juries. State officials regularly seek federal assistance in bringing hate crime offenders to justice under current law. This bill expands the opportunity for the Justice Department to provide that support. Our bill fully respects the primary role of State and local law enforcement in responding to violent crime. The vast majority of hate crimes will continue to be prosecuted at the state and local level. The bill authorizes the Justice Department to assist state and local authorities in hate crimes cases, it authorizes Federal prosecutions only when a State does not have jurisdiction, or when it asks the Federal Government to take jurisdiction, or when it fails to act against hate-motivated violence. In other words, the bill establishes an appropriate back-up for State and local law enforcement to deal with hate crimes in cases where states request assistance, or cases that would not otherwise be effectively investigated and prosecuted. The symbolic value of the bill is equally important. Hate crimes target whole communities, not just individuals. They are intended to send messages of fear that extend beyond the moment and beyond the individual victim of the attack. Attacking people because they are gay, or African-American, or Jewish, or any other criteria in the bill is bigotry at its worst. Hate crimes are designed to de-humanize and diminish, and we must say loud and clear to those inclined to commit them that they'll go to prison if they do. The vast majority of us in Congress recognized the importance of making that statement last year. This year, we can make the statement even louder, by turning this bill into law.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, today, with my distinguished colleague Senator Isakson, I am pleased to introduce the Improving Access to Workers' Compensation for Injured Federal Workers Act. Our federal employees serve the American public. Day in and day out, they keep our homeland secure, protect our environment, and oversee and care for those in need. They ensure the safety of our food and our medicines, deliver our daily mail, and undertake countless other duties that, while they sometimes go unnoticed, should never be taken for granted. More than two-and-a-half million of these workers are covered by the Federal Employees' Compensation Act (FECA). In addition to compensating workers for lost wages, FECA provides medical treatment to Federal workers injured on the job, to help them return to health and to work quickly. FECA is an effective and fair compensation system. This bill will make it even better by expanding it to cover services provided by nurse practitioners and physician assistants. This will protect many workers who are now without access to needed care when a job-related injury strikes. Nurse practitioners and physicians' assistants play growing role in medical care, with more than 100,000 nurse practitioners and 46,000 physicians' assistants across the country. They provide crucial services--diagnosing and treating illnesses, ordering and interpreting diagnostic and laboratory tests and educating and counseling patients and families. In many States they can also prescribe medications. Nurse practitioners and physicians' assistants provide these top quality services in a cost-effective way. The Department of Health and Human Services reports that an office visit to see a nurse practitioner costs 10 percent to 40 percent less than comparable services from a physician, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls physicians' assistants ``cost-effective and productive members of the healthcare team.'' While their impact is felt throughout our nation, these care providers play a particularly important role in rural and low-income urban areas, which are often underserved by doctors. In fact, in some rural areas, an injured Federal worker may be required to travel more than one-hundred miles to see a physician and receive care that is covered under FECA. This bill would expand Federal workers' service options to include physicians' assistants or nurse practitioners who are more likely to be located nearby. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill and recognizing the invaluable work done by our Federal employees and the high-quality cost-effective care provided by nurse practitioners and physicians' assistants.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, the bill we are introducing today is urgently needed to protect the pension benefits of workers across America. A decent retirement in today's world depends on Social Security, private pensions, and private savings. But today's working families find their retirement severely threatened. President Bush wants to privatize Social Security. Private savings are at an all-time low, and now private pensions are in great jeopardy, too. This challenge has been brought home all too clearly by United Airlines' recent announcement that it intends to end its pension plans and turn them over to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. The pensions of over 120,000 workers are at stake. Over $3 billion in their benefits are not guaranteed by the corporation, and the future pensions they have been promised will be lost as well. These hard-working Americans include thousands of flight attendants like Patrice Anderson, who have made only a modest wage throughout their working lives and for whom ``the possible loss of hundreds of dollars a month in old age changes a dignified retirement into a subsistence-level retirement.'' The loss is particularly painful because so many of the employees have accepted lower pay or given back wages and other benefits in order to keep their pension plans. Marilyn King of California worked for United for 25 years. She says: ``I used to be proud of working for United. Now, I am embarrassed and angry. I am angry that we took 25 percent in pay cuts, that we gave other concessions; and then our COO and CEO get their bonuses and perks.'' We have heard from families and workers across the country. In Massachusetts, Kevin Creighan and his wife Cathy Hampton in Lynn have spent a lifetime with United, ``working hard, earning a living, and all along expecting a pension.'' They hoped to retire in 7 years, with a combined 70 years of loyal service between them. Now, if they want the retirement they were promised by the United Airlines pension plan, they will have to work for an additional 15 years. George Raymond of Arizona retired at the age of 60 after 38 years. He writes that because of this pension termination, he will not be able to afford his medical bills. Richard Myer of California retired after 32 years as a United pilot, and now he has to go back to work and sell his home to support his children and his elderly father-in-law. Americans who work hard and play by the rules should not be victimized by these broken promises. No wonder they feel betrayed. They share the view of Robert Lamica of Virginia, who says, ``I kept my promise to United for 36 years by working in rain, snow, heat, and whatever else nature would throw our way . . . My back and knees have been destroyed along with my ability to get another job . . . We need not be left on the curb just because United can.'' These loyal men and women cannot turn back the clock and make different decisions. But Congress can stop that clock and reach a fair solution. This legislation we are introducing will prevent bankrupt companies from abandoning their pension plans for the next 6 months. Our action will also ease the growing threat to all defined benefit pension plans. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation estimates that if it takes over the remaining airline defined benefit pension plans, 90 percent of the claims it must cover will come from airline companies or steel companies, even though such plans include only 5 percent of the employees covered by the corporation. The legislation will buy time for us to develop real solutions for the serious problems of these ailing industries. I urge my colleagues to join me in support of this bill. We owe it to all these hard working Americans whose retirement has been put at risk.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, would the Chair remind me when I have 2 minutes left, please.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is premature for this nomination even to be brought up before the Senate until we have the opportunity to see all the obviously relevant information on Mr. Bolton's record. I want to congratulate our friends and colleagues, Senator Biden, Senator Dodd, Senator Kerry, Senator Sarbanes, and the other members of the committee, for the outstanding job they have done on this nomination. The obvious conclusion from the administration's stonewalling is that the documents being withheld from the Senate contain nothing to support the nomination and will only make it even clearer that Mr. Bolton is the wrong choice for this extremely important position. The United Nations is the world's preeminent diplomatic body. We need a representative there who is a strong and effective leader, who believes in diplomacy, and who has a proven record of using diplomacy to advance America's foreign policy and national security objectives. Now more than ever, America needs to put our best face forward to the international community. We can--and should--do far better than John Bolton. Jeane Kirkpatrick, who served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President Reagan, has spoken of the need to approach the job of U.N. ambassador in a ``low key, quiet, persuasive and consensus- building way.'' As she says: John Bolton may do diplomatic jobs for the U.S. government, but John is not a diplomat. In fact, John Bolton is more a bully than a diplomat. His confirmation hearings suggest that on many occasions he twisted the intelligence to fit his views and wrongly pressured analysts to produce intelligence conclusions at odds with the facts. He continually sought to exaggerate the intelligence about Cuba's possible biological weapons activities and support for terrorism. He continually sought to exaggerate Syria's nuclear activities beyond what the intelligence analysts regarded as accurate. Rather than accept the analysis produced by the intelligence community, Mr. Bolton insisted on advancing his own views and retaliated against those who disagreed with him. He should be held accountable for this behavior, not rewarded and promoted. The lessons of the Iraq war are abundantly clear. We need to make decisions based on facts and sound analysis of intelligence. We need to encourage intelligence analysts to ``speak truth to power'' when intelligence is in danger of being distorted, manipulated, or misrepresented. We can't demand the results we want and try to fire people who refuse to go along. But that's precisely what Mr. Bolton repeatedly tried to do. He tried to fire Christian Westermann a State Department intelligence analyst in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, who disputed the misleading language that Bolton tried to use about Cuba and biological weapons. In another incident, the National Intelligence Officer for Latin America had said that a speech by Mr. Bolton on Cuba did not accurately reflect the assessment of the intelligence community. So what did John Bolton do? He personally went to the CIA to try to have him fired. Mr. Bolton's contempt for anyone with opposing views was not limited to intelligence officers who disagreed with him. When two State Department officers in the nonproliferation Bureau disagreed over policy, he sought their removal. He accused Rexon Ryu, a career civil servant, of intentionally withholding a cable on the U.N. inspection process in Iraq from his office. Nine months later, John Bolton denied Mr. Ryu a significant new assignment as the point person for the Nonproliferation Bureau for the upcoming G-8 summit. In the case of a State Department lawyer, Mr. Bolton tried to remove him from a legal case on China sanctions, based on a misunderstanding of a position the lawyer had taken. These are not isolated incidents of disgruntled employees. They represent a clear and troubling pattern of a bully who repeatedly tried to silence opposition by attempting to intimidate analysts and subordinates into conforming to his views. Sadly, his view is not one that envisions a great and important role for the United Nations. On the contrary, Mr. Bolton has shown nothing but disdain for the United Nations. He has continued to articulate a vision of a go-it-alone foreign policy. Speaking to the World Federalist Association in February 2004, he said: There is no such thing as the United Nations. . . There is an international community, that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world and that is the United States, when it suits our interest and when we can get others to go along. He said: The Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories. If you lost 10 stories today, it wouldn't make a bit of difference. These are not the views of a person who is supposed to represent America's diplomatic interests in the international community. These are not the views of an individual who, as the Administration argues, is well suited to reform the United Nations. These views are likely to make Mr. Bolton less effective, not more effective, pursuing our interests at the United Nations. We can't expect the support of other nations on issues that matter to the United States, if we show nothing but contempt for other nations. In fact, on one highly important issue where diplomacy is desperately needed--North Korea--Mr. Bolton has been consistently wrong. The nuclear threat from North Korea continues to grow. North Korea is already the greatest proliferator of ballistic missiles. Desperate, and strapped for cash, the threat is very real that North Korea could be a source of nuclear material for Al Qaeda terrorists. We agreed to the Six-Party Talks, but have not effectively engaged the North Koreans. At Mr. Bolton's urging, our policy's been AWOL so far. The results may be deadly. When President Bush came to office, North Korea's plutonium program was inactive. Its nuclear rods were under seal. Then the President called North Korea part of his Axis of Evil. As we prepared for war with Iraq over nuclar weapons that did not exist, we learned that North Korea had begun a secret uranium enrichment program. When we confronted North Korea, but then refused to negotiate with it, North Korea expelled the international inspectors and began producing plutonium for nuclear weapons. On the eve of war with Iraq, North Korea pulled out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. At the beginning of the Bush administration, North Korea was already thought to have two nuclear weapons. They are now believed to have up to eight such weapons--and possible more--and they may well be preparing for a nuclear test. One of our worst national nightmares is nuclear material or even nuclear weapons in the hands of al Qaeda, with North Korea as their supplier. The person guiding President Bush's policy on North Korea was John Bolton. His policy's been a failure, yet the administration now wants to promote him to be our Ambassador to the U.N. Mr. Bolton was not able to advance effective diplomacy as Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, and there is no reason to believe he can advance America's interests at the U.N. The challenges facing America are serious--terrorism, war, ethnic conflict, ancient and modern rivalries, disease and poverty, human rights--all these are still the pressing daily realities--for peoples throughout the world. The need for a strong United Nations as an effective international organization and a strong U.S. Ambassador to advance our interests is clear and compelling. As Franklin Roosevelt said about America in 1945: We have learned that we cannot live alone, at peace; that our own well-being is dependent on the well-being of nations far away . . . . We have learned to be citizens of the world, members of the human community. It is not a Republican or Democratic or American community. It is a world community. In the age of instant global communication, trade zones that span hemispheres, transnational criminal gangs, international terrorism, and the prospect of nuclear devastation--the need of nations to work together is greater than ever. The challenges we face today are too complex, too immense, and too pervasive for the United States or any nation to face alone. The United Nations is the one and only organization through which the nations of the world can link their unique strengths in a realistic hope of building a peaceful future for all humanity. We need a representative at the United Nations who supports that vision and is committed to that future for us all. John Bolton is not the person for that job, and I urge my colleagues to vote against him.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Nine minutes.

Mr. KENNEDY. Reserving the right to object, may I ask that Senator Obama be recognized subsequent to that?

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, during the floor debate on the recently passed bankruptcy bill, an important letter from a number of medical and law professors regarding the high number of debtors who are forced into bankruptcy due to the cost of health care was discussed on numerous occasions. The letter was addressed to Senator Grassley and points out a number of the professors' concerns with the findings of the U.S. Trustee Program related to medical debt. Since it is such a valuable document, it is important that this letter be printed in the Record so that all people have access to it. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, today, with my distinguished colleague Senator Isakson, I am pleased to introduce the Improving Access to Workers' Compensation for Injured Federal Workers Act. Our federal employees serve the American public. Day in and day out, they keep our homeland secure, protect our environment, and oversee and care for those in need. They ensure the safety of our food and our medicines, deliver our daily mail, and undertake countless other duties that, while they sometimes go unnoticed, should never be taken for granted. More than two-and-a-half million of these workers are covered by the Federal Employees' Compensation Act (FECA). In addition to compensating workers for lost wages, FECA provides medical treatment to Federal workers injured on the job, to help them return to health and to work quickly. FECA is an effective and fair compensation system. This bill will make it even better by expanding it to cover services provided by nurse practitioners and physician assistants. This will protect many workers who are now without access to needed care when a job-related injury strikes. Nurse practitioners and physicians' assistants play growing role in medical care, with more than 100,000 nurse practitioners and 46,000 physicians' assistants across the country. They provide crucial services--diagnosing and treating illnesses, ordering and interpreting diagnostic and laboratory tests and educating and counseling patients and families. In many States they can also prescribe medications. Nurse practitioners and physicians' assistants provide these top quality services in a cost-effective way. The Department of Health and Human Services reports that an office visit to see a nurse practitioner costs 10 percent to 40 percent less than comparable services from a physician, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls physicians' assistants ``cost-effective and productive members of the healthcare team.'' While their impact is felt throughout our nation, these care providers play a particularly important role in rural and low-income urban areas, which are often underserved by doctors. In fact, in some rural areas, an injured Federal worker may be required to travel more than one-hundred miles to see a physician and receive care that is covered under FECA. This bill would expand Federal workers' service options to include physicians' assistants or nurse practitioners who are more likely to be located nearby. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill and recognizing the invaluable work done by our Federal employees and the high-quality cost-effective care provided by nurse practitioners and physicians' assistants.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, the bill we are introducing today is urgently needed to protect the pension benefits of workers across America. A decent retirement in today's world depends on Social Security, private pensions, and private savings. But today's working families find their retirement severely threatened. President Bush wants to privatize Social Security. Private savings are at an all-time low, and now private pensions are in great jeopardy, too. This challenge has been brought home all too clearly by United Airlines' recent announcement that it intends to end its pension plans and turn them over to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. The pensions of over 120,000 workers are at stake. Over $3 billion in their benefits are not guaranteed by the corporation, and the future pensions they have been promised will be lost as well. These hard-working Americans include thousands of flight attendants like Patrice Anderson, who have made only a modest wage throughout their working lives and for whom ``the possible loss of hundreds of dollars a month in old age changes a dignified retirement into a subsistence-level retirement.'' The loss is particularly painful because so many of the employees have accepted lower pay or given back wages and other benefits in order to keep their pension plans. Marilyn King of California worked for United for 25 years. She says: ``I used to be proud of working for United. Now, I am embarrassed and angry. I am angry that we took 25 percent in pay cuts, that we gave other concessions; and then our COO and CEO get their bonuses and perks.'' We have heard from families and workers across the country. In Massachusetts, Kevin Creighan and his wife Cathy Hampton in Lynn have spent a lifetime with United, ``working hard, earning a living, and all along expecting a pension.'' They hoped to retire in 7 years, with a combined 70 years of loyal service between them. Now, if they want the retirement they were promised by the United Airlines pension plan, they will have to work for an additional 15 years. George Raymond of Arizona retired at the age of 60 after 38 years. He writes that because of this pension termination, he will not be able to afford his medical bills. Richard Myer of California retired after 32 years as a United pilot, and now he has to go back to work and sell his home to support his children and his elderly father-in-law. Americans who work hard and play by the rules should not be victimized by these broken promises. No wonder they feel betrayed. They share the view of Robert Lamica of Virginia, who says, ``I kept my promise to United for 36 years by working in rain, snow, heat, and whatever else nature would throw our way . . . My back and knees have been destroyed along with my ability to get another job . . . We need not be left on the curb just because United can.'' These loyal men and women cannot turn back the clock and make different decisions. But Congress can stop that clock and reach a fair solution. This legislation we are introducing will prevent bankrupt companies from abandoning their pension plans for the next 6 months. Our action will also ease the growing threat to all defined benefit pension plans. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation estimates that if it takes over the remaining airline defined benefit pension plans, 90 percent of the claims it must cover will come from airline companies or steel companies, even though such plans include only 5 percent of the employees covered by the corporation. The legislation will buy time for us to develop real solutions for the serious problems of these ailing industries. I urge my colleagues to join me in support of this bill. We owe it to all these hard working Americans whose retirement has been put at risk.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is a privilege to join my colleagues Senators Dodd, Cochran, Levin and Akaka in introducing the International and Foreign Languages Studies Act to increase study abroad and increase foreign language study here at home for undergraduate and graduate students. The study of foreign language and foreign cultures is more important than ever. Yet in 2003, the number of fellowships awarded for such studies was 30 percent less than the high point in 1967. Only 40 percent of undergraduates report taking any foreign language coursework and only 20 percent have studied abroad. Learning another language is more than a desirable educational goal. It is a national security goal as well. We need more students to pursue other languages, especially the lesser taught languages like Chinese, Japanese, Farsi, Dari Persian and Arabic, which will be critical for international business as well as for national defense. In addition to supporting language studies, the bill builds bridges with overseas universities to promote research and training abroad for American students. It supports the expansion of the Centers for International Business Education, and increases the scope of the Institute for International and Public Policy by creating an accelerated track for PhD students in key areas. This bill is an important part of America's participation in globalization, and I urge my colleagues to strongly support it.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is a privilege to join my colleagues Senators Dodd, Cochran, Levin and Akaka in introducing the International and Foreign Languages Studies Act to increase study abroad and increase foreign language study here at home for undergraduate and graduate students. The study of foreign language and foreign cultures is more important than ever. Yet in 2003, the number of fellowships awarded for such studies was 30 percent less than the high point in 1967. Only 40 percent of undergraduates report taking any foreign language coursework and only 20 percent have studied abroad. Learning another language is more than a desirable educational goal. It is a national security goal as well. We need more students to pursue other languages, especially the lesser taught languages like Chinese, Japanese, Farsi, Dari Persian and Arabic, which will be critical for international business as well as for national defense. In addition to supporting language studies, the bill builds bridges with overseas universities to promote research and training abroad for American students. It supports the expansion of the Centers for International Business Education, and increases the scope of the Institute for International and Public Policy by creating an accelerated track for PhD students in key areas. This bill is an important part of America's participation in globalization, and I urge my colleagues to strongly support it.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I understand that under the previous agreement, I have 15 minutes. Is that correct? Mr. President, I will yield myself 15 minutes. I ask consent to be able to proceed for 15 minutes.

Mr. KENNEDY. I ask the Chair if he will be good enough to let me know when there is 3 minutes left.

Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I will take a few moments of the time of the Senate, and for those who are watching this debate, to try to put this whole issue of what I consider to be an arrogant grab for power in some perspective. I urge my colleagues, perhaps over the course of the weekend, take 2 or 3 hours and reread the debates on the Constitutional Convention, about how our Founding Fathers wanted the selection of judges for the courts of this country to be done. There were three different occasions during the Constitutional Convention when our Founding Fathers considered who should appoint the judges who were going to serve on the courts of this country. The first two times the Founding Fathers debated this and discussed this, they made a unanimous recommendation that it would be solely the Senate of the United States that would be the sole judge for nominating and approving judges who were going to serve on the courts. Then, as the Constitutional Convention came to an end, 8 days before the end of the Constitutional Convention, they came back and they were reviewing the totality of their work and at that time they made a judgment and decision that was virtually unanimous that they would provide a shared responsibility between the executive and the Senate of the United States. No one can read the debates of the Constitutional Convention and not understand that the Senate of the United States is effectively, in the eyes of the Founding Fathers, a coequal partner in the naming of judges. I know it has been fashionable around here for many years, particularly for those of the majority party--and I have seen it done even on our side when we were the majority party--for a Democrat to say: Look, if the President of the United States nominates, there has to be a heavy burden on any individual to vote against it. It ought to be automatic. It ought to be effectively a rubberstamp. That has never been my position. I have always felt and understood that we have an independent judgment and decision as charged by our Founding Fathers to exercise our own good judgment. That has been the history of the Senate. We have listened--I have--to a lot of debates, saying what we are doing is going back to the original intent of our Founding Fathers. That does not happen to be factually true. I reviewed yesterday those who have held the seat I hold in the Senate. Going back to John Quincy Adams, going back to Charles Sumner, going back to Daniel Webster--to President Kennedy--the series of Supreme Court nominees they considered, and those they voted for and those they voted against: there never was a single time when any Senator from Massachusetts was effectively muzzled, silenced, gagged when they were expressing their conscience, their view about the members going to the Supreme Court or the circuit courts, not in the history of this body, never. But under the proposal of the majority leader, that will no longer be the case. That no longer will be the case. It is not only the silencing, the muzzling and gagging of any of the Members in here; it is breaking the rules in the middle of the game. We have parliamentary rules, like any other legislative body, and we have ways of changing and altering those rules. They are all laid out. I will mention them briefly. There is a way to change the rules if we do not like them and we can follow them and conform them to our views. By the Senate rules we can alter and change them. Is that what is going to be before the Senate in the nuclear option? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. There is a way to change them, but not the way the Republican leadership and this administration want to do it. They are effectively tearing up the rules. They are basically running roughshod over the Senate rules, the institution that has served this Nation well for 224 years. That is what is being proposed. When all is said and done, we mention all these other past histories of activities, this is effectively what is being done. I think most Americans may take issue with what happens here in the Senate. They may agree with the activities of the Senate or may differ with them. But one thing in which the American people have some degree of confidence is their basic institutions of Government. With the proposal by the majority leader, we are rending asunder the power and the authority that was described in the Constitutional Convention and described in the Constitution for the Senate. That is why people are feeling so strongly about this, many of us feel so strongly about this--because basically we are undermining what our Founding Fathers wanted. This is an issue that has been overhanging the Senate now for some weeks, for some months, in spite of the fact that we have approved 208 of the President's judges: 95 percent, a higher percentage than the previous President Bush. What is suddenly the difference? This President has a higher percentage of his nominees approved than the first President Bush, Bush 1. The difference is a different political climate. There is a radical right out there that is loose in the country. They feel they won the Presidency, the House of Representatives, the Senate of the United States and, by God, they are going to take over the independent judiciary. That is what this is all about. Meantime, while the so-called nuclear option has been hanging out over the Senate, what in the world have we been doing for the last 5 months? January, February, March, April, and now the third week in May? When I go back to Massachusetts, the people there are talking still about job security and its uncertainty. They are talking about whether they are going to continue to be able to have health insurance. They are talking about escalating prices of prescription drugs. They are talking about the increased costs of tuition, whether their children are going to be able to go to college. They are talking about what is happening in the schools and the school dropout problems and the fact so many classes in our Nation don't have well-trained teachers. They are talking about the needs for special education teachers. They are talking about supplementary services for children going to high schools that were guaranteed in the No Child Left Behind Act and too many of our school districts are not doing; that is what they are talking about. But what have we been doing? Waiting for the nuclear option. Which means what? Tear up the rules and we pass class action bills benefitting corporate America, we pass bankruptcy bills that will help the credit card industry. We did take 2 weeks, and deservedly so, on the supplemental appropriations, and we included an amendment to add some armor for our troops over there, of which I highly approved. That is it. That is the record. Nothing we really care about. Why? Because we have been absorbed with the nuclear option, changing and altering the rules. Mr. President, 95 percent of approval of this President's nominees has been achieved. I frankly feel a great deal of this responsibility is right down at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. I can remember in January of this year, in the wake of the conclusion of the election and all of us said, This President won. We congratulate him. We have to bring the country back together. I certainly voiced that. My colleague, Senator Kerry, certainly voiced that. What happened? The ballots are barely cast and the votes are hardly counted, and this President sends up the nominees that have been debated, discussed, had hearings, and voted on in the Senate and said: You have to pass these, Senate, or we will change the rules. I have taken the time of the Senate in going over the qualifications of these. These are not just ordinary nominees. I have gone over these in some detail. These nominees are radical. I would say, radical, outside the mainstream. If you have a nominee such as Mr. Pryor, who thinks we ought to repeal the Voting Rights Act, I think he is out of the mainstream. What he says in his legal papers is in complete conflict with and has been rejected unanimously by the Supreme Court. He does not understand the Americans With Disabilities Act. He does not understand that Republicans and Democrats alike voted for the Americans With Disabilities Act to bring those that are challenged, mentally and physically, into the mainstream of American society. We spent weeks and months and years to pass that legislation. This is not one Senator who will vote for someone that absolutely wants to undermine and eviscerate it, destroy it, and end it. That is what Mr. Pryor's positions lead to. So these are not people that are in the mainstream. We have expressed that. We ought to be able to express it. But that is not satisfactory to this administration. No, no. They want to change the rules. That is what this will be all about. They are effectively saying: Look we have nominated, and you are going to go ahead and approve. We have 224 years where they have not been able to silence us, and now they will be able to silence us. But not with this Senator's support. These are the rules, and I welcome any on the other side to dispute them, and I invite them to put that in the Record. First of all, they will have to put the Vice President of the United States in the Presiding Officer's chair. There will not be another Senator in that chair to make the ruling because it is not going by the rules of the Parliamentarian. Do listeners understand that? It is akin to going to the football game and the referee and the umpire call the penalty or the touchdown and someone else from the crowd says, no, no, that does not count, and for us it recognizes the ``someone else'' in the crowd. That is what they are doing. They will replace a Member of the Senate. We have, as we do now, the distinguished Senator from Tennessee sitting in the chair and presiding over the Senate. But that will not be true that particular day. Next they will have to break paragraph 1 of rule V which requires 1 day's specific written notice if a Senator intends to try to suspend or change a rule. And then they break paragraph 2, rule V, which provides that the Senate rules remain in force from Congress to Congress unless they are changed in accordance with existing rules. Then they have to break paragraph 2, of rule XXII, which requires a motion signed by 16 Senators, a 2-day wait, and a three-fifths vote to close debate on a nomination. Then they have to break rule XXII requirement of a petition, a 2-day wait, and a two-thirds vote to stop debate on a rules change. They have to break scores of the rules. It will make a sham of the rules and parliamentary procedures of this Senate. It is wrong. We are witnessing in this debate an arrogant power grab by the Republican right. This is what happens when the rightwing of the Republican Party calls the tune for the Republican Party as a whole. We are spending days and weeks debating five rightwing judges but not 5 minutes on what counts in most people's lives: Secure jobs, healthy families, educational opportunity. Those are not the values and priorities we see today from the White House and this Republican Congress. To them, history does not matter. Mainstream values do not matter. Our commitment is to working families, and that does not matter. What the Republican Party cares about today is putting a rightwing agenda ahead of mainstream values, corporate interests ahead of public interests, and the agenda of the privileged few ahead of the American dream for all. We, as Senators, have a choice as well. We can break the rules and run roughshod over our constitutional system of checks and balances or we can seek accommodation and compromise for the good of our democracy and the strength of our Nation. The one thing standing between the White House and total control of the Congress and the courts is the Senate's right to full and fair debate. Let's not give it up. As many of us have said, if Republicans persist in the course they have set, they will destroy the ``compact of comity'' that enables the Senate to fulfill its constitutional responsibilities. Outside the Capitol, the gravity of that danger may not be self- evident. ``Comity'' may be an unused word today, but for 200 years it has been the lifeblood of daily life in the Senate. In the Senate, comity is the glue that binds us to one another and to that small but brilliant group of Framers who met, over two centuries ago, and conceived of this institution. They certainly knew what comity was: they came from totally different views of government. They labored ceaselessly, in the heat of a Philadelphia summer, in the ultimate American Government Seminar, until they created a government that was reliable, resilient--resistant to attack from within and without. Comity among the Framers--their overriding ``agreement to agree'' despite their deep differences--informed and nourished their efforts. They worked especially hard to design the Senate. Their debates were all about great challenges: What size would be right to enable the Senate to serve as a check on the other House and the President too, and still place personal responsibility for their actions on individual Senators? How long should each Senate term last, to set the proper balance between the strong, independent Senate they wanted and the potential tyranny of an aristocratic upper House, insulated from popular opinion? Who would make better judicial choices, the Senate or the Executive? Fortunately for us today, their debates were not just theoretical. They were very real and very practical. The Framers understood they were creating a new experiment in the history of government as they worked to combine their diverse views into a single concise blueprint. Despite vigorous and fundamental disagreements at the start, they retained their respect for one another, their capacity for reason, their shared concept of what this Nation could be, and what its government should be. Consensus was not just a goal, but a necessity. Compromise not just an option, but a cornerstone of their creation. It is not an exaggeration to say that if that ``compact of comity'' is not preserved, the Senate and the Government will suffer mightily. Our vital role in the machinery of checks and balances will fade, and the nation will be left diminished. What would the Framers have done if faced with the challenge we face? They would clearly have counseled respect and moderation. It is not respectful or moderate to suggest, as one of our colleagues did, that judges may have it coming to them if their decisions outrage some people. It is not respectful or moderate to suggest, as the majority leader did yesterday, that Senators are equivalent to the assassins of judges because they strongly criticize the political or ideological views of judicial nominees. As part of its advice and consent function, the Senate has done that since 1795, when it rejected George Washington's nomination of John Rutledge to be Chief Justice. The majority leader's use of the word ``assassinate'' was especially unfortunate, coming in the very day that Judge Lefkow of Chicago was testifying to our Judiciary Committee about the brutal murders of her family members. The Founders also would have counseled us about communication. We work with members of the other party every day. We talk to them every day. But I can't think of one of them who has come to me over the past 2 years to say, ``This judicial nomination issue is headed the wrong way--we ought to start talking about how to preserve our institution's strengths and traditions, and solve the problems that these judicial nominations are creating for us all.'' We all know it is very late in this contest of nuclear ``chicken,'' but it is never too late to try. The Framers would also have told us to minimize the distortions and respect the truth. Again, and again, we are told that there was no Republican-led filibuster of the Fortas nomination to be Chief Justice in 1968. There are still three of us in the Senate today, who were in the Senate then, and who know the truth firsthand. It demeans the Senate and discredits the debater when someone parrots the bizarrely erroneous White House talking points denying such a filibuster, without having the grace to check the facts. The Founders would also have told us to take extremely seriously what James Madison in Federalist No. 62, called ``the senatorial trust,' which require[es] a greater extent of information and stability of character.'' As Madison understood, Senators are not the owners of this institution, but we are more than just its occupants. We are, its trustees, with an awesome responsibility to protect that trust--this body--the Senate. That means we must preserve what makes it work well-- like extended debate and the super-majority cloture rule. A central part of that senatorial trust is standing up to the President when he overreaches in the exercise of his power, as he has done with the few, but important, still hotly contested circuit nominees. Finally, the Framers would say that our endangered senatorial trust needs comity more than ever in our day-to-day activities and relationships. As Madison stated, the comity the Framers had in mind was--``the result, not of theory, but `of a spirit of amity, and that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensable.' '' That is what we must aspire to. That is what we must accomplish if we are not only to solve our present dilemma but leave this place as least as fine an institution as we found it. Who are the nominees that the Republicans so want confirmed that Senator Frist is willing to violate the rules of the Senate? They include Janice Rogers Brown, who has been nominated to the very important DC Circuit, which is widely regarded as the most important court of all the courts of appeals, and whose decisions affect the rights of all Americans. She has a compelling personal story, which all of us respect. But confirmation to the DC Circuit requires more than a compelling personal story. It requires a record of clear commitment to upholding the rights of all Americans. It requires a record of clear dedication to the rule of law--not remaking the law to fit a particular political view. Janice Rogers Brown fails this basic test. Her record on the California Supreme Court makes clear that she's a judicial activist who will roll back basic rights. Her record shows a deep hostility to civil rights, to workers' rights, to consumer protection, and to a wide variety of governmental actions in many other areas--the very issues that predominate in the DC Circuit. She has repeatedly voiced contempt for the very idea of democratic self-government. She has stated that ``where government moves in, community retreats [and] civil society disintegrates.'' She has said that government leads to ``families under siege, war in the streets.'' In her view, ``when government advances . . . freedom is imperiled [and] civilization itself jeopardized.'' She has criticized the New Deal, which gave us Social Security, the minimum wage, and fair labor laws. She has questioned whether age discrimination laws benefit the public interest. She has even said that ``Today's senior citizens blithely cannibalize their grandchildren because they have a right to get as much `free' stuff as the political system will permit them to extract.'' Yet my colleagues say we're wrong to worry about putting Janice Rogers Brown on the DC Circuit, which is widely regarded as the most important court of appeals, and is just a heartbeat away from the Supreme Court. No one with these views should be given a lifetime appointment to the Federal court of appeals, and certainly not to the Federal court most responsible for cases affecting government action. It is no wonder that an organization seeking to dismantle Social Security is running ads supporting her nomination to the second most powerful court in the country. In the area of civil rights, Justice Brown has also written opinions that would roll back basic protections. In a case involving ethnic slurs against Latino workers, Justice Brown wrote that the first amendment prevents courts from stopping ethnic slurs in the workplace, even when those slurs create a hostile work environment in violation of job discrimination laws. She dissented from a holding that victims of discrimination may obtain damages from administrative agencies for their emotional distress. She also wrote an opinion suggesting that Supreme Court decisions upholding affirmative action are inconsistent with laws against discrimination. On workers' rights, she rejected a binding precedent limiting an employer's ability to require workers to submit to drug tests. In another case, she wrote a dissent urging the California Supreme Court to strike down a San Francisco law providing housing assistance to low-income, elderly, and disabled people. In case after case, she has sought to undermine the rights of the American people. It is a travesty that the majority leader is attempting to break the rules of the Senate to confirm such nominees. It takes 67 votes to change Senate rules. Because the majority leader can't win fair and square, he is proposing to break the rules in the middle of the game. We have heard them make every argument in an attempt to disguise their raw abuse of power. They even claim the Constitution prohibits Senators from filibustering judicial nominees. But as Senator Frist, the majority leader, admitted on the floor recently, that's nowhere in the Constitution. Certainly the Republicans didn't believe that when they were filibustering President Clinton's nominees--including when Senator Frist, himself joined in a filibuster of a circuit court nominee in 2000. This misreading of the Constitution and Senate rules is the same kind of distortion we have seen from the nominees they support. We have seen it in Priscilla Owen's opinions twisting the law in an attempt to deny the insurance claim of a heart surgery patient, or to exempt campaign contributors from environmental regulations. We have seen it in Janice Rogers Brown's twisting the Constitution to claim job discrimination laws can't protect Latino workers from ethnic slurs in the workplace. We have seen it in William Pryor's opposition to basic protections for the disabled, voting rights, and family and medical leave--views rejected by the Supreme Court. And we've seen it in William Myers' opinion that cleared the way for an open-pit mine on land sacred to Native Americans--an opinion that a Federal court later said ignored ``well-established canons of statutory construction.'' These nominees do not deserve lifetime appointments to the federal courts, where they have enormous power over the American people. More importantly, the Senate does not deserve the bitter legacy we would leave if we adopt the nuclear option. It is not worth running roughshod over the traditions of this institution for short-term political gain. It is not worth turning our backs on our constitutional role as a check and balance on Presidential appointments to the courts. Alexander Hamilton said this about the need for the Senate to be an independent check on the President's nominations. ``To what purpose [do we] require the co-operation of the Senate? . . . It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters.'' That's what Alexander Hamilton said the Senate should be--a check against overreaching by the President, not a rubber stamp for the President. I urge my colleagues to remember that as United States Senators, we are the keepers of a constitutional trust that is not ours to give away. That trust belongs to the American people. The system of checks and balances protects them. If we give away that trust, we will never get it back. What we are witnessing in this debate is an arrogant power grab by the Republican right. This is what happens when the rightwing of the Republican Party calls the tune for the Republican Party as a whole. We are spending days and weeks debating five rightwing judges, but not 5 minutes on what counts most in people's lives--not 5 minutes on secure jobs, or healthy families, or educational opportunity. Those are not the values and priorities we see today from this White House and this Republican Congress. To them, history doesn't matter. Mainstream values don't matter. Our commitment to working families doesn't matter. What the Republican Party cares about today is putting a rightwing agenda ahead of mainstream values, corporate interests ahead of the public interest, and the agenda of the privileged few ahead of the American dream for all. We have approved 208 of George Bush's nominees to the federal courts. Two hundred eight. But the five right wing judicial nominees at stake in the nuclear option have no business making life-or-death, make-or- break decisions that affect our lives. They are anti-worker, anti-civil rights, anti-disability, anti-senior, anti-consumer, and anti- environment. This is President Bush's moment of truth too. Instead of fanning the right wing flames, the President can end this abuse of power. He can pick judges closer to the center, not from the outer edge. We as Senators have a choice as well. We can break the rules and run roughshod over our constitutional system of checks and balances, or we can seek accommodation and compromise for the good of our democracy and the strength of our Nation. The one thing standing between The White House and total control of Congress and the courts is the Senate's right to full and fair debate. I urge the President, I urge the Republican leadership in the Senate, to heed the timeless words of the prophet Micah who wrote, ``What is good and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?'' Here are some of the rules and precedents that the executive will have to ask its allies in the Senate to break or ignore, in order to turn the Senate into a rubber stamp for nominations: First, they will have to see that the Vice President himself is presiding over the Senate, so that no real Senator needs to endure the embarrassment of publicly violating the Senate's rules and precedents and overriding the Senate Parliamentarian, the way our Presiding Officer will have to do; Next, they will have to break paragraph 1 of rule V, which requires 1 day's specific written notice if a Senator intends to try to suspend or change any rule; Then they will have to break paragraph 2 of rule V, which provides that the Senate rules remain in force from Congress to Congress, unless they are changed in accordance with the existing rules; Then they will have to break paragraph 2 of rule XXII, which requires a motion signed by 16 Senators, a 2-day wait and a \3/5\ vote to close debate on the nomination itself; They will also have to break rule XXII's requirement of a petition, a wait, and a \2/3\ vote to stop debate on a rules change; Then, since they pretend to be proceeding on a constitutional basis, they will have to break the invariable rule of practice that constitutional issues must not be decided by the Presiding Officer but must be referred by the Presiding officer to the entire Senate for full debate and decision; Throughout the process they will have to ignore, or intentionally give incorrect answers to, proper parliamentary inquiries which, if answered in good faith and in accordance with the expert advice of the Parliamentarian, would make clear that they are breaking the rules; Eventually, when their repeated rule-breaking is called into question, they will blatantly, and in dire violation of the norms and mutuality of the Senate, try to ignore the minority leader and other Senators who are seeking recognition to make lawful motions or pose legitimate inquiries or make proper objections. By this time, all pretense of comity, all sense of mutual respect and fairness, all of the normal courtesies that allow the Senate to proceed expeditiously on any business at all will have been destroyed by the pre-emptive Republican nuclear strike on the Senate floor. To accomplish their goal of using a bare majority vote to escape the rule requiring 60 votes to cut off debate, those participating in this charade will, even before the vote, already have terminated the normal functioning of the Senate. They will have broken the Senate compact of comity, and will have launched a preemptive nuclear war. The battle begins when the perpetrators openly, intentionally and repeatedly, break clear rules and precedents of the Senate, refuse to follow the advice of the Parliamentarian, and commit the unpardonable sin of refusing to recognize the minority leader. Their hollow defenses to all these points demonstrate the weakness of their case.