Ted Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, this week, scientists announced the completion of a task that once seemed unimaginable--deciphering the entire DNA sequence of the human genetic code. This amazing accomplishment is likely to affect the 21st century as profoundly as the invention of the computer or the splitting of the atom affected the 20th century. These new discoveries bring remarkable new opportunities for improving health care. But they also carry the danger that genetic information will be used--not to improve the lives of Americans--but as a basis for discrimination. Discrimination on the basis of a person's genetic traits--such as those associated with cancer, Huntington's disease, or sickle cell anemia--is as unacceptable as discrimination on the basis of gender, race, or religion. No American should be denied health insurance or fired from a job based on the results of a genetic test. People need access to genetic testing, in order to seek treatments to extend and improve their lives. Yet, the vast potential of genetic knowledge to improve health care will go unfulfilled, if patients fear that information about their genetic characteristics will be used as the basis for discrimination. Congress has a responsibility to guarantee that private medical information remains private, and that genetic information cannot be used for improper purposes. The Genetic Non-Discrimination in Health Insurance and Employment Act guarantees these protections. It gives the American people the protections they need and deserve against genetic discrimination. It prohibits employers from using genetic information to discriminate in the workplace in hiring, promotion, pay or other workplace rights and privileges. And it gives victims of genetic discrimination the right to seek remedies through legal action. In too many cases today the promise of genetic research is being squandered, because patients rightly fear that information about their genes will be used against them in the workplace or in health insurance. Study after study reports that the vast majority of Americans are concerned about taking a genetic test, for fear that employers will have access to the information. The Journal of the American Medical Association reported that 57 percent of women at risk for breast or ovarian cancer had refused to take a genetic test that could have identified their risk for cancer and assisted them in receiving medical treatment to prevent the onset of these diseases because they feared reprisals for doing so. Tragically, the vast potential of genetic knowledge to improve health care will go unfulfilled if patients fear that information about their genetic characteristics will be used as the basis for job discrimination or other prejudices. And that fear is clearly well-founded. Genetic discrimination is a real and frightening problem, and it is happening right now. Last Saturday reports of mandatory genetic testing of employees made headline news--and the testing was being conducted by one of the largest railroads in this country. One employee was informed by the railroad that he would be fired for refusing to submit to the genetic testing. This is just the tip of the iceberg of what is becoming a routine and pervasive employer practice as genetic testing becomes more accessible and economical. Today, employers and insurers often require and use this information to deny health coverage, refuse a promotion, or reject a job applicant--all in the absence of any symptoms of disease. According to a 1995 study by Georgetown University, people have been required to provide information about genetic diseases, disabilities, or family medical history on job applications and have been denied jobs or have lost jobs because of a family genetic condition. Moreover, a recent survey by the American Management Association of over 2,000 companies showed that more than 18 percent of companies require genetic tests or data on family medical history from employees or job applicants. According to the same survey, more than 26 percent of the companies that require this information use it in hiring decisions. Experts in genetics are virtually unanimous in calling for strong protections to prevent this misuse and abuse of science. The Department of Health and Human Services' advisory panel on genetic testing-- consisting of experts in law, science, medicine and business-- recommended unambiguously that ``Federal legislation should be enacted to prohibit discrimination in employment and health insurance based on genetic information.'' Dr. Craig Venter, the president of Celera Genomics, who led the privately-financed aspect of the gene sequencing research, has spoken of the ``immediate threat . . . [of] genetic discrimination. . . . [H]uman rights and civil rights law will have to be updated to include this new class of diagnosed person. At this stage, one can only imagine the future potential of abuse,'' he said. With time, the potential for genetic discrimination will only grow stronger and federal legislation to establish minimum protections is needed to ensure that advances in research and technology are not used to discriminate against workers. Without strong protections guaranteeing that private medical information remains private and that genetic information can not be used for improper purposes, we will squander the unprecedented opportunities presented by these new discoveries, and the health and welfare of large numbers of our fellow citizens will be put at risk. I commend our leader, Senator Daschle, for introducing this important legislation that will give the American people the protections against genetic discrimination they need and deserve. The Genetic Non- Discrimination in Health Insurance and Employment Act will prohibit insurers from denying or abridging health care coverage on the basis of genetic test results. It will protect employees from discrimination on the basis of their unalterable genetic inheritance. The Act safeguards Americans' private genetic information from unauthorized disclosures to employers, banks, and others who should not have access to this most sensitive of personal information. And, because a right without a remedy is no right at all, this important measure would provide persons who have suffered genetic discrimination in either arena with the right to seek redress through legal action. I urge my colleagues to join Senator Daschle and me in supporting the Genetic Non-Discrimination in Health Insurance and Employment Act.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is an honor to once again join my colleague Senator Chuck Grassley in introducing the Family Opportunity Act of 2001--the hallmark of which is to remove the health care barriers for children with disabilities that so often prevent families from staying together and staying employed. Despite the extraordinary growth and prosperity the country is enjoying today, families of disabled and special needs children continue to struggle to keep their families together, live independently and become fully contributing members of their communities. More than 8 percent of children in this country have significant disabilities, many of whom do not have access to critical health services they need to maintain and prevent deterioration of their health status. To get needed health services for their children, families are being forced to become poor, stay poor, put their children in out of home placements, or simply give up custody of their children--all so that their children can qualify for the comprehensive health coverage available under Medicaid. In a recent survey of 20 states, families of special needs children report they are turning down jobs, turning down raises, turning down overtime, and are unable to save money for the future of their children and family --so that their child can stay eligible for Medicaid through the Social Security Income (SSI) Program. Today we are reintroducing legislation intended to close the health care gap for the Nation's most vulnerable population, and enable families of disabled children in this country to be equal partners in the American dream. In the words of President George W. Bush in his ``New Freedom Initiative'', ``Too many Americans with disabilities remain trapped in bureaucracies of dependence, and are denied the access necessary for success--and we need to tear down these barriers''. The Family Opportunity Act of 2001 will tear down the unfair barriers to needed health care that so many disabled and special needs children are being denied. It will make health insurance coverage more widely available for children with significant disabilities, through opportunities to buy-in to Medicaid at an affordable rate. It will allow states to develop a demonstration program to provide a medicaid buy-in for children with potentially significant disabilities who without needed health services will become severely disabled. States will have more flexibility to offer disabled children needed health services at home and in their communities. It will establish Family to Family Information Centers in each state to help families with special needs children. The passage of the Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999 showed the commitment of this Nation to ensure that people with disabilities have the right to lead independent and productive lives without giving up their health care. It is now time for Congress to show that same commitment to our country's children with disabilities and their families. I look forward to working with all members of Congress to move this legislation forward and give disabled children and their families across the country a better opportunity to fulfill their dreams and fully participate in the social and economic mainstream of our Nation.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is a privilege to join my colleague, Senator Kerry, in introducing this legislation to name the U.S. courthouse in the city of Boston after a wonderful friend and an outstanding leader, Congressman, Joseph Moakley, who announced yesterday that he will not be candidate for re-election next year because of a serious illness that has just been diagnosed. Congressman Moakley has served Massachusetts and the nation with great honor throughout his long and brilliant career in public service. Like the rest of my colleagues, I'm deeply saddened by Joe's announcement yesterday. As dean of our delegation, Joe's leadership in Congress is invaluable and indispensable for the people of Massachusetts--and the whole nation too. He's a true giant in Congress, and I'm proud to serve with him. Joe's has been at the forefront of many great battles of national and international importance. No one is more effective in Congress on the front lines or behind the scenes. He has touched the hearts of all our people, and he's made a remarkable difference in their lives and hopes. He's a voice for the voiceless, and for all those who need our help the most. He champions the cause of hard-working families and the middle class--and all of us are proud to be there with him, on the front-lines in all these battles. When I look back over the many years that Joe Moakley has served in Congress, I think of the important progress we've achieved--the battles we've waged and won--for decent and affordable health care--for good education, so that more children can have a better start in life and a chance to go to colelge--for better jobs, greater opportunities, fairer wages, and safer working conditions--for a cleaner environment--for equal rights for women and an end to discrimination in the workplace-- for civil rights at home and human rights in other lands. And above all, in countless nations around the world, Joe Moakley is renowned for his extraordinary achievement in protecting and defending the fundamental human rights of all the people of El Salvador. He has fought long and hard and well for funds to rebuild the Central Artery--to build the South Boston Piers Transitway--to clean up Boston Harbor--to modernize the Port of Boston--and to preserve Massachusetts' many historic sites--the old State House, the Old South Meeting House, the USS Constitution, Dorchester Heights, and Boston's historic marketplace, Faneuil Hall. Joe Moakley's efforts to protect and preserve these many sites guarantee that they'll be an important part of our state's history and heritage for many years to come. And that's only the tip of the iceberg. Few, if any, Members of Congress have done so much for so many for so long. When the chips are down, Joe Moakley is always there when we need him most. If President Kennedy were here today, we all know what he'd day-- he'd call Joe Moakley a true profile in courage. Thoughout his career, Joe Moakley has worked brilliantly, effectively and tirelessly to promote the highest ideals of public service. He is an outstanding statesman, leader, and legislator. I commend him for his leadership, and I look forward to the early enactment of this legislation as a tribute to a man who has served the city of Boston, Congress, and the country so well.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, this week, scientists announced the completion of a task that once seemed unimaginable--deciphering the entire DNA sequence of the human genetic code. This amazing accomplishment is likely to affect the 21st century as profoundly as the invention of the computer or the splitting of the atom affected the 20th century. These new discoveries bring remarkable new opportunities for improving health care. But they also carry the danger that genetic information will be used--not to improve the lives of Americans--but as a basis for discrimination. Discrimination on the basis of a person's genetic traits--such as those associated with cancer, Huntington's disease, or sickle cell anemia--is as unacceptable as discrimination on the basis of gender, race, or religion. No American should be denied health insurance or fired from a job based on the results of a genetic test. People need access to genetic testing, in order to seek treatments to extend and improve their lives. Yet, the vast potential of genetic knowledge to improve health care will go unfulfilled, if patients fear that information about their genetic characteristics will be used as the basis for discrimination. Congress has a responsibility to guarantee that private medical information remains private, and that genetic information cannot be used for improper purposes. The Genetic Non-Discrimination in Health Insurance and Employment Act guarantees these protections. It gives the American people the protections they need and deserve against genetic discrimination. It prohibits employers from using genetic information to discriminate in the workplace in hiring, promotion, pay or other workplace rights and privileges. And it gives victims of genetic discrimination the right to seek remedies through legal action. In too many cases today the promise of genetic research is being squandered, because patients rightly fear that information about their genes will be used against them in the workplace or in health insurance. Study after study reports that the vast majority of Americans are concerned about taking a genetic test, for fear that employers will have access to the information. The Journal of the American Medical Association reported that 57 percent of women at risk for breast or ovarian cancer had refused to take a genetic test that could have identified their risk for cancer and assisted them in receiving medical treatment to prevent the onset of these diseases because they feared reprisals for doing so. Tragically, the vast potential of genetic knowledge to improve health care will go unfulfilled if patients fear that information about their genetic characteristics will be used as the basis for job discrimination or other prejudices. And that fear is clearly well-founded. Genetic discrimination is a real and frightening problem, and it is happening right now. Last Saturday reports of mandatory genetic testing of employees made headline news--and the testing was being conducted by one of the largest railroads in this country. One employee was informed by the railroad that he would be fired for refusing to submit to the genetic testing. This is just the tip of the iceberg of what is becoming a routine and pervasive employer practice as genetic testing becomes more accessible and economical. Today, employers and insurers often require and use this information to deny health coverage, refuse a promotion, or reject a job applicant--all in the absence of any symptoms of disease. According to a 1995 study by Georgetown University, people have been required to provide information about genetic diseases, disabilities, or family medical history on job applications and have been denied jobs or have lost jobs because of a family genetic condition. Moreover, a recent survey by the American Management Association of over 2,000 companies showed that more than 18 percent of companies require genetic tests or data on family medical history from employees or job applicants. According to the same survey, more than 26 percent of the companies that require this information use it in hiring decisions. Experts in genetics are virtually unanimous in calling for strong protections to prevent this misuse and abuse of science. The Department of Health and Human Services' advisory panel on genetic testing-- consisting of experts in law, science, medicine and business-- recommended unambiguously that ``Federal legislation should be enacted to prohibit discrimination in employment and health insurance based on genetic information.'' Dr. Craig Venter, the president of Celera Genomics, who led the privately-financed aspect of the gene sequencing research, has spoken of the ``immediate threat . . . [of] genetic discrimination. . . . [H]uman rights and civil rights law will have to be updated to include this new class of diagnosed person. At this stage, one can only imagine the future potential of abuse,'' he said. With time, the potential for genetic discrimination will only grow stronger and federal legislation to establish minimum protections is needed to ensure that advances in research and technology are not used to discriminate against workers. Without strong protections guaranteeing that private medical information remains private and that genetic information can not be used for improper purposes, we will squander the unprecedented opportunities presented by these new discoveries, and the health and welfare of large numbers of our fellow citizens will be put at risk. I commend our leader, Senator Daschle, for introducing this important legislation that will give the American people the protections against genetic discrimination they need and deserve. The Genetic Non- Discrimination in Health Insurance and Employment Act will prohibit insurers from denying or abridging health care coverage on the basis of genetic test results. It will protect employees from discrimination on the basis of their unalterable genetic inheritance. The Act safeguards Americans' private genetic information from unauthorized disclosures to employers, banks, and others who should not have access to this most sensitive of personal information. And, because a right without a remedy is no right at all, this important measure would provide persons who have suffered genetic discrimination in either arena with the right to seek redress through legal action. I urge my colleagues to join Senator Daschle and me in supporting the Genetic Non-Discrimination in Health Insurance and Employment Act.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is an honor to once again join my colleague Senator Chuck Grassley in introducing the Family Opportunity Act of 2001--the hallmark of which is to remove the health care barriers for children with disabilities that so often prevent families from staying together and staying employed. Despite the extraordinary growth and prosperity the country is enjoying today, families of disabled and special needs children continue to struggle to keep their families together, live independently and become fully contributing members of their communities. More than 8 percent of children in this country have significant disabilities, many of whom do not have access to critical health services they need to maintain and prevent deterioration of their health status. To get needed health services for their children, families are being forced to become poor, stay poor, put their children in out of home placements, or simply give up custody of their children--all so that their children can qualify for the comprehensive health coverage available under Medicaid. In a recent survey of 20 states, families of special needs children report they are turning down jobs, turning down raises, turning down overtime, and are unable to save money for the future of their children and family --so that their child can stay eligible for Medicaid through the Social Security Income (SSI) Program. Today we are reintroducing legislation intended to close the health care gap for the Nation's most vulnerable population, and enable families of disabled children in this country to be equal partners in the American dream. In the words of President George W. Bush in his ``New Freedom Initiative'', ``Too many Americans with disabilities remain trapped in bureaucracies of dependence, and are denied the access necessary for success--and we need to tear down these barriers''. The Family Opportunity Act of 2001 will tear down the unfair barriers to needed health care that so many disabled and special needs children are being denied. It will make health insurance coverage more widely available for children with significant disabilities, through opportunities to buy-in to Medicaid at an affordable rate. It will allow states to develop a demonstration program to provide a medicaid buy-in for children with potentially significant disabilities who without needed health services will become severely disabled. States will have more flexibility to offer disabled children needed health services at home and in their communities. It will establish Family to Family Information Centers in each state to help families with special needs children. The passage of the Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999 showed the commitment of this Nation to ensure that people with disabilities have the right to lead independent and productive lives without giving up their health care. It is now time for Congress to show that same commitment to our country's children with disabilities and their families. I look forward to working with all members of Congress to move this legislation forward and give disabled children and their families across the country a better opportunity to fulfill their dreams and fully participate in the social and economic mainstream of our Nation.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, this bill authorizes the Secretary of Transportation to take the steps necessary to protect the families of communities served by pipelines that are, or could be, hazardous. Under Section 14 of the bill, the Secretary can order necessary corrective action for hazardous facilities, including closing the facilities. In the case of pipeline accidents, the Secretary can remove or reassign responsible employees. The Secretary's authority to deal with pipeline accidents and safety hazards can and should be exercised in ways that treat workers at pipelines and pipeline facilities fairly. Under the bill, the Secretary may direct pipeline operators to relieve employees from their duties, reassign them, or place them on leave for an indefinite period of time--all without any provision for those employees to receive compensation or benefits. Employees who may ultimately be determined to bear no responsibility for an accident could be put on extended unpaid leave under the bill. I believe that greater protections are needed for the men and women who work at the nation's pipelines and pipeline facilities. The vast majority of these workers are dedicated to protecting the health and safety of the communities they serve. As we go to conference with the House on this important bill, I urge the conferees to amend this provision to avoid the possible mistreatment of these workers.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, are we in morning business?

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

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 20 minutes.

Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. Kennedy pertaining to the introduction of S. 277 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I'm honored to join my colleagues in introducing the Bipartisan Patient Protection Act. This bill is a true bipartisan compromise, and I am confident it will receive the support of the majority of the Senate. We believe that our proposal is just what the doctor ordered to end abuses by HMOs and managed care health plans. Doctors and patients should be making medical decisions, not insurance company accountants. It is long past time for Congress to start protecting patients, instead of HMO profits. Prompt passage of this legislation is vital for the 161 million Americans with private health insurance coverage. This is the fifth year that Congress has considered patient protection--and too many patients have been subject to unacceptable abuses as the result of our inaction. Every day that Congress fails to act, more patients suffer. A survey by the School of Public Health at the University of California found that every day--each and every day--50,000 patients experience added pain and suffering because of actions by their health plan. Thirty-five thousand patients have needed care delayed--or denied all together. Thirty-five thousand other patients have a referral to a specialist delayed or denied. Thirty-one thousand patients are forced to change their doctors. Eighteen thousand patients are forced to change their medications. A survey of physicians by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health found similar results. Every day, tens of thousands of patients across the country suffer serious declines in their health as the result of the action--or inaction--of their health plan. Whether the issue is diagnostic tests, specialty care, emergency care, access to clinical trials, availability of needed drugs, protection of doctors who give patients their best possible advice, or women's ability to obtain gynecological services--too often, in all of these cases. HMOs and managed care plans treat the company's bottom line as more important than the patient's vital signs. These abuses have no place in American medicine. Every doctor knows it. Every patient knows it. And in their hearts, every member of Congress knows it. Every American also knows that it is wrong for the current legal system to give immunity to health insurance companies and HMOs that kill or injure patients. No other industry in America has immunity from liability when it acts irresponsibly, and HMOs and health insurance companies shouldn't have it either. The legislation we are offering today is bipartisan. Whether the issue is liability, the appeals process, or state flexibility, we have made significant modifications to respond to legitimate concerns. but we have preserved the basic principle that when serious illness strikes, every American deserves the protection they were promised. President Bush campaigned on a pledge to pass an effective patients' bill of rights. We are ready to work with him to bring the American people the protection they deserve. Ending the current abuses should be a priority for the new Congress and the new Administration, and I am hopeful that we can work together to past this legislation as soon as possible this year.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, this afternoon I and others will be introducing legislation to increase the minimum wage. We will increase the minimum wage by 60 cents this year, 50 cents next year, and 40 cents the year after. The reason we are doing this is to recognize that over the last 8 years, we have had the most extraordinary economic expansion, but there are a number of Americans, about 11 million to 13 million Americans, who have not benefitted from our economic expansion. They are the individuals who are on the lowest rung of the economic ladder. This is an attempt to make an adjustment in their income, and this increase in the minimum wage will provide an extremely modest increase in that income. This issue is a women's issue because the great majority of those who receive the minimum wage are women. This is a children's issue because the great majority of the women who are receiving the minimum wage have children and their lives are directly affected by the amount of income their mother or their parents make, and if they are making the minimum wage, often it is not just one job, but two jobs, and their lives are dramatically affected. It is a civil rights issue because so many of those who are earning the minimum wage are men and women of color. Most of all, it is a fairness issue. Men and women in this country who work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year should not have to live in poverty. This is about rewarding work. It is a recognition that people in our country who are playing by the rules attempting to provide for their family, if they are making a minimum wage today with a family of three, they are still falling $3,400 below the poverty line in the United States of America. This minimum wage will reduce that, but they will still fall within the definition of poverty. With this extraordinary expansion we have seen, with the extraordinary benefits that have gone to so many millions of Americans, it is time that we ought to give some attention to those who have been left out and left behind. Who are these minimum wage workers? First of all, they are men and women of dignity; men and women who take pride in the work they do; men and women who are proud to go to work and understand the value of work, frustrated as others might be, but nonetheless are willing to put their shoulder to the wheel because they want to take care of their families and because they have a sense of pride. What do they do? By and large, minimum wage workers work in child care centers. They are helping to look after the children of others who are working hard in American industry. Many of them are assistants to teachers in our schools and, again, are working with children all across this country. Many others are working in nursing homes looking after those who have retired, those who need nursing home attention. These are men and women who are doing very important work, in many instances helping to make sure that the major buildings that house our industries and corporations are attended to during the nighttime. These are hard-working people, and they are people who take great pride in what they do, as they should. Let's look at what their situation has come to. This chart says: Working hard, but losing ground. The real value of the minimum wage. If we look at constant dollars, the purchasing power of the minimum wage was $7.66 in 1968. Over the years, we have seen how that has fallen, with just a few interruptions when there was an increase in the minimum wage in 1988 and another increase in 1994. We can see what has happened with the purchasing power of the minimum wage. Without an increase in the minimum wage, in the year 2002, it would be down to $4.75, just about the lowest that it has been since the mid-1960s. This is in real purchasing power. If we raise the minimum wage 60 cents, 50 cents, and 40 cents, and add that $1.50 on top of the $5.15 an hour now, the purchasing power would only be $6.14, which is identical to what it would be if we actually increased the minimum wage in the last 2 years by 50 cents and 50 cents, which was our proposal. Since we lost a year, there has been further deterioration in the purchasing power of the minimum wage. Even with the step-up of 60 cents, 50 cents, and 40 cents, its purchasing power will still only be $6.14. This is an extremely modest increase. Historically, the percentage increase in the minimum wage we are asking for is extremely modest. Most other times, the percentage has been a good deal higher than it is in this proposal. This is a modest increase, but a very important increase. What has been happening to our minimum wage workers? This chart indicates what has happened to average hourly earnings from 1969 to the year 2000. You can see from the chart that the average hourly earnings have been constantly going up. Going back to 1969, the minimum wage was 53 percent of average hourly earnings. In the year 2000, do you think it has even held at 53 percent? No. It has dropped to 37 percent of average hourly earnings--a dramatic reduction, even in comparison to what has been happening to the average American workers across the country. They are falling further and further behind. This chart is very interesting in that it shows what is happening out there in the workplace among those who have families with children who are in the bottom 40 percent of U.S. family incomes from 1979 to 1999. All workers are averaging 416 hours more a year. Do we understand that? In 1999, they are working more than 400 hours a year more than they were working in 1979, even when their amount of income proportionately was a good deal better. Now we find American workers are working longer and harder than any other workers in any other industrial country in the world. And this is true about minimum wage workers, who, in most instances, have not just one job but have two jobs. So for all those from whom we are going to hear in this Chamber about the importance of rewarding people who work, here we have some of the hardest workers in the world who are making pitiful little and find it enormously difficult to be able to provide for their families. Four hundred sixteen hours, what does that translate into? What it translates into is this: The average minimum wage worker today gets to spend 25 hours a week less with his or her children than they did 15 years ago. When we are talking about family values--and we will hear a great deal about family values--one of the most important and basic and fundamental family values is having an adequate income to provide for one's children. The minimum wage does not provide it. We see from this chart that working families are increasingly living in poverty. The red line indicates what the poverty line represents here in the United States. What we have seen for many years--in the 1960s, 1970s, right up to about 1980--is that the minimum wage was effectively the poverty wage. That was the bare minimum to be able to live with some degree of dignity in terms of providing the housing, the food, the shelter, the clothing, the essentials for families. What we have seen is this spread has been growing and increasing. Minimum wage workers are falling further and further behind. Now, this is against a very important chart here which reflects the changes in family incomes from 1979 to 1999. The top fifth of families' incomes have increased by 42 percent in the last 20 years; middle- income families by about 11 percent over the last 20 years; the bottom fifth has actually declined in terms of their quality of life and in terms of what their income is. It shows they are going down, working longer, working harder, providing important kinds of services at a time of extraordinary economic prosperity. They are falling further and further and further behind. We have an opportunity to do something about that. We provided an increase in the earned-income tax credit in the recent times, which is helpful for those with larger families who have a number of children; but still, for the single mom, or the mother and father with a single child, the minimum wage is the way to go when you are talking about benefitting and increasing the income for families. We often hear on the Senate floor we cannot do that because if we do do it, we are going to have an adverse impact in terms of our employment situation. That is a lot of hogwash. Let's look at what has happened since the last time we increased the minimum wage. Since 1996, when we increased the minimum wage in two steps, we heard: We do not want to do that because it is going to have an adverse impact on teens. That is wrong. The unemployment rate for teens has actually gone down with our two-step increase in the minimum wage. For those who are lacking high school diplomas--they said: They will not be able to get employment at the McDonald's in order to gain work habits--wrong again. We found that the unemployment rate has gone down even for those lacking a high school diploma. How about, we often heard: This isn't fair to African Americans. Wrong again. We found out the unemployment rate has still declined. It is certainly more than double what it is for the national average, but the employment level has dropped over what it was previously. The same is true with regard to Hispanics. And the same is true with regard to women. So we believe this is an issue of fairness. We believe it is a matter of urgency. We have tried, over the period of recent years, to get this measure up before the Senate. We were denied that opportunity to have an up-or-down vote. We were told by the Republican leadership at the end of the last Congress: You can have this if you provide $73 billion in tax breaks for American companies and corporations. Effectively, they were saying: We are going to hold this hostage. They were going to hold this hostage until they got the $73 billion. They did not hold their own pay increase hostage. They did not hold hostage increasing Members' pay $3,800 a year in order to benefit businesses and corporations. But they are holding hostage those who are at the lowest level, the most vulnerable people, working hard, trying to make ends meet for their families. They are holding them hostage until they get additional tax breaks for companies and corporations at an unparalleled level. The last time we had the increase we had a modest tax break for small business. Small business may need help and assistance, I am for that. But at that time, it was $20 billion. Now that they have that up at $73 billion, and they refuse to let us give consideration to an increase in the minimum wage, they are saying to all of those women, all of those children, all of those workers who are minimum wage workers: No, you can just wait there. You can stay at $5.15 an hour. You can continue to work at $5.15 until we get around to developing our package in order for the $73 billion in tax breaks. And then at that time, when we are ready to get that $73 billion, the Senate of the United States better take all $73 billion or we are not going to increase your minimum wage. I think that is an outrageous position to take in terms of a contemptible attitude toward our fellow Americans. I want to indicate, we welcome the support we have. This issue is not going to go away. We are going to have to face this issue. We want to have a fair opportunity. It is not one of those issues that needs a great deal of study. All of us remember the situation where people tap us on the shoulder and say: Will you support H.R. 222 or S. 444? and we are unfamiliar with the details of a particular program. This one is very simple. Increase in the minimum wage: Three steps, 60, 50, 40 cents. You don't need to have a lot of hearings. To reiterate, Mr. President, the minimum wage is one of the Nation's fundamental workplace protections. It is a bedrock right of every working man and woman. For over 60 years, this country has been committed to the principle that employees are entitled to a fair minimum wage that guarantees a fair day's pay for a fair day's work and protects the dignity of their employment. In recent years, the country as a whole and most Americans have benefitted from unprecedented prosperity--the longest period of economic growth in the Nation's history and the lowest unemployment rate in three decades. But minimum wage workers have been left out and left behind. A fair increase in the minimum wage is long overdue. The real value of the minimum wage is now nearly $3 below what it was in 1968. To have the purchasing power it had in that year, the minimum wage would have to be $8.05 an hour today, not $5.15 an hour. At the same time, poverty has almost doubled among full-time, year- round workers. Since the late 1970s, it has climbed from about 1.5 million to almost 2.5 million in 1999. An unacceptably low minimum wage is part of the problem. Minimum wage employees working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, earn only $10,700 a year--$3,400 below the poverty line for a family of three. Minimum wage workers today fail to earn enough to afford adequate housing in any area of this country. No one who works for a living should have to live in poverty. In too many cases, minimum wage workers are forced to work longer and longer hours to make ends meet, with less and less time to spend with their families--still without sharing fairly in the Nation's prosperity. In fact, the lowest paid American families worked 416 more hours in 1999 then they did in 1979. Since 1969, the ratio of the minimum wage to average hourly earnings has dropped from 53 percent to 37 percent. It is shameful that Congress acted to raise its own pay by $3,800 last year--the third pay increase in 4 years--yet we did not find time to provide any pay increase at all to the lowest paid workers. The increase in the legislation we are introducing today--the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2001--will directly benefit over 11 million workers. It will raise the minimum wage by $1.50 in three installments: 60 cents on the 30th day after the bill's enactment; another 50 cents on January 1, 2002; and 40 more cents on January 1, 2003. The bill will also apply the federal minimum wage to the Mariana Islands, which now has an unacceptably low level of $3.05 an hour. The $1.50 increase is necessary to make up for lost time. In real value, the $1.50 increase will bring the minimum wage up to the same level it would have been if our proposed one dollar increase had gone into effect last year. Raising the minimum wage is a labor issue, because it guarantees that American workers will be paid fairly for their contribution to building a strong Nation and a strong economy. It is a women's issue, since 60 percent of minimum wage earners are women. It is a children's issue, because 33 percent of minimum wage earners are parents with children-- and 4.3 million children live in poverty, despite being in a family where a bread-winner works full-time, year-round. And it is a civil rights issue, because 16 percent of those who will benefit from a minimum wage increase are African Americans, and 20 percent are Hispanic. The record of past increases clearly shows that raising the minimum wage has not had a negative impact on jobs, employment, or inflation. After the last increases in the minimum wage in 1996 and 1997, the economy continued to grow with impressive strength. The unemployment rate has fallen from 5.2 percent to 4.2 percent. Twelve million new jobs have been created, at a pace of 230,000 per month, with more than 6 million new service industry jobs, including one and a half million new retail jobs, and over a half a million new restaurant jobs. Similarly, the minimum wage increase during the recession in 1991 provided needed support for low-income workers and caused no loss of jobs. President Bush supports raising the minimum wage, but suggests that states should be able to opt out of the increase. But allowing states to opt out of the minimum wage would violate the basic principle, which we have stood by for over 60 years, that working men and women are entitled to a fair minimum wage. Millions of workers across the country deserve a pay raise, and they deserve it now. The Federal minimum wage guarantees a floor, but it also allows States to set wage rates higher than the Federal minimum. Massachusetts recently raised its minimum wage to $6.75 an hour, one of the highest levels in the country. Other states, such as California, Connecticut, Vermont and Rhode Island, have also set their State rates higher than the Federal minimum. In other States, however, the State minimum wage is far below the Federal level. In these States, the Federal level applies to the vast majority of workers. But for those not covered by the Federal law, the State level is often extremely low. It is $1.60 in Wyoming, $2.65 in Kansas, and $3.35 in Texas. Clearly, Congress should not leave the minimum wage to the tender mercy of the States. A fair increase in the federal minimum wage is long overdue. I urge Congress to act as quickly as possible to pass this long overdue increase. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I'm honored to join my colleagues in introducing the Bipartisan Patient Protection Act. This bill is a true bipartisan compromise, and I am confident it will receive the support of the majority of the Senate. We believe that our proposal is just what the doctor ordered to end abuses by HMOs and managed care health plans. Doctors and patients should be making medical decisions, not insurance company accountants. It is long past time for Congress to start protecting patients, instead of HMO profits. Prompt passage of this legislation is vital for the 161 million Americans with private health insurance coverage. This is the fifth year that Congress has considered patient protection--and too many patients have been subject to unacceptable abuses as the result of our inaction. Every day that Congress fails to act, more patients suffer. A survey by the School of Public Health at the University of California found that every day--each and every day--50,000 patients experience added pain and suffering because of actions by their health plan. Thirty-five thousand patients have needed care delayed--or denied all together. Thirty-five thousand other patients have a referral to a specialist delayed or denied. Thirty-one thousand patients are forced to change their doctors. Eighteen thousand patients are forced to change their medications. A survey of physicians by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health found similar results. Every day, tens of thousands of patients across the country suffer serious declines in their health as the result of the action--or inaction--of their health plan. Whether the issue is diagnostic tests, specialty care, emergency care, access to clinical trials, availability of needed drugs, protection of doctors who give patients their best possible advice, or women's ability to obtain gynecological services--too often, in all of these cases. HMOs and managed care plans treat the company's bottom line as more important than the patient's vital signs. These abuses have no place in American medicine. Every doctor knows it. Every patient knows it. And in their hearts, every member of Congress knows it. Every American also knows that it is wrong for the current legal system to give immunity to health insurance companies and HMOs that kill or injure patients. No other industry in America has immunity from liability when it acts irresponsibly, and HMOs and health insurance companies shouldn't have it either. The legislation we are offering today is bipartisan. Whether the issue is liability, the appeals process, or state flexibility, we have made significant modifications to respond to legitimate concerns. but we have preserved the basic principle that when serious illness strikes, every American deserves the protection they were promised. President Bush campaigned on a pledge to pass an effective patients' bill of rights. We are ready to work with him to bring the American people the protection they deserve. Ending the current abuses should be a priority for the new Congress and the new Administration, and I am hopeful that we can work together to past this legislation as soon as possible this year.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, this afternoon I and others will be introducing legislation to increase the minimum wage. We will increase the minimum wage by 60 cents this year, 50 cents next year, and 40 cents the year after. The reason we are doing this is to recognize that over the last 8 years, we have had the most extraordinary economic expansion, but there are a number of Americans, about 11 million to 13 million Americans, who have not benefitted from our economic expansion. They are the individuals who are on the lowest rung of the economic ladder. This is an attempt to make an adjustment in their income, and this increase in the minimum wage will provide an extremely modest increase in that income. This issue is a women's issue because the great majority of those who receive the minimum wage are women. This is a children's issue because the great majority of the women who are receiving the minimum wage have children and their lives are directly affected by the amount of income their mother or their parents make, and if they are making the minimum wage, often it is not just one job, but two jobs, and their lives are dramatically affected. It is a civil rights issue because so many of those who are earning the minimum wage are men and women of color. Most of all, it is a fairness issue. Men and women in this country who work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year should not have to live in poverty. This is about rewarding work. It is a recognition that people in our country who are playing by the rules attempting to provide for their family, if they are making a minimum wage today with a family of three, they are still falling $3,400 below the poverty line in the United States of America. This minimum wage will reduce that, but they will still fall within the definition of poverty. With this extraordinary expansion we have seen, with the extraordinary benefits that have gone to so many millions of Americans, it is time that we ought to give some attention to those who have been left out and left behind. Who are these minimum wage workers? First of all, they are men and women of dignity; men and women who take pride in the work they do; men and women who are proud to go to work and understand the value of work, frustrated as others might be, but nonetheless are willing to put their shoulder to the wheel because they want to take care of their families and because they have a sense of pride. What do they do? By and large, minimum wage workers work in child care centers. They are helping to look after the children of others who are working hard in American industry. Many of them are assistants to teachers in our schools and, again, are working with children all across this country. Many others are working in nursing homes looking after those who have retired, those who need nursing home attention. These are men and women who are doing very important work, in many instances helping to make sure that the major buildings that house our industries and corporations are attended to during the nighttime. These are hard-working people, and they are people who take great pride in what they do, as they should. Let's look at what their situation has come to. This chart says: Working hard, but losing ground. The real value of the minimum wage. If we look at constant dollars, the purchasing power of the minimum wage was $7.66 in 1968. Over the years, we have seen how that has fallen, with just a few interruptions when there was an increase in the minimum wage in 1988 and another increase in 1994. We can see what has happened with the purchasing power of the minimum wage. Without an increase in the minimum wage, in the year 2002, it would be down to $4.75, just about the lowest that it has been since the mid-1960s. This is in real purchasing power. If we raise the minimum wage 60 cents, 50 cents, and 40 cents, and add that $1.50 on top of the $5.15 an hour now, the purchasing power would only be $6.14, which is identical to what it would be if we actually increased the minimum wage in the last 2 years by 50 cents and 50 cents, which was our proposal. Since we lost a year, there has been further deterioration in the purchasing power of the minimum wage. Even with the step-up of 60 cents, 50 cents, and 40 cents, its purchasing power will still only be $6.14. This is an extremely modest increase. Historically, the percentage increase in the minimum wage we are asking for is extremely modest. Most other times, the percentage has been a good deal higher than it is in this proposal. This is a modest increase, but a very important increase. What has been happening to our minimum wage workers? This chart indicates what has happened to average hourly earnings from 1969 to the year 2000. You can see from the chart that the average hourly earnings have been constantly going up. Going back to 1969, the minimum wage was 53 percent of average hourly earnings. In the year 2000, do you think it has even held at 53 percent? No. It has dropped to 37 percent of average hourly earnings--a dramatic reduction, even in comparison to what has been happening to the average American workers across the country. They are falling further and further behind. This chart is very interesting in that it shows what is happening out there in the workplace among those who have families with children who are in the bottom 40 percent of U.S. family incomes from 1979 to 1999. All workers are averaging 416 hours more a year. Do we understand that? In 1999, they are working more than 400 hours a year more than they were working in 1979, even when their amount of income proportionately was a good deal better. Now we find American workers are working longer and harder than any other workers in any other industrial country in the world. And this is true about minimum wage workers, who, in most instances, have not just one job but have two jobs. So for all those from whom we are going to hear in this Chamber about the importance of rewarding people who work, here we have some of the hardest workers in the world who are making pitiful little and find it enormously difficult to be able to provide for their families. Four hundred sixteen hours, what does that translate into? What it translates into is this: The average minimum wage worker today gets to spend 25 hours a week less with his or her children than they did 15 years ago. When we are talking about family values--and we will hear a great deal about family values--one of the most important and basic and fundamental family values is having an adequate income to provide for one's children. The minimum wage does not provide it. We see from this chart that working families are increasingly living in poverty. The red line indicates what the poverty line represents here in the United States. What we have seen for many years--in the 1960s, 1970s, right up to about 1980--is that the minimum wage was effectively the poverty wage. That was the bare minimum to be able to live with some degree of dignity in terms of providing the housing, the food, the shelter, the clothing, the essentials for families. What we have seen is this spread has been growing and increasing. Minimum wage workers are falling further and further behind. Now, this is against a very important chart here which reflects the changes in family incomes from 1979 to 1999. The top fifth of families' incomes have increased by 42 percent in the last 20 years; middle- income families by about 11 percent over the last 20 years; the bottom fifth has actually declined in terms of their quality of life and in terms of what their income is. It shows they are going down, working longer, working harder, providing important kinds of services at a time of extraordinary economic prosperity. They are falling further and further and further behind. We have an opportunity to do something about that. We provided an increase in the earned-income tax credit in the recent times, which is helpful for those with larger families who have a number of children; but still, for the single mom, or the mother and father with a single child, the minimum wage is the way to go when you are talking about benefitting and increasing the income for families. We often hear on the Senate floor we cannot do that because if we do do it, we are going to have an adverse impact in terms of our employment situation. That is a lot of hogwash. Let's look at what has happened since the last time we increased the minimum wage. Since 1996, when we increased the minimum wage in two steps, we heard: We do not want to do that because it is going to have an adverse impact on teens. That is wrong. The unemployment rate for teens has actually gone down with our two-step increase in the minimum wage. For those who are lacking high school diplomas--they said: They will not be able to get employment at the McDonald's in order to gain work habits--wrong again. We found that the unemployment rate has gone down even for those lacking a high school diploma. How about, we often heard: This isn't fair to African Americans. Wrong again. We found out the unemployment rate has still declined. It is certainly more than double what it is for the national average, but the employment level has dropped over what it was previously. The same is true with regard to Hispanics. And the same is true with regard to women. So we believe this is an issue of fairness. We believe it is a matter of urgency. We have tried, over the period of recent years, to get this measure up before the Senate. We were denied that opportunity to have an up-or-down vote. We were told by the Republican leadership at the end of the last Congress: You can have this if you provide $73 billion in tax breaks for American companies and corporations. Effectively, they were saying: We are going to hold this hostage. They were going to hold this hostage until they got the $73 billion. They did not hold their own pay increase hostage. They did not hold hostage increasing Members' pay $3,800 a year in order to benefit businesses and corporations. But they are holding hostage those who are at the lowest level, the most vulnerable people, working hard, trying to make ends meet for their families. They are holding them hostage until they get additional tax breaks for companies and corporations at an unparalleled level. The last time we had the increase we had a modest tax break for small business. Small business may need help and assistance, I am for that. But at that time, it was $20 billion. Now that they have that up at $73 billion, and they refuse to let us give consideration to an increase in the minimum wage, they are saying to all of those women, all of those children, all of those workers who are minimum wage workers: No, you can just wait there. You can stay at $5.15 an hour. You can continue to work at $5.15 until we get around to developing our package in order for the $73 billion in tax breaks. And then at that time, when we are ready to get that $73 billion, the Senate of the United States better take all $73 billion or we are not going to increase your minimum wage. I think that is an outrageous position to take in terms of a contemptible attitude toward our fellow Americans. I want to indicate, we welcome the support we have. This issue is not going to go away. We are going to have to face this issue. We want to have a fair opportunity. It is not one of those issues that needs a great deal of study. All of us remember the situation where people tap us on the shoulder and say: Will you support H.R. 222 or S. 444? and we are unfamiliar with the details of a particular program. This one is very simple. Increase in the minimum wage: Three steps, 60, 50, 40 cents. You don't need to have a lot of hearings. To reiterate, Mr. President, the minimum wage is one of the Nation's fundamental workplace protections. It is a bedrock right of every working man and woman. For over 60 years, this country has been committed to the principle that employees are entitled to a fair minimum wage that guarantees a fair day's pay for a fair day's work and protects the dignity of their employment. In recent years, the country as a whole and most Americans have benefitted from unprecedented prosperity--the longest period of economic growth in the Nation's history and the lowest unemployment rate in three decades. But minimum wage workers have been left out and left behind. A fair increase in the minimum wage is long overdue. The real value of the minimum wage is now nearly $3 below what it was in 1968. To have the purchasing power it had in that year, the minimum wage would have to be $8.05 an hour today, not $5.15 an hour. At the same time, poverty has almost doubled among full-time, year- round workers. Since the late 1970s, it has climbed from about 1.5 million to almost 2.5 million in 1999. An unacceptably low minimum wage is part of the problem. Minimum wage employees working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, earn only $10,700 a year--$3,400 below the poverty line for a family of three. Minimum wage workers today fail to earn enough to afford adequate housing in any area of this country. No one who works for a living should have to live in poverty. In too many cases, minimum wage workers are forced to work longer and longer hours to make ends meet, with less and less time to spend with their families--still without sharing fairly in the Nation's prosperity. In fact, the lowest paid American families worked 416 more hours in 1999 then they did in 1979. Since 1969, the ratio of the minimum wage to average hourly earnings has dropped from 53 percent to 37 percent. It is shameful that Congress acted to raise its own pay by $3,800 last year--the third pay increase in 4 years--yet we did not find time to provide any pay increase at all to the lowest paid workers. The increase in the legislation we are introducing today--the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2001--will directly benefit over 11 million workers. It will raise the minimum wage by $1.50 in three installments: 60 cents on the 30th day after the bill's enactment; another 50 cents on January 1, 2002; and 40 more cents on January 1, 2003. The bill will also apply the federal minimum wage to the Mariana Islands, which now has an unacceptably low level of $3.05 an hour. The $1.50 increase is necessary to make up for lost time. In real value, the $1.50 increase will bring the minimum wage up to the same level it would have been if our proposed one dollar increase had gone into effect last year. Raising the minimum wage is a labor issue, because it guarantees that American workers will be paid fairly for their contribution to building a strong Nation and a strong economy. It is a women's issue, since 60 percent of minimum wage earners are women. It is a children's issue, because 33 percent of minimum wage earners are parents with children-- and 4.3 million children live in poverty, despite being in a family where a bread-winner works full-time, year-round. And it is a civil rights issue, because 16 percent of those who will benefit from a minimum wage increase are African Americans, and 20 percent are Hispanic. The record of past increases clearly shows that raising the minimum wage has not had a negative impact on jobs, employment, or inflation. After the last increases in the minimum wage in 1996 and 1997, the economy continued to grow with impressive strength. The unemployment rate has fallen from 5.2 percent to 4.2 percent. Twelve million new jobs have been created, at a pace of 230,000 per month, with more than 6 million new service industry jobs, including one and a half million new retail jobs, and over a half a million new restaurant jobs. Similarly, the minimum wage increase during the recession in 1991 provided needed support for low-income workers and caused no loss of jobs. President Bush supports raising the minimum wage, but suggests that states should be able to opt out of the increase. But allowing states to opt out of the minimum wage would violate the basic principle, which we have stood by for over 60 years, that working men and women are entitled to a fair minimum wage. Millions of workers across the country deserve a pay raise, and they deserve it now. The Federal minimum wage guarantees a floor, but it also allows States to set wage rates higher than the Federal minimum. Massachusetts recently raised its minimum wage to $6.75 an hour, one of the highest levels in the country. Other states, such as California, Connecticut, Vermont and Rhode Island, have also set their State rates higher than the Federal minimum. In other States, however, the State minimum wage is far below the Federal level. In these States, the Federal level applies to the vast majority of workers. But for those not covered by the Federal law, the State level is often extremely low. It is $1.60 in Wyoming, $2.65 in Kansas, and $3.35 in Texas. Clearly, Congress should not leave the minimum wage to the tender mercy of the States. A fair increase in the federal minimum wage is long overdue. I urge Congress to act as quickly as possible to pass this long overdue increase. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, just six weeks ago, President Bush nominated Senator John Ashcroft to serve as Attorney General of the United States. Since then, the nomination has been a source of intense controversy in the Senate and across the nation. At the center of the debate is one basic question--will Senator Ashcroft enforce the law fairly and vigorously. Today, I will cast my vote against Senator Ashcroft, because I believe that he cannot do so. My belief is based on Senator Ashcroft's quarter century track record as a relentless opponent of civil rights--as an architect of a continuing legal strategy to dismantle Roe v. Wade--as an outspoken advocate of extreme Second Amendment rights--and as a harsh and unfair opponent of the nominations of well-qualified men and women to important positions in our government. On the issue of segregation in the schools of St. Louis, Senator Ashcroft testified before the Judiciary Committee that the State of Missouri had done nothing wrong and had not been found guilty of any wrongdoing. But that's not true. On numerous occasions, the courts specifically found that the State was responsible for the segregation. Senator Ashcroft testified that he complied with all court orders in the desegregation case. But that's not true. In fact, the court ruled that he had a deliberate policy of defying the court's authority. Senator Ashcroft testified that he never opposed integration. But that's not true. In fact, he referred to the St. Louis voluntary desegregation plan as ``an outrage against human decency.'' And he fanned the flames of racial division by campaigning against the desegregation plan in his race for Governor in 1984. On the issue of voter registration, Senator Ashcroft's record as Governor is equally troubling. In heavily white St. Louis County, he endorsed a policy of training volunteers to register voters. But in St. Louis City, which has the State's largest African American population, he and his appointed election board refused to allow volunteers to be trained to register voters. In fact, he even went so far as Governor to veto 2 bills to use volunteer registrars in the City. As a result there were 1,500 volunteers involved in voter registration in St. Louis County and zero in St. Louis City. After Governor Ashcroft vetoed the two voter registration bills, the voter registration rate in St. Louis dropped by almost 20 percent. With this record, how can anyone believe that Senator Ashcroft will be a champion of voting rights for all Americans, particularly African Americans? Senator Ashcroft testified that Roe v. Wade is the settled law of the land, and that he would not try to overturn it. But his record of three decades of non-stop attacks on a woman's right to choose tell a different story. As Attorney General of Missouri, he defended a state rule that prevented poor women from obtaining abortions that were medically necessary to protect their health. He even tried to prevent Missouri nurses from providing basic family planning services. As Governor of Missouri, he continued his intense assault on a woman's right to choose. He made clear that his mission was to have the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade. He boasted about Missouri's record of having more anti-choice cases in the Supreme Court than any state in the Nation. He even proposed legislation to prohibit many common forms of contraception. As a Senator, he has strongly supported a Constitutional Amendment to ban abortions--even in cases of rape or incest. The power of the Attorney General is vast. The person who holds that position must have a genuine commitment to enforce the law fairly for all citizens. But Senator Ashcroft has a deeply disturbing record on issue after issue of enormous importance to millions of Americans. Throughout his long career, he has been a relentless opponent of many fundamental rights. He's wrong on civil rights--wrong on a woman's right to choose--wrong on needed steps to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and children. He's wrong on many other fundamental issues, and he's the wrong choice to be Attorney General of the United States. It is wrong to send him to be the Attorney General of the United States. I intend to vote no. I withhold the remainder of my time and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, first, I express my appreciation to our chairman and the members of the Judiciary Committee for the way these hearings were held on Senator Ashcroft to be the Attorney General, at that time chaired by our long-time friend and colleague, Senator Leahy, and also, in terms of the markup, by Senator Hatch. Those who had the opportunity to watch the course of the hearings would understand the sense of fairness and fair play all of us who are members of the committee believe they conducted the hearings with. I am grateful to both of them. I hope at the start of this debate that we can put aside the cliches and the sanctimonious attitudes we sometimes hear on the floor of the Senate that those of us who have very serious and deeply felt concerns about this nominee somehow are responding to various constituency groups, or somehow these views are not deeply held or deeply valued. I have been around here long enough to know that in many situations, it is very easy for any of us to say those who agree with our position are great statesmen and women, and those who differ with us are just nothing but ordinary politicians who are not exercising their good judgment. Those are policies or at least slogans which are sometimes used here. This issue is too important not to have respect for those views that support the nominee as well, hopefully, as those that have serious reservations about it. Listening to my friend from Arizona talk about the difference between Bill Lann Lee and this nominee, the differences couldn't have been greater. Bill Lann Lee was committed to upholding the law and had a long-time commitment to upholding the law. His statements to the committee confirmed a commitment to uphold the law just like Dr. Satcher and Dr. Foster. Many of us have serious concerns about this nominee's commitment to the fundamental constitutional rights that involve millions of our fellow citizens in the areas of civil rights, women's rights, privacy, as well as the issues of the Second Amendment, and the treatment of nominees over a long period of time. I think the record will reflect that I find very, very powerful and convincing evidence that the nominee fails to give the assurance to the American people, should he gain the approval, that he will protect those particular rights and liberties of our citizens. I intend to outline my principal concerns in the time that I have this morning. Mr. President, two weeks ago the Judiciary Committee heard four days of testimony on Senator Ashcroft's nomination to serve as Attorney General of the United States. We heard Senator Ashcroft--as well as those who support and oppose his nomination--discuss his record. I found the testimony on civil rights, women's rights, gun control, and nominations very disturbing. As I said then, Americans must be confident that the Attorney General and the Justice Department will vigorously enforce our nation's most important laws and vigorously defend our citizens' most important rights. Neither Senator Ashcroft nor his supporters have been able to provide that assurance. Civil rights is the unfinished business of America, and the people of this country deserve an attorney general who is sensitive to the needs and rights of all Americans, regardless of color. It is not enough for Senator Ashcroft to say after the fact that he will always enforce the laws fairly. We must instead examine his record as Attorney General of Missouri and as Governor of Missouri and the impact he had on the civil rights of the citizens of Missouri. We must consider whether as Attorney General or Governor of Missouri, Senator Ashcroft tried to advance the cause of civil rights in his state or whether he tried to set up roadblocks. Based on the totality of his record, I must sadly conclude that he did the latter. I am particularly concerned about Senator Ashcroft's testimony on school desegregation in St. Louis. He asserted that the discrimination that segregated the schools of St. Louis was from the distant past and that the state had not actively discriminated since the decision by the United States Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. He made sweeping general statements about having always opposed segregation and supported integration. He made specific claims that he complied with all court orders, that the state was not a party to the lawsuits and that the state had never been found guilty of any wrongdoing. Those statements and claims are inconsistent with the facts and with his record as Attorney General and Governor of Missouri. I see no plausible conclusion other than that Senator Ashcroft misled the committee during his testimony. Senator Ashcroft's testimony that state sponsored segregation ended in the 1950s sheds light on his attitude about discrimination and his willingness to turn a blind eye to the disenfranchised. Responding to a list of the state actions that maintained segregated schools, Senator Ashcroft said: Virtually none of the offensive activities described in what you charged happened in the state after Brown v. Board of Education. As a matter of fact, most of them had been eliminated far before Brown v. Board of Education. Secondly, in saying that the city maintained a segregated school system into the '70s, is simply a way of saying that after Brown v. Board of Education when citizens started to flee the city and move to the county . . . the schools, as people changed their location, began to be more intensely segregated. That was after the rules of segregation had been lifted, and it was not a consequence of any state activity. Senator Ashcroft's testimony, at best, ignored the undeniable facts about school segregation in St. Louis, ignored court rulings, and was very misleading. In fact, far from having eliminated the ``offensive activities'' Senator Ashcroft referred to ``far before Brown,'' Missouri was still passing new segregation laws in the decade before the Brown decision, going as far as amending its state constitution to require segregation. In his testimony before the Judiciary Committee, Senator Ashcroft denied that the city maintained a segregated school system into the 1970s. He testified that the schools remained segregated only because whites fled the city. He emphasized that this segregation ``was not a consequence of any state activity.'' Again, this statement is seriously misleading in light of the facts and the court rulings. The record shows that the response by St. Louis to the Brown decision was what the school board called a ``neighborhood school plan.'' The plan was designed to maintain the pre-Brown state of segregation in the St. Louis schools, and that is exactly what it did. Reviewing the board's 1954-56 neighborhood school plan, the 8th circuit found: The boundary lines for the high schools, however, were drawn so as to assign the students living in the predominately black neighborhoods to the two pre-Brown black high schools. Following implementation of the School Board plan, both of these schools opened with 100 percent black enrollments. the elementary school boundaries were also drawn so that the school remained highly segregated. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals went on to make clear that there was no justification, other than perpetuating segregation, for the boundaries chosen: The Board could have, without sacrificing the neighborhood concept, drawn the boundaries so as to include significant numbers of white students in the formerly all-black schools. a reading of the record also makes clear, however, that strong community opposition has prevented the Board from integrating the white children of South St. Louis with the black children of North St. Louis. The board's own documents show that maintaining the status quo of segregation was the intent of the plan, and that the new attendance zones were drawn to reassign the fewest number of students possible. Leaving no stone unturned, the board also made sure that the staffs of the schools remained segregated as well. The court went on to make clear findings of fact that contrary to Senator Ashcroft's testimony, the board's active segregation of the schools did not end in the 1950s. In fact, the board actively used a student transfer program, forced busing, school site selection and faculty assignments throughout the 1950s, 1970s and into the 1970s to maintain the segregated status quo. In 1962, all 28 of the pre-Brown black schools were all or virtually all black, and 26 still had faculties that were 100 percent black. At the same time, the pre-Brown white schools that had switched racial identities has switched their faculties from white to black also. Choosing sites for new schools could have helped, but instead was also used to make the segregation even worse. In 1964, ten new schools were opened and were placed so their ``neighborhoods'' would ensure segregated enrollment--all ten opened with between 98.5 percent and 100 percent black students. From 1962 to 1975, there were 36 schools opened--35 were at least 93 percent segregated, only 1 was integrated. Forced busing was also designed to continue segregation. As late as 1973, 3,700 students were being bused to schools outside their neighborhoods to reduce overcrowding. The vast majority of the black students were bused to other predominantly black schools, while virtually all of the white students were sent to other white schools. Only 27 white students were bused to black schools. The court of appeals summed up the continuing legacy of discrimination in 1980, in a case that Attorney General Ashcroft had litigated for the state: The dual school system in St. Louis, legally mandated before 1954 and perpetuated by the Board of Education's 1954- 1956 desegregation plan, has been maintained and strengthened by the actions of the Board in the years since. All of these numbers and statements are facts according to the federal courts--from federal court cases that Attorney General Ashcroft litigated. Senator Ashcroft knew these facts. He knew them in the 1980s when he tried these cases. He knew them in 1984 when he ran for governor as the candidate who would fight the hardest against integration. And, most important, he knew them when he testified before the Committee. Senator Ashcroft also gave misleading testimony about his own actions in fighting school desegregation. He claims that he has always supported integration and supported desegregation. But his protracted and tenacious legal fight against desegregation, his failure to make a good faith effort to cooperate with court-ordered desegregation, and his frequent exploitation of racial tension over desegregation during his 1984 campaign for governor suggests otherwise. Over a four year span as Missouri's Attorney General, Senator Ashcroft fought the desegregation plan all the way to the Supreme Court three times--and lost his bid for review of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals decisions each time. As attorney general, he lost definitively in the 8th Circuit in 1980, 1982, and 1984. In the 1984 case, it took the court 4 pages just to describe the myriad suits, motions, and appeals Ashcroft filed. And then he appealed that one, too. And during the time that he was filing repeated legal challenges to the desegregation plan, Attorney General Ashcroft proposed no desegregation plan of his own and strongly resisted a negotiated settlement for entirely voluntary school transfers that had been agreed to by the city of St. Louis and St. Louis County. These are not the actions of a man who supports integration and opposed segregation. In response to questioning by the Judiciary Committee, Senator Ashcroft made this specific claim: In all of the cases where the court made an order, I followed the order, both as attorney general and as governor. It was my judgment that when the law was settled and spoken that the law should be obeyed. One of the simplest and least burdensome orders of the court flatly refutes Senator Ashcroft's claim. In May 1980, the federal district court ordered the state to prepare and submit a proposal within 60 days for desegregating the schools. In a telling example of his unwillingness to support any form of desegregation plan, Attorney General Ashcroft failed to comply with the order. In fact, it wasn't until December 1980 that the State responded at all--other than filing motions to block the order to submit a plan and appealing them all the way to the Supreme Court--and the court did not consider the responses to be a good-faith effort. In 1981, after several more orders and deadlines were missed he was finally threatened with contempt of court for his repeated delays. Attorney General Ashcroft was not threatened with contempt because he objected to the cost of a particular desegregation plan or because he was aggressively filing appeals. He was threatened with contempt for his failure to comply with the court's 1980 order to submit a plan for integrating the schools. He refused, in effect, to even participate in desegregation at all. Later, instead of being chastened by his brush with contempt for defying the court, he cited it as a badge of honor during his 1984 campaign for governor, as proof of his adamant opposition to desegregation. He publicly bragged that it showed ``he had done everything in [his] power legally'' to fight the desegregation plan. In fact, as the court had stated in its 1981 order: The foregoing public record reveals extraordinary machinations by the State defendants in resisting Judge Meredith's orders. In these circumstances, the court can draw only one conclusion. The State has, as a matter of deliberate policy, decided to defy the authority of the court. In yet in another attempt to claim that his opposition to the desegregation plan did not mean he was opposed to integration, Senator Ashcroft testified he opposed the plan because the State was not a party to the lawsuit and did not have a fair chance to defend itself. As he stated: Well, you know, if the State hadn't been made a party to the litigation and the state is being asked to do things to remedy the situation, I think it's important to ask the opportunity for the State to have a kind of, due process and the protection of the law that an individual would expect. This claim borders on the bizarre. The state became a party to the case in 1977, the very year that Senator Ashcroft took office as attorney general, and three years before the first 8th Circuit ruling. Throughout his entire eight year tenure, Attorney General Ashcroft litigated this case up and down the federal system on behalf of the State of Missouri. To claim that the State was not a party to the litigation is a disingenuous and transparent attempt to evade responsibility for his actions. In some of his court challenges, Attorney General Ashcroft did claim that the State was not a party to the settlement agreement and should not be required to implement it. The truth is that the other parties agreed and submitted a plan to the court. Attorney General Ashcroft had every opportunity to submit his own proposal in fact, he was ordered to do so but he refused. To then claim that he shouldn't have to follow the court ordered plan is tantamount to saying that a guilty party who doesn't want to be punished is somehow beyond the authority of the court. The defense was rightly rejected by the district court and the 8th Circuit and the Supreme Court refused to hear it. In his testimony, Senator Ashcroft directly, clearly, and repeatedly said that he opposed State liability for desegregation because the State had never been found guilty of the segregation. In his response to questioning from Senator Leahy, he testified: I opposed a mandate by the Federal Government that the State, which had done nothing wrong, found guilty of no wrong, that they should be asked to pay this very substantial sum of money over a long course of years. And that's what I opposed. This was no slip of the tongue. He repeated the denial of responsibility moments later, saying: Here the court sought to make the State responsible and liable for the payment of these very substantial sums of money, and the State had not been found really guilty of anything. These two statements, made under oath in testimony before the Committee, are flatly wrong and grossly misleading. The St. Louis cases were certainly long and convoluted, but one point is abundantly clear: the courts held that the State of Missouri was responsible for the discrimination. The 8th Circuit left no doubt about the State's guilt and liability for segregating the schools. As the court said in 1984: We, again noted that the State and City Board--already judged violators of the Constitution--could be required to fund measures designed to eradicate the remaining vestiges of segregation in the city schools, including measures which involved the voluntary participation of the suburban schools. This statement by the court highlights a very important point. The court said ``We again noted that the State and City Board--already adjudged violators of the constitution''--were responsible for desegregating the schools. This 1984 decision came four years after the original 8th circuit decision held that the state was in fact responsible for the discrimination. Senator Ashcroft was attorney general of Missouri for all of those years and was campaigning for governor when the decision was issued. No one knew better than he that the state had been found guilty of discrimination, and had been found guilty repeatedly. Yet he was still denying responsibility before the court in 1984 and it is deeply troubling that he was denying it before this committee in 2001. I am also deeply troubled by Senator Ashcroft's exploitation of the racial tensions over desegregation to promote his campaign for governor in 1984. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported at the time that Senator Ashcroft and his Republican primary opponent were ``trying to outdo each other as the most outspoken enemy of school integration in St. Louis,'' and were ``exploiting and encouraging the worst racist sentiments that exist in the state.'' The Economist, a conservative magazine, reported that both candidates ran openly bigoted ads and that Ashcroft called his opponent a ``closet supporter of racial integration.'' Even the Daily Dunklin Democrat, a newspaper that supported Ashcroft's appeals of the desegregation orders, took him to task for exploiting race in his campaign, criticizing the 1984 primary campaign as ``reminiscent of an Alabama primary in the 1950s.'' Ashcroft claimed in the Judiciary Committee that in opposing the desegregation plan he was merely opposing the cost of the desegregation that was being imposed on the state. But according to press reports of that campaign, Ashcroft repeatedly attacked the courts and the desegregation plan for reasons wholly unrelated to cost, even going as far as calling the desegregation plan an ``outrage against human decency'' and an ``outrage against the children of this state.'' I believe, instead, that it is the repeated, legally unsupportable, vigorous opposition to desegregation, that is an outrage against human decency and an outrage against the children of Missouri. For these reasons, I have great concern about Senator Ashcroft's testimony and his actions surrounding the entire issue of desegregation. His actions as Attorney General of Missouri leave no doubt that at every turn, he chose to wage a non-stop legal war against integration and desegregation, and that he used the full power of his office to do so. The question for Senator Ashcroft, and for senators on both sides of the aisle, is how can it mean anything for Senator Ashcroft to say that he will enforce the law against discrimination, when this record shows beyond any reasonable doubt that he will go to extraordinary lengths to deny the facts of discrimination? Senator Ashcroft's record and testimony on voter registration legislation are equally troubling. In response to a question about his decision as Governor of Missouri to veto two bills to increase voter registration in the city of St. Louis, which is heavily African American, Senator Ashcroft testified: I am concerned that all Americans have the opportunity to vote. I am committed to the integrity of the ballot. . . . I vetoed a number of bills as governor, and frankly, I don't say that I can remember all the details of all of them. Accordingly, I reviewed my veto message and recalled that I was urged to veto these bills by responsible local election officials. I also appeared to anticipate the Supreme Court's recent decision, as I expressed a concern that voting procedures be unified statewide. A review of the facts surrounding Governor Ashcroft's decision to veto the voter registration bills raises serious questions about whether he truly is ``concerned that all Americans have the opportunity to vote.'' Even the equal protection principle recently stated by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Florida election case cannot be reconciled with Ashcroft's actions. As Governor of Missouri, Senator Ashcroft appointed the local election boards in both St. Louis County and St. Louis City. The county, which surrounds much of the city, is relatively affluent. It is 84 percent white, and votes heavily Republican. The city itself is less affluent, 47 percent black, and votes heavily Democratic. Like other election boards across the State, the St. Louis County Election Board had a policy of training volunteers from nonpartisan groups--such as the League of Women Voters--to assist in voter registration. During Senator Ashcroft's service as Governor, the county trained as many as 1,500 such volunteers. But the number of trained volunteers in the city was zero--because the city election board appointed by Governor Ashcroft refused to follow the policy on volunteers used by his appointed board in the county and the rest of the State. Concerned about this obvious disparity, the State legislature passed bills in 1988 and 1989 to require the city election board to implement the same training policy for volunteers used by the county election board and the rest of the State. Despite broad support for these bills, on both occasions, Governor Ashcroft vetoed them, leaving in place a system that clearly made it more difficult for St. Louis City residents to register to vote. Among the justifications offered by Ashcroft for the vetoes was a concern for fraud, even though the Republican director of elections in St. Louis County was quoted in press reports as saying: ``It's worked well here . . . I don't know why it wouldn't also work well [in the City].'' The issues of fraud and voter registration had also been addressed by the United States Senate several years earlier, which concluded that ``fraud more often occurred by voting officials on election day, rather than in the registration process.'' In fact, in Missouri in 1989--five months after Governor Ashcroft's second veto--a clerk on the city of St. Louis Election Board was indicted for voter fraud by Secretary of State Roy Blunt. Ultimately, the repeated refusal by the St. Louis City Election Board to train volunteer registrars had a serious negative impact on voter registration rates in the city. During Senator Ashcroft's eight years as Governor, the voter registration rate in St. Louis City fell from a high of nearly 75 percent to 59 percent--a rate lower than the national average, lower than the statewide average, and 15 percent lower than St. Louis County rate. The types of barriers to voter registration approved by Governor Ashcroft and his appointed election board in the city were explicitly criticized in the early 1980s by both Democrats and Republicans in the United States Congress. In October 1984, the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Constitutional Rights of the House Judiciary Committee issued a report with the following finding: There is no room in our free society for inconvenient and artificial registration barriers designed to impede participation in the electoral process. . . . [W]e do not quarrel with increasing registration outreach and expanding the system of deputization [i.e., training volunteers registrars]. So we had the two vetoes, one where we had a limited bill that was just targeted for the city of St. Louis where they were going to, in effect, have training registrars like they had in the county. Ashcroft vetoed that bill and said it was special legislation and, therefore, he couldn't agree to it because it was just special to a city in Missouri. So he vetoed it. A year later, the Missouri legislature passed an overall plan for the whole state that encouraged the appointment of training registrars, so it would have application to the city of St. Louis. And he vetoed that again. He vetoed it because he said it was too broad and unnecessary. So the result of both of his vetoes was this dramatic adverse impact on black voter participation in the city of St. Louis. At the same time that there were 1,500 voting registrars just outside of the core city, there were zero voting registrars in the city of St. Louis as a result of Senator Ashcroft's actions in the inner city. As a result, there was a significant expansion of voter registration in Republican areas, in the white community, and there was the beginning of the collapse of voter registration in the black communities. That is a direct result. I will, in just a few moments, show this on a chart which vividly reflects this in a compelling way. The core question at issue in the recent Florida election case was whether the different county-by-county standards in Florida for determining what constituted a valid vote were inconsistent with the equal protection clause. Seven members of the U.S. Supreme Court, relying upon existing precedent, concluded that the equal protection clause required the application of a uniform statewide standard for determining what was a valid vote. I think it should have been that way by common sense, but here we have the overwhelming statement of the law by the Supreme Court. It is something I think all Americans can understand, but it was not good enough for Senator Ashcroft. As a result of that failure, we saw a dramatic reduction in voter participation and registration in that community. At a time when the issues of the adequacy of the counting and the sacred right to vote are part of our whole national dialog and debate about how we are going to remedy the extraordinary injustices that occurred in the last election and in other elections as well, it would seem to me that all citizens want to have confidence in whomever is going to be Attorney General; that they are going to protect their right to vote. If you were one of those Americans who was disenfranchised in the last national election and knew this particular record of Mr. Ashcroft--would you be wondering whether you could ever get a fair deal? We ought to have an Attorney General in whom all Americans can have confidence that their votes will be counted and counted fairly. In 1988, when Governor Ashcroft vetoed the first voter registration bill, he cited two reasons. He said it was unfair to pass a law requiring the city of St. Louis--but no other jurisdiction--to train volunteers to help register voters. And he said he was urged to veto the bill by his appointed St. Louis Board of Elections. (Governor's Veto Message, June 6, 1988.) Yet every other jurisdiction in Missouri-- other than St. Louis City--actively trained outside volunteers. In 1989, the Missouri legislature, in an effort to respond to Governor Ashcroft's concerns about unfairness, passed a second bill. This time the legislature adopted a uniform registrar training requirement for election boards throughout the State of Missouri. But Governor Ashcroft vetoed the legislation again claiming that ``[e]lection authorities are free to participate with private organizations now to conduct voter registration.'' Democrats and Republicans alike in the legislature said if the Governor is going to veto it because it is targeted, we will pass one with general application. That is what they did, claiming that election authorities are free to participate with private organizations. As I mentioned, what is troubling is there was a second veto by then Governor Ashcroft. The veto effectively ensured that there would not be a ``unified statewide'' procedure--a result that directly conflicts with the equal protection principles announced in the Florida election case and cited by Senator Ashcroft in his testimony to our committee. The facts are clear. For 8 years as Governor, Senator Ashcroft had the opportunity to ensure that citizens of St. Louis city--nearly half of whom are African-American--were afforded the same opportunity to register to vote as citizens in the rest of Missouri. Instead of working to expand the right to vote, Governor Ashcroft and his appointed election board in the city of St. Louis chose to maintain inconvenient and artificial registration barriers that had the purpose and effect of depressing participation in the electoral process, particularly by African-Americans. Senator Ashcroft's record on desegregation and voter registration are relevant to his recent visit to Bob Jones University and his interview with Southern Partisan magazine. The policies of both Bob Jones University and Southern Partisan magazine represent intolerance, bigotry, and a willingness to twist facts to create a society in that image. And those are policies that all Americans should reject. Displaying an extraordinary lack of sensitivity, Senator Ashcroft claims that he went to Bob Jones University and was interviewed by Southern Partisan magazine without knowing the policies and beliefs of either. Even if those claims are true, Senator Ashcroft's comments during the hearing were--at best--disturbing. Senator Ashcroft condemned slavery and discrimination, but his response displayed a fundamental misunderstanding of how certain institutions in our society perpetuate discrimination. Senator Ashcroft was unwilling to say that he would not return to Bob Jones University. He believes his presence there may have the potential to unite Americans. But to millions of Americans, such a visit by Senator Ashcroft as Attorney General of the United States would be a painful and divisive gesture. Similarly, on Southern Partisan magazine, Senator Ashcroft would only say that he would ``condemn those things which are condemnable.'' Surely the man who wants to sit at the head of the Department of Justice should say more and do more where bigotry is the issue. On the issue of women's rights, Senator Ashcroft's record is equally troubling. The Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade a quarter century ago held that women have a fundamental constitutional right to decide whether to have an abortion. The Court went on to say that States may regulate the abortion procedure after the first trimester of pregnancy in ways necessary to protect a women's health. After fetal viability, a State may prohibit abortions in cases where the procedure is not necessary to protect a woman's life or health. In the years since Roe v. Wade, opponents have relentlessly sought to overturn the decision and restrict a woman's constitutional right to choose. Senator Ashcroft has been one of the chief architects of that strategy. As attorney general of Missouri, he told the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1981: I have devoted considerable time and significant resources to defending the right of the State to limit the dangerous impacts of Roe, a case in which a handful of men on the Supreme Court arbitrarily amended the Constitution and overturned the laws of 50 states relating to abortions. Senator Ashcroft's position is clear. He believes that, except when medically necessary to save a woman's life, abortion should never be available, even in cases involving a victim of rape or incest. He has said, ``Throughout my life, my personal conviction and public record is that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed and should be protected fully by the 14th Amendment.'' While I respect Senator Ashcroft's personal convictions, they cannot and should not be used as an excuse to deprive women of their constitutional right to choose. Nevertheless, Senator Ashcroft has been unrelenting in his efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade. While serving as attorney general and as Governor, Senator Ashcroft constantly sought the passage of State antichoice legislation and was a principal architect of a continuing nationwide litigation strategy to persuade the Supreme Court to restrict or overturn Roe v. Wade. In 1991, as Governor, he even boasted that no State had more abortion-related cases that reached the Supreme Court. As attorney general, Senator Ashcroft was so intent on restricting a woman's right to choose that he personally argued Planned Parenthood of Western Missouri v. Ashcroft in the United States Supreme Court. In that case, decided in 1983, the Supreme Court specifically and clearly rejected, by a 6 to 3 margin, the attempt by the State of Missouri to require all second trimester abortions to be performed in a hospital. The Court did permit, however, three requirements--that a second physician be present during a post-viability abortion; that a minor obtain either parental consent or a judicial waiver to have an abortion; and that a pathology report be prepared for each abortion. In 1986, Governor Ashcroft signed into law a bill that attempted to overturn Roe v. Wade by declaring that life begins at conception. The bill also imposed numerous restrictions on a woman's constitutional right to choose. After signing the bill into law, Governor Ashcroft said, ``the bill makes an important statement of moral principle and provides a framework to deter abortion wherever possible.'' In 1989, the bill was challenged all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services. The State of Missouri not only asked the Supreme Court to uphold the statute, but it also specifically asked the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. The Court refused to overturn Roe. But by a vote of 5-4, the Court upheld some provisions of the statute, including the prohibitions on the use of public facilities or personnel to perform abortions. In addition to his attempts to restrict a woman's right to choose, Senator Ashcroft as attorney general also took direct and improper action that prevented poor women from obtaining gynecological and birth control services. As Attorney General, he issued an opinion stating that nurses in Missouri did ``not have the authority to engage in primary health care that includes diagnosis and treatment of human illness, injury or infirmity and administration of medications under general rather than direct physician guidance and supervision.'' Following this opinion, the Missouri State Board of Registration for the Healing Arts threatened the criminal prosecution of two nurses and five doctors employed by the East Missouri Action Agency who provided family planning services to low-income women. The nurses provided family planning, obstetrics and gynecology services to the public--including information on oral contraceptives, condoms and IUDs; initiatives on breast and pelvic examinations; and testing for sexually-transmitted diseases--through funding for programs directed to low-income populations. The nurses were licensed professionals under Missouri law, and the doctors issued standing orders for the nurses. All services performed by the nurses were carried out pursuant to those orders or well-established protocols for nurses and other paramedical personnel. The board, however, threatened to find the nurses guilty of the unauthorized practice of medicine, and to find the physicians guilty of aiding and abetting them. In 1983, more than 3 years after Attorney General Ashcroft issued his opinion, the Supreme Court of Missouri rejected the opinion, finding that nothing in the state statutes purported to limit or restrict the nurses' and doctors' practices, and that the nurses actions ``clearly'' fell within the legislative standard governing the practice of nursing. Although the decision ensured that nurses in Missouri could continue to provide family planning services, during the almost 3 years that the case was pending, Attorney General Ashcroft's legally untenable opinion placed nurses providing gynecological services, including family planning, in considerable legal peril. Senator Ashcroft's aggressive and vocal opposition to Roe v. Wade continued during his service as a Member of the Senate. He voted in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade and sponsored both a human life amendment to the Constitution and parallel legislation. The human life amendment would prohibit all abortions except that required to prevent the death of the mother--but only if every reasonable effort is made to preserve the life of the women and the fetus. The proposed constitutional amendment contains no exception for rape or incest, and no protections for a woman's health. Because the amendment and the proposed statute define life as beginning at fertilization, its language could also be used to ban any type of contraception which prevents a fertilized egg from being implanted in the uterus, including birth control pills and IUDs. Two weeks ago, however, Senator Ashcroft appeared to experience a confirmation conversion. He asked us to disregard his past record and unyielding position against reproductive rights and accept his new position--he now views ``Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey as the settled law of the land.'' He will not longer work to dismantle Roe, but to enforce it, he says. When asked about his efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade, Senator Ashcroft told the Committee that he ``did things to define the law by virtue of lawsuits . . . did things to refine the law when I had an enactment role.'' But as an example of his view of ``defining'' and ``refining'' the law, during his 1981 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee as attorney general of Missouri, Senator Ashcroft testified that the human life bill--which would prohibit all abortions--could be constitutional within the framework of Roe v. Wade. It is clear that as Attorney General of the United States, Senator Ashcroft could easily feel free to define and refine Roe v. Wade out of existence. Senator Ashcroft also wants the committee to believe that he won't ask the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. The current Court has made it clear that it will not overturn Roe. In that sense, Roe is settled law. But once the current composition of the Court changes, however, President Bush and Senator Ashcroft will feel free to take steps to overturn Roe. In an interview on January 20, 2001, President Bush said; Roe v. Wade is not going to be overturned by a Constitutional amendment because there's not the votes in the House or the Senator. I--secondly--I am going to put judges on the Court who strictly interpret the Constitution, and that will be the litmus test . . . I've always said that Roe v. Wade was--was a judicial reach. If Senator Ashcroft becomes Attorney General, he will be well- positioned to undermine and eliminate this most basic right of privacy for all American women. President Bush and Senator Ashcroft will select judges and justices who are prepared to turn back the clock to a time when women did not have the right to choose. We know Senator Ashcroft is willing to go to the courts time and time again to challenge settled law. State of Missouri v. The National Organization for Women is a case in point. In that case, the organization had called for a boycott of Missouri because of the failure by the State to ratify the equal rights amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Senator Ashcroft told the Judiciary Committee that the litigation brought in Missouri by his office against the National Organization for Women was well within the law. He said: We filed the lawsuit, to the best of my recollection, because the boycott was hurting the people of Missouri, and we believed it to be in violation of the antitrust laws. The lawsuit had nothing to do with the ERA . . . or the political differences that I might have had with NOW. He went on to say: Now, I litigated that matter thoroughly, and frankly, other states attempted it . . . I think the law is clear now and has been clear in the aftermath of that decision. That testimony was grossly misleading. At the time he brought the NOW case, he law was already well-settled in direct opposition to Senator Ashcroft's position. In ruling against Attorney General Ashcroft, both the federal district court and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals relied upon the Supreme Court's decision in Eastern Railroad Presidents Conference v. Noerr Motor Freight, Inc.--a case decided 17 years before Senator Ashcroft brought suit against NOW. The Attorney General said in that case: [The Sherman Act] . . . is a code that condemns trade restraints, not political activity, and, a publicity campaign to influence governmental action falls clearly into the category of political activity. Still, Attorney General Ashcroft was not deterred, even though the district court and the court of appeals had ruled against him, relying upon the clear U.S. Supreme Court precedent. Senator Ashcroft persisted and asked the Supreme Court to review the NOW case. The Court refused even to hear the case. It is deeply troubling that as attorney general, Senator Ashcroft used state resources to litigate a weak case that rested on an argument rejected by the Supreme Court years ago. But, as with the litigation surrounding the voluntary school desegregation plan, he preferred to fight on in appeal after appeal in a losing and illegitimate battle, rather than surrender to justice and protect the rights of women. Mr. President, just for the information of Members, I have probably 4 or 5 more minutes. I know other wish to speak. Than I will put the rest of the statement in the Record. Mr. President, Senator Ashcroft's opposition to gun control, his interpretation of the second amendment, and his advocacy of extremist gun lobby proposals are also very disturbing. Over 30,000 Americans lose their lives to gun violence every year, including over 3,000 children and teenagers. Our Nation's level of gun violence is unparalleled in the rest of the world. In response to the devastation caused by gun violence, the majority of Americans support stricter gun control laws and vigorous enforcement of the laws now on the books. Contrary to the majority of the American public, Senator Ashcroft vigorously opposes stricter gun control laws. He addressed this issue during the hearing, where he seemed to change his long held beliefs and emphasized his commitment to enforce the gun laws and defend their constitutionality. He testified that ``there are constitutional inhibitions on the rights of citizens to bear certain kinds of arms.'' Saying he supported some controls, Senator Ashcroft referred to his attempt to amend the juvenile justice bill to make semiautomatic assault weapons illegal for children. However, he neglected to mention that his proposed amendment was actually a weaker version of one proposed by Senator Feinstein. He sought to create a parental consent exception to Senator Feinstein's bill, which would have prevented juveniles from obtaining semiautomatic assault weapons. At the hearing, Senator Ashcroft also testified that the assault weapons ban, the Brady law, licensing and registration of guns, and mandatory child safety locks are all constitutional. Although Senator Ashcroft's testimony was intended to ease our concerns about his willingness to enforce gun control laws, it is difficult to reconcile what he said last week with his rhetoric and his record. Contrary to his testimony, Senator Ashcroft has previously stated that individuals have a virtually unconditional right to bear arms under the second amendment. In a 1998 hearing, he commented on court decisions, which noted that the second amendment does not guarantee individuals unrestricted rights to keep and bear arms. Senator Ashcroft expressed his disagreement with the view accepted by every federal appellate court and the Supreme Court, that the second amendment was intended to protect state-regulated militias, but does not entitle individuals to possess or use weapons connected with participation in private militias. He criticized these court decisions, stating, ``The argument makes no sense to me.'' At the 1998 hearing, Senator Ashcroft went on to say: Indeed, the second amendment--like the First--protects an important individual liberty that in turn promoted good government. A citizenry armed with the right to possess firearms and to speak freely is less likely to fall victim to a tyrannical central government than a citizenry that is disarmed from criticizing government or defending themselves. Senator Ashcroft's extreme view of the second amendment parallels his rhetoric comparing today's elected officials with the despots of the 18th century. The pro-gun Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms reported that Senator Ashcroft compared ``today's power brokers and policy wonks'' in the Federal Government to the ``European despots from whom our Founding Fathers fled.'' He has explained that individuals should be allowed to ``keep and bear arms'' because ``I am fearful of a government that doesn't trust the people who elected them.'' Are we talking about our system of government? Are we talking about that? Unfortunately, Senator Ashcroft's rhetoric and record lend undeserved credibility and legitimacy to the views espoused by anti-government militia groups in our Nation. Members of these groups believe the second amendment gives them the right to form private armies as a check against federal power. These militia groups point out that guns are not for hunting or even protecting against crime. Rather, they say, the second amendment was intended to safeguard liberty forever by ensuring that the American people should never be out-gunned by their own government. Ruby Ridge and Waco are two recent violent episodes in which groups holding these views came into armed conflict with federal law enforcement. The Department of Justice has the all-important responsibility to enforce the laws against such extremist groups. Yet Senator Ashcroft's past rhetoric has supported these extremist views and causes legitimate concern that his views are so outside the mainstream of American thought that as Attorney General he will be unable and unwilling to enforce the gun laws and pursue prosecutions against militia groups for violations of Federal laws. Although Senator Ashcroft testified that he believes in the constitutionality of the assault weapons ban, the Brady law, gun licensing and registration, and mandatory child safety locks on guns, he voted to oppose legislation in these areas. He voted against the ban on the importation of high ammunition magazines. He voted against closing the gun show loophole. He voted for a measure to impede implementation of the National Instant Check System. He voted twice to weaken existing law by removing the background check requirements on pawnshop redemptions and by allowing dealers to sell guns at gun shows in any state. He voted twice against bills to require child safety locks, and he voted against regulating firearms sales on the Internet. Senator Ashcroft testified that he supported funds for gun prosecution initiatives. However, he has voted to reduce funding in other areas vital to gun law enforcement. For example, he voted against funding to implement background checks under the Brady law, named after former Reagan Press Secretary James Brady. Indeed, Senator Ashcroft has referred to James Brady, a brave and patriotic American, as ``the leading enemy of responsible gun owners.'' When provided the opportunity to express regret for making such an unjustified statement, Senator Ashcroft declined. Senator Ashcroft is also closely tied to the gun lobby and he has often accepted contributions from these organizations and supported their agendas. During the hearing, he told us that keeping guns out of the hands of felons is a ``top priority'' of his. Yet, in 1998, this did not seem to be a top priority for him. He supported an NRA- sponsored ballot initiative that would have allowed almost anyone to carry concealed guns in Missouri. The proposal was so filled with loopholes that it would have allowed convicted child molesters and stalkers to carry semi-automatic pistols into bars, sports stadiums, casinos, and day care centers. The proposal was opposed by numerous law enforcement groups and many in the business community. Proponents of the measure say Senator Ashcroft volunteered his help to support the referendum, even recording a radio ad endorsing the proposal. Senator Ashcroft stated in response to written questions that ``Although [he did] not recall the specific details, [his] recollection is that supporters of the referendum approached [him] and asked [him] to record the radio spot.'' The fact remains that Senator Ashcroft did support the referendum and did record the radio spot. Few can doubt that as a seasoned politician, Senator Ashcroft made himself fully aware of the contents of the referendum before lending his name to it. And if he did not, there is even greater reason to question his judgment and suitability for such a high and important position in our federal government. Senator Ashcroft championed the NRA's concealed weapon proposition in 1998. But in 1992, while governor of Missouri, he had voiced his concerns about such a measure. As Governor, he stated he had ``grave concerns'' about concealed carry laws. He stated, ``Overall, I don't know that I would be one to want to promote a whole lot of people carrying concealed weapons in this society.'' He further stated, ``Obviously, if it's something to authorize everyone to carry concealed weapons, I'd be concerned about it.'' When asked about his change of view in deciding to support the 1998 initiative, Senator Ashcroft said he changed his position because of ``Research plus real-world experiences.'' However, Senator Ashcroft's research was so flawed that he responded to written questions that ``[t]o the extent there were loopholes in Missouri law'' that would permit convicted child molesters and stalkers to carry concealed weapons, he was ``unaware of those provisions at the time.'' Later, it was reported that the gun lobby spent $400,000 in support of Senator Ashcroft's Senate reelection campaign. He became ``the unabashed celebrity spokesman . . . for the National Rifle Association's recent attempts to arm citizens with concealed weapons in Missouri,'' according to a column by Laura Scott in the Kansas City Star. The Citizens' Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms gave Senator Ashcroft the ``Gun Rights Defender of the Month'' Award for leading the opposition to David Satcher's nomination to be Surgeon General. The group objected to Dr. Satcher because he advocated treating gun violence as a public health problem. Based on his close ties to the gun lobby and his strong support for their agenda, it is difficult to have confidence that Senator Ashcroft will fully and fairly enforce the nation's gun control laws and not seek to weaken them. Senator Ashcroft has shown time and time again that he supports the gun lobby and opposes needed gun safety measures. Given the important litigation in the federal courts, it is imperative to have an Attorney General who will strongly enforce current gun control laws such as the Brady Law, the assault weapons ban, and other statutes. It is also important to have an Attorney General with a responsible view of proposed legislation when the Department of Justice is asked to comment on it. Senator Ashcroft's handling of judicial and executive branch nominations also raises deep concerns. In four of the most divisive nomination battles in the Senate in the 6 years he served with us, Senator Ashcroft was consistently involved in harsh and vigorous opposition to the confirmation of distinguished and well-qualified African Americans, an Asian American and a gay American. When President Clinton nominated Judge Ronnie White of the Missouri Supreme Court to be a federal district court judge, Senator Ashcroft flagrantly distorted the record of the nominee and attacked him in the strongest terms. He accused Judge White of being ``an activist with a slant toward criminals.'' He accused him of being a judge with ``a serious bias against a willingness to impose the death penalty.'' He accused him of seeking ``at every turn'' to provide opportunities for the guilty to ``escape punishment.'' He accused him of voting ``to reverse the death sentence in more cases than any other [Missouri] Supreme Court judge.'' When questioned about Judge White's nomination, Senator Ashcroft did not retreat from his characterization of Judge White's record, although a review clearly demonstrates that Senator Ashcroft's charges were baseless. Judge White is not an ardent opponent of the death penalty. He voted to uphold death penalty convictions in 41 cases, and voted to reverse them in only 17 cases. His votes in death penalty cases were not significantly different from the votes of the other members of the Missouri Supreme Court--judges whom Senator Ashcroft appointed when he was Governor. In more than half of the 17 cases in which Judge White voted to overturn a death sentence, he was voting with the majority-- with Ashcroft appointees. Seven of these cases were unanimous decisions. There were only three death penalty reversals in which Judge White was the only judge who voted to overturn the conviction. In fact, four of the justices whom Senator Ashcroft named to the court have voted to overturn more death penalty convictions than Judge White. That record is not the record of ``an activist with a slant toward criminals.'' In fact, Judge White's record in death penalty cases shows him to be in the Missouri mainstream. Four of his colleagues who were appointed to the bench by Governor Ashcroft have voted to overturn between 22 percent and 25 percent of the death penalty convictions they considered. Judge White voted to reverse the convictions in 29 percent of the death penalty cases he heard. By contrast, his predecessor Judge Thomas, also an Ashcroft appointee, voted to reverse 47 percent of the death sentences he reviewed. There is no significant difference between Judge White's record on the death penalty and the records of his colleagues on the court. Some law enforcement officials in Missouri did oppose the White nomination. But many Missouri police officials supported Judge White. He had the support of the State Fraternal Order of Police. The head of the FOP said, ``The record of Justice White is one of a jurist whose record on the death penalty has been far more supportive of the rights of victims than the rights of criminals.'' Judge White was also endorsed by the chief of police of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. The president of the Missouri Police Chiefs Association described Judge White as ``an upright, fine individual.'' In Senator Ashcroft's statements on the Senate floor on the nomination, he focused on a small number of Judge White's opinions. A review of Judge White's entire record suggests that those cases were taken very much out of context. In two of them, there were serious questions about the competency of the defendant's trial counsel. In the third, there was evidence of racial bias by the trial judge. Those cases were not disagreements about the death penalty. The issue was whether the defendant had received a fair trial. Judge White's dissent in one of those cases makes this point in the clearest terms: This is a very hard case. If Mr. Johnson was in control of his faculties when he went on this murderous rampage, then he assuredly deserves the death sentence he was given . . . I am not convinced that the performance of his counsel did not rob Mr. Johnson of any opportunity he might have had to convince the jury that he was not responsible for his actions. This is an excellent example of why hard cases make bad law. While I share the majority's horror at this carnage, I cannot uphold this as an acceptable standard of representation for a defendant accused of capital murder. Senator Ashcroft's statements on the White nomination strongly suggest that Senator Ashcroft has a misguided view of the role of judges in our constitutional system. To label a judge ``pro-criminal'' based on isolated opinions over the course of an entire career is wrong. Judges are obliged to decide individual cases according to the requirements of law, including the Constitution. Judge White has frequently voted to affirm criminal convictions, including 41 capital cases. The fact that he reached a contrary position in a few cases should not disqualify him to be a federal judge. What is most noteworthy about Senator Ashcroft's attacks on Judge White is the extraordinary degree to which Senator Ashcroft distorted the record in order to portray Judge White's confirmation as a referendum on the death penalty. This is a judge who had voted to uphold more than 70 percent of the death penalty convictions he had reviewed. Yet Senator Ashcroft never questioned Judge White about these issues at the committee hearing on Judge White's nomination, and he never gave Judge White an opportunity to explain his reasons for dissenting in the three cases before unfairly attacking his record. It appears that Senator Ashcroft had decided to use the death penalty as an issue in his campaign for re-election to the Senate, and to make his point, he cruelly distorted the honorable record of a distinguished African American judge and denied him the position he deserved as a federal district court judge. As I said at the hearing, what Senator Ashcroft did to Judge White is the ugliest thing that has happened to a nominee in all my years in the Senate. Senator Ashcroft was also asked about the nominations of Bill Lann Lee to serve as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Dr. David Satcher to serve as Surgeon General of the United States, and James Hormel to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg. Senator Ashcroft told the committee that he could not support Mr. Lee because he had ``serious concerns about his willingness to enforce the Adarand decision'' on affirmative action. In truth, however, Mr. Lee's position on affirmative action was well within the mainstream of the law, and he repeatedly told the committee that he would follow the Supreme Court's ruling in the Adarand case. As Senator Leahy said during the Ashcroft confirmation hearings. Mr. Lee testified on a number of occasions--in fact, testified under oath, including, incidentally, directly in answer to your questions, that he would enforce the law as declared in Adarand. And he also said, in direct answer to questions of this committee, he considered the Adarand decision of the Supreme Court as the controlling legal authority of the land, that he would seek to enforce it, he would give it full effect . . . Similarly, Senator Ashcroft said he did not support Dr. Satcher to be Surgeon General because he: Supported a number of activities that I thought were inconsistent with the ethical obligations of a medical doctor and a physician, particularly the surgeon general . . . for example he supported an AIDS study on pregnant women in Africa where some patients were given placebos, even though a treatment existed to limit transmission of AIDS from the mother to the child . . . I, secondly, believed his willingness to send AIDS-infected babies home with their mothers without telling their mothers about the infection of the children was another ethical problem that was very serious. In fact, at the time of the debate on the Satcher nomination in 1997, approximately 1,000 babies were born with HIV every day. Most of the births were in developing countries, where the U.S.-accepted regimen of AZT treatment is not practical because of safety and cost concerns. In 1994, the World Health Organization had called a meeting of international experts to review the use of AZT to prevent the spread of HIV in pregnancy. That meeting resulted in the recommendation that studies be conducted in developing countries to test the effectiveness and safety of short-term AZT therapy that could be used in developing countries and that those studies be placebo-controlled to ensure safety in areas with various immune challenges. Approval was obtained by ethics committees in this country and the host countries and by the UNAIDS program. The National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control agreed to support the studies in order to save lives in developing countries. Many leaders in the medical field supported the studies. Dr. Nancy Dickey, AMA president-elect at the time, said that the studies in Africa and Asia were ``scientifically well-founded'' and carried out with ``informed consent.'' Those who did not support the studies still supported Dr. Satcher's nomination. Dr. Sidney Wolfe, Director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, said that while he had for many months expressed opposition to the AZT experiments, it represented an honest difference of opinion with Satcher. He said he fully supports the nomination. ``I think he'd make an excellent surgeon general,'' Wolfe said. ``I have known him and I admire him.'' Senator Ashcroft also mis-characterized Dr. Satcher's role in the survey of HIV child-bearing women. In 1995, seven years after the survey began during the Reagan administration, Dr. Satcher, as acting CDC director, and Dr. Phil Lee, former Assistant Secretary for Health, halted the HIV survey. They did so because of a combination of better treatment options for children with HIV, the discovery of a therapeutic regimen to reduce mother-to-infant HIV transmission, and a greater ability to monitor HIV trends in women of childbearing age in other ways. The HIV tests had begun in 1988, five years before Dr. Satcher joined the CDC. The tests were supported by public health leaders at every level of government as a way to monitor the HIV/AIDS epidemic. These surveys were designed to provide information about the level of HIV in a given community without individual information. The Survey of Child- Bearing Women was one of the HIV surveys conducted under the program. It was funded by the CDC and conducted by the states. Forty-five states, including Missouri while Senator Ashcroft was Governor, participated in the survey and requested and received federal funds from the CDC to conduct it. The survey was important to public health officials at the time, because it was the only unbiased way to provide a valid estimate of the number of women with HIV and their demographic distribution. Dr. Satcher's participation in the survey was justified, and it was not a valid reason for Senator Ashcroft to deny him confirmation as Surgeon General. The case of James Hormel is also especially troubling. When Mr. Hormel was nominated by President Clinton to serve as Ambassador to Luxembourg, Senator Ashcroft and Senator Helms were the only two members of the Foreign Relations Committee to oppose the nomination. Although Senator Ashcroft voted against Mr. Hormel, Senator Ashcroft did not attend the confirmation hearings, did not submit written questions, and refused Mr. Hormel's repeated requests to meet or speak by phone to discuss the nomination. In 1998, when asked about his opposition to Mr. Hormel's nomination, Senator Ashcroft stated that homosexuality is a sin and that a person's sexual conduct ``is within what could be considered and what is eligible for consideration.'' Senator Ashcroft also publicly stated in 1988 that: ``[Mr. Hormel's] conduct and the way in which he would represent the United States is probably not up to the standard that I would expect.'' Senator Leahy asked Senator Ashcroft at the Judiciary Committee hearings whether he opposed Hormel's nomination because of Hormel's sexual orientation. Senator Ashcroft responded ``I did not.'' Instead, Senator Ashcroft claimed that he had ``known Mr. Hormel for a long time''--Mr. Hormel had been a dean of students at the University of Chicago law school when Senator Ashcroft was a student there in the 1960s. Senator Ashcroft repeatedly testified that he based his opposition to Mr. Hormel on the ``totality of the record.'' Mr. Hormel was so troubled by Senator Ashcroft's testimony that he wrote to the committee and said the following: I want to state unequivocally and for the record that there is no personal or professional relationship between me and Mr. Ashcroft which could possibly support such a statement. The letter continued, I have had no contact with him [Ashcroft] of any type since I left my position as Dean of Students . . . nearly thirty-four years ago, in 1967 . . . For Mr. Ashcroft to state that he was able to assess my qualifications . . . based upon his personal long-time relationship with me is misleading, erroneous, and disingenuous . . . I find it personally offensive that Mr. Ashcroft, under oath and in response to your direct questions, would choose to misstate the nature of our relationship, insinuate objective grounds for voting against me, and deny that his personal viewpoint about my sexual orientation played any role in his actions. We should all be deeply concerned about Senator Ashcroft's willingness to mislead the Judiciary Committee about his reasons for opposing the Hormel nomination. As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted on January 22, 2001. ``[T]he most disturbing part of Mr. Ashcroft's testimony was the way in which he misstated important parts of his record.'' In conclusion, the Attorney General of the United States leads the 85,000 men and women who enforce the nation's laws in every community in the country. The Attorney General is the nation's chief law enforcement officer and a symbol of the nation's commitment to justice. Americans from every walk of life deserve to have trust in him to be fair and just in his words and in his actions. He has vast powers to enforce the laws and set priorities for law enforcement in ways that are fair or unfair--just or unjust. When a President nominates a person to serve in his Cabinet, the presumption is rightly in favor of the nominee. But Senator Ashcroft has a long and detailed record of relentless opposition on fundamental issues of civil rights and other basic rights of vital importance to all the people of America, and the people of this country deserve better than that. Americans are entitled to an Attorney General who will vigorously fight to uphold the law and protect our constitutional rights. Based on a detailed review of his long record in public service, Senator Ashcroft is not that man. I urge the Senate to vote no on this nomination. Mr. President, since I see a number of my colleagues, I will take the opportunity, when there is a pause in the Senate, to complete my statement. At this time, I yield the floor.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank the leaders. I will just take a few moments to respond to some points that were made earlier in the day by my friend and colleague, the Senator from Utah, Mr. Hatch. Earlier this morning I took the time to review the history of the challenges that were there for St. Louis in terms of desegregation of the schools and the actions that were taken or failed to be taken by the nominee, Mr. Ashcroft. I took a considerable amount of time to review the whole history and review the cases there. I drew the conclusion that there was a gross failure of, I think, judgment in terms of taking the necessary steps to protect the interests of the children. Those cases were later challenged during the course of the afternoon, and I would like to respond very briefly and then to conclude with the remainder of my remarks that I had this morning, which, because others were here on the floor, I did not have the time to do. My food friend from Utah talked earlier about the St. Louis desegregation case. Unfortunately, he continued the pattern on the other side of expressing outrage about the fact that desegregation can be expensive, without being outraged by the injustice being done to the African American children in St. Louis. The simple fact is that Senator Ashcroft spent his career as attorney general denying the facts of discrimination and segregation. He continued to deny them at his confirmation hearing, and many of our colleagues are attempting to deny them on the floor of the Senate. The facts are clear. The state of Missouri was found guilty by the courts of segregating the schools and keeping them segregated all the way through the 1970s. The court's findings in 1980 made very clear that the state was aggressively maintaining segregation. Even black families who had moved out to the suburbs saw their children bused back into the inner-city to black schools. As the court ruled in 1982: We held . . . that the state had substantially contributed to the segregation of the public schools of the City of St. Louis . . . the state defendants are primary constitutional wrongdoers and, therefore, can be required to take those actions which will further the desegregation of the city schools, even if the actions required will occur outside the boundaries of the city school district. Yet Senator Ashcroft continued to insist that the state was ``found guilty of no wrong.'' Some of our colleagues claimed that Senator Ashcroft's position was vindicated by the Supreme Court in Missouri v. Jenkins. But the Jenkins case was from Kansas City. It had nothing to do with St. Louis. The Supreme Court rejected every one of Ashcroft's three appeals in the St. Louis case. He also complained that some of the money went to the suburban schools. It went for the students who transferred to the suburban schools; that is Public School Choice. He said that the test scores went down in St. Louis in the nineties. What is clear, is that the students who transferred had consistently twice to three times the graduation rate, and in some districts, 90 percent of the graduates went on to college. Defenders of Senator Ashcroft also claimed that desegregation in Missouri was more expensive than anywhere except California. We all know what made it expensive--the unrelenting 16 year fight against doing anything to fix the problem by Senator Ashcroft when he was Attorney General and Governor of the State. If Senator Ashcroft was simply protecting the state's treasury he could easily have proposed a cheaper alternative to the court. If he was concerned that the courts was ordering desegregation, he could easily have supported a state law to correct the problem. In fact, the state is not paying for the plan anymore, and that's because Senator Ashcroft successors, Attorney General Jay Nixon and Governor Mel Carnahan, provided the leadership needed to settle the cases and start improving education for all the children in St. Louis. Earlier, I spoke at length about Senator Ashcroft's record on civil rights--especially, school desegregation and voting rights--and his record on women's rights and gun control. At this time, I intend to discuss Senator Ashcroft's treatment of judicial and executive branch nominees. I know others have referenced some of them, but I want to underscore my own reaction and response to the handling of these nominations by Senator Ashcroft. Senator Ashcroft's handling of judicial and executive branch nominations raises deep concerns. In four of the most divisive nomination battles in the Senate in the six years he served with us, Senator Ashcroft was consistently involved in harsh and vigorous opposition to the confirmation of distinguished and well-qualified African Americans, an Asian American, and a gay American. When President Clinton nominated Judge Ronnie White of the Missouri Supreme Court to be a federal district court judge, Senator Ashcroft flagrantly distorted the record of the nominee and attacked him in the strongest terms. He accused Judge White of being ``an activist with a slant toward criminals.'' He accused him of being a judge with ``a serious bias against a willingness to impose the death penalty.'' He accused him of seeking ``at every turn'' to provide opportunities for the guilty to ``escape punishment.'' He accused him of voting ``to reverse the death sentence in more cases than any other [Missouri] Supreme Court judge.'' When questioned about Judge White's nomination, Senator Ashcroft did not retreat from his characterization of Judge White's record, although a review clearly demonstrates that Senator Ashcroft's charges were baseless. It's clear that Senator Ashcroft distorted the record in order to portray Judge White's confirmation as a referendum on the death penalty. Senator Ashcroft had decided to use the death penalty as an issue in his campaign for re-election to the Senate, and to make his point, he cruelly distorted the honorable record of a distinguished African American judge and denied him the position he deserved as a federal district court judge. As I said at the hearing, what Senator Ashcroft did to Judge White is the ugliest thing that has happened to a nominee in all my years in the Senate. Senator Ashcroft was also asked about the nominations of Bill Lann Lee to serve as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Dr. David Satcher to serve as Surgeon General of the United States, and James Hormel to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg. Senator Ashcroft told the committee that he could not support Mr. Lee because he had ``serious concerns about his willingness to enforce the Adarand decision'' on affirmative action. In truth, however, Mr. Lee's position on affirmative action was well within the mainstream of the law, and he repeatedly told the committee that he would follow the Supreme Court's ruling in the Adarand case. As Senator Leahy said during the Ashcroft confirmation hearings, Mr. Lee testified on a number of occasions--in fact, testified under oath, including, incidentally, directly in answer to your questions, that he would enforce the law as declared in Adarand. And he also said, in direct answer to questions of this committee, he considered the Adarand decision of the Supreme Court as the controlling legal authority of the land, that he would seek to enforce it, he would give it full effect . . . That wasn't sufficient for Senator Ashcroft and he continued to oppose, and oppose strongly, this extraordinarily well-qualified, committed, and dedicated public servant. Similarly, Senator Ashcroft said he did not support Dr. Satcher to be Surgeon General because he: . . . supported a number of activities that I thought were inconsistent with the ethical obligations of a medical doctor and a physician, particularly the surgeon general * * * for example he supported an AIDS study on pregnant women in Africa where some patients were given placebos, even though a treatment existed to limit transmission of AIDS from the mother to the child * * * I, secondly, believed his willingness to send AIDS-infected babies home with their mothers without telling their mothers about the infection of the children was another ethical problem that was very serious. In fact, at the time of the debate on the Satcher nomination in 1997, approximately 1,000 babies were born with HIV every day. Most of the births were in developing countries, where the U.S.-accepted regimen of AZT treatment is not practical because of safety and cost concerns. In 1994, the World Health Organization had called a meeting of international experts to review the use of AZT to prevent the spread of HIV in pregnancy. That meeting resulted in the recommendation that studies be conducted in developing countries to test the effectiveness and safety of short-term AZT therapy that could be used in developing countries and that those studies be placebo- controlled to ensure safety in areas with various immune challenges. Approval was obtained by ethics committees in this country and the host countries and by the UNAIDS program. The studies were supported by many leaders in the medical field, and the facts undermine Senator Ashcroft's criticism of Dr. Satcher. Senator Ashcroft also mischaracterized Dr. Satcher's role in the survey of HIV child-bearing women. In 1995, seven years after the survey began during the Reagan Administration, Dr. Satcher, as acting CDC director, and Dr. Phil Lee, former Assistant Secretary for Health, halted the HIV survey. They did so because of a combination of better treatment options for children with HIV, the discovery of a therapeutic regimen to reduce mother-to-infant HIV transmission, and a greater ability to monitor HIV trends in women of childbearing age in other ways. Dr. Satcher's participation in the survey was justified, and it was not a valid reason for Senator Ashcroft to deny him confirmation as Surgeon General. It was a gross distortion of his record in this situation. To criticize him for taking actions which were inconsistent with ethical considerations in that case was a complete distortion of the record. The case of James Hormel is also especially troubling. When Mr. Hormel was nominated by President Clinton to serve as Ambassador to Luxembourg, Senator Ashcroft and Senator Helms were the only two members of the Foreign Relations Committee to oppose the nomination. Although Senator Ashcroft voted against Mr. Hormel, Senator Ashcroft did not attend the confirmation hearings, did not submit written questions, and refused Mr. Hormel's repeated requests to meet or speak by phone to discuss the nomination. Generally, as a matter of courtesy, if a nominee asks individual members to meet with them to explain their positions, respond to questions, as long as it have been in the Senate that has been a privilege that has been extended. But not by Mr. Ashcroft to Mr. Hormel, in spite of repeated requests. In 1998, when asked about his opposition to Mr. Hormel's nomination, Senator Ashcroft stated that homosexuality is a sin and that a person's sexual conduct: is within what could be considered and what is eligible for consideration. Senator Ashcroft also publicly stated in 1998 that: [Mr. Hormel's] conduct and the way in which he would represent the United States is probably not up to the standard that I would expect. Senator Leahy asked Senator Ashcroft at the Judiciary Committee hearings whether he opposed Hormel's nomination because of Hormel's sexual orientation. Senator Ashcroft responded ``I did not.'' Instead, Senator Ashcroft claimed that he had ``known Mr. Hormel for a long time''--Mr. Hormel had been a dean of students at the University of Chicago law school when Senator Ashcroft was a student there in the 1960s. Senator Ashcroft repeatedly testified that he based his opposition to Mr. Hormel on the ``totality of the record.'' Mr. Hormel was so troubled by Senator Ashcroft's testimony that he wrote to the committee and said the following: I want to state unequivocally and for the record that there is no personal or professional relationship between me and Mr. Ashcroft which could possibly support such a statement. The letter continued: I have had no contact with him [Ashcroft] of any type since I left my position as Dean of Students . . . nearly thirty- four years ago, in 1967 . . . For Mr. Ashcroft to state that he was able to assess my qualifications . . . based upon his personal long-time relationship with me is misleading, erroneous, and disingenuous . . . I find it personally offensive that Mr. Ashcroft, under oath and in response to your direct questions, would choose to misstate the nature of our relationship, insinuate objective grounds for voting against me, and deny that his personal viewpoint about my sexual orientation played any role in his actions. We should all be deeply concerned about Senator Ashcroft's willingness to mislead the Judiciary Committee about his reasons for opposing the Hormel nomination. As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted on January 22, 2001: [T]he most disturbing part of Mr. Ashcroft's testimony was the way in which he misstated important parts of his record. Senator Ashcroft's efforts to derail the nominations of these four distinguished men was grounded in a distortion of the facts. In every case, He twisted events to suit his purposes and held the nominees to a standard by which he could not be confirmed. Sadly, the facts surrounding these nominations represent the tip of the iceberg. Year after year, Senator Ashcroft worked to prevent the confirmation of talented women and minorities--Marsha Berzon, Richard Paez, Margaret McKeown, and others. In some instances he was successful and--fortunately--in others, he was not. But, what is most disturbing is Senator Ashcroft's unfair treatment of well-qualified men and women, and, what appears to be, a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of a federal jurist or the role of a member of the President's Cabinet. I want to mention Senator Ashcroft's decades-long opposition to gun control legislation. Senator Ashcroft is closely tied to the gun lobby and he has often accepted contributions from these organizations and supported their agendas. During the hearing, he told us that keeping guns out of the hands of felons is a ``top priority'' of his. Yet, in 1998, this did not seem to be a top priority for him. He supported an NRA-sponsored ballot initiative that would have allowed almost anyone to carry concealed guns in Missouri. The proposal was so filled with loopholes that it would have allowed convicted child molesters and stalkers to carry semi-automatic pistols into bars, sports stadiums, casinos and day care centers. The proposal was opposed by numerous law enforcement groups and many in the business community. Proponents of the measure say Senator Ashcroft volunteered his help to support the referendum, even recording a radio and endorsing the proposal. Senator Ashcroft stated in response to written questions that: Although [he did] not recall the specific details, [his] recollection is that supporters of the referendum approached [him] and asked [him] to record the radio spot. The fact remains that Senator Ashcroft did support the referendum and did record the radio spot. Few can doubt that as a seasoned politician, Senator Ashcroft made himself fully aware of the contents of the referendum before lending his name to it. And if he did not, there is even greater reason to question his judgment and suitability for such a high and important position in our Federal Government. Senator Ashcroft championed the NRA's concealed weapon proposition in 1998. But in 1992, while governor of Missouri, he had voiced his concerns about such a measure. As governor, he stated he had ``grave concerns'' about concealed carry laws. He stated: Overall, I don't know that I would be one to want to promote a whole lot of people carrying concealed weapons in this society. He further stated: Obviously, if it's something to authorize everyone to carry concealed weapons, I'd be concerned about it. When asked about his change of view in deciding to support the 1998 initiative, Senator Ashcroft said he changed his position because of ``Research plus real-world experiences.'' However, Senator Ashcroft's research was so flawed that he responded to written questions that ``[t]o the extent there were loopholes in Missouri law'' that would permit convicted child molesters and stalkers to carry concealed weapons, he was ``unaware of those provisions at the time.'' Later, it was reported that the gun lobby spent $400,000 in support of Senator Ashcroft's Senate reelection campaign. He became: the unabashed celebrity spokesman . . . for the National Rifle Association's recent attempts to arm citizens with concealed weapons in Missouri. That is according to a column by Laura Scott in the Kansas City Star. The Citizen's Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms gave Senator Ashcroft the ``Gun Rights Defender of the Month'' Award for leading the opposition to David Satcher's nomination to be Surgeon General. The group objected to Dr. Satcher because he advocated treating gun violence as a public health problem. Based on his close ties to the gun lobby and his strong support for their agenda, it is difficult to have confidence that Senator Ashcroft will fully and fairly enforce the nation's gun control laws and not seek to weaken them. Senator Ashcroft has shown time and time again that he supports the gun lobby and opposes needed gun safety measures. Given the important litigation in the Federal courts, it is imperative to have an Attorney General who will strongly enforce current gun control laws such as the Brady law, the assault weapons ban, and other statutes. It is also important to have an Attorney General with a responsible view of proposed legislation when the Department of Justice is asked to comment on it. In conclusion, the Attorney General of the United States leads the 85,000 men and women who enforce the Nation's laws in every community in the country. The Attorney General is the Nation's chief law enforcement officer and a symbol of the Nation's commitment to justice. Americans from every walk of life deserve to have trust in him to be fair and just in his words and in his actions. He has vast powers to enforce the laws and set priorities for law enforcement in ways that are fair or unfair--just or unjust. When a President nominates a person to serve in his Cabinet, the presumption is rightly in favor of the nominee. But Senator Ashcroft has a long and detailed record of relentless opposition on fundamental issues of civil rights and other basic rights of vital importance to all the people of America, and the people of this country deserve better than that. Americans are entitled to an Attorney General who will vigorously fight to uphold the law and protect our constitutional rights. Based on a detailed review of his long record in public service, Senator Ashcroft is not that man. I urge the Senate to vote no on this nomination.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I welcome this opportunity to express my support for Elaine Chao's nomination to be Secretary of Labor. Ms. Chao is a woman of impressive talents who has achieved a great deal in her career, both in and out of government. She is an accomplished manager and a graceful leader, and she has distinguished herself and her family by her strong commitment to public service. She knows first hand the experience of minorities growing up in the America of the 1950's and 60's. Her career is a vivid example of the triumph of the American dream. She decided to attend both college and graduate school in Massachusetts, and our state is proud of her, too. As we all know, the Secretary of Labor has the profound responsibility for enforcing the basic federal laws and federal programs that protect workers' fundamental rights, especially in areas such as fair wages, fair benefits, reasonable work hours, safe and healthy workplaces, and non-discrimination and equal opportunity in employment. The Department's statutory mission is specifically, and I quote, ``to foster, promote and develop the welfare of the wage earners of the United States, to improve their working conditions, and to advance their opportunities for profitable employment.'' Ms. Chao is committed to these goals. As she stated forcefully at her confirmation hearing, ``all work is worthy of respect and virtually all workers need appropriate protection.'' She recognizes that ``the labor struggles of the early part of the last century and the laws that grew out of them are a critical part of this nation's historic commitment to justice for all.'' She has promised to ``fully, fairly and evenly enforce the labor laws of this country.'' Many challenges will face Ms. Chao in her new position, and I look forward to working with her to meet them. This Congress, once again, will have an opportunity to increase the minimum wage. Many of us have long fought for raising the minimum wage, and we plan to introduce new legislation soon to grant a long overdue increase. Eleven million workers have already waited for over three years for Congress to act. The real value of the minimum wage has fallen dramatically in the past generation. To have the purchasing power it had in 1968, the minimum wage would have to be at least $8.05 an hour today, not the current level of $5.15. Minimum wage families today fail to earn enough to rise above the poverty level. No one who works for a living should have to live in poverty. So, I hope that a fair increase in the minimum wage will be a top priority for both Congress and the Administration early this year. I also hope that President Bush and Secretary Chao will reconsider their support of proposals that would enable states or local communities to ``opt out'' of a minimum wage increase. In some states today, the state minimum wage is as low as $1.50 an hour. In others, it is $2.65 and $3.35. The vast majority of workers are covered by the federal minimum wage, so these state rates apply to relatively few workers. Clearly, allowing states to opt out of the federal minimum wage would violate our commitment to the principle, which Congress has stood by for over sixty years, that working men and women are entitled to a fair minimum wage. Ms. Chao has said that she supports and will maintain the current federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour nationwide, but that level today is not sufficient to provide the economic security that every working family deserves. Another vital labor priority is training the nation's workforce to meet the demands of the new economy. I welcome Ms. Chao's assurance that ``training, developing and modernizing America's work force is one of [her] highest priorities,'' and I look forward to working with her to strengthen programs to address the needs of those in the workforce who are not adequately prepared. The bipartisan Workforce Investment Act, which Congress passed in 1998, reformed federal job training by creating a streamlined, one-stop approach to job training, and it was an important first step. But as more and more workers face mid-life career changes, and as even traditional occupations grow in complexity, better training for all workers--adults, dislocated workers and youth-- is a necessity. I was also encouraged by Ms. Chao's desire to see that ``parents have an easier time balancing the responsibilities of home and work.'' Today's employees are working longer and longer hours to make ends meet. The result is significant new problems for businesses and families. I welcome Ms. Chao's recognition that the Family and Medical Leave Act ``has brought about a great deal of benefit for working families that need flexibility.'' But we can and should do more to deal with these problems, and I am pleased by Ms. Chao's commitment to ``keep an open mind'' and to be ``a real good listener'' on further expansions in the law. We must also guarantee strong and effective enforcement of the federal laws against job discrimination. Current laws require non- discrimination and affirmative action. The landmark Executive Order issued by President Johnson in 1965 has been in effect for more than 35 years, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, and strong enforcement is still needed. In her opening statement at her confirmation hearing, Ms. Chao eloquently testified to her understanding that barriers based on gender, race, national origin and disability have prevented many of America's workers from achieving their true potential. She emphasized that she is ``against discrimination of any sort, and will enforce the law as it is enacted.'' I hope this is an area where the Department and Congress can continue to make progress together. Many of us have also long been committed to vigorous enforcement of laws and programs to protect workers' health. A particular contemporary concern is the prevalence of ergonomic injuries in the workplace. These injuries are the most significant workplace safety and health issue we face today. About 1.8 million workers report that they suffer ergonomic injuries every year. Another 1.8 million workers suffer such injuries that they do not report. These injuries are painful and often debilitating, and disrupt and sometimes end workers' careers. In the vast majority of cases, these injuries are preventable. The OSHA ergonomics rule went into effect at long last earlier this month. It offers vital protections to American workers, and it benefits employers too. Recent studies should lay to rest the suggestion by special interest groups that we should wait for additional scientific evidence to deal with this serious problem. Ms. Chao has called the ergonomics rule ``the most visible issue'' facing the Department of Labor, and she said she would give the issue the ``greatest thought and effort and study.'' I commend her recognition that ``any change in our labor laws or in their interpretation must be carefully and solemnly considered, giving respectful and full attention to the views of every participant in the labor-management equation.'' I know that she will apply this understanding to the ergonomics rule, as well as to all of the other issues before the Department of Labor. Finally, as we know, from equal pay for women and people of color, to pension plans and health plans, to the Family and Medical Leave Act, employees depend on the Department of Labor to ensure that the nation's labor laws are fully and fairly enforced. We in Congress have our own responsibility in this area--to see that the Department has adequate resources to carry out these missions successfully. I congratulate Ms. Chao on her nomination, and I look forward to working with her on issues of vital importance to workers and their families. I hope that under her able leadership, the Department of Labor will be at the forefront of improving the lives of the nation's workers and their families, by ensuring that they have good jobs, good wages and safe and healthy places to work.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, few appointees in the Cabinet are more important than the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The agency's 63,000 dedicated employees serve America well. With its budget of $427 billion, if it were a country, HHS would have a GNP larger than all but 14 of the nations in the world. But the vast importance of the Department cannot be measured by numbers of employees or dollars of spending. As the HHS motto itself states, ``Hope is the anchor of life.'' The programs directed by the Secretary are an anchor of life for tens of millions of Americans. They bring hope to the hopeless and help to the helpless. They express the best ideals of our country. It has been said that the measure of a society is how it treats the very old and the very young. The Secretary of the Department is responsible for stewardship of Medicare, which along with Social Security, states the promise of our society to our senior citizens that their golden years will be as healthy and secure as possible. Medicare is a compact between the American people and their government. It says work hard and contribute to your country during your working years--and you will have good medical care in your senior years. For the very young, the Secretary has an equally profound responsibility. The Secretary is the leader of Head Start, one of the most effective government programs to help disadvantaged children join the mainstream of American life. It brings help and hope for millions of children who would otherwise have no chance at the American dream-- but it still serves only half of all those who are eligible. Whether the issue is health care for the disadvantaged or assistance for low-income families, HHS is the lead federal agency for some of the most serious challenges the nation faces. HHS safety net programs are the protection of last resort for millions of Americans, and other HHS programs are also vital to the well-being of affluent and average Americans alike. Without the Food and Drug Administration, Americans could not go to the grocery store with any confidence that the food they buy is safe and healthy. No American could be confident that their prescription drugs are safe and effective, and no American needing a medical device could be sure that the device will do more good than harm. Biomedical research supported by the National Institutes of Health is unequaled by any other country. NIH leads the world in the effort to conquer cancer, heart disease, mental illness and other dread diseases that threaten the life and happiness of American families. We all know the important challenges that the new Congress, the new President, and the new Secretary of Health and Human Services will face this year. We need to enact prescription drug coverage under Medicare, to assure that the promise of health security in retirement will finally be fulfilled. We must expand health insurance, so that the right to health care can be a reality for every American, not just an expensive privilege for the few. We must pass a strong, enforceable Patients' Bill of Rights to end the abuses of managed care and give every patient the confidence that their health insurance will be there when they need it. We should expand quality day care, child care, and Head Start, so that we mean what we say when we state that no child shall be left behind. We must maintain our commitment to biomedical research at the NIH, to reap the benefits of the century of the life sciences that has just begun, and increase our commitment to research on health care quality and the delivery and utilization of health services. I hope we can move forward together in a spirit of bipartisanship to address each of these great challenges. But it is also important that we do not move backward by advancing partisan and divisive proposals that would undermine the accomplishments of the past. We must not undermine the federal commitment to guaranteed health care for poor children, poor parents, senior citizens, and the disabled. A new effort to enact a Medicaid block grant would be counterproductive. And so would an attempt to repeal the Medicaid commitment by stealth, through the use of the waiver process in a way that undermines the Medicaid entitlement, rather than providing services in new and better ways. Congress approved the CHIP program for children's health by an overwhelming bipartisan majority, because it struck the right balance between state flexibility and achievement of national goals. Steps to provide additional flexibility should be carefully considered--and should not be undertaken without congressional review. I know that Governor Thompson is interested in expanding coverage to parents of the children covered by Medicaid and CHIP. I hope that he will support our bipartisan efforts to provide new funds and clear authority to support states that want to accomplish this important objective, rather than using the waiver process and limited Title XXI funds to cover parents at the expanse of children. We must be more sensitive to ethical concerns in federally financed medical research--but we must also not roll back existing research commitments because of ideology--and certainly not without congressional action to guarantee that the commitment to such change is bipartisan. We must maintain our commitment to comprehensive family planning services--and not return to the old days of ``gag rules'' and harassment of family planning clinics. We must not politicize the scientific judgements of the Food and Drug Administration. We must do more--much more--to reduce youth smoking, and protect as many children as possible from the dangers of tobacco. We should improve Medicare, in addition to prescription drug coverage, by adding measures to assure the highest quality care to senior citizens and the disabled. We must place a new emphasis in Medicare on keeping beneficiaries healthy rather than simply caring for them after they become ill. We can expedite Medicare's coverage of beneficial new products and procedures, and provide more adequate financial support for the nation's great teaching hospitals, its community hospitals, its nursing homes, and its home health agencies. But reform should not be an excuse to undermine Medicare's commitment, to impose additional financial burdens on the elderly, or to force senior citizens to give up conventional Medicare and join HMOs. And the failure to reach rapid consensus on Medicare reforms should not be an excuse for failure to act promptly on the most important reform of all--Medicare coverage of prescription drugs. Finally, responsible leadership at HHS requires support for new measures and new ideas to meet the challenges facing our country. To stand still is to fall behind in all these ongoing battles of our time. Governor Thompson comes to us with a genuinely outstanding record of accomplishment in Wisconsin. He recognizes that access to good health insurance, child care, job training and transportation services are critically important if families are to successfully leave welfare for work. Wisconsin's Badger Care health insurance program is a path- breaking model for the nation. Governor Thompson was an early and active supporter of the Jeffords-Kennedy work incentives legislation to help persons with disabilities work without fear of losing their health insurance, and he has created a long-term care initiative that would give families the freedom to choose the best forum for their long-term care needs--whether in the home or in the community. Governor Thompson is a hard worker, and a man of strong convictions. But he is also pragmatic and willing to work with others who have different views in order to achieve a common goal. Though the Senate is voting today, members of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee are submitting written questions to Governor Thompson on issues that were unable to be fully explored at last Friday's hearing. I intend to vote for Governor Thompson's confirmation, and I look forward to working with him in the years ahead to improve and protect the nation's health and welfare.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I would like to call my colleagues' attention to the brave and persistent efforts of the Association of the Families of the Detained and Disappeared on behalf of human rights in Colombia. One of the most pressing human rights emergencies in our hemisphere has been taking place in Colombia, where the government, paramilitary groups, and guerrillas remain locked in fierce struggles. Thousands of innocent civilians have been caught in the crossfire, and human rights abuses have been rampant. Throughout Colombia, members of ASFADDES have responded to this crisis by seeking justice for their relatives who have been killed or disappeared. Members of ASFADDES ask that cases of forced disappearances be properly investigated and prosecuted. They have worked for the last twelve years to make forced disappearances an official crime in Colombia, and a law was finally passed last year to do so, because of their work and dedication. Because of their calls for justice, members of ASFADDES are at tremendous personal risk. Since 1993, their members have received numerous threats. According to ASFADDES, members have been harassed, and have been the subject of intelligence-gathering by Colombian police and military personnel. The members are under particular threat, because they are one of the few organizations to bring cases against members of Colombia's security forces at the local, national, and international levels--including the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights--often raising the issue of collusion between Colombia's security forces and the paramilitary. ASFADDES is the only nation-wide organization in Colombia that represents families of human rights victims. Attacks are carried out against the staff of the organization and against the family members who seek the organization's help. Regrettably, serious acts of violence against members increased in 2000. Elizabeth Canas of Barrancabermeja chapter was murdered on July 11; one day after the forced disappearance law was passed. On October 6, two members of the Medellin chapter, Angel Quintero and Claudia Patricia Monsalve, were disappeared. Members of the Popayan and Bogota chapters were harassed and followed, and escalating death threats were received by ASFADDES members throughout the country. The severity of the threats and attacks led the organization to temporarily close its offices last year. Sadly, a systematic campaign of terror against the organization appears to be underway. The Interamerican Commission on Human Rights has ordered the Colombian government to provide special protective measures to ASFADDES members to ensure their safety. While certain measures have been taken by the government, ASFADDES asserts that they are not always carried out expeditiously. Moreover, the organization is extremely concerned that the Colombian government has not taken adequate measures to investigate and prosecute the multiple cases of threats, harassment, murder and disappearance directed against its members. I commend the courageous members of ASFADDES, and all of the other men and women in Colombia who have shown great bravery in risking their careers, and their very lives, for the cause of human rights. I urge the Colombian Government to ensure that ASFADDES members and offices receive full protection, and to keep the organization informed about progress on cases it raises. I also urge the government to ensure the effectiveness of the new commission established to search for disappeared persons, under the new law against forced disappearances, and to prosecute such cases vigorously.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, all of us are pleased that the nominee for Secretary of Education, Dr. Roderick Paige, will be confirmed with unanimous bipartisan support. I'm optimistic that his bipartisan confirmation will set a high standard for bipartisan cooperation on education in the coming years. The issue is of profound importance for the future of our country. Education is a continuum that begins at birth and continues through college and in the larger working society. States and communities are making significant progress in improving their public schools, and that is evident in the city of Houston under the leadership of Dr. Paige. But we know that more needs to be done. Public schools across the nation are facing ever greater challenges. This year, elementary and secondary schools confront record enrollments of 53 million students, and by all estimates, the number of school-age children will continue to increase steadily over the next decade and beyond. As schools and communities struggle to educate millions more children, they also face the difficult challenges of achieving higher standards of learning, and dealing with other problems such as overcrowded classrooms, a shortage of qualified teachers, increased safety concerns, and a lack of adequate after-school programs. Schools cannot face these challenges alone. They need the help of their communities, their States, and the Federal Government to provide the best possible opportunities for all children. We must invest in critical national priorities and target funds to the neediest students. That means investing in better teachers, smaller classes, safe and modern facilities, better after-school programs, and programs to help children obtain the literacy skills they need. And that literacy training needs to begin in the very early years, long before a child first walks through the schoolhouse door. As we increase support for proven effective reform in each of these areas, we must also increase accountability. At the same time, we can't afford to undermine the Federal investment in education by adopting block grants to States in ways that would undermine local control, reduce targeting to the neediest children, put too little emphasis on what works, or eliminate accountability for results. Above all, we must not undermine public schools through private school vouchers. Block grants and vouchers have not been proven effective. They are divisive issues that lead to needless partisan conflict. Genuine reform of public schools requires bipartisan consensus on targeted top priorities. At his confirmation hearing, Dr. Paige testified that if a strategy had been proven effective in helping to improve public schools and student achievement, he will consider it as a potential Federal investment. I hope that all of us in Congress hold ourselves to the same standard. We know what works to help children do well in school. We need to do more to help schools implement these strategies. When President Bush submits the details of his education proposals, I am hopeful that we will find many areas of strong bipartisan agreement on reforms such as increased accountability, better targeting of resources to the neediest students, placing a qualified teacher in every classroom, improving children's reading skills, making each school a safe learning environment for students and teachers, and ensuring that all children with disabilities get a good education too. We can also strengthen our commitment to make college affordable for every qualified student in America. With over 15 million students enrolled in higher education today, we must continue to invest in student loans, and ensure that students continue to obtain the low cost loans they deserve. But for the neediest students, loans are often not enough. The prospect of a mountain of debt is often impossibly intimidating. We need to focus on grants as well as loans, so that we can open the doors of college to millions more students. In 1980, the proportion of grants to loans in Federal college aid was 60-40. But today, it is jut the reverse--40-60. Pell grants, supplemental educational opportunity grants, and campus-based aid offer students and institutions the flexibility they need to help every student make college a reality. But by shortchanging these grants, we are shortchanging students--and shortchanging America too. I am hopeful that we will continue to support college opportunity programs in the Nation's public schools--to make sure that all children can see college as a realistic possibility for their own future. We need to give more students the tools and the will to rise out of poverty, and to enter the workforce with the ability that comes from a good education. Dr. Paige has an impressive background to help the nation meet all these challenges. He currently serves as superintendent of the Houston Independent School District. He has often been credited for turning the Houston schools around and raising education standards in the city. He was also dean of the College of Education at South Texas University, and he knows first-hand what it takes to bring qualified teachers into every classroom. He comes from a family of educators who share a deep commitment to helping all children do well. I look forward to working closely with Dr. Paige and President Bush in the coming years to meet these high priorities. I congratulate Dr. Paige on his nomination, and I urge the Senate to support his confirmation.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, fourteen years ago, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, IRCA. That Act has had undeniably profound effects on the nation--both positive and negative. IRCA set into motion the current legalization program, which has brought millions of individuals out of the shadows of illegal immigrant status and onto a path of temporary status, permanent status and, ultimately, United States citizenship. At the same time, IRCA authorized employer sanctions which, in addition to not deterring illegal immigration, have led to a false document industry and caused discrimination against Latino, Asian, other immigrant workers, and even United States citizens, who by their accent or appearance are wrongly perceived as being here illegally. Many of us supported the provision in IRCA which created an office to address cases of discrimination resulting from employer sanctions. Since then, the Department of Justice Office of Special Counsel for Immigration Related Unfair Employment Practices, OSC, has enforced the anti-discrimination provisions and provided relief to workers who have faced immigration-related job discrimination. One of the innovative accomplishments of OSC has been to develop effective partnerships with state and local government civil rights agencies. A Memoranda of Understanding enables the civil rights agencies who are supposed to work together to do just that. As a result, all agencies are better equipped to prevent and eradicate discrimination. Recently, the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination joined with the OSC to educate employers, workers and the general public in the state and to work together to address discrimination. The Boston Globe praised the work of the Office of Special Counsel and urged increases in its staff and budget in order for it to keep up with the growing number of newcomers and employers. In the words of the editorial, ``This would help immigrants and the economy--a winning move for the United States.'' I ask unanimous consent for the Boston Globe editorial, ``Protecting Immigrants,'' to be printed in the Record.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is a privilege to bring to the attention of the Senate the excellent work that an impressive organization in Costa Rica is doing to address the tragic problem of street children in Central America. The organization, Casa Alianza--a subsidiary of Covenant House in New York--is headquartered in Costa Rica. It was founded in 1981, and provides services for thousands of homeless children, ages six to eighteen, offering shelter, food, medical care, and educational opportunities. The extraordinary work of Casa Alianza was recently honored by the Hilton Foundation, when it received one of the world's most prestigious humanitarian awards, the Conrad N. Hilton Award. At the ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland to present the award, Queen Noor of Jordan praised Casa Alianza. As she stated, ``The phenomenon of street children is global, alarming and escalating. Estimates are that today are 100 million children living on the world's streets. Casa Alianza deserves the Hilton Humanitarian Prize for being the voice and the defender of this helpless and unprotected segment of society and for its important work to stop the human rights abuses inflicted upon them.'' In accepting the award, Bruce Harris, executive director of Casa Alianza, said, ``Street children are often the victims of violence, but what is even more hurtful to them is society's indifference. * * * The prize money will feed and shelter many more abandoned children, but the recognition will feed their souls.'' Mr. Harris was recently profiled in the book Speak Truth to Power: Human Rights Defenders Who Are Changing Our World, by my niece, Kerry Kennedy Cuomo. I join in commending Casa Alianza for this well-deserved award and for its pioneering work. These children desperately need help, and Casa Alianza is providing it. At great risk, including facing death threats and armed on its facilities, Casa Alianza and Bruce Harris are acting effectively on behalf of these needy children. They deserve our praise, our thanks, and, most importantly, our support.