Patrick Leahy

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. I have been to countries, as have many of us, countries with dictators--countries like China and Cuba, the former Soviet Union. They require a law to protect their flags and their symbols. I have taken great pleasure in those countries to point out that America does not need the kind of laws they do. America protects our symbols. The American people honor our national flag out of respect, not out of fear that they may break a law. I point out to them what real freedom is, and it includes the freedom to dissent and to differ, even in ways that I would find obnoxious and offensive. As the son of a printer, I was brought up to know how important the First Amendment is to maintaining our democracy. It allows us to practice any religion we want, or no religion if we want. It allows us to think as we choose and to express ourselves freely, even though others may disagree. We do not have a state-imposed orthodoxy in this great and good country. Instead, we have freedom and diversity--diversity in religion, diversity in thought, diversity in speech, diversity that is guaranteed and protected by our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, and particularly the First Amendment. When you guarantee and protect diversity, then you guarantee and protect democracy. When you guarantee and protect diversity, by definition you are going to have a democracy. No real democracy exists without diversity. But when you exclude and stamp out diversity and freedom of thought and expression, you act to stamp out democracy. We have seen this in history. In the former Soviet Union or other totalitarian governments of history, when they wanted to destroy democracy they started, sometimes in little ways at first, but ultimately to stamp out diversity in dissent. American democracy has succeeded because we have fought to live with that unruly guest with his elbows on our table of which Voltaire spoke, and to tolerate speech and expressive conduct that probably virtually all of us here would find disrespectful and crude. We protect dissent, not because we oppose liberty but because we love liberty. Wendell Phillips, a great New England abolitionist, wrote: The community which dares not to protect its humblest and most hated member in the free utterance of his opinion, no matter how false and hateful, is only a gang of slaves. Probably no person disagreed more vehemently with Wendell Phillips on the burning issues of their day than Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. Yet Senator Calhoun came to much the same conclusion in a speech he gave on the Senate floor, our Senate floor, in 1848, more than 150 years ago. Senator Calhoun said: We have passed through so many difficulties and dangers without the loss of liberty that we have begun to think that we hold it by divine right from heaven itself. But it is harder to preserve than it is to obtain liberty. After years of prosperity the tenure by which it is held is too often forgotten; and I fear, Senators, that such is the case with us. This is what Senator Calhoun said 150 years ago. I am immensely proud to be given the privilege to be one of the two Senators who have the opportunity to represent the State of Vermont. Vermont has a proud tradition defending liberty and encouraging open debate. We are the State of the town meeting. If you want to experience open debate, I urge you to attend a Vermont town meeting. Everybody gets heard. Everybody gets heard about every disagreement, every differing view. A Vermont town meeting is as democratic as you can get. There is debate. There is expression. There is disagreement and agreement. There is freedom and democracy being lived. In fact, Vermont for many years engaged in such a great and open debate on this very issue of how best to approach protection of our flag. For years the Vermont General Assembly remained the only State legislature not to have passed a resolution in favor of a constitutional amendment. In January 2002 the Vermont Legislature passed a resolution, but it was written, interestingly, in a manner that shows Vermont's respect for the Constitution. It concludes that the Congress should take steps to ``ensure that proper respect and treatment . . . always be afforded to the flag,'' but in ways consistent with the principles that the flag represents, foremost among these being, ``the protection of individual freedoms enumerated in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, including free speech.'' Our Legislature stopped short of taking the easy way out and simply parroting a politically popular demand to amend the Constitution. Rather, Vermont remained true to its proud tradition of encouraging open debate and called on Congress to ``explore all avenues available'' to protect the flag from desecration. Vermont's actions are consistent with our strong tradition of independence and commitment to the Bill of Rights. Indeed, Vermont's own Constitution is based on our commitment to freedom and our belief it is best protected by open debate. At one time, when we were afraid we might not have that chance for open debate, Vermont declared itself an independent republic. In fact, Vermont did not and would not become a State until 1791. That was the year the Bill of Rights was ratified. Following that tradition, this Vermonter is not going to vote to cut back on the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights for the first time since its adoption. Vermont sent Matthew Lyon to Congress. He, incidentally, cast the decisive vote, Vermont's vote, for the election of Thomas Jefferson. That election was thrown into the House of Representatives. Had Matthew Lyon voted otherwise, Thomas Jefferson would not have become President. Matthew Lyon was the same House Member who was a target of a shameful prosecution under the Sedition Act in 1789. Why? For comments he made in a private letter. And the power of the U.S. Government, under that horrible act, came down on Matthew Lyon. He was locked up for daring to be so critical in a letter. Vermonters showed what they thought of the Sedition Act and what they thought of trying to stifle free speech. While Matthew Lyon was in jail, Vermonters reelected him and sent him back to Congress. Along with our own lone Congressman, Congressman Sanders, I am working on that commitment to having a post office named for Matthew Lyon in Vermont. Vermont has stood up for the rights of free speech before and since. Vermont served the Nation during the dark days of McCarthyism. In one of the most remarkable and praise-worthy actions of any Senator from any State, Vermont Senator Ralph Flanders stood up for democracy in opposition to the repressive tactics of Senator Joseph McCarthy. When so many others, both Republicans and Democrats, ran for cover, Senator Ralph Flanders of Vermont, a Republican, a conservative, a businessman, came to the Senate floor and said: Enough is enough. He asked for the censure of Senator McCarthy and allowed people once more in this country to speak freely. Vermont has a great tradition we cherish. It is one I intend to uphold. I honor the Vermont tradition that includes Senator Flanders when I oppose cutting back the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights. I know there is an impulse, a natural impulse, to restrict speech with which we disapprove. But America is strong because we do not fear freedom; we do not restrict freedom of speech. We should have confidence our institutions are stronger than a bunch of hooligans and that their ideas are better than those of cranks and crackpots. We know the vast majority of the people in this great country are patriotic, especially thinking of September 11 the way the American people have demonstrated patriotism, as rarely in our history. I can never remember a time in our history when I have seen more people fly more flags, and proudly. The crisis confronting America is not flag burning. Americans honor flags as a symbol of our country. Americans also know we face real challenges. The confidence of the American people and this Government and institutions is quite low. But even though confidence in the institutions of our Government may be low, Americans love their country. They respect the flag. It is the misuse of their Government for partisanship, the corruption of the Government and its processes, it is a lack of credibility and competence that they see in their Government that concerns Americans in the face of real threats and real problems. Mark Twain said: Honor your country, question your Government. That is what is happening today. I see respect for our flag in the actions and attitudes of the citizens of America. I see it in the dedication of Don Villemaire and his friends of Essex Junction, VT, who stood and proudly waved American flags every single night after the horrible tragedy of September 11, 2001, until the search for remains officially ended. That was a vigil every single night in Essex Junction, VT--longer than 8 months. That is showing respect. I see in Montpelier, my birthplace, in their annual Independence Day parade, where flags are waved in support of our country and our soldiers. I see it in the memorial of American flags planted along the paths of funeral processions of Vermonters killed serving their country in Iraq and Afghanistan. Vermonters' respect for the flag is born from respect for this country and the values it protects. Our patriotism is felt, it is willful. It is not forced on us. Instead of telling the American people, the people beyond the 100 who have the privilege of serving here, what they can and cannot do, maybe we should talk about what we 100 do and how we do it. We honor America when we in the Senate do our jobs, when and if we work on the matters that can improve the lives of ordinary Americans. Let the 100 Members of the Senate work to raise the minimum wage, lower gas prices, provide better health care and health insurance for more Americans. Let the 100 Senators act to fund the promise of stem cell research that could end the suffering of so many Americans. The proposed amendment to the Constitution would do harm to the First Amendment protections that bind us all against oppression, especially the oppression of momentary majority thought. The amendment violates the precept laid down more than 200 years ago that ``he that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression.'' It undercuts the principle that a free society is a society where it is safe to say and do the unpopular. Let us not give away our liberties in order to impose orthodoxy so others cannot offend. Let me be clear, I am deeply offended when anyone defiles the American flag. I expect one thing that unites all 100 Senators is that every one of us is deeply offended when the flag is defiled. Two years ago, a flag incident occurred in Vermont outside St. Augustine's Church in Montpelier. Someone wrapped a statue of the Virgin Mary in the American flag and set it on fire. This is a church in which I have been baptized. When this act was first reported, I called it an act intended to outrage, an attack on the religious community, and a gross show of disrespect for the flag. We also know acts like these can and should be prosecuted under Vermont's law, as I suspect they should be under all of the laws of any of the 50 States. Laws prohibit such damage to property. If someone seeks to do harm to the flag I proudly fly in my home when I am there, they, too, would be prosecuted under Vermont law. In fact, having been a prosecutor in Vermont, knowing what I know of Vermont juries, they would be convicted, but I can replace a flag of mine that was destroyed, and would. I can buy another flag. But if we act to diminish the Bill of Rights that protect our rights and freedoms of a quarter billion Americans and of generations to come, we cannot replace that. We cannot go to the store and buy a new Bill of Rights once it is diminished. Ours is a powerful Constitution, all the more inspiring because of what it allows and because we protect each other's liberty. Let us be good stewards. Let us preserve and protect for our children and our children's children a Constitution with the freedoms we were bequeathed by the founding patriots and by the sacrifice of generation after generation of Americans. I urge Senators to think about this vote. Do not diminish that pillar on which our democracy and our freedoms depend. Do not cut back on the First Amendment of our Bill of Rights for the first time in American history. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today the Senate will confirm two more lifetime appointments to our Federal courts. I am glad that we are voting on Andrew Guilford, who has been nominated to the District Court for the Central District of California and who has the support of his Democratic home State Senators, Mrs. Boxer and Mrs. Feinstein. Frank Whitney, a nominee for the District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, has the support of his Republican home State Senators. Both nominations were reported unanimously by the Judiciary Committee. I am pleased that the Republican leadership has scheduled debate and consideration of these nominations and am glad that the Republican leadership is this month taking notice of the fact that we can cooperate on swift consideration and confirmation of consensus nominations. Working together, we confirmed five judges in 1 week earlier this month. We have confirmed three more this week. Many of these judges could have been confirmed last month if the Republican leadership had chosen to make progress instead of picking a fight on a controversial nomination. I look forward to working with the Republican leadership to schedule debate and consideration of other noncontroversial nominees. I, again, commend the Republican Senate leadership for wisely passing over the controversial nominations of William Gerry Myers III, Terrence W. Boyle, and Norman Randy Smith. The Republican leadership is right to have avoided an unnecessarily divisive debate over these nominations that were reported on a party-line vote. The President and Senate Republican leadership have too often, though, chosen to pick fights over judicial nominations rather than focus on filling vacancies. Judicial vacancies have now grown to well over 40 from the lowest vacancy rate in decades. More than half these vacancies are without a nominee. The Congressional Research Service has recently released a study showing that this President has been the slowest in decades to nominate and the Republican Senate among the slowest to act. If they would concentrate on the needs of the courts, our Federal justice system, and the needs of the American people, we would be much further along. Still, we have passed several milestones. When the Senate today confirms Andrew Guilford and Frank Whitney as district court judges, the Senate will have confirmed 251 of this President's judicial nominees, crossing the 250 threshold. This milestone is an indicator of how cooperative Senate Democrats have been in confirming this President's nominees. Despite the slow pace of the President and the Republican leadership in filling the needs of the judiciary, the Senate has confirmed more of this President's nominees in the 66 months of his Presidency than the Republican-controlled Senate did in the last 66 months of the Clinton Presidency. During that time, many good nominees were never even given a vote in committee, and only 230 judges were confirmed. That dubious total was the result of their pocket-filibuster strategy to stall and maintain vacancies so that a Republican President could pack the courts and tilt them decidedly to the right. It is a strategy which has been working. Also with these two nominations, the Republican-controlled Senate will have this year confirmed 24 judicial nominations. That surpasses the number of judges confirmed last year, 22. During the 17 months I was chairman of the Judiciary Committee and the Senate was under Democratic control, we confirmed 100 of President Bush's nominees. After today, in the last 17 months under Republican control, the Senate will have confirmed 46. So the fact that the Senate has confirmed more nominees in the past 5\1/2\ years than in the last 5\1/2\ years of the Clinton administration is due in no small part to the much faster pace of confirmations of this President's nominees when Democrats controlled the Senate. Working together, we could do better. I urge the White House to work with us to select nominees with bipartisan support like Andrew Guilford, rather than explosive partisan nominees like Terrence Boyle. I hope that the Republican-controlled Senate will stop using controversial judicial nominations to score partisan political points. Our courts are too important.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today we confirm Thomas D. Anderson as U.S. attorney for the District of Vermont. I am pleased that we acted promptly in the Judiciary Committee to report Tom's nomination to the floor and that the Senate is acting promptly to confirm him. As an assistant U.S. attorney in Burlington for 14 of the last 19 years, the managing partner of a respected Burlington law firm, and as deputy state's attorney in Newport, Tom's varied experience and long ties to Vermont have prepared him well to be Vermont's top Federal law enforcement official. We have a strong tradition of good law enforcement in Vermont. Our most recent U.S. attorneys are part of that tradition. Charlie Tetzlaff served an extended term and has gone on to distinguish himself as the Executive Director of the U.S. Sentencing Commission. Peter Hall served ably and now fills the Vermont seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Tom is the kind of well-qualified consensus nominee who can be easily confirmed by the Senate. In fact, I joined with Republican Gov. Jim Douglas in recommending Tom to President Bush. As a former prosecutor, I have been particular impressed with his work since returning to the U.S. Attorney's Office in 2001 as head of the narcotics unit and as the lead attorney of the Department of Justice's Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. He has worked closely with both Federal and State drug investigators to identify and target the highest level drug traffickers in Vermont and to coordinate major drug investigations covering many districts. I believe his work on drug crime is especially important preparation as we continue to target those crimes, which are one of Vermont's most difficult law enforcement challenges. In addition to his work combating drug crimes, Tom has gained a wide variety of experience in private practice and as a prosecutor. He spent 3 years at the U.S. Attorney's Office in the civil division, prosecuting civil enforcement actions in Federal court brought under the False Claims Act and other statutes. In 1994, he was assigned as a special assistant attorney general for the State of Vermont to prosecute police officers charged with obstruction of justice. While a partner at Sheehey Furlong Rendall & Behm, Tom's firm represented the State of Vermont in its litigation against the tobacco industry. And of course I must discuss one of Tom's finest accomplishments, his 1979 graduation from St. Michael's College in Colchester, VT, my alma mater. Tom has a keen legal and will bring a great deal of experience and enthusiasm to this important law enforcement post. Congratulations to Tom, his wife Wendy, and his entire family on his confirmation today.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I have spoken earlier about Mr. Anderson. For those of us who have been prosecutors in Vermont or care about the prosecutor's office, I think President Bush has made a fine choice here. And, of course, I strongly support Mr. Anderson for the reasons I stated earlier. I think everybody here and in the Department of Justice will breathe a sigh of relief. We have had wonderful acting U.S. attorneys for some time since former U.S. attorney Peter Hall went to the Second Circuit. But this will be a very good move to have him as U.S. attorney. I compliment Tom and his family and, of course, the President. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I intend to vote for the Levin-Reed amendment on Iraq, and I will also vote for the Kerry amendment, of which I am a cosponsor. Both amendments are a step in the right direction, as they finally begin the process of winding down what has been the most poorly conceived, costly, and tragic misuse of United States military power since Vietnam. We got into this war for reasons that bear little if any resemblance to the reasons the White House gives for keeping our troops there today at a cost of more than a billion dollars every week. First it was weapons of mass destruction. There were none. Anyone who urged continued monitoring by United Nations inspectors was ridiculed by the White House as being naive. Then it was Saddam Hussein's supposed ties to al-Qaida, which was a blatant, calculated distortion. There was none, yet the Vice President continues to say there was. Today, thanks to the policy of the President and the rubber stamping by the Congress, Iraq and Guantanamo are the rallying cry for terrorists around the world. Then it was because Saddam Hussein--who posed no threat to the United States--was a brutal dictator, which he was. He was also supported by the Reagan administration. That, however, is not a justification for a war that has cost the lives and limbs of thousands of young Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians. Winning against terrorism, like stopping the proliferation of dangerous weapons, promoting peace between Arabs and Israelis, or solving any other regional or global problem, requires the trust, the respect, the cooperation and the support of our allies. Unfortunately, these, too, are casualties of this war. Squandered away. The damage that this reckless adventure has caused to our reputation, particularly among the world's Muslims in countries like Turkey, Jordan, Indonesia, Egypt and other traditional allies, is incalculable. We have heard a lot of partisan rhetoric about cutting and running. How easy it is to ask others to fight and die from the safety and comfort of an office in Washington. How easy it is to vote for tax cuts and to self-righteously wave the flag, while our troops are scavenging for scraps of metal to protect themselves from IEDs. They were sent to fight and die without armor, by top Pentagon officials back home who proudly, dismissively and resolutely insisted they were ready, when they were not. How easy it is to mislead the country, with patriotic pronouncements by the President like ``mission accomplished,'' or that we are seeing the ``last throes'' of the insurgency. Contrary to the blatantly partisan and false attacks of the President's political advisors, no one questions the threat that al- Qaida and other terrorist networks pose to the security of Americans and to the people of other nations. No one questions that we need an effective strategy to combat it. The issue is how best to combat it. This administration has shown the world how not to do it, creating a lengthening catalogue of squander. You don't do it by starting a war with selective, faulty intelligence, by dismissing thoughtful criticism as unpatriotic, without enough troops, with no plan to win the peace, by cavalierly discounting the risks. You don't do it by repeatedly misleading the American people. You don't do it by creating and fueling a terrorism problem where there was none. And you don't do it by shamelessly denigrating the Geneva Conventions and the rights and values that distinguish us from the terrorists. Unlike the war to defeat the Taliban, which continues to this day and shows no signs of abating, the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with Osama bin Laden or the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It has degraded our military in ways that will cost us trillions--not billions--trillions of dollars to rebuild. It has left a legacy of thousands of maimed and crippled young veterans with medical and other needs that they, their families, and their communities will cope with for the rest of their lives. Our troops have fought bravely in the harshest of conditions. They are our constituents. They are the sons and daughters of our friends and neighbors. They have carried out extraordinarily difficult missions, including tracking down and capturing Saddam Hussein and killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. They have sacrificed so much. We support them unequivocally, Democrats and Republicans. The question is how we can best support them. This was to be the year of transition. That was what the Congress voted last year, and what the President signed into law. Yet, the Administration continues to simply stay the course. This course is not in America's best interest. Iraq has a new constitution. It has had elections. It has a democratically elected government. We have trained and equipped more than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers. It has been more than three years since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. More than 2,500 Americans have died. We have been there as long as we were in World War II. The Iraqi people need to take responsibility for their own country. It will not happen immediately, but both the Levin amendment and the Kerry amendment move us toward that goal. I have cast over 12,000 votes in this Senate. I am as proud of my vote against the open ended resolution that gave the President the authority to invade Iraq as any I have cast in 32 years. It is time for the Congress to change the course of a policy that has cost us hundreds of billions of dollars that would have been far better spent here at home, that has weakened our leadership, that is dividing our country, and that has not made us safer. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleague Senator Bond in discussing S. 2658, the National Defense Enhancement and National Guard Empowerment Act of 2006. A version of this groundbreaking legislation has been adopted by the Senate as an amendment to the fiscal year 2006 Defense authorization bill. Our amendment would tangibly strengthen our national security by giving the National Guard more of a voice in decisionmaking and in ensuring that our Nation is able to optimally tap the enormous experience and capabilities that exist within the National Guard. Today's Guard is a 2lst century military organization that is carrying its weight and more in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as here at home, whenever disaster strikes. But today's Guard is needlessly frozen in a 20th century Pentagon organization chart. The implications of that show up in everything from the Guard's depleted equipment stockpiles, to training and staffing and mission decisions. Our amendment clears away some institutional cobwebs to let the National Guard be the best it can be. The Bond-Leahy amendment specifically increases the rank of the chief of the National Guard from lieutenant general to full general. It will ensure that the deputy commander of U.S. Northern Command come from the ranks of the National Guard. Additionally, the bill makes the National Guard a joint activity of the Department of Defense, giving the National Guard greater latitude to talk around the Pentagon. Finally, the Guard would be given greater ability to identify gaps in capabilities in our States' ability to respond to emergencies at home. This amendment differs somewhat from the baseline legislation that Senator Bond and I introduced earlier this year. The amendment does not include a requirement that the chief of the National Guard sit on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and we also removed the provision that would give the National Guard separate budget authority. We heard some strong objections from other members about these two provisions, and, as chairs of the wide-reaching Senate National Guard Caucus, we wanted to do the best we could to accommodate every Guard supporter. However, we still strongly believe in the importance of opening to the chief of the National Guard Bureau a position on the Joint Staff and of giving to the Guard more general flexibility in procuring equipment to match the needs of its missions. We will fight for these provisions another day. Given that we have dropped the core objections that some have raised against Guard empowerment, there was absolutely no reason that any member of the Senate could oppose this legislation. This amendment is about fairness and effectiveness. It is about fairness in that it makes sure that the National Guard is not treated like a stepchild in key budget and policy deliberations. Giving greater institutional standing to the Guard makes it a lot harder for the Guard to get short-thrift in these discussions. Our amendment is about effectiveness in that it will improve the use of the Guard in homeland security matters, which is becoming quite a regular phenomenon. The National Guard is being used regularly in a so- called title 32 status to increase security and provide military disaster response. Under this status, the Guard serves under command and control of the Nation's Governors, with Federal financing. In addition to the recent Southern Border mission, the National Guard served spectacularly during Katrina in this way, providing one of the most effective responses to that disaster. By allowing the National Guard to talk regularly across the Department of Defense and to work closely with the States to identify gaps, our amendment takes advantage of the knowledge of the members of the National Guard to help plug holes in our homeland defense. And we make this whole process for activating the Guard in title 32 far smoother. The National Guard is critical to the Nation's defense on a number of levels. We must have the trust and confidence in this force to give them more responsibility. At the same time, we simply cannot have a repeat of the ill-advised recommendations from the Army and the Air Force that sought to slash the National Guard personnel levels. The Army wanted to cut the Army Guard by more than 17,000 troops and the Air Guard by almost 14,000. These proposed cuts made absolutely no sense. We need to turn this dynamic around. We cannot keep asking the Guard to do more for the country, and then force it to justify its existence. The National Guard needs institutional standing and leadership commensurate with its missions and capabilities. Our National Guard stands willing to do even more to protect the country, and this amendment will give them a key tool to help them contribute to the Nation's defense. I thank my colleagues and friends, the chair and ranking members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, for their support of this amendment. We cannot afford to let our Guard down.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEAHY. The distinguished senior Senator from Virginia, like the Senator from Vermont, has been here a long time. He knows that sometimes on these things, we can spend more time working out the agreement before time than it would actually take. Since I am one of the ones who has to leave, I would ask at least on the original consent that right after Senator Durbin, I be allowed to speak for 10 minutes. I suspect this is going to work itself out.

Mr. LEAHY. Will the Senator yield for an observation?

Mr. LEAHY. Twenty minutes, 10 and 10.

Mr. LEAHY. Before the Senator speaks, does that mean that the original request that Senator Durbin and I would each be heard first-- --

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, as the Burlington, VT, Boys and Girls Club prepares to begin an ambitious capital fundraising campaign this summer, I am proud to give my strong support to this important organization. As a longtime supporter of this organization in Vermont and across the country, I wish them the best of success in their efforts, and I commend them for striving to continually improve their organization and Vermont's communities. Through this campaign, the Burlington Boys and Girls Club plans to strengthen its resources with the addition of high-speed Internet access at the club, as well as a multimedia center where members can become proficient in current technology. This is a critical component of success for young people in our increasingly technological society. The club will also reinforce its dedication to creativity through the addition of a visual and performing arts space where members will be able to pursue their artistic expression. These are just a few of the admirable goals set out for this campaign, and I am confident they will be achieved. The Boys and Girls Clubs around the country are a leading example of how the support and care of our young people benefits American society, one boy and one girl at a time. The Boys and Girls Clubs have proven that when we show our young people that we care about them and that we care about their futures, they respond with positive and constructive actions in their communities. We also know the Boys and Girls Clubs provide a healthy alternative for many young people and oftentimes prevent them from being drawn into gangs, drug abuse, and other crime. The clubs instill leadership qualities, respect, and thoughtfulness in participants through programs that include art, athletics, help with schoolwork, technology, life skills, training in resistance to drugs and alcohol, and community service. In providing these valuable programs during critical development periods when young people are most vulnerable, the Boys and Girls Clubs fill a void and reduce the opportunity to succumb to negative influences. The Boys and Girls Clubs represent the best of what communities can do to improve the lives of their young people. I know firsthand how well Boys and Girls Clubs work and what topnotch organizations they are. When I was a prosecutor in Vermont, I was convinced of the great need for Boys and Girls Clubs because we rarely encountered children from these kinds of programs. In fact, after I became a U.S. Senator, a police chief was such a big fan that he asked me to help fund a Boys and Girls Club in his district rather than helping him pay for a couple more police officers. Over the years, I have worked with other members of the Senate to make sure the Boys and Girls Clubs around the country have the funding necessary to carry out their mission. Since 1998, we have worked to steadily increase Federal funding for the Boys and Girls clubs each year. This year, as the chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Specter and I have recommended $80 million in funding to help keep this organization a strong and vital part of their communities, from coast to coast. As a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, I look forward to seeing that these funds are appropriated for this important work. Represented in all 50 States, the 3,700 branches of the Boys and Girls Club reach more than 4.4 million young people. The Boys and Girls Club of Burlington alone serves more than 1,400 young people each year. Through continued funding, Boys and Girls Clubs around the country will serve 6 million young people by January of 2007. The growth of these clubs across our country has been a true success story, and I am proud to work to ensure the Federal Government's continued support. As the Burlington Boys and Girls Club kicks off its capital campaign, I commend all of Vermont's Boys and Girls Clubs, along with all of the other clubs across our Nation, for the important work they do to help our young citizens become exceptional adults.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, have the yeas and nays been ordered?

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished senior Senator from Pennsylvania. He and I have been friends since the day we were both prosecutors, and I think that has helped in running that committee. Today the Senate will confirm another lifetime appointment to our Federal courts. Sandra Segal Ikuta, who has been nominated to a seat on the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, has the support of her home-state Senators, Senator Feinstein and Senator Boxer. Her nomination was reported unanimously by the Judiciary Committee last month as we expedited consideration through the committee. I am pleased that the Republican leadership has scheduled debate and consideration of this nomination and am glad that the Republican leadership is this month taking notice of the fact that we can cooperate on swift consideration and confirmation of consensus nominations. Working together, we confirmed 5 judges in 1 week earlier this month. All of them could have been confirmed last month if the Republican leadership had chosen to make progress instead of picking a fight on a controversial nomination. I look forward to working with the Republican leadership to schedule debate and consideration of Andrew Guilford, who has been nominated to the United States District Court for the Central District of California. I, again, commend the Republican Senate leadership for wisely passing over the controversial nominations of William Gerry Myers III, Terrence W. Boyle, and Norman Randy Smith. The Republican leadership is right to have avoided an unnecessarily divisive debate over these nominations that were reported on a party-line vote. During the 17 months I was Chairman of the Judiciary Committee and the Senate was under Democratic control, we confirmed 100 of President Bush's nominees. After today, in the last 17 months under Republican control, the Senate will have confirmed 44. With this nomination, the Senate has confirmed 22 judicial nominations this year and equaled its total for all of last year. Judicial vacancies continue to hover just under the 50 mark, but more than half of these vacancies have no nominee. I urge the White House to work with Senators from both parties to select nominees who can be expeditiously considered and confirmed like Ms. Ikuta. I am particularly pleased that they have chosen to turn to the nomination of Ms. Ikuta who, like Judge Milan Smith, is a nominee to the Ninth Circuit. Ms. Ikuta is a consensus nominee who can be easily confirmed. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about another pending Ninth Circuit nominee, Norman Randy Smith. In nominating Judge Smith of Idaho for a lifetime appointment to the Ninth Circuit, President Bush broke with the longstanding precedent of replacing each circuit court vacancy with a nominee from the same State, taking away a California seat on the Ninth Circuit. Senators Feinstein and Boxer expressed their strong opposition to this nomination in a January 30, 2006, letter to Chairman Specter. I have urged President Bush to resolve this impasse by doing the right thing and nominating Judge Smith not for a California seat but for the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Thomas G. Nelson from Idaho. Regrettably, he has not done so. In their letter to Chairman Specter, Senators Feinstein and Boxer expressed their concerns that the confirmation of Judge Smith to the Ninth Circuit would transfer a judgeship from California to Idaho, violating historical precedent. Judge Smith has been nominated to fill the seat last occupied by Judge Stephen Trott, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan from California, whose retirement in 2004 created this vacancy. Judge Trott was from California, where he had practiced for much of his career prior to becoming a judge. In fact, he was nominated to fill the seat of another Californian, Judge Joseph Sneed. At the time of his nomination, while he worked at the Department of Justice in Washington, the Senators from California were consulted and it was understood to be a California seat. While an agreement can sometimes be worked out among Senators and the White House to proceed with someone from another State within the circuit first, so long as the subsequent nomination comes from the first State, I do not know of any precedent for shifting a circuit seat based on a judge's personal decision to change his or her personal residence. If that were to become the rule, I expect that Vermont might well benefit from judges initially named as from New York or Connecticut recognizing the beauty and lifestyle that Vermont has to offer and moving to the Green Mountain State. But that is not the rule and has never been the rule. Instead, we have worked out circuit court allocations among the States based on tradition and history. Of course this White House has attempted to steal a seat before, when it attempted to replace a Maryland Fourth Circuit judge with someone from Virginia. That attempt was unsuccessful. That was the ill-fated nomination of Claude Allen, a White House insider who has since resigned his high-ranking position and been arrested on charges of retail theft. I am sensitive that every State within a circuit should have at least one judge come from that State. I supported legislation to ensure that and to afford Hawaii a seat on the Ninth Circuit. I will defend Idaho's right to a seat on the Ninth Circuit, just as I defend Vermont's right to a seat on the Second Circuit. However, Judge Smith was not nominated to Idaho's seat. If the President would take my suggestion and renominate him to that Idaho vacancy, that would resolve this problem. Judge Ikuta will occupy a California seat on the Ninth Circuit previously held by Judge James R. Browning. Judge Browning was an extraordinary jurist for whom the Ninth Circuit's building in San Francisco was recently named. She has a great tradition to uphold an I wish her well. I congratulate her and her family on her confirmation. While I am pleased that the Senate will today confirm Ms. Ikuta to the Ninth Circuit, I note that President Bush has yet to nominate a single Asian-Pacific American candidate to any of the dozens of vacancies that have arisen on our federal circuit courts. Indeed, President Bush has nominated only one Asian-American candidate out of the hundreds of Federal judicial nominees he has named overall. There are many, many qualified Asian-American attorneys and judges. There is no quota or requirement that the Federal bench be diverse, but it is surprising that given the nominations he has had the opportunity to make, which are approaching 300, I can remember only a single Asian- Pacific American judicial nominee, and not one Asian-Pacific American appellate nominee. This lack of diversity in nominees is quite a contrast with the record of President Clinton, who appointed several Asian-Pacific nominees to the district and appellate courts. President Clinton appointed Judge Denny Chinn, Judge George H. King, Judge Anthony W. Ishii, and Judge Susan Oki Mollway to Federal district courts in New York, California and Hawaii, and who elevated Judge A. Wallace Tashima to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The current President is more interested in naming White House insiders and ideologues. In fact, he has nominated more people associated with the Federalist Society than African-American, Hispanic, and Asian-Pacific American nominees combined. With the retirement of Judge Tashima from the Ninth Circuit, there are no Asian-American circuit court judges. Despite the opportunity presented with two Supreme Court vacancies in the past year to make the Nation's highest court better reflect America's diversity, the President has made the Supreme Court less diverse, failing even to fill the seat of the Court's first female Justice, Sandra Day O'Connor, with a qualified woman. Of course he was forced by the extreme faction of his own party to withdraw his nomination of his friend and counsel Harriet Miers before she even had a hearing. President Clinton sought to add diversity to the Federal bench. This President is more focused on guaranteed results and making sure certain circuits will be stocked with those who tilt the courts to the right and rule in his favor. Mr. President, if I have remaining time, I yield it back.

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

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I would note that regrettably, we have on the Senate's calendar legislation designed to limit the rights of consumers, the so-called Commonsense Consumption Act of 2005, as bad public policy. It defies common sense to give entire industries blanket immunity from potential harm they impose on Americans. The incentives involved in litigation are one of the few remaining measures leading to real corporate responsibility, not to mention accountability. The handful of lawsuits that would have been barred by this legislation actually resulted in settlements providing for more nutritious food in our schools, more accurate labeling for consumers, and the removal of harmful trans fats from some of the foods we eat. A blanket ban on such measures will lead to more serious problems such as increases in heart disease and diabetes and other chronic conditions that are taxing this Nation's health system. There are many problems with the sweeping language of this legislation. It would dismiss existing State and Federal cases, as well as preempt future cases. Sponsors of the bill claim that it would not prevent false advertising claims but the language in the bill does not guarantee this result. It prevents suits against manufacturers, marketers, distributors, advertisers or sellers of specific products but the exception for false advertising only applies to manufacturers and sellers. Why should advertisers and sellers be excluded from this exception? They are just as likely to deceive consumers as manufacturers and sellers. Also, the legal standard will be heightened so that consumers would be required to prove intentional violation of Federal or State statutes, rather than simply having to prove violations of government regulations on advertising and food safety. Why would we want to give immunity to companies that violate safety regulations? And why should the injured consumer be required to prove a corporation's intent if it can be proved that the corporation violated the law? We all know how impossible it is to prove ``corporate intent'' without the extraordinary help of a whistleblower. And we all know that were it not for citizens' lawsuits, we may never have learned of the harm that big tobacco companies knowingly caused to so many, for so long, while denying so much of what they knew. Time and again, the legal system has been more effective than government watchdog agencies in prying loose consumer information like that, which we otherwise might never see. This legislation does not create any alternative method for keeping a check on corporate misconduct that has a detrimental effect on the health of all Americans. If this bill passes, American consumers will only be left with the thin hope that suddenly the Bush-Cheney administration will begin true regulation of corporations on behalf of American consumers. If we are serious about trying to address the national health epidemic that is related to obesity, then we should be considering legislation to clarify food labeling so consumers can make informed choices. How about legislation requiring nutritious food in our schools? How about listening to the scientific and health community about the needless dangers of trans fats in our food? How about ending cuts in education that lead to the cancellation of physical education and health courses? Consideration of this corporate immunity legislation would be especially ill-timed in light of the numerous pressing issues that face this Nation today. The Senate's time would be better spent debating stem cell research, or the life saving technologies that would make Americans' lives better. We should also be moving forward with comprehensive immigration reform, reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act, and addressing the horrific genocide in Darfur. This bill also yet to be subject to committee consideration. If the Judiciary Committee had considered this legislation, I am confident we would have amended the sweeping language of this blanket immunity bill. This legislation favors the interests of corporations over the health of our children and the health of their parents. This is not the fix that is needed. Let us direct our energies towards making American health care better by finding cures to diseases, making it easier for consumers to make informed choices, getting more Americans insured and investing in health care prevention.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the Senate has just marked another milestone with the extraordinary service of the senior Senator from West Virginia. I consider him a mentor and a friend. I have had the privilege of serving with Senator Byrd on the Judiciary Committee and I currently serve with him on the Appropriations Committee. I know firsthand his work as the Senate majority leader, the Senate Democratic leader, and as our President pro tempore. He understands the role of the Senate and the need for it to act as a check and a balance on the President. In recent years, he has been discovered by a new generation of Americans as a true Senator. By his work and his example he teaches each of us every day what the Senate should be and must be if the constitutional design of the Founders is to serve and preserve our rights and liberties. One of the great privileges of serving in the Senate is to serve with the senior Senator from West Virginia. One of the great pleasures is to hear him speak on this floor. His continuing contributions to the Senate and the Nation are too numerous to recount but I would like to mention one of the many outstanding moments. Senator Byrd has preserved the Constitution from numerous assaults. He takes seriously the Senate oath to ``support and defend'' the Constitution. He has protected it from a number of ill-conceived and politically-motivated amendments, including the so-called balanced budget amendment and the line-item veto. The last time the Senate considered amending the Constitution to cut back on our individual liberties and limit the first amendment, that guarantee in the Bill of Rights of our freedom of religion and speech, it was in no small way thanks to Senator Byrd that the Constitution and the rights of Americans were preserved. On March 29, 2000, he gave an extraordinary speech. I was a manager on the matter and was fortunate to be present. I noted at the time that ``periodically, we hear greatness in speeches,'' and observed that this was a case where the Senate had heard greatness. It is a speech that students of the Constitution and of constitutional history should study. In the days ahead, we will again be challenged to amend our Bill of Rights for the first time in over 200 years. I can think of no one I would rather stand with and fight for the Constitution than the senior Senator from West Virginia. Every day he walks on the floor of this Senate carrying the Constitution because he knows that the liberties of the American people are not to be sacrificed for passing political favor. He is a fierce advocate for the Nation, the Constitution, the Senate, but first and foremost, for the people of the State of West Virginia whom he represents so ably. I have said that I sit in the white hair row. It is a row that I picked. Because of my seniority, I can sit just about anywhere I want, but I sit in this row to sit near Senator Byrd. Senator Byrd is a Senator's Senator, but he is also a Senator who respects and preserves the Constitution. We are supposed to be the conscience of the Nation. There is only 100 of us to represent 219 million Americans. Thank goodness one of those 100 is Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I want to thank the Democratic Leader, Senator Reid, for his leadership and the hard work he has done to include an amendment to National Defense Authorization Act which increases protections for the dedicated women and men throughout our judiciary. The recent shooting of a State judge in Nevada provides another terrible reminder of the vulnerable position of our State and Federal judges. Unfortunately, this is not the only recent reminder. Last May, the Judiciary Committee heard the courageous testimony of Judge Joan Lefkow of Chicago, the federal judge whose mother and husband were murdered in their home. We must protect judges where they work and where they and their families live. The amendment now incorporated into the bill which I cosponsored with Senator Reid, Chairman Specter, and Senator Durbin, would enact provisions from the Court Security Improvement Act of 2005, CSIA, S. 1968, which Chairman Specter and I introduced last November. Our bill and this amendment authorize additional resources to improve security for State and local court systems. We also respond to requests by the Federal judiciary for a greater voice in working with the U.S. Marshals Service to determine their security needs. This amendment provides criminal penalties for the misuse of restricted personal information to seriously harm or threaten to seriously harm Federal judges, their families or other individuals performing official duties. It provides criminal penalties for threatening Federal judges and Federal law enforcement officials by the malicious filing of false liens, and provides increased protections for witnesses. It also includes an extension of life insurance benefits to bankruptcy, magistrate and territorial judges, and provides health insurance for surviving spouses and families of Federal judges, both of which are provisions that I suggested be included. Finally, this amendment contains provisions which have passed the Senate several times extending and expanding to family members the authority of the Judicial Conference to redact certain information from a Federal judge's mandatory financial disclosure. This redaction authority is intended to be used in circumstances in which the release of the information could endanger the filer or the filer's family. I hope that the House of Representatives finally takes up and passes this extension and expansion of redaction authority.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the previously ordered rollcalls on the next two nominees be vitiated, they be considered and passed en bloc.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today the Senate confirmed four lifetime appointments to U.S. district courts, Noel Hillman and Peter Sheridan, who have been nominated to seats on the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, and Thomas Ludington and Sean Cox, who have been nominated to seats on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. They are all nominees who have the support of Democratic home State Senators. I am glad the Republican leadership has taken notice of the fact that, as I discussed earlier this week, these nominees have been ready for action for some time, since being reported unanimously last month. I also look forward to working with the Republican leadership to schedule debate and consideration of Sandra Segal Ikuta, who has been nominated to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and Andrew Guilford to be a district judge for the Central District of California who also have the support of Democratic home State Senators and could also be easily confirmed. When they are considered, and I hope the Republican leadership will agree to do that next week and not delay, we will have confirmed 250 of President Bush's nominees to lifetime appointments on the Federal courts. As I noted earlier this week, the nominees we are considering today could have been confirmed earlier if the Republican leadership had chosen to proceed with them instead of pressing forward first with the controversial nomination of Brett Kavanaugh and the divisive debate over a constitutional amendment that had no chance of passing. I do commend the Republican Senate leadership for wisely passing over the controversial nominations of William Gerry Myers III, Terrence W. Boyle, and Norman Randy Smith to turn to these nominations today. In the course of an hour or two this week, the Senate will confirm five lifetime appointments to the Federal courts. Debate on those flawed nominations will take much longer. The Republican leadership is right to have avoided such controversial nominations that were only reported on a party-line vote. During the 17 months I was chairman of the Judiciary Committee and the Senate was under Democratic control, we confirmed 100 of President Bush's nominees. After today, in the last 17 months under Republican control, the Senate will have confirmed 43. Regrettably, rather than fill judicial vacancies with qualified nominees, the Republican leadership seems all too often more focused on picking fights. Last month, they forced debate on the controversial nomination of a White House insider selected for a lifetime position on the DC Circuit as a reward for his loyalty to President Bush. I did not support confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh. That was the fight the Republican leader had promised the narrow special interest groups of the rightwing of his party. The President and Senate Republican leadership continue to pick fights over judicial nominations rather than focus on filing vacancies. This is part of their partisan effort to agitate conservative voters, no doubt. They are willing to play politics with the Constitution and with the courts. They treat the Constitution as a billboard for campaign posters and political ads. Judicial vacancies have now grown to nearly 50 from the lowest vacancy rate in decades. More than half these vacancies are without a nominee. The Congressional Research Service has recently released a study showing that this President has been the slowest in decades to make circuit court nominations and the Republican Senate among the slowest to act. If they would concentrate on the needs of the courts, our Federal justice system, and the needs of the American people, we would be much further along. This week we passed a milestone, confirming the 17th judicial nominee this session. That was the total number of judges confirmed in the 1996 congressional session, when Republicans controlled the Senate and stalled the nominations of President Clinton. In the 1996 session, however, Republicans would not confirm a single appellate court judge. All 17 confirmations were district court nominees. That is the only session I can remember in which the Senate has simply refused to consider a single appellate court nomination. That was part of their pocket-filibuster strategy to stall and maintain vacancies so that a Republican President could pack the courts and tilt them decidedly to the right. In the important DC Circuit, the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh was the culmination of the Republicans' decade-long attempt to pack the DC Circuit that began with the stalling of Merrick Garland's nomination in 1996 and continued with the blocking of President Clinton's other well-qualified nominees, Elena Kagan and Allen Snyder. If the Republican leadership will work with us to schedule Sandra Segal Ikuta's nomination for consideration and a vote, we are likely to add another circuit court confirmation to that total. I only wish President Clinton's nominees had received the same treatment. The road ahead is likely to be rocky. In the runup to the Kavanaugh nomination debate, we saw that the Senate Republican leadership is apparently heeding the advice of The Wall Street Journal editorial page, which wrote, ``[a] filibuster fight would be exactly the sort of political battle Republicans need to energize conservative voters after their recent months of despond.'' Rich Lowery, editor of the conservative National Review, listed a fight over judges as one of the ways President Bush could revive his political fortunes, writing that he should, ``[p]ush for the confirmation of his circuit judges that are pending. Talk about them by name. The G.O.P. wins judiciary fights.'' Republican Senators are relishing picking fights over controversial judicial nominees. Senator Thune has said, ``A good fight on judges does nothing but energize our base . . . . Right now our folks are feeling a little flat.'' Senator Cornyn has said, ``I think this is excellent timing. From a political standpoint, when we talk about judges, we win.'' On May 8, 2006, The New York Times reported: ``Republicans are itching for a good election-year fight. Now they are about to get one: a reprise of last year's Senate showdown over judges.'' The Washington Post reported on May 10: ``Republicans had revived debate on Kavanaugh and another Bush appellate nominee, Terrence Boyle, in hopes of changing the pre-election subject from Iraq, high gasoline prices and bribery scandals.'' We should not stand idly by as Republicans choose to use lifetime Federal judgeships for partisan political advantage. In a May 11, 2006, editorial The Tennessean wrote: [T]he nation should look with complete dismay at the blatantly political angle on nominations being advocated by Senate Republicans now. . . . Republicans are girding for a fight on judicial nominees for no reason other than to be girding for a fight. They have admitted as much in public comments. . . . In other words, picking a public fight over judicial nominees is, in their minds, the right thing to do because it's the politically right thing to do. . . . Now, Republicans are advocating a brawl for openly political purposes. The appointment of judges deserves far more respect than to be an admitted election-year ploy. . . . It should be beneath the Senate to have such a serious matter subjected to nothing but a tool for political gain. On May 3, 2006, The New York Times wrote in an editorial: ``The Republicans have long used judicial nominations as a way of placating the far right of their party, and it appears that with President Bush sinking in the polls, they now want to offer up some new appeals court judges to their conservative base.'' Consider the President's nomination of Judge Terrence Boyle to the Fourth Circuit. We have learned from recent news reports that, as a sitting U.S. district judge and while a circuit court nominee, Judge Boyle ruled on multiple cases involving corporations in which he held investments. In at least one instance, he is alleged to have bought General Electric stock while presiding over a lawsuit in which General Electric was accused of illegally denying disability benefits to a longtime employee. Two months later, he ruled in favor of GE and denied the employee's claim for long-term and pension disability benefits. Whether or not it turns out that Judge Boyle broke Federal law or canons of judicial ethics, these types of conflicts of interest have no place on the Federal bench. Certainly, they should not be rewarded with a promotion to the Fourth Circuit. Certainly, they should be investigated. The President should heed the call of North Carolina Police Benevolent Association, the North Carolina Troopers' Association, the Police Benevolent Associations from South Carolina and Virginia, the National Association of Police Organizations, the Professional Fire Fighters and Paramedics of North Carolina, as well as the advice of Senator Salazar and former Senator John Edwards, and withdraw his ill- advised nomination of Judge Terrence Boyle. Law enforcement from North Carolina and law enforcement from across the country oppose the nomination. Civil rights groups oppose the nomination. Those knowledgeable and respectful of judicial ethics oppose this nomination. This nomination has been pending on the calendar in the Republican- controlled Senate since June of last year when it was forced out of the committee on a party-line vote. It should be withdrawn. Also on the calendar is the nomination of William Myers to the Ninth Circuit. This is another administration insider and lobbyist whose record has made him extremely controversial. I opposed this nomination when it was considered by the Judiciary Committee in March 2005. He was a nominee who the so-called Gang of 14 expressly listed as someone for whom they made no commitment to vote for cloture, and with good reason. His antienvironmental record is reason enough to oppose his confirmation. His lack of independence is another. If anyone sought to proceed to this nomination, there would be a need to explore his connections with the lobbying scandals associated with the Interior Department and Jack Abramoff. This nomination should also be withdrawn. A few months ago, the President withdrew the nomination of Judge James Payne to the Court of Appeals for the tenth Circuit after information became public about that nominee's rulings in a number of cases in which he appears, like Judge Boyle, to have had conflicts of interest. Those conflicts were pointed out not by the administration's screening process or by the ABA but by journalists. Judge Payne joins a long list of nominations by this President that have been withdrawn. Among the more well known are Bernard Kerik to head the Department of Homeland Security and Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. It was, as I recall, reporting in a national magazine that doomed the Kerik nomination. It was opposition within the President's own party that doomed the Miers nomination. During the last few months, President Bush also withdrew the nominations of Judge Henry Saad to the Court of Appeals for the sixth Circuit and Judge Daniel P. Ryan to the Eastern District of Michigan after his ABA rating was downgraded. It is not as if we have not been victimized before by the White House's poor vetting of important nominations. If the White House had its way, we would already have confirmed Claude Allen to the Fourth Circuit. He is the Bush administration insider who recently resigned his position as a top domestic policy adviser to the President. Ultimately we learned why he resigned when he was arrested for fraudulent conduct over an extended period of time. Had we Democrats not objected to the White House attempt to shift a circuit judgeship from Maryland to Virginia, someone now the subject of a criminal prosecution for the equivalent of stealing from retail stores would be a sitting judge on the Fourth Circuit confirmed with a Republican rubberstamp. Yet another controversial pending nomination is that of Norman Randy Smith to the Ninth Circuit. This nomination is another occasion on which this President is seeking to steal a circuit court seat from one State and reassign it to another one, one with Republican Senators. That is wrong. I support Senators Feinstein and Boxer in their opposition to this tactic. I have suggested a way to resolve two difficult situations if the President were to renominate Mr. Smith to fill the Idaho vacancy on the Ninth Circuit instead of a vacancy for a California seat. Regrettably, the White House has not followed up on my suggestion. A complicit Republican-controlled Senate remains all too eager to act as a rubberstamp for the Bush-Cheney administration. The nomination of Mr. Kavanaugh was one of the few to be downgraded by the ABA upon further review. Until the Republican-controlled Senate proceeded to confirm this White House insider, I cannot recall anyone being confirmed after such a development--another first, and another problematic confirmation that ill serves the American people. Another troubling nomination is that of William James Haynes to the Fourth Circuit, which has been pending in the Republican-controlled Senate without action for 3 years. Mr. Haynes is the general counsel at the Defense Department and was deeply involved developing the torture policies, detention and interrogation policies, military tribunals, and other controversial aspects of the manner in which this administration has proceeded unilaterally to make mistakes and exceed its legal authority. Concerns about the Haynes nomination may not be confined to Democratic Senators, according to recent press reports. I trust that the Senate will not repeat the mistake it made before. It was only after Jay Bybee was confirmed to a lifetime appointment to the Ninth Circuit that we learned of his involvement with the infamous Bybee memo seeking to justify torture and degrading treatment. I had asked him what he had worked on while head of the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, but he had refused to respond. This former Defense Department and Justice Department insider now sits on the Ninth Circuit for life. Finally, there is the more recent nomination of Michael Wallace to a vacancy on the Fifth Circuit. Mr. Wallace received the first ABA rating of unanimously ``not qualified'' that I have seen for a circuit court nominee since President Reagan. Yet that is one of the controversial nominations we can expect the Republican Senate to target for action given their track record. One of the most important checks and balances to unprecedented overreaching by the Bush-Cheney executive branch is an independent judiciary. I have sought to expedite consideration of qualified, consensus nominees and urged the President to work with us to make selections that unite all Americans. When the White House fails to make those kinds of selections, I hope that the Republican-controlled Senate will stop rubberstamping them and stop using controversial judicial nominations to score partisan political points. Our courts are too important. The rights and liberties of the American people are too important. The courts are the only check and balance left to protect the American people and provide some oversight of the actions of this President.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I think we are doing what we did in the Schiavo matter: We are playing politics with the basic rights of people, and it is wrong.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, what is the parliamentary situation?

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I thank my distinguished colleague from Illinois. This morning we will be voting on whether to proceed to a proposed amendment to the Constitution. I strongly oppose this divisive exercise. At a time when the Senate should be addressing Americans' top priorities, including ways to make America safer, the war in Iraq, rising gas prices, health care and health insurance costs, stem cell research, the erosion of Americans' privacy and the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, the President's political strategists and the Republican Senate leadership, instead, try to divide and distract from fixing real problems by pressing forward with this controversial proposed constitutional amendment. Rather than seek to divide and diminish, the Senate could be working against discrimination. I was honored to sponsor the Mychal Judge Police and Fire Chaplains Public Safety Officers' Benefit Act of 2002 to ensure that the survivors of 9/11 were treated fairly regardless of sexual orientation. If we really want to do something that the Senate can do, we should join together in a bipartisan way to pass the hate crimes bill that would help stamp out and punish violent crimes against those attacked because of the color of their skin or their nationality or sexual orientation. If we really want to do something worthy of the Senate we should debate and pass legislation to end discrimination in employment based on sexual orientation. If we want to recognize the dignity and worth of others we should consider S. 1278, the Uniting American Families Act, a bill I introduced to bring fairness to our immigration laws. The Constitution is too important to be used for partisan political purposes. It is not a billboard on which to hang political posters or slogans seeking to stir public passions for political ends. I want all Americans to appreciate that if this proposed amendment became part of our Constitution, it would represent a dramatic departure from this Nation's history of expanding freedom and individual rights. We have only amended the Constitution seventeen times since the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. None of these amendments has served to limit the rights of an entire class of Americans. Furthermore, none of these amendments has dictated to the States how they should interpret their own constitutions. This proposal not only enshrines discrimination in the Constitution, it usurps what has always been the function of the States with regard to defining marriage. When each of us became Senators we swore an oath ``to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.'' I will honor that oath by opposing this effort to inject discrimination into the Constitution. This attempt will once again fail to garner the necessary votes to proceed. But that should not excuse the Republican leadership's turning away from the legislative agenda of the Senate for this election year adventure. I hope that the American people will object to this misuse of the Senate's time and authority the way they did when the Senate injected itself into the Schiavo matter not so long ago. The American people want their leaders to unite this country and to solve real problems that they face every day. This constitutional amendment is a divisive political effort to shore up sagging poll numbers. I believe the American people will not be fooled and will see through this exercise. I look forward to moving on to the Nation's real priorities. The Senate should return to a place where we consider solutions to the problems that plague hardworking Americans, from soaring gas prices and high health care costs to corporate and Government corruption, from national security to effective fiscal and trade policies. We might consider taking action to preserve and improve rather than pollute the environment. Someday this Chamber might even debate the ongoing pandemic of AIDS or protect against the impending pandemic from bird flu. We might join in effective action seeking to halt the genocide in Darfur or oversight of the allegations of Government violations of the rights of Americans. I look forward to that time. Mr. President, I mentioned Monday at the start of this debate that over the last several years I have repeatedly written to the President about this issue and have yet to receive a response. I have already included in the Record a copy of my most recent letter to him on this constitutional amendment in which I asked what precise language it is that he supports and what it means. I noted that President Bush said in 2004 that ``States ought to be able to have the right to pass laws that enable people to be able to have rights like others,'' but no such thing is guaranteed by the proposed amendment that we are considering. The appearance of the President this week, where he reread what appeared to be a longer draft of his Saturday radio address to a handpicked audience of those seeking to amend the Constitution to write discrimination into it and create a constitutional intrusion into family law issues that have always been left to the States, was troubling in so many ways. At least that event was moved out of the White House Rose Garden, for which I am grateful. Sadly, the audience, which the White House described as a diverse cross section of community leaders, scholars, family organizations and religious leaders, was selected apparently to exclude gays and lesbians. That is hardly the way to engender fair and open debate or to show tolerance or to honor the dignity of all Americans. As this debate opened, I quoted the President's thoughtful words from the immigration debate. He said: ``We cannot build a unified country by inciting people to anger, or playing on anyone's fears, or exploiting the issue of immigration for political gain. We must always remember that real lives will be affected by our debates and decisions, and that every human being has dignity and value. . . .'' I wish that yesterday the President had honored that thought and merely substituted the issue of ``marriage'' for ``immigration''. The President is seeking to show leadership in the immigration debate and I have commended him for it. I cannot commend him for what he did yesterday. Just before the last election, President Bush said that ``States ought to be able to have the right to pass laws that enable people to be able to have rights like others.'' He cannot square that position with his and his administration's recently announced support for a proposed constitutional amendment that prohibits States from conferring the ``legal incidents'' of marriage on same-sex couples. In January 2005, after he was reelected, President Bush himself recognized that this proposed constitutional amendment was not going to be adopted and that no good purpose was served by forcing more Senate debate on it. Yesterday, the President did not well serve this Nation or its diverse population. Our Nation would be better served if we refrained from divisiveness to score political and emotional points before an election. Moreover, yesterday the President's activities demonstrated how the Republican leadership's misplaced priorities and politics have diverted the Senate from matters that concern and affect the American people. By way of contrast, the Democratic leader went to the Senate floor to urge that we proceed to conference on the recently passed immigration bill. Senate Republicans objected to a usual practice of taking of a House- passed bill and inserting the language passed by the Senate so that we can proceed to a House-Senate conference. Instead of spending time pandering to a segment of Republican's political base, the President could have worked with us to make progress on our bipartisan immigration initiative. Republicans and Democrats have said that we will need the President's help to make comprehensive immigration reform a reality. Yesterday the President was AWOL on the issue. He was not expending his efforts urging comprehensive immigration reform on the recalcitrant Republican House leadership or helping us in the Senate overcome threats of procedural objections to proceeding to conference. Another consequence of the Republican leadership's misplaced priorities is that the Judiciary Committee has yet to complete hearings on reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act. This is bipartisan, bicameral legislation on which I had hoped hearings would be complete. The final hearing on the reauthorization of important minority language provisions was scheduled for tomorrow. It has been postponed, and the excuse is that the Senate debate on this proposed constitutional amendment takes precedence. So our efforts to enact meaningful, comprehensive immigration reform with strong border security and a path to earned citizenship and our efforts to reauthorize the protections of the Voting Rights Act have both been adversely affected as a consequence of the Republican leadership insisting on proceeding to this extended debate. The demagoguery in the President's rally this week and the Statement of Administration Policy are sad to see. It is not the institution of marriage that is under attack but the Constitution and our system of federalism. They seek to justify their attack by demonizing judges. The comment the President added to his radio address was to ratchet up the rhetoric against judges by proclaiming that judges ``insist on imposing their arbitrary will on the people.'' This President just appointed Chief Justice Roberts to lead the U.S. Supreme Court and the judicial branch of the Federal Government. He has appointed approximately 250 Federal judges, including 2 Supreme Court Justices and 45 judges on the courts of appeals. The majority of Federal judges have been appointed by Republican Presidents. Any judicial decision that was a dramatic departure from the status quo on this issue would certainly be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court where seven out of nine justices have been appointed by Republican Presidents. Does anyone really believe that Chief Justice Roberts is going to preside over a U.S. Supreme Court that imposes same-sex marriage as an act of ``arbitrary will''? I agree with the Senior Senator from Virginia who recently voiced his ``grave concerns'' about the proposed amendment because it fails to ``speak with the clarity to which the American People are entitled.'' I too have significant concerns about the vague prohibition of ``the legal incidents'' of marriage for same-sex couples. That ambiguity raises serious questions whether State laws allowing civil unions and civil partnerships would be overridden and rendered ``unconstitutional.'' Numerous witnesses at our committee hearings testified that the proposed language would or could invalidate civil unions or prevent States from enacting laws that closely mirrored the rights of marriage couples. Although the President and some Senate supporters contend that this proposed amendment binds only judges and not State legislatures and that it prohibits only marriage but not civil unions or partnerships, that is not clear in the language of the proposed constitutional amendment. Ironically, it will be judges who have the last word in determining the meaning of words used in a constitutional amendment. So the very ``boogeymen'' that the proponents of this proposed constitutional amendment seek to create by demonizing judges will be those who will be forced to decide the effect of its intentionally ambiguous wording. I trust the American people will see through these escapades. I trust they will abhor the attack on the Constitution as I do. I believe they have bigger hearts and compassion of the families of committed same-sex couples. I hope they will hold accountable those who are expending the Senate's time on this futile exercise by denying them partisan gain. I have previously noted that the news accounts and editorials characterizing this effort as crassly political are too numerous to include in the Congressional Record. On this occasion, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a sampling from a variety of newspapers and outlets from around the country including editorials from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette from May 24, 2006, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution from May 28, 2006, the Berkshire Eagle from May 23, 2006, the Chicago Sun-Times from June 6, 2006, the Pittsburgh Post- Gazette from May 22, 2006, the Salt Lake Tribune from April 29, 2006, and a commentary by CNN's Jack Cafferty from June 2, 2006.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, obviously, I am not going to take the majority leader's time. Certainly, if anybody on the Republican side seeks recognition, I will immediately yield the floor to them. I was hoping they would be here. I note the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and I are in an asbestos hearing. I was asked by somebody the other day if I felt that marriage would be threatened if we didn't pass this. I have been blessed to be married to the same woman for 44 years. I don't feel threatened by it. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today by amending and passing H.R. 4311, we make another attempt to extend critical protections needed to keep the Nation's Federal judges and their families safe. Last November, the Senate passed S. 1558, which extended for 4 years the ``sunset'' of a provision granting the Judicial Conference of the United States the authority to redact information from a judge's mandatory financial disclosure in circumstances in which it is determined that the release of the information could endanger the filer or the filer's family. This provision was first enacted in the ``Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act of 1998'' and extended for 4 years in 2001. Chairman Specter and I worked with Senators Collins and Lieberman to amend S. 1558 to again include a 4-year ``sunset'' and also to extend its protections to the family members of filers. Like the more comprehensive court security measure Chairman Specter and I have introduced, S. 1968, the ``Court Security Improvement Act of 2005, CSIA, from which it is drawn, S. 1558 provides judges and their families with needed security by extending the judges' redaction authority without interruption and expanding it to their families. It also strikes the right balance with the need for continuing congressional oversight to prevent the misuse of this redaction authority, which has been a matter of some concern to me. I appreciate that the Judicial Conference is seeking to improve its practices and the Senate passed S. 1558 because none of us wants to see judges or their families endangered. However, the House failed to take up and pass S. 1558 before the end of the session. As I said last December, I was disappointed at this failure, which allowed redaction authority to lapse at the end of last year. Instead, the House passed a separate bill, H.R. 4311, which would make redaction authority permanent and which fails to extend it to cover family members of filers. As passed by the House, H.R. 4311 would remove Congress' critical role providing oversight over the use of this extraordinary authority to redact financial disclosure forms. As amended and passed today, H.R. 4311 restores the proper balance while extending the redaction authority, retroactive to its expiration last December, until December 31, 2007. It also makes protection of judges' family members explicit. I hope that the House will join us without delay both in extending the redaction authority and in expanding the scope of its protections to include family members, so that we can continue to protect the dedicated women and men throughout the Judiciary in this country who do a tremendous job under challenging circumstances.