Patrick Leahy

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, at the end of this month, John Bramley will step down as provost of the University of Vermont. From a day-to-day standpoint, the provost of a university is more important than the president of a university. The provost is the chief of operations who embraces the president's vision and implements ideas into reality. By ensuring that academics, research, and student life are running smoothly, the provost creates an environment that enriches the lives of students, faculty, administrators, and the community. As provost of the University of Vermont since 2002, John Bramley has not only excelled as provost, but also set a standard that will serve as a benchmark to measure other provosts around the country. I have known John since he came to the University of Vermont from England in the early 1990s. I believe that John excelled as provost because of his leadership in earlier positions that he held at the university. John is first and foremost an animal science scholar who is known internationally for his groundbreaking research on bovine mastitis. He is also an excellent teacher who genuinely enjoys the interaction between and challenges from students--both undergraduate and graduate. That became evident when he was recognized with the Joseph Carrigan Teaching Award in 1998. John easily made the transition to administrator. He directed the university's farm programs, cochaired the agricultural extension programs, chaired the Department of Animal Sciences and, perhaps most notably, was chair of the Faculty Senate--a position held by election among his faculty peers. I jokingly think that his early demonstration of these administrative skills likely led to his demise as being tapped interim provost and then eventually as provost in 2002. And we are so grateful that John was at his position, as this turned out to be a critical time in the history of the University of Vermont. It is no secret that during the 1990s UVM suffered from several years of unstable and rocky leadership. Not surprisingly, such a rapid turnover at the helm of a major university led to many problems including budget shortfalls; low morale among faculty, staff and students; and, less than stellar relations with the local Burlington and statewide communities. The work of both interim president Ed Colodny and John guided the university to calmer waters during that difficult time, and helped to build a strong and valuable foundation for the incoming president. Under President Fogel's administration, the university has been reinvigorated and its prestige restored. I am sure that President Fogel would agree when I say to all my colleagues that we owe much to John Bramley for bringing the university into this new, promising chapter in its history. John is stepping down as provost, but I am glad that I do not have to end this speech with a farewell. John will be returning to what I think he enjoys most, his teaching and research. I know he will continue to be an important part of the University of Vermont community and I look forward to continuing to see him on campus.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, The Isakson amendment is designed to tear apart the interwoven fabric of a bill that many of us have worked so hard in a bipartisan manner to pass in the Senate. The Isakson amendment asserts that there can be no guest worker program and no legalization path for undocumented immigrants currently in the United States until security at the borders is guaranteed. Sounds good, until you realize that comprehensive immigration reform consists of several interrelated steps, each depending on the rest in order to maximize the prospects of the overall plan to get the job done. This amendment is a prescription for failure, by ripping a comprehensive plan apart. That is why this amendment has been described as a ``poison pill'' that would undermine the bipartisan bill before the Senate. The Senate recently passed the Defense supplemental appropriations bill, a bill that included nearly $2 billion for border security. It seems that what Senator Isakson wants the Senate to do is to wait until all of those funds are expended, and then assess our security. Many of us have been fighting for years to improve border security by targeting more resources for technology on the borders and by adding additional Border Patrol agents. The Bush administration repeatedly failed to fulfill Congress's directives in recent years, but I was pleased to hear the President say last night that he now supports increasing the number of Border Patrol agents by 6,000. He made a statement last night that was stronger and displayed a stronger commitment than we have heard from him previously, and I hope he plans to follow through on his words. The President also spoke about the need to simultaneously implement guest worker programs and a path to earned citizenship for the undocumented. This is similar to the comprehensive approach that those of us who supported the Judiciary Committee bill, and then the Hagel- Martinez compromise, still believe is necessary to reform our broken system and to secure our borders. Do Senator Isakson and the supporters of his amendment believe that the President is taking the Nation in the wrong direction? I find it troubling that with such strong bipartisan support for S. 26l1 in the Senate, and the leadership of the White House on the core principles of the bill, these Senators refuse to join in constructive efforts to enact comprehensive reform. From the beginning, many voices outside of the Senate have been intent on bringing down this bill. Senator Salazar has offered an alternative that supports the principles of S. 2611 and that reflects the goals laid out by the President in his statement last night. I urge all Members of the Senate to vote against the Isakson ameendment and for the Salazar alternative. We must work toward comprehensive solutions that secure our borders and strengthen the Nation, not piecemeal gambits that undermine the efforts of bipartisan progress toward a Senate bill.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Reserving the right to object, what was the request?

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I don't think this is in keeping with what I understand the distinguished Republican leader and the distinguished Democratic leader had discussed as a procedure, nor discussed by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. So I will, for the moment, object until such time as we can figure out what is it they want. I came in late on the earlier agreement, but I want to make sure the Senator from Texas is following what the two leaders had proposed. So I will object.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today the Senate turns its attention again to comprehensive immigration reform. I hope we can finish the job the Judiciary Committee started in March and the Senate began considering in April. We need to fix the broken immigration system with tough reforms that secure our borders and with reforms that will bring millions of undocumented immigrants out of the shadows. I commend the majority and minority leaders for continuing to search for a procedural agreement, even though Republicans blocked action on a comprehensive solution by filibustering before the April recess. Democrats supported the bill that was reported by the Judiciary Committee, and we were willing to support the Hagel-Martinez compromise. In fact, Democrats voted twice in two days for comprehensive reform, but the Republican leadership refused to follow the commitments it made when the cameras were on, and folded its tent by declining to support cloture even on the motion of the Republican leader. I hope that when the President speaks to the Nation this evening, he will strongly encourage his party to support a comprehensive bill in the Senate. The President offered some helpful comments in April, but these words came too late, as the far right wing of his party had already undermined the potential compromise. Democrats were prepared to pass a bill in April and are prepared to pass a fair and comprehensive bill now. The Bush-Cheney administration has gone to great lengths to create the impression that it is now committed to strengthening our border security. The reality is that very little progress has been made. A recent report concluded that the number of people apprehended at our borders for illegal entry fell 31 percent under President Bush's watch, from a yearly average of 1.52 million between 1996 and 2000 to 1.05 million between 2001 and 2004. The number of illegal immigrants apprehended while in the interior of the country declined 36 percent, from a yearly average of roughly 40,000 between 1996 and 2000 to 25,901 between 2001 and 2004. Audits and fines against employers of illegal immigrants have also fallen significantly since President Bush took office. Given the vast increases in the number of Border Patrol Agents, the decline in enforcement can only be explained by a failure of leadership. The recent aggressive and well-publicized enforcement efforts to detain illegal immigrants are little more than political posturing that do little to improve the situation. We need comprehensive reform, backed up by leadership committed to using the tools Congress provides, not piecemeal political stunts. Tonight we expect to hear that the National Guard will be deployed to the Mexican border. Once again the administration turns to the fine men and women of the National Guard in a crisis. After our intervention turned sour in Iraq, the Pentagon turned to the Guard. After the governmental-wide failure in responding to Katrina, we turned to the Guard. Now, the administration's continual unwillingness to focus on our porous border and develop a comprehensive immigration policy, the administration turns once again to the Guard. Yet I am continually puzzled that this administration, which seems so ready to take advantage of the Guard, fights so vigorously against providing this essential force with adequate, equipment, a seat at the table in policy debates--even adequate health insurance for the men and women of the Guard. As long as these Guard units operate under the authority of State Governors, I believe this action is appropriate. In addition, the Federal Government should pick up the full costs of such a deployment and be clear about the length of this service. Those costs should not be foisted onto the States and their already taxed Guard units. Their families have been called upon to sacrifice more than any other group of Americans. My heart goes out to the members of the Guard and their families. Controlling our borders is a national responsibility, and it is regrettable that so much of this duty has been punted to the States and now to the Guard. The Guard is pitching in above and beyond, balancing its already demanding responsibilities to the States, while sending troops who have been deployed to Iraq. The Guard served admirably in response to Hurricane Katrina when the Federal Government utterly failed to respond in a timely or sufficient manner. The Vermont Guard and others have been contributing to our national security since the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Later tonight, we expect the President will announce that after more than 5 years of failing to use the authority and funding Congress has provided to strengthen the Border Patrol and our border security, it has come to this, militarizing our southern border. Instead of proposing a budget with robust and complete funding for our Border Patrol, the President has focused on providing tax cuts for the wealthiest among us. Congress has had to step in time and again to create new Border Agent positions and direct that they be filled. Instead of urging his party to take early and decisive action to pass comprehensive immigration reform as he signaled he would in February 2001, the President began his second term campaigning to undercut the protections of our Social Security system that Americans oppose. While the President talks about the importance of our first responders, he has proposed 67 percent cuts in the grant program that supplies bulletproof vests to police officers, a program that has special resonance today when we meet to recognize the 157 officers we lost last year. Five years of the Bush-Cheney administration's inaction and misplaced priorities have done nothing to improve our immigration situation. Its time for action, not more talk. The Senate just passed an emergency supplemental appropriations bill that includes nearly $2 billion for border security. These are important programs and we all support them, although a number of us believe the Democratic leader was right to offer them without taking the funds from our troops' needs in Iraq. Border security alone is not enough to solve our immigration problems. We must pass a bill--and enact a law--that will not only strengthen the security along our borders, but which will also encourage millions of people to come out of the shadows. When this is accomplished we will be more secure because we will know who is living and working in the United States. We must encourage the undocumented to come forward, undergo background checks, and pay taxes to earn a place on the path to citizenship. Just a few weeks ago I went to the White House with a bipartisan delegation of Senators to speak with the President. The need for a fair and comprehensive immigration bill was the consensus at that meeting and I believe the President was sincere when he told us that we had his support. I hope he will include that commitment in his statement to the nation tonight. If not, I trust that he will not wait to urge comprehensive immigration reform on those Republican Senators and the Republican House leadership who have yet to endorse our bipartisan comprehensive approach. Without Republican support and the intervention of the President with the recalcitrant factions within his party, this effort is unlikely to be successful and the hopes of millions will be destroyed. Those who have peacefully demonstrated their dedication to justice and comprehensive immigration reform should not be relegated back into the shadows. The bill that won the bipartisan support of a majority of the Judiciary Committee was a compromise that contained the essential components that are required for comprehensive immigration reform. Before the last recess, I was willing to support a further compromise that incorporated the principles of the Hagel- Martinez bill because it was proposed by the majority leader as a ``breakthrough'' that would allow us to pass immigration reform. Immigration reform must be comprehensive if it is to lead to real security and real reform. Enforcement-only measures may sound tough, but they are insufficient. In these next 2 weeks, the Senate has an opportunity, and a responsibility, to pass a bill that addresses our broken system with comprehensive reform and puts the pieces in place to secure the Nation.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, Just south of Route 9 in southern Vermont, along a tree-lined road, lies one of Vermont's distinctive destinations, Marlboro College. Walk through this picturesque school in the summer months and you will hear some of the sweetest melodies imaginable, or you may be enveloped by warm pulses of sound that seem to linger like the wispy clouds above. The sounds you hear are those of another year of the Marlboro Music Festival. Since its founding in 1951, this 8-week festival--one of the world's premiere chamber music workshops and weekend concert series--brings some of the most renowned and experienced musicians together with the rising stars of tomorrow. This year has marked the 40th anniversary of the Musicians From Marlboro, the festival's active touring program which sends the musicians on the road to perform periodically across the country. At some of the Nation's premier venues, including historic places like the Freer Gallery in Washington and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the concerts feature the exceptional music heard first in the Marlboro Music Festival. As this remarkable event approaches again this year, spanning the gorgeous Vermont months of June through August, it is fitting to pause to note the accomplishments of the Musicians From Marlboro and the entire Marlboro Music Festival. For four decades, the festival's touring group has brought their music to every corner of the United States. For four decades, the musicians have set a model of artistic excellence that has inspired other musicians and artists and their audiences. This band of musicians--outwardly casual but hard-driven in their pursuit of beauty and truth in their art--has moved thousands of concert-goers. The touring group has featured such superb musicians as Rudolph Serkin, Richard Goode, Benita Velente, and Murray Perahia. Performers who went on to make up such noted ensembles as the Guarneri and Emerson String Quartets have received critical early boosts from the Marlboro experience of intensive summers and the tours. Their alumni can be found in many leading orchestras, from the Philadelphia Orchestra to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. There is certainly something about Vermont and the Green Mountains that helps inspire the ensemble. Whatever the inspiration, the Musicians From Marlboro are a superb reflection of the best Vermont has to offer. Vermont is a richer place because of the Marlboro Music Festival, and the festival and its musicians have touched innumerable audiences across the country with their artistry. I know my colleagues join me in congratulating the Marlboro Music Festival and its Musicians From Marlboro on this great achievement of 40 years of touring and in wishing the festival many more happy and sonorous decades to come.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, it gives me great pleasure to congratulate Mr. Bob Stiller, president and chief executive officer, and the 600 employees of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters on their selection as the Nation's top corporate citizen by Business Ethics Magazine. In the best traditions of Vermont, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters is about more than making a profit--they are about fostering a strong commitment to corporate social responsibility. Through the company's support of organizations like the Rainforest Alliance, a non profit dedicated to protecting ecosystems, and Coffee Kids, an international nonprofit seeking to improve the quality of life for children and families in coffee-growing communities, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters has been a pioneer in the fair trade coffee movement. The company has also taken its socially responsible mission into the halls of our government, when, in 2002, Green Mountain formed a joint alliance with the U.S. Agency for International Development aimed at improving the livelihoods for those in improvised coffee growing regions. Green Mountain has maintained these strong corporate ethics while continuing to build a robust earnings record. In 2005, the company reported revenue of $161.5 million, with net income of $9 million, a 15-percent increase over the year prior. And in the first quarter of fiscal year 2006, Green Mountain's fair trade coffee represented 26- percent of total sales, an increase of 68-percent compared to the same period last year. I commend this outstanding Vermont company and ask unanimous consent that the Business Ethics article naming Green Mountain Coffee Roasters as the Nation's top corporate citizen be printed in the Record, along with a recent editorial from the Burlington Free Press.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I join in introducing a bipartisan resolution to designate May 15, 2006, as National Peace Officers Memorial Day. This is the tenth year running that I have been involved in the introduction of this resolution to keep alive in the memory of all Americans the sacrifice and commitment of those law enforcement officers who lost their lives serving their communities. For 8 years I introduced this resolution with my old friend and our former colleague Senator Campbell, a former deputy sheriff who was a true leader on this issue. Now I have teamed with Senator Specter, another former prosecutor, in this worthy cause. We have all witnessed firsthand the risks faced by law enforcement officers every day while they serve and protect our communities. I also want to thank each of our Nation's law enforcement officers for their commitment to the safety and protection of their fellow citizens. They are the real-life heroes; too many of whom too often make the ultimate sacrifice. It is important to support and respect our state and local police officers and all of our first responders. Currently, more than 850,000 men and women who guard our communities do so at great risk. Each year, one in 16 officers is assaulted, one in 56 officers is injured, and one in 5,500 officers is killed in the line of duty in the United States every other day. After the hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001, 72 peace officers died while trying to ensure that their fellow citizens in those buildings got to safety. That act of terrorism resulted in the highest number of peace officers ever killed in a single incident in the history of our country, and is a tragic reminder of how important it is for the Congress to provide all of the resources necessary to protect officers in the line of duty. In 2005, 156 law enforcement officers died while serving in the line of duty, well below the decade-long average of 169 deaths annually, and a major drop from 2001 when a total of 237 officers were killed. A number of factors contributed to this reduction including better equipment and the increased use of bullet-resistant vests, improved training and advanced emergency medical care. And, in total, more than 17,500 men and women have made the ultimate sacrifice. In the 108th Congress, we shepherded into law a number of measures to make a difference in the lives of all police officers and the communities they serve. We improved the Justice Department's Public Safety Officers Benefits program by making law the Hometown Heroes Survivors Benefits Act, P.L. No. 108-182: which allows survivors of public safety officers who suffer fatal heart attacks or strokes while participating in nonroutine stressful or strenuous physical activities to qualify for Federal survivor benefits. We also enacted the Campbell-Leahy Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act, P.L. No. 108-372, which extends through FY 2007 the authorization of appropriations for the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Program. This program helps State, tribal and local jurisdictions purchase armor vests for use by law enforcement officers. Incredibly, President Bush has proposed significant cuts to the bulletproof vest program in his fiscal year 2007 budget proposal, but I will work with other Senators to make sure the program is fully funded. Bulletproof vests have saved the lives of thousands of officers and are a fundamental line of defense that no officer should be without. I know I am not alone in calling for the Senate to fully fund the bulletproof vest program and I truly hope Senators will agree that it is critical that we provide the funding authorized for this program. Hundreds of thousands of police officers are counting on us. The Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act, which Senator Campbell and I championed in the Senate, was signed into law, P.L. No: 108-277. This measure established national measures of uniformity and consistency to permit trained and certified on-duty, off-duty or retired law enforcement officers to carry concealed firearms in most situations so that they may respond immediately to crimes across State and other jurisdictional lines, as well as to protect themselves and their families from vindictive criminals. National Peace Officers Memorial Day will provide the people of the United States with the opportunity to honor the extraordinary service and sacrifice given year after year by our police forces. More than 20,000 peace officers are expected to gather in Washington to join with the families of their fallen comrades. I hope all Senators will join me in honoring their service by passing this important bipartisan legislation.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, for all of the recent talk from the majority about up-or-down votes, and allegations of Democratic obstruction on amendments, I find it astounding that the Republican majority has locked up Senator Enzi's bill and will not allow amendments to be offered. We now face exactly the type of obstruction the majority has decried so loudly. On a bill for which Senator Enzi has urged full debate, the Republican majority has now decided the Senate and the American people we represent should not get the benefit of the full legislative process. For example, I am being prohibited from offering an amendment to help prevent medical malpractice insurers from bid rigging, price fixing, and other anticompetitive behavior that hurts doctors and patients. For another, we are prohibited from offering an amendment to extend the arbitrary deadline for seniors to sign up for prescription drug benefits without a penalty. Why not provide our seniors more time and assistance in examining the prescription drug provisions that have frustrated so many? Seniors did not grow up in the computer age and many are not trained accountants who can sift through the confusion. They should not be penalized by an arbitrary cutoff date which could easily be extended. This week, the Senate has already refused to proceed to legislation that would have abridged our citizens' access to justice when they are injured by medical errors. Those bills purported to lower medical malpractice insurance costs when, in fact, it is not payouts that have led to rising insurance premiums. The Senate has done the right thing by rejecting these bills once again. The debate that preceded the votes demonstrated that capping medical malpractice awards is not the way to lower insurance premiums, which we all agree are unfair to the men and women who devote their lives to the care of others. There can be no disagreement that exorbitant insurance costs make it harder for medical professionals to do their jobs. Health care providers, like all Americans, deserve fair treatment in the marketplace. We also know that the insurance marketplace is unique, because unlike other business interests, insurers are not subject to some of the most important Federal antitrust laws. High malpractice insurance premiums are not the result of malpractice lawsuit verdicts. This myth has been repeatedly discredited. They are the result of investment decisions by the insurance companies and of business models geared toward ever-increasing profits. But an insurer that has made a bad investment, or that has experienced the same disappointments from Wall Street that so many Americans have, should not be able to recoup its losses from the doctors it insures. The insurance industry should have to bear the burdens of its own business model, just as the other businesses in the economy do. High malpractice premiums for doctors can occur because there is nothing stopping insurers in a soft market from collectively raising rates and stifling competition. Any other business would be prohibited from this activity, and I have heard no arguments as to why the insurance industry should be treated differently. The insurance industry is special because it is exempt from most Federal antitrust laws. The McCarran-Ferguson Act permits insurance companies to operate without being subject to those laws, and our Nation's physicians and their patients have been the worse off for it. Using their exemption, insurers can collude to set rates, resulting in higher premiums than true competition would achieve--and because of this exemption, enforcement officials cannot investigate any such collusion. If Congress is serious about controlling rising premiums, we must objectively limit this broad exemption in the McCarran-Ferguson Act. The amendment I wanted to propose modifies the McCarran-Ferguson Act with respect to medical malpractice insurance, and only for the most pernicious antitrust offenses: Price fixing, bid rigging, and market allocations. Only those anticompetitive practices that most certainly will affect premiums are addressed. I am hard pressed to imagine how anyone could object to a prohibition on insurance carriers' fixing prices or dividing territories. After all, the rest of our Nation's industries manage either to abide by these laws or suffer the consequences. If medical malpractice insurers are certain that malpractice lawsuits drive their rates, then there should be no reason to object to bringing their business within the reach of the same Federal laws that apply to all others. Many State insurance commissioners police the industry well within the power they are accorded in their own laws, and some States have antitrust laws of their own that could cover some anticompetitive activities in the insurance industry. My proposal, which I wanted to offer, is a scalpel, not a saw. It would not affect regulation of insurance by State insurance commissioners and other State regulators. But there is no reason to perpetuate a system in which Federal enforcers are precluded from prosecuting the most harmful antitrust violations just because they are committed by insurance companies. This amendment is a carefully tailored solution to one critical aspect of the problem of excessive medical malpractice insurance rates. I am sorry that I was stopped by the Republican leadership and could not offer this narrowly drawn legislation as a positive step towards improving the American health care system, which would help ensure that doctors and patients are treated fairly.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I find it unfortunate that we do not hear any discussion by proponents of this legislation about what is best for patients injured or killed by medical errors. The debate in favor of malpractice award caps has been cast in terms of patient accessibility to health care, but what about patient safety? Capping noneconomic damages may benefit insurance companies, but it does nothing for victims and nothing to address the serious problem of preventable medical errors. Despite all of the rhetoric and all the myths and misinformation about the so-called crisis facing our medical professionals, what about the fact that studies have estimated that medical errors kill up to nearly 100,000 people each year? How does capping what a victim can recover help address this tragic fact? Rather than having all the talk be about alleged physician shortages and phantom reductions in insurance rates, we should be looking at how to improve the quality of care patients receive and how to improve patient safety. This legislation does nothing to provide any incentive for health care providers to improve the safety of their services, drug companies to rigorously test their products, or nursing homes to provide responsible and compassionate care to our elderly citizens. Aside from the fact that caps on non-economic damages will not address exorbitant insurance rates, such caps harm both women and children. The Wall Street Journal published an article in 2004 detailing the effects of California's non-economic damages cap. The article discussed how the California law has created two classes of malpractice victims: those who earn large amounts of money and get good representation, and those who do not and cannot find advocates willing to take on their cases. The effect is that many women who do not work, but raise children, cannot get representation because they cannot point to an annual salary that will be lost, and thus lawyers are reluctant to invest the hundreds of thousands of dollars necessary to litigate a meritorious claim. The same is true for children, whose recovery under this legislation would depend on often difficult estimates of the cost of future care. A California attorney quoted in The Wall Street Journal article summed up the California law's effect by concluding: ``We are saying to doctors and hospitals it's OK to kill somebody who comes from a poor family because ultimately they aren't going to have the same effect on our medical-malpractice insurance as somebody who comes from a rich family.'' The similar one-size-fits-all approach in this legislation is the wrong way to go. I also question the timing of partisan legislation that will do nothing to address patient safety. As insurance rates, like gas prices, continue to soar to the benefit of corporate profits, as the number of uninsured continue to rise during this presidency, the Republican- controlled Senate seeks to take up partisan legislation that will help a few very powerful insurance companies become even more powerful. Rather than take up legislation to apply competitive antitrust principles to the business of insurance, the majority leader insists that we limit our actions to legislative proposals that will deprive citizens injured by medical errors a full measure of justice. Instead of taking up legislation to push the frontiers of life-saving medicine through stem cell research, we are going to debate whether we should make it easier for insurance companies to continue their predatory behavior at the expense of both doctors and patients. Instead of calling this a malpractice bill, we should call it a gift to the insurance companies bill. In recent weeks, hundreds of thousands of Americans have taken to the streets in peaceful demonstrations to urge sensible and humane immigration reform and the public clearly wants Congress to address these issues and to strengthen our borders, and instead we are discussing how to dismantle our internal borders and tread on State sovereignty by nullifying State tort law. A war rages in Iraq in which our Nation's best and bravest are making the ultimate sacrifice to advance democracy, and meanwhile we are talking about how to curtail Americans' access to justice. Forty-five million people do not have health insurance in this country, and yet we are considering legislation that will make it harder for children who suffer lifelong injuries from medical errors to get the long term care they need. The gap between the richest Americans and everyone else continues to widen, but instead of taking up legislation to raise the minimum wage, the majority leader wants to shield lucrative insurance companies from having to pay fair awards to medical malpractice victims. Where in the majority leader's schedule are the American people's real priorities? There are ways to improve health care. These bills do not do that. There are alternatives that address the high costs of medical malpractice insurance and patient safety, but they differ from the narrow approach we debate today. There are solutions to both the current high rate of medical errors, as well as high insurance costs, that will not further victimize patients or intrude into the sovereignty of State legislatures and citizens, but they are not brought before the Senate for consideration and action. If we want to address high insurance costs, let us address the unhelpful practices within the insurance industry and find a real solution that does not penalize victims of medical errors. If we want to bring down the number of medical errors, merely cutting costs and increasing profits for insurance companies is not the way to go. Capping malpractice awards does nothing to treat the root cause of malpractice lawsuits. Let us put patients before insurance companies in this debate and find real solutions to the preventable medical errors that are occurring every day. Some of us have proposed legislation to tackle the problem of rising insurance costs without taking away American citizens' access to justice. If we want to improve patient care and lower the number of medical malpractice claims, we need to find ways to prevent medical errors at the rate they occur now. That is common sense. Senator Obama has proposed the Hospital Quality Report Card Act of 2006 to provide accountability within those hospitals compensated through Medicare by requiring highly detailed reporting of safety procedures, patient accessibility, the incidence of errors and infections, and many other areas important to both patient safety the effectiveness of treatment. Senator Obama's bill would provide the information to help consumers make an informed decision about where to obtain treatment. It would provide the information necessary for hospitals to improve the safety and effectiveness of their services. It would allow insurers and purchasers of insurance to reduce the likelihood of claims by sending their insured customers and employees to the best hospitals available, and would allow doctors and policy makers to target areas in need of improvement. Senator Obama's bill puts the priorities of patient safety and health care improvement first. I commend the Senator from Illinois for this bill and I urge other Senators to join me in supporting it. If we want to reign in the costs of insurance for health care providers, we must address the conditions within the insurance industry. I have proposed a bill along with Senator Kennedy to exempt medical malpractice insurers from the counterproductive McCarran- Ferguson Act. This bill would give regulators the tools necessary to prevent anti-competitive business practices that hurt doctors and patients. If medical malpractice insurers are artificially driving up the costs of insurance, we should stop it. Health care in our country is too important to allow profits at the expense of patients. We are not going to stop soaring insurance premiums by cutting off the access of victims to justice. We are going to stop them by stopping the anti- competitive behavior of the insurance companies. Again, health care in our country is too important to allow profit at the expense of patients, especially when in the last 6 years we have seen the highest increase in the number of uninsured Americans in my lifetime. I urge other Senators to join me in rejecting legislation that will do nothing more than benefit profitable insurance companies under the guise of improving patient accessibility. Let us work together in a bipartisan fashion to come up with real solutions to the problem of preventable medical errors. Let us find ways to end the abusive practices in assisted living facilities and nursing homes. Let us find ways to lower insurance costs without hurting victims. Those in need of care must be able to trust their doctors and health care providers without doubt. Elderly Americans deserve the best care that can be provided. Our doctors and other health care providers deserve to be treated fairly in the marketplace when purchasing malpractice insurance, and not be affected by artificial monopolies and price- fixing cartels. If we work together, we can make progress and make a difference. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. I was going to proceed for about 5 minutes, but if the Senator from Massachusetts wishes to go first, that is fine.

Mr. LEAHY. I won't object assuming there will be 2 additional minutes on this side.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, is the Senator from Massachusetts seeking recognition for a unanimous consent request?

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, yesterday I spoke on the floor about amendment 3662 filed by Senator Feingold and cosponsored by myself and Senators Byrd, Salazar, Lieberman and Collins, concerning the Special Inspector General for Iraq. In that statement I pointed out that because of the administration's decision to request funds for Iraq reconstruction under traditional Foreign Operations accounts even though the funds would be used to continue many of the same activities previously funded under the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund, it would end the Special IG's oversight of these funds. The Feingold amendment would have ensured that the Special IG's oversight continued, but the Majority opposed his amendment. As a result, we now have only the State Department Inspector General to oversee these funds, even though that office has no people in Iraq and no capacity to undertake a job of this size and complexity any time soon. I understand that my friend from Wisconsin went to the floor prior to the vote on cloture and waited for an opportunity to offer his amendment, but he was unable to obtain floor time. After cloture was invoked his amendment was ruled nongermane, and he was out of luck as far as getting a vote on his amendment. The Special IG has uncovered widespread waste, fraud and abuse. Shocking sums have been wasted by unqualified contractors who spent the taxpayer's money as if it grew on trees, with little to show for it. Many projects that have absorbed millions or tens of millions of dollars will never be completed. The Special IG has not won any popularity contests with the agencies whose performance he is responsible for overseeing, nor with some in the majority in Congress. However, they have never offered a substantive explanation for ending his oversight of the Iraq reconstruction funds. I do want to correct one of my statements yesterday, when I said that members of the majority party, in opposing the Feingold amendment, were ``acting on behalf of some in the Pentagon and the White House who want to shut down the office of the Special IG.'' I am informed that members of the majority party were not acting on behalf of the Pentagon and the White House. It was not my intention to impugn the integrity or character of my friends in the majority who I respect and have worked closely with for years, but rather to convey my strong disagreement and disappointment with their opposition to the Feingold amendment and to the continued oversight of these funds by the Special IG.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, this afternoon the Senate will confirm two more lifetime appointments to the Federal judiciary, Thomas Golden of Pennsylvania and Brian Cogan of New York. These confirmations will bring the total number of Senate-confirmed judicial appointments since January 2001 to 240, including the confirmations of two Supreme Court Justices and 43 circuit court judges. Democrats in the Senate have been cooperative in considering and confirming consensus nominees. In fact, 100 judges were confirmed during the 17 months when there was a Democratic majority in the Senate compared to only 140 judges in the other 45 months under Republican control. This morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee reported out another five judicial nominees unanimously. When they are considered and confirmed by the Senate, we will not only reach 245 judicial confirmations, but we will equal the number of judicial nominations considered in the entire session in the election year of 1996 when a Republican Senate controlled consideration of President Clinton's nominations. In session not a single nomination to the court of appeals was considered, not one. Of course this year we have already joined in confirming Judge Michael Chagares to the Third Circuit and I expect Democratic Senators to join in confirming the nomination of Milan Smith to the Ninth Circuit when that nomination is scheduled by the majority leader. Unfortunately, the Senate Republican leadership is again bent on seeking to use nominations to score partisan points. Our job is to fulfill our duty under the Constitution for the American people so that we can assure them that the judges confirmed to lifetime appointments to the highest courts in this country are fair to those who enter their courtrooms and to the law, rather than to advance a partisan agenda. Regrettably, this is not the first time the Republican leadership in the Senate has chosen to pursue a partisan agenda using judicial nominees. Sadly, published reports during the last couple of weeks indicate that the Senate Republican leadership is, instead, preparing to cater to the extreme rightwing faction that is agitating for fights over judicial nominations. We will see that when they insist on confrontation over such controversial nominations as Judge Terrence Boyle, Norman Randy Smith or Brett Kavanaugh. Despite Democratic cooperation in the confirmation of scores of nominees and the undeniable fact that we have treated this President's nominees more fairly than Republicans treated those of President Clinton, they seem intent on using controversial judicial nominations to stir up their partisan political base. Rather than address the priorities of Americans by focusing on proposals to end the subsidies to big oil and rein in gas prices, rather than devote our time to passing comprehensive immigration reform legislation, rather than completing a budget, the Republican leader came to the floor last week to signal a fight over controversial judicial nominations. One of the nominations that the Republicans want to rubberstamp is that of Judge Terrence Boyle to the U.S. Court of Appeals for 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 long-time 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. They should be investigated. The Republican leadership would rather have the Senate be a rubberstamp for rewarding this administration's cronies with lifetime appointments to high Federal courts. They have tried before. If the White House had its way, we would already have confirmed Claude Allen to the Fourth Circuit. He is the former Bush administration official who recently resigned his position as a top domestic policy adviser to the President. Last month we learned why he resigned when he was arrested for fraudulent conduct over an extended period of time. Had 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. A look at the Federal judiciary in Pennsylvania demonstrates yet again that President Bush's nominees have been treated far better than President Clinton's and shows dramatically how Democrats have worked in a bipartisan way to fill vacancies, despite the fact that Republicans blocked more than 60 of President Clinton's judicial nominees. With today's confirmation of Thomas Golden to be a district court judge in Pennsylvania, 21 of President Bush's nominees to the Federal courts in Pennsylvania will have been confirmed, more than for any other State except California. With this confirmation, President Bush's nominees will make up 21 of the 43 active Federal circuit and district court judges for Pennsylvania--that is more than 49 percent of the Pennsylvania Federal bench. On the Pennsylvania district courts alone, President Bush's will now sit in 18 of the 36 judgeships. This is in sharp contrast to the way vacancies in Pennsylvania were left unfilled during Republican control of the Senate when President Clinton was in the White House. Republicans denied votes to nine district and one circuit court nominees of President Clinton in Pennsylvania alone. Despite the efforts and diligence of the senior Senator from Pennsylvania, Senator Specter, to secure the confirmation of all of the judicial nominees from every part of his home State, there were 10 nominees by President Clinton to Pennsylvania vacancies who never got a vote. Despite records that showed these to be well- qualified nominees, these nominations were blocked from Senate consideration. So while I congratulate Thomas Golden and his family on his confirmation, I remember those who were not treated so fairly by Senate Republicans.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, it is interesting to hear the statistics being tossed around. I am sure the distinguished Senator did not mean by his chart to suggest somehow bribes have been offered to people in how they vote. Mr. President, we have States without caps on medical malpractice recoveries. They have 14 percent more practicing physicians than those with caps. We hear about the increasingly burdensome medical malpractice premiums and, indeed, they are. Health care providers pay onerous amounts to be insured. That is why I have introduced a bill directed specifically toward medical malpractice insurance reform because, after all, there is no correlation between malpractice claims and rising insurance premiums. Between 2000 and 2004, insurers increased premiums 134 percent, even though payments remained flat. They say this legislation drastically reduces insurance rates. Of course, the American Insurance Association has said we have not promised price reductions for tort reform. They have been quoted as saying: We wouldn't tell you or anyone the reason to pass tort reform would be to reduce insurance rates. In fact, a majority of States that have enacted caps have seen no reductions. In fact, on average, doctors in States with caps pay more for insurance than they do in States without caps. The fact is, there is one place that makes money. Claims go down and insurance premiums go up. It is like the rising gas prices and the record oil company profits. Maybe we ought to be asking medical malpractice insurers exactly why their premiums are so exorbitant? If it is not because they are paying an increasing amount of claims. They are not doing that. Rates are going up much faster than any claims. It could be a soft stock market, bad investments, or greed. That is what we ought to ask about. In my State, without caps, we increased the number of doctors. So don't use this argument that somehow in rural areas, in rural States, we are going to lose doctors. We are gaining doctors. We should ask the insurance companies why their rates go up, even though the payments are flat. We should also remember that America's courts belong to the American people, not to the special interests of the insurance companies. These bills are bad public policy. They are ill-timed. We ought to be debating the priorities of the American people, not debating ways to make greater profits for the insurance companies. We ought to talk about energy policy and skyrocketing gas prices. Wouldn't it be good to have a real debate on the fiasco in Iraq today, a real debate about what has gone wrong in the war in Iraq? That could take a couple of months just to list them. A lot has gone wrong since the President announced: ``Mission Accomplished.'' We ought to be talking about the comprehensive immigration bill or stem cell research. What about the horrific genocide in Darfur? So I am disappointed that the majority leader has decided instead that the Senate's and the public's valuable time should be taken up with these bills. I am also disappointed that he has decided to bypass any consideration of these bills. Instead, the insurance companies, and probably some of the large medical companies, have a special interest bill that benefits the insurance companies at the expense of patients with legitimate injuries coming straight to the floor. These are real people. I will give you one example in my own State of Vermont. On April 7, 2000, Diana Levine had a severe migraine headache. She went to a health center. Ms. Levine was a musician. She received a painkiller, along with an injection of another sedative. That caused complications and she had two amputation surgeries of her left arm. A musician. She sued the corporate giant, Wyeth, for improper guidelines on the sedative because it didn't warn about these dangerous combinations. They knew about it, but they didn't warn anybody. She said: I never expected to sue anyone in my life. . . . Sometimes it takes something like this to make it known when a drug is not being used right. After a full trial, knowing that her career as a musician was gone, the jury said she deserved $2.4 million for past and future medical expenses and, of course, $5 million for the daily pain she is suffering. Most of that would have been cut out under this bill. That makes me think this bill is political and doesn't go to the root cause of medical malpractice. Let's not forget that medical errors happen to 100,000 people each year. One out of over 100 hospitalized patients suffers negligent care. Just turn on the news every night and we hear about it. More people die as a result of medical errors than automobile and workplace accidents combined. More die from that than automobile accidents and workplace accidents combined, but only 3 percent of them even file a claim. These statistics tell us there is not so much a malpractice lawsuit problem as a medical safety problem. I fail to see how arbitrarily limiting the rights of citizens addresses this serious problem, particularly because in many cases the judicial system is the only forum in which such an error is brought to light. Rather than looking for ways to limit our citizens' access to justice, we should look for ways in which we can encourage the medical community to strive for the highest standards in the delivery of its services. It is in our interest as citizens, and it is certainly in the interest of all the dedicated and caring people in the medical profession whose oath commands them to do no harm. My wife Marcelle dedicated her career to the care of others through nursing, and I know how seriously those in the medical profession take their solemn responsibilities. The best place for positive change to occur is from within the medical profession, not from within our courtrooms. The bills on the floor today favor the interests of insurance companies over patients, the interests of profit over sound health care, and they provide illusory promises of lower insurance rates for doctors, while addressing none of the underlying causes of medical malpractice. This is not the fix that is needed. We hear numerous complaints from politicians about the harm malpractice lawsuits cause to patient access and the medical profession. We hear claims about doctors practicing defensive medicine at the expense of innovation and aggressive treatment. We hear claims about doctors fleeing communities. We hear claims about the reluctance of our young people to enter the medical profession. We hear claims about pregnant women who cannot find obstetricians to provide care throughout pregnancy and birth. There might be some merit to this legislation if these claims we routinely hear were true. They are not. The myths associated with medical malpractice lawsuits have virtually all been discredited. Two of the primary arguments in favor of capping noneconomic damages are lowering insurance premiums and preventing doctors from leaving their State or their profession. The available data suggests that these arguments are unfounded. In my home State of Vermont, the most recent data show that the number of physicians practicing in the State has risen steadily from 1,918 doctors in 1996, to 2,589 doctors in 2004. The number of OB-GYNs in Vermont is also higher today than it was in 2000. Today Vermont residents benefit from 113 OB-GYNs, compared with 91 in 2000. This trend exists nationally as well: The number of physicians nationally has risen between 1996 and 2004. We also now have more physicians under the age of 35 today than we did in 1996. The number of doctors per capita in this country has been steadily increasing since 1965. It is hard to understand how these trends can be characterized as the loss of people from the medical profession. There is also no correlation between a State damages cap and the number of doctors practicing in the State. Nationally, States without caps have 14 percent more practicing physicians. As we consider the majority leader's bills, I urge other Senators to help expose the myths associated with the legislation we address today. In fairness to the American people, we should be debating the facts, not the myths. If we acknowledge that the real problem is medical malpractice and the injuries and deaths that result, and not the lawsuits that seek to remedy these harms, I know we can go a long way to helping the medical profession work from within to assure that doctors meet the highest possible standards and strive to prevent medical errors. After all, those in the medical profession are in the best position to understand what changes must occur, and how best to make sure that needed changes occur. As an example of this I want to highlight the efforts of anesthesiologists, who accomplished a nearly sevenfold reduction in anesthesia-related errors through cooperative changes to their systems and practices. Not surprisingly, when anesthesia-related errors decreased, so did insurance premiums. This should be our model of how to effectively address medical malpractice. If we work together, between needed reforms in the insurance industry, and by supporting medical professionals in improving the critical work they do, I know we can tackle this problem effectively. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am pleased to support passage of H.J. Res. 83, which authorizes funds for a bust to be placed in the Supreme Court honoring the late Chief Justice Rehnquist. Chief Justice Rehnquist served admirably on the country's highest court for 33 years--19 as Chief Justice. It is appropriate that we honor his service as we have the other Chief Justices with a bust in the Supreme Court building. I was privileged to have known the Chief Justice for many years and to have had the pleasure of serving with him on the Smithsonian Board of Regents. We also shared a love for the beautiful land and the independent people of Vermont--a place that served as a special refuge for the Chief Justice and his family over the years. His courage and commitment were without question, particularly recently when he attended the last inauguration and continued work to the end. It would also be fitting in my view to honor other important figures in the Supreme Court's history. Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Thurgood Marshall broke barriers and became the first woman and first African American justices on the Supreme Court in our Nation's long history. Both are role models not only for women and African Americans who will follow them on the Supreme Court, but for judges everywhere and all Americans. It would be appropriate to honor their significant accomplishments and contributions to the law, to the Supreme Court and to the country by including them among those honored at the Supreme Court building.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, this amendment offered by myself, Senator Durbin and Senator Wyden, provides an additional $35 million for famine and disaster assistance for people in West Africa and in the Horn of Africa who are suffering from severe drought and hunger. In last year's supplemental we provided additional funding for this purpose and according to USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance it was extremely helpful. The situation this year is no less dire. Additional funding for famine and disaster assistance is required for the Horn of Africa where 15 million people are at risk and an additional 8 million people in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia face severe food and water shortages. To put it another way, they are going to die if we and others don't do more to help them. In Ethiopia alone, more than 740,000 people urgently need water, and more than 1.5 million children under five require immunizations against disease. The shortfall in this account also threatens to jeopardize USAID's response to other emergencies in Africa. Humanitarian programs in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, and Cote d'Ivoire face cuts in funding despite worsening circumstances. In Cote d'Ivoire, 500,000 internally displaced persons face growing hardship and insecurity. USAID does not have the resources to respond to the increased needs of vulnerable people, especially women, and children. The situation in these countries is worse than pitiful. This amendment will not solve the problem, but it will save lives and help prevent the situation from getting even worse. It is what we need to do to give the relief workers who are trying to get food, water and shelter to these people the resources they need. Mr. President, the devastation caused by Hurricane Stan did not receive the attention that it should have by the Congress. That was partly because it was overshadowed by the terrible earthquake in Pakistan and by Hurricane Katrina. Whole villages in Guatemala were buried by some 900 mudslides, 670 people died, 845 are missing, and 475,000 were directly affected. Many of them lost their homes, their property and their livelihoods as a result of Hurricane Stan. Most of the destruction occurred in one of the poorest parts of the country which is the source of the majority of Guatemalan immigrants to the United States. Yet so far we have contributed only a few million dollars. My amendment provides an additional $12 million for assistance for Guatemala for relief and reconstruction activities related to Hurricane Stan. It is not as much as I wish we could provide, but I know that it will help address the most urgent needs of people who are trying to rebuild their lives. I want to thank Senator McConnell for agreeing to accept this amendment.

Mr. LEAHY. Yes, I do. And I would add that the amendment also provides that up to $8.5 million should be made available to support the activities of the United States Institute of Peace in Iraq.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, on April 6, I spoke on the floor about the humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur where more than 200,000 people have perished from genocidal violence, hunger and disease. Today I rise to strongly support the amendment offered by Senator Menendez to help meet the emergency need for additional funding for peacekeeping in Darfur. President Bush, this Congress, and the international community have recognized the need for double the number of peacekeeping troops in Darfur to stabilize the crisis and begin to lay the groundwork for a resolution to this conflict. But the President has not requested the funds to support additional troops. Rhetoric is cheap, but when the issue is the survival of thousands of vulnerable people, words do not suffice. The $60 million proposed by the Senator from New Jersey is the minimum needed. In addition to Sudan, there are 12 other U.N. peacekeeping missions that face severe funding shortages in fiscal year 2006. The State Department will be $383 million short in the next few months and will have no alternative but to defer those bills into next year, which creates a problem for our fiscal year 2007 appropriations process. The President's inadequate budget request, which is supported by the majority in Congress, ensures that we are perpetually behind in our U.N. peacekeeping payments. This supplemental does not fund a U.N. mission to Darfur, which is what we all recognize is needed. Senator Menendez's amendment would at least provide initial funding for such a mission. Nor does this bill fund other U.N. peacekeeping missions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, and Haiti. The U.S. does not contribute troops to any of these missions. But by not paying our share of peacekeeping dues on time the countries that contribute the troops are less willing to do so. The amount we pay is a tiny fraction of what we would have to spend to deploy our own troops. The GAO recently found that it would ``cost the U.S. about twice as much as the U.N. to conduct peacekeeping'', and the U.S. only contributes 25 percent of the cost. That makes the savings 8 times less--the U.N. is half as expensive and we only pay a quarter of the costs. We are not prepared to put our troops into these countries and the costs would be far higher to the U.S. if we did. The fiscal year 2006 budget we passed last year under-funded the U.S. dues for peacekeeping by $383 million. The U.S. has voted to expand the troop level in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, yet our share is underfunded by approximately $80 million in fiscal year 2006. Ensuring a smooth transition after the recent presidential election in Haiti is a stated priority of the administration, yet the peacekeeping mission to Haiti is underfunded by at least $40 million. Liberia, Cote d'Ivoire, and Kosovo are all underfunded in the next year by about $383 million. So what happens when the U.S. or other donors do not pay or defer their peacekeeping bills? The U.N. adjusts its bill paying to keep its core missions running. And like anyone who hasn't been paid on time, the U.N. pays those accounts which have immediate needs and defers paying bills where creditors will grant it leeway. In the first half of the year, the U.N. system is relatively flush with cash from other countries' dues payments. It can and does shift from general accounts into those with funding shortfalls. But by mid-year, if major contributors are behind on their bill payments, the U.N. will resort to other tactics like paying for equipment, travel, and short-term logistical expenses while deferring payments to troop contributing nations that tend to be more forgiving of late U.N. payments. Nations that contribute troops to U.N. peacekeeping bear the primary burden of covering for U.S. shortfalls to the U.N. peacekeeping account. When the U.S. repaid its arrears to the U.N. under the Helms- Biden deal, for example, the U.N. repaid fourteen to fifteen countries for up to 3 years' worth of deferred troop contributing costs. Additionally, the United States' lack of payment for peacekeeping in the past has created significant resistance to U.S. efforts to change assessment rates and enact reform at the U.N. During the Helms-Biden era and before the U.S. committed to repaying its dues, the U.S. lost seats on key U.N. governing bodies because of its arrearages. Over the course of the last several years, the United States has increasingly seen the need for U.N. peacekeeping. This has led to an unprecedented demand for peacekeeping troops. If we want to continue to increase this burden sharing arrangement, we need to pay troop contributing nations--like Pakistan, India, and South Africa--for services rendered. After all, they are putting their troops into harm's way so United States troops don't have to. We face a situation where commitments were made, funds are needed, these countries are very unstable, and the commitment of U.S. troops is not an option. We must pay our share so the U.N. can send peacekeepers to Sudan, but also to support U.N. missions in other critical areas in the world.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am a cosponsor of amendment 3662 by my friend from Wisconsin, Senator Feingold. His amendment, which would have ensured continued support for the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, was ruled ``nongermane'' by the Parliamentarian. This is inexplicable and unfortunate. But the real travesty is that the majority, which could simply agree to accept this amendment, would prefer to hide behind the Parliamentarian's ruling and let it die. By all accounts, with the exception of the snipes of some anonymous Pentagon officials and their friends in the majority party who do not want the colossal blunders of the Iraq reconstruction program exposed to the light of day, the special inspector general has done an excellent job under difficult and dangerous conditions. He has uncovered numerous instances of waste and fraud--some, shocking in their audacity--and there are dozens of investigations and prosecutions under way. There is another $1.6 billion for Iraq reconstruction in this supplemental for precisely the same types of activities that have been funded under the Iraq relief and reconstruction fund. But in this bill they are funded under traditional foreign operations accounts, not under the Iraq relief and reconstruction fund. What this means is that, by not adopting the Feingold amendment, the special inspector general will not have oversight of these funds. Apparently the idea is for the State Department inspector general to take over this responsibility. But that office has no people in Iraq, no plan or budget to put people there, and no ability to do the job any time soon. They have said so themselves. This is nothing more than a transparent attempt to shut down the only effective oversight of this massive reconstruction program which has been plagued by mismanagement and fraud. Projects have been poorly designed, grossly over priced, and many will never be finished, while U.S. contractors such as Halliburton have made off with huge profits. We are told by our friends in the majority, acting on behalf of some in the Pentagon and the White House who want to shut down the Office of the Special Inspector General, that they just want to return to the ``regular order.'' That is their explanation for turning this responsibility over to the State Department. That is laughable. There is nothing that resembles the regular order in this multibillion-dollar supplemental, none of which is paid for. In one breath they argue that they cannot pay for the war through the regular appropriations process because it is an extraordinary expense. In the next breath they make the opposite argument to justify shutting down the Office of the Special Inspector General. If this were really about the regular order, the White House would support the amendment by Senator Byrd to pay the cost of this war, rather than continue to ignore the regular budget process and fund the war off budget, leaving it to future generations to pay. This is just another example of the hypocrisy of the President's bankrupt fiscal policy, and of those who continue to defend it in Congress. Use a figleaf to make it appear as if you support the regular budget process when in fact you are weakening it. This also is the latest example of the majority party's distaste and even disdain for oversight and for the checks and balances in our system that are supposed to root out corruption, waste, fraud and abuse and to make government work better as government spends the taxpayers' hard-earned dollars. The special inspector general has a difficult job. His job is to find the truth, and sometimes the truth is hard for government agencies to accept. Sometimes they would rather not have the spotlight shined on their mistakes. But the special inspector general works for American taxpayers, not for the Pentagon, and not for Halliburton. The Feingold amendment would have ensured continued oversight of the very programs the special inspector general was created to oversee. I want to commend him for his attention to this issue and his effort to protect American taxpayers. By using a technical sleight-of-hand maneuver to prevent the Senate from voting on this amendment--a vote they know they would lose--the majority has dealt a blow to oversight of the shoddy, wasteful, and criminal failures of the Iraq reconstruction program.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am pleased to join the chairmen of both the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, the Democratic and Republican leaders of both the Senate and the House of Representatives, and members of Congress from both parties to introduce a bill to reauthorize and reinvigorate the temporary provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The bicameral, bipartisan introduction of this bill reflects not only its historic importance as a guarantor of the right to vote for all Americans, but also the broad consensus that the expiring provisions must be extended this year without delay. There are few things as critical to our Nation, and to American citizenship, as voting. Like the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, the right to vote is foundational because it secures the effective exercise of all other rights. As people are able to register, vote, and elect candidates of their choice, their interests and rights get attention. The very legitimacy of our government is dependent on the access all Americans have to the political process. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was the result of an historic struggle for civil rights led by such American heroes as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King and Rosa Parks, who refused to be treated as second-class citizens. That struggle reached a crucial turning point on March 7, 1965, on the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, AL, when State troopers brutally attacked John Lewis and his fellow civil rights marchers who were fighting for their right to vote. The events of that day, now known as ``Bloody Sunday,'' were captured in newspapers and on televisions across the country, and those powerful images marked a crucial turning point in securing the right to vote for all Americans. A few days after the violence of Bloody Sunday, President Lyndon Johnson outlined the proposed Voting Rights Act of 1965, before a joint session of Congress. Within months, Congress passed it so that the Constitution's guarantees of equal access to the electoral process, regardless of race, would not be undermined by discriminatory practices. The enactment of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 transformed the landscape of political inclusion. Prior to the Act, minorities of all races faced major barriers to participation in the political process, through the use of such devices as poll taxes, exclusionary primaries, intimidation by voting officials, language barriers, and systematic vote dilution. We have made great gains since that time, but our work is not finished. The record established in 10 hearings in the House of Representatives indicates that the tools provided by the expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act remain necessary for protecting the voting rights of minority Americans in this country. Among the Act's most critical protections are the pre-clearance provisions of Section 5, which prevent discriminatory laws from going into practice. The Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006 would extend these protections for 25 years, retaining the most effective measures to fight certain kinds of pervasive and recurring discrimination. The insidious discriminatory tactics that led to the original Voting Rights Act were deeply rooted. In the annals of our Nation, this fight dates back almost 100 years, to the ratification of the 15th Amendment in 1870, the last of the post-Civil War Reconstruction amendments. It took implementation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 for people of all races in many parts of our country to gain the effective exercise of rights guaranteed 95 years earlier by the 15th Amendment. The pre- clearance provisions were one of the primary reasons this Act succeeded where earlier attempts had failed. Section 5 requires certain covered jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to pre-clear all voting changes with either the Department of Justice or the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. In doing so, Section 5 combats the practices in these jurisdictions of shifting from one invalidated discriminatory tactic to another, which had undermined earlier efforts to enforce 15th Amendment guarantees. We have made significant progress toward a more inclusive democracy over the past four decades since the enactment of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. However, I fear that if we fail to reauthorize the expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act, our country is likely to backslide. We must make sure those gains do not suffer the same fate as the gains in voting rights made during Reconstruction. After the Civil War, the Reconstruction Act promised that the guarantees of the 15th Amendment would be realized. Between 1870 and 1900, 22 African Americans served in the United States Congress. In 1868, Louisiana elected an African-American Lieutenant Governor, Oscar Dunn, and 87 African Americans held seats in the South Carolina legislature. However, these Reconstruction-era gains in African- American voting and representation proved to be short-lived. Following the end of Reconstruction, the rights of African Americans to vote and to hold office were virtually eliminated in many areas through discriminatory legal barriers, intimidation, and violence. The changes were swift, systematic and severe. By 1896, Representative George White of North Carolina was the only African American remaining in the U.S. Congress, and it would take 72 years after Representative White left Congress for African-American voters in the South to elect another candidate of their choice to Congress. In Mississippi, the percentage of African-American voting-age men registered to vote fell from more than 90 percent during Reconstruction to less than 6 percent in 1892. Between 1896 and 1900, the number of African-American voters in Louisiana was reduced from 130,000 to a mere 5,000. Unlike their short-lived gains made during Reconstruction, African-American voters' exclusion from the ballot box was persistent. Only 3 percent of voting-age African-American men and women in the South were registered to vote in 1940, only 1 percent in Mississippi-- just 1 percent. These numbers are staggering, and they provide a history lesson we should not ignore. As part of the Voting Rights Act reauthorization in 1975, Congress added Section 203, which requires bilingual voting assistance for certain language minority groups. This provision was enacted pursuant to congressional power to enforce the 14th and 15th Amendments. Section 203 has been a key factor to expanding the inclusiveness of democracy to all citizens and has led to extraordinary gains in representation and participation made by Asian-American and Hispanic-American citizens. Like Section 5, Section 203 is expiring in 2007. The Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006 would extend these critical protections for 25 years. Hispanic-American populations have been one of the primary minority language groups to benefit from the protections of the bilingual provisions of the Voting Rights Act. For example effective implementation of the bilingual provisions in San Diego County, CA, helped increase voter registration by more than 20 percent. And voter turnout among Hispanic Americans in New Mexico rose 26 percent between 2000 and 2004 after television and radio spots in Spanish educated listeners about voter registration and absentee ballots. Voting rights belong to people who are American citizens. They are trying to vote but many of them are struggling with the English language due to disparities in education and the incremental process of learning. It is imperative that all citizens be able to fully exercise their rights as citizens, particularly a right as fundamental as the right to vote. Renewing the expiring language provisions of the Voting Rights Act will continue to help make that a reality. Rather than merely extending the Voting Rights Act, Congress now has an opportunity to reinvigorate the Act, strengthening and improving its remedies. The Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006 does so by clarifying certain parts of Section 5 to give clear guidance to the Courts and to restore the original understanding of the Act. Two recent Supreme Court decisions have significantly narrowed Section 5's effectiveness and undermined the purposes of the Act. The Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006 remedies the Supreme Court's holding in Reno v. Bossier Parish, by making clear that a voting rule change motivated by any discriminatory purpose violates Section 5. Under the holding in Reno v. Bossier Parish, certain voting rule changes passed with the intent to discriminate against minorities could pass Section 5 muster. Because such an interpretation is inconsistent with purposes of the Voting Rights Act to eliminate discriminatory tactics that undermine the guarantees of the 15th Amendment, the Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act fixes this inconsistency by clarifying that a voting rule change motivated by any discriminatory purpose also cannot be pre- cleared. The Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006 also remedies the Supreme Court's holding in Georgia v. Ashcroft. Under the test established in Georgia for assessing a jurisdiction's challenge to denial of Section 5 pre-clearance, the court can give greater weight to numerous undefined considerations than to the ability of a minority community to elect a candidate of its choice. This test is as difficult to administer as it is contrary to the purposes of the Act. This act fixes both of these problems by restoring the original understanding that the purpose of the Voting Rights Act is to protect the minority community's ability to elect their preferred candidates of choice and by setting forth defined factors. In addition to restoring the Act's original meaning, this Act makes changes to the expiring Federal examiners and observers provisions to better allocate resources for combating discrimination in voting. The Voting Rights Act provides for Federal examiners to ensure that legally qualified persons are free to register for Federal, State, and local elections and that observers to observe whether citizens who are eligible to vote are able to exercise the right to vote. Federal observers are the most frequently used federal oversight tool in voting and the only Federal officials authorized to enter polls and places where votes are tabulated. This Act eliminates Federal examiners because they have not been appointed to jurisdictions certified for coverage in more than 20 years, and other laws such as the Help America Vote Act now address the concern of voting rolls. At the same time, the bill strengthens the observers provisions to allow the assignment of federal observers upon finding that there is a reasonable belief that a violation of the 14th or 15th Amendments will occur, without having to first certify federal examiners. The Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendment Act also removes an impediment to effective protection of voting rights by authorizing the prevailing party in a lawsuit brought under Section 2 to recover expert costs as part of the attorney fees already authorized. This will have a significant impact on the ability of litigants to successfully combat discrimination in court. The process of reauthorization began in the House of Representatives, where Representatives Nadler, Chabot and Watt presided over 10 hearings on the effectiveness and continuing need for the expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act. Last week, the distinguished House Judiciary chairman and ranking member appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee and introduced the extensive record from those hearings. I am grateful for the hard work that has been done in the House, and I want to thank Chairman Specter for agreeing to move forward promptly with Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the expiring provisions. Congress has reauthorized and revitalized the Act four times, each time with overwhelmingly bipartisan support. As I noted last week in welcoming the House Judiciary chairman and ranking member, we are repeating the bicameral and bipartisan process of the 1982 reauthorization. In 1982, Chairman Specter and I were both Members of the Judiciary Committee, along with Senators Kennedy, Biden, Hatch and Grassley. Under the chairmanship of Senator Strom Thurmond, reauthorization was reported by the Judiciary Committee and passed both houses of Congress. I am hopeful that our Committee can accomplish the work that needs to be done and report this bill to the full Senate before the Memorial Day recess. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is one of the most important laws Congress has ever passed, helping to usher the country out of a history of discrimination and into the greater inclusion of all Americans in the decisions about our Nation's future. Our democracy and our Nation have been better and richer for it. While I hope some day these extraordinary remedies are not needed, I urge the Senate to build on the work done in the House of Representatives to extend the expiring provisions so that we can eliminate recurring discrimination and make sure that the gains we have made are not lost. I am heartened that this is not a partisan issue benefiting one party or another. Rather, as demonstrated by the bicameral and bipartisan process we continue for reauthorizing and revitalizing the Act's expiring provisions, this is about making our democracy reflect the will of all of the American people.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am pleased to join the chairmen of both the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, the Democratic and Republican leaders of both the Senate and the House of Representatives, and members of Congress from both parties to introduce a bill to reauthorize and reinvigorate the temporary provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The bicameral, bipartisan introduction of this bill reflects not only its historic importance as a guarantor of the right to vote for all Americans, but also the broad consensus that the expiring provisions must be extended this year without delay. There are few things as critical to our Nation, and to American citizenship, as voting. Like the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, the right to vote is foundational because it secures the effective exercise of all other rights. As people are able to register, vote, and elect candidates of their choice, their interests and rights get attention. The very legitimacy of our government is dependent on the access all Americans have to the political process. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was the result of an historic struggle for civil rights led by such American heroes as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King and Rosa Parks, who refused to be treated as second-class citizens. That struggle reached a crucial turning point on March 7, 1965, on the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, AL, when State troopers brutally attacked John Lewis and his fellow civil rights marchers who were fighting for their right to vote. The events of that day, now known as ``Bloody Sunday,'' were captured in newspapers and on televisions across the country, and those powerful images marked a crucial turning point in securing the right to vote for all Americans. A few days after the violence of Bloody Sunday, President Lyndon Johnson outlined the proposed Voting Rights Act of 1965, before a joint session of Congress. Within months, Congress passed it so that the Constitution's guarantees of equal access to the electoral process, regardless of race, would not be undermined by discriminatory practices. The enactment of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 transformed the landscape of political inclusion. Prior to the Act, minorities of all races faced major barriers to participation in the political process, through the use of such devices as poll taxes, exclusionary primaries, intimidation by voting officials, language barriers, and systematic vote dilution. We have made great gains since that time, but our work is not finished. The record established in 10 hearings in the House of Representatives indicates that the tools provided by the expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act remain necessary for protecting the voting rights of minority Americans in this country. Among the Act's most critical protections are the pre-clearance provisions of Section 5, which prevent discriminatory laws from going into practice. The Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006 would extend these protections for 25 years, retaining the most effective measures to fight certain kinds of pervasive and recurring discrimination. The insidious discriminatory tactics that led to the original Voting Rights Act were deeply rooted. In the annals of our Nation, this fight dates back almost 100 years, to the ratification of the 15th Amendment in 1870, the last of the post-Civil War Reconstruction amendments. It took implementation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 for people of all races in many parts of our country to gain the effective exercise of rights guaranteed 95 years earlier by the 15th Amendment. The pre- clearance provisions were one of the primary reasons this Act succeeded where earlier attempts had failed. Section 5 requires certain covered jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to pre-clear all voting changes with either the Department of Justice or the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. In doing so, Section 5 combats the practices in these jurisdictions of shifting from one invalidated discriminatory tactic to another, which had undermined earlier efforts to enforce 15th Amendment guarantees. We have made significant progress toward a more inclusive democracy over the past four decades since the enactment of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. However, I fear that if we fail to reauthorize the expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act, our country is likely to backslide. We must make sure those gains do not suffer the same fate as the gains in voting rights made during Reconstruction. After the Civil War, the Reconstruction Act promised that the guarantees of the 15th Amendment would be realized. Between 1870 and 1900, 22 African Americans served in the United States Congress. In 1868, Louisiana elected an African-American Lieutenant Governor, Oscar Dunn, and 87 African Americans held seats in the South Carolina legislature. However, these Reconstruction-era gains in African- American voting and representation proved to be short-lived. Following the end of Reconstruction, the rights of African Americans to vote and to hold office were virtually eliminated in many areas through discriminatory legal barriers, intimidation, and violence. The changes were swift, systematic and severe. By 1896, Representative George White of North Carolina was the only African American remaining in the U.S. Congress, and it would take 72 years after Representative White left Congress for African-American voters in the South to elect another candidate of their choice to Congress. In Mississippi, the percentage of African-American voting-age men registered to vote fell from more than 90 percent during Reconstruction to less than 6 percent in 1892. Between 1896 and 1900, the number of African-American voters in Louisiana was reduced from 130,000 to a mere 5,000. Unlike their short-lived gains made during Reconstruction, African-American voters' exclusion from the ballot box was persistent. Only 3 percent of voting-age African-American men and women in the South were registered to vote in 1940, only 1 percent in Mississippi-- just 1 percent. These numbers are staggering, and they provide a history lesson we should not ignore. As part of the Voting Rights Act reauthorization in 1975, Congress added Section 203, which requires bilingual voting assistance for certain language minority groups. This provision was enacted pursuant to congressional power to enforce the 14th and 15th Amendments. Section 203 has been a key factor to expanding the inclusiveness of democracy to all citizens and has led to extraordinary gains in representation and participation made by Asian-American and Hispanic-American citizens. Like Section 5, Section 203 is expiring in 2007. The Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006 would extend these critical protections for 25 years. Hispanic-American populations have been one of the primary minority language groups to benefit from the protections of the bilingual provisions of the Voting Rights Act. For example effective implementation of the bilingual provisions in San Diego County, CA, helped increase voter registration by more than 20 percent. And voter turnout among Hispanic Americans in New Mexico rose 26 percent between 2000 and 2004 after television and radio spots in Spanish educated listeners about voter registration and absentee ballots. Voting rights belong to people who are American citizens. They are trying to vote but many of them are struggling with the English language due to disparities in education and the incremental process of learning. It is imperative that all citizens be able to fully exercise their rights as citizens, particularly a right as fundamental as the right to vote. Renewing the expiring language provisions of the Voting Rights Act will continue to help make that a reality. Rather than merely extending the Voting Rights Act, Congress now has an opportunity to reinvigorate the Act, strengthening and improving its remedies. The Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006 does so by clarifying certain parts of Section 5 to give clear guidance to the Courts and to restore the original understanding of the Act. Two recent Supreme Court decisions have significantly narrowed Section 5's effectiveness and undermined the purposes of the Act. The Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006 remedies the Supreme Court's holding in Reno v. Bossier Parish, by making clear that a voting rule change motivated by any discriminatory purpose violates Section 5. Under the holding in Reno v. Bossier Parish, certain voting rule changes passed with the intent to discriminate against minorities could pass Section 5 muster. Because such an interpretation is inconsistent with purposes of the Voting Rights Act to eliminate discriminatory tactics that undermine the guarantees of the 15th Amendment, the Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act fixes this inconsistency by clarifying that a voting rule change motivated by any discriminatory purpose also cannot be pre- cleared. The Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006 also remedies the Supreme Court's holding in Georgia v. Ashcroft. Under the test established in Georgia for assessing a jurisdiction's challenge to denial of Section 5 pre-clearance, the court can give greater weight to numerous undefined considerations than to the ability of a minority community to elect a candidate of its choice. This test is as difficult to administer as it is contrary to the purposes of the Act. This act fixes both of these problems by restoring the original understanding that the purpose of the Voting Rights Act is to protect the minority community's ability to elect their preferred candidates of choice and by setting forth defined factors. In addition to restoring the Act's original meaning, this Act makes changes to the expiring Federal examiners and observers provisions to better allocate resources for combating discrimination in voting. The Voting Rights Act provides for Federal examiners to ensure that legally qualified persons are free to register for Federal, State, and local elections and that observers to observe whether citizens who are eligible to vote are able to exercise the right to vote. Federal observers are the most frequently used federal oversight tool in voting and the only Federal officials authorized to enter polls and places where votes are tabulated. This Act eliminates Federal examiners because they have not been appointed to jurisdictions certified for coverage in more than 20 years, and other laws such as the Help America Vote Act now address the concern of voting rolls. At the same time, the bill strengthens the observers provisions to allow the assignment of federal observers upon finding that there is a reasonable belief that a violation of the 14th or 15th Amendments will occur, without having to first certify federal examiners. The Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendment Act also removes an impediment to effective protection of voting rights by authorizing the prevailing party in a lawsuit brought under Section 2 to recover expert costs as part of the attorney fees already authorized. This will have a significant impact on the ability of litigants to successfully combat discrimination in court. The process of reauthorization began in the House of Representatives, where Representatives Nadler, Chabot and Watt presided over 10 hearings on the effectiveness and continuing need for the expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act. Last week, the distinguished House Judiciary chairman and ranking member appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee and introduced the extensive record from those hearings. I am grateful for the hard work that has been done in the House, and I want to thank Chairman Specter for agreeing to move forward promptly with Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the expiring provisions. Congress has reauthorized and revitalized the Act four times, each time with overwhelmingly bipartisan support. As I noted last week in welcoming the House Judiciary chairman and ranking member, we are repeating the bicameral and bipartisan process of the 1982 reauthorization. In 1982, Chairman Specter and I were both Members of the Judiciary Committee, along with Senators Kennedy, Biden, Hatch and Grassley. Under the chairmanship of Senator Strom Thurmond, reauthorization was reported by the Judiciary Committee and passed both houses of Congress. I am hopeful that our Committee can accomplish the work that needs to be done and report this bill to the full Senate before the Memorial Day recess. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is one of the most important laws Congress has ever passed, helping to usher the country out of a history of discrimination and into the greater inclusion of all Americans in the decisions about our Nation's future. Our democracy and our Nation have been better and richer for it. While I hope some day these extraordinary remedies are not needed, I urge the Senate to build on the work done in the House of Representatives to extend the expiring provisions so that we can eliminate recurring discrimination and make sure that the gains we have made are not lost. I am heartened that this is not a partisan issue benefiting one party or another. Rather, as demonstrated by the bicameral and bipartisan process we continue for reauthorizing and revitalizing the Act's expiring provisions, this is about making our democracy reflect the will of all of the American people.