Patrick Leahy

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, Vermont boasts a number of historical treasures, and among them is the Round Church in Richmond, which this year celebrates its 200th anniversary. The Old Round Church earned a national historic landmark distinction from the National Park Service in 1996. Because of the church's history and its long-held status as meeting place and community center, it has come to be recognized as a symbol of the rich history woven through so many Vermont towns. This year the Richmond Round Church, known to many as the Old Round Church, will celebrate its bicentennial with a series of concerts and community events. The sense of community boasted by the Old Round Church is rooted partially in the history of the church's establishment. Initially conceived by settlers seeking a local meeting place, their plan to erect the Round Church faltered with reluctance from the town of Richmond to supply the land need to construct the building. Two local men, however, volunteered the land, and in 1813 construction of the church was completed. It has since grown to become a renowned symbol for its historical significance but also for its representation of the community values that are so cherished across Vermont. Over the past two centuries, it has served as a meeting place, a venue for local activities, and even a popular location for weddings. Generations of Vermonters have visited the Old Round Church, and as a young boy growing up in Montpelier, I remember visiting the church with my parents, and brother and sister. Today, volunteers routinely help preserve the church's history by volunteering to help clean, maintain, and repair its structure. It remains as central to the community as it ever has in its 200 year history. In honor of the 200th anniversary of the Richmond Round Church, I ask that an article published in the Burlington Free Press on May 26, 2013, ``Richmond Round Church Turns 200, Celebrations Abound,'' be printed into the Congressional Record.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today the Senate will confirm Judge Charles Breyer, Rachel Barkow, and Judge William Pryor to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. While it is good that the Senate is acting to confirm Judge Pryor and Rachel Barkow following their unanimous approval by the Judiciary Committee 2 weeks ago, it is wrong that Senate Republicans forced Judge Breyer to wait so long for confirmation. Judge Breyer was first reported unanimously last July, nearly 11 months ago. Despite that unanimous support, Senate Republicans, as they have done so many times, refused to act on his nomination on the floor and forced the President to renominate him this year for no good reason. Judge Breyer has an outstanding record in public service, and has served as a U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of California since 1998, assuming senior status last year. He has also worked in private practice and as a prosecutor--both in the San Francisco District Attorney's office and on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force. After graduating from law school he served as a law clerk to Chief Judge Oliver J. Carter of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Additionally, from 1969 to 1973, Judge Breyer was a Captain in the U.S. Army's Judge Advocate General's Corps. Judge Breyer will be an outstanding addition to the Sentencing Commission. Rachel Barkow has been a law professor at the New York University School of Law for the past 11 years. She previously worked as an associate in private practice at Kellogg Huber Hansen Todd & Evans, P.L.L.C. in Washington, D.C. In 2001, she took leave from private practice to serve as the John M. Olin Fellow in Law at Georgetown University Law Center. Following law school, Professor Barkow served as a law clerk for D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Laurence H. Silberman and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. William Pryor is currently a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, a position to which he was confirmed in 2005. Prior to becoming a judge, he served as the Attorney General of Alabama from 1997 to 2004, where he led the effort to create Alabama's sentencing commission. I thank the Chair. The nominations considered and confirmed are as follows: united states sentencing commission Rachel Elise Barkow, of New York, to be a Member of the United States Sentencing Commission for a term expiring October 31, 2017. Charles R. Breyer, of California, to be a Member of the United States Sentencing Commission for a term expiring October 31, 2015. William H. Pryor, Jr., of Alabama, to be a Member of the United States Sentencing Commission for a term expiring October 31, 2017.

Mr. LEAHY

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

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I was going to speak on a different subject, but I will speak further about our dear colleague Senator Lautenberg. I look at the flowers on his desk--it seems in the years I have been here I have seen too many colleagues' flowers there. Of course, every day Frank Lautenberg was here, I had the privilege of serving with him, a dear friend. I missed him when he left the Senate and was overjoyed when he came back to the Senate. He was a man who cared about his country, cared about the Senate, cared about the people. He was a man who came from humble beginnings and became extremely wealthy. He spent a lot of time giving that wealth away. He was the last combat veteran--in fact, the last veteran from World War II serving in this body. Those of us who got to know him and spent time hearing of those horrendous times in Europe during World War II are better for it. We realized a person who had served the country during that time did more than any of the rest of us. I will speak further about my friend Frank Lautenberg. I know Marcelle and I extend our love to Bonnie and his children, his family. I ask consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, before the Senate went into recess, I was disappointed with the statements made to the Senate that misstated the history of Judge Srinivasan's confirmation process. The Senator who said the chairman of the Judiciary Committee made ``no effort, no effort'' to have a hearing on Judge Srinivasan until late last year was misinformed, and in stating what he did, he misinformed the Senate. We made efforts in the fall before the election to schedule such a hearing, and I renewed our push to have a hearing on the nomination before the end of the session. I was accommodating Republican objections by not scheduling a hearing before the end of last year. These erroneous Record statements--these erroneous statements to the rest of the Senate--have me wondering whether I should be so accommodating to Republican scheduling demands if they then forget their demands in their efforts to avoid responsibility and to blame others. In other words, they request a delay and then say, well, of course it is somebody else's fault that we had the delay. Judge Srinivasan was nominated June 11, 2012, during a summer when Senate Republicans were in the process of constricting the confirmation process and intent on their misapplication of the so-called Thurmond rule to stall judicial nominees before the Presidential election. It was only in May, 2012, that the Senate completed action on the 19 nominees held over on the Senate Executive Calendar in 2011. Republicans were in the process of filibustering a nominee to the Ninth Circuit from Arizona. Interestingly enough, the person they were filibustering had been recommended by Jon Kyl of Arizona, the deputy Republican leader, of course a Republican Senator. Republicans were dragging out confirmations of judicial nominees who had been nominated in the fall of 2011 and the early months of 2012. They even filibustered a Tenth Circuit nominee from Oklahoma who had been supported by the two Republican Senators from Oklahoma in what was the first filibuster of a circuit court nominee reported with bipartisan support by the Judiciary Committee. Throw out all the precedents, throw out all the rule books, throw out everything Democrats and Republicans have done in the past--it is going to be our way or the highway. Even when the President of the United States, in trying to reach out, nominates a judge supported by the two Republican Senators of that State, a judge reported out by a bipartisan vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee, they say: Oh, what the heck, President Obama nominated him, let's filibuster him. This is wrong. It is a pity. It is beneath the United States Senate. They filibustered a First Circuit nominee from Maine who was supported by the two Republican Senators from Maine. In addition, Republicans had filibustered the earlier nomination of Caitlin Halligan to the DC Circuit. Anybody who needs to refresh their recollections of those months should reread my statements on judicial nominations from June 6, June 11, June 12, June 18, June 26, July 10, July 16, July 23, July 30, August 2, September 10, September 20, November 30, December 3, December 6, December 11, December 13, and December 17. Unlike the recent misstatements made to the Senate, the facts are in those statements of mine. By July 19, 2012, I had determined that the paperwork on the Srinivasan nomination was complete and the nominee could be included in a hearing. It has been my practice as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, in an effort to be fair, to do something that was not always done by others, to give the minority notice and allow consultation before scheduling a nomination for a hearing. At that time, the next July hearing had been discussed as one devoted to the nominee to head the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, a nomination that itself had been delayed and to which there was Republican opposition. During the August recess, my staff asked Senator Grassley's about holding a hearing on the Srinivasan nomination in September. They raised objections and concerns about proceeding with the DC Circuit nomination at that time but agreed to proceed with four district nominees and a Court of International Trade nominee. In November 2012, after the American people had solidly reelected President Obama, we raised the need for the hearing on the DC Circuit nomination anew. Republicans objected, again, in spite of the precedent of holding a hearing on one of President Bush's DC Circuit nominees during a similar lameduck session. Instead, they said: No, no, no. It is all right to do it for a Republican President but not for this Democratic President, Barack Obama. We can't do it for him. I know you allowed it for President George W. Bush, but after all, he is different. He was a Republican President. We cannot do it for this Democratic President. Instead they wanted to proceed only with district court nominees during the lameduck. Republicans insisted the Srinivasan hearing be put off until the next Congress and the new year. In deference to the Republican minority, I held off. They agreed that he would be included in the first nominations hearing of the 113th Congress. Then, in early January this year, when called upon to hold up what they said they would agree to, their end of the bargain, Republicans wanted to change the rules again and they balked. They insisted the nominee and others be interviewed and scores of documents be produced in their effort to stall other nominations. In other words, having made an agreement, they backed out of it. The nominee was not, and could not have been, the ``lawyer . . . who handled'' the Magner case. In fact, the United States was not a party in the Magner case. As was readily apparent from the one email that named Srinivasan, his alleged ``involvement'' was merely being asked by Tom Perez, now the President's nominee to be Labor Secretary, a technical legal question about U.S. Supreme Court procedure. It was the nominee's job as the Principal Deputy Solicitor General to answer such questions for administration officials--and he did answer it appropriately. Republicans could have asked him about it at his confirmation hearing in January and fulfilled their agreement, but they insisted on using his nomination as leverage against the administration. They insisted, instead, on first interviewing three U.S. Department of Justice officials, including Tom Perez, before they would go forward with his hearing. After months of attempts to get the committee Republicans to focus on the nominee at hand while they insisted on their wide-ranging investigation of Tom Perez, a nominee not pending before the Judiciary Committee, Republicans finally agreed to include Srinivasan at the Judiciary Committee on April 10, 2013. That was more than 7 months after the hearing I had first been proposed and more than three months after the hearing to which they had previously agreed. As I noted in my December 12 hearing statement, as Chairman I had not jammed the minority with judicial confirmation hearings the way my Republican predecessor did. I was trying to bring the Senate back to the way it should be, the same way I did during the immigration hearings and markup. I did not want to go back to the games played that we had to face when they were in charge. I think no good deed goes unpunished. We held only 11 judicial nomination hearings in 2012. In light of the Senate's recess schedule for the election cycle, we held only two after the August recess. The nominations included at those hearings were the result of consultation with the ranking minority member and were essentially by agreement. I now see that when we try to work it out, and we keep our word and we have conciliation and accommodation and keep our word and our part of the bargain, all we get is recrimination from the other side as they try to break the bargain. That is not the Senate I have been proud to serve in for 38 years. This nominee was praised at the hearing and proceeded to answer scores of written questions after the hearing. When he had provided his written responses, I listed his nomination for action by the Judiciary Committee on May 9, 2013. In what has become standard practice for the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, they still insisted on holding him over for another week for no good reason. I protected their right on that, even though it has been abused in a way I have never seen in 38 years. Presaging the unanimous Senate vote, the vote in the Judiciary Committee was 18 to zero when it was finally allowed to proceed on May 16. Republicans then insisted that the Senate vote on his confirmation be delayed two weeks until after the Memorial Day recess. I would not be surprised if Senate Republicans now took credit for expediting that vote despite the fact that it took the Majority Leader filing a cloture petition to get that vote in May. I make significant efforts to ensure that the minority is prepared to move forward on a nomination before we schedule a hearing. My staff routinely gives them our plan weeks in advance. Even with this advance notice, I routinely have to notice a hearing without listing nominees because the minority has not yet taken the time to read the basic material on the nominations despite its being available for weeks, and sometimes months, with something a law clerk could have done in 20 minutes, but this highly paid professional staff can't get around to doing it. I am disappointed that despite the fact that I have bent over backwards to accommodate them, Senate Republicans contend that I made ``no effort, no effort'' to hold Judge Srinivasan's hearing last fall. One Republican Senator said during the debate on the Srinivasan nomination that the delay must have been my choice since that decision was ``solely within the control of the Democratic majority.'' For Senate Republicans to pretend that they had no role in delaying this nomination was wrong. Do they really think the American people are that gullible? I think not. We had the Policeman of the Year award early this morning in the Mansfield Room. When I looked up at that painting of Mike Mansfield, I thought of how wonderful it was to come here when he was the majority leader. I remember him saying one thing: Senators, no matter what their party, should always keep their word; and when on the floor of the Senate, they should always tell the truth. That is good advice. I wish people would start following it. Commending Senator Stabenow I see the distinguished Senator from Michigan, the chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, on the floor. If I could take 30 seconds longer so I can say with her here what I said about her in Vermont to a group of farmers this past week: The Senate is blessed to have her as chair. Nobody has done it better, and I can speak with some experience. She brought through a wonderful bipartisan farm bill last year. The other body did not take it up. She is going to bring through a wonderful one this year. I hope they will take it up. While she is on the Senate floor, I want to say the same thing I said about her in the State of Vermont: Every one of us is so proud of the Senator. Whether it was a Republican or Democrat, they all agreed. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEAHY

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

Mr. LEAHY. Thank you, Mr. President. I am glad to hear what my friend from Utah said about voting for this nominee because this is the second time this year the majority leader had to file cloture on one of President Obama's well-qualified nominees to the D.C. Circuit. Sri Srinivasan is not a nominee who should require cloture, and I am glad he is not going to now that cooler heads have prevailed, but neither was Caitlin Halligan. Caitlin Halligan is a woman who is extraordinarily well qualified and amongst the most qualified judicial nominees I have seen from any administration. It was shameful that Senate Republicans blocked an up or down vote on her nomination with multiple filibusters and procedural objections that required her to be nominated five times over the last three years. Had she received an up or down vote, I am certain she would have been confirmed and been an outstanding judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Instead, all Senate Republicans but one supported the filibuster and refused to vote up or down on this woman, who is highly-qualified and would have filled a needed judgeship on the D.C. Circuit. Senate Republicans attacked her for legal advocacy on behalf of her client, the State of New York. It is wrong to attribute the legal positions a lawyer takes when advocating for a client with what that person would do as an impartial judge. That is not the American tradition. That is not what Republicans insisted was the standard for nominees of Republican Presidents but that is what they did to derail the nomination of Caitlin Halligan. Also disconcerting were the comments by Republicans after their filibuster in which they gloated about payback. That, too, is wrong. It does our Nation and our Federal Judiciary no good when they place their desire to engage in tit-for-tat over the needs of the American people. I rejected that approach while moving to confirm 100 of President Bush's judicial nominees in just 17 months in 2001 and 2002. Like Caitlin Halligan, Sri Srinivasan has had an exemplary legal career and has the support of legal professionals from across the political spectrum. Born in Chandigarh, India, he grew up in Lawrence, KS, and earned his B.A., with honors and distinction, from Stanford University. He also earned his M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business along with his J.D., with distinction, from Stanford Law School, where he was inducted to the Order of the Coif. At Stanford Law School, Sri Srinivasan served as the Note Editor of the Stanford Law Review. After completing law school, he clerked for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court. Sri Srinivasan has experience in private practice, where he served as a partner and chaired the Appellate Practice at O'Melveny & Myers LLP. He has also served in the Office of the Solicitor General during both the Bush and Obama administrations, where he is currently the Principal Deputy Solicitor General. He has argued more than 25 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and several cases before the U.S. Courts of Appeal. The ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary unanimously rated him ``well qualified'' to serve on the D.C. Circuit, its highest rating. The Judiciary Committee reported him a week ago by a unanimous 18-to-0 vote. That means every single Republican on the committee who had a chance to review the nominee's record and to ask him questions supported him. He was first nominated almost 1 year ago--a longer wait than any other current judicial nomination. His Committee hearing was delayed by 4 months from when I first planned on holding it, at the request of the Republicans. Sri Srinivasan has waited long enough, and, given his unanimous support in Committee, there was no reason to delay his confirmation. The Senate confirmed 18 of President Bush's circuit nominees within a week of being reported by the Judiciary Committee, while not a single one of President Obama's circuit nominees has received a floor vote within a week of being reported. Senate Democrats even allowed a vote on a controversial Fourth Circuit nominee within just 5 days of being reported. By that standard, there is no reason not to vote now on Sri Srinivasan. When confirmed, he will be the first Asian American in history to serve on the D.C. Circuit, and the first South Asian American to serve as a Federal circuit judge. But, regrettably, even after their unwarranted filibuster of Caitlin Halligan, and even after their efforts to delay Sri Srinivasan's confirmation, Senate Republicans are expanding their efforts through a ``wholesale filibuster'' of nominations to the D.C. Circuit by introducing a legislative proposal to strip three judgeships from the D.C. Circuit. I am almost tempted to suggest they amend their bill to make it effective whenever the next Republican President is elected. I say that to point out they had no concerns with supporting President Bush's four Senate-confirmed nominees to the D.C. Circuit. They did this even though for the previous President--a Democrat--they said we had too many judges there. But as soon as a Republican came in they suddenly found the need and did confirm four judges to the D.C. Circuit. Those nominees filled the very vacancies for the 9th, 10th, and even the 11th judgeship on the court that Senate Republicans are demanding be eliminated now that President Obama has been reelected by the American people. In other words, filling those seats was okay with a Republican President but not okay with a Democratic President. The target of this legislation seems apparent when its sponsors emphasize that it is designed to take effect immediately and acknowledge that ``[h]istorically, legislation introduced in the Senate altering the number of judgeships has most often postponed enactment until the beginning of the next President's term'' but that their legislation ``does not do this.'' It is just another one of their concerted efforts to block this President from appointing judges to the D.C. Circuit. In support of this effort, Senate Republicans are citing a subcommittee hearing they held back in 1995 on the D.C. Circuit's caseload in an attempt to eliminate the 12th seat during President Clinton's tenure. They are fond of citing the testimony of Judge Laurence Silberman, a Reagan appointee, that he felt the 12th seat was not necessary. What Senate Republicans do not mention is that Judge Silberman believed that 11 judgeships was the proper number on that Circuit, and that the notion that the D.C. Circuit should have only nine judges was ``quite farfetched.'' I would echo those comments, and note that it is beyond farfetched that the same Senate Republicans who cite Judge Silberman's view on the 12th seat are ignoring the rest of his statement and seeking to reduce the court to eight seats. In fact, we have already acted to eliminate the 12th seat from the D.C. Circuit. What Senate Republicans are now proposing during this President's tenure is the elimination of the 11th, 10th, and 9th seats, as well. In its April 5, 2013 letter, the Judicial Conference of the United States, chaired by Chief Justice John Roberts, sent us recommendations ``based on our current caseload needs.'' They did not recommend stripping judgeships from the D.C. Circuit but state that they should continue at 11. Four are currently vacant. According to the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts, the caseload per active judge for the D.C. Circuit has actually increased by 50 percent since 2005, when the Senate confirmed President Bush's nominee to fill the 11th seat on the D.C. Circuit. When the Senate confirmed Thomas Griffith--President Bush's nominee to the 11th seat in 2005--the confirmation resulted in there being approximately 119 pending cases per active D.C. Circuit judge. There are currently 188 pending cases for each active judge on the D.C. Circuit, more than 50 percent higher. This falls into a larger pattern that we have seen from Senate Republicans over the past 20 years. While they had no problem adding a 12th seat to the D.C. Circuit in 1984, and voting for President Reagan and President George H.W. Bush's nominees for that seat, they suddenly ``realized'' in 1995, when a Democrat served as President, that the court did not need that judge. When Judge Merrick Garland was finally confirmed in 1997, many Senate Republicans voted against him, because they had decided that the 11th seat was also unnecessary. Senate Republicans then refused to act on President Clinton's final two nominees to the D.C. Circuit, one of whom now serves on the Supreme Court. In 2002, during the George W. Bush administration, the D.C. Circuit's caseload had dropped to its lowest level in the last 20 years. During that Republican administration, Senate Republicans had no problem voting to confirm President Bush's nominees to the 9th, 10th, and 11th seats. These are the same seats they wish to eliminate now that Barack Obama is President, even though the court's current caseload is consistent with the average over the past 10 years. Maybe they are suggesting people work harder and more effectively if there is a Democrat in the White House than a Republican, but I suspect they may have a different motive. Even on its own terms, it is apparent this has nothing to do with caseload; it has everything to do with who is President. Contrary to what Senate Republicans are arguing, the D.C. Circuit does not even have the lowest caseload in the country. The circuit with the lowest number of pending appeals per active judge is currently the Eighth Circuit, to which the Senate recently confirmed a nominee from Iowa, supported by the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. I do not recall seeing any bills from Senate Republicans to eliminate that seat. So I think it depends more on politics than on judicial independence, and that is not a path to follow. The Federal courts have been too politicized as it is. There have been more filibusters and more blocking of judicial nominations by President Obama, than of nominations by any President of either party in the past. It makes me wonder, what is different about this President from all these other Presidents that he is given such a more difficult time--even the blocking, the filibustering of judges supported by home State Republican Senators. This kind of political falderal with our Federal judiciary has come at a price. The Federal judiciary is losing the perception of independence it had before because it is being seen as being politically manipulated, even though virtually every Federal judge I have met--almost every Federal judge I have met--nominated by either a Republican or a Democratic President has shown independence. The public gets a view otherwise, especially when they see a number of judicial vacancies where nominations have been made and even nominees who get through the Judiciary Committee unanimously or virtually unanimously then have to wait for months and months, even a year, to finally get a vote, and then only after we have either had a cloture vote or a threat of a cloture vote. As I have said, I was Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee for 17 months at the beginning of President George Bush's term, and we put through 100 of his nominees. Now, in the other 30 months of his first term, with Republicans in charge, they did better. They put through 105. My point being, of course, that we actually moved his judges faster even than Republicans did when they were in the majority. But now the willingness to cooperate demonstrated there has broken down. Now the rules that worked for a Republican President, we are told, cannot apply for a Democratic President--especially this President. Moreover, the unique character of the D.C. Circuit's caseload means that it is misleading to compare its caseload to that of the other Circuits as part of this effort to eliminate its judgeships. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is often considered ``the second most important court in the land'' because of its special jurisdiction and because of the important and complex cases that it decides. The Court reviews complicated decisions and rulemaking of many Federal agencies, and in recent years has handled some of the most important terrorism and enemy combatant and detention cases since the attacks of September 11. These cases make incredible demands on the time of the judges serving on this Court. It is misleading to cite statistics or contend that hardworking judges have a light or easy workload. All cases are not the same and many of the hardest, most complex and most time- consuming cases in the Nation end up at the D.C. Circuit. Former Chief Judge Harry Edwards has said: [R]eview of large, multi-party, difficult administrative appeals is the staple of judicial work in the D.C. Circuit. This alone distinguishes the work of the D.C. Circuit from the work of other Circuits; it also explains why it is impossible to compare the work of the D.C. Circuit with other Circuits by simply referring to raw data on case filings. Former Chief Judge Patricia Wald has written: The D.C. Circuit hears the most complex, time-consuming, labyrinthine disputes over regulations with the greatest impact on ordinary Americans' lives: clean air and water regulations, nuclear plant safety, health-care reform issues, insider trading and more. These cases can require thousands of hours of preparation by the judges, often consuming days of argument, involving hundreds of parties and interveners, and necessitating dozens of briefs and thousands of pages of record--all of which culminates in lengthy, technically intricate legal opinions . . . The nature of the D.C. Circuit's caseload is what sets it apart from other courts. Judge Laurence Silberman has said: ``I very much agree . . . as to the unique nature of the D.C. Circuit's caseload, and therefore do not believe a direct comparison to the other circuits is called for.'' And Chief Justice Roberts, who formerly served on the D.C. Circuit, has noted that ``about two-thirds of the cases before the D.C. Circuit involve the federal government in some civil capacity, while that figure is less than twenty-five percent nationwide,'' and that less time-consuming ``prisoner petitions which make up a notable portion of the docket nation-wide on other courts of appeals--are a less significant part of its work.'' He also described the ``D.C. Circuit's unique character, as a court with special responsibility to review legal challenges to the conduct of the national government.'' The arguments now being made by Senate Republicans to eliminate three seats on the D.C. Circuit are not based on the reality of that court's caseload. Even if we do make these misleading comparisons to other circuits, the arguments ultimately do not withstand scrutiny since other circuits have caseloads that are lower than the D.C. Circuit's. And most do not have the complexity of the cases that come to the D.C. Circuit. So the D.C. Circuit's need for judges will not be met by Sri Srinivasan alone. We must work hard to fill the three additional vacancies currently on that court so the D.C. Circuit can have its full complement of judges to decide some of the most important cases to the American people. Some have called the D.C. Circuit a court second only to the Supreme Court in its importance. Let's not politicize it. Let's not say here is this rule that applies to a Republican President, and we want an entirely different one with a Democratic President. That does not do the court any good, it does not do the country any good, and it actually is beneath this great body, the U.S. Senate. Sri Srinivasan is a superbly-qualified, consensus nominee. I am glad the Republican filibuster has come to an end and the Senate is being permitted to vote on this nomination. I will, again, vote in favor of confirmation. Mr. President, I understand we have a vote scheduled for 2 o'clock.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I do not see anyone else seeking recognition. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I yield back the remainder of my time and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, after several hearings and five lengthy markup sessions, the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday evening voted with a strong bipartisan vote of 13-5 to report the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act to the full Senate. This vote demonstrated our commitment to bring millions of people out of the shadows and into American life by establishing a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country. It addresses the lengthy backlogs in our current immigration system that have kept families apart sometimes for decades. It grants a faster track to the ``dreamers'' and to the agricultural workers who are an essential part of our communities and our economy. It makes important changes to the visas used by dairy farmers, tourists, and investors who create American jobs that spur our economy. It improves the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers so that the United States will remain the beacon of hope in the world. I am immensely proud of the process through which the Judiciary Committee considered this bill. The Committee held more than 37 hours of debate in five markup sessions spread over almost 2 weeks. We considered 212 amendments offered by Republican and Democratic Senators, and voted to accept 141 of those amendments. The committee accepted amendments from nearly every member of the Judiciary Committee. Every Republican member but one offered amendments the committee voted to accept by a bipartisan majority. Senator Cruz is the lone exception and his amendments were all defeated by bipartisan majorities. Of the more than 300 amendments filed, more than 200 were debated. By contrast, during the committee's consideration of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, the number of amendments voted on was 11. In 2006, the committee's consideration of the Securing America's Borders Act voted on approximately 60 amendments. The quality of the debate and the effort that went into it is a testament to the committee and each of its members, even those who ultimately voted against the bill. As Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I ensured more process and transparency than any previous committee consideration of immigration reform. Committee members filed their amendments 2 days before our first markup, giving members, their staffs and the public ample time to review those amendments so they could be thoroughly debated. For the first time in the committee's history, amendments were posted online on our committee website for the public to review. The markup meetings themselves were broadcast online and on public television so that they could be viewed across the country. Many members of the public also lined up early each morning to attend the meetings in person. Families, faith leaders, advocates and community leaders were present to witness the committee's deliberations. This was an open, thorough, and thoughtful debate. In real time, as members accepted and rejected amendments, the committee's website was updated to reflect which amendments were modified, accepted or defeated. In addition to the live webcast and gavel-to-gavel coverage on C-SPAN, I provided regular updates through the Judiciary Committee's website, Twitter and other means. I was heartened to see a Vermont editorial describe the Judiciary Committee markup as a ``lesson in democracy.'' The committee unanimously approved my amendment to permanently authorize and further strengthen the EB-5 Regional Center Program which will benefit the economy. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, USCIS, estimates that the EB-5 Regional Center Program has created tens of thousands of American jobs and has attracted more than $1 billion in investment in communities all across the United States since 2006. Senator Sessions spoke in support of my amendment before it was adopted without a single vote in opposition. Another example of the Committee's bipartisan efforts to improve this legislation was offered by Senators Hatch, Coons and Klobuchar, to increase certain immigration fees and direct a portion of the proceeds to the States to fund science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education and training that will help drive American competitiveness. Senator Schumer offered a second degree amendment to ensure that a percentage of the funding is used to promote STEM education in groups that are underrepresented in the sciences, such as women and racial minorities. Both amendments were accepted by the committee by unanimous consent. The committee considered 35 amendments to strengthen the bill's border security provisions offered by both Republicans and Democrats. Of the 26 amendments accepted to this section, 10 were offered by Republicans. Senator Grassley offered an amendment to expand the Comprehensive Southern Border Strategy to include all border sectors, not just high-risk sectors. The committee accepted amendments by Senators Flake and Grassley to increase oversight of DHS enforcement strategies, and amendments by Senators Sessions and Cornyn to protect border communities. These amendments add to, and strengthen, the strong enforcement provisions already included in the bill. These amendments are just a few of the amendments offered to strengthen provisions in the pre-Title and Title I border security provisions and promote jobs and innovation in the non-immigration visa provisions in Title IV of the bill. Other bipartisan proposals to provide assistance for American workers to apply for jobs in the technology sector and establish employee reporting requirements to address potential abuse of the visa system have also been adopted. The Judiciary Committee debated and accepted 48 amendments offered by Republican members. I was encouraged by the committee's open and respectful debate. In a time where partisan brinksmanship has become the norm, the Judiciary Committee was able to demonstrate the need for compromise and find common ground to stand on in pursuit of comprehensive immigration reform. The result of our committee's consideration is a stronger, more bipartisan bill, and I look forward to working with the rest of the Senate to ensure its passage. The bill is not the one that I would have drafted. I voted for amendments that were rejected and against amendments that were accepted. The bill mandates more than $1.5 billion of more southern border fencing, which I believe a mistake. My greatest disappointment is that the legislation that comes from the Senate Judiciary Committee does not recognize the rights of all Americans, including gay and lesbian Americans who have just as much right to spousal immigration benefits as anyone else. I will continue my efforts to end the needless discrimination so many Americans face in our immigration system. This discrimination serves no legitimate purpose and it is wrong. Since the beginning of this Congress, I have tried to make comprehensive immigration reform our top legislative priority in the Senate Judiciary Committee. In January at Georgetown University Law Center, I outlined my expectation that comprehensive immigration reform would be the matter to which the Judiciary Committee would devote itself this spring and announced an early hearing to highlight the national discussion. I followed through. The committee held three hearings on comprehensive immigration reform in February and March. I have said since the beginning of the year that I was looking forward to seeing principles turned into legislation. The Judiciary Committee has now advanced such a bill. We completed our work a month later than I had hoped, but we had to begin much later than I had hoped. We were able to make up ground by concentrating our efforts during the 5 weeks since the bill was introduced in which we held three more hearings and five extended markup sessions. I have favored an open and transparent process during which all 18 Senators serving on the Senate Judiciary Committee had the opportunity to participate and to propose or oppose ideas for reform. The Majority Leader agreed that we needed regular order in the consideration of comprehensive immigration reform. The process took time and was not easy. There were strongly-held, differing points of view. I am encouraged that after two resounding presidential defeats, some Republican politicians are concerned enough about the growing Hispanic voting population that they are abandoning their former demagoguery and coming to the table. In what is being called its ``autopsy'' of the last election, the Republican National Committee wrote: ``Hispanic voters tell us our Party's position on immigration has become a litmus test, measuring whether we are meeting them with a welcome mat or a closed door.'' After slamming the door on our efforts for comprehensive immigration reform during the Bush administration, I welcome Republicans to this effort. I continue to fear that some merely want to talk the talk while looking for excuses to abandon what needs to be a bipartisan effort. Few topics are more fundamental to who and what we are as a Nation than immigration. The Statue of Liberty has long proclaimed America's welcome: ``Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. . . . Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!'' That is what America has stood for and what we should continue to represent. Immigration throughout our history has been an ongoing source of renewal of our spirit, our creativity and our economic strength. In the course of our deliberations I have quoted my friend of many years, Ted Kennedy. In the summer of 2007, as our effort at comprehensive immigration reform was being blocked in the Senate, he spoke about his disappointment and our resolve. He said: ``A minority in the Senate rejected a stronger economy that is fairer to our taxpayers and our workers. A minority of the Senate rejected America's own extraordinary immigrant history and ignored our Nation's most urgent needs. But we are in this struggle for the long haul. . . . As we continue the battle, we will have ample inspiration in the lives of the immigrants all around us.'' I have taken inspiration from many sources, from our shared history as immigrants and as Americans, from the experiences of my own grandparents, and from our courageous witnesses Jose Antonio Vargas and Gaby Pacheco and from the families that can be more secure when we enact comprehensive immigration reform. The dysfunction in our current immigration system affects all of us and it is long past time for reform. I hope that our history, our values, and our decency can inspire us finally to take action. We need an immigration system that lives up to American values and helps write the next great chapter in American history by reinvigorating our economy and enriching our communities. Together we can work to pass a bill that repairs our broken immigration system.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, this year, as I do every year, I have met with many Vermonters who have come up to me to express their views about the future of the U.S. Postal Service. But this year, these meetings have taken a different tone. Today, rather than asking me how the Senate can make a durable and effective institution even stronger, Vermonters ask me how the Senate can stave off the impending default of the Postal Service. I hear these questions from businesses, from private citizens, and from postal employees. I am stopped by Vermonters in the grocery store or at the gas pump, wanting to know what we in the Senate will do. Vermont, because of our mostly rural population, is more dependent on the Postal Service than are urban and densely populated States. Vermonters, almost to a person, subscribe to Ben Franklin's vision of a public Postal Service that guarantees the delivery of mail to everyone. These questions about the coming collapse of the Postal Service are strange to say the least. The USPS posted a $100 million profit from its business operations during the first quarter of fiscal year 2013. So how is it that a company that made $100 million in the first quarter of this fiscal year is in financial trouble? As in far too many other instances, the problem is not with the Postal Service, the problem is with the United States House of Representatives. In 2006, by unanimous consent, the Senate took up and passed the House's Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. One of the provisions of this bill, meant to shore up the long-term security of postal retiree health benefits, required that the Postal Service begin the prepayment of health benefits 75 years in advance. While no other public agency or private business stipulates this degree of prepayment, I consented in 2006 because the economy was strong, the Postal Service could manage these prepayments, and I believed that any needed changes to the proposal could be made with the same level of bipartisan comity as in 2006. How wrong I was. Of course, since 2006, the economy has collapsed, first-class mail volume has fallen precipitously, and bipartisanship in the Congress has taken a nose dive. These factors together explain how the U.S. House of Representatives has converted a $100 million profit in the first quarter of fiscal 2013 into a $1.3 billion loss. While many American businesses have gone under during the Great Recession and others have struggled just to stay afloat, House Republicans have refused to budge on the health benefits prepayment. You may ask why the onus resides at the feet of House Republicans. After all, the Senate consented to the 2006 House Republican-sponsored bill. But since that time, only the U.S. Senate has taken measures to solve the problem. Last year we took up and passed the 21st Century Postal Service Act of 2012, which would have lightened the fiscal burden on the Postal Service until its lost revenues from the economic slump and reductions in first-class mail could be offset by growth into the package delivery market. This bill was passed on a bipartisan basis here in the Senate despite record-breaking partisanship by the Senate minority. I should note, as with any bipartisan measure, there were provisions in this bill with which I disagreed. Yet it turned out to make little difference, since the Senate bill languished in the House. In fact, the House even failed to take up its own bill and pass it as an alternative to the Senate proposal. Meanwhile, the Postal Service continues to stagger under the crushing burden of 75 years of prepayments for retiree health benefits. This effort, which originally looked like a reasonable effort to shore up retiree benefits, has become the proverbial albatross. Rather than addressing this problem, the strategy of the House of Representatives appears to be to force the Postal Service into default, at which point their draconian demands for slashing cuts will look reasonable by comparison to their manufactured crisis. If this strategy sounds familiar, it should--it is the same strategy Republicans used to negotiate the Budget Control Act of 2011, using U.S. credit worthiness as a hostage they seemed more than willing to kill. This strategy ultimately cost the United States its triple-A rating with Standard and Poor's and an estimated $1.3 billion in additional interest payments in 2011 alone, according to the Government Accountability Office. And that figure will escalate with time. That's $1.3 billion more that taxpayers will pay to Chinese lenders and Wall Street banks in order for Republicans to secure sequestration cuts to Medicare cancer treatments, cut National Guard technicians' salaries through furlough, and reduce Head Start programs for needy children. The strategy worked so well in the summer of 2011 that it has overtaken everything else in the Republican playbook. Unable to sell a shrinking vision of America to voters in 2012, Republicans are left with procedural mechanisms to obtain their desired outcome. Ironically, if they are successful, they are likely to simultaneously celebrate victory and blame President Obama and Senate Democrats for letting them get their way. If that seems like an absurdity, compare the conflicting statements of the Speaker of the House John Boehner and Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee Greg Walden on proposed cuts to Social Security in the President's 2014 budget proposal. The President finally proposed reductions to entitlement programs after Republicans had long demanded such cuts, eliciting muted praise from Speaker Boehner while Chairman Walden accused the President of ``going after seniors.'' I should note that as part of House leadership, Chairman Walden works for Speaker Boehner. So do not be surprised when a new rendition of this plan causes a default by the Postal Service, after which Republicans demand reductions in the Postal Service's competitive product line and massive layoffs of postal employees. I supported last year's Senate postal reform bill in the hope of striking a compromise. But there are better ways to balance the Postal Service's books, and recognizing that the House has refused compromise, I am glad to join Senator Sanders and other Democratic Senators in a full-throated articulation of a better vision for the USPS. This vision is articulated by our bill, the Postal Service Protection Act of 2013. This bill would allow the Postal Service to recover huge retirement pension overpayments estimated by the Inspector General of USPS to be $75 billion. It would alleviate the remaining health benefits prefunding requirement. It would protect postal customers from having their local postal facilities closed without the Postal Service following proper criteria. The bill would permit the Postal Service to sell non-postal products and services. It would allow the mailing of beer or wine by a licensed manufacturer in accordance with the laws of the States. It would permanently protect one of the Postal Service's greatest commercial advantages over its competitors, Saturday delivery. And it would set the table for long-term growth into the package delivery market by establishing a Chief Innovation Officer and a Postal Innovation Advisory Commission. Like any business enterprise, the Postal Service cannot cut its way to greatness. It must find areas where it can grow. The Postal Service Protection Act of 2013 would give the Postal Service the financial breathing room and innovation mechanisms it needs to chart a new and sustainable course in the next century, when email and package delivery will supplant first class mail. These changes do not diminish our commitment to Ben Franklin's vision; they facilitate its renewal, recognizing that while change is not easy, it is also unavoidable. In that spirit, I call on all Senators to join me in cosponsoring Senator Sanders' Postal Service Protection Act and in keeping faith with Americans by protecting an indispensable American institution.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I wish to recognize a man who is a leading contributor to the preservation of the Italian community in Burlington, VT. John Varricchione grew up in a former Italian neighborhood adjacent to downtown Burlington. I have my own fond memories of that neighborhood, travelling with my mother--a first generation Italian- American--from Montpelier to Burlington to shop in the small, family- owned, Italian markets there. Only remnants of the neighborhood remain, as most of it was lost to urban renewal in the 1960s. I had the pleasure of joining John and other members of the Vermont Italian Club for the dedication of a historic marker, which serves as a reminder of the wonderful neighborhood in which he grew up, and of the people who lived there. John was instrumental in making the marker possible. We all shared wonderful Italian food after the dedication ceremony. I was honored to be part of such a special event. John never moved far from the old neighborhood. He stayed in Vermont and became an outstanding teacher and coach at Rice Memorial High School--a Catholic school in South Burlington--where he became affectionately known among students as ``Mister V.'' Many Rice graduates consider him a favorite teacher. John's contributions to the Vermont Italian Club, and his efforts to preserve our State's Italian heritage, are many. In honor of his work, I ask unanimous consent that an article published in The Burlington Free Press on May 10, 2013, ``Fragrant memories of Burlington's deep Italian roots,'' be printed into the Congressional Record.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, Vermont is home to many treasures, from our natural beauties to our manufactured goods to our award-winning agricultural industry. It is also home to many spirited personalities, and today I would like to honor one of them: a good friend and talented cook, Mary Anne Gucciardi. Affectionately known as ``Mama Gucc'' to those who have had the good fortune of sitting at her dining room table, she makes newcomers feel like old friends. For more than two decades, she has opened her home to hundreds of University of Vermont sports teams, from skiing to soccer, hockey to basketball. Her menu includes classics like baked stuff mushrooms, chicken cacciatore, and of course meatballs and sauce. The mere mention of her name makes both coaches' and athletes' mouths water. Mama Gucc grew up in Haverhill, Massachusetts, the daughter of an Italian-American father and a French-Canadian mother. It was her mother's Italian mother-in-law who served as the inspiration for Mama Gucc's gourmet Italian favorites. As the grandson of Italian immigrants myself, I have benefited from Mama Gucc's lavish feasts. She has made me feel right like I was right back in my own mother's kitchen. Mary Anne's heart is even bigger than her generous portions. She has not only cooked for hundreds of athletes, hosted distinguished guests such as bishops, senators and governors, but she has prepared countless charity dinners, raising over $50,000 in scholarships in memory of a UVM student, Kevin Roberson, tragically killed in a car accident. Her love for cooking and for hosting has made ``Mama Gucc'' a surrogate mother for the lucky student-athletes to come through her door, making those students, sometimes hundreds of miles from their families, feel right at home. In 1999, The University of Vermont honored Mama Gucc and her husband by naming a new fitness facility the Richard and Mary Anne Gucciardi Recreation and Fitness Center, a tribute most rightfully deserved. From every Vermonter who has indulged in Mama Gucc's famous cooking, and has been blessed with her warm hospitality and generous support, we thank Mary Anne Gucciardi for providing a home-away-from-home to all who have passed through her doors. I ask unanimous consent that The Burlington Free Press article, ``Celebrating the Italian Mama,'' be printed in the Record.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, as we vote today on two nominations to the Court of International Trade, I want to note that this week we reached a milestone. It is 5 months into President Obama's second term, and we have just now reached the same number of circuit and district confirmations that President George H.W. Bush achieved in his 4 years as President. Of course, we remain nearly 20 confirmations behind the pace we set when President George W. Bush was in office. While some have argued that this is because President Obama has not made enough nominations, the fact is that he has sent up more district nominees at this point in his presidency than President George W. Bush had at the same point. The reason the Senate confirmations are lagging behind is because Senate Republicans have engaged in unprecedented obstruction of district court nominees. At this point in 2005, over 97 percent of President Bush's district nominees had been confirmed, but just 86 percent of President Obama's have been confirmed. Today's vote on Mark Barnett is also a milestone of a sort. He was one of the 11 judicial nominees who were stalled at the end of last year because Senate Republicans refused to allow him a vote. We are approaching the Memorial Day recess and the Senate is still working on nominations that could and should have been completed last year. These unnecessary delays on confirmations are bad for the Senate, bad for our Federal courts, and bad for the American people. After today's votes, there will be another seven nominees pending on the Executive Calendar, and all but one were reported unanimously by the Judiciary Committee. There is no reason to further delay action on these nominees: We should follow Senate tradition and vote on all of them before the recess. Nitza Quinones Alejandro, Luis Restrepo, Jeffrey Schmehl, Kenneth Gonzales, Gregory Phillips, Ray Chen, and Jennifer Dorsey are awaiting confirmation. These nominees would fill important vacancies. For example, three of these nominees would fill vacancies in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, where there are seven current vacancies. These are vacancies we need to fill, and, since the nominees are supported by every Republican on the Judiciary Committee, as well as their home State Republican Senator, there is no reason not to vote on them today. Mark Barnett is currently the Deputy Chief Counsel in the U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of Chief Counsel for Import Administration, where he has worked since 1995. From 2008 to 2009, he was on detail to the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means, Subcommittee on Trade. Prior to his government service, Mr. Barnett was an associate in the Washington, DC office of Steptoe & Johnson. Claire Kelly is a professor of law at Brooklyn Law School, where she teaches classes on international trade, international business law, and administrative law. Prior to entering academia, she spent 4 years as an associate and 3 years as a consultant specializing in customs and trade law at the law firm Coudert Brothers in New York City. I congratulate both nominees. Nominations to the Court of International Trade have historically been noncontroversial and have been moved quickly by the full Senate. The most recent confirmation to that court came less than a month after the nominee had been reported, so it is unfortunate that Mark Barnett and Claire Kelly have been unnecessarily stalled for more than 3 months. Earlier this week I placed in the Record a Wall Street Journal article titled ``Open Judgeships Show D.C. Dysfunction.'' I, again, urge Senate Republicans to work in a bipartisan way and show that the Senate can make real progress. All Senate Democrats are ready to vote on all these judicial nominees.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Will the Senator yield on that point?

Mr. LEAHY. I would say to my dear friend, the senior Senator from Florida, I share his frustration. We put these judges through the Senate Judiciary Committee often with a unanimous vote and then they wait here months and months to get a vote on the floor. As the distinguished Senator from Florida noted, that vote is then virtually unanimous. This effort where if somebody is nominated by President Obama they must be blocked, even if it is somebody everyone supports, is totally unfair to the President, it is completely unfair to the country, but it is devastating to the judiciary because good men and women are not going to be willing to take nominations or appointments to be a Federal judge if they think they are going to wait month after month after month or even a year before they go on the bench. I appreciate the statement of the distinguished senior Senator from Florida and I share his frustration.

Mr. LEAHY. Today the Senate will finally be allowed to vote on the nominations of Judge Sheri Chappell and Judge Michael McShane. For Judge Chappell in particular, this day is long overdue. She was nominated almost a year ago, and was one of the 11 nominees who Senate Republicans refused to vote on before the end of the last Congress. They delayed her confirmation even though she had the support of every single Republican on the Judiciary Committee, and the bipartisan support of her home state Senators, Senator Nelson and Senator Rubio. They delayed her confirmation even though she is nominated to fill a judicial emergency vacancy that has been vacant for over 400 days. When I say that President Obama's qualified, consensus nominees have faced unprecedented levels of delay and obstruction, this is precisely what I have been talking about. Even the Wall Street Journal has taken notice. In an article last week, Gerald Seib wrote that the obstruction even of consensus district court nominees is an example of ``the Senate's inability to pull out of partisan ruts and get beyond an epidemic of filibusters.'' While only a few years ago Senate Republicans insisted that filibusters of judicial nominees were unconstitutional, or that they should be reserved for ``extraordinary circumstances,'' this article notes that they ``decided in recent years that it is acceptable to mount filibusters not only in exceptional cases but to stop even the most routine business.'' I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my statement. Senate Republicans claim that they have blocked only two of President Obama's nominees, but they are not being fair in that characterization. They blocked nominees like Robert Chatigny and Louis Butler by refusing to allow the Senate to vote on them. They blocked nominees like Victoria Nourse, Arvo Mikkanen, and Elissa Cadish by refusing to return blue slips. They even blocked Steve Six by rescinding the blue slips after the nominee had already had a hearing. This reminds me of the way they pocket filibustered dozens of President Clinton's nominees. While as Chairman I have protected the rights of home State Senators, that right does not extend to allowing them to shirk responsibility for it. In all, President Obama has had a significantly lower percentage of his circuit and district nominees confirmed at this point in his time in office than President Bush did at the same point in his presidency. Senate Republicans who take such pride in the number of nominees being confirmed this year ignore how many, like Judge Chappell, were needlessly delayed from confirmation last year and what they have done during the last 4 years. That is why even after the 17 confirmations this year, we remain nearly 20 confirmations behind the pace we set for President Bush's circuit and district nominees, and vacancies remain nearly twice as high as they were at this point during President Bush's second term. For all their self-congratulatory statements they cannot refute the following: We are not even keeping up with attrition. Vacancies have increased, not decreased, since the start of this year. President Obama's judicial nominees have faced unprecedented delays and obstruction by Senate Republicans. We have yet to finish the work that could and should have been completed last year. There are still a dozen judicial nominees being denied confirmation. A recent report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service compares the whole of President Obama's first term to the whole of President Bush's first term, and the contrast could not be more clear. The median Senate floor wait time for President Obama's district nominees was 5 times longer than for President Bush's. President Obama's circuit nominees faced even longer delays, and their median wait time was 7.3 times longer than for President Bush's circuit nominees. The comparison is even worse if we look just at nominees who were reported and confirmed unanimously. President Bush's unanimously confirmed circuit nominees had a median wait time of just 14 days. Compare that to the 130.5 days for President Obama's unanimous nominees. That is more than 9 times longer. Even the nonpartisan CRS calls this a ``notable change.'' There is no good reason for such unprecedented delays, but those are the facts. The confirmations in the last few months do not change the reality of what has happened over the last four years. If a baseball player goes 0-for-9, and then gets a hit, we do not say he is an all-star because he is batting 1.000 in his last at bat. We recognize that he is just 1- for-10, and not a very good hitter. So while I welcome the confirmations this year, I note both that 13 of the 17 could and should have been confirmed last year and that there are another dozen nominees pending before the Senate, including two who also could have been confirmed last year. We can and must do more for Americans who look to our courts for justice. They deserve better than long delays and empty courtrooms. With 10 percent of our Federal bench vacant, and a backlog of nominees on the Senate Executive Calendar, it is clear that the Senate is not doing what it should on nominations. It is also ridiculous to complain that the Senate does not have nominees when Mark Barnett, Claire Kelly, Sheri Chappell, Michael McShane, Nitza Quinones Alejandro, Luis Restrepo, Jeffrey Schmehl, Kenneth Gonzales, Gregory Phillips, Sri Srinivasan, Ray Chen, and Jennifer Dorsey are awaiting confirmation. In addition, Senate Republicans need to take responsibility for not working with the President to fill vacancies. It is disingenuous of Republican Senators not to work with President Obama to pick nominees and then blame the President for the lack of nominees. I was interested to hear one Senate Republican argue that if Senators do not get recommendations in ``expeditiously enough,'' the President ``has the prerogative to nominate someone and then we have the responsibility to act on it.'' Before President Obama had made a single judicial nomination, all Senate Republicans sent him a letter threatening to filibuster his nominees if he did not consult Republican home state Senators. So the recent statement was either a complete reversal in position, or baiting a trap to then block any nominees the President sends to us. Some Republican Senators have been willing to work with the President to find nominees in their States. We recently received nominations for district court vacancies in Alabama and Tennessee, and I hope to schedule those nominees for hearings soon. In Pennsylvania, the Republican Senator is now working with Senator Casey to find nominees that they both support. In fact, three such nominees are pending before the Senate now, and they would fill three of the six current vacancies in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The nominees have been pending before the Senate for over 2 months after being reported unanimously, and I hope Senate Republicans will allow us to complete action on them before the Memorial Day recess. I remain deeply concerned about the impact of sequestration on our Federal courts and our legal system. After 4 years in which Senate Republicans have forced our courts to operate shorthanded, with 10 percent or more of judgeships vacant, these harsh spending cuts are the last thing we should be doing. I continue to hear from judges and other members of the legal community about the damage of sequestration. The Judicial Conference, whose presiding officer is Chief Justice Roberts, wrote last week to request emergency funding for fiscal 2013 in order to ``address critical needs resulting from sequestration cuts.'' These indiscriminate cuts have left our Federal judiciary ``confronting an unprecedented fiscal crisis that could seriously compromise the Constitutional mission of the United States courts.'' Members of the bar have written in support of this request, stating that ``budget cuts have forced diminished court staffing, court closures, compromised security, and lengthy trial delays.'' They rightly note that ``it is people's lives that are adversely changed'' by these unnecessary cuts. I ask unanimous consent that both letters be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my statement. I hope Senators read these letters and take these concerns seriously, and that we can come together to meet our responsibilities to our coequal branch and to the 310 million Americans we all serve. Judge Sheri Polster Chappell is nominated to a judicial emergency vacancy on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, where she has been serving since 2003 as a Federal Magistrate Judge. Prior to her appointment to the Federal bench, she worked as a Lee County Court Judge, as an Assistant State Attorney in the Twentieth Judicial Circuit of Florida, where she was the first female county office head, and as an instructor at the Southwest Florida Criminal Justice Academy. Judge Chappell was reported unanimously last year and again 2 months ago. The Middle District of Florida has a second judicial emergency vacancy, and it is unfortunate that the Senate is not being allowed to consider the nominee to that seat, as well. Judge Brian Davis received unanimously the ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary's highest rating of ``well qualified,'' and was reported favorably almost 1 year ago. Judge Michael McShane is nominated to a judicial emergency vacancy on the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon. Currently a Circuit Court Judge on the Multnomah County Circuit Court, Judge McShane has served as a State court judge for over 15 years. He previously served as a Circuit Judge Pro Tem on the Multnomah County Circuit Court. Prior to becoming a judge, Judge McShane spent his entire 9-year legal career as a trial attorney in the Metropolitan Public Defender's Office in Portland, OR. Judge McShane has the support of his home State Senators, Senator Wyden and Senator Merkley, and was reported unanimously by the Judiciary Committee over 2 months ago. Senate Republicans have a long way to go to match the record of cooperation on consensus nominees that Senate Democrats established during the Bush administration. After today's votes, 10 more judicial nominees remain pending, and all but one were reported unanimously. All Senate Democrats are ready to vote on each of them to allow them to get to work for the American people. We can make real progress for our Federal courts and the American people if Senate Republicans are willing to join us.

Mr. LEAHY. I yield to my distinguished colleague.

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

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, over the past several weeks the Senate Judiciary Committee has considered the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act. In addition to the three hearings the Committee held this year on the need for comprehensive immigration reform, the Committee held an additional three hearings specifically on this legislative proposal after it was introduced. In those legislative hearings we received testimony from 26 witnesses, including the Secretary of Homeland Security, Secretary Napolitano, who spoke at length about the bill would make our country safer and help address the current problems in our immigration system. The Judiciary Committee has benefited from more process and transparency than any previous Committee consideration of immigration reform. In 1985, the Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Immigration held three hearings on the Immigration Control and Reform Act and heard testimony from 14 witnesses. In 2006 and 2007, the last two times the Senate tried to enact comprehensive immigration reform, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee held no hearings on his legislative proposal or the McCain-Kennedy proposal or the Kyl-Kennedy formulation. In 2006, the Republican chairman circulated his legislative proposal just one week before the Committee met to make opening statements. He then revised his legislation and circulated it barely 2 days before the Committee met to begin debate and consider amendments. This year, the Judiciary Committee received the bill text on April 17, and after a period of more than 3 weeks to consider it and draft amendments we began our consideration of amendments to the bill on May 9. During the Committees consideration of the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986 the Committee met four times. We are holding our fourth day of markup today. It is my hope that the Committee will complete our consideration of the bill on Wednesday after 6, extended days of consideration. In 1985, the Committee debated only 11 amendments, adopting 7. The Committee sent the bill to the Senate on as 12-5 vote. In 2006, the Committee met five times to consider amendments to the Chairman's Securing America's Borders bill, conducted 60 votes and adopted 54 amendments. The bill was then reported to the Senate on a vote of 12 to 6. In 2007, the bill was not considered by the Judiciary Committee at all before floor consideration. Already this year the Committee has met for 4 days to consider amendments to the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act. During just the first three executive sessions, the Committee has considered 99 amendments. Of those 50--more than half--were offered by the Republican minority. During those first 3 days, the Committee debated and voted to accept 67 amendments to the bill. That is already more amendments than were debated in 2006 and 6 times as many amendments as were debated in 1986. Of those accepted, 20 were offered by Republican members. That includes several amendments sponsored by Senator Grassley, Senator Cornyn and a few sponsored by Senator Sessions. The Committee has acted in a bipartisan way to accept amendments authored by Senators from both sides of the aisle and by Senators who are proponents of the bill and some by Senators who can fairly be considered opponents of the bill. The Committee will continue its consideration of the legislation after tonight's votes. As of 4:30 today, we have considered an additional 45 amendments, including 22 offered by Republicans, and 23 offered by Democrats. One example of the Committee's bipartisan efforts to improve this legislation was offered by Senators Hatch, Coons and Klobuchar, which will increase certain immigration fees and provide 70 percent of the funds collected to the states to improve and enhance the economic competitiveness of the United States by improving science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education and training in the United States. Senator Schumer offered a second degree amendment which would direct some of this funding to promote STEM education in groups that are underrepresented in the sciences, such as women and racial minorities. Both amendments were accepted by the Committee by unanimous consent. The Committee also unanimously approved my amendment to permanently authorize and further strengthen the EB-5 Regional Center Program which will benefit the economy. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services--USCIS--estimates that the EB-5 Regional Center Program has created tens of thousands of American jobs and has attracted more than $1 billion in investment in communities all across the United States since 2006. These amendments are just a few of the many offered to promote jobs and innovation in the non-immigration visa provisions in Title IV of the bill. Other bipartisan proposals to provide assistance for American workers to apply for jobs in the technology sector and establish employee reporting requirements to address potential abuse of the visa system have also been adopted. The Committee has voted to accept amendments offered by nearly every member of the minority on the Judiciary Committee. Senators Grassley, Hatch, Sessions, Graham, Cornyn, Lee, and Flake have all offered amendments adopted by the Committee to improve the bill. Senators Feinstein, Whitehouse, Klobuchar, Franken, Coons, Blumenthal and Hirono have also contributed important amendments to improve the legislation. With the adoption of these amendments, the Committee demonstrated its ability to act in a bipartisan manner to improve this historic legislation. In an unprecedented effort to achieve transparency during the Judiciary Committee's public proceedings, and to ensure the American people could follow the Committee's consideration of the bill, I made public all 301 amendments filed on Tuesday, May 7, by posting them on the Judiciary Committee's website. In real time, as the Committee accepts or rejects amendments, the Committee's website is updated to reflect which amendments are modified, accepted or fail. The Judiciary Committee's mark up of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act is not yet finished but we have completed work on two of the four titles of the bill as well as the important ``trigger'' provisions. We have been able to focus our extensive consideration of this complex bill for three weeks and still achieve a fair and transparent process for Committee consideration. With the help of the Senators who serve so diligently on the Judiciary Committee from both sides of aisle, I hope by the end of this week that the Committee will have completed its consideration of the legislation and that we will report a comprehensive immigration reform bill to the Senate with the recommendation that it be considered and passed. I look forward to bringing this legislation before the full Senate at the beginning of our next work period. I note, I hope we will finish that this week. We will go very late tonight, very late tomorrow night, very late Wednesday night, all day Thursday, and all day Friday, if necessary, until we get it finished.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, last week, the Senate Agriculture Committee once again reported to the full Senate a bipartisan farm bill, and I am pleased the Senate has turned to its consideration this week. I compliment the distinguished chair, Senator Stabenow, who has done Herculean duties. The bill before us represents nearly 2 years of hard work to satisfy the widely varied agricultural interests of this country, while supporting food assistance programs for those in need. The Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act will save $23 billion over 10 years, which is remarkable given the fiscal restraints we face, and was overwhelmingly supported by the members of the agriculture committee by a vote of 15-5. Unfortunately, due to the House's inaction on the Senate-passed bill last year, many farm bill programs expired, while others were temporarily extended at the end of the year, making it all the more imperative that we work together now to ensure we move ahead with a bill in the next few months. I was glad that in December we were able to delay and prevent the ``dairy cliff'' from roiling markets worldwide and inflating dairy prices, which would have wreaked havoc in the marketplace and on our farms. But the short-term extension of the Farm Bill is no rational way to legislate, and the last-minute extension left dozens of critical agriculture programs stranded without funding. We must not repeat that process. The bill before us contains many of the same improvements included in the 2012 Senate-passed bill, while making important updates to reflect new fiscal realities and maintaining the integrity of the policies we worked so hard to pass last year. The Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act makes an investment in American agriculture that will benefit our producers, our dairy farmers, our rural communities, our Main Street businesses, taxpayers, and consumers, all while reducing the deficit by $23 billion. Every Farm Bill is important to the Green Mountain State and to all the states of our nation as a matter of national security. Very few countries can boast that they can feed themselves. We have the ability to nourish 320-plus million Americans. This represents an important part of our national security. Agriculture is a pillar of Vermont's economy and of our Nation's economy. So it is with this farm bill that we have produced in the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. One of many key components of this bill, in terms of Vermont and Vermont's economy, is a significant dairy reform proposal that offers the best hope in decades of helping producers and consumers step off the dangerous rollercoaster of wild price swings in the markets in which dairy farmers must sell their time-sensitive products. I believe this is key to our consideration of a farm bill, and I know it is what farmers in Vermont are watching closely; I have been hearing from them regularly in strong support of stabilization and margin insurance working in tandem. We simply must protect our dairy farmers from the volatility of turbulent price swings with a financially sound risk management program to help farmers manage risk and margin volatility, and do so without driving up the cost to the government. As the author of the Organic Foods Production Act, I am extremely pleased this bill continues to make strong improvements for organic agriculture. I am also pleased that the bill once again includes a policy to give the National Organic Program much-needed authority to effectively protect and enforce organic integrity. In addition to enforcing the integrity of the organic brand, I am committed to seeing that this bill treats all farmers fairly. We made great strides last year in making improvements to crop insurance so that it will adequately compensate organic producers for their losses. Similar changes are needed in the Environmental Quality Incentive Program to eliminate the unfair lower payment limit applied solely to organic farmers seeking to enroll in the program's Organic Initiative. Another important compromise in this bill is found in the trade title, where the proposal expands the success of the Local and Regional Food Aid Procurement pilot program from the 2008 farm bill, and also increases the funds available to support strategic prepositioning, which brings food aid commodities to at-risk regions before food emergencies strike. I look forward to working with Senators to find further improvements in how we can best provide emergency food aid and international development programs that have the flexibility to react quickly in times of emergency, avoid disrupting local markets, and increase efficiency so we can save money and feed more people. This legislation also includes support for vital anti-hunger programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, and the Emergency Food Assistance Program. Unfortunately, with so many Americans still struggling to put food on the table, nutrition assistance and emergency feeding programs have become even more crucial. The bill also contains initiatives to encourage better health, increased access to local foods, nutrition for children and seniors, and to support self-sufficiency and food security in our Nation's low- income communities while tackling the difficult problem of ``food deserts.'' I am also pleased that Chairwoman Stabenow included language I offered as an amendment in committee last year to make it easier for SNAP participants to buy local foods through a Community Supported Agriculture Share, CSA, membership. But at a time when more Americans than ever before are at risk of going hungry and food pantry shelves across the country are bare, these programs could be made even stronger by dedicating more resources to help the neediest among us. I hope during our consideration of this bill we can work to increase support for the Emergency Food Assistance Program, SNAP employment and training programs, and community food projects to the level included in last year's farm bill. These programs are essential in our communities, and I hope we can invest as much in these programs this year as we did last year. I am disappointed, however, that the bill before the Senate today once again includes $4 billion in cuts to the SNAP program, which will predominately come from northeastern States. I understand this cut is part of a larger compromise on behalf of Chairwoman Stabenow, who has been a strong supporter of these nutrition assistance programs. Ensuring these programs can continue to serve Vermonters and all Americans in need is a key part to enacting a strong farm bill for this country. This is why I am particularly concerned about the bill the House will consider which includes five times the cuts to nutrition assistance as the Senate bill, and $4 billion more than the House included in their committee bill last year. These cuts will needlessly eliminate millions of low-income Americans from this program. The House bill would mean that several thousand children would lose eligibility for free school lunches. In Vermont, one in five children lives in food insecure homes and I know that number is even higher in some other States. It is shameful for any child in this country to go hungry and I hope the Senate will continue to oppose these draconian cuts to nutrition assistance. The Senate agriculture committee's chairwoman and ranking member, and both of their staffs, should be applauded for the great work they have done to swiftly move this bipartisan bill through committee and now onto the Senate floor in record speed. I hope the Senate can once again move forward in a bipartisan way to pass the farm bill this week, and I hope the House moves forward as well so we might reconcile our differences before the expiration in September of the current short-term extension.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, all we are saying is that if you are going to be getting relief from the Federal Government but you have a better way to rebuild your culverts, you can do it that way rather than to have the ones that failed before. I am sure there are a whole lot of States here that will be affected by this amendment, and I hope it will be approved.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, Vermonters are fiercely proud of those who serve in our National Guard. For decades--and never more so than in the last decade--when the Nation sounded the call to service, the Vermont National Guard has answered. Today, I would like to pay tribute to Ed and Karen Matayka, two Vermont National Guard soldiers whose perseverance in the face of huge odds is an inspiration to all. The Army brought Ed and Karen together--they met at combat medic training in Texas--and they have been an Army family ever since. The Mataykas deployed twice together, once to Kuwait immediately following their wedding, and a second time to Afghanistan with Vermont's 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team in 2010. It was during that second deployment when tragedy struck. While running a convoy mission in Afghanistan, Ed's vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device, leaving him with multiple injuries, including the amputation of his legs. Some doctors questioned whether Ed would survive. Yet he never gave up. With Karen's support and the assistance of skilled Army doctors, Ed is well on the road to recovery. Not only is Ed making great strides in his personal health, with newly authorized assistance for in vitro fertilization for service members, Ed and Karen recently welcomed the arrival of twins: Ryan David and Alana Marie. They are the first Army family to have used the technique after Congress passed a law authorizing TRICARE coverage of reproductive therapies for military families dealing with the consequences of catastrophic injury. As a Vermonter, I am proud of Ed and Karen. Ryan and Alana are surely lucky to have them as parents. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the recent U.S. Army article entitled ``Double amputee gets another chance of starting family'' be printed in the Record.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, each and every day, thousands of men and women in law enforcement put their lives on the line to protect our cities and towns, enforce our laws, and keep us safe. Just last month, we witnessed the superb investigative efforts of the Federal, State, and local law enforcement officers who helped bring the Boston Marathon bombing suspect to face justice. Yet the senseless murder of MIT police officer Sean Collier was a reminder of the danger that our law enforcement professionals routinely face. This week, which has come to be known as National Police Week, provides us with the opportunity not only to remember those law enforcement officers who lost their lives in the line of duty, but also to honor their memories by better equipping those officers who continue to serve our communities. Today I am proud to introduce two measures that will do just that. More than 50 years ago, President Kennedy designated May 15 as National Peace Officers Memorial Day, to recognize the sacrifices of law enforcement officers who had died in the course of their duties. Despite the progress that has been made in improving officer safety, there is still much work to be done. Last year, 120 local, State, and Federal law enforcement officers tragically lost their lives in the line of duty. As they do every year, law enforcement officers and their families from across the United States will come to Washington this week to pay tribute to their fallen colleagues. And as I do each year, I will stand with them. Once again I am proud to submit a resolution officially recognizing the designation of May 15 as National Peace Officers Memorial Day, and I am pleased to be joined in sponsoring this resolution by Senator Grassley, the Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee. We can also honor the memories of the officers who lost their lives by taking concrete action to help protect and equip those officers who continue to serve. That is why I am pleased that Senator Coons, Senator Durbin, Senator Blumenthal, Senator Whitehouse, Senator Feinstein and Senator Klobuchar have joined me in introducing today the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act Reauthorization of 2013. Once enacted, this legislation will continue for another five years the lifesaving grant program that Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell and I authored in 1998. This measure will continue Congress' strong commitment to the safety and security of our Nation's law enforcement officers, by helping to provide them with vital bulletproof vests and body armor. The Bulletproof Vest Partnership Program has had a tremendous impact on the ability of States and localities to give our law enforcement officers the protection they deserve while serving the needs of our communities. Since 1999, the program has assisted state and local jurisdictions with the purchase of over one million bulletproof vests, and since 1987 body armor has saved the lives of 3,000 law enforcement officers. That is 3,000 men and women who may not otherwise have made it home to their families and loved ones. As a Nation, we ask much of our law enforcement officers. The men and women who serve face constant and unknown risks, and too often make the ultimate sacrifice. These are the men and women who we ask to keep our streets safe and to protect our communities. These are the men and women who approach a car at 3 a.m. during a traffic stop, not knowing who is behind the wheel or what might happen next. And these are the men and women who are the first ones to respond when there is a shooting at a school, or an attack in our community. As citizens and as Senators, the least we can do is to equip these officers with the protection they need to give them a better sense of security--a better chance of survival. Reauthorizing and funding this program is the right thing to do, and it is something I hope all Senators will support. Every additional officer who is able to put on a vest today as a result of this program is one more officer who has a far better chance of surviving a violent attack. Protecting the men and women who protect all Americans should be a priority for Congress and we have a chance to advance that priority with the continuation of this program. I hope all Senators will join me. The safety of law enforcement officers across the United States should be something on which we can all agree. I look forward to the enactment of these two important measures. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, each and every day, thousands of men and women in law enforcement put their lives on the line to protect our cities and towns, enforce our laws, and keep us safe. Just last month, we witnessed the superb investigative efforts of the Federal, State, and local law enforcement officers who helped bring the Boston Marathon bombing suspect to face justice. Yet the senseless murder of MIT police officer Sean Collier was a reminder of the danger that our law enforcement professionals routinely face. This week, which has come to be known as National Police Week, provides us with the opportunity not only to remember those law enforcement officers who lost their lives in the line of duty, but also to honor their memories by better equipping those officers who continue to serve our communities. Today I am proud to introduce two measures that will do just that. More than 50 years ago, President Kennedy designated May 15 as National Peace Officers Memorial Day, to recognize the sacrifices of law enforcement officers who had died in the course of their duties. Despite the progress that has been made in improving officer safety, there is still much work to be done. Last year, 120 local, State, and Federal law enforcement officers tragically lost their lives in the line of duty. As they do every year, law enforcement officers and their families from across the United States will come to Washington this week to pay tribute to their fallen colleagues. And as I do each year, I will stand with them. Once again I am proud to submit a resolution officially recognizing the designation of May 15 as National Peace Officers Memorial Day, and I am pleased to be joined in sponsoring this resolution by Senator Grassley, the Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee. We can also honor the memories of the officers who lost their lives by taking concrete action to help protect and equip those officers who continue to serve. That is why I am pleased that Senator Coons, Senator Durbin, Senator Blumenthal, Senator Whitehouse, Senator Feinstein and Senator Klobuchar have joined me in introducing today the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act Reauthorization of 2013. Once enacted, this legislation will continue for another five years the lifesaving grant program that Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell and I authored in 1998. This measure will continue Congress' strong commitment to the safety and security of our Nation's law enforcement officers, by helping to provide them with vital bulletproof vests and body armor. The Bulletproof Vest Partnership Program has had a tremendous impact on the ability of States and localities to give our law enforcement officers the protection they deserve while serving the needs of our communities. Since 1999, the program has assisted state and local jurisdictions with the purchase of over one million bulletproof vests, and since 1987 body armor has saved the lives of 3,000 law enforcement officers. That is 3,000 men and women who may not otherwise have made it home to their families and loved ones. As a Nation, we ask much of our law enforcement officers. The men and women who serve face constant and unknown risks, and too often make the ultimate sacrifice. These are the men and women who we ask to keep our streets safe and to protect our communities. These are the men and women who approach a car at 3 a.m. during a traffic stop, not knowing who is behind the wheel or what might happen next. And these are the men and women who are the first ones to respond when there is a shooting at a school, or an attack in our community. As citizens and as Senators, the least we can do is to equip these officers with the protection they need to give them a better sense of security--a better chance of survival. Reauthorizing and funding this program is the right thing to do, and it is something I hope all Senators will support. Every additional officer who is able to put on a vest today as a result of this program is one more officer who has a far better chance of surviving a violent attack. Protecting the men and women who protect all Americans should be a priority for Congress and we have a chance to advance that priority with the continuation of this program. I hope all Senators will join me. The safety of law enforcement officers across the United States should be something on which we can all agree. I look forward to the enactment of these two important measures. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.