Trent Lott

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I thank Senator McConnell for his comments and for his leadership in this area. In many respects, I would like to pick up where he left off in the discussion of how did we reach this point. How did the Senate come to where we are going to have to have hours, days, weeks of debate on highly qualified men, women, and minorities for the Federal judiciary? Most of my colleagues in the Senate know over the years I have been a believer that we should get things done for the American people; that we should have cooperation; that we should vote on these judges up or down and move on; that we need to be working as we did earlier this week to report a highway bill, to get energy legislation, to deal with the very critical and difficult issue of immigration reform, pass appropriations bills, take up other critical issues for the future in our country, the creation of jobs, to promote the continued development in critical high-tech areas such as telecommunications. We have a lot of work to do and yet here we are, stalled out, in my opinion, unnecessarily. I believe we should reach across the aisle and try to find accommodation. Whether one likes it, that is how the Senate was set up, that is how we work, quite often by consensus. Over the years, when I served in leadership positions, I was quite often criticized by my own colleagues of being too willing to work with the other side to try to find a way to get a result. Then Senator and Minority Leader Tom Daschle and I worked together a lot. At the same time I was being criticized by some of my colleagues, he was being criticized by his colleagues. It is called leadership. It is called dealing with the rules one has and finding a way to work together and move forward. I have been working for 4 years to figure out what is going on and find a solution that is acceptable to both sides of the aisle. I worked with Senator Frist and Senator Zell Miller to get a bill out of the Rules Committee some 2 years ago that would set up a process that would get us to a final vote on these nominees. The first vote would be the required 60 and then the second vote 57 and so on down until eventually after about a month we would get a direct vote that I think would have been fair. But, no, the Democrats would not accept that. So then this year I came back and I started to see if maybe I could work across the aisle with Senators such as Senator Nelson, Senator Pryor, and others to see if we could address some of the legitimate concerns. This problem did not start 2 years ago or 4 years ago. This has been coming for a long time. I think it began with the nomination of Judge Bork. I think Republicans have retaliated for what they felt was a wrong and then the Democrats retaliated, but always slipping further down this slope of unfairness to these good men and women. So Senator Nelson and I worked together, and we did come up with a proposal that would guarantee all nominees now and in the future would get reported out of the Judiciary Committee after a specified period of time. In other words, stop the practice, if in fact there was one during the Clinton years, of killing nominations in the Judiciary Committee unless there is clearly justification for it, objection from the in-State Senators, or other reasons, but do not get into the technicalities. Just say we were going to guarantee they would get out of committee, there would be time for full debate up to a week before we could get an up-or-down vote. Senator Frist actually expanded that and said how about a full 100 hours of debate; every Senator would have an opportunity to talk an hour about any nominee. By the way, I can tell my colleagues, for the majority leader to make a sacrifice of 100 hours of this body's time is a huge sacrifice. It could not be done very much, maybe two or three times a year at the most. So the seven nominees now being held hostage whom we are going to talk about in the next few days, some of them clearly would not make it under that procedure, but it would have gotten to a final vote. Again, that was rejected by the Democrats because they said, oh, no, we cannot agree to anything that would appear to or in fact give up our right to filibuster these judges. That did not work. Then, of course, there was the last effort, one that is now still underway, one I am not involved in any longer because I kept feeling we were not going to get an agreement that did not force us to throw over and not even vote or agree to vote down one of these two women, outstanding nominees, for the Federal appellate courts. I will talk more about them individually in a moment. So again back to the question of how we got here, the debate we find ourselves currently engaged in is a culmination of 4 years of obstructionism by a minority of Senators who refuse to allow the majority of the Senate to fulfill their constitutional responsibilities. I know we have a lot of people who come to the Senate floor and talk about the Constitution, pontificate about the forefathers, and that the language is this. I have read the Constitution, I have read the Federalist Papers, I have looked at the history, and clearly these judges should be getting an up-or-down vote. The Constitution clearly says when they expect a supermajority, and if they do not, then the presumption is a majority would win. I believe in protecting minority rights. I have been in the minority more in my legislative career of 33 years than I have been in the majority. But there is another little thing: It is called elections and a majority. At some point, we quit talking and we give these people a fair up-or-down vote. Some people will come to the floor and say, this is the tradition, we must not mess with it; this is something that has been in existence from the very beginning of the history of our country. That is not so. As a matter of fact, filibusters did not get started until World War I. Oh, people will be surprised at that. You mean we have not had it since the great days of Clay, Webster, and Calhoun? No. As a matter of fact, after a minority of Senators blocked efforts to have an up-or- down vote on a proposal to arm merchant ships during World War I, the Senate adopted its first cloture rule. The cloture rule was later changed on five separate occasions, most recently in 1986. So these great and hallowed traditions in this institution, if one checks back on them, do not go back very far. This is a living body. Like the Constitution, it is a living, breathing body. It changes. It evolves. We make changes in the rules. That is why when people say, woe is me, doom and gloom, the Senate cannot get through this, whatever we do, it will be cataclysmic--forget it. We have a job to do here. Let us face it like men and women and let us deal with the issue. Let us move on. Let us deal with the substance. Let us deal with the things that matter to people, such as the price of gasoline and the immigration problem, and handle it in a fair way. But this is not something that has been written into the Constitution. No, it is new. It began, I am sorry to say, with a personal friend of mine, a great man, a great judge named Charles Pickering who had been approved unanimously by the Senate in the past to be a Federal district judge, but when he was nominated for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, we could not get it out of the committee. At that time, the majority, the Democrats, killed his nomination in committee. I was floored. I could not believe it; one of the finest men, one of the finest Christians, one of the finest judges, one of the best unifiers we have ever had in the history of our country probably since LQC Lamar in the 1880s. He got defeated in committee. I thought at the time it was a shot at me, part of the politics we get around here, and that it would change with time; it was just a gratuitous backhand at me. I can say for sure Senator Daschle, my friend, was not comfortable with what happened there. The majority came back to the Republican side and Judge Pickering came to the floor and he was filibustered. Then it was Miguel Estrada. Then it was Priscilla Owen. Then a pattern developed. That is one reason some people say, look, if there is this option that it only takes 51 votes, why was it not done last year or 2 years ago or 4 years ago? Frankly, because I thought it was an aberration. I thought it was temporary. I could not believe this institution would besmirch, denigrate, and harass these nominees, turning the Senate not into an august, hallowed body of great deliberation but into a torture chamber, and yet here we are. I have tried to find a way to get out of this. I have tried to accept some of the blame I deserve, but that has already been done. We have to find a solution now and we have to do it soon. Can a compromise be worked out? Why, of course. They always can, by sundown. That would probably satisfy nobody totally, but everybody a little bit. If it does not happen, we have to get this over with. We have to vote. So what I thought was going to be an isolated incident now has become extreme. It has become systematic. It has become highly partisan. We have to deal with it. We probably should have already dealt with it. As majority leader, I worked closely with Senator Daschle to ensure each nominee who reached the Senate floor received an up-or-down vote. Some people said, all the judges did not get out of committee. The leaders do not dictate to the committees. We do not dictate to one Senator, let alone a committee of Senators. But when it came to the floor, through thick or thin and however difficult it was, we got it done, we got them confirmed. I will give an example. I filed cloture personally on President Clinton's nominee to the Federal district court in Utah, Brian Theodore Stewart. A cloture vote was in fact held to cut off an unnecessary and unfair filibuster on September 21, 1999. I voted for cloture to cut off the filibuster for this nominee because I believed, as I believe now, that it was important to hold an up-or-down vote on a nomination after it reached the Senate floor. Additionally, I would like to mention two other controversial nominees to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals nominated by President Clinton. Marsha Berzon and Richard Paez both had very serious problems that were raised during their nominations and that concerned Senators. Their nominations were certainly highly contentious, and the process was very slow. However, they did eventually come out of the Judiciary Committee and at the appropriate time I rose to file for cloture on both of these nominees in an effort to move the process forward toward a vote, against the wishes of a number of Members of my own caucus. I stood right there and said we are not going to filibuster Federal judicial nominees; we are not going to do it. If they come out of the committee, they are going to get an up-or-down vote. Now, I may vote against them but not on my watch are Republicans going to filibuster these nominees. On March 8, 2000, the Senate voted 86 to 13 to 1 to invoke cloture to cut off the filibuster on the nomination of Judge Berzon. Her nomination was confirmed the following day by a vote of 64 to 34 to 2. Also on March 8, 2000, the Senate voted 85 to 14 to 1 to invoke cloture on the nomination of Richard Paez. The next day, March 9, 2000, a motion to postpone indefinitely a vote on Paez was defeated 67 to 31 to 2. By the way, in the interest of full disclosure, I voted to delay it. I do not remember why, and I am embarrassed. I should not have. An indefinite postponement is the same as a filibuster. That was wrong. We should not have done it. He was later approved that very day 59 to 39 to 2. These two now serve in the Federal judiciary. They had lots of problems, in my mind, which I will not enumerate. There is no use rehashing that. But this is proof of the evidence when Republicans say we did not do it when we could have during the Clinton years, we did not allow filibusters. The number of President Clinton's judges who were blocked by filibusters, zero. Not under my watch or others'. I think it is time we bring this to conclusion. I think if we could ever get a time out, if we could ever find a way to stop the filibusters, deal with the magnificent seven that are still pending, this would fade away. That is the way it happens in the Senate. Oh, the clash is mighty and the roar is deafening. ``There is no way out of this valley of death.'' That is when it always seems to happen, that we find a way to stop the craziness and move forward in a responsible way. I have to talk a little bit about the nominees. I have met with some of them. I direct your attention to this picture. Why does he have a picture? I want to make a point. These are not numbers. These are not seven things. These seven nominees who have been renominated by the President are men and women and minorities who have had their reputations and their lives dragged through the mud--this one, Priscilla Owen, for up to 4 years. Maybe you could analyze the seven and say, that one has a little problem or that one has a little problem. I don't say they are perfect. None of us are. But I am telling you, you can't get much closer to perfect than this nominee, Priscilla Owen. That is why I could never agree to any deal that did anything but allow this lady to have an up- or-down vote on her nomination. She is from Texas. Maybe that is part of the problem, I don't know. She serves on the Texas Supreme Court. It seems like a good training ground before you move to the Federal judiciary. She graduated cum laude from Baylor University and cum laude from Baylor University Law School. She was a member of the Baylor Law Review. She was honored as the Baylor Young Lawyer of the Year, Baylor University Outstanding Young Alumna. After graduating from law school, she scored the highest score in the State when she took the Texas bar exam in 1977. She practiced law with one of the most prestigious law firms in the State of Texas, mostly commercial litigation, for 17 years. She has been on the Supreme Court of Texas for 10\1/2\ years, and the last time she ran she was endorsed by every major newspaper in the State and she received 84 percent of the vote. She has ruled hundreds of times, not always on the business side, sometimes on the consumer side. She has had to interpret law that has been difficult, but she has done it. She has done it fairly. She has done it most often with the majority of the court. By the way, even that hallowed American Bar Association--that I used to be a member of, but I dropped my membership for a number of reasons--gave her its highest rating. When you look at this lady's record, her brilliance, her family-- every way she has conducted herself, there is no justification for her not being confirmed or at least getting a vote. I am not going to go through the charges that are levied against her, partially because some of them are so bizarre and so ridiculous, but also because I have seen around here that if you repeat a misstatement often enough, it becomes fact. Here is an example. Justice Owen has been accused by some of the people here because of the fact that Justice Alberto Gonzales--now the Attorney General, then a supreme court justice in Texas--accused her of being engaged in an ``unconscionable act of judicial activism'' in one particular parental notice case where abortion was involved and she was interpreting a State law. That happened even though Justice Gonzales said that was not the case, that his words were twisted and misconstrued. When he said that, for him, in his concurring opinion, it would be an ``unconscionable act of judicial activism'' for any judge to bend the statute to advance his or her own personal views, even though ``the ramifications of such law and the results of the court's decision may be personally troubling,'' he was talking about himself. This is not a gratuitous shot at his colleague sitting on the bench, and he has tried to clarify it. It makes no difference. It continues to be repeated as fact among those who oppose this nomination. Look at this face. This lady has been through 4 years of hell. Why? I just don't get it. Somebody said she has a pro-business voting record. Is that something sinister? She has ruled, for instance, that patients who are injured should be able to pursue doctors. She has ruled on occasion for consumers. But, my goodness, is it an indictment if you are pro- business? I am the son of a shipyard pipefitter, union member, but I am pro-business because I figured out, like my daddy knew, if business didn't make a profit, if they went out of business, he was out of a job. So, there, she deserves a vote up or down. She will make a great Federal judge. This one is even more hard to explain to me. Janice Rogers Brown. I am not going to give her American dream story, but she has lived it: Born in Alabama, family moved to Sacramento when she was still in elementary school. She grew up in California, got an education, and worked hard. She graduated from California State University at Sacramento, with a bachelor in economics and received a law degree from UCLA Law School. She has served as Legal Affairs Secretary to Pete Wilson, the Governor of the State of California, Deputy Attorney General in the office of the California Attorney General, and she served on an intermediate California appellate court. She has been on the bench long enough where she has been appointed and sought reelection and she got 76 percent of the vote in California on reelection. That is not exactly a center or a center right constituency. They must have thought she was doing a good job; the first African-American woman in history on the Supreme Court of California. A great record. The American dream has been lived for this lady. Two days ago, when she came by my office, I apologized to her on behalf of the American people for the way the Senate has treated her. I am ashamed of what we did. What is the criticism? One of them, she is harsh on criminal defendants. Excuse me? The truth is, she is a conservative African-American woman. This is bad. ``How can we allow that to happen? That can't be.'' She has had some things to say in her remarks off the bench, that some of the Federal programs have had a counter-effect, not a positive effect. But she has been described by others as being brilliant and fair. Even a columnist who was being critical of her recently admitted that her opinions are consistently the most concise, engaging, well organized, and well reasoned. She wrote the majority of the decisions in 2002 for the California Supreme Court. She is writing with the majority. Again, this face is a human being. This is not a number. This lady has been tangled up in partisan politics for 2 years. This is wrong. That is why when people say to me, Oh, the institution will be damaged, my colleagues, I think we maybe protest too much, and we puff ourselves up a little bit too much. By the way, there are some things more important than the rules of an institution. I still think right and wrong should apply, just as it should in every other phase of our lives. What has happened to this lady, and this one, is wrong. I cannot be a part of a process that doesn't give them the vote that they deserve, up or down--now. If they are not confirmed, so be it. I have voted on the winning side and on the losing side. I have voted for judges and against judges. Most often they have been confirmed; occasionally not, and I have been berated by Democrats sometimes when I voted against some of the nominees. But the process used to work. It is broken now. Let's fix it. Let's fix it now. Let's do our job. Let's vote. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I rise to discuss 2 amendments to the Commerce Committee's title of this bill addressing the regulation of the household goods moving industry. The Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine, which I chair, developed a strong package to provide further protections to consumers that use movers to ship their belongings. Principally, our provisions are designed to address fraudulent and extortionary practices used by movers who take consumers' goods ``hostage'' and request exorbitant fees in exchange for releasing their worldly possessions.

Mr. LOTT. Senators Bond and Pryor have filed amendments to this section of the bill dealing with 2 important issues and I want to thank them for their hard work and interest in this topic. Senator Inouye and I worked with Senator Bond to craft a version of his amendment which I have offered and we are prepared to accept Senator Pryor's amendment with the understanding that we will continue to work together to perfect these provisions through the conference process with the House.

Mr. LOTT. Similarly, I know that Senator Bond has concerns with the language proposed by Senator Pryor that defines who ``household goods carriers'' are, and therefore who is subject to the new consumer regulations we've proposed. In particular, the Senator is concerned that this definition could impact traditional moving companies' entry into new markets, such as the ``u-pack'' and ``pod'' moving and storage services being offered today which might not be covered by this definition. We understand these concerns and will continue to work with Senator Bond to ensure that we craft a fair and workable definition of a ``household goods carrier'' through the conference process.

Mr. LOTT. Senator Pryor and Senator Bond, we understand your respective concerns and will work with you on these two issues as we hopefully proceed with his bill in Conference. clean trucks

Mr. LOTT. I thank the Senator from California for her leadership. I understand what she was trying to do with regard to rebuilt engines. However, such a provision would require additional regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency, which is outside the jurisdiction of the Commerce Committee. With all committees at the table during conference, we can look at ways to address this issue.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I would like to give notice that on April 27, 2005 the Committee on Rules & Administration reported an original bill to amend the regulatory and reporting structure of organizations registered under section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I rise to speak in opposition to the Allen amendment. We had this discussion last week, but we have a couple minutes each to sum up what is at stake. The language in the Senate Commerce Committee bill guarantees funding if a State does one thing, and that is have or pass a primary seatbelt law. We need to give incentives for people to use their seatbelts. We need to give incentives to the States if they do that. This is about doing the thing that would have the greatest effect on saving lives of anything we could do in this legislation, and we should go forward with it. Under the Allen amendment, a State has no certainty that any actions it takes to increase seatbelt use will result in an 85-percent or higher use rate. So that is a worthy goal, but very few States have been able to do that. We are trying to encourage more States to do better than they are. My own State only has a 63-percent seatbelt use, and I think we need to encourage more activity in the States. Only three States have ever reached the 85-percent use rate. The language we have in the bill has near unanimous support nationwide among traffic safety organizations from USTA to the Automobile Manufacturers Association to the American Automobile Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics. One thing I was impressed with when we had the hearings in the committee was the National Highway Safety Transportation Safety Administrator Jeff Runge, who is a doctor with expertise in this field. He said the Commerce highway safety bill will ``save more lives, and do it faster and cheaper than any other highway safety proposal Congress is likely to consider this decade.'' It would be a huge mistake to take away this incentive but in effect set a goal most States can't achieve and, therefore, we would not be able to save an estimated 1,200 or more lives a year. I yield the floor.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I actually came over to have a little discussion with the distinguished chairman of the full committee who has brought this legislation forth, Senator Inhofe. I thank him for the work he has been doing. We had an issue we have been discussing, and I think we have something identified to be helpful. I came to talk about the highway bill, and I will do it to this extent: We need a bill. It is an overdue bill. It is important to our country. It is important to have infrastructure. It is important for job creation. It is important for economic development. And it is important for safety. We ought to do this bill. I just cannot understand why the Senate still heaves away from getting this extremely popular, overdue, and highly necessary piece of legislation passed. I urge my colleagues, if they have good amendments, let's do them. If we can't get it completed this afternoon, let's do it as soon as possible. It is critical for our country. We are speaking on time on the highway bill, but actually other subjects have been introduced. I would like to comment on that.

Mr. LOTT. I am glad to yield.

Mr. LOTT. I want this legislation so bad, I would even stop talking myself. That would be a major sacrifice, but yes, I would be glad to yield. But since the opportunity presents itself and I missed the opportunity to engage in the discussion an hour or so ago--not that it was needed--I have had very little to say on the floor of the Senate about the discussion about judges. There are a lot of different viewpoints. I am not going to refer to what others have said and I am not going to suggest I am a great constitutional scholar or that I am so steeped in all of the rules and traditions of the Senate. But I have studied this issue. I have been in the Congress for now going on 33 years. I have read the Constitution over and over again, particularly on this subject, article II, section 2. I am somewhat familiar with the traditions and rules of the Senate. I am chairman of the Rules Committee. I have been in leadership roles. I must say that while we have had our disagreements and while I have seen us make mistakes and while I have seen injustices heaped on each other, on the people who are affected by issues we deal with, I don't believe I have ever seen anything as unfair and wrong as what I have seen happening to these circuit court nominees over the past 4 years. This has been going on for 4 years. I was stunned when it started happening with Judge Charles Pickering of Mississippi and Justice Priscilla Owen of Texas. I thought maybe that was something aimed at me or maybe it was aimed at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, or maybe it was a fit of anger about some of the nominees from President Clinton who didn't get out of the Judiciary Committee, but it would be a passing break from tradition. But no, this has continued right on through the 108th. We need to find a resolution that is fair to all concerned. I wanted to correct a couple misimpressions, perpetuated primarily by the media. The proposal to put the tradition back in place that we don't filibuster Federal judicial nominees is not an end of the filibuster. Some of the media--accidentally, I am sure--suggested this is a debate over whether to have the filibuster. No, it is limited to the Federal judiciary. It won't affect our ability to continue to filibuster legislation or other executive branch nominations, although I have to confess, I think there should be some reasonable limits on that also. I am not a guy who gets so caught up in the institutional rights that I forget considering the rights of people and right and wrong. Does that have a place here in the Senate? These good men and women and minorities have been maligned, mistreated, have had their lives disrupted, some of them for 4 years. Some of the best possible nominees such as Miguel Estrada said: Well, I have to go on with my life. And he withdrew. There has been a misimpression given about how this would limit the filibuster. It would only apply to these judicial nominees. The other thing is, Senator Frist and the Republicans are considering changing the rules. Actually what we are considering doing is putting tradition back in place. The tradition has not been to filibuster Federal nominees. The tradition has not been to filibuster appellate court nominees. Not one time during the 6 years or so I served as leader did we have a filibuster. We are trying to go back to where we were. You can argue over this example or that example or we should retain that right. No, that has not been the right. That has not been the tradition. What has happened is wrong. I saw somebody last night on one of the talk shows saying everything that happens in Washington is about something else. This lady suggested this whole debate is about the next Supreme Court nomination. Maybe that is true. Maybe there are a couple other things it is about, but in the meantime, innocent and qualified, good people are having their lives disrupted and smeared by this process. I acknowledge this sort of thing has been going on ever since I have been in the Senate. Every time we have a filibuster or kill somebody or embarrass somebody in our process, whether it is Senator John Tower to be Secretary of Defense or Clarence Thomas to be on the Supreme Court, Judge Bork as a nominee, every time we seem to drop down another level. Sure, a lot of the Clinton nominees were held up in the Judiciary Committee. Maybe this is retaliation for that. What is going to be the next retaliation? How low can we go before we stop this tit for tat? Now is the time to end it and go back toward greater comity between the parties and the people involved in these discussions. I haven't been sitting on the sideline saying: Let's impose this rule. Let's comply with the Constitution, which I think we should do. I want to make that perfectly clear. I have one goal and only one goal, ultimately, in this area, and that is to stop filibusters of these Federal judges. I don't particularly care how we get there, but that is the right thing to do. I am determined to get there. As chairman of the Rules Committee, we had hearings on and moved legislation 2 years ago, sponsored by Senator Frist and Senator Zell Miller, to try to come to a fair conclusion about how these judges would be handled. It was a process that said the first vote on cloture would require 60 votes, then 57, then 55, but ultimately get to an up- or-down vote, a majority, but an elongated process to make sure everything that needed to be said could be said. It could be fully scrubbed, and at some point you get to conclusion. A filibuster, the way it is being used, is guaranteeing we never get to conclusion. It goes on and on from one Congress to the next. We reported out a bill. That apparently wasn't acceptable to the minority, the Democrats. So I started looking for other solutions. I did talk to Senator Ben Nelson and others: Is there some way we can address some of these concerns; is there some way we can guarantee that these nominees are not unfairly held permanently in the Judiciary Committee? We came up with a process that said after 90 days, if the appropriate blue slips have been returned by the Senators from the State of the nominee affected, then they would come to the floor. They could not be held in committee indefinitely, but if there was a problem that came up and they needed an additional 90 days, agreed to by the chairman and ranking member, then it could be extended. Ultimately, they would have to come out of committee and be considered by the full Senate. That would address one of the concerns that has been pointed out by Senator Reid and Senator Leahy and other Democrats. There is some merit to what they are saying. Let's fix that. The second problem was freedom of speech, the great tradition in the Senate of endless debate. Give me a break. At any rate, to say the majority leader could not even file cloture for at least 24 hours after a nomination was called up--it could be longer--and then he could file cloture, and after 2 days we would eventually get to an up-or-down vote, but have a week for debate. By the way, Senator Frist subsequently suggested that be moved even further. Every Senator would get an hour if he wanted it, full debate. I hate the thought of that, too, having to listen to 99 other speakers on a judge. Think about the sacrifice the majority leader has to make. When the majority leader has to give 100 hours to anything, how many judges could do you that on? It would be another impediment. But we would have full debate and then a vote. That was the key. Fairness on the committee, full debate on the floor, but ultimately a vote. That was rejected. A lot of different ideas have been explored. A lot of Senators would like to find a way to stop the way we have been doing business but doing it where everybody could have some degree of comfort. I think time is running out. I think we have to make a decision on this and move on. Some people would say: Oh, my goodness, the Senate will be stopped, slowed down, with different agendas offered. How will we get anything done? The last time I checked, we have done four bills this year. We are not exactly burning up the woods. How do you slow down from almost a dead stop? So there is a little bit of a temerity--I will not use names to describe what the Senate is doing. I think we need to work together. We have done it many times across the aisle. We have worked with Senator Baucus of Montana on issue after issue. Senator Grassley won't have it any other way, to his credit. We ought to find more ways to do it. We ought to find a way to do it on Social Security. We have done it before. It took courage. We have done it on trade and we are going to do it again. It will take courage, sacrifice, and we are going to have to work to find a solution. We can do that here. But I guess the thing that really gets me the most is when we put our description of tradition and the great institution ahead of human beings. When we have this debate, I see faces, people; I see Janice Rogers Brown, from California, who has an incredible story to tell. She is being maligned. Is she a conservative African-American woman? Yes. Is that disqualifying? It should not be. You may not agree with her opinion of Franklin Roosevelt, but isn't she entitled to an opinion? All the while, perhaps, she is ruling very fairly or even ruling against her personal beliefs, if that is what the court precedent calls for. Mr. President, I don't necessarily mean this as critical of the institution or any one individual, but I think there is an awful lot of pontificating that has gone on too long here. Priscilla Owen, a supreme court justice in Texas, deserves a vote. She deserves to be confirmed. Somebody said she is too pro-business, she has a conservative viewpoint. Is that now disqualifying? I don't think so. I have voted for judges I didn't agree with, perhaps on labor law. I point out over and over again that I voted to confirm Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Certainly, she would not have been my pick, but she was qualified, experienced, and had proper decorum, and she was ethical. President Clinton won the election and so, based on that, I voted for her. Surely, we can find a way to work this out. I think it has gone on long enough. I have tried not once, twice, but three times to find a way that we can get the right result, which is an up-or-down vote on these judges, and I have not been able to be successful yet. A lot of people have tried, and I think they deserve recognition. Those of us who have worked to try to find compromise have not been working against the interests of our leadership. We told them what we were trying to do. That is in one of the finer traditions of the Senate. But I cannot find a solution that I think is fair, other than to make it clear that these nominees deserve an up-or-down vote. The Senate should vote. Some of them won't be confirmed, I predict. One or two of the seven--the magnificent seven--that have been renominated may not be confirmed. I would not be surprised to see that. I have voted for judges and against judges, but all of a sudden we don't want to do that. Let the Senate do what it is supposed to do. Let's ante up and kick in. Let's vote and solve this issue, get it done, and let's move on and legislate for the best interests of our children and grandchildren. I yield the floor.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up amendments Nos. 583, 631, and 733 en bloc. I ask unanimous consent that amendments Nos. 631 and 733 be modified with the changes at the desk and agreed to en bloc. The amendments have been cleared by the managers on both sides of the aisle.

Mr. LOTT. Let me withhold on the agreement until we get final clearance. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, for the record, I withdraw my unanimous consent request. There was a misunderstanding that was involved. We are working on that, and we hope we can get the package agreed to later.

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

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the Allen amendment, and I will repeat what Senator Warner had to say: I rise today to strongly support the safety belt provisions in the Inhofe substitute and to urge my colleagues to reject the amendment offered by my colleague Senator Allen. I thought that would be a pretty interesting statement to put into the Record at this point. I remember, though, Senator Warner did a lot of work on this subject a couple of years ago. He has been involved in Transportation bills, highway bills, but I remember he had an amendment that would actually, in effect, provide sanctions if one did not have seatbelts. I voted against that because I do not think that is the way to get States such as mine to do something that could be very important in terms of safety. Before he leaves the floor, I want to also commend Senator DeWine for his work on these safety issues. In the bill last year, he had a lot of provisions that he worked with Senator McCain and others on to get them to include in the Commerce portion of the highway bill. This is an area where he has worked, he feels passionately about it and he came back this year and said we want to work together. I think if my colleagues will look at what we put in the safety provisions from the Commerce Committee, from the Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Subcommittee that I chair, now a part of the substitute, they will be pleased with the safety provisions. This is a key part of the highways and transportation in our country. If we just look at the pavement, if we just look at the jobs, if we just look at economic development, we will be missing a big part of the equation, and that is safety and lives that can be saved or lost depending on what we do. Senator Stevens, Senator Inouye, and I met with people on all sides of this equation: highway people, safety advocates, State representatives, labor, the entire mix, and we developed these provisions very carefully. So I want to thank Senator DeWine for his effort. Because I have done that, and because I have worked on this issue, I feel very strongly in opposition to the amendment offered by Senator Allen. Usually, Senator Allen and I would be together on something like this, but my opposition this time is very simple and that is we need people to use seatbelts; they save lives. I come from a State that is one of the lowest users of seatbelts in the Nation--63 percent. I am one of those who has been slow to come to the usage of seatbelts, but I guarantee you my kids know how important they are. They will not let me crank the car up until everybody is buckled in, including especially my grandchildren. Then, as I have gotten into it more and more, the statistics are clear that these seatbelts will make a difference. In 2003, about 17,000 people killed in motor vehicle crashes were not buckled up, and nearly 500 of those deaths were children. Would it absolutely have saved them if they had been buckled up? Maybe not. But even if it had been just a few hundred, and it probably was more like thousands, that makes a huge difference. Many of those 17,000 deaths were preventable. A passenger wearing a seatbelt is 45 percent less likely to be killed when involved in an accident. For light trucks such as SUVs, the figure is higher. The risk of fatal injury is reduced by 60 percent. Traffic safety experts nationwide agree that the most effective short-term way of reducing traffic fatalities is to increase the seatbelt use. Getting people to change their driving habits is a major challenge that requires more than just airing public service announcements or distributing safety materials. Over the years, States have tried many different ways to increase seatbelt usage. Experience has shown the most effective means to increase seatbelt use is to enact the primary seatbelt law. In fact, each percentage point increase in seatbelt use saves about 270 additional lives. If every State in the country enacted the primary seatbelt law, more than 1,200 lives would be saved every single year. Today, in the 22 jurisdictions--21 States and the District of Columbia--that have primary enforcement laws, the average seatbelt use rate is 11 points higher than in States without this primary seatbelt law. I want to emphasize my State does not have it. I have talked to State officials. I want to encourage the State to do that, and this provision will do that. I will explain that a little bit more in a moment. To give an example of how powerful an effect this will have, consider the recent experience in the State of Illinois which passed a primary seatbelt law in just 2003. In just one year after Illinois passed a primary seatbelt enforcement law, the seatbelt use rate jumped from 74 percent to 80 percent. Increases in seatbelt use produced real results. In Washington State, traffic fatalities declined by 9 percent in the first year after passing a primary seatbelt law. Yet there are still 29 States that have not passed it. This grant program will provide incentives for those States to take the steps needed to save lives. It also rewards States that are able to achieve a 90-percent seatbelt use rate without a primary seatbelt enforcement law. States that have already done it but show movement and get to 90 percent, there is a reward, an incentive, for them to do that. What we are really worried about is those 29 States that have not done it that are down in the 60--or even less--percent use of seatbelts. This program rewards the States that are able to achieve that 90 percent. Senator Allen's amendment says that unless a State gets 85 percent, they do not get any of the incentives. In my State, it is 63 percent, and we are not going to get to 85 percent for many years to come. We will not ever reach the percentage or get the incentives that would encourage us to do it. The seatbelt performance grants offer States the flexibility to use much of the funds on highway safety infrastructure projects. That is the most important safety provision we could possibly pass: Better roads, wider roads, more lanes, more bridges, safer bridges. That is the ultimate safety provision. Seatbelts and other things that can be done, the construction of vehicles, make a difference too. The flexibility funding allows States to identify and address the greatest highway safety hazard. They can improve dangerous intersections, enhance railroad signage or redesign dangerous stretches of road. Combining a primary seatbelt enforcement law with addressing highway safety hazards is a win-win situation. More States would reap the benefit under the Senate Commerce provision than under the Allen amendment. Today, only 14 States have an 85-percent seatbelt use rate required to qualify for the Allen amendment. The Allen amendment is also a budget buster. If all States were to enact primary seatbelt laws, the cost of the Commerce Committee bill would be $597 million. If all States were to meet 85-percent belt use under the Allen amendment, it would cost $778 million. The additional $181 million needed to fund the amendment would have to come out of the highway trust fund. We thought about this carefully. We listened to administration officials. It is very clear it is the view of the administration, the position of the administration, that we need to encourage greater use of seatbelts. We need States to pass this primary seatbelt law. It will save lives, and I believe the Allen amendment will undermine a very strong part of this legislation. I urge my colleagues, when we do take this back up, to look at this very carefully. We will vote on it next week and you will have a chance to think it through. It is not about, Do I get a little more this way than that way as a State; we are talking about lives here. We are talking about lives, and a life in Georgia is as important as a life in Mississippi or Virginia or any State in the Nation. I feel strongly about this. By the way, one of the reasons why I feel strongly, I believe, is I am among the converted. I didn't just get here years ago; I moved gradually toward this. Finally, the statistics, the evidence, and the deaths are too much weight for me to reject, or not accept. This is a way to get a significant increase in my State, and States all across the country, in seatbelt usage. I yield the floor.

Mr. LOTT

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

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. LOTT. I have been in the cloakroom waiting for the opportunity to speak on the highway bill and to speak on behalf of the commerce safety portion of that highway bill. Are we now going to turn to the highway legislation?

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I am pleased this afternoon to talk about title VII of this very important Surface Transportation Improvement Act of 2005. I remind my colleagues that the highway and transportation legislation, TEA-21, that we passed back in 1998, effectively expired September of 2003--not 2004 but 2003. We are now on the sixth extension of this very important legislation. This week we need to complete action on this very important bill. It is about building decent highways and bridges and transit authorities, but it is about more than that. If we do not have decent infrastructure, if we do not have decent highways and bridges, if we do not have transit capability, if we do not have border roads, we are not going to have economic development. Most importantly, and that is why I am here as the chairman of the Surface Transportation and Merchant Maritime Subcommittee, safety provisions are not improved and extended. We should care an awful lot about this. The safety portion of the legislation was reported out of the Commerce Committee, with the support of Chairman Ted Stevens and the ranking Democrat, who is referred to in our committee as cochairman, Senator Inouye. It is bipartisan, and I believe it is very strong legislation. I care about the safety portion of it, and maybe I care about the safety provisions more than some people because I have had a family tragedy myself that has affected my thinking on this. My father was killed in an automobile accident, without a seatbelt, involving alcohol, on a narrow, two-lane, hilly road. This section of this legislation would affect all of that. It would give additional incentives for States to do more to stop driving while under the influence of alcohol. It would give incentives for people to use seatbelts. It would improve our roads and bridges and widen our roads. So this is personal with me, and I care an awful lot about it. Before I get to that section of the legislation, I want to talk about the broader perspective. When we look at history and at infrastructure and the ancient Roman Empire, many would say it was their advanced infrastructure and efficient highways that allowed them to build the empire that they had. That highway system was critical to the expansion and protection of their empire. It allowed rapid troop movement. It facilitated trade. It enabled ease of movement for diplomats and couriers. It provided rapid expansion of the Roman sphere of influence. It afforded military protection from invaders and facilitated communication between distant parts of the empire. We do not want to replicate everything we saw in the Roman Empire, but it also is interesting to note that that empire eventually went away, and some people say it was partially attributable to the fact that they quit building the infrastructure; they let the country start decaying and the infrastructure go into disrepair. I think that is what we are beginning to experience in America. One of the reasons why we have been able to continue to grow, do well, and move around this country is because of our infrastructure: highways, bridges, railroads and ports and harbors. The whole package is critical. It is what enables America to have our great system. Whether people are from Maine, Mississippi, California, Virginia, Florida or Washington, we have access to virtually all the same products, and it is because of our infrastructure. On September 11 and in the days immediately following, we saw that our highways were absolutely critical to movement of goods and our people and that we need to have a balanced and complete infrastructure package. So it is time that we act. Our interstate system in America is 50 years old. States have been doing their part, but a lot of the States are struggling with their budgets and a lot of the highway departments have been living on these extensions. So we have lost an opportunity. We have lost ground. Thirty-two percent of our major roads are in poor or mediocre condition, almost a third. Almost 30 percent of our Nation's bridges are structurally deficient and obsolete. Quite frankly, I am afraid where we are headed. If we do not do something about this, there will be a loss of the jobs that would have been generated, and it would contribute to the slowing down of our economy. TEA-21 did an awful lot for our country, but it is time that we move to the next step. The U.S. Department of Transportation has said that for every $1 billion in Federal transportation infrastructure investment, 47,500 jobs would be created. So just think about that when looking at what is involved in this bill. We are talking about many thousands of jobs being created. We need to have this 5-year extension. In the general sense, I urge my colleagues to work together in a bipartisan way and work with the administration to get this legislation completed before this next extension expires. The portion of the bill that I am directly responsible for is from the Commerce Committee, and it is the safety provisions that would be in the reauthorization. I will describe what is in this Safety Improvement Act of 2005. It is a comprehensive reauthorization of many of the Department of Transportation safety programs that we passed in 1998. It includes trucking and bus safety, highway and vehicle safety and hazardous material safety. The bill also includes provisions to protect consumers from fraud in the moving industry and to reauthorize the boat safety and sport fishing programs. It is designed to improve the safety of all of our constituents and its enactment will save lives and reduce injuries. Just last month, the Department of Transportation released preliminary traffic fatality data for 2004. The good news is the fatality rate on our highways is down slightly, but that data still shows there is much to be done. The programs authorized in this bill are authorized to do that. Through the leadership of Chairman Stevens, we have met with all of the interested parties in business, labor, safety advocates, as well as State representatives. We made sure everybody had some input in the drafting of this legislation. We still have to make note of the almost 18,000, or 56 percent, of the people who died last year in highway accidents were not wearing a seatbelt. The quickest and most effective way of increasing safety is to get people to wear their seatbelts. So we have included a program to give States incentive grants to pass primary seatbelt enforcement laws. Some people would like to turn this around and say if States do not pass the seatbelt acts, we are going to take money away from them. That sort of approach has been tried in the past. It did not work, and it will not work now. I believe in States such as mine, with an incentive to pass these primary seatbelt laws, there is a good chance we would comply. But if we are told we are going to be punished if we do not, the odds are we will not. So we have drafted this in a way that I believe every State will strive to have significant increases in their safety numbers and a decline in the fatalities on their highways. So we will be supporting this provision in our part of the highway bill. The data also shows that alcohol is a factor in almost 40 percent of all crashes. Funds are included for States to enforce drunk driving laws and include incentives to toughen their laws. These safety programs should have been authorized almost 2 years ago, but due to disputes we have not been able to improve our safety provisions, improve our safety incentives, and therefore some of the culpability for the amount and severity of accidents and the deaths should be placed at our doorsteps. We need to work with the States to ensure these programs make sense and they are carried out effectively. We should have funding levels that reflect the commitment that we are making to highways and to safety on our highways. I hope the Senate will pass this legislation this week and that Congress will pass the final conference report this month so the States do not miss the summer's construction season. I again thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for working with us to develop the safety provisions that will be included in the substitute package I believe the chairman will offer.

Mr. LOTT. What is the present situation that would block the Senate from moving forward with this legislation and amendments being offered? Can't you just ask consent to go to the legislation?