Lisa Murkowski

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, another individual who came to me through the energy front, if you will, is a gentleman by the name of Michael Pawlowski. Most of you who know me and know my chief of staff don't know that my chief of staff's name is actually Michael Pawlowski because nobody refers to him as that. They refer to him simply as ``Fish''--no last name, just ``Fish.'' And I think that is actually somewhat appropriate for my office, where we celebrate a lot of good things with fish. I was fortunate to be able to share some filets of salmon with some colleagues as Christmas appreciation, and I would say nothing says ``thank you'' more than fish. This is now my opportunity to say thank you to my Fish. Fish came to Washington, DC, back in 2015, when we brought him on to the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Again, all good things come through ENR. We brought him back to be senior policy adviser in 2015, and he served in that capacity until I brought him over to be my chief of staff in 2016. He has served me here in my personal office since that time. Fish is an Alaskan through and through. His family has lived in Alaska for five generations. He was raised in Anchorage. He has worked for multiple State legislators. He has worked in our State government. He has worked on budget and energy policies. He was deputy commissioner of revenue. He has worked to help build up so many different energy projects--the Alaska LNG project. He served on the AIDEA board, on the Alaska Energy Authority. He has been involved in so many different aspects of what is making our State move that when he first agreed to come back to Washington, DC, I figured I would be able to keep him back here for just a couple years. Somebody with this much potential, somebody with this much on the ball--how was I possibly going to be able to keep him here? I figured out how to do it--just make sure he could get back to Alaska for work throughout the summer so he could do the fishing that he really, really wants to do first and foremost. But that is just the human, personal side of him. What Fish has provided me is a view towards relationships and how we operate in business and professional relationships here in the Senate, working with different offices. He has worked to build relationships because he truly and genuinely cares about the people he is talking to. He is genuinely interested. He has taken upon himself the mentoring of our youngest staff, more particularly. In the order that we have in many of the offices, you have levels of seniority, and oftentimes the younger staff, those who may have just graduated from college, come to Washington, DC, and they may be answering phones and they may be answering letters, but they don't feel like they have a real say in what is going on in the decisionmaking and are kind of out of the loop. And Fish--Fish decided that he was going to bring them into the loop with what he called ``morning stand-ups.'' They were designed for the young legislative correspondents to come on in, and we will just kind of tell you what is going on. You can ask questions. We will talk about process. We will talk about issues. And they were not required meetings but more informational. I think now everybody comes to the morning stand-ups just because the communication that goes back and forth is so uplifting to so many. Because of the relationships and how he conducts himself, his level of professionalism, Fish is respected within the business community, the Native community, and by the political types. He has become viewed as one of these guys--if you want to talk about proposals where you are looking to bring Republicans and Democrats together, Fish is there. Fish is part of those discussions. He is engaged with the bipartisan chiefs. He works to build those relationships across the aisle--not because he is looking for something but because he knows that is how we are going to get something done. And when we can get something done that benefits Alaska, it is ultimately going to benefit all. He is a brilliant thinker--I mean, just a brilliant thinker with a strategic mind. He is one of these guys who can come up with things that I swear nobody else has thought about. I was reading an article--this is something that was published a few years ago by a former teacher and mentor of his from college, and this is from Lynn Paulson. It provides a quote from Fish talking about his educational background at Alaska Pacific University. He said: I have learned to think strategically in a way that is unique and invaluable and has allowed me to do anything, from developing financing for renewable energy programs to negotiating multibillion-dollar deals. Lynn Paulson goes on to say that Fish ``has the temperament to be in the middle of this highly charged and polarized arena and to emerge unruffled . . . supremely well informed and his trenchant logic.'' These are words that others have used to describe him. But when I think about how Fish will take an idea--whether it was from a constituent when we were working on the 2017 tax bill--and provide assistance to our Native corporations to be able to better utilize their resources, really brainstorming to come up with what we now have in law that we refer to as settlement trusts--Fish is one of those individuals who--you know his mind is just on fire all the time. But he doesn't present as ``I have the best idea, and you need to listen to me.'' He takes the good from so many. He builds and uplifts and empowers, and that is good leadership. That is management. Fish gets frustrated every now and again because not everybody communicates the way he does. Not everybody is a relationship builder. And he will say: Pick up the phone. Just go talk to the person. This building isn't that big. Put your device aside. Don't send a text. Get up from your desk, and go across and talk. That may be old school, but let me tell you, it has worked extraordinarily well for this man. I mentioned that Fish's passion is fishing; thus the name. He likes to spend a lot of quiet time on the river just out where it is cold and it is clear, or it is wet and you are with the water and you are with the fish, and I think it gives him a lot of time to do some just deep, deep thinking. He collects his thoughts. He is able to process and to really dream. So when he comes back to the real world where it is busy and loud, he has this reserve within him that he draws on, and it helps. It helps him present these ideas and the vision that he is able to articulate. But like all good Alaskans, we seem to find our way back home, like a salmon returning to its stream. And Fish is going to be returning. I have no doubt he will continue to do great things for the people he loves, and I think he knows that we love him and will miss him, as we will miss Brian Hughes and as we will miss so many great colleagues who will be leaving us at the end of this year. I have taken time on the floor today to recognize some of those individuals who make us as Members stronger and better able to do the jobs we do. With that, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, speaking of moving, I wanted to take a few minutes on the floor this afternoon to recognize a couple of individuals who are moving on. We have heard some floor speeches in these past several weeks from colleagues who have been with us, some for decades, like Senator Alexander, Senator Enzi, and some who were with us for not quite as long, Senator Jones. We have had an opportunity to hear from them and to share our thanks, but I think we all know that as Members of Congress, Members here in the Senate, we are as good as our staffs--the staff who help guide us, who help give us the information, who work with us as we not only help to build policy but just kind of probe and develop and encourage us. The work that our teams do for us is considerable, and it is appreciated, and we need to show that thanks and appreciation. I want to talk about two gentlemen today, and I want to start first with a longtime friend and a longtime member of the Senate, a gentleman who has provided absolutely outstanding service to the Senate and to the State of Alaska, and that is Brian Hughes, an Alaskan who has worked tirelessly for our State. He has served as my staff director on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee for the past several years. Brian has been here a long time. In my view, he has been kind of a fixture on energy issues, and many of you know him. But Brian is going to be leaving on a well-deserved sabbatical when this Congress adjourns. He says he is going to spend some time with his sister and brother-in-law. They have 4-year-old twins out in California, and I know he dotes on them. I am excited for his next steps. He is going to figure out where he is going to be going next, taking a breather right now, which is important. But Brian is one of those types of individuals who are very humble. He is always giving the credit to others. I did not want Brian's Senate service to conclude without giving it and Brian himself the recognition that he has assiduously avoided for years. Brian first came to the Senate during his college years at Washington State. His previous summer jobs were working up on Alaska's North Slope and on commercial fishing boats. In 2004, he qualified for Senator Ted Stevens' intern program. I am very familiar with Senator Ted's intern program because I, too, was an intern for Ted Stevens. Brian was pretty much a standout, though. He was there not only once, but he participated in two successful intern summers. Even before he finished his studies in finance, Senator Stevens said: Why don't you just come back? And Brian, in his characteristic generosity, skipped the fun of his final semester and returned instead to Washington, DC, to work full time here in the Senate while finishing his degree remotely. It was true to form for Brian because he is an extraordinarily hard worker. It wasn't only the Alaskans, though, who recognized Brian's talent. Less than a year and a half after he had come back and with the blessing of Senator Stevens, Senator Domenici ``poached'' Brian to work on the Energy Committee staff. I had the opportunity to work with Senator Domenici when I first came to the Senate, and so I first met Brian at that time. Brian came over to the Energy Committee with Senator Domenici. He pretty much has gone through just about every job on the committee. He took a brief timeout in 2012 to serve as a speechwriter for Senator Romney's Presidential campaign, but other than that, he has been there throughout. Every step of the way, Brian has distinguished himself as an original thinker and a voracious reader. I don't know where he finds the time to do all of the reading that he does on top of all the work he does. I think he doesn't sleep. He is an eloquent writer and a versatile high-achiever. So when I had the opportunity in 2017, it was pretty much a natural and obvious pick to appoint Brian as staff director for the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. During Brian's tenure, we have had some pretty considerable and notable successes and victories that I will look back on for a long, long time, the efforts that he led relating to development and conservation of our natural resources and modernizing America's energy laws. Brian oversaw the staff work leading to enactment of the Dingell Act. He helped ensure that a talented group of nominees were confirmed to their posts in the executive branch. He was also very key, very central to the small ENR team that drafted the legislation to open up Alaska's 1002 Area to responsible oil and gas development. As we are working to conclude the business here in the Congress-- knock on wood--Brian will be able to add the Energy bill to his list of accomplishments as we seek to close that out. This is something we have been working on in the committee now for over a dozen years to update and to modernize our Nation's energy policies, and I am pleased to be at this point and to know that it will be Brian who will be bringing it home for this Energy bill. Although Brian has a list of legislative and administrative wins that speak for itself, his true gift, his talent is writing and storytelling. For years now, when anybody on the Energy staff is writing a particular document, they take their best work, but they won't just end it there; they go to Brian. Every time, without fail, he will take their work, and he will move it to the next level by adding what they call ``the Brian gloss,'' usually driving home the point more effectively when he throws in an anecdote, a funny story, or a joke or whatever, but it is just ``the Brian gloss.'' Brian has a little bit of a sense of humor. As I say, he works very hard, but he doesn't let the seriousness of the work take over. We were working on an energy bill back in 2016, and we had been on the floor for a couple of weeks. There was an amendment that was pending for a voice vote, and it had to do with wild horses. Just prior to the vote, Brian and I were talking in the cloakroom, and he jokingly said to me: You know, when the ayes and the nays are called, you should say ``nay'' like a horse. Of course, I am not going to say that on the floor of the Senate. So then it came down, and the yeas and nays were requested, and I don't know where it came from, but I literally blurted out ``neighhh'' without realizing that my microphone was on. I was leading the bill there. The whole Chamber heard it. I turned beet red. I looked straight back at Brian, who was sitting on the bench with several of his staff, just laughing. Yeah, Brian, thank you for that one. I know that I am going to be looking back very fondly on the time Brian spent on my team. In part, that will be because Brian exemplifies three principles to which congressional staff who excel consistently adhere. The first is that staff must be well prepared, honest, and straightforward. I have always, always been able to count on Brian to just be straight with me, ``shoot me straight.'' He knows the facts, good and bad, and he shares them no matter what. Second is that you have to work hard and treat everyone on both sides of the aisle with respect and fairness. I think Brian's successes are the direct result of the many strong relationships that he has forged even as he has relentlessly pursued his long list of to-do's. Everyone recognizes that Brian is one of those guys who is a workhorse. He is not a show horse. Finally, the best staff discharge their delegated authority wisely and to good effect, and Brian really takes that to heart. He constantly reminds those around him that only Senators are Senators, even if sometimes people would have it otherwise. I have been fortunate enough to have been on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee since I came to the Senate 18 years ago. It is the best committee out there. I have been privileged now to chair the committee for 6 years, and prior to that, I was privileged to be the ranking member on that committee for 6 years. Everybody--everybody--on the ENR Committee works their tail off. They are hard workers. They are an extraordinary team. But I think that work ethic is set by our staff directors. I have been so blessed to have staff directors who show and model that work ethic, and Brian has done that over the years. Whether on a late night or an early morning call on pending legislation or a trip to check up on our volcano monitoring systems, Brian has been there at my side as an indispensable aide and an inspiration to all of my colleagues. He really is one of those extraordinary staff who helped me refine my thinking, hone my voice, multiply my strengths, overcome my weaknesses, and really helped serve the people of Alaska and our country. So, Brian, I want to say a very genuine and sincere thank-you for the years you have devoted, not just to me but the years you have devoted to the Senate and the years you have devoted to our home State of Alaska and to the Nation. I hope that rather than being up at 2 a.m. trying to resolve a scoring issue, the only things that will be keeping you up at night will be the Yellowstone supervolcano and your little niece and nephew. I will miss your leadership, your wit, and your friendship. Brian, I speak for so many here in the Senate when I wish you a well- earned break and a confident and bright future. I have been blessed to have extraordinary leadership on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and I am going to miss Brian and so many of the team. I am not leaving the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, but I have maxed out, termed-out in terms of chairmanship or ranking member. So it is a different place for me, but I am still going to be involved with so many who continue to do good, strong things on the energy front.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I had an opportunity to listen to my friend and colleague from the State of Ohio outline in great detail the efforts that a bipartisan group has been working on for just a month now. It was just a month ago, I was reminded--November 17, apparently-- that I had an opportunity to invite some colleagues over to my house for dinner and conversation. And while it wasn't pizza, it didn't make any difference what we were eating. It was all about the conversation and what we could do to be responsive to the urgency of the need. As my friend from Ohio has said, people in Ohio are suffering. People in Alaska are suffering. People around the country are suffering. And they are looking to us for answers and for hope. I felt on Monday that there was that sense of hope that we could offer. It is not the end-all and be-all in terms of a legislative proposal, but it was a dozen Members, bipartisan--Republicans and Democrats from this body, as well as Republicans and Democrats from the House--coming together over the course of a month, hours on Zoom, digging into the details and the issues in a way that, as someone who has been part of this body now for 18 years, I have not had the opportunity to be as engaged in every level of the debate and aspect as we were in these conversations. The Senator from Ohio, while he might not have been at that dinner, was with us every step of the way and was truly leading on the negotiations when it came to the liability provisions and the input in so many other areas. But what we were able to outline, given a framework of how we can be responsive to the pandemic and the economic crisis at hand, focusing on the most vulnerable--those who have lost their jobs, those who have a small business that is open but just barely open because there are no customers or because the limitations on your restaurant are so small you can barely even afford to keep your doors open--to be responsive to those who have lost their jobs, to those who are looking at the first of January and wondering if they are going to be able to stay in their home or in their apartment, to those families who have children at home who haven't been in a classroom since March of this year, for those rural healthcare providers that have been struggling as they have tried to meet the crush of demand and need within their small hospitals. What we tried to do was build a package that was responsive to the emergency at hand. And as Senator Portman has noted, this was not designed to be a stimulus bill. This is not designed to be the end-all, be-all for how we move forward. It is targeted emergency relief. What we were able to present on Monday, which I felt was so hopeful, were not only the debate and the contours of the framework but then to actually put that into legislative text--5 or 6 inches of legislative language, a bill--a bill for this body to consider, a path to move us forward at a time when it is so incredibly critical. Also on Monday, we were met with hope because the vaccine--the long- promised vaccine--has come about in extraordinarily short order, historic efforts by so many to get the development to this point, to get the approval, the safe approval, and now moving forward to distribution. The headline in our largest newspaper yesterday was ``Morale gets a boost'' as vaccine arrives. And, boy, do we need a morale boost. This is a dark time in Alaska right now. The sun sets about, I don't know, maybe about 3:45 in the afternoon right now, so it makes for a short day. But we are used to short days because we know that in the darkest times of winter, there is going to come that time when things start to change and the days actually begin to get longer; the sunlight is with us more and more. And as Alaskans are considering the very deep, deep economic strife that we are in right now, we know that there is light at the end because the vaccine is arriving; that is coming. But in the meantime, they need to get from here to there. So what we have outlined in this proposal--this bipartisan, bicameral proposal--is just exactly that. It is that lifeline that can get them from December to March, to April, when hope really starts to return. So I know that there is a great deal that is being considered right now. As I have shared with folks, I say: Well, we were able to advance the ball significantly with this effort that we have made. But when we presented that multihundred-page package to the public, to the administration, to leadership, we basically said: Here is a gift. Take it. So we have kind of lost ball control, if you will. That is good. That is fine. That is what this process is all about. But I am just urging that we commit with every sense of expediency and urgency to do our business quickly and fairly, with the politics aside, because the last thing that folks back home need, whether it is in Ohio or Alaska, is to know that we might have wrapped up our business here, and we didn't hear them. We didn't respond to their need. We left them hanging. That is not an option for us, and that will not happen. We are all pledging to make sure that we resolve this before Christmas or we are not going home. But we can do better than that. We don't need to draw this out. We have an opportunity, working together, so I encourage those who are negotiating. We have provided not only a template and a framework, but we have really given you considerable meat in terms of this legislation. My hope is that we are going to have good news very, very shortly that will allow us to not only address the urgency in response to this COVID pandemic but also be able to resolve our end-of-year appropriations and other matters that we have had working before this body. But as they say, we are running out of daylight, so let's get moving with it.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I would like to follow up on the comments you have just shared with your support for a women's history museum and also to the comments made by the Senator from New Jersey and also the Senator from Texas regarding the American-Latino museum. I am privileged to serve as the chairman of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee. As part of that subcommittee, we have oversight of the Smithsonian, and it is an incredibly rewarding part of the job that I have to do with oversight. So I am very well aware of these national treasures, what they contribute to the education, to the dialogue, and to just the motivation that comes when we know and understand more about our own country and about the people who make up this extraordinary mosaic called America and how we recognize and how we celebrate those contributions, how we acknowledge the challenges that women have faced along the way, African Americans or Latinos, as they have truly been extraordinary participants in this American society. I also recognize that our Smithsonians don't come free. They don't come cheap, as the Senator from Utah noted. The Smithsonians are funded with significant Federal taxpayer dollars, so we are required to show a level of--exercise with how we move forward. And we have been extraordinarily judicious. I think, as the Presiding Officer noted in her comments, when the discussion of a women's history museum first came about, it was not just a flash-in-the-pan idea. It was something that had germinated a long period of time. It goes to a commission. There are a series of steps and approvals that they must go through along the way. So the path that we have taken has led us to the point today where there has been a request made to be able to advance both of these significant recognitions to American Latina and American women by way of additional Smithsonian facilities. I support both of those, just as I have supported our Smithsonians as new ones have come online--the African-American museum most recently-- or the renovations that have been underway for a period. I also recognize that the effort tonight made by both the Presiding Officer, as prime sponsor of the American women's history museum, and incorporating an amendment that I had requested that ensures that as we are looking to sites for these significant facilities, that we are doing so with a level of a cooperation. I don't think anybody wants to be in a situation where the Smithsonian would effectively be able to tell, whether it is the Department of Agriculture or the U.S. Forest Service, we want your building. That is not how the process works. So the amendments that were incorporated in both of these measures that were before us today, I think, was an important one, I think was a significant one. Some may have heard that Lisa Murkowski was not supporting these museums--far from it. What I wanted to ensure is that we have a good, sound process for where we site these extraordinarily--extraordinarily important facilities. My hope is that we will resolve this impasse because the contributions, whether they be from women over the decades, the Latina community, Latino community, over the decades and the centuries, that there be facilities that appropriately recognize and celebrate them. With that, I yield the floor

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 4983 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 7347 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 560, S. 2730.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I further ask that the committee- reported substitute be considered and agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed; and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 1925, which was received from the House.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I ask unanimous consent that the Gillibrand substitute amendment at the desk be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I move to concur in the House amendment, and I ask unanimous consent that the motion be agreed to and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Chair lay before the Senate the message to accompany S. 900. The Presiding Officer laid before the Senate the following message from the House of Representatives: Resolved, That the bill from the Senate (S. 900) entitled ``An Act to designate the community-based outpatient clinic of the Department of Veterans Affairs in Bozeman, Montana, as the `Travis W. Atkins Department of Veterans Affairs Clinic'.'', do pass with an amendment. Motion to Concur

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I further ask that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be made considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 799, which was submitted earlier today.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be discharged from further consideration of S. 633 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I ask unanimous consent that the Moran substitute amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m., Friday, December 11, 2020; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed; finally, that following leader remarks, the Senate resume consideration of the conference report to accompany H.R. 6395.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I want to start with a personal thank- you to the Presiding Officer for indulging me for an additional few moments here so I may speak this afternoon on the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to be an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. And while I intend to share with you my intention on how I will vote, I would like to start by expressing my disappointment with where we are in the Senate as a whole right now. There has been some good discussion here this morning as we are considering these unanimous consent agreements--statements being made but not action moving forward. I had hoped that if we were going to be at this moment in time, just over a week out from our national elections, that we would be here on the floor debating the merits of a COVID relief bill. In my home State of Alaska, as in so many States around the country, we are seeing unprecedented numbers now. The news, just yesterday, Friday, was that the United States reported the highest single-day recorded positive cases--83,757--really staggering. In Alaska, we have seen this virus spread to some of our small outlying villages, villages that are not accessible by road and villages that have limited medical facilities. We are really quite concerned about what this means for many of the Native people in these areas. We are not able to stay on top of the contact tracing like we were some months ago because of our increasing numbers. The pressure on hospital capacity is also a growing concern. And, economically, Alaska has been hit extraordinarily hard. As most know, we have a pretty substantial tourist season, but this year, we had little to no season for us. Many small businesses have closed permanently, but many, many more are going into the winter wondering how they are going to make it through the winter and scrambling to find ways to piece it together. Unemployment, loss of housing--in every conversation that I have with Alaskans, they are asking if and when we are going to see another round of COVID relief, and I regret that we have no deal to offer them today. Instead, we are here on a weekend, 10 days before the elections, to advance a U.S. Supreme Court nominee. Now, I was here on the floor yesterday. I had an opportunity to listen to the majority leader as he outlined the escalation of confirmation battles over the past 30-plus years, and I think it was an important lesson in our Senate history. I am not confused about how we wound up here, but I certainly am frustrated by it. It is with a heavy heart that I just regret that we are in this place. I think there was a worthy attempt during the 109th Congress, by the Gang of 14, to reduce tensions. There was, I think, a very genuine, good-faith effort there to try to dial things back. But, sadly, their bipartisan action was not rewarded by the voters, and perhaps that served as a warning to other Members of this body rather than an aspiration. We heard the history lesson, and I am one who has long recognized that pointing fingers doesn't ever actually solve a problem. I personally believe that every nominee for the Supreme Court should receive an up-or-down vote after they have passed out of committee. My record has been pretty clear, pretty consistent, and some might even suggest boring in its consistency, but I made a very strong commitment after I returned to the Senate at the end of 2010 and said: I do not believe that filibustering our judges was what we should be doing. So I might not have liked the judges that were before us, but I did not participate in a filibuster of a judge. I had an opportunity to vote up or down, and I thought that was the reasonable way to proceed. I believe that it is fair to the individual and it is fair to the institution. But I also recognize that the timing of this confirmation that we have before us will serve to reinforce the public perception about political influence on the Court, and I would hope that we all recognize that public confidence in our courts must be an imperative. We have to believe that justice is going to be equal for all of us. Now, I know that my colleagues are not surprised to hear me discuss my concern about the politicization of the Court. I made a similar point during the impeachment trial, when some wanted to literally tear down Chief Justice Roberts and the Court because they needed a sound bite for a political ad in the primary campaign. I made the same case when I voted against the nomination of now-Justice Kavanaugh. Also, during that impeachment trial, I implored the Members of this Chamber to look inward and to really evaluate: Are we really willing to tear down not only the other party but the other institutions of our government as well? So I have looked inward, considering, in these difficult days, what I believe is best for the institutions of our government, and I recognize that confirming this nominee is not going to heal and it is not going to salve the wounds that these institutions have endured, but neither will threats that, should the balance of power in this Chamber change, everything is on the table, including the end of the legislative filibuster and packing the Court. To do that would only inflict even deeper, deeper wounds, fundamentally and dramatically altering how the levers of power operate in this country and compromising the one branch of government that must remain apolitical. We are the legislative branch, the executive branch. Both of these branches are inherently political. It is the third branch, our courts, that we count on to be apolitical. I think it would be a giant leap further down a path that we should not be following in the first place. So we have to figure out how we deescalate. So let me very simply explain this afternoon how I plan to vote over the next two days, starting with procedural motions, which I opposed yesterday, and I will oppose again tomorrow. In 2016, after the unfortunate death of Justice Scalia, I said that the Senate should not take up a nominee to fill that seat due to the impending Presidential election. I reiterated that statement in August of this year. And then, coincidentally enough, just hours before the news of Justice Ginsburg's passing that saddened the country--I didn't know that she had passed when I reaffirmed my comments from earlier, but that knowledge would not have changed my mind. I remain in the same place today. I do not believe that moving forward on a nominee just over a week removed from a pitched Presidential election, when partisan tensions are running about as high as they could--I don't think that this will help our country become a better version of itself. But, frankly, I have lost that procedural fight. We saw that with the vote yesterday. So what I can do now is be consistent with the precedent that I have set for myself and oppose a process that I said should not move forward, and I have done that. But at the end of the process is the substantive question of whether Judge Barrett should be categorically rejected as an Associate Justice in order to underscore my procedural objection. I believe that the only way to put us back on the path of appropriate consideration of judicial nominees is to evaluate Judge Barrett as we would want to be judged--on the merits of her qualifications. And we do that when that final question comes before us, and when it does, I will be a ``yes.' I have no doubt about her intellect. I have no doubt about Judge Barrett's judicial temperament. I have no doubt about her capability to do the job and to do it well. By now, most people are very familiar with her qualifications. They have seen her resume and bio. She has been all over the news, but her background is significant. She graduated with honors from Rhodes College and with honors from Notre Dame Law School, clerked on the DC Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court, and was an excellent professor for 15 years at Notre Dame Law School prior to being confirmed on the bench on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. I helped to confirm her to that seat on the Seventh Circuit. I have followed on from that time when I first came to know of Judge Amy Coney Barrett. I have done my due diligence in my role of advice and consent. I have worked through the articles that she has written and the cases that she has written. I have engaged in a lengthy one-on- one with her. I watched both full days when she appeared before the Judiciary Committee. She presented herself admirably under a difficult situation. We all know around here that confirmation processes are not pretty. I have expressed my concerns previously that good people will decide that the confirmation process that we have now is sometimes an awful process, that I worry that they are going to think that it is just not worth it, not worth what it puts them and their families through, and they opt out. They opt to avoid government service. And, on this note, I will say that while some of the rhetoric from my colleagues has been overblown and unnecessary, this process with Judge Barrett is not nearly what it was in 2018 during the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh. So, ultimately, I am glad and I am thankful that Judge Barrett did not opt out. I have concluded that she is the sort of person that we want on the Supreme Court. Her legal writing is excellent and will be an asset to her as well as future generations of lawyers as they read through her opinions. Her intellectual curiosity, which is demonstrated by the depth and breadth of her academic work as a professor, will also serve the country well. Her temperament and her very patient nature were on full display over the course of the hearing. I had a good and, I think, a very substantive discussion with Judge Barrett about some Alaska-related matters, focusing on Alaska-specific statutes, like ANILCA. I raised some of the public safety challenges that we face in my home State that served to undermine the principle of equal justice under the law. I raised the issue of voting rights and access to the ballot. It was important for me to hear and to better understand her views on precedent and her evaluation process, specifically the weight that she affords reliance on decisions that have been in place for decades, such as Roe v. Wade. We discussed the doctrine of severability in regards to the Affordable Care Act case. We spoke at length about my concern that the Supreme Court is increasingly viewed as political by the public and what that then does to erode public confidence in the impartiality of our courts. We talked about the criteria and the evaluation that that Justice would undergo for purposes of recusal from a matter. I do not believe Judge Barrett will take her seat on the Bench with a predetermined agenda or with the goal of putting a torch to every volume of the ``United States Reports.'' Justices should come to the Court with an open mind, willing to be convinced by the arguments presented in each case, to exchange thoughts with their colleagues, to learn new things, and rule as the law requires. I am convinced that Judge Barrett will do just that. So while I oppose the process that has led us to this point, I do not hold it against her as an individual who has navigated the gauntlet with grace, skill, and humility. I will vote no on the procedural votes ahead of us but yes to confirm Judge Barrett when the question before us is her qualification to be an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court. With that, I yield the floor.