Jeff Merkley

Mr. MERKLEY

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

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that privileges of the floor be granted to Luz Carmen Dominguez DeJesus during the balance of today's session.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 30 seconds before we take the vote.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I want to share the perspective of individual Senators who, at various moments, are extremely stressed over getting their amendment considered or how to deal with a particular issue that is coming up. There have been moments, for example, not too far back into last year, when I really wanted an amendment up and was asking Trish, how do I do this? How do I position this to get this done? And I know that many of us, when we are trying to do something we consider important or are concerned about something happening that is detrimental, our emotions are high. Every time that I have been in that position, you have been a calm and steady presence facilitating our efforts--maybe raising an eyebrow now and then about whether this was the right moment or the right process but giving sound guidance and taking our levels of anxiety and stress down a few notches and helping us get the job done. So all of us who, in moments--critical moments--have come to you and asked for your help and your insight on how to proceed, thank you for being a wise and sober and calming counsel to us. And I wish you all the best in your next chapter.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I have 11 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders. Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I rise today to honor a departing member of my team. This is the first time in 7 years that I am delivering a farewell speech regarding one of my team members that wasn't written by my speechwriter, Mike McKiernan, because Mike is the departing team member we are honoring today. In June of 2016, he left a glamorous job at the Motion Picture Association of America to join my office. He was excited to return to Congress ahead of what many anticipated would be the incoming Hillary Clinton administration. Well, as we all know, history doesn't always work out along the path that one anticipates. It worked out a little differently. Six months later, President Trump was sworn into office, and Mike found himself in the middle of many intensive issues, writing speech after speech regarding the new administration's policies--often opposing those policies--and the administration's nominees--often nominees who didn't seem to have the qualifications necessary for the roles they were nominated to. Then not far into 2017, we arrived at a watershed moment of Trump's first year in office: Trump's determination to complete the theft of a Supreme Court seat through his nomination of Neil Gorsuch. It was Mike McKiernan who compiled a whole set of big three-ring binders with details of Supreme Court history, the influence of powerful special interests on the Court, and, of course, every detail, large and small, about Judge Gorsuch's record, enabling me to hold the floor for over 15 hours, attempting to focus America's attention on the grave injustice that for the first time in American history, a Supreme Court seat had been stolen from one administration and passed on to the next with no hearing or consideration of the nominee from the previous President. It was a long night--a long night for Mike McKiernan, a long night for me--but an important effort to highlight something very important about the politicization and polarization of one of our three key institutions, the Supreme Court of the United States. If you asked members of my staff for a couple of words or a phrase to describe Mike, you might hear the words ``steady presence.'' Throughout the years, he has brought a cool, calm, and collected aura, even during moments of considerable stress. Being a speechwriter might seem like a quiet, intellectual job, but here in the Senate, chaos finds us all--many moments of frantically making last-minute edits, last-minute edits on a script for a speech or a conversation over Zoom, conversations recorded as a video greeting to an organization operating back in Oregon, or crafting comments with only an hour or two of notice to make, to block, or to request a unanimous consent request on an amendment or on a bill. There was, for every speechwriter and for Mike, the near daily challenge of finding just the right story or just the right analogy or just the right poem to illuminate a commentary over a policy, as, indeed, Mike delivered just the perfect poem on butterflies last year for my closing remarks at the Monarch Summit. It was Mike who crafted my 2017 quiz show series that I conducted here on the floor of the Senate featuring weekly climate facts, trying to find a new way to engage Americans about the challenges facing us with the evolving impact on our forests and our fishing and our farms and so many aspects of our environment. Our quiz show did not become the smash hit on YouTube that we had hoped for, but at least the Senate pages perhaps learned a thing or two from the quiz shows, and we had fun doing them. Our climate work also led to other fun moments, like hosting Bill Nye the Science Guy in my office and doing a joint video on climate science. Mike always had the extremity challenge of deciphering my handwriting--handwriting I can't decipher after I have been away from it for even a few moments. I have no idea what I wrote, but I am sure it was excellent--figure it out. Mike, I think we are sending you away with a certificate in advanced handwriting decoding. Along with the fun and good humor that Mike brought to the team, he also brought deep care and purpose to some of the most challenging moments we have handled as an office. He found great meaning in bringing, in his words, ``to life as accurately and impactfully as possible'' the stories of those who are oppressed and suffering. When the previous administration tried to take DACA status away from Dreamers, Mike helped me share the stories of young Americans who have known no other home. When President Trump sent Federal agents to attack Portlanders on the streets in the summer of 2020, Mike helped me to share the experience of those whose civil liberties had been shattered and to hold the administration accountable. When President Trump implemented his horrific tactic of tearing children out of the arms of their parents at the border, Mike was instrumental in sharing the stories of those families with the world-- stories of little children with hopes and dreams who simply wanted to play, to learn, to be loved, and be able to go to school; parents who would do anything to protect their children from violence and oppression and build for those little ones a safer future. Mike, we will miss your wordsmithing. We will miss your adorable photos and hilarious stories of your two young children, Clara and Braden, and we really require you to keep sharing them as you go forward. Most of all, we will miss your kind, compassionate, mission- driven spirit that embodies what it means to be on our team. You are leaving big shoes to fill, but we are thrilled that you will be staying in the extended Team Merkley family, going to join our former deputy chief of staff J.P. Piorkowski in the Director's Office at the Peace Corps. One thing our world needs more of is peace and the cross-cultural understanding that comes from Americans going out around the globe to help communities thrive. I know that in your next chapter and whatever else you do throughout your career, you will never stop working to build a better world, and what better mission could there be for one's life than building a better world? I wish you all the best. And thank you so much for being a member of the team.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, it was John Quincy Adams who once said: If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. For the last 14 years, the members of my team have had an outstanding leader in our chief of staff, Michael Zamore, who has constantly and consistently inspired the team and me to dream, to grow, to strive to do better every single day for ourselves and the people we serve. But after nearly a decade and a half, as the heart and soul of Team Merkley and more than 22 years on Capitol Hill, Mr. Zamore has decided to close this chapter of his life and career and set off to begin writing the next chapter. I know I speak for many when I say how hard it is to imagine our office or the Senate without Mike Zamore. Mike has been with me from the very beginning. He was one of the small crew working out of the temporary basement office the day I was sworn in. Five new Members of the Senate and a couple of staff members crowded into a single, little, expanded room downstairs, trying to figure out what we were doing, how to get around. Where are those hearing rooms? How do we get the paper for the printers? How do we get staples for the staplers? He has been a pivotal part of every success that our team has achieved since, and there have been a lot of legislative highlights in the time that he has led Team Merkley--to name just a few: outlawing predatory mortgages; passing financial reform to shut down the Wall Street proprietary trading casino; winning Senate passage of ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, to end job discrimination against our LGBTQ+ community; drafting and introducing the Equality Act to end LGBTQ discrimination across the board; leading the effort to end the horrific Trump policy of ripping children out of their parents' arms at the border; ending the importation of Chinese products produced with slave labor; and so many more and so many different initiatives to improve healthcare, to establish more decent and affordable housing, to expand quality education, and to increase the number of good-paying jobs for working Americans. But it isn't just policy that is relevant to the role of a chief of staff. Mike has worked to ensure that our team has the best operation for answering constituents' letters to be found on Capitol Hill, to empower the Oregon half of our operation to build a fabulous constituent services team and an excellent set of field representatives to work with Oregon's counties and cities to address the challenges and opportunities within our State, and to keep our DC team and our Oregon team working closely together as one. He did this through many trips to the State and by encouraging staff here in DC to travel and be in Oregon as well and by ensuring we connected and coordinated through weekly all-staff meetings and that we connected through biannual retreats: getting everyone together face-to- face with the Oregon team and the DC team, spending time together to know one another, enjoy each other's company, and expand the connections that lead to successful progress forward on issue after issue. And because we like to be a team that not only works hard but plays hard, Mike always had a little special presentation for those occasions when we were all gathered together, on one occasion dressing up in colonial garb to perform a special Team Merkley rendition of a song from ``Hamilton'' or, on another occasion, doing a sea shanty during our nautical-themed virtual retreat. In doing these presentations, he proved himself to be a far, far braver man than most of the rest of us, but I know that that extra bit of effort has always been beloved by everyone on the team. His most lasting legacy will be through the talented individuals he has carefully recruited to be members of our team over the last 14-plus years and the way that he inspired them and led them, with heart and humility, imbuing them with the same passion for public service that has guided Mike throughout his entire career. I believe we have had one of the most energetic, capable, and motivated teams ever assembled on Capitol Hill, and that is because we have had one of the most energetic, capable, and motivated chiefs of staff in Mike Zamore. As chief, Mike worked hard to champion and reinforce specific values. One of them that has resonated over the years is the idea of continuous self-improvement--the idea that none of us are perfect and never will be and that we should always be striving to be better ourselves as individuals and as a team. Mike never exempted himself from that same spirit of continual self- improvement. He sought out and welcomed honest feedback from everyone, from the newest intern to the most senior staffer, on how he was doing and how the office was doing and how we could do better. Jack Welch, the former head of GE, once said: When you become a leader, success is all about growing others. Mike has always cared deeply about helping the members of our team grow. That is why he has always loved outside-the-box thinking, like when a staff member suggested that I should hop on a plane and go down to the border to find out for myself what was really happening with the administration's zero-tolerance family separation policy. It is why he enthusiastically embraced and championed our office's mission of inclusivity and was so supportive of the creation of a diversity, equity, and inclusion committee. Our DE&I team members have created learning opportunities, and they share information to educate and inform the rest of the team about a wide range of issues, and they work to inspire honest, open, and sometimes uncomfortable dialogues so that we can all be the best versions of ourselves and so that we can serve all of the people of Oregon with the highest level of respect and responsiveness. It is why his door was always open for what he called ``Z hours,'' when folks would come in and talk about anything whether it was work related or not. The office and Team Merkley won't be the same without Mike. It won't be the same without the ringer on his phone quacking like a duck and interrupting meetings. It won't be the same without our office mascot-- Mike's loving husky, Juneau--around to brighten everyone's day. The writer Walter Lippmannn noted: The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind in others the conviction and will to carry on. And I can tell you that the values of service, compassion, and humility that Mike has enshrined in the heart of Team Merkley will carry on because the folks whom he has painstakingly brought together have the conviction and will to do so. Thank you, Mike. Thank you for all you have done for the team, all you have done for the Senate, and all you have done in advocating for policies to make our State, our country, and the world a better place. We wish you and your family the best as you start writing that next chapter of your life. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MERKLEY

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

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, due to the passing of my mother, Betty Lou Collins Merkley, I was not able to travel back to Washington, DC, last week to be present on the Senate floor for several votes. However, I would like it stated for the record how I would have voted had I been present. On February 28, 2023, I missed rollcall vote No. 26, confirmation of Jamar K. Walker to be U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia. Mr. Walker has a distinguished career in both private practice, as well as in public service as a former Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia where he prosecuted a wide range of cases including bribery, money laundering, wire and, bank fraud, foreign corrupt practices, and securities fraud as part of the Financial Crimes and Public Corruption Unit. Had I been in attendance, I would have voted yea. On February 28, 2023, I missed rollcall vote No. 28, confirmation of Jamal N. Whitehead to be U.S. District Judge for the Western District of Washington. With years of experience in commercial litigation, as a trial attorney with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Civil Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington, Mr. Whitehead is eminently qualified for a seat on the Federal bench. As the National Employment Lawyers Association said in their letter supporting his nomination, ``Mr. Whitehead is a highly qualified attorney who would bring his background representing all sides of employment law disputes and would provide perspective that is very much needed on the federal bench. His work for employers, workers, and the government offer the kind of experience necessary to serve knowledgably and fairly as a federal judge.'' It is for these reasons that Mr. Whitehead was unanimously rated ``well qualified'' by the American Bar Association and received bipartisan support in the Judiciary Committee. Had I been in attendance, I would have voted yea. On February 28, 2023, I missed rollcall vote No. 30, confirmation of Araceli Martinez-Olguin to be U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of California. Ms. Martinez-Olguin's entire career has been dedicated to protecting civil and human rights. At the American Civil Liberties Union's--ACLU--Women's Rights Project she represented women of underserved communities with employment and education civil rights cases. At the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, she researched and advocated for victims of human trafficking and assisted in drafting the reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. Ms. Martinez-Olguin also worked with Legal Aid at Work in their National Origin, Immigration, and Language Rights Program, where she strived to guarantee the civil rights of immigrant workers, particularly under title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and also investigated federally funded education institutions for civil rights violations in the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. And since 2018, Ms. Martinez-Olguin has worked as a supervising attorney at the National Immigration Law Center--NILC--focusing on enforcing constitutional and statutory provisions to protect immigrants' civil and workplace rights. As only the second Latina to serve on this court, ``The confirmation of Ms. Martinez-Olguin would be an important step towards ensuring that our federal courts reflect and represent the diversity of our nation,'' in the words of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Had I been in attendance, I would have voted yea. On March 1, 2023, I missed rollcall vote No. 32, confirmation of Judge Margaret R. Guzman to be U.S. District Judge for the District of Massachusetts. Judge Guzman has amassed an impressive record over the course of her legal career. Over the course of her 13 years as a public defender with Massachusetts' Committee for Public Counsel Services and then 4 more in private practice, she tried more than 175 case to verdict, judgment, or final decision representing clients who could not afford an attorney, helping them navigate the complex criminal legal system. In 2009, she was appointed to be an associate justice of the District Court on the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Trial Court, and since 2017, Judge Guzman has been the first justice and a district court judge on the Ayer District Court in Middlesex County, MA. Over the course of her years on the bench, Judge Guzman has presided over more than 1,000 cases which have gone to verdict or judgment. And as the first Hispanic Judge to serve on the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, a State where nearly 900,000 adults identify as Hispanic or Latino, Judge Guzman will bring critical life experience to this seat. Had I been in attendance, I would have voted yea. On March 1, 2023, I missed rollcall vote No. 35, passage of H.J. Res. 30--providing for congressional disapproval of the rule submitted by the Department of Labor relating to ``Prudence and Loyalty in Selecting Plan Investments and Exercising Shareholder Rights.'' This is the latest in ongoing efforts to stymie efforts to take on the climate crisis which is the greatest threat that humankind has ever faced. Passage would nullify a Labor Department rule which says plan fiduciaries may, but not must, consider climate chaos and other environment, social, and governance--ESG--factors when they make investment decisions, with respect to employee benefit plans. Rules like these are important because a growing number of Americans are increasingly concerned about the future of our planet and they don't want to be supporting businesses or industries that might be contributing in any way to climate chaos. Investors are also concerned about the risks of investing in fossil fuel companies at a time when the future of these companies remains uncertain. But supporters of this resolution don't want them to even want fiduciaries to have the option to weigh these significant considerations when making decisions about investments or shareholder rights. This is an attack on investors' rights in service of propping up the fossil fuel industry. Therefore, had I been in attendance, I would have voted nay. On March 2, 2023, I missed rollcall vote No. 37, confirmation of Colleen R. Lawless to be U.S. District Judge for the Central District of Illinois. For 10 years, Judge Lawless represented plaintiffs in State and Federal courts on a wide range of civil litigation issues from employment discrimination to medical malpractice to family law. In one case, Judge Lawless represented a woman suing her insurance company as she sought coverage for a stay in a medical facility that the insurance company denied. And in another, she represented an African- American water maintenance worker who sued the city of Decatur for discrimination after he was terminated for refusing to sign an agreement that gave him a lower pay but allowed him to bypass civil service selection rules. In 2019, Judge Lawless was appointed to serve as an associate circuit judge on the Illinois 7th Judicial Circuit Court, where she is currently assigned to the domestic relations division. Over the last 4 years, Judge Lawless has presided over 125 domestic relations bench trials alongside numerous proceedings implicating mental health commitments, small claims, evictions, traffic infractions, and emergency protection orders. She has been unanimously rated as ``well qualified'' by the American Bar Association, received support from several State circuit court judges and justices, as well as the Sojourn Shelter and Services, a not-for-profit corporation founded to help eliminate domestic violence through service, leadership, and education which serves five central Illinois counties, and received strong bipartisan support when her nomination was voted out of committee. Therefore, had I been in attendance, I would have voted yea. On March 2, 2023, I missed rollcall vote No. 39, confirmation of Jonathan James Canada Grey to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Michigan. Since 2021, Judge Grey has served as a magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, where he has written opinions in roughly 40 cases. Prior to that, Judge Grey worked in private practice at a law firm where he focused on labor and employment matters in Federal, State, and local courts, as well as before administrative agencies. He went on to serve as an Assistant United States Attorney for both the Southern District of Ohio and the Eastern District of Michigan, where Judge Grey briefed and argued dozens of dispositive and nondispositive motions and also led several substantial investigations in cases that spanned multiple States and countries. While serving as an AUSA in the Southern District of Ohio, Judge Grey led diversity programs and anti-domestic violence initiatives-- including instituting his office's practice of prosecuting people who illegally possessed firearms after having been convicted of a domestic violence offense. Judge Grey has amassed a stellar record, received a unanimous ``well qualified'' rating from the American Bar Association, and was voted out of the Judiciary with strong bipartisan support. Therefore, had I been in attendance, I would have voted yea.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to recognize and bid farewell to a valued member of my team, our legislative director, Elvia Montoya. Five years ago, our office had the fortune of bringing Elvia onboard as a legislative correspondent--or LC--working on issues of education, equal rights, and healthcare. These are incredibly important issues. And she did such an incredible job working on them that it wasn't long at all before she was promoted to handle them as our legislative assistant. And time and time again, year after year, no matter what new task she took on or what challenge was thrown at her, she succeeded and thrived. Every Oregonian, every American, across this Nation is better off today, thanks to her tireless efforts. Seventy-two thousand children in our State, for instance, who normally get free or reduced-priced lunches during the school year continue to get healthy and nutritious meals during the summer months. They have Elvia to thank for that because she is the one who included language in the fiscal year 2020 Further Consolidated Appropriations Act to reinstate the program. Thousands of nurses are on the job today saving lives because we invested in the training and workforce development that are key to the future of this critical profession through the Nursing Workforce Reauthorization Act of 2019. And Elvia wrote that bill and helped get it passed as part of the CARES Act; and thank goodness she did, or the nursing shortage today would be much worse than it is. And Elvia was always three steps ahead in the lead-up to the COVID-19 pandemic. In January of 2020, over 2 months before life as we knew shut down and people were only vaguely aware of a new virus coming out of China, she saw right away that this had the potential to upend life around the Globe. By the end of that month, she had persuaded me to lead a letter calling on the World Health Organization to declare a public health emergency of international concern. By the end of February, our office had a resource page for Oregonians who were starting to hear about this new, dangerous virus and were growing nervous. This was phenomenal timing because Oregon had its first confirmed case on Friday, February 28, 2020. The announcement came well after working hours. But even late on a Friday evening, she was on the ball, alerting me and other senior staff and starting to prepare for the long battle ahead as she led our team in that battle for the next year-plus. She kept tabs on the virus, day in and day out, leading briefings for our team and providing daily updates on the spread and impact of the virus. And she led my team's efforts to help enact the COVID relief bills as we took up and passed them here on the Senate floor--from the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act to the Families First Coronavirus Response Act; the CARES Act to the Paycheck Protection Program and Healthcare Enforcement Act. And she wasn't just invested in policy. She was also invested in the logistical challenges we faced under COVID. One night, when a truck was supposed to be delivering supplies of personal protective equipment--or PPE, as we call it--delivering it from the national stockpile to the main resource warehouse in Oregon, from where it would be distributed to hospitals and clinics and other places the following morning, things went awry. The security guards at the facility hadn't received the right paperwork when the tractor trailer pulled up. So they turned the truck away. Now, at that time, we were in such short supply of PPE, and our healthcare practitioners were risking their lives because of that shortage. So this was incredibly important that we get these supplies delivered. Doctors and nurses and other first responders on the frontlines of the pandemic were counting on that delivery of supplies that was now headed in the wrong direction. So Elvia jumped into action. She started calling folks at HHS and other Federal and State agencies. She woke people up. She tracked down cell phone numbers, including the numbers of the guards who were on duty. Eventually, she got that truck turned around and those supplies were delivered. She was able to do this because she had worked for months and months to build connections and relationships with folks working, at every level, on responding to the pandemic. Thus, when an incident like this occurred, she knew how to make sure the bureaucratic redtape didn't stop people from getting the help and resources they needed. And so it was when our previous legislative director left to go to the State Department in January of 2021, it was clear that Elvia's tenacity, resourcefulness, humor, warmth, professionalism would make her the perfect choice to ably step up and fill that role. Almost overnight, she went from focusing exclusively on healthcare and education to overseeing the entire pantheon of our team's legislative activities, with all of the added responsibilities--like staffing vote-aramas--that came along with the role. As legislative director, she has personally taken point on our efforts to protect American democracy and ensure every American's right to vote. She quickly and deeply immersed herself in the intricacies of the issues of voter suppression, of dark money, and gerrymandering that we sought to address in the For the People Act and its derivative, the Freedom to Vote Act. On top of that, Elvia got familiar with the history and arcane procedures of this body that are so much in need of reform today, helping to craft workable options to restore the Senate to being a better legislative body that our Founders intended it to be. And even now, she has continued to take the lead on my ``Mysteries of the Senate'' project, where every week we prepare a memo for the caucus explaining another aspect of the Senate's arcane history and procedures. This is valuable, I hope, because I believe we cannot begin to improve the way we function unless Members understand better the Senate's history and the web of rules and precedents that guide how we operate. It would be an understatement to say that Elvia has excelled at every task and every issue she has taken on over these last 5 years. It has been a pleasure for me to work with her. It has been a pleasure for the entire team to work with her. And she has contributed greatly to the future of our team nurturing and bringing along new staffers, making sure they not only are up to speed on the issues but fully integrated participants in our collective effort to improve policies to benefit Oregonians and to benefit Americans. Elvia, all of us on the team--all of us on team Merkley--thank you deeply for your dedication. We wish you all the best in your next chapter as you take your talents back home to Oregon. I think all of us are a bit jealous of that opportunity to be fully back home. And we know that wherever you are, you will never stop fighting to build a better world. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I have four requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders. Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 4:30 p.m. today, all postcloture time with respect to the Garcia nomination be considered expired and the Senate vote on confirmation of the nomination.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I am pleased that we are having this amendment before us. It broadens the scope of the bill that we passed 12 years ago to enable nursing mothers to be able to return to work and breast-pump milk for the benefit of their children. For 12 years, it has worked so well for better health for the babies and better health for the mothers, and it turned out to be a big win for businesses because they found that workers returned to work and were much happier doing so. The chamber has sent out a letter endorsing it. They note that it protects small businesses, providing a hardship exemption opportunity for those with less than 50 and that they have accommodated the concerns of the airline and railroad industries. It is a win-win for babies, for mothers, and for business. I hand this over to my colleague, and thank you so much, Senator Murkowski, for championing this effort.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I am delighted to be here with my colleagues tonight and with the chair of our Rules Committee, Amy Klobuchar, who worked so hard and so intensely on the For the People Act and on the For the People Act 2.0, the Freedom to Vote Act, which was sought to address the foundations of democracy in our country. I am delighted to be here with the former Governor and Senator from New Hampshire, who really understands from both the State and national perspective the importance of the rules of democracy, and my colleague from Maine, who was just speaking about the election of 1876, which had so many parallels with the election of 2020 because in that year, there were four States that submitted two different slates. The Republican Party said: Let the Vice President decide because he is targeted in the Constitution to receive the ballots. The Democrats said: Well, he is not given the power in the Constitution to decide which slate of ballots to accept. That led to a standoff and a Commission that was a setup of five Senators, five House Members, and five Supreme Court Justices to try to decide which slate of ballots to accept. As you pointed out, that election led to the Electoral Count Act for the first round. Ten years later, they rewrote it again, but it wasn't sufficient. I just want to compliment him and the work that the entire set of Senators did to bring forward a much improved version that will be included in the omnibus bill we will be considering. As I am here with my colleagues, pondering--pondering--the state of our democracy, the state of our Republic, I can't help but think of that story from Benjamin Franklin at the Constitutional Convention. In seeing him walk out of Independence Hall on the last day of the Convention, a woman came up and asked Dr. Franklin: Well, Doctor, what have we got? Is it a republic or a monarchy? Dr. Franklin replied, ``A republic if you can keep it.'' ``A republic if you can keep it''--recognizing the challenge of sustaining this framework in which we voluntarily work together to have a system of ballot integrity, of registration integrity, of voting integrity, and, in fact, of counting the ballots with integrity. If I go back to that battle of 1876, the deal that was struck was a dark deal. It was a deal which said, as my colleague Senator King pointed out: Even though one candidate was one vote short of winning the electoral college, we will give those four slates to the Republican if the Republican will pull the troops out of the South and Reconstruction. What that meant was ending civil rights for Black southerners not for one or two generations but for the better part of three-quarters of a century, three generations. It was a terrible, dark, evil deal that came out. But, in this body, there was a Senator who said: We need to restore those rights to the South. He waited through 1888 and on into 1890 until there was a possibility of passing a bill that would protect voting registration, voting at the ballot box, and the counting of the votes. It was called the Lodge Act. Sir Henry Cabot Lodge from the House, who later came to the Senate, supported it and sent it over here. Senator Hoar proceeded to champion it in this body, but it was a filibuster by southern Democrats who killed that bill--a filibuster later accompanied by support, actually, from northern Republicans, who wanted to get to a tariff bill, the McKinley Tariff Act. It was supported by western Republicans, who wanted to get to the silver currency bill. In other words, people from all over the country in this Chamber failed to stand up for the civil rights of every American. It is indeed true that our institutions are far more fragile than we ever anticipated. We believe in the vision of a republic. And how does that differ from the vision of a dictator? It differs from a dictator or a King in that power flows up from the people; it doesn't flow down from the powerful. But we have seen a steady erosion of that vision here in the United States of America. With the wealth inequality, we have come to see that there is an incredible loss of government of, by, and for the people. Let me explain. When you get that kind of power concentrated at the very top, that money becomes sets of lawyers who work 24/7, 365 for the powerful and against the people. When you get that kind of concentration, you get media campaigns spending huge sums of money to change how people think about issues--power for the powerful, not government by the people. Then let's think about the fact that that same set of powerful are using campaign funds to get the outcomes they want and they are using dark money. My colleague Senator Whitehouse was talking about the DISCLOSE Act and how important it is that we at least have transparency. Where are these hundreds of millions of dollars from the richest Americans and most powerful corporations coming from, and what is their goal? At least we should know the who. The Supreme Court has said they cannot be stopped under kind of a corrupted vision of free speech; they can't be limited under that Supreme Court decision. But at least we can know the who and have the American people understand better who is behind the funding. That ending of dark money is so important. Gerrymandering. It is estimated that down the hall in the House of Representatives, there is a 20- to 25-vote bias in favor of one party over the other because one party does more gerrymandering than the other. Well, neither should do that, and it is our responsibility to end that corrupt distortion of equal representation. Then to the ballot box, there have been 34 laws passed in 19 States that are aimed at one mission, and that is to stop targeted groups of Americans from voting. And who are those targeted groups? Those targeted groups are Black Americans and Hispanic Americans; low-income, inner city Americans; Native Americans on reservations; college students--laws deliberately designed in a laser-focused manner to block certain groups of Americans from voting. That is the powerful who don't want to have the voice of the people working for the people. We had, last January, a chance to pass a bill in this Chamber, just like they had in 1891, for the civil rights of all Americans. For us, it wasn't the Lodge Act. For us, it was the Freedom to Vote Act--the freedom to vote--that would take on gerrymandering; that would end anonymous dark money; that would proceed to ensuring that every American could get to the ballot box in a fair fashion to vote. You know, it was in 2020 that we had one State where the wait time to vote in predominantly Black precincts was 5 to 10 times the wait time in White precincts. Don't tell me that is somehow acceptable in the United States of America, that kind of racial bias baked into our election system. It was deliberate. It was planned. Why is it that President Trump hated vote-by-mail? Well, let me explain it to you. He hated it because it let people get to the ballot box whom he didn't want to vote. He wanted people to have to vote on election day because on election day, you can really, really play the game. You can move the voting locations from where they were the previous election so people don't go to the right place. In the places where you don't want people to vote, you put them where there are no parking lots so that it is hard to vote. You put out false information about when the election was, saying: So sorry you missed it. Even though it is this coming Tuesday, people will think it was the last Tuesday. You can manipulate and obstruct targeted groups of Americans and prevent them from voting much easier on election day than you can with vote-by-mail. My State of Oregon initiated vote-by-mail. It is the most secure system in the country--every signature compared. You would be more likely to be struck by lightning than be able to find a mistake made in which somebody voted intentionally who wasn't allowed to vote. It is incredibly secure, incredibly appropriate to counteract all of those schemes on election day designed to target Americans. My colleagues, we have so much work to do to defend the very foundation of our democracy. It is the ballot box. It is the ballot box. We have to take on the gerrymandering; we have to take on the dark money; and we have to defend the opportunity of every American to vote. If you came into this room and you swore an oath to the Constitution, you have a responsibility to defend that Constitution and defend the integrity of the ballot box.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, on December 12, 2022, I missed rollcall vote No. 387, confirmation of Tamika R. Montgomery-Reeves, of Delaware, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Third Circuit due to my attendance at an event back home in Oregon that required me to fly back on a later flight. Had I been in attendance, I would have voted yea. An expert in corporate law during her time as a corporate litigator in private practice, Justice Montgomery-Reeves has served as a Delaware State court judge since 2015. She has blazed a trail as the first Black woman to serve on both the Delaware Supreme Court and Delaware Court of Chancery. A jurist who has earned a reputation for fairness, consideration, and consensus-building, Justice Montgomery-Reeves has participated in thousands of decisions and authored more than 300 opinions since joining the bench. Justice Tamika R. Montgomery-Reeves is imminently qualified and will do an exemplary job for the people of Delaware and the people of the United States on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I join my colleague and fellow Oregonian, Senator Wyden, in recognizing all of the great work that Duncan Wyse has done throughout his 20 years organizing the annual Oregon Business Plan Summit. Every year, even virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic, the summit brings together business, government, and nonprofit leaders to engage in a robust dialogue focused on how we can all work together to grow Oregon's economy and improve the lives of those who call our State home. Its mission can be easily summed up by two words, which happen to be the same two words of the Oregon Business Plan's strategic vision: ``Shared Prosperity.'' The idea for the summit was born from Duncan's work with other business associations to craft an economic recovery plan that would help bring Oregon out of the 2002 recession. Senator Wyden found out about the plan, called Duncan, and together, they came up with the idea of having an event to share it publicly. Two decades later, the summit is still going strong--attracting thousands of leaders from every corner of our State. And Duncan has been at the head of it every step of the way, making sure that it continues to grow and evolve along with the challenges and opportunities facing Oregonians whether issues of sustainability and transportation, education and tax policy, or, more recently, how to get our State moving again coming out of the pandemic. Oregon has come a very long way since the first Business Plan Summit in 2002. We have seen tremendous growth in industries like mass timber and continue to lead the country in manufacturing semiconductors. And so much of that success is due to Duncan Wyse and his leadership of the Oregon Business Plan Summit. So on behalf of Oregonians everywhere, I just want to join Senator Wyden in thanking Duncan for all of his great work these past 20 years.

Mr. MERKLEY

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

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. I now ask for a second reading, and in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to my own request.

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I understand that there is a bill at the desk and I ask for its first reading.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I couldn't agree more with the words of my colleague from Ohio, Senator Sherrod Brown. It is unbelievable how long it took to do basic justice for our veterans serving us in some of the most difficult conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan to get their illnesses treated without them having to basically solicit legal help to connect that illness to their work. The fact that these 23 illnesses are now automatically covered for a veteran who served near a toxin is just a terrific step forward. And I am so pleased that we are making encouraging progress on veterans' housing. For our veterans to come back and be in the situation of facing the stress of return, the stress of reentering the workforce, and not have basic housing is unacceptable, and it is one of the ways we show that we are, in fact, a grateful nation for their service. Tribute to Jennifer ``J.P.'' Piorkowski Mr. President, I am pleased to be on the floor tonight to say thank you to one of my team members who has been part of my Senate team for 14 years and is now headed over to work with the Peace Corps, and I want to say a little bit about the critical role that she played in my office and on my team. When I first came here for orientation in 2009, I heard wise words, and that was that perhaps the most important person on your team is not your chief of staff, it is not your legislative director, it is not the head of your communications. It is your scheduler, the person who monitors and controls your time, because time is what you can't make any more of, and everyone will want a piece of it. The key person on your team--the hub of your team--is your scheduler. The scheduler has to figure out how to fit in meetings with organizations, both from your home State and from national organizations, into already busy days, and has to figure out which policy conversations need to take place and how many are urgent today and how many can wait until tomorrow or next week, and which networking meetings with other legislators are essential to get onto the calendar. The scheduler is also essential to our family lives. We have to have a scheduler who understands that our spouses are a key partner in serving in a legislative body, who have to understand that our time spent with our children is a critical part of our responsibilities as a parent. The scheduler has to ensure that the family has its appropriate presence in a Senator's life. So you need someone who can take all of these competing demands and make sure that attention is paid to them and there is a balanced strategy to address them. Otherwise, serving in the Senate can become an absolutely miserable experience for all involved. Well, 14 years later, I can say that this piece of advice that I received at orientation was the best piece of advice I heard, the best piece of advice that can be there for an incoming Member. Over time, the person who schedules your hours, your meetings, makes all those judgments in consultation with you becomes not just a member of the team but a friend, a confidant, a member of your extended family. And my wife Mary and I, along with our two children, have been blessed to have Jennifer Piorkowski as a member of the Merkley family, and I am so pleased she is able to be with us here tonight. In fact, Jennifer, who goes by J.P., was part of Team Merkley before there was a Team Merkley. In 1998, J.P., who had a passing interest in international affairs, called me out of the blue to ask for an informational interview when I was head of World Oregon. So we got together, and I was immediately impressed by that conversation. So I immediately recruited her for a project that we had funded to archive 50 years' worth of World Oregon's records. It takes somebody with a real organizational mind and energy to accomplish that kind of task, and once we saw her at work on our team, I knew I would have to do everything I could to keep her with us, and she ended up staying with us in many different roles--from bookkeeper to office manager to programming speakers on international issues. But we couldn't keep her forever because the international world called to her. The Peace Corps called to her, and she started a new chapter in her life of service when she joined the Peace Corps and headed to Albania as part of the first group of volunteers to reenter the country after civil unrest broke out in 1997. During her 2 years in Albania, she worked with civil society organizations and with children living on the streets and survivors of human trafficking. She worked on enrichment programs to help at-risk Roma girls, a minority population in the country. She secured $65,000 to increase participation of disabled citizens in municipal decision making. Her time in-country was so transformative that after her Peace Corps stint ended, she remained in Albania for another year, working as deputy head of mission for a transnational project to combat child trafficking in Kosovo, Greece, and Albania. In that role, among a whole host of great accomplishments, J.P. struck a memorandum of understanding, or MOU, with the Albanian Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and the Ministry of Education, which led to the opening of child protection units--child protection units that are still in place and operating to this day. I can only imagine how many young children have led better lives because J.P. helped open those centers. So Mary and I arrived here in 2009 and started on this adventure of serving in the Senate, and we pondered: Who can fill this key role, this essential role of scheduling? Who would be the bridge between our office life and our family life? Who would be the extraordinary individual who would serve as a hub for the entire team? And then we suddenly realized that J.P. was back from Albania and that she was right here in Washington, DC, continuing her terrific work on human trafficking at the Labor Department. It is pretty important work, and we were not sure we could pry her away, steal her away, from that to be on our Senate team, but, fortunately, we held our breath and she said yes, and we are so lucky to have had her with us this last 14 years. It was J.P. who initiated my ``Good Morning, Oregon'' meetings. Every Thursday while we are in session, we open the doors of our conference room to welcome Oregonians who happen to be here in DC for a discussion and a good cup of Stumptown Coffee. It was J.P. who initiated our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee to address unconscious bias, to work to ensure greater inclusivity, to better integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion into all aspects of our team's work, internally and externally. It was J.P. who organized our annual staff retreats, both in Oregon and in DC, with unique exercises, including this last year's Scrollathon that made us all ponder our key mission and shared commitment to public service. And when COVID upended life as we knew it, she stepped in, took charge, and innovated new human resource strategies and helped our team pretty seamlessly transition to the scary world of Zoom and Skype and Teams and other countless tools to ensure we could continue to function on behalf of the people of Oregon. It was J.P. who strived, year after year, to set the atmosphere of competence and graciousness and supportive connectedness as team members navigated the challenges of both our work life and our home life. She loved nurturing team members as they sought to grow and thrive in their careers. And I think you would be very hard-pressed to find a member of my team over the past 14 years who did not, at some point, go to J.P. for insight or sage advice. Over time, J.P. grew in her career, taking on ever-newer and expanded parts of our team work. She was no longer doing the day-to-day scheduling, but was our deputy chief of staff, keeping our whole operation running smoothly. Now, life often travels in circles. J.P. was an integral part of my team at World Oregon; and after serving in the Peace Corps and returning from Albania, she again became an integral part of my team here in Washington, DC. And now, J.P.'s life is completing a circle. Seventeen years after her Peace Corps work in Albania, she is returning to help the Peace Corps thrive in the position of Executive Secretariat in the Office of the Director. And I could not think of a better person to help organize that team leading the Peace Corps. Their mission is to help build a better world for all, and my dear friend, my family member, J.P., is just the right person to undertake that mission. J.P., I cannot begin to thank you enough for all you have done in each chapter of service throughout your life: your service at World Oregon, your service in the Peace Corps, your service following up in that extra year in Albania, your work at the U.S. Labor Department combating human trafficking and, of course, here in the Senate as a founding member of our team. Thank you for all of that terrific work. And we know that the work you are going to continue to do to contribute to making the Peace Corps an incredibly effective organization will be a significant way to help build a better world. Thank you.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule XXII, at a time to be determined by the majority leader following consultation with the Republican leader, the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 523, S.J. Res. 63; that there be 30 minutes for debate equally divided in the usual form; and that upon use or yielding back of time, the joint resolution be considered read a third time and the Senate vote on passage of the joint resolution without further intervening action or debate.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session to be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 11 a.m. on Tuesday, November 15; 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; that upon the conclusion of morning business, the Senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the Antongiorgi-Jordan nomination postcloture; further, that the Senate recess from 12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly caucus meetings; and, at 2:15 p.m., the Senate vote on confirmation of the nomination. Finally, if any nominations are confirmed during Tuesday's session of the Senate, that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.