A joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to make eligible for the Office of President a person who has been a United States citizen for 20 years.

Madam President, last year, Congress took the important step of restoring the health and integrity of our campaign finance system when it enacted the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, BCRA. However, the Federal Election Commission, FEC, has continually acted as a bureaucratic barrier to reform of the system. Time and time again, these unelected officials of the FEC have thwarted the enforcement of the Nation's campaign finance laws in deference to the partisan wishes of those who have appointed them.

Along with Senator Feingold, I rise today to introduce legislation entitled the Federal Election Administration Act of 2003. This legislation creates a new independent agency, the Federal Election Administration, FEA, which replaces the Federal Election Commission in order to create a new system that finally enforces Federal campaign finance laws.

Although it was set up to administer and enforce the Federal campaign finance laws, the FEC has not been doing its job. The FEC is a weak and failing agency, structured by Congress to be slow and ineffective, composed of commissioners whose appointments are tightly controlled by the Members of Congress and political parties they regulate, and has been impeded by a continual lack of resources. This legislation replaces the current system with a more effective campaign finance enforcement system.

In its current form, the FEC has been faced with three major problems. The first problem has been that the FEC was structured by Congress to be ineffective.

Prior to the creation of the FEC, Members of Congress feared that this proposed enforcement agency ran the risk of becoming too powerful. To ease these fears, Congress structured an agency designed to fail from the start. The FEC has six members, no more than three of whom can be members of the same political party. In practice, this has meant that there have been three Republicans and three Democrats as commissioners. Only stalemate and inaction on key issues have resulted. On important issues the votes have often been cast on a partisan basis, resulting in 3-3 deadlocks. Furthermore, the affirmative votes of four members are necessary for the FEC to act. Therefore, 3-3 ties have led to inaction.

Partisanship has encroached upon nearly every major decision the FEC's six commissioners make. These partisan standoffs have stopped the FEC from enforcing actions against politicians and special interest groups, even when the FEC's general counsel has recommended that such enforcement proceed. FEC votes have been politicized to the point where commissioners of both parties have banded together to reject their staff's enforcement recommendations to serve the special interests of both parties.

The FEC has lacked important powers. The FEC cannot make its own findings that a violation occurred, cannot seek court injunctions to stop illegal activity, and cannot conduct random audits of campaigns. The FEC cannot directly impose penalties, except in very minor matters. In short, the FEC can do little to enforce the law. Compounding this problem is that the FEC has sole jurisdiction over all enforcement of campaign finance laws. No matter how slow the FEC's proceedings are, no one can seek civil enforcement of the law through the courts. All complaints must be filed

with the FEC and only the FEC has the authority to act on them.

This legislation addresses this first problem. First, the new Federal Election Administration will consist of only three members to remove the possibility of deadlocked votes. There is a Chairman and two additional members, all of whom are appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. The Chairman will serve a term of ten years and will have broad powers to manage and administer the agency, including the power to hire the staff director and general counsel, and to set the budget for the agency. The two other members will each serve six year terms and cannot come from the same political party.

In the FEA, enforcement proceedings for violations of campaign finance laws will be conducted before impartial administrative law judges, similar to those in agencies such as the SEC and the EPA. An administrative law judge, ALJ, will conduct an enforcement proceeding after the three-member FEA, by majority vote, makes an initial determination to pursue an enforcement action. The FEA general counsel will represent the FEA in enforcement proceedings. The ALJ will have the authority to make findings of fact and reach conclusions of law. The general counsel and any respondent will have the right to appeal an ALJ decision to the FEA. The decision of the FEA regarding such an appeal will constitute final agency action and be subject to judicial review. By using ALJs, a system would be established for real enforcement not subject to partisan pressure.

An ALJ will have the authority to find that violations of law have occurred, and to impose civil penalties and issue cease and desist orders, subject to an appeal to the FEA. The decision by the FEA regarding such an appeal will be final agency action and be subject to judicial review. The FEA will have the authority to apply to a federal district court for a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction to prevent violations of law that would result in substantial harm to the public interest. The FEA will also have the authority to conduct a limited number of random audits of campaign committees.

Unlike the FEC, the FEA will have real authority to act in a timely and effective way to function as a real enforcement agency.

The second problem with the FEC is that the commissioners appointed to the FEC have been chosen based on their political allegiances rather than their qualifications and commitment to administer and enforce the law. As a result of this process, the FEC is a highly politicized agency beholden to the interests of federal officeholders and party leaders who name the commissioners and the campaign finance community the agency is supposed to regulate.

FEC commissioner nominations are supposed to originate with the President and be confirmed by the Senate, but Congress really has the control over who is nominated. Nominees to the FEC are selected by party leaders in Congress and made official by the White House. Where the President has objected to a choice promoted by Congress, the congressional leaders have insisted on their nominees, and have usually won. Another issue is that few FEC commissioners have a background in enforcing laws. Most have come from the community that the FEC oversees--Congress, the political parties, and those in the campaign finance system.

An example of the disproportionate control Congress has over FEC appointments was shown by the appointment of Bradley A. Smith in 2000 as a commissioner. The Smith case showed that an avowed opponent of the campaign finance laws--someone who had called the laws unconstitutional and urged their repeal--could be forced onto the FEC by his Senate sponsors over the objection of the President, who nevertheless nominated him. Despite resistance, President Clinton named Smith to the FEC after Senate Republican leaders insisted on the nomination. The further inappropriateness of Smith serving on the FEC was shown when in February 2002 he actively participated in the efforts in the House of Representative by reform opponents to kill campaign finance reform legislation. Smith joined with another FEC member who also opposed campaign finance laws. The two commissioners inserted themselves into the fight during House consideration of the Shays-Meehan campaign finance reform bill by helping House Republican leaders work to defeat the bill.

Clearly, the fact that FEC commissioners have become so publicly partisan in the policy debates on the election laws places in doubt the FEC's ability to credible enforce the law when its own commissioners openly denigrate the validity of those laws.

This legislation addresses this second problem by the following means. An individual may not be appointed to the new Federal Election Administration if he or she is serving or has served as a member of the FEC subject to a term limit or during the four previous years, was a candidate or elected officeholder, an officer, employee or attorney of a candidate, officeholder or political party, or employed in certain executive branch positions. Such strict criteria on who may be appointed to the FEA would provide the best opportunity for obtaining highly qualified and publicly credible and unbiased individuals to effectively and impartially enforce the campaign finance laws.

The last major problem with the FEC is that Congress has constantly abused its budget and oversight authority over the FEC. Time and time again, Congress has cut its budget. This legislation addresses this problem by having the budget of the new Federal Election Administration established by Congress based on a budget request prepared by its chairman and submitted directly to Congress. The General Accounting Office, GAO, will conduct periodic studies of the funding for the new FEA and submit recommendations to Congress on the level of funding necessary to provide adequate resources for the FEA to fulfill its duties. Unlike the FEC, the new agency will have the means to ensure that it will receive the adequate resources to effectively enforce the campaign finance laws.

In conclusion, the fact that FEC commissioners were never able to find significant campaign finance violations by federal candidates and their political parties in the Democratic and Republican campaign finance abuses that occurred in the 1996 elections--especially in the abuses of President Bill Clinton, his campaign officials and his political party--is the classic example of the problems with the FEC. Furthermore, when Congress enacted the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, BCRA, the FEC undermined this new law by issuing regulations to implement BCRA that seriously weakened the law's main provisions. Both examples highlight the FEC's history of failure as an oversight and enforcement agency and the need for its overhaul. Effective enforcement is essential for laws such as BCRA to work in the long run, and achieving that requires the establishment of a new system to enforce campaign finance laws.

With the establishment of this new Federal Election Administration to replace the FEC as a more effective enforcement agency, the campaign finance laws will now finally be taken seriously by candidates, parties, donors, and the public. Once this new agency is set up, the regulated community will comply with campaign finance laws because those laws can no longer be violated without punishment.

Mr. President, I am pleased to be joined today by Senator Hollings in introducing a bipartisan bill to reauthorize the Surface Transportation Board, STB, for five years.

The STB is an independent agency established January 1, 1996, as the successor to the Interstate Commerce Commission. It is responsible for the economic regulation of interstate surface transportation, primarily railroads. The STB's mission is to ensure that competitive, efficient, and safe transportation services are provided to meet the needs of shippers, receivers, and consumers. The agency has remained unauthorized since the end of fiscal year 1998, despite efforts by the Senate Commerce Committee to pass reauthorization legislation.

The Surface Transportation Board Reauthorization Act of 2003 would reauthorize the STB for fiscal years 2004 through 2008 and provide sufficient resources to ensure the Board is able to continue to carry out its responsibilities. Specifically, the legislation would authorize $20.5 million for fiscal year 2004, rising to $23.5 million in fiscal year 2008. In fiscal year 2006, the legislation would authorize a higher appropriation, totaling $23.8 million, to cover the estimated costs that will be incurred to physically relocate the STB's offices. The legislation also proposes that the Board's Chairmanship position be subject to Senate confirmation, similar to other Boards and Commissions throughout the federal government, including the National Transportation Safety Board, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Export-Import Bank, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

I know that some of my colleagues, including several members of the Senate Commerce Committee, are interested in considering more sweeping legislation to amend the Staggers Rail Act, the landmark 1980 legislation that partially deregulated the freight railroads. As I have stated on numerous occasions, rail service and rail shipper issues warrant serious consideration. These matters have been the subject of many hearings before the Senate Commerce Committee, and Senator Hutchison will chair a Subcommittee hearing on captive shipper issues in the coming weeks. If a consensus is reached on other reforms needed to protect shippers and the public, additional legislation may be forthcoming from the Commerce Committee.

I look forward to working with my colleagues in moving this bill through the legislative process in the weeks ahead. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Madam President, no one can doubt that kids today face tremendous obstacles to eating right and making healthy choices.

Every day, they are bombarded with dozens of advertisements enticing them to eat more and more unhealthy foods. Tens of billions of dollars are spent each year to convince our kids to buy the products. In the face of this advertising and marketing power, our efforts to help kids eat healthier are more important than ever.

This is no less the case in our schools than elsewhere in society. Even in our schools, it's getting harder and harder to ensure that kids get healthy food. The sale of soda pop, candy, foods high in fat and low in nutritional value, commonly called junk food, has become an accepted, but still unacceptable, reality in American schools. Ballooning sales of soft drinks and candy in our schools undercut the $15 billion dollar investment our nation makes in child nutrition every year.

I still believe that, given the chance, our kids can and will make good choices about the foods they eat. We just don't give them these choices.

To test this hypothesis that, given the opportunity, kids would make good choices about the food they eat, I proposed and got adopted in the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of

2002 a pilot program that provides grants to schools for the simple purpose of allowing them to use the money to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables for their students. Some schools use the grants to deliver bins of fruits and vegetables to their classrooms every day. Others set up kiosks in the halls. A few schools even put free fruits and vegetables in their vending machines.

Not long ago the Department of Agriculture released its assessment of the pilot program. Not surprisingly, it received high marks. Schools reported that 98 percent of students were interested in the program. Schools also reported that, over the course of the program, 71 percent of students grew more, not less, interested in the program. Most importantly, students told program evaluators that the pilot made them much more conscious about the junk food that they eat.

Over the course of the year my staff and I visited numerous schools in Iowa that participated in the pilot program. These visits simply confirmed what USDA reported in its report on the pilot program. The enthusiasm was incredible. Students loved it. Teachers loved it. Administrators loved it. Parents loved it. When I visited Harding Middle School in Des Moines at the end of May, just as the pilot program was coming to an end, they gave me one message loud and clear-- ``keep the fruits and vegetables coming.''

Today I am introducing legislation, S. 1392, to do just that and to expand the program to all 50 States.

Under this legislation, the pilot program would expand from its current 4 states and tribal schools and 60,000 students to 50 states and over 1 million children. It would also expand the pilot to ensure that additional Indian tribal schools are able to participate in the program.

It would do this at a reasonable price tag--only $75 dollars per student per year. This means that at a cost of just over $75 million per year, we can make fresh fruits and vegetables a constant presence in the life of over 1 million American schoolchildren. It is difficult for me to imagine a more effective use of taxpayer dollars.

Today I am also introducing companion legislation, S. 1393, to the fruit and vegetable pilot program expansion. The first piece of legislation seeks to provide kids with healthier food, and the second complements that by improving the overall nutritional environment of American schools. It seeks to give kids more choices and the ability to choose healthy foods.

Despite the fact that we invest over $15 billion annually in child nutrition, our nation's children still too often do not get good nutrition at their schools. Meals provided through the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program must meet nutritional standards. But there is far too much competition and interference with these balanced meals. Vending machines, school snack bars, and a la carte sales routinely provide kids with a wide variety of less healthy choices.

A recent GAO report found that 43 percent of elementary schools, 74 percent of middle schools, and 98 percent of high schools have vending machines, snack bars, canteens, and other places where students can readily obtain foods that defeat the sound and balanced nutrition that children and adolescents need.

We talk about the importance of giving our kids lots of choices, but as junk foods become the norm and displace more nutritious choices, are we giving kids more choices or less? I believe we should always provide kids with good tasting and healthy alternatives to the foods that provide almost no nutritional benefits. The bills that I'm introducing today provide schools and students with more choices, not less. I want to make sure that the kids in Iowa schools and other schools across the country will be able to choose foods that both taste great and are great for their health and nutrition.

The omnipresence of junk food is one of the reasons that our society is confronting a lethal threat--obesity. Obesity is even more pronounced among our children. According to the Centers for Disease Control, in the year 2000, 64 percent of all Americans were classified as either overweight or obese. Of these, 30 percent were actually obese. Among kids, the problem of obesity is exploding. In the last 20 years, the number of overweight kids tripled.

This is nothing short of a public health crisis. It's past time to get serious about fighting obesity and we must fight obesity first at its root--childhood--where children learn habits that stay with them for life.

A recent article in the journal Health Affairs estimated the cost of obesity to our nation at $93 billion annually. That is nearly a tenth of annual health care spending. Incredibly, obesity costs our society about as much as smoking.

In response to the health threats our kids face at schools, many schools across the country are taking matters into their own hands. Some are providing healthier choices in their vending machines, school snack bars, and a la carte sales. In Iowa, with support from the milk industry, selected schools are working to replace soft drinks with milk. The results are encouraging. Schools report that students are enthusiastic about these changes. It just goes to show that not only are students willing to accept healthier choices like fresh fruit and vegetables and milk, but that they actively want them.

We also know that schools have benefited financially and nutritionally from expanding the choices available to their children.

Faced with alarming statistics about childhood overweight and obesity rates, North Community High School in Minneapolis reevaluated the school's beverage vending practices. With the support of the administrative team, the principal contacted the district's Coca-Cola representative, who was willing to work with North to provide healthier choices. As a result, the school increased the number of machines from four to 16, stocked 13 machines with water or 100 percent fruit/ vegetable juice, stocked two machines with sports drinks, and limited soda to one machine with limited hours of sale. They also instituted a competitive pricing system, selling water for $.75, sports drinks and 100 percent fruit/vegetable juices for $1.00, and soda and fruit drinks, e.g., Fruitopia, for $1.25. The water machines are strategically placed in high traffic areas and students are now allowed to drink water in the classroom. Soda sales are down, but vending profits increased by almost $4,000 and the total number of cases of beverages has more than doubled from the previous school year, with water being the best seller.

These are the kinds of efforts and innovations that we need to encourage and support. That is why the second bill that I am introducing today creates a competitive incentive grant program to schools to improve the overall nutritional atmosphere in schools. Under this program, the Secretary of Agriculture makes competitive grants to schools so that they can provide healthier vending alternatives, improve the nutritional quality of their school meals, promote the consumption of fruits and vegetables, and provide nutrition education.

With this support, other schools can follow in the footsteps of schools like North Community High School and institute practices that are good for the school and good for the students.

Because we know that success in this area requires the leadership and commitment of a broad range of stakeholders, this bill gives a preference to schools that can demonstrate a multi-sectoral approach and engage the efforts of parents, businesses, and anyone else with a vested interest in the nutrition and educational success of our students. It also gives priority to applications that include a plan for continued success once their federal grant money has been expended.

Finally, the legislation uses sound science, not special interests, to determine what kinds of nutritional standards our elementary, middle schools, and secondary schools should institute. To achieve this, my legislation directs the Secretary of Agriculture to enter into an agreement with the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences, one of the premier scientific institutions in this country. The Institute of Medicine is directed to study the issue of children's nutritional needs at school and to make recommendations to the Secretary of Agriculture regarding appropriate standards for the sale of all foods in our schools.

Based upon the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine, the Secretary is directed to promulgate regulations that will provide appropriate and adequate safeguards for the nutrition of our children at school.

Taken together, the two pieces of legislation that I am introducing today represent a new chapter in our nation's efforts to provide for the health and safety of our kids. This body has a long history of bipartisan efforts on child nutrition and, with our child nutrition programs up for reauthorization this year, I have every reason to believe that these efforts will continue this year. Having served on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, I know that the issue of child nutrition knows no partisan boundaries. Democrats and Republicans alike have joined together over the years. I invite my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in cosponsoring this legislation to give kids the healthy choices they want and deserve and to safeguard the nutrition of our nation's children. If ever our children have been in greater need of this support, I cannot remember it, and so I invite my colleagues to join me in this effort.

I ask unanimous consent that the bills be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I am pleased to join with my partner in reform, the senior Senator from Arizona, to introduce the Federal Election Administration Act of 2003. When the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act was signed into law, Senator McCain and I and Representatives Shays and Meehan said we would continue our partnership to make sure that the law we passed is properly enforced. Much of what we tried to do in BCRA was caused by failures of the federal Election Commission to enforce the law. In particular, the soft money loophole was created by FEC rulings in the late 70s and early 80s, and exacerbated by failures to stop the wholesale evasion of the law in the 90s.

We wanted to give the FEC a fair chance to implement the new law. In BCRA itself, we provided deadlines for promulgating regulations so parties, candidates, and outside groups would know and understand the new rules of the game by the time the new law went into effect the day after the last election. We participated in those rulemakings throughout last summer

and fall, giving the FEC our very best effort to answer questions that were raised about the meaning and effect of BCRA.

The FEC met the deadlines, but not our expectations. Time after time, the FEC opened loopholes or potential loopholes rather than trying to faithfully discern the intent of the law. It acted as a super legislature, substituting its policy judgments for those of the Congress.

So the seeds of the bill that we are introducing today were sown in the weeks and months following enactment of the McCain-Feingold/Shays- Meehan bill. After careful consideration, it is our judgment that the current structure of the FEC cannot meet the challenges of enforcing the election laws in the 21st century. A new start is needed, and this is a good time to do it, with the recent enactment of BCRA and a presidential election just around the corner.

In this bill, we replace the FEC with a new agency, the Federal Election Administration. The FEA will continue performing the reporting and disclosure function of the FEC in largely the same way. With respect to enforcement, we have followed the model of other successful regulatory agencies such as the EPA, the NLRB, and the SEC. The new Federal Election Administration will have a strong Chair and a corps of Administrative Law Judges to adjudicate complaints that the Administration's professional staff will bring. The new agency will have the power to determine violations of the election laws and assess penalties, subject, of course, to judicial review.

Our bill envisions a smaller body than the FEC, three members instead of six, with an odd number of members to try to avoid the gridlock that the current equal number of Democratic and Republican Commissioners allows and even encourages. The Chair will have a ten-year term to encourage independence. The other members of the FEA will have staggered six-year terms. Our hope is that the new agency will not be the captive of the political parties, but instead, led by a strong and independent Chair, will be the respected watchdog that the American people want to see.

It is sad when the agency charged with enforcing the election laws is jokingly referred to as the Failure to Enforce Commission. The American people urged Congress to enact the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act and they support it now. They want to see candidates and parties abide by it and by punished if they don't. This new agency will provide a new and better structure for achieving that goal. I want to thank my friend Senator McCain for all of this work on campaign finance reform over the last eight years, and I look forward to working closely with him again to pass this bill.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the ``Equal Opportunity to Govern'' Amendment, which would amend the Constitution to permit any person who has been a United States citizen for at least 20 years to be eligible for the Office of President. The Constitution, in its current form, prohibits a person who is not a native born citizen of the United States from becoming President.

The purpose of the native born citizen requirement has long passed, and it is time for us--the elected representatives of this Nation or immigrants--to remove this impediment. While there was scant debate on this provision during the Constitutional Convention, it is apparent that the decision to include the natural born citizen requirement in our Constitution was driven largely by the concern that a European monarch, such as King George III's second son, the Duke of York, might be imported to rule the United States.

This restriction has become an anachronism that is decidedly un- American. Consistent with our democratic form of government, our citizens should have every opportunity to choose their leaders free of unreasonable limitations. Indeed, no similar restriction bars other critical members of government, including the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Supreme Court, or the President's most trusted cabinet officials.

Ours is a Nation of immigrants. The history of the United States is replete with scores of great and patriotic Americans whose dedication to this country is beyond reproach, but who happen to have been born outside of Her borders. These include former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright; current Cabinet members Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Mel Martinez; as well as Jennifer Granholm, the Governor of Michigan and bring young star

of the Democratic party. As our Constitution reads today, none of these well-qualified, patriotic United States citizens could be a lawful candidate for President.

Perhaps most disturbing is that the scores of foreign-born men and women who have risked their lives defending the freedoms and liberties of this great nation who remain ineligible for the Office of President. More than 700 recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor--our Nation's highest decoration for valor--have been immigrants. But no matter how great their sacrifice, leadership, or love for this country, they remain ineligible to be a candidate for President. This amendment would remove this unfounded inequity.

Today I ask the members of this body if we desire to continue to invite these brave men and women to defend this Nation's liberty, to protect Her flag, to be willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice, and yet deny them the opportunity to strive for the ultimate American dream--to become our President? I respectfully submit that we should not.

My proposal to amend the Constitution is not one I take lightly. As our founding fathers envisioned, our Constitution has stood the test of time. It has remained largely intact for more than 200 years due to the careful, deliberative, and principled approach of the framers. This is truly an extraordinary achievement. On a few appropriate occasions, however, we have generated the will to surmount the cumbersome, but no doubt necessary, hurdles to amend the Constitution. I believe the time has now come to address the antiquated provision of the Constitution that requires our President to be a natural born citizen. It has long outlived its original purpose.

I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting the Equal Opportunity to Govern Amendment.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the ``Equal Opportunity to Govern'' Amendment, which would amend the Constitution to permit any person who has been a United States citizen for at least 20 years to be eligible for the Office of President. The Constitution, in its current form, prohibits a person who is not a native born citizen of the United States from becoming President.

The purpose of the native born citizen requirement has long passed, and it is time for us--the elected representatives of this Nation or immigrants--to remove this impediment. While there was scant debate on this provision during the Constitutional Convention, it is apparent that the decision to include the natural born citizen requirement in our Constitution was driven largely by the concern that a European monarch, such as King George III's second son, the Duke of York, might be imported to rule the United States.

This restriction has become an anachronism that is decidedly un- American. Consistent with our democratic form of government, our citizens should have every opportunity to choose their leaders free of unreasonable limitations. Indeed, no similar restriction bars other critical members of government, including the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Supreme Court, or the President's most trusted cabinet officials.

Ours is a Nation of immigrants. The history of the United States is replete with scores of great and patriotic Americans whose dedication to this country is beyond reproach, but who happen to have been born outside of Her borders. These include former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright; current Cabinet members Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Mel Martinez; as well as Jennifer Granholm, the Governor of Michigan and bring young star

of the Democratic party. As our Constitution reads today, none of these well-qualified, patriotic United States citizens could be a lawful candidate for President.

Perhaps most disturbing is that the scores of foreign-born men and women who have risked their lives defending the freedoms and liberties of this great nation who remain ineligible for the Office of President. More than 700 recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor--our Nation's highest decoration for valor--have been immigrants. But no matter how great their sacrifice, leadership, or love for this country, they remain ineligible to be a candidate for President. This amendment would remove this unfounded inequity.

Today I ask the members of this body if we desire to continue to invite these brave men and women to defend this Nation's liberty, to protect Her flag, to be willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice, and yet deny them the opportunity to strive for the ultimate American dream--to become our President? I respectfully submit that we should not.

My proposal to amend the Constitution is not one I take lightly. As our founding fathers envisioned, our Constitution has stood the test of time. It has remained largely intact for more than 200 years due to the careful, deliberative, and principled approach of the framers. This is truly an extraordinary achievement. On a few appropriate occasions, however, we have generated the will to surmount the cumbersome, but no doubt necessary, hurdles to amend the Constitution. I believe the time has now come to address the antiquated provision of the Constitution that requires our President to be a natural born citizen. It has long outlived its original purpose.

I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting the Equal Opportunity to Govern Amendment.