Stealth Tax Relief Act of 2005

Mr. President, I understand there is a previous agreement that Senator Durbin was to speak at this point in time.

Mr. President, I will yield the floor when he arrives at a timely point. I want to get started on this debate. Time is short and the issues are important.

I rise to speak in favor of the Marriage Protection Amendment. I chair the Constitution Subcommittee from which it came through. I am also on the Judiciary Committee from which it came through.

This is a critically important topic. It is about, fundamentally, two issues.

No. 1, it is about who is going to define marriage in America--not whether marriage is going to be defined. It is about who is going to define marriage in America. Is it going to be defined by the courts that have started this debate or is it going to be defined by legislatures and legislative bodies across the country?

That is No. 1.

No. 2, and at the very center of this, is how we will raise our next generation of children.

That is fundamental to this debate--how we raise that next generation of children. We are going to talk a lot about that.

I have a number of statistics that we are going to share. It hinges on what happens in that first debate. Who is going to define it? Defined by the legislature? Defined by the Judiciary? And No. 2, what happens to the children? It was the central question of Senator Moynihan while he was in this body before he passed away, that we should always be concerned about centrally how you raise that next generation of Americans. That is a core, that is a principle, that is something you always have to keep your eye on, and that hinges in this debate.

I see my colleague from North Dakota on the floor who has recognition under the previous agreement.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from North Dakota for speaking about the constitutional amendment.

Before we left on Memorial Day, we dealt with a very important issue, and that was immigration. Immigration is now in conference committee. It is a key topic. It is my hope that by the end of this week or next we will deal with the budget and budget reforms. We need to get to a balanced budget. I believe we need to do it in 5 years. Others have said we need to cut the deficit in half in 5, if we can. We are dealing with that issue. I hope we can have support from our colleagues on the other side to move forward on those budget issues to get our budget in balance. We have had the issues of Katrina. The Presiding Officer knows so much about that; the war in Iraq. We can get there, but we will have to show some determination. I hope we get bipartisan support on that.

I also remind my colleagues that there hardly could be a more important issue than the foundational structure of how we build society and how societies have been built for thousands of years. They have been built around the institution of marriage, of a man and a woman bonded together for life. Out of that, families develop and grow and prosper. Children are raised, and that is the next generation. The next generation after that is brought forth and the generation preceding them is cared for or nurtured. That has been our fundamental structure. It hasn't been a structure of Government where we say we will have a whole bunch of Government out here to take care of people. Basically, what we say is: We will have a whole bunch of families out here to take care of people. And when that doesn't work, we will have Government support the structure and support the people who fall through the cracks. We will try to help as much as we can. We will try to help families as much as we can, and that is why we try to offer help for marriages. That is why we try to give advantages to marriages, so that that is the best structure that we know of that has been created to raise children, the next generation.

The problem we have in front of us is the institution of marriage has been weakened, and the effort to redefine it on this vast social experiment that we have going on, redefining marriage differently than it has ever been defined before, this effort of this vast social experiment, the early data that we see from other places, harms the institution of the family, the raising of the next generation. And it is harmful to the future of the Republic.

I think we can hardly have a more foundational debate regarding things of importance than the marriage amendment. I remind my colleagues that there is nothing controversial that we are debating. I will put up a chart that people have already seen. We need to remind people of the wording. The wording on this amendment is:

Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the

union of a man and a woman.

This is hardly profound science. This is a statement and people understand it. It is clear. We have held nine hearings in the Senate on it. The next sentence is:

Neither this Constitution, nor the Constitution of any

State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the

legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other

than the union of a man and a woman.

In other words, the courts cannot define marriage differently. Legislative bodies can look at it differently. The courts cannot. It says the legislature, the people's body, has to be involved in deciding the institution of marriage.

Some say this is something that was brought up by Congress in an election year because we are concerned about elections. But I can certainly say for this Senator, and everybody I know supporting this amendment, that is not the case. I view this as foundational to this society, to the future of the Republic. I think I am in pretty good company.

I will show you the next chart on this particular issue and the number of States that have taken up the issue of fundamentally deciding what marriage should look like. 45 out of 50 States have either adopted constitutional amendments or passed laws protecting traditional marriages. That means we are already beyond the three-fourths number of States that have defined marriage as the union of a man and a woman. To amend the Constitution, you have to have two-thirds of the House, two- thirds of the Senate, and three-fourths of the State. We are already over three-fourths of the States. It is kind of a reverse constitutional amendment because 45 States have acted and said marriage is a union of a man and a woman, and we think it is so important that we are going to act ahead of time. We are going to go at this now so that the courts cannot beat us to the punch.

But the problem is that those are State legislatures, and they can be trumped by a Federal court, which has already happened, and their State constitution can be ruled null and void and unconstitutional. So you have 45 of the 50 States already speaking on this and saying marriage is the union of a man and a woman, feeling that it is so important that they want to act before

Congress, before the Constitution can be amended. They think it is that important. They have already moved forward before this body has enacted.

Nineteen States have constitutional amendments protecting the definition of marriage as a man and a woman; 26 others have statutes. Only five have not acted to protect that law statutorily or constitutionally. I will show you the next chart. You cannot say this kind of barely passed or that it is a small majority or that people don't care about this issue. I will show you a chart of how the vote total has been going across the States, across the country, in every region of America. When a constitutional amendment in a State defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman has come up in front of the people, the people have passed it. They have passed it, and it is not by 51 to 49. It is not just in the Midwest or the South; it is in the East, it is in the West, it is everywhere. Look at the chart, starting from the earliest one in 1998 to the latest, in my State of Kansas, in 2005. Look at the margins they have passed it by. You have a low of 57 percent in Oregon on the west coast. Still, that is a strong majority. My guess is that a number of people in this body on their first election were not elected with more than 57 percent of the vote. And you have the highs of 86 percent in Mississippi, 79 percent in my State, and in North Dakota 73 percent of the vote.

It is not a small group of people saying, yes, it does matter to me; it is a strong majority of the public across the entire country that is saying we need to define this institution before the courts come in and do this vast social experiment of redefining the family unit we build families around. We need to get this defined. The average ballot in support is 71.5 percent. That is the best public opinion polling you can get--how people vote when they go to the booth in region after region, defining what marriage is. They know what they believe marriage is. If we had Senators who would vote as their States have voted, we would have 90 votes for a constitutional amendment, defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. That is how their States have voted, either by a constitutional ballot or within their legislature, in the laws that they have passed.

I urge my colleagues to reconsider the language being used here. There has been strong and vitriolic language thrown out. I don't appreciate that on any side of it, whether it is supporting the constitutional amendment or against it. People are trying to make fundamental policy for the country on a fundamental issue, and that is marriage.

It is not bigotry to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. If that were the case, then you have 45 of 50 States that have done that. You have major religious institutions, Pope Benedict of the Catholic Church, and you have many other church leaders saying that marriage is the union of a man and a woman. You have different racial groups that are saying marriage is a union of a man and a woman. They are not bigoted individuals. They are simply seeking good public policy and the best place to raise a family, recognizing that the law is a teacher. If the law says you can redefine marriage any way you want to, the law teaches you can have marriage any way you want. If you define that marriage downward, you harm an institution that already is in great difficulty in this country. I will cover that much more later. Let's watch our language. We are trying to deal with a serious matter for the future of the Republic.

On Saturday, I was at a wedding in Topeka at which my daughter was the maid of honor. I don't think I am too partial in telling my colleagues that she was beautiful, radiant--not to compete with the bride, but she was beautiful, and I was very proud of her. It reminded me of that time-honored institution we are talking about--marriage, the union of a man and a woman. As I sat next to my wife, with our children next to us, other than my daughter who was in the wedding, I thought what a wonderful institution, what a way that we want to have this country built around, with grandparents and parents and children and siblings bonded together for life.

And do you know what. Families fight. There gets to be difficulties in families. But they stay together and support each other. It is the durability of that structure that helps build people. Families encourage each other. You push one another and say you ought to do this, and you can do that; and when somebody starts to fall, you pick them up. Even when you get mad, you don't go away--some people do. But you say, all right, it is family. We hang in here and we have to do that. That is what families do. That is why they are durable and good, and that is why we want to support them, because of what a family is. It is that durable set of relationships that are thick and that bind us together. We are reminded when we go to a wedding ceremony and we say here is a young couple getting married, and they are beautiful young people and they are radiant and excited and nervous; they probably don't have any clue of what they are getting into. As my wife and I said afterwards, we didn't know anything about marriage when we walked into it. Twenty-four years later, we know a little bit more about it. We know the promise and the beauty of it. We have children from it. We have been gifted with five children. You know the importance of it, of staying in there and supporting that family.

We know the values transmission that occurs in a marriage, what the parents say to their children and what they live in front of their children. We know the values transmission that takes place from grandparents, if they are surviving, to children, passing on those traditions and thoughts. It is a beautiful institution; it is one that we pass on the values from to the next generation.

It is an institution that is in trouble. We have had a lot of dissolutions of marriage in this country, as a result of any number of factors. Maybe it is the speed at which we live. We all say in our hearts we know the best thing is to have that marriage endure. We know the best thing is for the marriage to endure and to raise good, healthy children. We know the best thing is for that marriage to nurture and grow those children. We know that in our hearts. You don't have to have a law passed to tell you that.

We also know this institution is in trouble, and if you redefine it, you are going to create further problems for a fundamental institution. What you are going to do is you will take out a lot of the breath that is left in the institution, and you will move in another direction.

I will be happy to after my final point. Other countries that have redefined marriage have seen an enormous loss in the institution. Other countries that have defined this differently and have been there for a period of time have found a loss in the institution of marriage and the number of people willing to get married--to the point that most children are born out of wedlock, not born in these bonded relationships. That is the future of what takes place when you redefine a fundamental institution that everybody agrees is a union between a man and a woman. When the law teaches it is different, you will move the people away from that, and we will have fewer marriages in America. That is not what we need nor want.

I am happy to yield to the primary cosponsor of the constitutional amendment.

Reclaiming my time, I thank my colleague for the question. I not only think that--and it strikes me that is natural to presume--that is the experience taking place in other countries. As I said, I will have some charts on this tomorrow that I will bring forward and showcase to people. The experience in Europe and the Scandinavian countries is not encouraging in what we have seen taking place with the institution of marriage. Those are places that have redefined marriage over a period of time now.

They have said marriage can be between same-sex couples. You have counties in Norway where over 80 percent of the first-born children are born out of wedlock and two-thirds of the second children are. The institution no longer means much of anything. It is defined away.

You can say: OK, that is fine because you can raise good children in that setting. You can raise good children in a single family setting or with two people living together. But from all the social data, we know that is not the best place. We know that you are asking for a lot of problems if you define marriage away or let it be defined away by the courts. If we are going to do this, if it is going to be allowed, at least let's have the people involved in this discussion and not have it done by the courts, which is where we are headed right now. This is going to be done by the courts.

I want to put another chart up to show that particular point about how many courts are taking up this issue of marriage. Here you see in all the States and all these States' legislatures they are saying marriage is the union of a man and a woman. In 45 of 50 States, marriage is defined as the union of a man and a woman. What has happened in the legal framework? We have seen this in other areas in this country where the people speak and then the activists--a small group--take this matter and say we are not going to go through the legislative body and work with the people and try to change the hearts and minds of the people. We are going to go through the courts.

So what is happening in the courts on this? Nine States face lawsuits challenging traditional marriage laws--nine States. In four of those nine States, judges have already followed Massachusetts and found a right of same-sex marriage in the State constitutions--four of those nine, already. In April of 2005--and there were a number of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle the last time this came up 2 years ago who said, Well, when the courts start ruling against this, when the Federal courts start ruling against this, then I will look at the need for a constitutional amendment at the Federal level. All right, we got it, unfortunately. I wish we didn't. But in April of 2005, a Federal court in the district of Nebraska held that the State's amendment, which was approved by 70 percent of Nebraskans--70 percent, which is about the same number that support Nebraska football; it is higher, I suppose, than that--but 70 percent of Nebraska voters voted for that constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman, and the Federal court struck it down and said it was unconstitutional. This is a Federal court saying that a State marriage law in the State's Constitution, that went to the people, supported by 70 percent of the people by a vote, is unconstitutional. All right. Now we have the Federal courts. And Federal courts challenges to the Federal DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, which the prior speaker, the Senator from North Dakota, was talking about, we now have Federal challenges to that, and more is coming, more is coming. So for my colleagues to say, well, it is not a particularly important topic, and we have other things we need to deal with, that is not what the States say. The States say this is an important topic, and they are staring down the barrel of Federal courts defining it away, as the first Federal court that has ruled on this has already done, in saying marriage is not the union of a man and a woman. It is not. Somebody is going to define this--which was point one I was raising at the outset-- somebody is going to define this and I believe it should be legislative bodies and the people.

No. 2, this is about the institution of marriage and how you raise the next generation. That is something I think we need to cover in some depth. We had a great debate here on this floor about immigration the 2 weeks prior to going on break and it was a great debate. Immigration is an important policy issue in this country and it is facing us now. We have a huge problem. The system is not working. We had a great debate. We need to have a great debate about marriage, about this fundamental institution, because we need to think and look and see where this institution is going. It is in a great deal of difficulty.

I want to cover this, particularly from the context of a group which has just issued a paper on it. There is an important group of prestigious American academics from top universities who have just released what I think is a groundbreaking statement of principles to guide the public debate on the marriage issue, and we have needed a debate about marriage because the percentage of people getting married has fallen, the number of divorces has risen greatly, and approximately half of our children under the age of 18 will spend a significant portion of their childhood in a single parent household. We have welfare policies in this country that penalize people for getting married. It is bad policy. And now the lowest income individuals in the United States are the least likely to get married. So I guess you could say that policy has worked. It is a horrific idea. Reagan probably had this right when he said, ``If you want more of something, subsidize it; if you want less of something, tax it.'' We have subsidized the situation of not getting married if you are in a low-income strata, and that is indeed what has happened in this country.

This group of academics has just issued from Princeton ``Ten Principles on Marriage and the Public Good.'' It is produced by top scholars in history, economics, psychiatry, law, sociology and philosophy, and presents research on why the defense of marriage is in the public interest. Now, remember, what we are talking about is in the public interest. This is what we need as a Nation. What do we need to do? What is in the public interest? And they are clearly saying that it is in the public interest to support marriage as the union of a man and a woman and have more of it, not less, and to have stronger unions, not weaker ones, and to have an institution that is supported by law, not defined out of existence by law. They say this:

In recent years, marriage has weakened, with serious

negative consequences for society as a whole. Four

developments are especially troubling: Divorce, illegitimacy,

cohabitation, and same-sex marriage. Marriage protects

children, men and women, and the common good. The health of

marriage is particularly important in a free society, which

depends upon citizens to govern their private lives and rear

their children responsibly, so as to limit the scope, size,

and power of the State.

It is families that buttress the State and also limit the scope, size, and power of the State.

The Nation's retreat from marriage has been particularly

consequential for our society's most vulnerable communities:

Minorities and the poor pay a disproportionately heavy price

when marriage declines in their communities. Marriage also

offers men and women as spouses a good they can have in no

other way: a mutual and complete giving of the self. Thus,

marriage understood as the enduring union of husband and wife

is both a good in itself and also advances the public

interest.

We affirm the following ten principles--

This is this Princeton group of scholars.

That summarize the value of marriage--a choice that most

people want to make, and that society should endorse and

support.

They then list these 10 principles of marriage and the public good.

Marriage is a personal union, intended for the whole of

life, of husband and wife.

Marriage is a profound human good, elevating and perfecting

our social and sexual nature.

Ordinarily, both men and women who marry are better off as

a result.

Marriage protects and promotes the well-being of children.

Marriage sustains civil society and promotes the common

good.

Marriage is a wealth-creating institution, increasing human

and social capital.

When marriage weakens, the equality gap widens, as children

suffer from the disadvantages of growing up in homes without

committed mothers and fathers.

A functioning marriage culture serves to protect political

liberty and foster limited government.

The laws that govern marriage matter significantly.

And No. 10, ``civil marriage'' and ``religious marriage''

cannot be rigidly or completely divorced from one another.

They go on to say:

Creating a marriage culture is not the job for government.

Families, religious communities, and civic institutions,

along with intellectual, moral, religious, and artistic

leaders, point the way. But law and public policy will either

reinforce and support these goals or undermine them. We call

upon our nation's leaders, and our fellow citizens, to

support public policies that strengthen marriage as a social

institution, including:

Protect the public understanding of marriage as the union

of one man and one woman as husband and wife.

Investigate divorce law reforms.

End marriage penalties for low-income families.

Protect and expand pro-child and pro-family provisions in

our Tax Code.

Protect the interests of children from the fertility

industry.

I ask that this important statement of principles from top American scholars be considered carefully by my colleagues. I hope it will help guide our debate on this issue.

I want to talk a bit about that in the sense that we are having a profound impact on society and we have had this shift in the importance and status of marriage that has happened during one generation-- basically my generation. We had a very strong marriage culture going into the 1960s, with very low divorce rates in the United States. There were undoubtedly situations that people married into that were bad, that were abusive prior to that period of time, and there certainly are today as well. But I don't think anybody could argue that today we have too many situations where too many children are in too weak of a household structure, lacking the concentration of adults in their lives, that this fundamental breakdown of the family has allowed in many cases to happen. And then you have that huge, enormous impact on that next generation of children.

That is why this group of intellectuals has come together and said, Look, for the future of society, for the future of our culture, we need a strong marriage institution. Don't weaken it and don't redefine it away from what it is and harm it further.

I want to talk briefly about the effects on Massachusetts and the effect the change of laws in Massachusetts has had on this particular marriage debate. In terms of the societal effects of regularizing same- sex unions, some have pointed out that the legalizing of same-sex unions in some States--and this has happened in Massachusetts and in Vermont--has not destroyed the society of those States. So they are taking the counterargument on this and saying, What is the problem here? Why not just define it any way you want to and if people of the same gender want to get married, that is fine, and it is not going to hurt my marriage. That is the way the debate will come up. I am not arguing that short-term changes like this will have detectable effects immediately where you can say, OK, you are going to define it one way this year and the next year you are going to see the number of heterosexual unions decline, and you are going to see major impacts on the marriage institution. It can take and does take years for the full effects of a change like this to show up because, remember, what you are doing is you are sewing into the culture, you are changing the culture.

When you redefine an institution like marriage, you are changing the culture. You are saying, OK, we have had a foundational institution in this culture: It is marriage. It is a union of a man and a woman bonded together for life. It is where we raise our families, where we raise the next generation and bring them up; that is a foundational structure. Now we are redefining that and saying, Well, it doesn't need to be a man and a woman. That is a cultural shift, and cultural shifts take years to show up, but they will show up, and they have enormous impact.

We have seen small changes taking place already in places like Massachusetts. State marriage licenses now contain places for ``Partner A'' and ``Partner B,'' rather than husband and wife. Perhaps soon the terms ``husband'' and ``wife'' will be eradicated, and as for the terms ``mother'' and ``father'' one can only imagine what will happen to the definitions of those institutions.

Those cultural signals are not going to strengthen the American family. This issue has been thoroughly discussed and debated. I want to complete this point--and I will have more charts to show on this--of what takes place over a period of two to three decades when you redefine an institution like marriage. In fact, I want to show, and actually I believe we have a chart on that today, and I am going to pull that up here a little bit later on to show what has happened in other countries when they have redefined the institution, if we can find that chart. I want to come back to that.

Before I get to that, though, I want to point out how much we have discussed this issue. Some may suggest, Well, we are rushing this to the floor. I can't believe they would, but some might say, Well, it is just being rushed to the floor and we really don't understand the ramifications of this particular constitutional amendment, and argue from that perspective. I want to point out that we have had nine hearings on this subject from 2003, 2004, and 2005. We have held hearings with dozens of experts on this topic. We have held hearings about the impact of changing the definition of marriage. We have held hearings with legal experts and scholars of what does this two-sentence constitutional amendment mean. We have held hearings from lots of different angles on this.

One thing has certainly become clear in these hearings: Traditional marriage promotes stability in society and government has a vital interest in encouraging and providing the conditions to maintain as many traditional marriages as possible.

Once the process of redefining marriage begins, it is but a short step to the dissolution of marriage as an institution all together. I don't think that is the way we want to go, and it is certainly not the way we want to go for our children.

There is also a point about when you redefine marriage, what takes place in institutions that want to stay with a traditional definition of marriage. There now is a growing body of thought that institutions will not be allowed to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an article that I think is a very interesting and important one done by Maggie Gallagher that looks at the loss of religious freedom when you redefine marriage.

Mr. President, the reason I want to have that printed in the Record is for people to be able to see there is another side to this. When you redefine marriage and say it can now be between two people of the same gender, what happens when an institution says that we do not agree with that? Let's say a particular church says we do not agree with that; we believe that marriage is a union of a man and a woman. They can then actually be at risk legally in their state for having that definition and that will be seen as discriminatory, to the point you saw Catholic Charities doing adoptions in Boston having to leave because they were forced to recognize same-sex union adoptions and to provide those services. They said they disagree with this as a matter of their religious tenets. So now they are no longer able to do adoptions in Massachusetts.

What happened to their religious freedom? That will be the same sort of path this will take. People will lose religious freedom if they hold a different view. If they say: We believe marriage is a union of a man and a woman, it is a basic tenet of our faith--which it is for many people and many faiths; this is a basic tenet, that marriage is a union of a man and a woman--now you are going to find that somehow discriminatory? Bigotry? They are going to be sued if they only recognize marriage as a union of a man and a woman.

I hope my colleagues who want to vote against this start to think about that because this is the trajectory many of these things have taken when they get on this track.

I promised my colleagues I would show what happened in other countries when they took on the issue of redefining marriage. We have other countries that have done this. The point I want to make is marriage is a fundamental institution. We need to support it and grow it. If you redefine marriage, this is not the way to support and grow marriage. This is not the way to support and grow marriage.

Some will say there will just be more marriages that will take place. That is not the experience in other countries, particularly in northern Europe. They have redefined marriage, and it has not happened that way. You get fewer marriages and you get more children born out of wedlock. If you say, OK, we get more children born out of wedlock, the problem is you put children in a less than optimal environment. This goes against the Moynihan principle: You should always look at what you do to the next generation, and you should be as supportive as you can to the next generation.

This chart shows, for the Netherlands, out-of-wedlock births and the campaign for same-sex marriage in the Netherlands. The Netherlands is a particularly interesting case because they had a very stable marital environment for a long period of time. In all of Europe, it was one of the most stable marital environments in which children were born in wedlock, up until a very recent period of time. Up until 1980 you still have less than 5 percent of children born out of wedlock. One of the lowest rates in all of Europe was in the Netherlands. Then, when they started to have this debate on same-sex marriage, a lot of things changed in the Netherlands, the same way as happens here.

It goes in the court system. A small group of activists go in the court system and say: We can't change the overall body politic, but we will go into the courts and we will use the courts to change society that way. So we will get at them through the courts, the same play as happening here.

In 1980 we have 5 percent of the total births out of wedlock. Then the first court cases start hitting in the late 1980s and you are at or around a little above 10 percent, the first court cases hitting on same-sex unions.

You can just see that pattern skyrocket, the percentage of total births of children born out of wedlock from when you start redefining. You are speaking this into the culture and saying to the culture: Marriage isn't only the marriage of a man and a woman, it can be two men, two women, whatever we want to define it to be. We need to do this. It is something that is discriminatory otherwise.

You can just see that thing take off, the number of children born out of wedlock.

Again, if you say: That is just a consequence of it, I guess that is the way it is, the problem is, that is not the way it was, nor is it the way it needs to be, nor is it the way it should be for our children in the next generation. We should be strongly concerned about how that next generation is raised and the nurturing environment they are raised in. Recognizing people are going to have trouble in marriages--they are, but we still don't want to take that optimal design away. We want to encourage that optimal design. We know that is the place where it works the best.

I want to show a chart to make a couple of points. Ever since proposals for same-sex marriage began to be debated, the out-of-wedlock birth rate in the Netherlands has soared. Same-sex marriage has increased the culture separation of marriage from parenthood in the Netherlands.

Scandinavia is the area in the world that has the longest track record of same-sex unions. They have embraced it for the longest period of time. These are the countries, then, where we have the most developed data. This is the law being used to change the culture.

I think I am paraphrasing Senator Moynihan--he was a great cultural commentator--a comment he made in one of his books. He wrote that the central conservative truth is that culture is more important than government. In other words, what your culture says it honors and dishonors is more important than government. That was central conservative truth.

The central liberal truth is, you can use laws to change culture. Here you see the effort to use a law to change culture taking place. The system of marriage like same-sex registration partners established in the late 1980s has contributed significantly to the ongoing decline of marriage in this region. The rates for both first and second and later births to cohabiting couples have risen substantially. Instead of arguing that same-sex marriage encourages marriage among heterosexual parents, it is used as evidence that marriage is outdated. Where gay marriage finds acceptance, marriage has virtually ceased to exist in some areas.

We have a chart where 80 percent of the first-born children, as I mentioned, were born out of wedlock. Is that the trajectory we want to go on? Is that where we want this society to go? Is that the sort of country we want to have in the future? Is that where we are willing to go?

I think people are going to argue a whole bunch of different ideas. There is going to be a lot of blustering about this, but the basic question is pretty simple. Do you believe and do you support that marriage is a union of a man and a woman? Do you think that is the foundation of society or not? People are going to yell and scream a lot of things about some form of bigotry, or that this is being done for political purposes, Or this or that, or they are going to try to say: It doesn't hurt my marriage. I am just saying we have basic social data on this vast social experiment of redefining marriage. We know where it heads.

I think if any of us really search in our own hearts we are pretty comfortable that if you redefine this institution you are unlikely to get more of it. You are more likely to get less of it.

I hope people will ask the next question. Is this the best place to raise the next generation? Is this the best message to send on how to raise that next generation? I ask people to ask their own hearts--look at the data. We have the data on it, but ask in their own hearts because this is a big, deep, serious one. This is an important one.

I respect my colleagues who have a different position. I respect people in the United States who have a different position on this particular issue. There are good people on all sides of this issue. But the data is what it is. People, if they just ask in their own hearts, they know the right answer to this particular topic, as tough as it might be. But this is an important one. It will be defined by us or by the courts.

I will have additional information to present at a later date, but I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I understand some of my other colleagues will be coming to the floor. I urge them to get to the floor to make statements. Tomorrow there will be more individuals coming in. It will probably get crowded. So if people want to make an opening statement, this will be an excellent time to do it.

While we are waiting for individuals to come to the floor, I want to share some of the information we put together on this institution of marriage so we can use the time profitably while we have this debate on the floor.

I want to talk about the issue of what happens to children in this institution of marriage. I believe I am saying some of the things my grandparents would say: Well, of course that is true, this kind of basic thought or idea that you get in a society. But I think there are things that need to be reiterated.

Now we have social data in the United States to say what happens when you walk away from a fundamental institution, and one like marriage, that it has as much trouble as it has.

I want to point to the number of children born out of wedlock in the United States and where we have been going with this data. In the 1930s, 4 percent; 1950s up to 5.3 percent, now up to 34.6 percent.

We have roughly a third of the children in the United States born to single moms. It is not that you cannot have a good child-rearing situation there, but, as we will show later on, it just gets much more difficult to raise that child. It is important that child be raised between a loving couple.

I want to show the next chart, if we could, on this particular point. Developmental problems are less common in two-parent families. This is something I want to share. It is the sort of thing my parents would be looking at and saying: Of course, we know that is the case. But now we have the social data on it. You have single-parent families in the green, you have two-parent families in red. You see the lower half of class academically--it is twice as likely to be in that single-parent household; developmental delays, 10 percent more likely; emotional or behavior problems, more than twice as likely to have problems in that particular category as well, in that single-parent household.

I want to show the next chart and show this: Nearly 80 percent of all children suffering long-term poverty come from broken or never-married families. I will cover this in more detail tomorrow because this is a product--partially, if not a majority product--of government policies on welfare.

That penalizes people for getting married if they are in the welfare system.

As you can see, nearly 80 percent of children suffering long-term poverty come from broken and never-married families. One of the two best ways known out of poverty in the United States is to get a job and get married. I will develop that thought more tomorrow. We are actual trying some innovative experiments here in Washington, DC, on what can be done and should be done to remove the marriage penalty from our welfare policies and programs.

I see my colleague from Texas has joined us. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I want to address a couple other issues on this marriage amendment and at the same time urge my colleagues who want to speak on this particular amendment to come to the Senate so we can have as fulsome debate as possible. If any Member comes to the floor, I will yield to them so they can get a chance to put their information forward.

There has been a developing body of thought, and I think this is a very important one to look at, the issue of religious freedom that develops from redefining marriage. I have entered into the Record already an article by Maggie Gallagher catching quite a bit of interest because it is of particular concern. I will develop this more fully.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that same-sex marriage poses a significant threat to religious liberties. Scholars on both the left and the right agree that same-sex marriage has raised the specter of the massive and protracted battle over religious freedom. Where courts impose the same-sex marriage regime as a constitutionally guaranteed right, a multitude of new religious liberty conflicts will inevitably arise at every point where the law touches marriage and is applied to individuals, businesses, nonprofits, and even churches and synagogues. Unfortunately, and especially in the era of Employment Division v. Smith, once a court has recognized the right to same-sex marriage, religious organizations are unlikely to find much relief in free exercise claims because of this decision of Employment Division v. Smith.

Same-sex marriage proponents argue that sexual orientation is like race and that opponents of same-sex marriage are, therefore, like bigots who oppose interracial marriage. Once same-sex marriage becomes law, that understanding is likely to become controlling.

Legally, same-sex marriage will be taken by courts as proof that a public policy in support of same-sex marriage exists, so in States with same-sex marriage, religiously affiliated schools, adoption agencies, psychological clinics, social workers, marital counselors, et cetera, will be forced to choose between violating their own deeply held beliefs and giving up government contracts, tax-exempt status, or being denied the right to operate at all. If a religious social service agency refuses to offer counseling designed to preserve the marriage of a same-sex marriage couple, it could lose its tax-exempt status. Religious schools would either have to tolerate conduct they believed to be sinful or face a cutoff of Federal funds. It is already happening, as we have seen in Massachusetts with Boston's Catholic Charities being forced out of the adoption business entirely rather than violating church teachings on marriage and family.

Free speech could also be under threat as sexual harassment in the workplace principles are used by nervous corporate lawyers to draw speech prohibitions on the marriage issue. Fear of litigation will breed self-censorship. One expert predicts ``a concerted effort to take same-sex marriage from a negative right to be free of state interference to a positive entitlement to assistance by others.''

Some people say the answer is conscious exemption, but no legislative exemption can offer the same protection to traditional religious groups as a

constitutional amendment. As one of the religious scholars has pointed out, even to attempt to create legislative protections would be a staggeringly difficult and complex project. And what the legislature gives, it can take away later. That is what has been happening all over Europe. Protecting marriage now will spare us many intense religious liberty conflicts down the road.

The lesson in this is clear. There is a lot more at stake in the battle over same-sex marriage than the marriage issue itself, important as that is. Our Nation's long tradition of religious liberty faces its greatest threat in a generation or more such that the very ability of religiously affiliated organizations to exist and operate is under threat.

I hope my colleagues will take a serious look at this issue and people can look at it and say: Wait a minute, it will not really develop that you will have this take place. But that is what took place in Massachusetts, where you had a Boston-based group, Catholic Charities, that does adoptions, but within the Catholic Church they say: We do not agree with same-sex adoptions, as far as same-sex marriage adopting children, and we are not going to provide that service to same-sex couples because of the beliefs of our organization, the tenets of our faith. Then they were run out of Boston and out of Massachusetts, rather than be forced to practice something that was against the tenets of their faith.

I don't think that is a route we want people to go or be forced to go, to give up the tenets of their faith in order to do something so basic as adoption, or in this case something so basic as performing marriages, like the one I attended on Saturday that was at a church. Are we going to say that churches which will not do same-sex couple unions cannot perform marriages at all because if they just perform them for heterosexual couples and not for homosexual couples, that is bigotry, that is against a fundamental right of people of same-sex unions, so if they are going to do any marriages, they must do all marriages?

People need to think about the profound implications of recognizing this right as it moves on through the courts and the court system. I don't think that is the intent people particularly have or want to have or that we should have.

I had printed in the Record an article entitled ``Banned in Boston. The coming conflict between same-sex marriage and religious liberty.'' That was wherein a scholar by the name of Maggie Gallagher, in quite an extensive article, an article that you start to recognize when we redefine a fundamental institution such as marriage--you get into issues and problems such as this which will take place.

A couple of Members are arguing that the Defense of Marriage Act is sufficient. I don't think that at all does the job of defining and supporting the institution, the fundamental institution of marriage and protecting that.

First, it is a statute. It is not a constitutional amendment. As such, as a Federal statute, it can be overruled and overturned by a court. We need to be able to have this at the constitutional level, where it is deciding fundamental constitutions or the ones being raised not at a statutory level. Define that and develop that a little bit more somewhat later.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I understand Senator McConnell will be closing today's session. I wanted to finish with a point I made earlier today. I have talked about other countries and what took place when they redefined the institution of marriage. And it has a great deal of difficulty for this society. It results in fewer marriages. There was a letter released 2 years ago that was addressed to parliamentarians around the world debating same-sex marriage. It was done by a group of five Dutch scholars. This is one of the countries I have cited that has redefined marriage, saying that it can be same-sex unions. They were raising concerns about gay marriages and the negative effect on the institution of marriage in the Netherlands. It was published July 8, 2004, in a leading Dutch newspaper:

There are good reasons to believe the decline in Dutch

marriage may be connected to the successful public campaign

for the opening of marriage to same-sex couples in The

Netherlands.

The letter signatories came from several academic disciplines, including social sciences, philosophy, and law. The scholars cautioned against attributing all of the recent decline in marriage to same-sex unions.

There are undoubtedly other factors which have contributed

to the decline of the institution of marriage in our country.

Further scientific research is needed . . .

They concluded:

At the same time, we wish to note that enough evidence of

marital decline already exists to raise serious concerns

about the wisdom of the efforts to deconstruct marriage in

its traditional form.

The reason I cite this is that there are going to be a number of people saying all you can find are going to be conservative scholars to say that this has had a negative impact on the Netherlands. That is not the case. They are saying things having a negative impact there. They noted in recent years there is statistical evidence of Dutch marital decline including ``a spectacular rise in the number of illegitimate births.'' That is their words. By creating a social and legal separation between the ideas of marriage and parenting, these scholars warn that same-sex marriages may make young people in the Netherlands feel less obligated to marry before having children. Publication of the letter of warning was accompanied by a front page news interview. In the interview, a Dutch law professor said that ``the reputation of marriage as an institution in Holland is in serious decline.'' ``The Dutch need to have a national debate on how to restore traditional marriage. The decision to legalize same-sex marriage, in my view, has been an important contributing factor to the decline in the reputation of marriage.''

One of the letters is from a Dutch citizen who heads a research unit on culture and communications at Nottingham Trent University. He has done a comparative study of family life and sexual attitudes in the Netherlands and Britain. He is also acquainted with research on American marriage. He believes that gay marriage has contributed to the decline in the reputation of Dutch marriage. It is ``difficult to imagine'' that the Dutch campaign for gay marriage did not have serious social consequences, and he cites an intensive media campaign based on the claim that marriage and parenthood are unrelated.

The Dutch scholars are not the only ones to assert that the institution of marriage has been weakened by legal and social recognition of same-sex unions. In January of this year, a French Government commission examining possible changes in French law recommended against legalizing same-sex marriage. It is not my custom to cite the French in the U.S. Senate. I often disagree if I do cite them. But listen to what they were recommending. This commission came out against legalizing same-sex marriage based on its examination of the impact of legalized same-sex marriage in Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, and Spain, the four countries where it is legal, as well as European countries. We have a French commission that looked at where these laws have taken other countries already. The French have not gone there yet. They are saying, let's study this, which I think would be a wise thing for us to do. Let's look and see what has happened in other countries, as the French have done. Their report--the parliamentarian report on the family and the rights of children--came out against a right to marriage for same-sex couples. This is certainly no conservative think tank group saying this. This is the French Government. The commission came to this conclusion when it considered the consequences for the child's development and the construction of his or her identity of creating a fictitious affiliation by law, two fathers and two mothers--this is their statement--which is biologically neither real or plausible. They were heard on this point and they failed to persuade a majority of the commission

to support recognizing the rights of a child or marriage for same-sex couples.

That is a French commission examining other European countries that have legalized same-sex unions saying this is not good for France or for the raising of the next generation.

In addition to these sources, some of the most influential sociologists in Europe agree that same-sex marriage undermines the traditional institution of marriage, even if they welcome the change. So, in other words, they are saying we might welcome the change, but this is going to hurt marriage. They agree that same-sex marriage doesn't reinforce marriage, as many of its proponents argue but, rather, upends marriage and helps foster acceptance for a variety of other forms, such as single parenting, cohabitation, and multiple partner unions, which only serve to weaken traditional marriage. This is what happens when you move away from your standard of marriage being the union of a man and a woman. It weakens the institution and moves in a lot of other types of arrangements.

Britain's Anthony Giddens, one of the most influential sociologists in all of Europe, wrote that modern marriage is being emptied of any meaning beyond the emotional bonding of adults, something he quotes as the ``pure relationship.'' This notion of the pure relationship is being widely used by European social scientists to explain why so many parents now avoid marriage. Having a child is an experiment in an adult relationship that could possibly lead to marriage, rather than a reason to get married in the first place. It is clear that the institution of marriage has been defined down. It is simply a shared affection between two adults.

This is precisely how the advocates of same-sex marriage define marriage--no intrinsic connection to marriage. European sociologists say that a whole host of changes, like single parenting, cohabitation, and multiple partner unions, point to the unraveling of marriage as an institution designed to keep mothers and fathers together and for the sake of their children.

German sociologists, Ulrich Beck and Elizabether Beck-Gernsheim, also highly contend that raising rates of parental cohabitation and out-of- wedlock births indicate that marriage, while seemingly alive, is in fact dying. The old notions of marriage and family are giving way to domestic situations in which individuals make up their own rules. Individual choice hollows out the old institutions, such as marriage and family, that used to guide our choices. These authors actually embrace and celebrate the instability of the brave new family system, holding that family disillusion teaches children a hard, but necessary, lesson about our new social world.

Is that the sort of message we want to send? It is the message that is coming through the courts if we don't define this legislatively. The work of Norwegian sociologist Keri Moxnes, frequently used by European social scientists, is to put the movement in context. Moxnes welcomes same-sex marriage not as a way of ratifying marriage itself but as an innovation that affirms and advances marriage's ongoing decline. She defines marriage as being an increasingly empty institution.

Is that the message we want to send? In the U.S, many sociologists are of the same opinion. One argues that these wrenching social changes disrupt conventional sexual and domestic relations and undermine traditional marriages, but also believes that all of these are signs of the decline of the traditional family. From same-sex unions, to births, to cohabiting parents, to mothers who are single by choice, release individuals from the constraint of traditional marriage.

I want to conclude on that point to reaffirm what is really taking place here, and that is the redefining of a fundamental institution. We can say this is somehow a politicized debate, that it is not important. But from what we are seeing in countries that have taken up this debate, it is clearly important. It goes to the heart of the fundamental institution of marriage and weakens it further. It is an institution that we want to support, and this move destroys it further, takes it down further. That has been the research results that have taken place in Europe.

This is a big debate. It is a big and important problem and issue. We should not kid ourselves about what this is about by saying we don't really need to do this now. If we don't do it and it is redefined by the courts, that is the track we are on--tearing down this institution around which we have built families. Is that what the American people want to do? We have seen them vote in 45 States saying, no, we want marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

We should not kid ourselves. This is seriously about the future of the culture of the United States.

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

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Kansas, Senator Brownback.

Mr. President, we come on a Monday to the floor of the Senate to discuss public policy and important issues. And today the majority leader has brought to us a proposed constitutional amendment. It is the first of what I believe will be two constitutional amendments that will be considered by the Senate for the next 7 or 10 days. That is not unusual. In fact, I had someone go back and check to see how many proposed amendments to the United States Constitution have been offered here on the floor of the Senate or in the U.S. House, or at least offered in bill forms. I discovered that in recent Congresses that there were I believe something like 76 proposed amendments to the Constitution. In another year, there were 67 proposed amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

The Constitution has not been amended except for the first 10 amendments which were the Bill of Rights. Outside of the Bill of Rights, the Constitution has been amended 17 times in nearly 220 years--17 times in more than two centuries.

The reason for that is most people believe that we ought to amend the Constitution only rarely, and then only when it is urgently necessary and only when it is the last resort. We have had a lot of different proposals to change the Constitution. There was a proposal to change the Constitution to provide that the Presidents of the United States for one term shall come from the North and then shall be succeeded by a President who comes from the South. That was a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Fortunately, for our country, not many of these ideas over all of these many, many years have been adopted by the U.S. Congress and by State legislatures, which is required in order to amend the U.S. Constitution.

The Constitution for this country was written by 55 white men. It was in a room in Philadelphia. In that room in Philadelphia, if you go to visit today, you will see the chair that George Washington sat in at the front of the room. George Washington chaired the Constitutional Convention. You will see where Ben Franklin sat, where Madison sat, where Mason sat. Those 55 men wrote a Constitution in a hot Philadelphia summer period and presented it then to the country. It was really a quite remarkable Constitution. It begins: ``We the People.''

In the writing of the Constitution, they created a framework for this new kind of government which has become over the last two centuries the most successful democracy or representative government in the history of humankind. We have lived only a blink of that history. And, yet, during that period this is the most successful democracy on the face of the Earth.

Two-hundred years after the writing of the Constitution, there was a celebration in that same room. I was one of the fortunate ones to go to that celebration representing one of the 55. These 55 people were men and women and minorities. It wasn't 55 men as existed in that room when they wrote the Constitution. The 55 people who celebrated in that room the 200th birthday of the Constitution--it was really quite a remarkable event. I sat in that room thinking about the history, thinking about George Washington sitting at the front in that chair with the piece of wood that is decorated as the sun on the back of that chair.

I thought to myself: What a remarkable thing it was for me, coming from a town of 300 people, from ranching and wheat country in southwestern North Dakota, from a high school with a senior class of nine students, and here I am sitting in the room where George Washington presided over the writing of the Constitution for this new country of ours.

I tell that story only because it is important for us to understand the circumstances of amending the Constitution.

Today, we have on the floor of the Senate a proposal to amend the Constitution with a constitutional amendment that would prohibit gay marriage.

Next week, we will have a constitutional amendment that would prevent desecrating the American flag or give the States the ability to prevent flag desecration.

On the issue of gay marriage, I voted as a Member of the U.S. Senate for a 1996 act called the Defense of Marriage Act. I did that because it creates for Federal law a definition of what marriage is. It defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, husband and wife. That is Federal law. I supported that. I was happy to support that. That is what I believe.

I don't believe we should be altering the U.S. Constitution. I don't believe we should be amending the basic framework of our democracy on this subject. The current law, the Defense of Marriage Act, which the Federal Government passed in 1996, still stands today.

I see no reason to amend the U.S. Constitution.

This past week in my State an organization called Focus on the Family ran a newspaper advertisement taking up the large part of a page in daily newspapers. It says: Senator Dorgan does not believe that a child needs both a father and a mother.

They also ran the same language in radio ads in my State.

Now this organization--I am not familiar with them--must think there are 9 commandments. There are actually 10 commandments. This must be an organization that has forgotten the commandment that says: Thou shall not bear false witness. My hope is they might go back and review that. There is nothing in my record that suggests I don't care whether a child has a mother and a father.

This is a legitimate discussion we are having about a constitutional amendment. The issue of gay marriage is an important and legitimate issue to discuss. But one would think it is also worthy of organizations on both sides to be truthful in that discussion. That, regrettably, at least in this case that I have cited, has not been the case.

This issue of amending the U.S. Constitution is clearly before the Senate because it is an even-numbered year. The even-numbered year is one in which the late Claude Pepper used to say the American people have the miracle of grabbing the American steering wheel and deciding which direction they want to nudge our great country. It is, after all, the American people who are in charge and the American people who will make decisions about the direction of our country.

This is an even-numbered year. We understand why this issue is before the Senate. It is about an election this fall. I am not saying it is an unimportant issue; I am saying that the notion of having to amend the basic framework of our government, amending the Constitution, that is a political debate aimed at this fall, not this week.

But let me talk just for a moment not about the issue of gay marriage. We have addressed that. I supported addressing it in the Defense of Marriage Act. I voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, voted for a definition that a marriage is between a husband and wife, a man and woman. That has already been done.

So let me talk about what we could be doing today and tomorrow and in the next week and a half or 2 weeks instead of the agenda given us by the majority leader. There are some people pretty dispirited about this Congress. Because the polling says this Congress is not very well thought of, we conclude the American people are kind of dispirited about the agenda, about what we are doing. We have a lot of trouble.

We have federal debt up to our neck, and there is more to come. The President is offering us budgets with the largest deficit proposals in history--this from a President who described himself as a conservative. But that is not what his budgets are about.

We have the highest trade debt in annual deficits in the history of this country, dangerous trade deficits, $702 billion last year. Add the increase to the national debt from a budget standpoint to the trade debt, and we are $1.4 trillion out of balance. Let me say that again: We are out of balance $1.4 trillion in a year. Does anyone seem to care about that? Is there the urgency to deal with that as we have for constitutional amendments? I don't think so.

Fiscal policy, trade policy, foreign policy--we have serious foreign policy issues and problems. Health care: add up the challenges we face and ask yourself: What are we doing about these challenges? Do we have these issues on the floor of the Senate? Not that I can see.

It won't be very long--in fact, it is happening now--that we have people who are now paying for prescription drug coverage, a monthly premium, but who no longer get prescription drug coverage because of what has been legislatively defined as a doughnut hole. In other words, they lose coverage for a significant period of time, but they should still pay the premiums. Maybe we should have that on the floor of the Senate and fix that.

We could fix that easily. There is a study that shows we could fix that by simply removing the perverse provision in that act that prohibits the Federal Government from negotiating lower drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry. We could fix that so-called doughnut hole, or fix the problem of people having no health care prescription drug coverage through Medicare at the same time they are required every month to pay premiums. Would that be an advisable thing to do? I think it would.

We are going to also be debating the death tax. I heard on the opening portion of the Senate that the death tax is

going to be repealed. It may be a surprise to those who are still alive, but there is no death tax. There is no death tax. The term ``death tax'' is a creation of a pollster who took this nugget of a creation, took it to a political party and said: I have something really interesting, and it polls off the charts. Tell people there is a death tax and come out for its repeal.

There is no death tax. There is a tax on inherited wealth. When the husband or wife dies, the other spouse owns everything with no tax consequences at all. There is a 100-percent exemption. So for the first spouse there must be a universal exemption. In addition to that, there is now a $2 million exemption on an estate for one spouse. In addition to that, the majority party says it is urgent that we get rid of the so-called death tax, the bulk of which would help those who are the wealthiest Americans.

So if Donald Trump--just to use a name because he likes having his name used on everything--if Donald Trump were to die, God forbid, at some point when he dies, a substantial portion of his estate will have been created through the appreciation of his assets--and has not been taxed. The same would be true of most of the richest Americans.

The second richest American is Warren Buffett, quite a remarkable man from Omaha, NE. He is really special. He says: Look, if there is a class war going on, my class is winning--speaking of the wealthiest. He doesn't believe there should be a provision brought to the Senate to get rid of the estate tax. He does not believe that is fair. He does not believe it is the right thing to do.

But we are up to our necks in debt, we have massive fiscal policy budget deficits, the highest trade deficits in history, and what is the priority? The majority party, we were told this afternoon, the priority is we have to get to the Senate a provision to provide very significant tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Unbelievable.

Someone from the outside would look at that and ask: Is this a joke? Are you really serious as legislators? No wonder people take a look at this Congress and say: What are you thinking about? What on Earth do you have on your minds?

I talk about the dispirited feelings people have about this Congress. The polls are pretty clear. But I also think there is a great reservoir of hope in this country. So let me talk a little bit about the hope, the hope that maybe we can address things in the coming months that really matter to the people of this country in a way that really affects their future. I am not suggesting that which we will discuss here does not matter. I am just saying there are a whole series of things that confront us that are challenging, difficult issues.

A woman called me during my last campaign. During the campaign she was in a hospital. A friend of hers called me on her behalf. Her friend said: She is in her nineties. She has been a friend of yours and a supporter of yours. You have never met her, she never met you, but she always liked what you have done. Would you call her in the hospital? I said, of course I would.

I called the hospital and talked to this woman. She had elected to die. She had been on kidney dialysis. She said: I have lived a great life, but I decided I just don't want to continue with the kidney dialysis, so I will die here. I will be here a couple more weeks, maybe a week, and eventually--I have made this decision, I am at peace with it. I have had a great life. She said--this is about 3 weeks before the election--she said to me: Byron, before I came to the hospital, however, when I made this decision, I put up all the yard signs, put up yard signs on both sides of my property with your name on it, and then I voted absentee. She said: By the way, if there is some technical requirement that you be alive on election day, don't tell people that I am not alive.

This woman had a great spirit about wanting to be involved, even at the end of her life, wanting to be involved in this country's political system.

John F. Kennedy used to say that every mother kind of hopes her child might grow up to be President as long as they don't have to be active in politics. But politics is an honorable profession. It is the way we make decisions in America. All the American people ask of this Senate, all they ask of policymakers and decisionmakers is to focus on things that matter most. What is ahead of us? What do we do about it?

We need, in this political system, to justify the faith the American people have always had in this system. That faith is shaken now, but we need to take action to justify that faith. What do we stand for? What needs to be done? What is required to be done? What things are required to be done to put our country back on track?

There was a great little book written by Robert Fulghum, ``All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten.'' Some may have read that book, ``All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten.'' Play fair, follow the rules, don't hit, wash hands, flush--the book went on and on. ``All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten,'' I was thinking about that with respect to all we really need to know in the Senate, about the concern of the American citizens, about their future.

Let me describe our agenda more simply. Perhaps if I were to write a book like that, not so much kindergarten but all we really need to know, let me describe what I think we ought to be doing.

First of all, we ought to pay our bills. You cannot spend money you don't have on things you don't need. We are choking on debt in this country. Especially this Congress and at the White House, pay our bills. Take care of our kids. That has to do with education and health care and much more. Honor our parents, Medicare, Social Security, and other issues. Reward work. Clean up our mess. I guess that is the environment. Defend freedom.

Let me talk a little bit about a couple of these areas, all we really need to know. What about the issue of paying our bills? We have one more chapter of the same, tired book brought to the Senate. Instead of paying our bills, this chapter says we collect $20-$30 billion a year from the tax on inherited wealth. Let's not worry about the fact we are choking on debt. Let's just get rid of that tax in a way that benefits the wealthiest Americans.

We have already had a vote on the proposition of whether the transfer of a family farm or other family business ought to be taxed with an estate tax. I offered that amendment twice. Twice. And on January 1, 2003, the transfer of all family farms and all family businesses to lineal descendants or the kids who want to run them would have been permanently exempt, 3 years ago. We already had that vote, so don't raise that issue. Incidentally, the majority voted against that--twice. We had that vote and made that decision, regrettably.

The question is: Pay our bills. Are we going to do that? Are we going to keep finding ways to provide emergency appropriations for the monthly costs in Iraq and Afghanistan and other related issues and pay for none of it? The only people we ask to deal with that issue are the soldiers we send to Afghanistan and Iraq. We don't ask the American people to believe we ought to pay for it. We have been asked to provide roughly $440 billion in emergency funding, every dollar of which is borrowed from future generations.

Pay our bills. What about our kids and grandkids? Are they the ones who will pay the bills? Is that responsible? All we really need to know is the lesson, pay our bills.

How about taking care of our kids? Health care, education, poverty. We have a lot of things to work on there. We have all of these issues with respect to kids without health care, these issues about adequately funding education in this country. Is there anything more important to anyone than their children? Is there anyone here who believes they don't want to do everything they can to leave a country or leave a world that is better for their children than it was for them? Whatever is in second place to the kids is a long ways behind.

Can we manifest an agenda in the Senate that puts children first, that takes care of our children and doesn't have them pay debts we don't have the courage to pay? Can we decide their education is of the utmost importance? Can we decide there is no child that ought to show up at a hospital or a doctor's office whose medical care is a

function of how much money their parents have in their pocketbook? Can we make those decisions?

Yes, pay our bills and take care of our kids. How about those for two short lessons?

How about honor our parents? Medicare and Social Security. In the last century, people are living much longer. We went, in 100 years, from an average life expectancy of 48 years to 78 years now. Think of that. We added 30 years to the average life expectancy in this country in one century. That is pretty unbelievable. Now, that has caused some strains on Social Security and Medicare. That is not surprising. That is called success. All of the strains in Medicare and Social Security are born of success. People are living longer, better, and healthier lives.

What is the solution to that? Some say the solution to that is to privatize Social Security, take it apart. The President led an effort last year--he ran a lot of gas through Air Force One--he went all over America saying we ought to privatize Social Security.

It wasn't the first time for him. He did that in 1978, when he ran for Congress in Texas. In 1978, he said Social Security would be broke in 10 years. He was wrong then. He was wrong last year. Now at least we don't have that discussion in front of us. It does require us, from time to time, to make adjustments in Social Security or Medicare but not under the guise of taking it apart because you never liked it.

How about fair prices for prescription drugs? Maybe honoring our parents would be deciding that whether you are on Social Security or Medicare or not quite at that age, that you shouldn't have to pay the highest price in the world for prescription drugs. Maybe changing the law so that we would allow people to reimport FDA-approved drugs from other countries at a fraction of the price would be honoring our parents. Standing up for Medicare and standing up for Social Security and the values they have brought to our country, maybe that is honoring our parents.

How about rewarding work? Paying our bills, taking care of our kids, honoring our parents, how about rewarding work? This Congress four times has said we want to continue providing tax cuts to companies that close their American manufacturing plants and ship the jobs overseas. That is perverse, but that is exactly what has happened in the Senate. Four times I have offered an amendment to say let's shut down the tax break that says to an American businessman or woman: Close your American factory, fire your workers, and move the jobs overseas, you get a big, fat $1.2 billion-a-year tax break. And we can't close it.

We have lost nearly 3 million jobs in the last 4 or 5 years, shipped overseas. Alan Blinder, a respected former Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve Board, a mainstream economist, says all U.S. manufacturing jobs, some 14 million, are at risk to outsourcing. But more than that, we have a total of 42 to 56 million jobs, including service jobs, that are susceptible to being outsourced to other countries--China, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and others--and even those who do not leave our country in search of 33 cents-an-hour labor by kids or others who don't have rights, even those who don't leave will see a lesser standard of living or depressed wages because they will be in competition with people in other parts of the world who will work for far less.

So the question for our workers is: Who is going to stand up for them? Does it matter that we fought for a century for the things that matter to them--the right to organize, the right to work in a safe work plant, child labor laws, a minimum wage, decent health care, decent retirement programs? Does it matter to them that we now have a circumstance where we say to American companies: Here is the green light to search for cheap labor elsewhere. You can get rid of all the things that are troublesome to you.

How about cleaning up our mess? Would that be a value that would make some sense? Dare we talk about the environment, about our mess with respect to energy? We suck 84 million barrels a day out of this Earth. We put straws in the Earth called drilling rigs. We suck 84 million barrels a day out of the Earth of oil, and we in this little country of the United States use one-fourth of it. Twenty-one million barrels a day of that oil comes from Saudi Arabia and Iraq and Kuwait, Venezuela and other areas of the world that are troubled. Does it make sense for us to be that dependent on those troubled areas of the world? Should we care about the environmental consequences of energy? Should we care about the dependence on energy, all of those issues? The answer is: Yes, clean up our mess. What about defend freedom? There are a lot of ways to defend freedom. We have troops in harm's way today that defend our freedom. They don't ask questions. They put on a uniform and go. Part of defending freedom is also keeping our promise to veterans. Those who come home, those who come home losing an leg or arm and go through the system at Bethesda or Walter Reed, they are still soldiers, but then, ultimately, when they are released, what happens is they become veterans. Is the money made available by this Chamber to provide for veterans health care sufficient? Will we continue to be a billion and a half dollars short because we have other priorities?

Defending freedom is a lot of things. It is about honoring soldiers, especially honoring soldiers. It is about keeping our promise to veterans. Defending freedom is not about wiretapping the American people. Defending freedom is a lot of things. It is important. It also has to be part of any agenda that we describe. There are a lot of freedoms that I am proud are a part of our political system--women's rights, workers rights, civil rights.

The decision of this Congress to decide what we want to work on is one that will be evaluated by the American people. What do they want us to work on? I said when I started, I don't suggest that the issue of gay marriage is an irrelevant issue or unimportant. I do suggest that we have dealt with that issue in the Defense of Marriage Act. We did it in 1996. I also believe the reason it is on the floor today, relative to all the other things that I have described, all the other things that we should be tackling--paying our bills, taking care of our kids, honoring our parents, rewarding work, cleaning up our mess, defending freedom, all of those issues--the reason this issue is on the floor is about November. That will be true for some long while now.

The American people will have a chance to evaluate that. Interestingly enough, when that Constitution says, ``We the people,'' it means the power of one. For the American people, it comes down to the power of one, one person casting one vote on one day. All of the power, all of the political power in America exists right there. They have the chance to describe what they want for this country, what their hopes and dreams are. There is a town square still, and in that town square there needs to be a discussion, a conversation in America about the glue that keeps this country together. What is this country? What kind of glue exists that keeps Americans together as Americans, talking in the town square about how to shape the country, how to preserve and protect it?

What we have done and where we have been is extraordinary. This country was born of the blood of patriots, not people given to be worried about themselves. They gave everything of themselves. This country survived a Civil War. We beat back the forces of Nazism and imperial soldiers of Japan. We survived the depression. We learned how to fly airplanes. We left the ground and flew around the world. We built rockets. We walked on the moon. We cured smallpox and polio. We created the telephone and television and computer. What we have done is breathtaking and quite extraordinary. We did that because our country has always been interested in the challenge, in what is ahead, what is around the corner.

Thomas Wolfe, in his book ``You Can't Go Home Again,'' talked about the American people being filled with an almost quenchless hope, an indestructible belief, a boundless optimism that somehow, some way, something good was about to happen. That still exists in the soul of this country. Something good is about to happen. My hope is that those of us who work in this body will not be so quick to believe that that something good is the need to amend the Constitution this week, next week, next month, and the month after.

Not too long ago in a congressional session, we had something like 63 different proposals filed to amend the basic framework of our democracy. We have amended it 17 times in 200 years, one of which was to prohibit alcohol. That got repealed. We have amended the Constitution rarely. Yet we have people who come routinely to the floor of the Senate to say: Change the Constitution. I see very few people here who look like George Washington or Franklin or Mason or Madison or Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was not at the Constitutional Convention. He was abroad at the time.

By suggesting I don't see people who look like them, I don't suggest that people here aren't good-looking people. I am saying go back and read what they did, understand what they constructed. Understand what exists in the Constitution and why. Understand what the first 10 amendments intended to be for this country. Then ask yourself how prepared are you to decide we should add several more amendments to the Constitution, maybe two this week and next week? How about three or four more? There are others filed. Is the Constitution a rough draft? Is the work of Franklin and Madison and Mason and Washington a rough draft for those who believe that the mood of the moment is to continue to amend and amend?

I know there are those who think this is similar to passing a law. It is not. It is whatever the emotion of the moment is ought to persuade us to do that. That is not the case either.

A couple weeks ago, I was in Philadelphia and there is a place called the Constitutional Center. All 55 men who wrote the Constitution are memorialized in statue in a room, and they are life size, made to their exact measurements. It is pretty remarkable to walk among them and then to think about what they created. They were an extraordinary group. I doubt very much whether such a group exists today. Perhaps it was divine providence that gave us at that moment that talent to create that Constitution that has created this country. I have been fairly well criticized for a long while for not being willing or anxious to amend the U.S. States Constitution unless it was the last resort, the only resort to respond to something that urgent. I have not found that in most cases and have in most cases opposed those who wish to amend the Constitution.

I don't intend to cast aspersions on those who believe this is an important issue. I believe strongly this is the wrong issue to be on the floor of the Senate today. I believe strongly there are so many other issues that we ought to be dealing with today. But having said all that, we will, in one way or another, decide as the Senate about these two constitutional amendments and about the question of whether our country should continue to have a tax on inherited wealth. We will get through this. My hope is that at least some of the suggestions I have made about paying our bills, about taking care of our kids, honoring our parents, cleaning up our mess and doing the things that defend freedom and honor work, maybe those are the things we might get to soon. I hope so. In that case, I think the American people could take some hope and believe that Congress has sunk its teeth into that which matters a great deal to our future.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I see the distinguished Senator from Colorado in the Chamber. I am about to propound a unanimous consent request to help start the lineup of people. Was he looking for a chance to speak?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following my remarks, the distinguished Senator from Colorado be recognized for whatever remarks he wishes to make, and then that Senators Johnson and Dorgan be recognized for such comments as they wish to make.

Mr. President, I wish to speak about the amendment presently before us. There has been a lot of speculation in the paper about whether this is on the schedule because of partisan politics. Of course, it is. The Republican leader has decided that today our Nation's most pressing priority is a concern over committed relationships between same sex couples. We have very little time left in this session that we are devoting to an amendment, which will go nowhere, when so many of us are trying to focus on solutions to high gas prices, something that hurts people in your State and mine; or the rising cost of health care, certainly a matter of great interest in my State; the ongoing situation in Iraq, a place where the Bush-Cheney administration told us we would be welcomed as liberators and suggested we would be out of there quickly. We have now been there almost as long as World War II, and the ending to World War II was far more obvious than the ending in Iraq; or strengthening our national security. We are not going to talk about any of those things. I think that is a testament to the misplaced priorities of the Republican leadership. News reports have clearly revealed how this proposed constitutional amendment is being used to satisfy the most extreme right-wing supporters of Republican politicians. I do not believe that Americans are well served by this strategy, a strategy that would divide rather than unite Americans.

The Constitution is too important to be used for such a partisan political purpose. It is too important to make us dividers and not uniters. I agreed with First Lady Laura Bush when she recently told Fox News that this proposed amendment should not ``be used as a campaign tool, obviously.'' Even so, obviously, that is exactly what Karl Rove and others in the Bush-Cheney administration are doing. That is why we only vote on such partisan measures in the run-up to an election. Apparently, high campaign season has arrived on the Republican leader's calendar. Right on the heels of this campaign season bid to amend our Constitution, they are readying yet another constitutional amendment for the floor.

Many people have aptly noted that this amendment would write discrimination into our Nation's Constitution. I agree. That is exactly what we are being asked to spend our time doing this week.

The Republican leadership's strenuous efforts to move this proposed amendment to the Senate floor for debate shows how important it is to the Republican leadership of the Senate to cater to the extreme right- wing and special interest groups agitating for a fight over this issue. They intend to stir up an election year fight and use it as a ``campaign tool'' and a ``political strategy.''

Right now, we should be addressing America's top priorities, including ways to make America safer, the war in Iraq, rising gas prices, rising health care and health insurance costs, stem cell research, or fixing FEMA, an organization that has fallen into almost incomprehensible misuse during this administration, and assisting our veterans whose privacy has been compromised by the neglect of the administration's Veterans' Administration. Maybe we can talk about the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, which is something that affects every State in this country.

Instead, the President's political strategists and Senate allies are doing their best to divide and distract the American people and the Senate from fixing real problems by pressing forward with this controversial proposed constitutional amendment.

As a nation, we are currently facing so many pressing issues, including the continuing sectarian violence in Iraq that is spiraling out of control, with the United States unable to stop it; the stunning investigations of this administration, indictments and convictions for government corruption; or a complicated drug program that has been dropped into the laps of our seniors. We now find it so complicated that it penalizes our seniors. It appears the only ones doing well under the program are the pharmaceutical companies. How about a burgeoning national debt, where a family of four owes well over $100,000 just for the debt run-up by the Bush-Cheney administration? Every time I stop at a gas station and fill up my car, all I hear from people is: When is the Congress going to do something about these historically high gas prices? Of course, the largest theft of private information maintained by the Government was stolen under the Bush- Cheney administration's watch, but we are not asked to debate that problem. We even tried to find some corrective legislation to protect not only our veterans, but now we find we need to protect tens of thousands of Active-Duty personnel from the negligence of this administration. We are not asked to do anything to protect those veterans. No, we have to talk about this constitutional amendment.

The Judiciary Committee has been conducting hearings, but we have yet to get to the bottom of the Bush-Cheney administration's warrantless wiretapping and other programs utilized to gather information on Americans, such as the e-mails on the Web sites we visit and even our conversations among families.

We need to make reauthorizing the expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act a priority in the coming months of this season. We still see people that are not allowed to vote in this country because of the color of their skin. We ought to be doing something to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act. If we want to hold ourselves up as a moral mirror to the rest of the world, let's talk about things that affect a large part of the population of America.

But no, on the Senate floor, we don't talk about these things, even though we are here to protect the rights of Americans--all Americans-- no matter what color they might be. But instead we are being made to turn again to a divisive measure that will do nothing to correct the weakness in our homeland security, that will do nothing to enact a budget the Republican Congress was supposed to, by law, enact months ago. We will do nothing to stem the rising gas prices. We will do nothing to respond to the most pressing issues facing hard-working Americans.

Some may remember proponents of the Federal marriage amendment in 2004--coincidentally the last election year--could not assemble a majority of Senators to even move to consider the proposed amendment, even though the Republicans controlled the Senate. Remember that in 2004, we were warned immediate action was required to protect the fragile institution of marriage, which was said to be under immediate threat. Of course, the real threats to marriage include adultery and unfaithfulness, desertion, pressures on a marriage that comes from economic stresses, unhappiness, and spousal abuse. Does anybody want to debate those on this floor? No. Would somebody like to put forward a constitutional amendment to tell States they cannot be allowed to have divorce laws? No. What about telling States what ages people can marry? No. That would be interfering with the rights of States. We will do the whole enchilada and tell them we will take over their State legislatures.

Having been told the heavens are falling, we find in the past 2 years, no

States have been forced to recognize same-sex marriages. In fact, several States voted to amend their State Constitutions to define marriage. The Defense of Marriage Act, which we passed, defines marriage as the union between a man and a woman for Federal purposes and prevents any States from being forced to recognize another State's approval of same-sex marriage. That is the law of the land. That bipartisan law has been upheld three times in Federal court. It is under no threat of being overturned. So when the last election year rolled around, we were told there was a crisis, but there never was a crisis then, nor is there now an imminent crisis that demands the diversion of Congress's attention from all of these other urgent problems or that justifies an alteration of our founding document to say that States are no longer the ones in control of marriage. We will set a Federal law to tell the States of Tennessee and Vermont and every other State, we are taking over. Your legislatures can go home.

But unlike the Republican leadership of this Congress and the Bush- Cheney administration, I trust our 50 States to define marriage and the rules of marriage as they always have. I trust our States a lot more than the Republican leadership of this Congress or of the administration.

I am sure we will continue to hear a lot of rhetoric about ``judicial activism'' as the reason why we need to dramatically alter the U.S. Constitution. Even the President in his weekly radio address invoked the notion of ``rogue judges'' that flaunt the law as a justification for this drastic measure. This politically convenient criticism is surprising. It is surprising, considering the fact that the majority of those Federal judges he is so worried about were all appointed by Republican Presidents. He doesn't even trust the judges the Republicans appointed. In fact, any judicial decision that was a dramatic departure from the status quo on this issue would certainly be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where seven of the nine Justices on the Supreme Court were appointed by Republican Presidents. Does anyone believe Chief Justice Roberts is going to preside over a U.S. Supreme Court that will override the law in this regard? And any State can define marriage in their Constitution. When the Republican-controlled Supreme Court of Massachusetts ruled that you could have same sex marriage, they made it very clear that the State, of course, could amend their Constitution to change that.

In fact, the proposed Federal marriage amendment, now renamed the Marriage Protection Amendment, would itself produce a wide range of litigation that judges--the very boogeymen that proponents of the proposed amendment demonize, would be required to resolve. It would be the judges--these judges--these judges that the President and the Republican leadership, all of these Republican judges they seem to fear, they are the ones who will be forced to resolve the ambiguities and meanings of these words if they are added to our Constitution.

The proposed language we are being required to consider is exceedingly confusing and subject to interpretation. It is inevitably going to create uncertainty. For example, who would be bound by the provisions of the Marriage Protection Amendment? State actors, private citizens or religious organizations? What would constitute the legal incidents of marriage? Can a legislature pass a civil unions law that mirrors its marriage law, so long as they do not call it marriage? Can the people of a State put protections for civil unions in their State Constitution? What State actors are forbidden from construing their own Constitutions? Are we saying that a State supreme court could not construe its own Constitution or is it the State executive branch officials that couldn't do it as well? We had hearings on these precise language questions, and they were not resolved.

I am particularly concerned about the fate of the Vermont civil unions that have been formed under the color of State law. Despite an initially wrenching debate, our State law remains on the books after 5 years. There has been no ensuing crisis in the lives of Vermont families. In fact, we have one of the lowest divorce rates in the country. But it is not clear to me why this constitutional amendment would render Vermont's law invalid.

I started this afternoon by alluding to my agreement with the recent statements of the First Lady that the Constitution should not be used for political purposes. I agree with her statement, as I agreed with her sense that the President's ``bring it on'' language from the early days of the Iraq occupation was not helpful, and certainly was actually frightening to families who had somebody serving in the gulf. Starting this last weekend we have seen that suddenly the President is involving himself in this effort and is now prepared to endorse a specific constitutional amendment on this divisive topic. I have written President Bush on more than one occasion to ask, OK, if you are going to endorse it, what language? What language would you propose?

In fact, my most recent letter was last month, and I ask unanimous consent that a copy be printed in the Record.

Not surprisingly, those letters have gone unanswered. In fact, the administration didn't even send a representative to any of the committee hearings that the Judiciary Committee had on this amendment, nor did the administration comment on the specifics of the current proposal or respond to questions about its language. The general endorsement of the Bush-Cheney administration has been more in the nature of a political campaign, more of a signal than of substance. We could use a lot more substance up here and a few less signals.

The President's recent statements on Saturday and at the rally today, adjacent to the White House, remain general and vague. After the last campaign and his reelection, the President indicated that he had no intention of including such an amendment among his administration's top priorities. He had no intention of pressing Congress to approve it. Suddenly, we are away from that election, we are approaching another election. Golly gee whiz, what has changed? What has changed in that time? Well, his standing in the public opinion polls, for one; or the agitation of the right-wing elements of his base, which he always responds to.

I remember a time when leaving States in control of issues of family law was an easy decision for Members of both sides of the aisle to make. It is disappointing that Senators would endorse this broadly drafted amendment, which so clearly violates the traditions of Federalism and local control that many in this body have claimed to respect and cherish.

As prominent conservative and former Congressman Bob Barr put it, ``Marriage is a quintessential State issue. The Defense of Marriage Act goes as far as is necessary in codifying the Federal legal status and parameters of marriage. A constitutional amendment is both unnecessary and needlessly intrusive and punitive.''

This reminds me of last year when we were called into emergency session

after highly competent courts had thoroughly reviewed the medical decisions in the Terry Schiavo case. They spent months, even years, doing that. But we were called into emergency session, and the President flew back from his vacation so we could pass in a couple of hours something to overturn all those courts. We even had diagnoses made from the floor of the Senate that she was not in a vegetative state. This is a family tragedy. We should have left it alone instead of grandstanding--grandstanding--on a political issue where we are not about to change anything. The American people saw through that grandstanding. They realized this is something to be left to a family going through a terrible tragedy. As we know, she was in a vegetative state; an irreversible vegetative state.

So I couldn't help but wonder: What has happened to conservatives who would oppose the Federal Government's intrusion on the prerogatives of the States? Where are those Senators on both sides of the aisle who stood up and said: Certain things are reserved to the States and we shouldn't intrude? The States have traditionally set the laws of marriage. That has been a foundational principle in laws pertaining to our families from the beginning of this country. Why this sudden need to change that? Oh, I forgot. We have elections this fall, so we have to have an electioneering issue. The States determine what age you must be in order to marry, whether you have to have your parents' permission and so on. The States have done that. They have done it quite well, and we ought to let them continue doing it.

Most States are going to say marriage is between a man and a woman, as they always have. My own State of Vermont, because of our Constitution, was given a question: Would we support gay marriage in Vermont? My State of Vermont said no. Instead, we have civil unions, which give gay couples legal rights of inheritance and hospital visitation and other prerogatives. We made a pretty sensible decision. But in Judiciary Committee hearings, there is strong disagreement that this constitutional amendment could override Vermont's very sensible decision.

But even beyond that, beyond any parochial thought, as a Senator, I am deeply concerned that this proposal is writing discrimination into the Constitution. For the first time--for the first time in our Nation's history, we would be amending the Constitution to narrow individual rights and to federalize an issue of family law. Well, the senior Senator from Vermont is a conservative when it comes to the Constitution and to conserving the Constitution.

How will this measure affect American families who currently exist in this country whose members seek the protection of civil unions and the acknowledgment of their committed relationships? How will it affect child support enforcement or even inheritance and insurance benefits? I hope those who claim to care about families will turn away from wedge politics and scapegoating and discrimination. Instead, we should join together to work on the many pressing issues already piling up on Congress's agenda--issues we don't take time for, such as health care, gas prices, pensions, Iraq, paying for college education, and raising the minimum wage. Are we so afraid to tackle these real issues which affect all Americans, that we can only attempt to bring up issues that can be used in this fall's elections?

Last month, President Bush spoke eloquently about this country and our values when he spoke about immigration, and I praised the President for his speech. He emphasized something I wish this White House and the Republican leadership in the Congress would keep in mind in connection with their efforts to demonize gay and lesbian Americans. The President said:

We cannot build a unified country by inciting people to

anger, or playing on anyone's fears or exploiting the issue

of--

And here I insert ``marriage'' for ``immigration''--

for political gain.

President Bush continued by saying:

We must always remember that real lives will be affected by

our debates and decisions, and that every human being has

dignity and value. . . .

I agree. My religion taught that, and I believe that every human being has dignity and value. Mean-spirited rhetoric does not serve this Nation or its diverse population. Our Nation would be better served if we refrained from divisiveness that is wielded like a weapon in order to score political and emotional points before an election.

As an American who has been married 44 years, I am a great fan of the institution of marriage. I believe it is important to encourage and to sanction committed relationships, and I respect the people of my State for the careful manner in which they resolved this matter by recognizing civil unions. They recognized, as my predecessor, the senior Senator from Vermont, Robert Stafford, a wonderful quintessential New England Republican, did when he spoke of well over 60 years of marriage. He spoke about how the love of his wonderful wife Helen, made him a better person, and how their committed relationship made him better.

Lower the rhetoric. Those who want to score points for this fall are denigrating people of committed relationships. Senator Stafford was right when he said that people who love make each other better people. Don't we all benefit from that? We have in Vermont. I know I would not have accomplished any of the things I have accomplished in life without the strong support and love of my wife, Marcelle. We have done this for 44 years.

Let's look inward, each of us, to ourselves. Let's make sure we are living our lives the way we should before we tell the rest of the country how to live theirs. And let's be real--the actions in Vermont do nothing to diminish or threaten marriages in Vermont or any other State.

For these reasons, I will continue to oppose measures such as this proposed constitutional amendment. I continue to urge that we solve the problems facing this Nation and stop the political pandering for this fall's elections. Let's get on and do something real. Let each of us be a person who is not going to try to control the lives of everyone else in this country. The distinguished chairman quoted Senator Goldwater in that respect. He was right. The Senate is wrong.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object, and I don't want to, does the Senator have the name of who is going to go between Senator Johnson and Senator Dorgan?

Following that.

Mr. President, this is the way we normally have done it. I think it works best. The Senator from Colorado certainly is respecting that tradition, and I would agree with it.

Mr. President, yes, I would like the opportunity to speak. I would like to start off the debate, as far as Members are concerned, if I might. Senator Brownback will be coming in on a later flight. I will help manage the floor, if that is OK with the chairman, for those in favor until Senator Brownback arrives.

I thank the Chair. I ask unanimous consent that our speaking sequence be alternated between those who speak in favor of the amendment and those who speak against the amendment.

No, I don't. We have already agreed to it. I don't want to amend that. I think we would plan to meet that.

I was going to say following those, we can alternate back and forth.

I thank the Senator from Vermont.

Mr. President, I rise today to start what I hope will be a constructive debate on my amendment, S.J. Res. 1, known as the marriage protection amendment. I think at this point in the debate it is important that we carefully review what is said in the amendment and what the intent of the amendment is. It reads:

Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the

union of a man and a woman.

That is the first sentence. The second sentence says:

Neither this Constitution, nor the Constitution of any

State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the

legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other

than the union of a man and a woman.

Now, what does that mean. Let's break it down. And that is what this chart does that I have before us. It says simply that we are going to have a uniting, uniform definition of marriage throughout the United States. And then the second sentence, it guarantees that the courts cannot force States or

the Federal Government to grant any of the rights, benefits, or other incidents of marriage to any union other than that of a man and woman. Legislatures and the people will continue to have the power to grant whatever rights or benefits they choose through the democratic process.

Definition of marriage: This first sentence prohibits courts and legislatures from changing the definition of marriage. The second sentence further prohibits the courts from creating civil unions or domestic partnerships or granting the right or benefits of marriage. But it doesn't interfere with private contracts between a business or a private entity of some type.

The legislatures can do the following things. They can create civil unions or domestic partnerships. They can grant the rights and benefits of marriage--the second sentence of this amendment--and again it doesn't affect employment benefits offered by private businesses. What we are trying to protect is the State legislatures from having their legislation and the people's legislation within their State overturned by an unelected branch of Government, the courts.

Before making my formal comments and going any further, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my colleagues who have cosponsored this amendment. It has taken countless hours of study and discussion to get to this point, and each of our 31 cosponsors has shown courage and commitment to protecting marriage.

I would also like to express my appreciation to the majority leader for his commitment and leadership. Without the support of the Senate leadership, the public may never have had an opportunity to address this vitally important issue in a democratic body.

I would also like to express my appreciation to the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Specter, who has ably reported it out of the committee to the floor for debate.

Marriage, the union between a man and a woman, has been the foundation of every civilization in human history. The definition of marriage crosses all bounds of race, religion, culture, political party, ideology, and ethnicity. Marriage is embraced and intuitively understood to be what it is. Marriage is a union between a man and a woman.

As an expression of this cultural value, the definition of marriage is incorporated into the very fabric of civil policy. It is the root from which families and communities are grown. Marriage is one bond on which all other bonds are built.

Marriage is not some controversial ideology being forced upon an unwilling population by the Government. It is, in fact, the opposite. Marriage is the ideal held by the people, and the Government has long reflected this. The broadly embraced union of a woman and a man is understood to be the ideal union from which people live and children best blossom and thrive.

As we have heard in hours of testimony, in eight hearings, in numerous Senate committees over the last several years, marriage is a pretty good thing. A good marriage facilitates a more stable community, allows kids to grow up with fewer difficulties, increases the lifespan and quality of life of those involved, reduces the likelihood of incidences of chemical abuse and violent crime, and contributes to the overall health of the family. It is no wonder so many single adults long to be married, to raise kids, and to have families.

Today, there are numerous efforts to redefine marriage to be something that it is not. Marriage is and it always has been a union between a man and a woman.

I believe the Framers of the Constitution felt that this would never be an issue, and if they had, it would have been included in the U.S. Constitution. Like the vast majority of Americans, it would have never occurred to me that the definition of marriage or marriage itself would be the source of controversy. Not too long ago, it would have been wholly inconceivable that this definition, this institution of marriage would be challenged, redefined, or attacked. But here we are today because of it. Make no mistake about it, traditional marriage is under assault. I say assault because the move to redefine marriage has taken place not through the democratic process such as State legislatures and the Congress or ballot issues around the Nation; this assault has taken place in our courts and often in direct conflict with the will of the people, State statutes, Federal statutes, and even State constitutions.

Activists and lawyers have devised a strategy to use the courts to redefine marriage. This strategy is a clear effort to override public opinion and the longstanding composition of traditional marriage and to force same-sex marriage on society.

Over the course of the last 15 years, traditional marriage laws have been challenged in courts across the Nation. Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia have all seen traditional marriage challenged in court.

As we speak, nine States face lawsuits challenging traditional marriage laws--California, Connecticut, Iowa, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, and Washington. Marriage is under attack all across the country. If it hasn't already, an attack on marriage is coming to a State near you.

The first success in the activists' coordinated legal strategy was in Vermont in 1999. The Vermont Supreme Court ruled that all the rights and benefits of civil marriage must be extended to same sex couples. Under threat of court-imposed same sex marriage, the Vermont legislature created same-sex ``civil unions.''

The second, and to date the most widely covered success in the effort to destroy traditional marriage, came more recently in the state of Massachusetts where four judges ruled in the Goodridge case that marriage itself must be redefined to include same-sex couples, and that traditional marriage laws were a ``stain'' on the State constitution that must be ``eradicated.'' This edict came despite the fact that the populace of Massachusetts opposed this redefinition of marriage and despite the fact that no law had ever been democratically passed to authorize such a radical shift in public policy.

Proponents of same-sex marriage have shopped carefully for the right venues, exploited the legal system, and today stand ready to overturn any and all democratically crafted Federal or State statute that would stand between them and a new definition of humanity's oldest institution.

The question of process is very important in this debate--it is in fact the very heart of this debate. While recent court decisions handed down by activist judges may not respect the traditional definition of marriage, these decisions also highlight a lack of respect for the democratic process. No State legislature has passed legislation to redefine the Institution of marriage--not one. Any redefinition of marriage has been driven entirely by the body of government that remains unaccountable and unelected--the courts.

Some of my colleagues do not feel we should be talking about marriage in the Senate. I say we must. Our Government is a three branch government. The Congress is the branch that represents the people most directly. We have a duty to, at the very least, discuss the state of marriage in America. If we do not take this up, we abdicate our responsibility. We will allow the courts sole dominion on the state and future of marriage. This Senate, the world's most deliberative body, must provide a democratic response to the courts.

Legislatures across the country have joined the Congress in recent years in affirming a 1996 law called the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA. DOMA is a limited law designed to address two distinct issue: No. 1, forced interstate recognition, and No. 2, the definition of marriage for the purposes Federal law. This bipartisan legislation passed with the support of more than three-quarters of the House of Representatives and with the support of 85 Senators before being signed into law by then President Bill Clinton.

To date, 45 States have also passed laws to protect traditional marriage, including 19 States that have constitutional amendments protecting traditional marriage as solely between a man and a woman. Voters in seven

States--Alabama, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin--will vote on constitutional amendments this year. Another five State legislatures--Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania--are considering sending constitutional amendments to voters in 2006 or 2008, and ballot initiatives are currently underway in Arizona, Florida, and Illinois.

These state DOMAs and constitutional amendments, combined with Federal DOMA, should have settled the question as to the democratic expression of the will of the American public. However, Federal and State DOMAs, as well as State constitutional amendments--all reflecting the will of the people--are being challenged in the courts.

The Federal DOMA is itself under attack. Activists have challenged DOMA's interstate recognition provision in the Ninth Circuit. The second part of DOMA, the part defining marriage for Federal purposes, was also challenged in the Ninth Circuit, as well as in Federal cases pending in Oklahoma and Washington State. Plaintiffs in each case argue that the U.S. Constitution's equal protection and due process clauses require the recognition of same-sex marriages, and that efforts to limit marriage to the union of a man and a woman for purposes of federal law are unconstitutional.

Because DOMA only clarifies that the Constitution's Full Faith and Credit clause should not be read to require interstate recognition, DOMA will not prevent an activist judge from finding that the equal protection or due process clauses require it. In other words, DOMA does not prevent any court from recognizing out-of-State marriages; it merely removes one of several rationales that a court could use to do so. DOMA is not, nor was it designed to be, a comprehensive solution to judicial activism on same-sex marriage.

Likewise, State constitutional amendments are under attack in Federal court. For example, in Nebraska, a Federal district court in 2005 found unconstitutional a State constitutional amendment passed by 70 percent of Nebraska voters. While this cases is on appeal to the Eight Circuit--and we hope the decision will be correctly overturned--I find it chilling that the will of an entire State, expressed democratically, may be undone by a Federal judge in an unelected position and tenured for life.

State constitutional amendments are also under attack in State court. Just last month, a Georgia judge found unconstitutional a State constitutional marriage amendment that was approved by 76 percent of the voters. Immediately after it was passed by an overwhelming majority of voters in 2004, activists launched an attack in the courts. The result--the amendment being thrown out on procedural grounds--is yet another success for the handful of activists seeking to suppress the will of the people through the courts.

The national effort to redefine marriage has also been buoyed by decisions made by the U.S. Supreme Court. In June 2003, the Court inferred that a right to same-sex marriage could be found in the U.S. Constitution in Lawrence v. Texas. A variety of experts, including Justice Scalia and Harvard Professor Lawrence Tribe, forecast that this decision points to the end of traditional marriage laws--including Federal and State DOMAs. The Massachusetts court relied heavily on the Lawrence decision to strike down that State's traditional marriage law in the Goodridge case.

When Goodridge took effect in May of 2004, same-sex couples became entitled to Massachusetts marriage licenses. In anticipation of Goodridge, a handful of local officials in New York, California, and Oregon began issuing licenses to same sex couples in February and March. To date, through the combined efforts of lawless local officials and those licenses issued in Massachusetts, couples from at least 46 States have received licenses in those jurisdictions and returned to their home States. These 46-plus States are state and Federal DOMA challenges just waiting happen.

More of these cases are expected and we will be left with an unworkable patchwork marriage laws, crafted by judges and forced on to on State from another, outside the democratic process, regardless of the will of the voters.

As a result of this coordinated campaign to redefine marriage through the courts, we stand here today, compelled by respect for the democratic process, to publicly debate an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Again, this amendment simply reads:

Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the

union of a man and a woman.

Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any

State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the

legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other

than the union of a man and a woman.

The first sentence is straightforward: it defines marriage as an institution solely between one man and one woman--just as it has been defined for thousands of years in hundreds of cultures around the world.

The second sentence simply ensures that the people or their elected representatives, not judges, can decide whether to confer the legal incidents of marriage on people. Citizens remain free to act through their legislatures to bestow whatever benefits to same-sex couples that they choose. It is aimed squarely at the problem of judicial activism.

Just as important as what it does do, is what it does not do. I have said it time and time again and I say here again today for the record-- the amendment does not seek to prohibit, in any way, the lawful, democratic creation of civil unions or domestic partnerships. It does not prohibit private employers from offering benefits to same-sex couples. It denies no existing rights.

What our amendment does is to define and protect traditional marriage at the highest level--the U.S. Constitution. Importantly, the consideration of this amendment in the Senate represents the discussion of marriage in America in a democratic body of elected official. I am not willing to surrender this issue to the courts.

I also feel it is important to make clear that on the question of federalism and States' rights I stand where I always have. While an indisputable definition of marriage will be a part of our Constitution, all other questions will be left to the State.

Gregory Coleman, former solicitor general of the State of Texas testified before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and made the following statement on this matter:

Some have objected to a proposed constitutional amendment

on federalism grounds. These concerns are misplaced. The

relationship between the States and the Federal government is

defined by the Constitution and a fortiori, a constitutional

amendment cannot violate principles of federalism and State's

rights. A Federal constitutional amendment is perhaps the

most democratic of all processes--because it requires

ratification by three-fourths of the States--and simply does

not raise federalism concerns. The real danger of State's

rights comes from the recognition of un-enumerated

constitutional rights in which the States have had no

participation.

I share those sentiments and cannot express them any more clearly. We stand today at the threshold of the most democratic, most federalist process in all our Government. As designed by the Framers of the U.S. Constitution, the amendment process is neither an exclusive Federal nor an exclusively State action: It is a shared responsibility of both.

Contrary to assertions of those who believe my amendment infringes on the rights of the States my amendment actually protects States' rights. Forty-five States have spoken with laws or constitutional amendments designed to protect traditional marriage. Unfortunately, same-sex advocates have, through the courts, systematically and successfully trampled on laws democratically enacted in the States. My amendment takes the issue out of the hands of a handful of activist judges and puts it squarely back in the hands of the States.

Now is the time for Congress to fulfill its responsibility and send a constitutional amendment to the States.

Marriage, the union between a man and a woman, has been the foundation of every civilization in human history. This definition of marriage crosses all bounds of race, religion, culture, political party, ideology and ethnicity. It is not about politics or discrimination, it is about marriage and democracy.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Constitution is being amended to reflect a new definition of marriage--not by democratically elected Members of Congress but

by unaccountable and unelected judges. If we fail to define marriage, the courts will not hesitate to do it for us.

I, for one, believe that the institution of marriage and the principles of democracy are too precious to surrender to the whims of a handful of unelected, activist judges.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the Marriage Protection Amendment.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield?

I thank the Senator from Kansas for his remarks. During several hearings we both participated in, we have heard about how a healthy marriage benefits children, how it benefits a community and the foundation of society. Don't you feel that if we don't preserve the definition of marriage, somehow or other we make marriage less relevant, and when you make it less relevant, then I think it is easier to have higher divorce rates and easier to have a dysfunctional family because the real importance of a family is lost.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator for yielding time to me.

Mr. President, last Thursday I introduced a bipartisan resolution urging the President to take immediate action to avert a looming tragedy in Darfur, Sudan. I urge the Senate to pass it today. The Government of Sudan has launched an all but military offensive in Darfur that could result in hundreds of thousands of deaths. The United States must lead the international community to save those lives. It is urgent that we act.

Over the past 2 years the situation in Sudan has remained dire. As many as 400,000 people have died. Two million people have been displaced from their homes, over 200,000 are refugees in Chad, and 3 million rely on international aid. Those numbers haven't diminished over time, they have gotten worse. And now, they may be on the brink of becoming even more catastrophic.

In May of this year, the Government of Sudan and rebels in Darfur-- specifically the Minni Minawi faction of the Sudan Liberation Army-- signed a peace agreement. Tragically, instead of improving the security situation, the Darfur Peace Agreement has made things worse.

The agreement never had the support of the entire SLA, or the other major rebel movement in Darfur, the Justice and Equality Movement. Nor did it have the support of people living in displaced persons camps in Darfur. In the days and weeks after news of the agreement spread, violence in camps increased either because people misunderstood what was in the agreement, or they felt the agreement was flawed. And violence on the ground became worse, as the rebel factions split and fighting erupted between those who had signed the Darfur Peace Agreement and those who had not.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced in fighting since May--50,000 in the last 2 months alone. Many of them have taken refuge in camps for the internally displaced. Attacks on humanitarian aid convoys have increased by a factor of more than 10 compared to this time last year. Twelve humanitarian workers have been killed in the past 4 months--more than during the entire previous year. Two hundred internally displaced women have been raped and another 200 violently assaulted over the course of the past 5 weeks.

The United Nations, after months of delay, finally extended the mandate of the U.N. Mission in Sudan--UNMIS--to Darfur at the end of August. And, through U.N. Security Council Resolution 1706, it authorized the deployment of over 17,000 peacekeepers and 3,000 civilian police to Darfur.

However, the Government of Sudan has categorically rejected the deployment of the U.N. force. In fact, the Sudanese Government has launched a military offensive in the region. Khartoum has sent over 10,000 troops to Darfur and has resumed aerial bombardments. Seven villages--villages, not military targets--were bombed just this weekend. African Union officials have stated that they will not extend the mission in Sudan past the end of this month. I understand that the African Union Peace and Security Council will meet in New York on September 18, just before the U.N. General Assembly meeting takes place. But it is unclear if the AU will reverse its decision to terminate its mission in Sudan. If it does terminate it, ``Katey, bar the door,'' all the carnage going on now will be increased multifold.

Even if the impediments I just mentioned did not exist, it would be months--we are talking January--before a U.N. mission could fully deploy, so we need the AU to stay in place a while longer.

In the mean time, Khartoum is doing its level best to be sure that no U.N. force comes to Darfur. The Government of Sudan's tactic seems to be to scorch enough earth--and people--such that there will be no need for the peacekeeping force because there will be no one left to protect and no peace to keep.

At this point in time, right here today, we are at a pivotal moment. Hundreds of thousands of Sudanese are in camps, vulnerable to aerial and ground attacks from government forces. We cannot stand by and do nothing.

This resolution is very straightforward. It calls on the President to undertake three key actions, some of which the Senate has asked him to do before:

First, it once again calls on him to pursue the imposition of a no- fly zone through the U.N. NATO or NATO allies. The Senate asked the President to propose that NATO consider how to implement and enforce such a no-fly zone in March of this year. If anything the need to enforce a no-fly zone has increased.

Second, it asks that the President secure the necessary support from United Nations member states to schedule a special session on Sudan in the United Nations Human Rights Council. The international community must speak out on the atrocities which continue to unfold in Sudan--and it must act.

Third, it asks the President to appoint a Special Envoy to Sudan to head the office that Senator DeWine and I established at the State Department through the supplemental appropriations bill signed into law in June. The administration has avoided naming a Special Envoy to Sudan for years, and our diplomatic efforts have suffered as a result.

I am under no illusion that these actions alone will stop the Sudanese Government's murderous actions in Darfur. The international community must put a credible international force on the ground as soon as possible. NATO should be prepared to help the AMIS hand-off to the United Nations. The U.S. should impose targeted financial, travel, and diplomatic sanctions against the Sudanese leadership, rebel forces, and others determined to be responsible for the atrocities and pursue the immediate imposition of similar sanctions by the U.N. Security Council and the European Union as called for by U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1556 and 1564. It is long past time for the Security Council to take such action. If the Council cannot act because of threats of a Russian or Chinese veto, then the United States and Europe should do so together.

I visited the camps across the border in Chad. It is an absolute tragedy. There are tens of thousands of people in that one camp alone, with no real protection. When the appropriate time comes I will introduce this resolution. I hope it meets the approval of my colleagues. I hope the President will listen.

I thank the managers of the bill for yielding me this time.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside.

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, since I only have 2 minutes--and I am not going to ask for a vote on it now--my amendment talks about the dirty little word no one wants to talk about: How are we going to pay for all this? The fact is, we are arguing over peanuts. The fact is, we should set up a trust fund as we did with the violent crime trust fund. We should fund everything everyone knows we need to fund here, all those elements the 9/11 Commission called for, plus reinstating local law enforcement.

The whole cost of that would be less than 1 year--1 year--of the tax cut for people making over $1 million. My amendment sets up a trust fund, has $53 billion put into that trust fund, displaced over 5 years--$10 billion a year--to pay for all we are doing here.

Rich folks are just as patriotic as poor folks. It instructs the Finance Committees to go out and find the means by which they would deal with that, take it 1 year or take a piece of it over 5 years.

The bottom line is, this is crazy. We are talking about all that we do not have. We are passing amendments like the Biden-McCain amendment or the McCain-Biden amendment on rail. We know it is never going to be funded. We know the cost is about $50 billion to fund what we all need. Yet, at the same time, we are spending three times as much on a tax cut as we are spending on how we are going to do it.

This is only for people making over $1 million. Again, I floated this with millionaires. I have been with groups who are millionaires. I have asked them: Would you object to giving up 1 year of your tax cut?

The response is: No, if you guarantee me it is going to go to provide for security.

This amendment would guarantee that, set up a trust fund. For those who are skeptical about trust funds, let me remind you, we did it with the violent crime trust fund. It worked, and it reduced crime. We should step to the plate and say how we are going to pay for it.

Everyone in this body knows that we are not yet safe enough. Independent experts, law enforcement personnel, and first responders have warned us that we have not done enough to prevent an attack and we are ill-equipped to respond to one.

Hurricane Katrina, which happened just over a year ago, demonstrated this unfortunate truth and showed us the devastating consequences of our failure to act responsibly here in Washington.

And, last December, the 9/11 Commission issued their report card on the administration's and Congress's progress in implementing their recommendations. The result was a report card riddled with D's and F's. And, to add to this, the FBI reported earlier this summer that violent crime and murders are on the rise for the first time in a decade.

Given all of this, it is hard to argue that we are as safe as we should be. To turn this around, we have to get serious about our security.

If we establish the right priorities, we can do the job. We can fund local law enforcement, which the President has attempted to slash by over $2 billion. We can give the FBI an additional 1,000 agents to allow them to implement reforms without abandoning local crime. We can secure the soft targets in our critical infrastructure, to ensure that our chemical plants and electricity grids are protected from attacks. We can immediately re-allocate

spectrum from the television networks and give it to our first responders so they can talk during an emergency.

I know what many of my colleagues here will argue. They will argue that it is simply too expensive to do everything. That is malarkey. This is all about priorities. And, quite frankly, this Congress and this administration has had the wrong priorities over the past 5 years.

For example, this year the tax cut for Americans who make over $1 million is nearly $60 billion. Let me repeat that, just 1 year of the Bush tax cut for Americans making over $1 million is nearly $60 billion.

In contrast, we dedicate roughly one-half of that--approximately $32 billion--for the entire operations of the Department of Homeland Security.

We have invested twice as much for a tax cut for millionaires--less than 1 percent of the population--than we do for the Department intended to help secure the entire Nation.

For a nation that is repeatedly warned about the grave threats we face, how can this be the right priority?

The amendment that I am offering would change this by taking less than 1 year of the tax cut for millionaires--$53.3 billion--and invest it in homeland security over the next 5 years.

By investing this over the next 5 years at just over $10 billion per year, we could implement the 9/11 Commission recommendations and do those commonsense things that we know will make us safer.

For example, under this amendment, we could hire 50,000 additional police officers and help local agencies create locally based counterterrorism units.

We could hire an additional 1,000 FBI agents to help ensure that the FBI is able to implement critical reforms without abandoning its traditional crime-fighting functions.

We could also invest in security upgrades within our critical infrastructure and nearly double the funding for State homeland security grants.

And, the list goes on.

The bill that we are debating today is a good bill, and I am sure it will pass, but does anyone really believe that the $400 million in port security grants authorized in it will really be funded? A look back at our recent appropriations bills tells us that this is not likely.

Just this July we passed the Department of Homeland Security appropriations budget. In that legislation, the Senate allocated only $210 million for port security grants--just over one-half of what we are advocating be authorized in this bill.

Another example of this problem is our shameful record on providing funding for rail security. For the last two Congresses. the Senate has passed bipartisan rail security legislation sponsored by myself and Senator McCain, and others.

This legislation authorizes $1.2 billion to secure the soft targets in our rail system, such as the tunnels and stations. In fact, this legislation was added as an amendment to this bill 2 days ago. I thank my colleagues for including it, but we all understand that there is no chance of fully funding it unless we change our priorities.

Indeed, this body has voted against funding rail security when I have offered it as an amendment to the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill the past 2 years. During that time, only $150 million per year has been allocated for rail and transit security with less than $15 million allocated for Amtrak security.

So while I thank my colleagues for recognizing the need for increased rail security by adopting the McCain-Biden amendment, it is clear that it won't mean much. Unfortunately, this is an example that is repeated over and over.

We know that the murder rate is up and that there is an officer shortage in communities throughout the Nation. Yet, we provide zero funding for the COPS hiring program and we have slashed funding for the Justice Assistance Grant.

We know that our first responders can't talk because they don't have enough interoperable equipment. Yet, we have not forced the networks to turn over critical spectrum, and we vote down funding to help local agencies purchase equipment every year.

We know that only 5 percent of cargo containers are screened, yet we do not invest in the personnel and equipment to upgrade our systems.

We know that our critical infrastructure is vulnerable. Yet, we allow industry to decide what is best and provide scant resources to harden soft targets.

The 9/11 Commission's Report Card issued last December stated bluntly that ``it is time we stop talking about setting priorities and actually set some.''

With this amendment, we set some priorities.

I won't go through the entire amendment on the floor, but I would like to touch on the highlights.

First, we provide the funding necessary to implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.

Next, we take the commonsense steps to make our Nation safer.

We make sure that law enforcement and first responders have the personnel, equipment, training, and are sufficiently coordinated to do the job.

With this trust fund we could provide: $1.15 billion per year for COPS grants; $160 million per year to hire 1,000 FBI agents; $200 million to hire and equip 1,000 rail police; $900 million for the Justice Assistance Grants; $1 billion per year for interoperable communications; and $1 billion for Fire Act and SAFER grants.

We could invest in screening technologies: $100 million to improve airline screening checkpoints; $100 million for research and development on improving screening technologies.

We set aside funding for our critical infrastructure: $500 million per year for general infrastructure grants; $500 million per year for port security grants; $200 million per year to harden our rail infrastructure.

And, the list goes on.

Mr. President, I will conclude where I started. This is all about setting the right priorities for America. Instead of giving a tax cut to the richest Americans who don't need it we should take some of it and dedicate it towards the security of all Americans.

Our Nation's most fortunate are just as patriotic as the middle class. They are just as willing to sacrifice for the good of our Nation. The problem is that no one has asked them to sacrifice.

If we adopt this amendment, we will be asking them to sacrifice for the good of the Nation, and I am convinced that they would gladly help us out. We have done this before with the Violent Crime Trust Fund.

This amendment is about reordering our homeland security priorities, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague, the Senator from Washington, for yielding me the time, and I yield the floor.