Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to contributions and expenditures with respect to elections.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, at a time of extraordinary challenges across the globe and here at home, we are not gathered in the Senate to discuss how to confront the threat of ISIS. We are not gathered in the Senate to discuss how to prevent Putin's Russia from invading its neighbors. We are not gathered in the Senate today to discuss how to solve the humanitarian crisis at the border with some 90,000 unaccompanied children coming into the country this year. We are not gathered in the Senate today to discuss how to bring back jobs and economic growth, or how to correct the fact that the Obama economy has produced the lowest labor force participation since 1978--92 million Americans not working today. And we are not gathered in the Senate to discuss how to stop the disaster that has been ObamaCare, which has caused millions of Americans to lose their jobs, to be forced into part-time work, to lose their health insurance, to lose their doctors, and to see their premiums skyrocket. No.

Instead, we are gathered today in the Senate for a very different topic. The majority leader and the Democratic majority in this Senate have determined that the most important priority this Senate has, which we are spending the entire week addressing, is the proposal of 49 Democrats to repeal the free speech provisions of the First Amendment. That is not hyperbole. Typically, when Americans hear that Members of the Senate are proposing repealing the free speech protections of the First Amendment, the usual reaction is a gasp of disbelief. Could we really have entered a world so extreme that our common ground no longer even includes the First Amendment of the Constitution?

The First Amendment protects our most foundational rights. Yet, under the amendment we are debating today that 49 Democrats have signed their name to, the First Amendment would, in effect, have crossed out freedom of speech. Why? Because 49 Democrats have cosponsored a constitutional amendment that is currently on the floor of the Senate, being voted on this week, that would give Congress blanket authority to regulate political speech.

From the dawn of our Republic we have respected the rights of citizens to express their views. It is the right upon which every other civil liberty is predicated. But in the Democratic Senate of 2014, citizens' free speech rights are tools for partisan warfare.

This proposal before the Senate is, bar none, the most radical proposal that has been considered by the Senate in the time I have served. If this proposal were to pass, its effects would be breathtaking. It would be the most massive intrusion on civil liberties and expansion of Federal Government power in modern times.

Let's talk about how and why that is the case. The text of the amendment that is currently in the Bill of Rights

says, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech. So right now we operate under a First Amendment that says Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech--not some laws; not laws that some politicians think would help them politically; but no law abridging the freedom of speech is what our First Amendment says.

What would the new First Amendment say? Well, according to our Democratic friends, the new First Amendment would have two sections. The first section says, Congress and States may regulate and set reasonable limits on the raising and spending of money by candidates and others to influence elections. Now, ``reasonable.'' Who could oppose reasonable limits? Isn't that the essence of reasonableness? Perhaps I have forgotten my spectacles, but I don't see in the current First Amendment, Congress can make reasonable restrictions on the freedom of speech. It doesn't say that. It says Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.

What is the difference? The First Amendment is not about reasonable speech. The First Amendment was enacted to protect unreasonable speech. I, for one, certainly don't want our speech limited to speech that elected politicians in Washington think is reasonable.

There was a time this body thought the Alien and Sedition Acts prohibiting criticizing the government were reasonable. There is a reason the Constitution doesn't say let's trust politicians to determine what speech is reasonable and what isn't.

I would note the Supreme Court has long made clear the First Amendment is all about unreasonable speech. For example, when the Nazis wanted to march on Skokie, IL--Nazi speeches, the paradigm example of unreasonable speech; it is hateful, bigoted, ignorant speech--the Supreme Court said the Nazis have a constitutional right to march down the street in Skokie, IL, with their hateful, bigoted, ignorant speech. Now every one of us then has a moral obligation to condemn it as hateful and bigoted and ignorant. But the First Amendment is all about saying government doesn't get to decide what you say is reasonable and what you say is not.

The First Amendment is all about saying we will not censor American citizens. What is this amendment about? Saying the Federal Government now has the power to censor each and every American who dares speak about politics. So if a person has a political view at home, they better hope politicians in Washington think that view is reasonable. I will tell my colleagues that very little of what we do in this town is reasonable and the idea that elected politicians would seek to arrogate power to themselves to censor the citizens is anathema to who we are as a country.

This bill, if adopted, raises three simple questions--questions I raised at three hearings in the Judiciary Committee and in the Constitution subcommittee, and I am the ranking member on the Constitution subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee. We have had extensive debates on this amendment. I wish to pose three simple questions that I would ask every Democrat who has put his name to this--and I notice, sadly, my friend, the Presiding Officer, is one of them, but he didn't serve on the committee. So I would ask him to consider these questions, and I would hope every Democrat who has put his name to this, upon thinking about it, will have second thoughts and pull his name off.

So here are three questions every one of us should ask. No. 1, should Congress have the constitutional authority to ban movies?

No. 2, should Congress have the constitutional authority to ban books?

And No. 3, should Congress have the constitutional authority to ban the NAACP from speaking about politics?

My answer to these three questions is unequivocally, unquestionably no. Yet every single Democrat who has put his name on this amendment has no choice but to answer yes to all three of these questions.

I posed these questions in the Constitution subcommittee. When I posed them to the committee, the chairman of the committee, Senator Durbin, gaveled the hearing shut because he could not answer those questions. But at the full Judiciary Committee hearing, I was told by my Democratic friends: This is hyperbole. This is exaggeration. We don't intend to ban movies or books or the NAACP. My response in those hearings was that this is the Senate. Forty-nine Senators are proposing an amendment to the Bill of Rights. The inchoate intentions that may be buried in the hearts of each and every Senator are utterly irrelevant to the question. The question is, What is the language that would be inserted into the Bill of Rights of our Constitution?

Let's look to the language. Section 2 of this amendment says Congress and the States shall have the power to implement and enforce this article by appropriate legislation and may distinguish between natural persons and corporations or other artificial entities created by law, including by prohibiting such entities from spending money to influence elections.

That is very specific language that would now become part of our Bill of Rights. It is breathtaking. It is staggering in its scope.

I wish to take these one at a time because the Democrats, I am sure-- all 49 Democrats--say, We don't intend to ban movies, books, or ban the NAACP. Well, let's look to the language they put their names to.

No. 1, let's start with movies. We have all heard a lot about the Citizens United case. In fact, we remember President Obama during the State of the Union hectoring the Supreme Court of the United States for the Citizens United case.

Relatively few people know the facts that underlie the Citizens United case. The facts in those circumstances are that a nonprofit corporation made a movie critical of Hillary Clinton, and for making a movie critical of Hillary Clinton the Obama administration tried to impose massive fines on them. Citizens United, which President Obama and the Senate Democrats decry as the most pernicious thing in modern times, it seems, was all about the government trying to fine a movie maker for daring to make a movie about Hillary Clinton.

Listen, let me be very clear. There are movie makers--Michael Moore's movies I think are complete nonsense. To quote the bard, they are full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Michael Moore has a right to keep making those movies over and over again and spewing his nonsense as long as he likes. The First Amendment protects his right to be wrong.

And as a simple legal matter, would this amendment give Congress the constitutional authority to ban movies?

Paramount Pictures is a corporation. Under the text of the amendment, what could Congress do to a corporation? It can prohibit--and that is the language in the amendment--it can prohibit the corporation from spending money to influence elections. So if a movie talks about politics, Congress can make it a criminal offense. Go down to Hollywood, take the producers, the directors, the actors and everyone involved in the movie and put them in handcuffs. That is breathtaking.

Now, again, the Democratic Senators say, We don't intend to do that. Then why did they submit a constitutional amendment to the Bill of Rights that says Congress can prohibit Paramount Pictures from speaking about politics? That means Congress can ban movies.

How about the second question: Should Congress be able to ban books? That is an extreme question by anyone's measure. Surely, nobody in Washington is talking about banning books. Well, if we assumed that, our assumption would be wrong. Indeed, during the oral argument in Citizens United, the Supreme Court asked the Obama administration: Your position is that under the Constitution, the sale for the book itself could be prohibited. The answer from the Obama administration: Yes, if the book contained the functional equivalent of express advocacy. The Obama administration went in front of the Supreme Court and argued: We have the power to ban books.

This is in the record. This is in the official transcript. People can go and listen to this argument, listen to the Obama administration say they believe the Federal Government has the ability to ban books from your house. That is breathtaking.

I recognize in today's partisan society there are some people who may be

watching these remarks who aren't inclined to believe me. They might say: Listen, you are a Republican. You are a conservative. And coming from the spot in the political aisle that I do, I don't tend to trust Republicans or conservatives.

I understand that. I would tell you that if you don't believe me, perhaps you would believe that famed rightwing organization, the ACLU. The ACLU said this amendment, to which 49 Democrats have signed their names--what would it do? It would ``fundamentally `break' the Constitution and endanger civil rights and civil liberties for generations.'' I said a few minutes ago that this was the most radical legislation that has been put before this body. Why is that? Because it is legislation the ACLU says would ``fundamentally `break' the Constitution.'' Breaking the Constitution is no minor matter, and endangering civil rights and civil liberties for generations ought to concern every Member of this body.

One still might say: Surely banning books is hyperbole.

Well, if you don't believe me, the ACLU in writing told the Senate this amendment--to which 49 Democrats have put their names--would give Congress the power to ban Hillary Clinton's new book, ``Hard Choices.'' I want that to sink in for a moment. Forty-nine Democrats have just put their names to a constitutional amendment, and the ACLU rightly tells us that the express language of the amendment gives the government the power to ban Hillary Clinton's new book, ``Hard Choices.''

I have that letter from the ACLU. I also have a subsequent letter from the ACLU doing something which they haven't done before and which I don't know they will do again--thanking me and thanking all of us who have been fighting against this amendment for standing up for civil liberties. It is truly a shame the Democratic Party is not among them.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record both of the letters from the ACLU I referred to earlier.

The third question every Senator who has put his name to this amendment must answer is this: Should Congress have the constitutional authority to ban the NAACP from speaking about politics? Well, why is that? Because the NAACP is a corporation. We hear the word ``corporation,'' and we tend to think of ExxonMobil, Walmart, or what have you, but the NAACP is a corporation. What could Congress do under this amendment, under the explicit language of this amendment? Congress could prohibit the NAACP from speaking about politics.

Let me state some other corporations Congress would have the constitutional authority to silence. The ACLU is a corporation. The AARP--the American Association of Retired Persons--is a corporation. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is a corporation. Amnesty International is a corporation. Americans United for Separation of Church and State is a corporation. The Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders is a corporation. The National Organization for Women is a corporation. The Center for Reproductive Rights is a corporation. The Sierra Club is a corporation. La Raza is a corporation. NARAL is a corporation. Planned Parenthood is a corporation. Moveon.org is a corporation. The Human Rights Campaign is a corporation. Greenpeace is a corporation.

People will note that every one I listed is a group that in our political discourse is often associated with being on the left. Many of those groups are not particular fans of mine as an elected official, and that is their right. Indeed, it is their right to scream from the mountaintops their criticism of my political positions. I will defend their right to criticize me or any other Member of this body all day long because the Bill of Rights says Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.

Forty-nine Democrats just said that every organization I read--that it should be constitutional for Congress to prohibit them from speaking about politics.

It seems to me that when we return to our home States, every Senate Democrat who put his or her name to this amendment should expect to answer questions from citizens: Senator, why did you vote for a constitutional amendment to silence my free speech rights? That is a question we should all expect.

I would like to address a couple of red herrings in this debate because there are arguments put forth by the Democrats who say: No, no, no. Pay no attention to the text of the amendment we have introduced. Pay no attention to the fact that it would give Congress the power to ban movies, books, and to silence the NAACP. Pay no attention to any of that. It is something else.

There are three red herrings that are tossed forward.

First, money is not speech. How many times have we heard that over and over in floor speeches? Yesterday and today Democrats have stood and said: Money is not speech. Money is not speech. It has been repeated over and over. It is a good talking point. It is simply, on its face, demonstrably false. It is certainly true that all money is not speech.

If you go out and buy a Ferrari, that is not speech, but if you go out and erect a billboard and pay money to put up a billboard that says ``Senator Joe Manchin is a terrific guy,'' that is speech. It takes money to do that. They don't put up billboards with pixie dust. It actually takes some dollars to erect that billboard and to express that speech.

If you decide you want to run a radio ad saying that Senator so-and- so is terrible or wonderful, they don't run radio ads just because you asked ``pretty please.'' It takes money.

Let's say you want to run a television ad. It takes money.

Let's say you want to launch a Web site. Have you ever launched a Web site for free?

Let's say you are a little old lady who wants to put a yard sign on your front yard, and it is going to take $5 to buy some poster board and a stick and some crayons and markers and write: I love the First Amendment; I love free speech. That takes money.

The Federalist Papers were the essence of speech, and it took money to print them. Thomas Paine's ``Common Sense''--it took money to print it. It took money to print pamphlets.

Everyone in the tech community--and I would note that all of our Democratic friends and sponsors of this amendment almost to a person go routinely to the tech community and say: Give us money. Give us campaign contributions.

Every Senate Democrat should expect the tech community to say: Wait a second. Why did you vote for a constitutional amendment to give Congress the power to regulate every Web site in America?

If a Web site talks about politics, this amendment gives Congress the power to regulate that Web site.

Listen, I understand there are Members in this body on both sides of the aisle who find it really pesky when citizens dare criticize us. If you don't want to be criticized, don't run for office. Democracy is messy.

I guarantee there is no one in this country who truly believes money is not speech. It is a talking point, but those examples are unquestionably speech, and they have been from the very first days of our Republic.

A second canard is that corporations are not people. That is often said. Citizens United said that corporations are people.

Of course corporations are not people, but that is not the right question. It never was the question. Nobody thinks corporations are people. They don't breathe, they don't walk, and they are not human beings. The question is, Do corporations have rights under our Constitution? Again, I guarantee that every person in this Chamber and every person in the gallery believes the answer to that question is yes. If they don't, the New York Times is a corporation. Do we really think the New York Times has no First Amendment rights?

If the canard were true--corporations are not people, so they don't have rights--Congress could pass a law tomorrow that says the New York Times can never again criticize any Republican Member of Congress. I think the paper would probably go out of publication if it had to remove that from its content.

But it, of course, cannot. Why can't it? Because corporations have rights. Every one of us knows that. We would be horrified. That legislation would be blatantly unconstitutional. Why? Because the New York Times has a First Amendment right to speak about politics however it likes, whether wrongheaded or right-headed.

The groups I mentioned before--the NAACP is a corporation. I challenge any Senator to stand and say the NAACP has no First Amendment rights. But every Senator who has said on this Senate floor that corporations

aren't people, that they have no rights, has said the NAACP has no constitutional rights--if you were a first-year law student and put that answer in any constitutional law class in the country, you would get an F. It wouldn't be a D-plus or a D-minus; it would be an F. It is an obviously blatantly false statement. Yet 49 Democrats rely on it to justify trying to gut the First Amendment.

The third red herring the Democrats in this body point to is they paint a specter of evil billionaires coming to steal our democracy.

We have all heard of our friends the Koch brothers--in part because the majority leader has launched an unprecedented slander campaign on two private citizens. Almost on a daily basis the majority leader stands and demagogues two private citizens who have committed the sin of creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, being successful in the private sector, and then exercising their First Amendment rights to speak out about the grave challenges facing this country.

If one Member of this body impugns the integrity of another Member of this body, we can rise on a point of personal privilege. I ask the Presiding Officer, where is the point of personal privilege for a private citizen when the majority leader drags his name through the mud day after day?

What Senator Reid is doing to two private citizens who are fighting to exercise their free speech rights is reprehensible. It is an embarrassment to this institution. Yet perhaps one might say there is some truth to the matter. We are told these nefarious brothers are responsible for almost everything bad in the world, so it must be that they are playing a huge role in our body politic.

Well, if you go look at OpenSecrets, which compiles campaign giving from 1989 to 2014, so for the past 25 years--and it compiles them from the biggest givers down to the smallest givers--if you look at first 16 names on that list--I have heard what our Democratic Members of this body have said: There are evil, nefarious Republicans trying to steal our democracy. And the implication is that they are backing Republicans. So my assumption is, as I look at the list of the top donors, the top 16--how many of them give predominantly to Republicans? Well, one would assume, given how great the magnitude is, that it has to be a lot of them, probably all of them, or if not all of them, most of them--at least half of them.

Mr. President, do you know how many of the top 16 groups give predominantly to Republicans? Zero. The top 16 political donors in this country all give either overwhelmingly to Democrats or at best evenly between the two parties. You have to fall to No. 17 to find a group that gives more heavily to Republicans than to Democrats. Now, that is curious given the story that is being told by our Democratic friends about these evil Republican billionaires stealing democracy. Gosh, the top 16 donors are not Republicans.

And how about the Koch brothers who we are told are somewhat like the Grinch who stole Christmas? Where do they fall? We have to go down to No. 59 on the list to find Koch Industries.

But perhaps you believe there is something to this claim of secret money. That too is a red herring. The Federal Election Commission estimates that over $7 billion was spent in the 2012 election cycle. We have heard from Democrat after Democrat after Democrat that secret money--money where the donors are not disclosed--is this enormous problem in our democracy that justifies gutting the First Amendment. So of that $7 billion, I assume a lot of that is secret money. Well, if you were to assume that, you would be wrong. The Center for Responsive Politics estimates that in 2012 about $315 million was spent by groups that do not disclose all of their donors. That is less than 4.5 percent of all the political speech in 2012.

So this entire effort to gut the First Amendment, to give Congress the power to ban movies, books, and the NAACP from speaking about politics is justified because of 4.5 percent of political spending, a whole bunch of which is being spent to help Democrats. Those are the facts. As John Adams famously said: Facts are stubborn things.

(Ms. WARREN assumed the Chair.)

So it raises the question: If the problems they are telling us about are not real, why are the Democrats doing this? Why are we spending a week debating this constitutional amendment, the most radical constitutional amendment this body has ever considered, particularly because every single Member of this body knows the outcome? There are not sufficient votes to adopt this amendment. The Democrats all know this. The Republicans all know this. Then why would they be doing it?

Well, if you are a Democrat running for reelection in 2014, you cannot run on the economy. The Obama economy is a disaster. Millions of people are out of work. The people who have been hurt the most by the Obama economy are the most vulnerable among us--young people, Hispanics, African Americans, single moms. We have not seen such a low labor force participation since 1978, since the stagnation and misery and malaise under Jimmy Carter. The Obama economy has recreated that. So if you are a Democrat, you cannot run on the disastrous economic record of the Obama administration.

If you are a Democrat, you certainly cannot run on ObamaCare--the most harmful social services legislation in modern times that has cost millions of Americans their jobs, their health care, their doctors. If you do not believe me, take a look at how the Democrats are running in their States. You do not see Democrats running saying: We passed ObamaCare. When you take away millions of people's health care and doctors, and when you look in the TV camera and repeatedly state falsehoods: If you like your health insurance plan, you can keep it, if you like your doctor, you can keep them, you do not really want to remind the American people that you deliberately lied to them.

And the Democrats certainly cannot run on the Obama-Clinton foreign policy--a policy about which we heard last week the President has no strategy for dealing with the great threats facing this country. Leading from behind is not a strategy, and we can see the consequences of the Obama-Clinton foreign policy, which is that the entire world is on fire.

If you are a Democratic Senator running for reelection in 2014, you have a problem. You cannot run on your record because the record is abysmal. So what is done instead? It is smoke and mirrors. It is distraction.

The only explanation I can come up with for why we are spending a week--with all the challenges in the world--a week debating an amendment that will never ever pass is this is designed to fuel a bunch of TV commercials for Democratic Senators, to paint the picture of nefarious billionaires coming to steal our democracy. Facts do not get in the way of their story. But yet the breadth of this is rather enormous.

I serve on the constitution subcommittee with the Senator from Minnesota, who before being a Senator was a very talented comedic actor and comedic writer on ``Saturday Night Live.'' I grew up watching ``Saturday Night Live.'' I love ``Saturday Night Live.''

``Saturday Night Live'' over the years has had some of the most tremendous political satire--for decades. Who can forget Chevy Chase tripping and falling over just about everything? Who can forget portrayals--Dana Carvey's George Herbert Walker Bush: ``Not going to do it.'' Who can forget Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Al Gore? Who can forget in 2008 the ``Saturday Night Live'' wickedly funny characterization of the Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin? It was wickedly funny and also had a profoundly powerful effect on people's assessment of Governor Palin, who is a friend of mine.

When I asked the Senator from Minnesota in the Senate Judiciary Committee: Do you believe that Congress should have the constitutional authority to prohibit ``Saturday Night Live'' from making fun of politicians, the good Senator promptly reassured me he had no intention of doing any such thing. But what we are debating is not the intentions of 100 Senators. What we are debating is a constitutional amendment that 49 Democrats are proposing to be inserted into the Bill of Rights.

The only question--it is not the intention of those Senators--but, rather, what would that amendment say? What the amendment says is for any corporation Congress would have the constitutional authority to prohibit it from engaging in political speech.

Well, NBC, which airs ``Saturday Night Live,'' is a corporation. Under this amendment 49 Democrats have signed their name to, Congress would have the power to make it a criminal offense. Lorne Michaels could be put in jail under this amendment for making fun of any politician. That is extraordinary, it is breathtaking, and it is dangerous.

The idea of banning books is not new. Advocates of government power, statists, have long favored silencing the citizenry. It is why our First Amendment was such a revolutionary concept, the idea that the individual citizen has the authority to challenge any elected official, from local magistrate all the way up to the President of the United States.

But if you are an advocate of governmental power, the citizens having the liberty to speak out is inconvenient; it can lead to inconvenient truths. So on some level it should not be surprising that the modern Democratic Party, which has become the party of government power over every aspect of our lives, would take it to the final conclusion of giving government the power to silence our political speech and to ban books.

I am reminded, in Ray Bradbury's immortal book ``Fahrenheit 451,'' of the words of Captain Beatty: ``If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none.'' That was, of course, the chief fireman in charge of burning books in ``Fahrenheit 451.'' In the book that is the temperature at which book paper ignites. It breaks my heart that today we are seeing the Fahrenheit 451 Democrats. Today we have seen 49 Democrats put their name to a constitutional amendment that would give Congress the power to ban books.

Some might dismiss it and say: What does it matter? It is an exercise in politics. They do not really believe it. They know it is not going to pass. Politicians will be politicians. No wonder the American people are cynical. I would be embarrassed if one Senator put his or her name to an amendment repealing the free speech protections of the First Amendment. Instead of one, it is 49. And much like with Sherlock Holmes and ``the dog that didn't bark,'' every bit as troubling as the 49 names of the Senators who are willing to repeal the free speech protections of the First Amendment are the Senators who are not speaking out. In particular, we have not seen a single Democrat have the courage to speak out against this abominable provision.

It was not always so. There was a time not long ago when there was bipartisan agreement on questions of civil liberties. There was a time when you could find Democrats for whom the First Amendment meant something.

In 1997, Democrats attempted a similar amendment to give Congress the power to regulate free speech, and that lion of the left Ted Kennedy stood up and said: ``In the entire history of the Constitution, we have never amended the Bill of Rights, and now is no time to start.''

Where are the Ted Kennedys? Where are the Democrats? Where are the liberals?

Also in 1997, Senator Russ Feingold, another passionate liberal, stood up and said:

. . . the Constitution of this country was not a rough

draft. We must stop treating it as such. The First Amendment

is the bedrock of the Bill of Rights. It has as its

underpinnings that each individual has a natural and

fundamental right to disagree with their elected leaders.

I agree with Ted Kennedy, I agree with Russ Feingold, and I will tell you, privately I have urged Democratic colleagues to come and join me in defense of the First Amendment--the handful who have not put their names to this amendment--and all I can surmise is that the partisan pressures of Washington are too much.

This amendment is not going to pass, but it is profoundly dangerous that in the U.S. Senate not a single Democratic Senator will come to the floor in defense of the First Amendment. It is profoundly dangerous that the modern Democratic Party now thinks it is good politics to campaign on repealing the First Amendment. The hashtag #don'trepeal1A has echoed through twitter as individual citizens are amazed.

Earlier this year we saw all 55 Democrats stand together against religious liberty, supporting an amendment that would gut the Religious Freedom Restoration Act which was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and signed into law by Bill Clinton.

It used to be on religious liberty there was a bipartisan consensus. The same used to be true on free speech. When did Democrats abandon the Bill of Rights? When did Democrats abandon civil liberties? I assure you, if it were my party proposing this egregious amendment, I would be standing on the floor of this Senate giving the very same speech trying to hold my party to account. Because at the end of the day, when we take our oath of office, it is not to a Democratic Party or the Republican Party, it is to represent the citizens of our State--in my case, 26 million Texans--to fight for their rights and to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States.

There is nothing the United States has done in the just under 2 years that I have been in this body that I find more disturbing and more dangerous than the fact that 49 Democrats would put their name to a proposal to repeal the First Amendment.

When my daughters Caroline, 6, and Catherine, 3, came up from Texas to Washington for a weekend to visit, I took them to the Newseum. It is a terrific museum. The front facade of the Newseum has in gigantic letters the text of the First Amendment carved in granite.

If the Democratic Party has its way, the Bill of Rights will be forever altered. We will have to send up workmen to that facade to carve with jackhammers the words of the First Amendment out of the granite in the front of the Newseum.

In the Senate Judiciary Committee I introduced a substitute amendment. It was an amendment to replace every word of this extraordinarily dangerous amendment with the following words:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of

religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or

abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the

right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition

the Government for a redress of grievances.

It was word-for-word verbatim the text of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, and I am sorry to tell you every single Senate Democrat on the Judiciary Committee voted against the text of the First Amendment. It was a straight party-line vote.

Going back to Senator Kennedy, Senator Kennedy and I would have agreed on very little. On matters of policy, he was a big government man and I most assuredly am not. On matters of foreign policy, he supported a far weaker military than do I and a far weaker defense of our Nation. But on the question of the First Amendment, I am proud to stand side by side with Ted Kennedy.

What does it say about the modern Democratic Party that not a single Democrat is willing to honor Senator Kennedy's legacy? His words are every bit as true now as they were in 1997.

In the entire history of the Constitution, we have never

amended the Bill of Rights, and now is no time to start.

It is my plea to the Democratic Members of this body that they reconsider the decision of putting their name on this amendment. It may seem like harmless election-year politicking that will help in political campaigns, but it is dangerous when 49 Senators come together and say: We no longer support the First Amendment.

We have a two-party system--a two-party system on which there should be robust debate. It is even more dangerous when one of the two parties becomes so extreme and so radical that it becomes seen as good politics to campaign against the First Amendment.

This will not pass this week, but I hope my Democratic colleagues will have second thoughts. I hope we can return to the day where there is a bipartisan consensus in favor of civil liberties, in favor of protecting the free speech rights of every American.

I hope we will listen to the wise counsel of Senator Kennedy, and I hope we will recognize, as Senator Kennedy and Senator Finegold observed, that there are no James Madisons or Thomas Jeffersons serving in this body today.

The Bill of Rights is not a rough draft, and the U.S. Senate should not

be proposing to repeal the First Amendment.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, may I ask that at the conclusion of Senator Walsh's remarks I be recognized?

Madam President, before I given my ``Time to Wake Up'' speech, I want to react to something that was said on the Senate floor about this joint resolution to correct the error of Citizens United. What was said on the floor was that the position of those of us who support this joint resolution and who think Citizens United was wrongly decided, that our position is an attack on the First Amendment, that we are attacking the First Amendment. That may have some rhetorical utility, but it is simply not accurate.

The very question we are here to answer is whether the First Amendment properly allows unlimited corporate spending. It never did. It never did until Citizens United came along. So the question before this body is, Was Citizens United correctly decided?

To say we are attacking the First Amendment is to presume that Citizens United was correctly decided. You don't win an argument by presuming you are right; you win an argument by making the case why you are right.

Frankly, I have great reverence for the First Amendment, and I think it is extremely unfortunate that an argument would be made that is really nothing more than a rhetorical trick and does not respond to the gravamen of the dispute, which is whether the First Amendment should protect unlimited corporate spending when in the history of this country--until the decision by Citizens United--it never had.

Tribute to Aaron Goldner

Before I continue, I wish to express my gratitude to Dr. Aaron Goldner. He has been instrumental in helping me research and prepare the ``Time to Wake Up'' speeches, and his fellowship in my office came to an end yesterday.

Aaron earned his Ph.D. in Earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences at Purdue University. He came to my office as an American member of the Geophysical Union Congressional Science Fellow, whose research specialty was the development of sophisticated models to help build greater understanding of the past, present, and future effects of carbon pollution on our climate.

He lent his considerable scientific expertise and analysis to these floor speeches. He also did research for legislation and prepared for hearings in the Environment and Public Works Committee. Since we apparently somehow were not keeping him busy enough, he managed to find the time to publish a peer-reviewed article over the summer in the prestigious journal Nature on the climatic conditions surrounding the origination of the Antarctic ice cap.

Aaron said this week as he left that he gained a sense of humor working here, which is probably fitting for a scientist having to deal with this body in its present state.

I gained the benefit of Aaron's hard work and gracious spirit, and the Senate and the American people gained the benefit of Aaron's passion for bringing the best scientific thinking to address our greatest challenges.

Aaron is now taking his talents to the Department of Energy, where he will continue to help our government tackle these important questions. I am grateful for his service in my office and wish him the best success.

Climate Change

The 113th Congress is now winding down, an election is upon us that will decide the makeup of the next Congress, and I am here for the 77th time to say it is time for my Republican colleagues to wake up to the threat of climate change both for the good of our country and our world and ultimately for the good of their own party. No political party can long remain a credible force in our democracy if their position on one of the defining threats of our time is to deny its existence or to plead total ignorance about it. ``I am not a scientist,'' some have begun to say. Well, when it comes to interfering with women's rights, they don't say, ``I am not a gynecologist.'' But when it is carbon pollution, they say, ``I am not a scientist.'' Some would say that if you are not a scientist, all the more reason to listen to the scientists.

Look at what the scientists are saying today. The top person at the World Meteorological Organization, which knows a little bit about this area, just said:

We know without any doubt that our climate is changing and

our weather is becoming more extreme due to human activities

such as the burning of fossil fuels.

Here is the point: ``I am not a scientist'' is not the stance of a party that is ready to lead; it is the stance of a party that is beholden to polluting interests, petrified of losing the millions in polluter campaign spending supporting their candidates.

We have heard over and over during the last 6 years that Republicans want President Obama to lead. It is a familiar chorus: ``It is time to lead.'' ``Where is the leadership?'' ``Why isn't America leading?''

One of my Republican Senate colleagues put it this way:

Every American can agree that the light of peace and

liberty would benefit our world. But who will spread it if

not America? There is no other Nation that can, and that is

why, despite the challenges we face here at home, America

must continue to hold this torch. America must continue to

lead the way.

Well, on climate change we are finally leading the way thanks in large part to President Obama's Climate Action Plan and Secretary Kerry's passionate efforts. Yet they criticize the Obama administration's leadership on climate change because other countries, such as China and India, are also big carbon emitters. So Republicans want America to lead except on climate change. On this one issue they would prefer to await leadership from China or India. How convenient that is when you think of all the polluter money funding the Republicans and how badly out of step with America. Just look at the numbers. A recent Wall Street Journal poll showed--notwithstanding years of relentless polluter propaganda--that 61 percent of Americans agree that climate change is occurring and that action should be taken, and 67 percent of Americans support the administration's proposed rule to limit carbon pollution from powerplants.

Here is my personal favorite: A survey conducted for the League of Conservation Voters found that more than half of young Republican voters--to be specific, 53 percent of Republicans under the age of 35-- would describe a politician who denies climate change is happening as ``ignorant,'' ``out of touch,'' or ``crazy.'' That is the young Republican view of the Republican position on climate change.

On September 21 thousands of concerned Americans will converge on New York City for what will be known as the People's Climate March. Organizers expect that as many as half a million people will take part in this historic citizen action to call attention to the global crisis of climate change.

However you look at it, the American people are sending a message loud and clear: They want responsible leadership on carbon pollution. What is the Republican answer? Well, look at the House. Given control of the House, Republicans have already forced over 100 votes to undermine the EPA. That is even more times than they have voted to repeal ObamaCare.

Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, said last week that the Republican strategy next year will be to send the President bills they know he will veto, including approval of the Keystone XL tar sands crude pipeline, and thereby create ``shutdown by veto.''

Over here in the Senate, our Republican leader already threatens--if the Republicans win the Senate--to force onto key legislation what he called ``a lot of restrictions on the activities of the bureaucracy.'' Gee, what agency could he possibly mean? The threat is plain: Give the Republicans polluter-backed, anti-environment legislation or they will shut down the government. Again. This is the Republican version of leadership.

What about out on the campaign trail? Republicans in Congress ignore the public's call for climate action, but

are Republican candidates out there listening to the people or are they listening to the polluters led by the infamous Koch brothers? Look at how much money the polluters are spending on Republicans and take a wild guess. News flash: They are not listening to the people.

The Republican nominee for Senate in Iowa has said of climate change: ``I'm skeptical. It's been changing since the dawn of time. I'm not going to blame it . . . on the human race.''

In New Hampshire the leading Republican Senate candidate recently said that he does not believe manmade climate change has been scientifically proven. Never mind that the underlying science was first measured back when Abraham Lincoln was President.

In North Carolina the Republican nominee has referred to climate change as ``false science.''

Well, in the last year I visited Iowa and New Hampshire and North Carolina, and I saw firsthand how climate change is already affecting those States. I heard over and over deep concern about climate change. I heard about cold-weather sports and tourism threatened by warming temperatures in New Hampshire. I heard about crops threatened by shifting weather patterns and about how a booming wind power industry has emerged in Iowa. In North Carolina I heard about homes and businesses and even air bases threatened by rising seas.

If you doubt me, go to the State universities in Iowa and New Hampshire and North Carolina. They are not denying it. They are actively working on and warning about climate change. Iowa State has an entire climate science program and wants to be a ``leader in the science of regional climate change.'' The University of New Hampshire scientists told me about the danger to New Hampshire's iconic moose from tick infestations because of climate change. Researchers from the University of North Carolina, Duke University, and North Carolina State took me out on a research vessel to see firsthand the effects of climate change on North Carolina's shoreline. The home State universities are clear; it is just the polluter-funded candidates who are denying.

It is the same story across the country. Republicans running for the Senate, from Alaska to Georgia, from Colorado to West Virginia, question or outright deny the established climate science. Figure it out. Do the math. There is overwhelming consensus among knowledgeable scientists that climate change is real and being caused by humans. Denying that fact serves the economic interest of a narrow group of big-spending polluters, and the polluters are spending vast fortunes to support climate deniers.

Senate Republican candidates even attended a secret retreat organized by the Koch brothers earlier this year and praised the Kochs' political network for helping to support their campaign--the polluter political lifeline to the Republican Party.

A lot of blame here attaches to the Republicans' confederates on the Supreme Court--the five Republican-appointed Justices who kicked open the floodgates of corporate special interest spending for Republicans in the disastrous Citizens United decision in January of 2010. With Citizens United in their pocket, the polluters went right to work.

By the 2012 election cycle, the Washington Post and the Center for Responsive Politics determined that a donor network organized by the Koch brothers spent $400 million to influence that election. This graphic shows the complex apparatus the Koch brothers used to pull those political strings.

In the 2014 election cycle, the government accountability group Common Cause has tallied over $34 million in political donations already from 30 of the country's largest oil, gas, coal, and utility corporations. That does not include the dark money fossil fuel corporations have given to political groups which do not disclose their donors--groups such as the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Koch brothers own so-called Americans for Prosperity organization, or the secretive identity-laundering machine known as the Donors Trust. We don't know how much these groups have actually raised or spent on election activities, but the Koch network is expected to spend nearly $300 million on the 2014 midterm elections.

The Center for Public Integrity reported last week that the Koch brothers are sponsoring 10 percent of all ads in competitive Senate races. That is more than 43,900 Senate ads between January 2013 and last month. Americans for Prosperity alone--that Koch brothers organization--sponsored 27,000 ads. That is one in every 16 ads in all Senate races this cycle. And, of course, those polluter-funded ads make up way more than 10 percent of just the Republican ads. Why is that? Because the focus of this apparatus is on Republicans, on buying and co-opting the Republican Party as the polluters' political instrument.

The numbers are staggering. Let's be clear about one thing: Their intention is not to add to constructive debate on carbon pollution and climate change. The polluters are determined to silence meaningful debate on the catastrophic effects of their carbon pollution, and it is working. There was a lot of Republican activity on climate change until January of 2010 when Citizens United was brought down. And after that, we can't find carbon pollution activity on the Republican side. They have been buried in the threats and the promises of that polluter funding.

Well, climate denial may work for Republicans in the short run if it keeps wide open that spigot of polluter money that is funding Republican candidates. We will see how that works out. But no matter how much money the polluters pour into the Republican Party, even a Republican Senate cannot repeal the laws of science--of physics, of chemistry, of oceanography.

If they win the Senate, it is not just going to be time for them to wake up, it is going to be time for them to grow up. Being in the majority means responsibility, not just obstruction and mischief. Being in the majority means answering your country and the world, not just your polluter funding base. Being in the majority means hearing the vast majority of Americans who want U.S. leadership on climate change, not telling voters the problem doesn't exist or that America should abdicate any responsibility for forging an international solution.

Our Republican colleagues will discover, if they don't know it already--and many do know it already--that former Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was right when she recently called climate change the ``most consequential, urgent, sweeping collection of challenges we face as a nation and a world.''

Secretary Clinton went on to say:

The data is unforgiving no matter what the deniers try to

assert. . . . If we come together to make the hard choices,

the smart investment in infrastructure, technology and

environmental protection, America can be the clean energy

superpower of the 21st century. . . . This is about our

strategic position in the world, this is about our

competitiveness, our job creation, our economic growth as

well as dealing with a challenge that we ignore at our

detriment and our peril.

So the choice for Republicans stands before them: America as a clean energy superpower, leading the world, or America bedeviled with polluter-fueled political gridlock and climate denial. Their choice so far is obvious.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am glad I had the opportunity to be on the floor today to hear the remarks of the Senator from Virginia. All of us look forward to the President's remarks tomorrow night. I am going to reserve my comments because of the seriousness of the subject and out of respect for the Office of the President until after the President addresses the Nation. But I would say this. Having heard the Senator from Virginia, I hope the President and his advisers listened carefully to what the Senator from Virginia said. None of us want to see another military adventure in the Middle East. As in Virginia and West Virginia and Tennessee, we have had thousands--tens of thousands of Tennesseans who have been in Iraq and Afghanistan three, four, five, or six times on tours of duty. But this ISIS threat is a different kind of threat to civilization, and very well could be a threat to the United States. It requires a response. It requires the President's leadership. He is the Commander in Chief, and it is his job to lay out for us a firm and clear strategy for, in the words of his administration, how we will defeat and destroy this new movement.

In thinking about whether to come to the Congress, I think it is useful for the President to think back to the first President Bush and the decision he had to make. I was in his cabinet. I came just about that time and the idea of a ground war in the Middle East was a shocking thought. We had not had something like that in this country for a while, and the President was reluctant at first to come to the Congress to seek approval for that, but he did it. And he said after he had done it that in retrospect he was glad he did. What did he gain?

Even though it was a contentious debate and the margin of the vote wasn't large, it gave a clear signal to the world that we were united as a country against the threat at that time. It gave a clear signal to the country that regardless of party we were united with the President of the United States on what he saw as an urgent mission for our country. As a result of that, he had an enormously successful operation. It was well planned, funded by other countries, primarily, and had a limited objective. They got to the gates of Baghdad, the objective was realized, and we came home. I think the fact that the President sought the advice of Congress was a part of that.

In this case I think this President would find in this body careful listeners to what he has to say, a willingness on both sides of the aisle to consider his strategy, and a willingness to support a carefully crafted plan to meet his objectives. This is not Libya, this is not Grenada, and this is not Panama. This is at least 2 or 3 years. Any time our country is expected to have a military action especially in the Middle East again, it needs to have the full support of the American people, and that starts here.

So I will wait until Wednesday night to hear what the President has to say, but the Senator from Virginia has given some very careful and reasonable advice, and I hope the President and his advisers will consider that very carefully.

I am here today to speak on another subject. I am here today because Senate Democrats want to amend the Bill of Rights--at least 48 of them do. Forty-eight of them want to say: Let's amend the United States Constitution and the free exercise clause of the First Amendment. Let's amend the guarantee of free speech. That is an extraordinary development.

If passed, Senate Joint Resolution 19, which is the subject on the floor today, would give Congress and State governments the power to decide which Americans can speak in elections, what they can say, when they can say it, and how they say it. This measure would gut the free speech provisions of the First Amendment. It is a shocking proposal--a shocking proposal made even more so by the fact that it is supported by 48 Democratic Senators and President Obama. I wonder if any of them have taken the time to see the writing

on the wall of the Newseum down the street. In big bold letters carved into the concrete it says: ``Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech . . . '' That is in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Our Founders passed the Constitution, and they said, well, we forgot to do the Bill of Rights. So they came back with the Bill of Rights, and this is in the First Amendment. Free speech is one of the defining characteristics of liberal democracies worldwide. No country has embraced free speech and protected it as much as has the United States of America. Other countries look to us as a model for this remarkable freedom. So why would anyone attempt to amend the Constitution, amend the Bill of Rights, and change the free speech clause in the First Amendment?

When we look at the Democratic leadership in the Senate we see a pattern of using a gag rule to silence Senators who were sent here on behalf of the people who elected them to represent their views. The majority leader has prevented Tennesseans, for example, from having their say through their Senators, their elected officials, for years now, by using the gag rule in this body to keep amendments from being considered and voted on. Senators have listened to their constituents and proposed amendments on ObamaCare, taxes, the National Labor Relations Board, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, etc., and they are told by the Democratic leadership that they won't get votes. I have said on this floor many times, it is like being invited to join the Grand Ole Opry and not being allowed to sing.

But the consequences are much more serious than that. It is not just my amendment or my colleague Senator Corker's amendment, and it is not just Tennesseans' amendments. It is the voters of every State who sent us here to have a say on their behalf. Senator Barrasso from Wyoming has counted that since July of 2013, last year, only 14 Republican amendments and 9 Democratic amendments have received votes. That is an astounding number. There are 100 Senators here representing more than 300 million Americans. This is said to be the world's greatest deliberative body. The new book ``The American Senate'' describes this body, saying: ``This is the one authentic touch of genius in the American political system.'' What makes it ``the one authentic touch of genius in the American political system'' then? It is that you take a difficult message or a difficult bill, you put it on the floor, and you talk about it and you talk about it, and you debate it, and you amend it, until finally you say that is enough and 60 of us say it is time to cut off debate. Let's vote and have a result.

Yet in a year's time there have only been 23 amendments to legislation that have received votes. Some Members of this body who are running for re-election and have never had a vote on any amendment they offered on the Senate floor. Someone might well ask, well, what have you been doing?

Then this summer the Democrats extended the gag rule from the Senate floor to the Senate committee rooms. The bills of some members of the Appropriations Committee, on which I serve, were indefinitely postponed because the Senate leadership wanted to avoid difficult votes on those amendments--no vote on clean water, no vote on energy, no vote because it was a difficult vote.

Now in this provision Democrats and the President are trying to extend the gag rule to the free speech clause of the First Amendment. What this proposal would do is give Congress the power to silence the groups or organizations that threaten their reelection. For example, the government could tell a gun owner in Johnson City, TN, that he or she cannot spend money to advocate in defense of Second Amendment rights if that speech falls too close to an election and threatens to influence the campaign of incumbents. Or similarly, Congress might tell Tennessee Right to Life: You cannot advertise to protect the rights of the unborn. Congress could decide that such speech should be restricted or prohibited because incumbents fear it is really an endorsement of a candidate for political office.

Also incumbents could seek to stop new political movements like the tea party by placing unachievable conditions on their ability to raise and spend funds on behalf of candidates they support. They can do this under the guise of protecting donors by saying you can't receive donations unless you've been successful in a previous election or you have a real chance of being successful in the future. The decision of whether a new political movement is politically viable would of course be made by their political competitors. Or Congress might criminalize expenditures by organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who might oppose a plan by Senate Democrats to increase the minimum wage on the grounds that the funds spent by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are the equivalent of attack ads against Democratic candidates in tight reelection races.

Who might be exempt from this gag rule on free speech? Well, freedom of the press--that is mentioned in the amendment. And who would freedom of the press be? Who might this be? Well, it would be billionaires who could buy television stations, billionaires who could buy a newspaper and buy any form of this new media that we see around us. So ordinary Americans could have their ability to advocate their views restricted, but billionaires could buy TV stations or buy a newspaper or buy any form of media and say whatever they think. Those are the people exempt from the gag rule proposed by the Democrats.

What about millionaire candidates? It has been considered by the Supreme Court and by all who looked at it that while Congress might put rules on raising from others that it could never place on spending your own money. So we have candidates running for President, running for the Senate, who spend their own money. So we might not be limiting the millionaire candidates to the Senate and their right to free speech. We might not be limiting the billionaire owners of television stations and newspapers and their right to free speech, but ordinary Americans would have a gag rule. So the gag rule that began on the Senate floor and went to the Senate hearing rooms would now be applied by Congress to the ordinary Americans across this country. The Founders would never have imagined that. They passed the First Amendment to protect against this very concern--that government censors would tell ordinary Americans what they can and cannot say.

President Harry Truman, who liked to exercise a lot of free speech himself, warned about this in a message to Congress on August 8, 1950. He said:

Once a government is committed to the principle of

silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go,

and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures

until it becomes a source of terror to all of its citizens

and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.

That is President Harry Truman.

That is not a description of this country. That is not a description of America. That is a description of our enemies.

Look through our history. How would this law apply in our history? What about Harriet Beecher Stowe before the Civil War, writing ``Uncle Tom's Cabin?'' Maybe she would want to buy an ad in the local newspaper saying: Mr. Lincoln is a nice man. Read my book. The State might not like that. They might like holding slaves. They might not like what she says and what she wants to advertise.

What about Thomas Payne at the beginning of our country's history writing ``Common Sense''? Would a law such as this apply to his tract-- the 1 he published or if he published 10 or if he published 20?

Taken to its logical conclusion, this proposal could be used by a Congress or a State to ban books, to ban writings. It is shocking that we are standing here today and debating such a proposal. It is not surprising that so few from the other side of the aisle are streaming through the door and standing on the floor--as the Senator from Utah mentioned--to defend this proposal.

Every American ought to be concerned about this proposal to amend the Bill of Rights and the free speech clause in the First Amendment. They should be deeply concerned that the Senate majority leader and his gag rule have effectively silenced their elected representatives here in the Senate, and now he wants to silence them.

I thank the Presiding Officer.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, 1 month ago the President initiated an air campaign against ISIL in Iraq. ISIL is a dangerous terrorist organization committing atrocities against thousands of people, including American hostages, and a strong American response, to include military action, is certainly warranted.

In the first month of this air campaign, two explanations for the mission were given by the President. We began with a mission for humanitarian purpose and also the need to protect American embassy personnel. Since that time, the White House has stated that the air strikes may go on for some open-ended period of time. Despite a pledge not to place American boots on the ground, more American military personnel have been deployed to Iraq as advisers and are on the ground there now.

In order to clarify what is at stake and set out a path forward, many of my colleagues and I have called for the President to bring before Congress and the Nation a clear plan for defeating ISIL. I am gratified that the President will address the Nation on this topic tomorrow night.

I am supportive generally of the limited and prudent steps taken thus far, while Congress was in recess, to slow ISIL's momentum. I expect to hear a comprehensive strategy tomorrow.

I support the strong U.S. diplomatic push that has forced Iraqi government formation, and I am pleased with Iraqi political developments to form a unity government. Now Iraqi leaders must govern inclusively.

I am especially heartened by reports that the administration has worked to find a number of nations willing to partner with America to deal with the ISIL threat, including nations in the region. The United States cannot be a police force for a region unwilling to police itself. The United States should not bear the sole burden of defeating a terrorist organization that poses a more imminent threat to many other nations than the threat it does to America.

I look forward to the President's address, and I am confident that a well-thought-out plan against ISIL will compel the support of the Nation and of Congress.

We are a nation of laws but also of values. I rise today particularly to urge the President to not just inform us of what he plans to do but to follow the Constitution and to seek congressional approval to defeat ISIL. I do so for two reasons.

First, I don't believe the President has the authority to go on the offense and wage an open-ended war on ISIL without congressional approval; and, second, in making the momentous decision to authorize military action, we owe it to our troops who risk their lives to do our collective jobs and reach a consensus supporting the military mission they are ordered to complete.

Let me first deal with the legal issue. The Constitution is clear. It is the job of Congress, not the President, to declare war. Some parts of the Constitution frankly are vague and open to interpretation: What is due process? What is cruel and unusual punishment? Some parts of the Constitution are clear and specific: You have to be 35 years old to be President of the United States. The power to declare war is a clear and specific power. It is an enumerated power of Congress in article I.

The clear wording of the Constitution is additionally illuminated by writings of the principal drafter, the Virginian James Madison. In a letter to Thomas Jefferson after the Constitution was ratified, Madison explained the war powers clause in article I:

Our Constitution supposes what the history of all

governments demonstrates--that the Executive is the branch of

power most interested in war and most prone to it. It has

accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in

the Legislature.

So a President must seek congressional approval for significant military action. As Commander in Chief, a President can always take steps to defend America from imminent threats. The Framers understood this. But even in those instances, they intended that the President return to Congress to seek ratification of such actions.

If we take the Constitution seriously, as we pledge to do when we take our oaths of office, we must follow the command that the President must come to Congress to initiate major military action.

During a congressional recess, President Obama began a new military action against ISIL. He has indicated that the military action may continue for an extended period of time. He has stated that the action is evolving from a narrow effort to protect Americans from imminent threat to a campaign to go on offense in order to degrade the ability of ISIL to cause harm. This is precisely the kind of situation that calls for congressional action and approval.

Some have asserted that the administration need not seek congressional approval for an extended campaign of air strikes. Humbly and respectfully, I deeply disagree with that assertion. The President's article II power allows him to defend America from imminent threat, but it does not allow him the ability to wage an offensive war without Congress. The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, crafted by President Bush and Congress in the days after the 9/11 attacks, limits the President's power to actions against the perpetrators of those attacks. ISIL was not a 9/11 perpetrator. It didn't form until 2003.

President Bush sought a broader AUMF at that time to allow action against terrorist groups posing a threat to the United States. Had Congress granted such a power, the war against ISIL would have been covered by that AUMF. But Congress explicitly rejected giving the President power to wage preemptive war against unnamed terrorist organizations without additional congressional approval. Any attempt to justify action against ISIL by reference to the 2001 AUMF would fly directly in the face of the clear congressional action rejecting the preemptive war doctrine.

Congress passed a second AUMF in 2002 to allow military action to topple the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. That task was completed long ago. American troops left Iraq in 2011, and the administration has testified recently before the Senate that the Iraq AUMF is now obsolete and should be repealed. It provides no support for military action against ISIL. There is no treaty of collective defense ratified by Congress that would justify the President commencing military action against ISIL. The Iraqi Government has asked for our help, which solves international law sovereignty questions, but that request does not create its own domestic legal justification.

Finally, the 1973 War Powers Resolution creates a set of timing rules for Presidential action and congressional response in matters of war. The resolution has been widely viewed as unconstitutional for a variety of reasons. But even accepting its validity--and the President, like most, almost certainly does not accept its 60-day limitation on his article II powers--it does not change the basic constitutional framework vesting the declaration of war in the legislative branch.

I believe a reluctance to engage Congress on this mission against ISIL is less due to any legal analysis supporting broad executive power than to a general attitude, held by all Presidents, that coming to Congress on a

question such as this is too cumbersome and unpredictable. That attitude is shared on the Hill by some who view questions of military action, especially in a difficult circumstance such as this, as politically explosive and best avoided, if at all possible

I urge the President and my colleagues to resist the understandable temptation to cut corners on this process. There is no more important business done in the Halls of Congress than weighing whether to take military action and send servicemembers into harm's way. If we have learned nothing else in the last 13 years, we should have certainly learned that. Coming to Congress is challenging, but the Framers designed it to be so, and we all pledged to serve in a government known for particular checks and balances between the branches of government.

Remember in the days after 9/11, whose anniversary we commemorate this week, the President brought to Congress a request for military action. The ruins of the Pentagon and the World Trade Center were still smoking and the search for the lost was still ongoing. Certainly the American public would have supported the President's strong and immediate Executive action in that circumstance, but President Bush knew that the Nation would be stronger if he came to Congress to seek authority. Similarly President Bush came to Congress prior to initiating military action in Iraq. So many painful lessons were learned in the aftermath of that authorization, but it is important to remember that it was not a unilateral Executive decision but Congress was included and voted to support the mission.

I believe it would be a grievous mistake after 13 years of war to evolve toward a new strategy of taking prolonged military action without bothering to seek congressional approval, and I particularly worry about the precedent it would create for future Presidents to assert that they have the unilateral right to engage in long-term military action without the full participation of the people's legislative branch. As President Obama said last year when announcing that he would come to Congress to seek military authorization to combat the use of chemical weapons in Syria:

This is not about who occupies the office at any given

time, it is about who we are as a country. I believe the

people's representatives must be invested in what America

does abroad . . .

Mr. President, I focus my remarks on the legal reasons for the President to engage Congress on any plan to defeat ISIL.

Let me conclude by offering an additional reason--even a more important reason--about why the President and Congress should work together to craft a suitable mission for this important effort. When we engage in military action, even only an air campaign, we ask our troops to risk their lives and their health--physical and mental. Of course we pray for their complete safety and success, but let's be realistic enough to acknowledge that some may die or be injured or be captured or see these things happen to their comrades in arms. Even those who come home physically safe may see or do things in war that will affect them for the rest of their lives. The long lines of people waiting for VA appointments today or hoping to have their VA disability benefit claims adjudicated are proof of this.

In short, during a time of war we ask our troops to give their best, even to the point of sacrificing their own lives. When compared against that, how much of a sacrifice is it for a President to engage in a possibly contentious debate with Congress about whether military action is a good idea? How much of a sacrifice is it for a Member of Congress to debate and vote about whether military action is a good idea? While Congressional Members face the political costs of debate on military action, our servicemembers bear the human cost of those decisions. If we choose to avoid debate, avoid accountability, avoid a hard decision, how can we demand that our military willingly sacrifice their very lives?

So I await the President's address on the real and significant threat posed by ISIL with a firm willingness to offer support to a well- crafted military mission. I believe the American public and this Congress will support such a mission. It is my deepest hope that we have the opportunity to debate and vote on the mission in the halls of Congress as our Framers intended and as our troops deserve.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Madam President, one man, one woman, one American, one vote--that is what the writers of our Constitution put in the Constitution--not one corporation, one vote.

What I hear on the Senate floor today and yesterday from those candidates who seem to rely on corporate money, who are the beneficiaries of a showering of--not thousands, not tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands, not millions--tens of millions of dollars, candidates who benefit from the showering of tens of millions of dollars for their campaigns, what they are saying on this Senate floor is almost laughable.

It would be laughable if it weren't so serious. It would be laughable if it didn't contribute to the corruption of this institution, of this government of which we are so proud--``of the people, by the people, for the people''--one man, one American, one vote.

With Citizens United, with McCutcheon the Supreme Court has effectively ruled the more money you have, the more influence you have over our democracy.

When what I hear from the other side--again, those who are the beneficiaries of the millions, of the tens of millions of corporate dollars, often Wall Street, often oil companies, often big drug companies, often big tobacco companies--when they come to the floor and plead, they are pleading in many ways that the supporters of this constitutional amendment are restricting the right to free speech. I agree.

Whether it is the Koch brothers, whether it is the Big Tobacco executives, they should get one vote.

But when they can spend millions and millions of dollars and shower some of my colleagues with this kind of corporate money to get their way, we know what is happening in this country. We know for the richest 1 percent of this country incomes have grown and grown, gone up and up.

We know for the broad middle, for the bottom 90 percent, for the middle, for the great majority of people in this country, their wages have been flat. No, they have actually been worse than flat over the past 20 years.

The wealthy are getting extraordinarily wealthy, extraordinarily wealthier. The middle class, even sort of the upper middle class--let alone those who are making minimum wage or making $15 an hour, their wages have been stagnant or worse.

One reason for that is--the Presiding Officer from Massachusetts has spoken out about this nationally over and over again--one of the reasons wages have been flat in this country--and the rich are getting richer and richer--is the corruption of Big Money in our political system.

I know how it works. In my race for reelection in 2012--and I am not complaining about this. As my wife's book publisher said: No whining on the yacht. If you get to be in the Senate, don't complain. But I also understand when they spent $42 million against me in my campaign--I am a big boy, I can take it--it was oil money, it was tobacco money, it was mostly out-of-State money. It was money from some of the richest people in the United States of America.

What did they want? They didn't dislike me personally, I assume. Maybe they did. I don't really care. But what it was really about is they wanted--whether the person came from Troy, OH, or Troy, MI, or Troy, NY--a politician in office from Ohio, as they wanted in Massachusetts, as they want this year in New Hampshire, as they want this year in Arkansas, as they want this year in Kansas, as they want this year in North Carolina, in Louisiana, Alaska, and Colorado--they want a lap dog. They want somebody who will go to the well and vote with Big Tobacco, go to the well and vote for Wall Street, and go to the well and vote for oil companies.

That is what they will get if we continue this corrupt way of campaign financing.

The Presiding Officer remembers--after we passed the Dodd-Frank legislation in this Congress 4 years ago and when she was working to establish a consumer protection agency--after the vote on Dodd-Frank, do we remember what the leading financial services lobbyist in this town said? The President signed the bill--within an hour or two, or at least the same day--and the lobbyist said: Well, folks, it is half- time.

What did that mean? He wasn't talking about the NFL. He was talking about: Well, we lost in Congress. They actually passed a bill that Wall Street wasn't wild about. They actually passed a bill that the largest financial institutions were not particularly happy about, but they knew they could use their lobbying, and they have thousands of lobbyists in this town.

They have a number of lobbyists for every Member of Congress. They knew they could use their lobbying force.

They knew they could use the politicians they had--I won't say people here were bought, but you might suggest they are on a long-term lease in some cases. They were suggesting just the threat of spending money.

So if you cast a vote in this institution next week, let's say, on a controversial issue, we know a couple of things. You know you should do the right thing. You know what your constituents back in Florida, Massachusetts or Ohio are saying, but you also know one other thing. You know if you cast a vote that Wall Street might not like, if you cast a vote that Big Tobacco might not like, if you cast a vote that oil companies may not like, do you know what is going to happen? What is in your mind if they come to your State in the next election and spend $10 million or $20 million or $30 million or $40 million.

I had $40 million spent against me because I don't do what Wall Street wants. I don't do what tobacco wants. I don't do what the oil industry wants. Of course, they are going to come after me.

They fell short in 2012--not by much but they fell short. But we know they will do it again. We know every time we cast a vote they are keeping a scorecard and saying: Well, we like what that Senator did, we will help him or her--usually him in that case. We don't like what she did, we don't like what he did, so we may be looking out to spend that kind of money. One man, one woman, one American, one vote--not one corporation, one vote.

Fortune 500 companies straddle the globe. They reap millions of dollars of profits. American corporations are at their most profitable time perhaps in their history sitting on tens, hundreds of millions of dollars in profit.

It doesn't take a Ph.D. in math to understand they spent a small, small, microfraction of the money they are making to protect those profits.

How do they do it? They come to Ohio, they come to Massachusetts, they come to Florida, they come anywhere in the country and they spend millions. They spend tens of millions to protect themselves on behalf of Wall Street, on behalf of Big Oil, on behalf of these big tobacco companies. It is all pretty simple: one man, one woman, one American, one vote.

Citizens United and McCutcheon make clear there is now an entry fee for participating in our democracy. That is why I support the constitutional amendment proposed by Senator Udall that curbs unlimited campaign spending: one man, one woman, one American.

This amendment grants Congress the authority to regulate and limit the raising and spending of money. We are not shutting anybody off. Anybody can still give fairly significant amounts of money. But we do know--do the math. After the McCutcheon decision, donors can now contribute up to $3.6 million an election cycle.

I don't know for sure, because I have not met most of the 300 million people in our country, but I don't think there are all that many that have the wherewithal financially to contribute $3.6 million. But I also know--because my staff did the math on this one, I acknowledge--the average person making minimum wage at $7.25 an hour--and, parenthetically, the same people who love McCutcheon love the millions of dollars spent, showered on us from Wall Street or against us from Wall Street, from Big Tobacco or from Big Oil. Those same people are stopping the minimum wage from being increased.

The minimum wage is at its lowest level in buying power since 1968. It has been stuck at $7.25 an hour.

Back in the era of bipartisanship on minimum wage--we actually passed one in 2007, my first year in the Senate, signed by Republican President Bush. Those days seem to be past.

Think about the math. At $7.25 an hour, people are allowed to give $3.6 million under the McCutcheon decision--pushed by corporations and handed down by the Supreme Court--that says corporations are people too, more or less.

For a minimum wage worker, it would take 239 years, working full time, making $7.25 an hour, to make $3.6 million. And then they would have to give it all away in that election cycle to be able to compete with the oil companies, the drug companies, and Big Tobacco and Wall Street.

This is very clear. We can change it.

Again, back to the arguments on the other side. They are laughable at home. I don't think I know anybody who thinks it is OK that we are allowing somebody to come in and spend--except for colleagues whom I like. Most of the people on the other side of this issue, I like them personally, but I don't know very many people, unless they are in Washington, unless they have a stake in this system--I don't know people who think it is a great idea to let people spend $3.6 million. They are not spending it out of their charitable whims. They are spending it because they want their people, their water boys, their water girls for the drug companies, the water boys and the water girls for Wall Street, the water boys and the water girls for Big Tobacco, they want those people elected, not people who will stand up to those interest groups and do the right thing.

To restore voters' faith in the political system, to ensure voters that their voices are being heard, one man, one

woman, one American, one vote, that is what we stand for. Those are our values. That is why this is an important issue.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I thank the Senator from Florida for allowing me to do this before his final remarks of the evening.