Military Crime Victims' Rights Act of 2013

Reserving the right to object, and I will object to the modification.

First of all, I think what is being done here, if we agree that a small number of Senators could basically change the way the Senate does business, could have serious ramifications for the future.

The Senator from Utah said he doesn't want to be deprived of his vote. We are ready to vote, I say to my colleague from Utah. We are ready to vote. We are ready to vote on a motion that would send this bill, which was the subject of an enormous amount of

debate and discussion for hours and hours--until perhaps 7 in the morning--to a conference, with motions to instruct the conferees.

I would be more than happy to vote on instructions to the conferees concerning his previous concern about a tax increase, which somehow has been removed, and/or that of increasing the debt limit--instructing those conferees. That is the way the Senate should do business.

If the Senator from Utah will allow this body to vote on whether we should move to conference with instructions to conferees, that is the regular order. It is not the regular order for a number of Senators, a small number--a minority within a minority here--to say we will not agree to go to conference because of a particular problem with an issue, which I grant is important to the Senator from Utah, and it is important to many Senators as to whether we raise the debt limit.

We are on the agriculture bill right now, I say to my colleague from Mississippi. Suppose we pass the agriculture bill and the House of Representatives passes the agriculture bill and we want to appoint conferees, but there is a burning issue that a number of my colleagues might have. Are we then going to block going to conference?

Look, this isn't just about the budget conferees, this is about whether we will ever be able to appoint conferees on a bill that has been passed by the House and also by the Senate; that we will come together and do what we have been doing since the Congress of the United States started functioning, and that is to sit down and iron out our differences.

If the Senator from Utah is worried about the result, I understand. I am worried about the result. I am worried about a bill right now that is just outrageous, porkbarrel spending on catfish and all kinds of stuff I have concerns about, subsidies for the tobacco companies and all that. But that does not mean I am going to object that we move for conferees, not when the will of the Senate and the Congress and the people is heard in open and honest debate and voting. We are here to vote. We are not here to block things. We are here to articulate our positions on the issues in the best possible and most eloquent way we can and do what we can for the good of the country and then let the process move forward.

I say to my friend from Utah, he is not going to win every fight here. He is not going to win every battle here. But if he is right, I can tell him from the experience I have had in the Senate, he will win in the end if his cause is just. But he can only win if he articulates his argument before his colleagues in the Congress and the American people.

We are about to, I hope--I hope--conclude the immigration reform bill. There will be portions of that bill I do not like. There will be portions of that bill that many of my colleagues do not like. But we are not counting on 100 votes in the Senate. But we are counting on a majority of votes in passing it, and we are hoping the House will do the same. Then we will go to conference.

Does that mean that if a group of Senators--4, 5, 10; I don't know how many colleagues the Senator has on this issue--object to us going to conference on the immigration bill that therefore it should stop?

I am very worried, if this happens, about the precedent that will be set on how the Congress of the United States does business. Just a couple or few weeks ago, after the Newtown massacre, my colleague from Utah and my colleague--I believe from Florida, I am not sure who else-- said we do not want to take up the gun bill. We do not want to discuss the gun bill.

I happen to have disagreed with many of the proposals, but was it right? Would it have been right for us not even to debate in light of the Newtown massacre? But the Senator from Utah thought it was the best thing for us not to move forward. Thank God there was a group of us who said let's move forward, let's debate the gun bill, let's do what we can to prevent these further massacres. That is our obligation and our duty to the American people. So here we are again. So here we are again.

The budget that for 4 years I loved beating the daylights out of my friend from Missouri, who would not insist on a budget being brought to the Senate--now a budget has been passed. Everybody was talking about what a great moment it was. We stayed up all night--at my age that is not nearly as enjoyable as it once was--and now, after being so proud, we cannot observe at least a vote?

If the Senator from Utah wants a vote on whether we should appoint conferees and what those instructions to the conferees should be, then that is what we should be doing. I understand how important it is for the Senator from Florida or the Senator from Utah--I don't know how many there are. But I can tell you there is a majority of us who want the Congress to work the people's will.

All I would do is say I hope my colleagues will agree with motions to instruct the conferees. If it is the concern of the Senator from Utah that the conferees should not address the issue of the debt ceiling, then let's vote to instruct the conferees to do that. That is the regular process. That is regular order around here.

But I can also tell my colleague from Utah something else. If we continue to block things such as this and block what is the regular order, then the majority will be tempted to change the rules of the Senate. That would be the most disastrous outcome I could ever imagine. I do not begrudge anybody--whether they have been here 6 months or they have been here 30 years--their rights as Senators. But I hope my colleagues will look at the way the Senate has functioned in the past.

Are the American people unhappy with us? Of course they are unhappy with us. One reason is because they do not see us accomplishing anything.

What I have done for these years, and the people whom I have respected in this body on both sides of the aisle--we fight the good fight. We make our case to our colleagues and the American people, and then we accept the outcome of a regular order while preserving our rights as an individual Senator. We have maintained that balance to a large degree. I hope my colleagues will understand how important that is. I urge my colleagues to do what we have been doing; that is, to have motions to instruct the conferees--if their issue is taxes, if their issue is the debt ceiling--and we vote to instruct those conferees and those conferees carry out the will of the majority of the Senate.

[Several Senators addressed the Chair.]

Mr. President, we have been through it before. In a nutshell, what the Senator from Utah has just said is that if we pass this legislation, and if the House passes this legislation, we will not go to conference unless certain conditions are imposed on those conferees that happen to be important to a small group of Senators. Obviously, that will paralyze the process. Obviously, we can predict the outcome.

The Senator from Utah keeps talking about backroom, closed-door deals. It is the process of the Senate and the House to appoint conferees. Those conferees come to agreement and then subject their agreement to an overall vote in both bodies.

If the Senator from Utah wants to get rid of the ``backroom''--and all of the other adjectives and adverbs he used--then what is the process? What is the process? How do we reconcile legislation that is passed by one body and the other body? That is what we have been doing for a couple of hundred years.

All I can say is, Does the Senator from Utah have another way of reconciling legislation between the House and Senate? Of course not. Of course he doesn't. Of course he doesn't. Of course he doesn't because that is the only way we can get legislation that will be passed by both bodies and signed by the President of the United States. That is the only way.

I tell the Senator from Utah again, if this condition is imposed then there is no reason why any group of Senators should impose conditions on conferees from now on, which will then mean, of course, we would not go to conference.

I would be glad to answer a question.

Perhaps the Senator from Utah doesn't know about that, and the fact that even if they did raise the debt limit, it could not become law because it doesn't go to the President of the United States.

Again, maybe the Senator from Utah ought to learn a little bit more about how business has been done in the Congress of the United States. Budget resolutions are not signed by the President of the United States, so even if we did vote to increase the debt limit as a result of the conference--which, by the way, would be irrelevant to the work of the conference--it would not have any meaning whatsoever.

This business of secret backroom dealmaking, that is what conferences are about, and conference results are subject to a vote of both Houses as to the conference result.

I would be glad to yield for a question.

It is my understanding since the conference is open to the public, it will also be broadcast on C-SPAN so all the American people can watch the deliberations.

I wonder, why would the Senator from Utah say it is a backroom, closed-door deal when, in fact--doesn't the Senator from Utah know this conference is open to the public and seen by everybody?

I mean, for the Senator from Utah to say this is a backroom, closed- door deal, he is either directly misleading or my colleague has no knowledge of how the budget conference works. I don't know which one it is, and I don't know which one is worse.

All I can say is we know, one, even if we had a restriction on allowing raising of the debt limit, it would not matter because it is not legislation that would be signed by the President of the United States--no matter what the budget conferees did. We also know the budget conferees--I will admit, unlike many--meet in open session with C-SPAN so the American people are able to observe it.

So I at least hope the Senator from Utah would withdraw his comment that this is a backroom, closed-door deal because it is not. Those are fundamental facts.

Again, it is disappointing that we are spending this time when we should be on the farm bill. The Senator from California and I have an important amendment to remove a lot of the corruption that is in that bill.

I will yield the floor.

Does the Senator admit it is not a deal that is made behind closed doors? Does the Senator admit that? Does the Senator admit he misspoke on that issue? It is not behind closed doors.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

In the case of the appointment of conferees, will that be open to the public on C-SPAN or any other media coverage that wishes to come in the room?

How many amendments were considered?

How many were voted on?

But there was not one amendment on the debt ceiling?

I thank the Senator.

I object.

Mr. President, we have been through this quite a bit, but, again, I wish to respond by saying that if it were part of the budget resolution, it would have no effect in law. So one has to then question what the knowledge of those who are advocating this is about fundamental procedures.

Second of all, if this is a prerequisite, then for every conference we send, Senators will be allowed, according to this precedent, to set certain parameters of those conferences, which is a procedure we use now--instructions to conferees. We are willing to have votes on instructions to conferees on any issue any Senator feels necessary for the conferees to do their job.

I will be glad to.

Thank God.

Well, I think that is a danger and I think it is a significant danger if a number of Senators, either large or small, should insist that certain conditions be imposed unilaterally without motions to instruct. That is what we have the motions to instruct for. It is not that we don't want the conferees to do certain things, but we have motions to instruct. That is the regular order of how we do business.

The Senators who are here who say the debt ceiling should not be part of any negotiations, fine. Let's have a vote, motions to instruct the conferees. It has been my experience that the conferees have stuck with the instructions that were voted on by the majority of the Senate.

So this is kind of a sad time because here we are debating as to whether we should allow the debt limit to be part of negotiations, which would have no meaning in law whatsoever because it is not signed by the President. We have pressing issues. The Senator from California and I have an issue that has to do with tobacco and the health of our kids that we would like to have considered before the Senate. We could be debating on the instructions to the conferees. We could be doing so many things, and we are not. We are not doing those things.

Finally, I would again share my experience with my colleagues. I have lost a lot more times than I have won, but I have come to the floor of the Senate using the rules of the Senate and made the argument on those things I believe in and stand for. I have been passionate on those issues, and sometimes I have irritated my colleagues, but at least I have had my say.

But then after I have had my say, there have been votes, and the body has decided, and the body has decided whether I was right or wrong. When I have been voted down, I have gone back on those issues and I have tried to convince my colleagues of the rightness of my position, rather than, as with the gun bill, after people were slaughtered in Newtown, CT, my colleagues didn't even want to debate the issue of gun control and what we should do about that. That is not how the Senate should function. The Senate is supposed to debate and discuss and give our passionate appeals and beliefs and then put it to the will of the body. That is the protection of the individual Senator, not to just say we are not going to do anything. That is not the way the American people want us to act. And to throw in all this stuff about the debt and the deficit--I will match my record on opposing the debt and the deficit against certainly my colleagues here.

But that is not the point. The point is, will this deliberative body, whether it is the greatest in the world or the worst in the world, go ahead and decide on this issue so we can have a budget so we can at least tell the American people we are going to do what we haven't done for 4 years and what every family in America sooner or later has to do, and that is to have a budget.

So, as I say, we have gone on too long. The farm bill is of the utmost importance, and the Senator from California and I have amendments on it. I hope my colleagues will realize the best way to get their point of view over and sway the opinion of our colleagues and the American people is to engage in honest and open debate, as the Senate does, instruct the conferees, let them go to conference in an open--not closed-door, not behind closed doors, not backroom--process that is the procedure employed by the Budget Committee in conference.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, being a majority leader is not an easy job whether you are a Republican or a Democrat. Some good things have been happening in the Senate recently, and I think we should credit both the majority leader and the Republican leader with helping to make that happen.

Over the last few weeks we have seen the water resources bill come to the floor. The majority leader allowed Senator Boxer and Senator Vitter to manage the amendment process, to handle the necessary arguments that always occur about what they will be. They came to a conclusion and passed a bill. The bill went through committee, went through the floor. It is a very important bill because it deals with locks, dams, and ports in the United States. We want to make sure that as the Panama Canal is widened and deepened, that ports in the United States are deep enough to receive the bigger ships and that the locks and the dams are in good enough shape so that commerce can move through the company and the jobs can be created. That is an important piece of legislation.

And now we are on the farm bill and we see the Senator from Mississippi and the Senator from Michigan managing a bill. There is plenty of opportunity for amendments, as far as I have been able to tell, and that has been very helpful.

At the same time, we have coming out of the Judiciary Committee, after several days of intense work, a bill on immigration. Probably the four most important words that can be said about the immigration debate is that we are all Americans, and Americans know we must have a legal immigration system if we want to be able to say we are all Americans. And we want one. We don't have an enforceable legal system today. All of us know that. None of us like the status quo, I don't think, and all of us know the President and the Congress are the only ones who can fix it. This is not something we can dump on the mayors or the State legislatures.

Many of us haven't formed a final opinion about this legislation that is coming forward, but I, for one, respect the fact that it has moved; that it has four principal Republican sponsors and four principal Democratic sponsors. It has moved through the committee, voices have been heard, it is coming to the floor, and, again, the majority leader has indicated, and the Republican leader has agreed, there will be a full and open debate so the American people can see it and watch us come to a result.

All those are good things. In addition, so that we might do that, there are a number of nominations about which we are likely to disagree. They will come after that so as not to interfere with the immigration debate.

That brings me to my final point. I would note the fact that with occasional interruptions for debate over whether we are going to go to a budget, which I hope gets resolved, we are on a pretty good path right now. I hope the majority and the minority leaders can see that.

We are moving this afternoon to a vote on a Federal appellate judge for the D.C. Circuit. A major objective of the Democratic side has been to get another judge on that circuit, and the President has nominated a person, Mr. Srinivasan, who, by every account, is an exceptional attorney. He came out of the committee with an 18-to-0 vote and has widespread respect and support.

The only glitch in the process is the majority leader believed it was necessary to file a cloture motion this week, even though the Republican leader had agreed we would have an up-or-down vote on the Tuesday we get back, and every indication is that almost everyone would vote for that judge. That has now been resolved, and we are going to vote this afternoon at 2 p.m. I know better than to predict how the Senate will vote, but I will vote for Mr. Srinivasan, and I suspect he will be easily confirmed.

In all of this the majority leader has believed it was necessary to suggest that somehow there is a problem with the President's nominations being considered by the Senate, so I think it is important that someone other than the Republican leader--because it is his job, really, to defend our side--lay out the facts, and I hope I can do that with some credibility because I worked with my Democratic colleagues at the beginning of the last Congress and at the beginning of this Congress to make it easier for this President and future Presidents to have their nominations considered. We have changed the rules to make it easier.

Just a few months ago, in a long discussion that involved Senators on both sides in a debate on the floor, we made a number of changes to make it easier for a President to have his nominations considered. And 2 years ago we adopted the expedited nominations, where nominations simply come to the desk. If no single Senator wants it sent to committee, it just sits there until all the paper is in, then the majority leader will just move it on. Within the next few days there will be a number of

those that come out of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. So that speeds things up.

We removed from the list of nominations about 160 low-level executive nominations. They are not subject anymore to Senate advise and consent. The President may just go ahead and appoint those persons.

We have gotten rid of the secret hold, which was used for a long time to hold up nominees, and even to block them, because no one knew who was doing that. Earlier this year we changed the rules so that when a district judge comes up, there can't be a long debate after the district judge comes to the floor. As a result, things are moving along very well.

So I would like to say there is not a problem with the President's nominations being considered in a timely fashion by the Senate. There is no problem. There is, however, the responsibility for advice and consent. Most of our Founders did not want a king. They created a Congress and they said: Here is an advice and consent. So we now have about 1,000 people the President will nominate whom we are supposed to consider, and we should do that well. That is our job to do, and it is our check on a runaway Executive.

When I first came here, Senator Byrd made wonderful speeches about that. I remember the speeches Senator Kennedy gave from the back row, with that big booming voice of his, about President George W. Bush's recess appointments and how offended he was by those because they offended the Constitution. Senator Byrd, as I mentioned, was very eloquent, going all the way back to President Reagan's days.

So we have always jealously defended the people's right to have an elected group of representatives to check the Executive, and we need to use that in a responsible way. Therefore, it is important to have an accurate report on just how well President Obama is being treated by the Senate in terms of his nominations.

I have just noted that we have changed the rules to make it easier. I did not even say we have even made it easier for the nominees; we set up a working process to make it easier. I like to call it a response to the ``innocent until nominated'' syndrome.

The President picks some well-respecting person from the Midwest and sends his or her nomination to the Senate, and all of a sudden it is as if they were a criminal of some kind. That is because there were so many conflicting forms to fill out it was easy to make a mistake and look as though you were misleading the Senate. We have tried to simplify that, and this President is the first beneficiary of that change.

So this President is the first beneficiary of consecutive Congresses that have changed the rules to reduce the number of potential nominees subjected to advice and consent. We have expedited a number of others, and we have made it easier--easier and quicker--for the President to have his nominations considered. This President is the first to benefit from that.

So what are the results? The majority leader suggested there was delay and obstruction. Those words just come out automatically sometimes when people wake up in the morning on that side of the aisle. But let's look at the facts.

I asked the Congressional Research Service to take a look at the Washington Post article written earlier this year--now, these are not Republican people I am asking, this is the Congressional Research Service--about how President Obama is being treated in terms of his Senate nominees.

According to the Congressional Research Service, as of May 16, 2013-- that is last week--President Obama's Cabinet nominees were still, on average, moving from announcement to confirmation faster than those of President George W. Bush or President Clinton. President Obama's nominees were moving from announcement to confirmation, at that time last week, in 50.5 days, George W. Bush averaged 52 days, and President Clinton averaged 55 days.

So let me say that again: President Obama's Cabinet nominees are moving ahead in the Senate more rapidly than those of his two predecessors: one of them President George W. Bush and one of them President Clinton. So there is no delay there that is unusual.

It is not unprecedented, Madam President, for some second-term nominations to take much longer to move from announcement to confirmation than the average. President Clinton's nominee for Secretary of Labor, Alexis Herman, took 135 days; President George W. Bush's nominee for Attorney General, Alberto Gonzalez, took 85 days. I remember the case of one especially distinguished nominee for Secretary of Education by President George H.W. Bush, a former Governor of Tennessee whose name was Alexander. His nomination took 88 days from announcement to confirmation, and President Reagan's nominee for Attorney General, Ed Meese, took nearly 1 year.

Now that is an unusual case, but it is not so unusual for second-term nominees to take a little while--for the Senate to perform advice and consent. And as the Congressional Research Service and the Washington Post have reported in their own analysis, President Obama's Cabinet nominees are being better treated than either President Bush's or President Clinton's in terms of the time it takes to confirm them from announcement to confirmation.

Now, one last thing. What about judges? Sometimes I have heard Senators on that side and Senators on this side get up and give conflicting information about whether judges are being considered rapidly. Here is what the data says about the judicial nomination process.

If Mr. Srinivasan is confirmed today, as I expect he will be, President Obama will have had 20 judges confirmed at this point in his second term, including 6 circuit judges and 14 district court judges. At this point in his second term, President George W. Bush had 4. So that is 20 for President Obama, 4 for President George W. Bush. No unusual delay there.

Apparently, President Obama's nominations are being considered more rapidly than those of President Bush. To be specific, let's go to the district court nominations. We know, with all the talk of a filibuster, in the history of the Senate there has never been a nominee for a Federal district court judge who has ever been denied his seat by a filibuster after that nomination came to the floor. So that needs to be said, too. But right now there are five pending district judge nominations that have been reported from committee that haven't been confirmed.

There have been 33 nominations this year. Fourteen are already confirmed, five are reported from committee, as I said, and await floor action. They were reported in May and April and three of them in March. So there is no big backlog. There are five. They were reported in the last few weeks. So no excessive delay there.

Finally, on circuit court nominations. I mentioned we are likely to confirm one of the three that are today pending, Mr. Srinivasan. Twelve nominations of Federal circuit court judges have been received this year. Six will have been confirmed after this afternoon. That leaves two--two--circuit court judges who have been nominated by the President and await floor action. They were reported by the committee in April and February.

So I can't find any evidence of any delay on Cabinet nominations. In fact, President Obama is being treated better than his predecessors. I don't see any evidence of any delay on judicial nominations. After the vote on Mr. Srinivasan, President Obama will have 20 confirmed in his second term, President Bush had 4. And there are only five pending district court nominations, all reported within the last few weeks. There are only three circuit nominations, one of which is likely to be confirmed this afternoon. On that one, the majority leader indicated Mr. Srinivasan, who has such widespread support on both sides of the aisle, had been waiting forever. Well, he has been waiting a while. President Obama nominated him on June 11, 2012. But why did he wait? Madam President, he had no hearing. Who is in charge of setting hearings? The Democratic majority is in charge of setting hearings. The Republicans can't call a hearing in the Judiciary Committee.

So their nominee, Mr. Srinivasan, sat there all of last year, after June 11, without a hearing. There may have been delay, but that was a self-inflicted delay.

What about this year for Mr. Srinivasan? Here is the timeline. He was nominated again on January 4 by

the President. His hearing was April 10. I don't know why they had to go from January to April to have a hearing, but, again, that is solely within the control of the Democratic majority. He returned his questions--which we all have to do if we are nominated for an executive position--on May 6. That is this month. The committee considered his nomination May 16, which is just last week. They approved it 18 to 0. That is all Democrats and all Republicans voting yes. He came to the calendar of the Senate on May 20. That was on Monday.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator modify her request so that it not be in order for the Senate to consider a conference report that includes reconciliation instructions to raise the debt limit.

My friend and my distinguished colleague from Missouri is absolutely correct in citing the Constitution and pointing out the fact the two Houses do have to agree before something becomes law.

It is also important to point out that under article 1, section 5, clause 2 of the Constitution, each House of Congress is constitutionally charged with the task of establishing its own rules for operation. The rules of operation in this body, as they apply right here, require this kind of request receive unanimous consent. What that means is every one of us has to be willing to vote for this. What I and a few of my colleagues have said is that regardless of what you might decide to do, we respect your opinion. But if you are asking us to vote for this, meaning to give our consent, which is a vote, we are asking for one slight modification, and that slight modification includes something very simple, which says we are not going to negotiate the debt limit as part of a budget resolution.

They are two separate things. We didn't consider a single amendment that would have addressed the debt limit. Not a single part of the budget resolution passed out of this body addressed the debt limit. The debt limit not having been the subject of the budget resolution, it is not important for that to be addressed by the conference committee.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

Mr. President, for 62 days several of my colleagues and I have objected to the majority's request for unanimous consent to circumvent regular order to go to conference with the House on the budget.

They want permission to skip a few steps in the process, and jump straight to the closed-door back-room meetings.

There, senior negotiators of the House and Senate will be free to wait until a convenient, artificial deadline and ram through their compromise--

un-amended, un-debated and mostly un-read.

And with the country backed up against another economic cliff crisis, we are concerned they will exploit that opportunity to sneak a debt- limit increase into the budget.

We think that is inappropriate.

And yet, objecting to this dysfunctional, unrepublican, undemocratic process has invited anger and criticism from colleagues here on both sides of the aisle.

We just don't get it, you see.

Proceeding to a secret, closed-door, back-room, 11th-hour deal, we are told, is the way the process works. It is the way the Senate works. It is the way the House works. It is the way Washington works.

We know this. That is why we're objecting. In case nobody has noticed, the way Washington works stinks. Closed-door, back room, cliff deals are not the solution, they are the problem.

The unspoken premise of every argument we have heard in favor of going to conference on this budget without conditions is that Congress knows what it is doing.

``Trust us--to go into a back room and cut a deal.''

``Trust us--to ignore special interests and only work for the good of the country.''

``Trust us--to not wait until the 11th hour, to not hold the full faith and credit of the United States hostage, to not ram through another thousand-page, trillion-dollar bill, sight unseen.''

``Trust us--We're Congress!''

As it happens, the American people don't trust Congress--or either party. And we have given them at least 17 trillion reasons not to.

I can even provide physical evidence to support my claim. If the American people had confidence in the way the Senate works I know for a fact I would not be here. I do not think my colleagues joining me in this objection would be here either.

We were not sent here to affirm ``the way the Senate worked'' as Congress racked up trillions in debt, inflated a housing bubble, doled out favors to special interests, squeezed the middle class and trapped the poor in poverty.

We were sent here to change all that. We are fully aware that ``Washington'' and the establishments of both parties do not like what we are doing--but as computer programmers say, ``that's a feature, not a bug.''

The tactics of Washington serve the interests of Washington--of Congress itself, the Federal bureaucracy, corporate cronies and special interests.

And does so at the expense of the American people, their wallets, and their freedom.

The only time I can think of when it has not worked out that way was with the recent budget sequestration and that was--literally--an accident; a mistake.

The sequestration process worked out exactly the opposite of how Washington expected and intended.

There is a reason that six of the ten wealthiest counties in the United States are suburbs of Washington, D.C.--a city that produces almost nothing of actual economic value.

And it is not because the two parties have been so effective taking on the special interests and doing the people's business.

There is a reason Tea Partiers on the right and Occupiers on the left protest their shared perception that our economy, our politics, and our society seem rigged.

That elites on Wall Street, K Street, and Pennsylvania Avenue get to play by one set of rules and people on Main Street have to play by another.

It is because they are mostly right. This is our true inequality crisis: not between rich and poor, but between Washington and everyone else.

The national debt, and its statutory limit, is a hidden part of this inequality crisis.

After all, what is new debt but a tax increase on future Americans? On those who cannot yet vote? On those who have not yet been born?

Raising the debt limit thus results in a form of taxation without representation. That is why the American people resent it. And it is why Washington desperately wants to raise the debt limit with as little public scrutiny and accountability as possible.

And that is why we're objecting.

Our critics say we should allow the process to move forward so we can have a debate. I don't know if they've noticed, but we are having the debate. We have had it several days in a row.

More than that, we are having the debate here on the floor, open to public scrutiny, and not secretly behind closed doors. This, right here, is how the process is supposed to work. The only way the American people can have any hope of supervising their Congress--not ours, their Congress--is for us to do our work above board and in the open, according to the rules.

That is all we are asking for--and only on one issue. For all our concerns, we have still said all along that we will not block a budget conference. We can go to conference right now. We are willing to give the majority permission to break from regular order and scurry off to closed door negotiations to cut their back room deal.

All we have asked is one thing, a very small and simple request: leave the debt limit out of it. Do everything else you want, spend all the money you want, use all the accounting gimmicks you want, but when you go into that back room, check the debt limit at the door. That way the American people can have that separate debate, on its own merits, here on the floor.

This should not be controversial. The House Republican budget did not include a debt limit increase or instructions to include one. The Senate Democratic budget does not include it either. House and Senate negotiators, therefore, have no procedural or democratic justification for including a debt limit hike in their talks. They have no right to do it. Yet they won't promise not to.

Once again: Trust us, we are Congress.

``This is how the Senate works,'' they say. ``This is how we do things.''

Respectfully, this is how we fail. This is how we earn our 15 percent approval rating. We know this is business as usual around here. That is why we're objecting.

If the majority wants to proceed to a budget conference through regular order, we can not stop them. But again, that is not their request. Their request is for permission to break from regular order, skip a few steps, and go straight to the secret negotiations, behind closed doors, where in the Washington-centered view of the world, the real governing can be done.

The American people do not trust secret, back-room deals, and neither do I. Unless and until the American people are assured that we will not sneak a debt limit increase into the Conference report, I will happily continue to object.

I object to the motion on the floor.

Mr. President, as to the suggestion that this produces a budget resolution that at the end of day does not go to the President, and therefore it isn't law, technically, on its own face, is accurate.

What we are concerned about are the instructions which would accompany the conference report. We are concerned about instructions that would allow the normal rules of the Senate to be circumvented specifically for something like this or perhaps a piece of legislation which would itself raise the debt limit to be considered----

I would like to finish what I am saying--legislation which would itself raise the debt limit and voted on a 51-vote margin rather than a 60-vote margin. So this is different.

Regardless of how open they make that conference meeting, it is not the same kind of open debate in which every Senator and every Representative is able to participate in the same way they would be able to on the floor.

Compared to the way we do things on the floor, this is a closed-door deal. Compared to the way we do things on the floor, this is not subject to the same kind of scrutiny.

The fact is that we have rules in the Senate--rules--on something like this, which would allow us to proceed on the basis of a 60-vote threshold. That is the whole purpose of this discussion. That is the basis of our concern. We don't want legislation that can run through to raise the debt limit, incurring potentially trillions of dollars in borrowing authority on the basis of only a 51-vote threshold. That is our concern.

Madam President, I thank my friend and my colleague, the Senator from Texas, for his remarks and I speak briefly to respond to a couple of points that have come up today.

First of all, it is important for us to remember that although the rules of our body might allow for a conference committee to meet in public, and although that may have happened in the past from time to time, it is not the norm. In asking around to some senior staff members who have been here longer than I have, it typically has not happened in recent years. In fact, it has become relatively rare in recent years. So to suggest it necessarily is an open process because it has the capacity to be made into an open process, those are not the same things. Typically, we can legitimately expect for this to be a backroom, closed-door process.

That is not the end of the world; we, of course, need conference committees. They do valuable, important work. We are not disputing that. We are not disputing the fact that sometimes it is important for conference committees to meet in order to reconcile competing versions of the same legislation--one passed in the House and one passed in the Senate. But what we are talking about here is a very limited request: to limit the scope of their work

so as to exclude the possibility of a debt limit increase without the 60-vote threshold.

It is also important to remember that although this is the procedure the majority has chosen to use in order to try to get to a conference committee, it is not the only way. In fact, it is possible to do this without unanimous consent. It is possible to do this without, in other words, all of us being willing to do it--all of us--by withholding our objection as effectively voting to do that.

If, as has been suggested, the other body does, in fact, want to go to conference, the other body could take the budget we passed, could slap their amendments on top of it, could even replace most or even all of our budget with theirs, send it back over, and at that point it is my understanding we could go to conference without the need for a unanimous consent.

So there are other ways. This is just the way the majority has chosen to go. The majority has every right to do that, and we have every right to object. That we do and that we will continue to do until such time as it either becomes unnecessary or until such time as the majority agrees to modify the request along the lines we have specified so as to permit and ensure that any debt limit discussions and votes will take place subsequent to the normal order and subject to a 60-vote threshold.

Thank you, Madam President.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I rise to introduce legislation in the Senate that would prohibit the use of racial profiling by Federal, State, or local law enforcement agencies. This legislation is entitled the End Racial Profiling Act, ERPA, 2013. I thank my colleagues who have joined me as original cosponsors of this legislation, including Senators Durbin, Blumenthal, Coons, Harkin, Menendez, Stabenow, Levin, Mikulski, Warren, Boxer, Gillibrand, Lautenberg, and Hirono.

Last year, the Nation's attention was riveted to the tragic, avoidable death of Trayvon Martin in Florida in February 2012. As we all know from the news, an unarmed Martin, 17, was shot in Sanford, FL, on his way home from a convenience store, while carrying a can of iced tea and a bag of skittles.

After the tragedy, I met with faith and civil rights groups at the Center for Urban Families in Baltimore to discuss the issue of racial profiling. Joining me were representatives from various faith and civil rights groups in Baltimore, as well as graduates from the center's program. I heard there first-hand accounts of typical American families that were victims of racial profiling. One young woman recounted going to a basketball game with her father, only to have her dad detained by police for no apparent reason other than the color of his skin.

That is why I was pleased that the Justice Department, under the supervision of Attorney General Eric Holder, announced a Civil Rights Division and FBI investigation into the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. I join all Americans in wanting a full and complete investigation into the shooting death of Trayvon Martin to ensure that justice is served. There are many questions that we need answered.

Was Trayvon targeted because he was black? The State of Florida has already charged the shooter with second-degree murder, and the defendant will be given a jury trial of his peers, which begins next month in State court.

Trayvon's tragic death leads to a discussion of the broader issue of racial profiling. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing entitled ``Ending Racial Profiling in America'' in April 2012, which was chaired by Senator Durbin.

At the hearing I was struck by the testimony of Ronald L. Davis, the Chief of Police of the City of East Palo Alto, CA. I want to quote part of Chief Davis' testimony, in which he stated that:

[T]here exists no national, standardized definition for

racial profiling that prohibits all uses of race, national

origin, and religion, except when describing a person.

Consequently, many state and local policies define racial

profiling as using race as the 'sole' basis for a stop or any

police action. This definition is misleading in that it

suggests using race as a factor for anything other than a

description is justified, which it is not. Simply put, race

is a descriptor not a predictor. To use race along with other

salient descriptors when describing someone who just

committed a crime is appropriate. However, when we deem a

person to be suspicious or attach criminality to a person

because of the color of his or her skin, the neighborhood

they are walking in, or the clothing they are wearing, we are

attempting to predict criminality. The problem with such

predictions is that we are seldom right in our results and

always wrong in our approach.

After the hearing I was joined at a press conference by Baltimore's Rev. Dr. Jamal Bryant, a leading youth activist and advisor to the Trayvon Martin family. He echoed the call to end racial profiling by law enforcement in America:

This piece of legislation being offered by my senator,

Senator Cardin, is the last missing piece for the civil

rights bill from 1965 that says there ought to be equality

regardless of one's gender or one's race. Racial

profiling is in fact an extension of racism in America that

has been unaddressed and this brings closure to the divide in

this country.

I have called for putting an end to racial profiling, a practice that singles out individuals based on race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion.

My legislation would protect minority communities by prohibiting the use of racial profiling by law enforcement officials.

First, the bill prohibits the use of racial profiling by all law enforcement agents, whether Federal, State, or local. Racial profiling is defined in a standard, consistent definition as the practice of a law enforcement agent relying on race, ethnicity, religion, or national origin as a factor in their investigations and activities. The legislation creates an exception for the use of these factors where there is trustworthy information, relevant to the locality and time frame, which links persons of a particular race, ethnicity, or national origin to an identified incident or scheme.

Law enforcement agencies would be prohibited from using racial profiling in criminal or routine law enforcement investigations, immigration enforcement, and national security cases.

Second, the bill would mandate training on racial profiling issues, and requires data collection by local and State law enforcement agencies.

Third, this bill would condition the receipt of Federal funds by state and local law enforcement on two grounds. First, under this bill, state and local law enforcement would have to ``maintain adequate policies and procedures designed to eliminate racial profiling.'' Second, they must ``eliminate any existing practices that permit or encourage racial profiling.''

Fourth, the bill would authorize the Justice Department to provide grants to State and local government to develop and implement best policing practices that would discourage racial profiling, such as early warning systems.

Finally, the bill would require the Attorney General to provide periodic reports to assess the nature of any ongoing discriminatory profiling practices.

The bill would also provide remedies for individuals who were harmed by racial profiling.

The legislation I introduce today is supported by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, NAACP, Rights Working Group, ACLU, and numerous other national, state, and local organizations.

Racial profiling is bad policy, but given the state of our budgets, it also diverts scarce resources from real law enforcement. Law enforcement officials nationwide already have tight budgets. The more resources spent investigating individuals because of their race, religion, national origin, or ethnicity, the fewer resources directed at suspects who are actually demonstrating illegal behavior.

Using racial profiling makes it less likely that certain affected communities will voluntarily cooperate with law enforcement and community policing efforts, making it harder for our law enforcement community to combat crimes and fight terrorism.

Minorities living and working in these communities in which racial profiling is used may also feel discouraged from traveling freely, which corrodes the public trust in government. This ultimately demonizes entire communities and perpetuates negative stereotypes based on an individual's race, ethnicity, or religion.

Racial profiling has no place in modern law enforcement. The vast majority of our law enforcement officials who put their lives on the line every day handle their jobs with professionalism, diligence, and fidelity to the rule of law.

However, Congress and the Justice Department can and should still take steps to prohibit racial profiling and finally root out its use.

I agree with Attorney General Holder's remarks to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee where he stated:

In this Nation, security and liberty are--at their best--

partners, not enemies, in ensuring safety and opportunity for

all . . . In this Nation, the document that sets forth the

supreme law of the land--the Constitution--is meant to

empower, not exclude . . . Racial profiling is wrong. It can

leave a lasting scar on communities and individuals. And it

is, quite simply, bad policing--whatever city, whatever

state.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the ``equal protection of the laws'' to all Americans. Racial profiling is abhorrent to that principle, and should be ended once and for all.

As the late Senator Ted Kennedy often said, ``civil rights is the great unfinished business of America.'' Let us continue the fight here to make sure that we truly have equal justice under law for all Americans. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. President, authorized under P.L. 105-312 in 1998 and reauthorized by P.L. 107-308 in 2002, the Chesapeake Bay Gateways and Watertrails Network helps several million visitors and residents discover, enjoy, and learn about the special places and stories of the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed. Today I am introducing legislation to reauthorize this successful program.

For visitors and residents, the Gateways are the ``Chesapeake connection.'' The Network members provide an experience of such high quality that their visitors will indeed connect to the Chesapeake emotionally as well as intellectually, and thus to its conservation.

The Chesapeake Bay is a national treasure. The Chesapeake ranks as the largest of America's 130 estuaries and

one of the nation's largest and longest fresh water and estuarine systems. The Atlantic Ocean delivers half the bay's 18 trillion gallons of water and the other half flows through over 150 major rivers and streams draining 64,000 square miles within six states and the District of Columbia. The Chesapeake watershed is among the most significant cultural, natural and historic assets of our nation.

The Chesapeake is enormous and vastly diverse--how could you possibly experience the whole story in any one place? Better to connect and use the scores of existing public places to collaborate on presenting the many chapters and tales of the bay's story. Visitors and residents go to more places for more experiences, all through a coordinated Gateways Network.

Beyond simply coordinating the Network, publishing a map and guides, and providing standard exhibits at all Gateways, the National Park Service has helped Gateways with matching grants and expertise for 200 projects with a total value of more than $12 million. This is a great deal for the Bay--it helps Network members tell the Chesapeake story better and inspires people to care for this National Treasure--and it's a good deal for the Park Service. In this legislation, we cap the Gateways authorization at just $2 million annually. It serves all 150+ Gateways and their 10 million visitors. No other National Park can provide such a dramatic ratio of public dollars spent to number of visitors served.

With the National Park Service's expertise and support, Gateways have made significant progress in their mission to tell the bay's stories to their millions of members and visitors, extend access to the bay and its watershed, and develop a conservation awareness and ethic. It is time to reauthorize the Chesapeake Gateways and Watertrails program. It is my hope that the Congress will act quickly to adopt this legislation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, we rely on our public schools to prepare the next generation for success as citizens, workers, and innovators. We have asked educators to raise the bar and educate all students to internationally competitive college and career-ready standards. To achieve these goals, we need to focus on the professionals who have the greatest impact on student learning at school--teachers and principals.

Today, I am pleased to be reintroducing the Educator Preparation Reform Act with Representative Honda to improve how we prepare teachers, principals, and other educators so that they can be effective right from the start. We have also reintroduced the Effective Teaching and Leading Act to support teachers, librarians, and principals currently on the job through a comprehensive system of induction, professional development, and evaluation.

The Educator Preparation Reform Act builds on the success of the Teacher Quality Partnership Program, which I helped author in the 1998 reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. The legislation we are reintroducing today places specific attention and emphasis on principals with the addition of a residency program for new principals.

Improving instruction is a team effort, with principals at the helm. This bill better connects teacher preparation with principal preparation. The Educator Preparation Reform Act will also allow partnerships to develop preparation programs for other areas of instructional need, such as for school librarians, counselors, or other academic support professionals.

The bill also revamps the accountability and reporting requirements for teacher preparation programs to provide greater transparency on key quality measures such as admissions standards, requirements for clinical practice, placement of graduates, retention in the field of teaching, and teacher performance, including student learning outcomes. All programs--whether traditional or alternative routes to certification--will be asked to report on the same measures.

Under our legislation, states will be required to identify at-risk and low-performing programs and provide them with technical assistance and a timeline for improvement. States would be encouraged to close programs that do not improve.

The Educator Preparation Reform Act refocuses the state set-aside for higher education in Title II of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act on technical assistance for struggling teacher preparation programs and the development of systems for assessing the quality and effectiveness of professional development programs. At the same time, it allows for activities to support the development and implementation of performance assessments to measure new teachers' readiness for the classroom and enhance professional development in the core academic areas.

We have been fortunate to work with many stakeholders on this legislation. Organizations that have endorsed the Educator Preparation Reform Act include: The Alliance for Excellent Education, American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, American Association of State Colleges and Universities, American Council on Education, American Psychological Association, Association of American Universities, Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, First Focus Campaign for Children, Higher Education Consortium for Special Education, Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, National Association of Elementary School Principals, National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, National Association of Secondary School Principals, National Association of State Directors of Special Education, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, National Science Teachers Association, National School Boards Association Opportunity to Learn Action Fund, Public Education Network, Rural School and Community Trust, Silicon Valley Education Foundation, Teacher Education Division of the Council for Exceptional Children, American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, The Higher Education Task Force, National Association of Elementary School Principals, and National Association of Secondary School Principals.

I look forward to working to incorporate this legislation into the upcoming reauthorizations of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Higher Education Act. I urge my colleagues to join in this effort and support this legislation.

Mr. President, today I am reintroducing the Effective Teaching and Leading Act to foster the development of highly skilled and effective educators.

In the upcoming reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, ESEA, building the capacity of our Nation's schools to enhance the effectiveness of teachers, principals, school librarians, and other school leaders must be among our top priorities.

Decades of research have demonstrated that improving educator and principal quality as well as greater family involvement are the keys to raising student achievement and turning around struggling schools. To strengthen teaching and school leadership, the Effective Teaching and Leading Act would amend Title II of ESEA to provide targeted assistance to

schools to develop and support effective teachers, principals, school librarians, and school leaders through implementation of comprehensive induction, professional development, and evaluation systems.

Every year across the country thousands of teachers leave the profession--many within their first years of teaching. An estimate by the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future of the nationwide cost of replacing public school teachers who have dropped out of the profession is $7.3 billion annually.

There are proven and well-documented strategies to support teachers that will keep them in our schools. Evidence has shown that providing teachers with comprehensive mentoring and support during their first two years of teaching reduces attrition by as much as half and increases student learning gains. The Effective Teaching and Leading Act would help schools implement the key elements of effective multi- year mentoring and induction for beginning teachers.

The bill also significantly revises the definition of ``professional development'' in current law to foster an ongoing culture of teacher, principal, school librarian, and staff collaboration throughout schools. All too often the available professional development still consists of isolated, check-the-box activities instead of helping educators engage in sustained professional learning that is regularly evaluated for its impact on classroom practice and student achievement. Effective professional development is collaborative, job-embedded, and informed by data.

It is also clear that evaluation systems have an important role to play in educator development. Through Race to the Top, ESEA waivers, and other initiatives many states and school systems are focusing on reforming their evaluation systems. When evaluation is done right, it provides educators with individualized ongoing feedback on their strengths and weaknesses and offers a path to improvement. The Effective Teaching and Leading Act would require school districts to establish rigorous, fair, and transparent evaluation systems that use multiple measures, including growth in student achievement.

Principals and school leaders also play a leading role in school improvement efforts and managing a collaborative culture of ongoing professional learning and development. Research has shown that leadership is second only to classroom instruction among school-related factors that influence student outcomes. As such, this bill would provide ongoing high-quality professional development to principals and school leaders, including multi-year induction and mentoring for new administrators.

Recognizing the importance of creating career advancement and leadership opportunities for teachers, the Effective Teaching and Leading Act supports opportunities for teachers to serve as mentors, instructional coaches, or master teachers, or take on increased responsibility for professional development, curriculum, or school improvement activities. It also calls for significant and sustainable stipends for educators that take on these new roles and responsibilities.

The bill also requires school districts to conduct surveys of the working and learning conditions educators face so this data could be used to better target investments and professional development support.

Improving teaching and school leadership is not simply a matter of sorting the good teachers and principals from the bad. What is needed is a comprehensive and integrated approach that supports new teachers and leaders as they enter the profession; provides on-going professional development that helps them improve and their students achieve; and that fairly assesses performance and provides feedback for improvement. This is the approach taken by the Effective Teaching and Leading Act.

I worked with a range of education organizations in developing this bill, including the Alliance for Excellent Education, American Federation of School Administrators, American Federation of Teachers; American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education; Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development; National Association of Elementary School Principals; National Association of Secondary School Principals; National Board for Professional Teaching Standards; Learning Forward; the National Commission for Teaching and America's Future, and the New Teacher Center. I thank them for their input and support for the bill.

I thank Congressman Mike Honda of California for introducing the companion bill in the House. I encourage my colleagues to cosponsor the Effective Teaching and Leading Act and work for its inclusion in the upcoming reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.