Stand with Israel Act of 2014

Mr. President, I rise today to point out to my colleagues that more than 300 days have passed since we in the Senate passed bipartisan legislation that would secure our borders, hold employers accountable for hiring illegal workers, grow our economy, and provide a chance for people currently here illegally to get right with the law and earn legal status. But the House has failed to do anything to fix our broken immigration system--more than 300 days after we in the Senate passed bipartisan legislation.

To be clear, the problem is not that there is a difference of opinion between a House bill and a Senate bill on immigration that cannot be reconciled. The problem is that House Republicans have completely abdicated their responsibility to address important issues, such as fixing our broken immigration system.

Again, the problem is not that the House has passed laws that the Senate disagrees with. The problem is that the House will not put any immigration bills up for a vote, no matter what is in those bills. Now, why is that?

It is not because our immigration system is not broken. There is no Member of Congress who will stand and say: Our immigration system is great. Leave it alone. What is all the fuss about?

No one is happy with the present system. Finding a Member of Congress anywhere who will say we do not need to reform our broken immigration system is impossible.

The reason the House has done nothing on immigration is because House Republicans have handed the gavel of leadership on immigration to far- right extremists such as Congressman Steve King.

Congressman King is not a mainstream Republican on this issue. You cannot even call him a conservative on this issue. He is an extreme outlier on the issue of immigration reform.

Every time any Republican has raised the possibility of action on immigration reform in the House, Steve King is there, in his own words, ``manning the watchtowers 24/7'' to make sure nothing can be passed to fix our broken immigration system.

When Republicans such as Eric Cantor, hardly a flaming liberal, talked early in 2013 about introducing a bill called the KIDS Act which would allow minors brought here through no fault of their own to earn legal status if they served in the military or obtained a college degree, King said, ``For every child who's a valedictorian, there's another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling

75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.''

The rhetoric of Steve King is beyond the pale. I am certain that the majority of Republicans in the House have their stomachs churn when they see Steven King spew that kind of rhetoric. But rather than stand up to him, they give him the keys to the kingdom of immigration reform. Just look at what happened after King protested. There was no KIDS Act introduced. Go look for the text of the KIDS Act on line. It does not exist. There is no bill. Not only was the KIDS Act never introduced, but House Republicans actually voted, nearly unanimously, to resume deporting minor children who had committed no crimes.

Another Republican, Jeff Denham, a Republican from California, who is also an Air Force reservist, recently proposed to let young people who came here illegally earn status by enlisting in the military. They love America so they would enlist in the military and risk their lives for this country. Here is what Denham said--paraphrasing him. He said: I know many of us do not want to vote on immigration. But we can at least tweak the Defense authorization bill to allow young people who were brought here illegally as minors through no fault of their own to serve in the military when they love this country and this is the only country they know.

To be clear, this measure is far short of comprehensive legislation that is needed to fix our broken system. This slight tweak is not even a drop of water in the Grand Canyon. Even for the small microscopic measure known as the ENLIST Act, Steve King responded, saying, ``Don't do it.'' And the Republicans did not.

Here is what King said:

As soon as they raise their hand and say I'm unlawfully

present in the U.S., we are not going to take your oath into

the military, but we're going to take your deposition and we

have a bus for you to Tijuana.

What happened when King said this? He won. The ENLIST Act was stricken from the Defense authorization bill. So not only are Republicans catering to the views of King and others on the far, far, extreme right on immigration by refusing to vote on any immigration reform, they actively promote anti-immigrant viewpoints by having passed a bill called the ENFORCE Act. You see, Steve King and his little group of far-right Members of Congress on immigration want to sue the Federal Government to require them to deport minor children, parents of U.S. citizens, and agricultural workers, rather than use all of its resources to focus on immigrants who are criminals, terrorists, and recent border crossers.

But Members of Congress, as most everyone knows, do not have standing to sue the Federal Government, because under our Constitution, Congressmen are not allowed to sue every time they disagree with a decision of the executive branch. Instead of thinking it was probably a good idea to focus our immigration enforcement resources on criminals, terrorists, and border crossers, once again Steve King said: Jump. And the Republican mainstream in the House said: How high? Republicans overwhelmingly voted to give King and others the ability to sue the Federal Government every single time a decision on immigration enforcement is made with which they disagree.

There are Republican colleagues in the House who do not have the views of Steve King. We know that. They can offer other excuses they want for failing to do anything on immigration. For instance, they tried to blame the President. They say the President is to blame because he will not enforce the law. The record shows that he does enforce the law. In fact, many of the more liberal people, many of the immigration groups, are angry with him because they think he is enforcing the law too much.

But let's say you believe he is not enforcing the law. So we have said to them: Good. Pass a bill now and say it does not take effect, all of the enforcement and any of the rest of it, until 2017. We will have a new President. If Republicans cannot agree to pass a bill that goes into effect after the President's term, then we know that mistrust of the President is nothing but a straw man.

They say they really want to pass immigration legislation in their heart, but they are only one Member and it is not up to them. They can even have their leadership blame other Republicans for not holding a vote. But Bill Parcells, who used to coach for both the New York Giants and New York Jets, was famous for saying, ``You are what your record shows you are.''

What does the record show? The record on Republican immigration reform is clear. Steve King, a far-right, way-out-of-the-mainstream outlier, does not just spew hatred, he calls the shots. They listen to him. The Republican Party, the party of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan and George Bush, all of whom had much different views on immigration than Steve King, is following Steve King on immigration.

Let me say, they are following Steve King over the cliff. Because not only are they hurting America, but because they are so afraid to buck this extremist--and he is extreme on immigration--they are going to make it certain that they will lose the 2016 Presidential election, that they will make sure that the Senate remains Democratic in 2016 and that the House turns Democratic.

It is amazing. The Republican record on immigration reform is clear. Steve King has three wins. The rest of the Republican Party and the rest of America is winless. Good for him. Terrible for us. Since House Republicans will not stand up to Steve King, King is in the driver's seat on immigration reform. As long as he sits there, things will continue to be stuck in a rut.

America is growing weary of Republicans talking a good game on immigration while high-tech businesses cannot get the labor they need to grow and create American jobs. We are growing weary of all the talk while crops go unpicked because farmers cannot find labor. We are growing weary while Republicans talk and immigrants continue to come into our country illegally.

Steve King is calling the shots of the entire House Republicans on immigration. That is a shame. That is a disgrace. That is a singular lack of courage that we see in our dear colleagues across the way on the Republican side of the aisle. King is not satisfied. He is warning that his colleagues have to man the watchtowers 24/7 to make sure nothing happens to fix our broken immigration system.

Where are the people in the Republican Party in the House of Representatives with the courage to stand up to Steve King and the far right? They know he is wrong. We know they know he is wrong. Where are the people in the Republican Party to stand up to Steve King and say: Enough is enough. We will not let our party or our country be hijacked by extremists whose xenophobia causes them to prefer maintaining our broken immigration system over achieving a tough, fair, and practical long-term solution.

If Republicans continue to kowtow to Steve King and the hard right on immigration, they will consign themselves to being the minority party for more than a decade or they can show some courage and say the Steve Kings in the world can say whatever they want, but they have no place in the modern Republican Party. They can move their party into the light by passing a bill that secures borders, holds employers accountable, grows our economy, reduces our debt, and heals broken families. The choice is theirs.

Speaker Boehner has occasionally said he wants to pass reform. Where are the rank-and-file Republicans who know Steve King is wrong to encourage Speaker Boehner? Where are they? I hope that for our sakes, the majority of Republicans in the House Republican caucus make the right choice.

But I will tell them this: For the country, no matter what choice they make, the ultimate outcome is undeniable. Immigration reform will pass this year with bipartisan support and a bipartisan imprint or it will pass in future years with only Democratic support and Democratic imprints, because Democrats will control the Congress and the White House. The right thing will ultimately be done. But hopefully Winston Churchill will not be right in saying that it will only be done after everything else is tried.

Republicans in the House, stand up to Steve King. You know he is wrong. You know you cringe when he says

what he says. Do not let him dictate policy.

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I know the Senator from Kentucky tried to have this bill heard this week in a business meeting. I know the Senator knows I supported that effort to cause this bill to be marked up in the Foreign Relations Committee, which is where it should be dealt with.

I thank him for his concern about foreign aid. I think he has brought a voice to the Senate which has raised many concerns about how we are spending taxpayer money. I thank him for raising some of the issues he has brought forth. As it relates to the bill itself, I have spoken to officials from Israel. I know one of the goals is to do something that complements Israel and helps Israel.

I know they have some concerns with the way it is constructed and actually, in many ways if this bill were to become law, it would create a heightened security problem for Israel. So we have had a constructive conversation I think on the floor. I would like to talk with the Senator a little bit further about some potential changes to the legislation. I think that would be more appropriate than passing it by unanimous consent. I thank him again for his nature, the way he works with all of us. I object.

First of all, no one has taken a more important role in our foreign policy and security issues than the Senator from South Carolina. I thank him for that. I know on my last trip to Afghanistan, he was there serving his Reserve duty. I thank the Senator for the many contributions to all of these debates. I want to say that I think, similar to many in this body, when the initial agreement was put forth and it had a 6-month extension on it, there was a lot of concern. What I am concerned about, and the Senator from South Carolina I think may share some of this, is that what we are going to end up with are a series of rolling interim agreements.

What we have is Iran doing everything they can to evade sanctions that have been put in place. We have countries that see the opportunity possibly for Iran to come out from under being a rogue state. I am worried we are putting ourselves in a situation where we are losing all of the leverage Congress, working with the administration, but Congress led on in putting these sanctions in place.

We are coming up on July 20. I was very disappointed that, in essence in March, the administration agreed to the fact that Iran would be able to have centrifuges to enrich uranium. It was something that, to me, at the beginning of a negotiation, to give one of the biggest things one can possibly give to a country such as Iran on the front end, put us in a very bad position.

But here is my concern: It is July 17. This agreement ends on July 20. I believe we are losing the leverage that all of us worked so hard to put in place. I am worried the coalition we have is dissipating. It feels to me as though Iran is rope-a-doping us on this agreement.

What I hope is going to happen--I know the Senator and I are going to be in a briefing later today. I hope the administration is going to share with us, very clearly, what the gaps are between where they are and where Iran is.

It is my hope that gap is going to be very narrow. I do not think that is going to be the case. My sense is the administration is going to ask for an extension over the next few days. That concerns me. Here is what I hope Congress will do: I hope Congress somehow will have the ability, through the majority leader's efforts and all of us on the floor, to weigh in on any final agreement that is put in place. I think that is very important. I know the Senator tried to produce legislation to make that happen. I have done the same thing.

Secondly, I hope the administration will agree there will be no more extensions, period. I am pretty sure they are going to be asking for one. It is unfortunate. When you put in place an agreement on the front end that you have that ability, it then creates the essence that it does not create the focus, if you will, that is necessary to bring this to a conclusion.

Again, what I hope will happen is that Congress will have a final say on any removal of sanctions--any removal of sanctions. But my hope is that before any type of sanctions relief takes place, Congress will have the opportunity to weigh in. I had a long conversation yesterday with our lead negotiator. I shared these same concerns, that I just feel the moment slipping away from us. I think all of us want to see a diplomatic solution. I do not think there is anybody on this floor that wants to see anything less than a great result diplomatically.

But I think many of us are concerned we are losing our leverage, time is slipping away, the coalition is dissipating. Some of the parties, as the Senator knows, have differing interests now. We have had some conflicts arise over the course of time where we are at significant odds with some of our partners in these negotiations.

With Russia we have the issue in Ukraine and Crimea. With China we have issues in the South and East China Sea. So all of this is making me very concerned about our ability to reach a diplomatic solution, even though I want more than anything--on this issue, more than anything, I want us to have a solid diplomatic solution that allows us to go forward and know that Iran does not have the ability to break out and become a nuclear threat to the region, to the world, and certainly create instability.

I yield the floor.

The Senator is exactly right. I was in the region this year, and there is tremendous concern about, obviously, Iran breaking out in this regard. Candidly, there are many conversations about ways for them to compensate for that because they obviously want a counter to Iran's being a nuclear-armed country.

As you know, with some of the proliferation that takes place, there are ways of buying those capabilities without even developing them yourself. So, yes, that is a major concern.

Our friend, Senator Menendez, on the other side of the aisle--with whom you work so closely--I certainly don't want to speak for him, but I use a frame of reference that he has used on so many occasions; that is, it is one thing to dismantle their ability to enrich and produce a nuclear weapon and it is a whole different thing to just mothball.

What I fear is that we are creating a situation where, again, we have these countries that come together, we have the sanctions that are in place, and we let those sanctions dissipate. Then all of a sudden--and I think the Senator knows already--the economy in Iran is picking up and inflation has dropped if you allow those to dissipate.

It took a lot of effort to put these sanctions in place. Again, there are a lot of differing interests today that didn't exist when these were put in place. Then all of a sudden we have a situation where they break out again because they have those capabilities. They have mothballed; they have not been dismantled. Not to speak of the fact that we don't know what is going on in Parchin--we don't know what may happen with the Arak facility.

Again, I hope the administration will be very clear about the gaps that exist today. My sense is they are going to extend and, again, I have grave concerns about what that is going to mean relative to getting to a good end.

I think, based on past behavior, that would be one's expectation. Again, we know there are facilities that are operating, and we haven't been able to get into those facilities.

When you look at the facts, one of the things that is not even being addressed is the whole delivery system--their ability to deliver the weaponry. None of this discussion thus far, to my knowledge, has anything to do with their developing capabilities to actually deliver a nuclear weapon.

What I am concerned about--the Senator focused on the centrifuges and it is the central issue--no question. I think the Senator has wisely pointed out how the Supreme Leader has tried to move the goalpost so far down the field that just getting to the 30- or 40-yard line looks good to us. But we also did the same on the front end of the deal by acknowledging in the preamble or the four-page agreement that enrichment certainly could occur.

But here is what is happening, I fear. On every other single portion--not just the centrifuge--the goal posts are being moved. In other words, the things that we thought were going to take place on the front end--whether it was the Arak facility and what was going to occur there or what was going to happen in other pieces of the deal--all of that adds up to very important elements or a final deal. I am afraid what is happening is the goalpost is moving on all of those as time goes on.

One of the ways that Iran has destabilized the region has been through proxies that it funds.

Let's face it. Until they became involved in Syria--as the Senator has talked about on the floor--through their proxy, Hezbollah, actually the moderate in the opposition was gaining ground. So their utilization of terrorist groups to achieve their end, obviously, is their normal mode of operation.

So when you think about the possibilities of their being able to create, as the Senator mentioned, a dirty bomb--which would create tremendous terror wherever it might have been implemented--that is something I think is frightening--more than frightening.

It would be something that would be not quite as destabilizing as, obviously, having a full-blown nuclear weapon, but something that would be very damaging to world security.

I thank the Senator again for his tremendous contributions to this body and every foreign policy debate that we have.

The President did seek congressional approval on the authorization of the use of military force in Syria. It was not something he had to do, but he sought it, and I am pleased that he did.

I was proud to be a part of writing that agreement with our chairman and other members of the committee to give him the power to do that. And actually, to be candid, I regret that things took the course they took, but the President elected to do that.

As the Senator mentioned, a nuclear-armed Iran is a whole different scale. What I hope will happen is that the President will agree there will be no more extensions if they ask for one in the next few days, and I am almost certain that is what is going to happen.

No. 2, I hope you will commit to letting Congress weigh in on the final decision. I actually think that will be useful for them in the negotiation. I really do think that having a backstop would be useful to them, but if the President doesn't agree to that, I hope we, on our own, will pass legislation which ensures that is the case.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, there is an ominous tide rising in this country. It is not water. It is not oil. It is not any kind of substance. It is dollars. It is cash. It is a tide of dark money that is flowing in and threatens to dominate our political system.

Yesterday we had a very interesting hearing in the Rules Committee on the subject of disclosure and the rise of outside money in campaigns. We have developed a kind of parallel universe of campaign financing, where the candidates, you and I and other Members of this body, work hard to raise money from supporters so we can fund our campaigns. By the way, all of that money that is raised has to be under certain limits. There are limitations. There are disclosure requirements. If you get a contribution, it has to be disclosed who paid it and what do they do for a living and what is their address. All of that is public.

Yet on the other side is this parallel universe, as I mentioned, where a multimillionaire can come into your State or my State or anybody's State and put in an enormous amount of money, essentially unregulated and often totally anonymous. I think this is a danger to our country. I started the hearing off yesterday by saying I fear for my country. I fear for our democracy.

There are several basic points I wish to make. This isn't an evolutionary change. This isn't, OK, we are spending a few more dollars this year than we did last year and it is a little more of the same and it is no big deal. This is what is happening: This is nonparty outside spending starting back in the early nineties, and we see what happened in 2012. Now we don't have the numbers in 2012. Of course, 2012 was a Presidential year. What we see is it started to go up, the Presidential year in 2004, and then down. It goes up in 2008 in the Presidential year, down--but not so much--and then way up in 2012, and this gives the context of what is happening. This isn't evolutionary change; this is revolutionary change. This is a fundamental change.

I asked one of our witnesses yesterday at the hearing: Is this a very significant, great change that is going on? He said: Senator, it is an explosion.

It is an explosion. Here is what it looks like. This is nonparty spending, cycle to date, and the day was the day before yesterday. In other words, it is the outside party spending, the so-called independent expenditures comparing apples to apples as of April 29 of each year.

So here again, 2004 Presidential year, then it drops way down in 2006 midterms, again jumps up in 2008, down in 2010, big jump for 2012. But look where we are as of this date in 2014. Look at the comparison between this and the last midterm year. It is almost 10 times as much. This is a threat that is growing and it is going to overwhelm us.

Some of my colleagues have said we are bound for a scandal. Indeed, that is what has driven campaign finance reform throughout our history. The first major campaign finance reform was in 1907. It resulted from the Presidential campaigns in the late 1890s and the turn of the century, where Mark Hanna, a political operative, called the major corporations of America and said: You will give us this--and that is how the money was raised for those campaigns. We then passed the first campaign finance law under the leadership of Teddy Roosevelt in 1907 because he saw a scandal coming.

So this is nonparty outside spending. This is both disclosed and undisclosed, but look at this. This is spending by nondisclosure groups, cycle to date. Look where we are. This is the money that nobody knows where it comes from. If we start back in here, 2012, this is a Presidential year to date and here we are in 2014. It is an explosion, and nobody knows where that money is coming from. It is secret money.

What we have is the development of organizations and institutions engaged in what I call identity laundering. I am not going to attempt to explain this chart, but this is a chart that traces in 2012 one set of funds. It is about $400 million from three large organizations that go through all of these different entities and the whole purpose is to keep the names of the donors secret. So the public doesn't know who is trying to influence their vote. This isn't insignificant money. Fifty million dollars this line represents to something called the American Future Fund. They create these entities--and there is also the wonderful nomenclature here--there are even entities entitled ``undesignated'' or ``disregarded''--and the whole purpose of this is to hide the identity of the people who are supporting it.

I don't think that is consistent with the First Amendment. It is not consistent with our political traditions. It is not consistent with the whole idea of conveying information. If somebody wants to come and buy ads in Pennsylvania or North Dakota or New York or California, that is fine. They have a right to do that, at least under the current Supreme Court rulings, but they also ought to tell us who they are. That is part of the information the voters should have in assessing the validity of the message that is being delivered to them.

In Maine you cannot go to a town meeting with a bag over your head. If you are going to make a speech, if you are going to take your position on an issue, you tell who you are, and people can assess the validity of your views based upon in part who they know you are, what your interest is, what your stake is in this process, and we are denying the people of America the opportunity to know that.

It is important to realize in this whole area of campaign finance, which is unbelievably complicated, that the Supreme Court has significantly narrowed our ability in Congress or in the States to regulate campaign finance. They have essentially said that money is speech and that it can't be limited--at least in the aggregate, that is the McCutcheon decision. Under the Citizens United decision, the corporations are also people and have a right to free speech and can spend as much money as they want.

When you go back and read those key opinions--Citizens United and McCutcheon, which was just decided about a month ago--the Supreme Court said: We are going to strike down these limitations because they are limitations on free speech, but the basic reason we feel comfortable doing so is because the public still has disclosure and they will know who is talking, and that is our bulwark against abuse and corrosion of our system.

The problem with that reasoning is the bulwark doesn't exist, and clever campaign operatives have created this elaborate system which is designed to disguise who the contributors are, and that is the problem with our system.

The problem right now is that one party may think they are advantaged by the current system, but 2 years from now that advantage could disappear. Indeed, data we received just before our hearing indicates that 2 years ago 88 percent of the outside money was conservative. Indeed, this year--so far in 2012--it is closer to being balanced. It

is 60-40 conservative over more liberal messages. I submit that once it gets to be 50-50, everybody on both sides of the aisle will say that maybe we need to do something about it. I am suggesting we do something about it sooner rather than later.

The Supreme Court has invited us to do something about disclosure. I think it is the tool we know we have. There is discussion about a constitutional amendment, which is fine, and I am a supporter. That is a long-term solution. That could take 4, 5, 6 years, assuming the support could be achieved in the Congress and in the States. In the meantime, disclosure is something we could do next week, and it is something we should do. We owe it to the American people to allow them to know who it is that is trying to influence their vote.

Occasionally, there is an argument that people who make these kinds of contributions will be subjected to some kind of intimidation--crank phone calls, threats, and those kinds of things. Well, Justice Scalia-- the Supreme Court Justice whom I used to know in law school--recently said: ``Requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed.''

If people are willing to spend millions of dollars attacking someone else's character, integrity, and career, they ought to at least be willing to stand up and say: Here am I. I am making these statements.

They should not be allowed to hide behind something created by an army of accountants and lawyers to disguise their identity. I think this is something--and based upon the hearing we had yesterday and the work we did in preparing for it--we really need to attend to.

When I first got into this subject last year, I thought it was bad. Well, what I have learned over the last several months is that it is a lot worse than I thought. It is happening fast. It is a tidal wave, and it is going to engulf our system. Why do we care? Because it is corrosive and it undermines the confidence citizens have in us as their political leaders.

In the 1970s and 1980s, people had a perception that money was corrupting around here, even if it wasn't. But, boy, when we start to have unidentified, outside dark money and nobody knows where it is coming from, what could be more calculating to undermine public confidence in their leadership than a system like that? It is corrosive. It undermines the trust of our people. It is wrong, and I think it is something we should attend to. It is something we can do. We know we can do it constitutionally. We had an 8-to-1 majority vote. McCutcheon and Citizens United invited us to do this. I think we should be able to find a bipartisan solution to this subject because it will benefit this whole country, and I think it will be a great benefit to the institution of democracy itself. This is not what the Framers envisioned, and we have it within our power to do something about it so we can improve this situation and the flow of information--including the source of that information--to the people of America.

I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to enter into a colloquy with the Senator from Tennessee.

I know the Senator is supposed to be chairing a hearing here in a moment. But the Senator is the ranking member on Foreign Relations. I wish to compliment the Senator from Tennessee and Senator Menendez. The Senators have been a very effective team. The subject matter is Iran. July 20 will be here shortly.

I ask Senator Corker, what is his view of where we stand with the Iranian nuclear program and what are his concerns?

I thank the Senator from Tennessee for his leadership. We are working together. We hope to make this bipartisan. If there is an agreement reached with the Iranians--and I agree, I hope there will be, that Congress can have a say about that agreement.

President Obama felt as though he needed to come to Congress to get approval to enter into Syria. The Senator led the effort to pass the resolution in the Foreign Relations Committee, the Senator and Senator Menendez working together. The Senator from Tennessee delivered Republican votes to try to help the President. He drew a red line and nothing happened.

So if he believes he needs input from the Congress about going to Syria, I hope the President will understand that the Congress wants input when it comes to the Iranian nuclear program. As a matter of fact, I hope we will demand it, because of all the decisions President Obama will make in his two terms as President, on the foreign policy front this is the most consequential.

Why do I say this? The Iranian regime with a nuclear capability is a nightmare for the world.

Does Senator Corker agree with me, based on his travels in the region, that if we allowed the Iranians to have a robust enrichment capability--and what am I talking about is taking uranium and enriching it to the point where they can use it for commercial fuel to run a nuclear power reactor. The problem with enrichment is you can go beyond making commercial grade fuel. You can actually use that process to make a bomb. Without enrichment capability you can't make the bomb.

So they are demanding the right to enrich and it was given away in March. It was a huge mistake.

If you made a list of countries you would not trust to enrich uranium--based on their behavior and disruptive nature--I would put Iran on the top of the list. My fear is that we are about to do with the Iranians what we did with the North Koreans--that you have a deal on paper that gives them an enrichment capability to be contained by

U.N. inspection. And in North Korea the rest is history.

When it comes to the Iranians, I am not going to turn our fate over, as a nation, to a bunch of U.N. inspectors trying to contain their uranium enrichment program. I know Israel will not.

But this is the ripple effect. Does the Senator agree with me that any right to enrich we give to the Shia Persians in Iran, the Sunni Arabs are going to insist on an equivalent right?

Along those lines, Senator Menendez has been one of the leading voices in the Senate and in the Nation about having a cautious eye toward Iran.

They have an enrichment capability. Over the last decade it has grown moderately.

This idea of moderate voices in Iran--the President of Iran was elected as a moderate. I don't believe that dichotomy really exists. This whole game of good cop/bad cop is going on in front of our eyes-- in this case good president/bad ayatollah.

The ayatollah, the Supreme Leader of Iran, weighed in a few days ago talking about centrifuges 10 times greater than they have today. I am sure what he is trying to do is become the bad guy. When he puts out the number 190,000 and you wind up with 15 or 20, it is like a good deal.

I can promise you one centrifuge in the hands of the Iranians is a risk. Thousands of centrifuges in the hands of Iranians is stupid. We would be crazy to let that happen.

If they want a nuclear power program for peaceful purposes, sign me up.

As a matter of fact, as far as any deal, I would put in the deal the ability for the international community--Russia, the United States, and China working together or separately--to build a powerplant inside of Iran to give them nuclear power as long as we control the fuel cycle.

Fifteen nations have nuclear power programs that do not enrich. Canada and Mexico have nuclear power programs, but they don't enrich uranium.

As a matter of fact, we are telling our friends in South Korea: Don't begin to enrich. We are telling our friends in the United Arab Emirates: You can have nuclear power, but don't enrich.

I would find it incredible for us to tell allies that we trust them not to enrich because it could set off unintended consequences, but we are agreeing to let one of the enemies of mankind have that capability because they are demanding it.

I hope and I pray a deal can come about that will neuter the nuclear ambitions of the Iranians and give them what they claim to want--a peaceful nuclear power program. But I don't believe that is what they want. I don't think they would be doing all the things they have been doing--lying, cheating, and building plants under a mountain--if all they wanted was a peaceful nuclear power program.

As a matter of fact, our intelligence community tells us the program they have today has been put to military use. They denied that, but we can't get to the bottom of it.

What is the Senator's view about the likelihood of the Iranians lying about the fact that they have tried to militarize their program?

I couldn't agree more. As a matter of fact, dismantling has become something new. They have a big stockpile of highly enriched uranium. We are talking about diluting it, but the U.N. resolution called for its removal, so this deal is to the left of the U.N. resolution. As a matter of fact, this whole agreement is getting to the left of what the United Nations has been.

What about this scenario? It is one thing to have fissile material in the hands of the ayatollah and they could make a bomb, but they still have a lot of highly enriched uranium still inside of Iran. What is the possibility of a dirty bomb, where they turn that highly enriched uranium over to a terrorist organization and it makes its way here without their fingerprints being on it?

Yes, continue.

I know we are going to have a vote in a second, but we will end our thoughts.

The reason 3,000 Americans were killed on 9/11 and not 3 million is that the terrorist groups that wish us harm could not find capabilities beyond the airplanes. They are trying. They are trying to get weapons of mass destruction, chemical weapons, highly enriched uranium, fissile material.

My fear is that if a regime such as Iran is given the capability to enrich,

it will become a North Korea where they break out.

I will not turn the fate of the United States over, with my vote, to a bunch of U.N. inspectors--where the only hope of a breakout is a bunch of U.N. inspectors.

The whole real goal for me is to have a capability that is very small, face-saving in nature, that can't lead to a breakout. Don't have something robust that can lead to a breakout and expect the U.N. to protect us because they can't. They didn't do it in North Korea.

At the end of the day I think the decision we are going to make as a nation--through our President--hopefully with direction and input, will be the biggest decision we have made as a nation on the foreign policy front in decades, because, if we get this wrong, if we allow the Iranian ayatollah to achieve a new nuclear capability, every Sunni Arab is going to want like capability, and we are on the road to Armageddon.

Look at the Middle East and ask yourselves: Is this a good place to give people nuclear capability? Would they use it?

Hamas is firing every rocket in its inventory, and they could care less where it lands; they hate Israel that much.

The Sunni Arabs feel more threatened by the Shia Persians than they do by the Israelis.

It is commonly believed that Israelis have a nuclear capability. Not one Sunni nation has tried to procure a weapon of their own to counter that presumed capability. Every Sunni Arab state has told me, you, and everybody else who will listen, that if the Shia Persians get a capability they are going to match that capability because they see that threat as existential.

Israel sees the threat in Iran--with a nuclear capability in Iranian hands--as existential.

I see it as existential to the United States. We have an opportunity here for negotiations to end this well. But what I hope we will not do is, through negotiations, create a scenario where they break out like the North Koreans.

If I have the choice between a bad deal through negotiations that will lead to a nuclear Iran over time and military force--as distasteful as that might be--I am going to pick military force because we have to stop their ambitions to become a nuclear nation.

If we don't stop them, it would be similar, in my view, to have let Hitler have the bomb when we could have done something about it.

I concur, and I yield back.

Mr. President, there has been a lot of criticism waged at the majority leader of the Senate, Harry Reid, for his discussion about the Koch brothers. That criticism of Senator Reid is unfortunate. I think what Senator Reid is trying to do is educate the American people about the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision and what it has done by allowing billionaire families, such as the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson and others, to pump hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars into the political process in order to elect candidates in the House, in the Senate, and in the White House, who are working overtime against the best interests of the middle class and working families of this country and, at the same time, are working to provide even more tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires and large profitable corporations.

I think it is important, when we talk about the Koch brothers, not to make this discussion personal. It is not a personal discussion. It is a discussion about what the most powerful political family in this country believes. If they are spending hundreds of millions of dollars--and this is a family worth $80 billion, and they may end up spending, in fact, billions of dollars on campaigns--what is it they want? What do they believe? What do folks such as Sheldon Adelson believe, when they invite potential Republican candidates for President to come to Las Vegas for what has been called the Adelson primary, where he will listen to them and decide who he might support and spend hundreds of millions of dollars on in a Presidential campaign?

So I think it is important we know what the Koch brothers believe. Here is the best information I have. In 1980, as it turns out, David Koch, one of the two brothers, ran for Vice President of the United States on the Libertarian Party platform. What is interesting to me is to what degree the platform he ran on--which in 1980 got him 1 percent of the vote on the Libertarian ticket--to what degree that extremist set of positions has now become mainstream Republican today.

I want to take a few minutes to quote exactly what was in that 1980 platform so the American people can recognize to what degree ideas that at one point were considered extremist are now mainstream Republican. This is what was in the 1980 Libertarian Party platform upon which David Koch ran for Vice President:

We urge the repeal of federal campaign finance laws, and

the immediate abolition of the despotic Federal Election

Commission.

What that means is the Koch brothers, and increasingly the Republican Party, now believe there should be no campaign finance laws, that Citizens United did not go far enough, and that the Koch brothers should be able to spend millions of dollars by giving that money directly to individual candidates. That is what the Koch brothers said in 1980. That is what many Republicans believe today.

Let me state an exact quote from the platform:

We favor the repeal of the fraudulent, virtually bankrupt,

and increasingly oppressive Social Security system.

There are many Republicans today who not only want to see cuts in Social Security but who ultimately want to privatize Social Security who believe it is unconstitutional for the U.S. Government to be involved in retirement benefits for seniors.

Libertarian Party platform, 1980:

We oppose--

Listen to this one. This is really quite incredible:

We oppose all personal and corporate income taxation,

including capital gains taxes. We support the eventual repeal

of all taxation.

Repeal of all taxation? That is the government. Basically, what they are saying, very boldly, straightforwardly--we have to respect their honesty--is they don't believe in government.

I have not heard any of my Republican colleagues say they want to abolish all taxation. That is not what they say and that is not what they believe. But on the other hand, it is important to note that the Ryan budget, just passed in mid-April in the House, provides a $5 trillion tax break over a 10-year period, mainly by cutting the top individual and corporate income tax rates significantly. In other words, at a time when the wealthiest people are doing phenomenally well at the same time as the middle class disappears and more and more people live in poverty, what my Republican colleagues believe is we should give more tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires.

The Koch brothers' position in 1980 was that they support-- Libertarian Party platform:

We support repeal of all laws which impede the ability of

any person to find employment, such as minimum wage laws.

What does that mean?

Yesterday, we had a vote on the floor of the Senate which said that a $7.25 an hour minimum wage is a poverty wage; that people who are working 40 hours a week and are making $7.25 an hour are living in poverty; that they cannot bring up and raise families on those wages; and that if we raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, we could increase the salaries of approximately 28 million Americans. On that vote to overcome a Republican filibuster, one Republican voted with members of the Democratic caucus, and we lost that vote.

What is interesting, it is not simply that almost every Republican voted against raising the minimum wage; what is more significant is that many Republicans believe we should abolish the concept of the minimum wage.

Many of us know Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma to be an honest and straightforward guy. He tells it the way he sees it. This morning on the ``Morning Joe'' television show, this is what Senator Coburn said, and I quote from the transcript:

I don't believe you ought to interfere in the market. If

there's to be a minimum wage--my theory is I don't believe

there ought to be a national minimum wage. That's my

position.

In other words, what Senator Coburn is saying today and, in fact, what many Republicans agree with him about, is we should abolish the concept of the minimum wage--something the Koch brothers were talking about 34 years ago.

What are the implications of that if we do as Senator Coburn suggested and just let the market work and don't have government interfere by establishing a minimum wage American workers should receive? What it means, quite simply, when we let the free market work, is that if people are in a high unemployment area and there are many workers competing for few jobs, an employer will say to a potential employee: I am prepared to hire you, good news, and I am going to pay $4.

The worker says: I can't live on $4 an hour. That is a starvation wage.

The employer says: That is OK, because I have 20 other workers who are prepared to accept that wage.

That is what happens when we abolish the concept of the minimum wage.

Many of us--and I think the vast majority of the American people-- have a very different vision of where our country should go. We don't believe we should be abolishing the minimum wage. We don't believe we should be cutting or privatizing Social Security or transforming Medicare into a voucher program or making horrendous cuts to Medicaid.

What, in fact, the American people want is the Federal Government to start standing up for working families rather than millionaires and billionaires. In poll after poll, what the American people have said is they want us to invest in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and create millions of decent-paying jobs. That is what the American people want. They do not want tax breaks for billionaires but the creation of millions of jobs for rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure.

The American people, despite what Senator Coburn and others may believe, want us to raise the minimum wage. Poll after poll suggests the American people want us to raise the minimum wage to at least $10.10 an hour.

The American people do not want us to cut Social Security. In fact, more and more Americans want us to expand Social Security, to make sure when elderly people reach retirement age, they can live and retire with dignity.

I think there has perhaps never been a time in the modern history of this country where the political lines have been drawn as clearly as they are right now. If you listen to the Koch brothers, if you read the Republican Ryan budget in the House, their positions are quite clear: Tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires and significant cuts in the programs that are life and death for the middle-class and working families of this country.

That is not what the American people want, and it is time we began to listen to the American people. It is time we took on those people, those billionaires who are spending huge amounts of money electing candidates who represent their interests. And it is time we listen to the working families of this country, who are struggling to survive.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to engage in a colloquy with the Senator from South Carolina as in morning business.

Mr. President, 19 months ago a terrible thing happened in Benghazi, Libya. Four brave Americans were murdered, and the issue has not only not been resolved but as each of the last 19 months has ensued, the issue of how and under what circumstances this heinous crime was committed continues. The Senator from South Carolina and I, the Senator from New Hampshire, and some others, have vowed we will never give up on this issue until the truth is known and the people who perpetrated it are brought to justice.

We have seen another page turn in this chapter of coverup and obfuscation by this administration by the belated--19 months later-- release of the following emails. The first one we will not pay much attention to. This is from Benjamin Rhodes, who is supposed to be the public affairs officer for the National Security Council. In fact, he is obviously the propaganda organ. The goals, as he states them, are to underscore these protests are rooted in an Internet video and not a broader failure of policy.

I tell my colleagues that was not a fact. That was not a fact. There was no evidence these protests were rooted in an Internet video. In fact, the station chief before these talking points were made up sent a message that this is not--not--a spontaneous demonstration.

To show that we will be resolute in bringing people who bring harm to Americans to justice, and standing steadfast through these protests; to reinforce the President's strength and steadiness--that is all about the Presidential campaign. It is not about trying to find out who perpetrated this heinous crime. It is not about trying to respond to the people who committed these acts.

In fact, because of the coverup and the obfuscation and now 19-month delay, not a single person who was responsible for the murder of these four brave Americans has been brought to justice, as the President promised they would be.

Yesterday Mr. Carney said the release of this information had nothing to do with the attack on Benghazi. My friends, I have heard a lot of strange things in my time, but that has to be the most bizarre statement I have ever heard. This is all about a Presidential campaign. This is all about an effort to convince the American people the President of the United States had everything under control.

The next day, on the Sunday talk shows, Susan Rice said Al Qaeda had been decimated. False; that the embassy was safe and stable and secure. False. And of course the whole issue of blaming an Internet video lasted on and on for a couple of weeks when it was clear the evidence did not indicate that.

I yield to my friend from South Carolina on this issue, and then I will return.

I might add that all of the emails were supposed to be given to the Congress in return for the confirmation of Mr. Brennan as head of the CIA. They didn't do that.

And the next day the station chief sent a message that there was ``not-slash-not spontaneous demonstration.''

And the fact is, I would say to my friend, the time has now come for a select committee. The time has now come because these talking points raise more questions than answers. It is time for a bipartisan, bicameral select committee to investigate the entire Benghazi fiasco and tragedy, and it needs to be done soon. The American people and the families of those brave ones who sacrificed their lives deserve nothing less.

My friend Senator Graham mentioned the media. I would like to say thanks.

I would like to say thanks to FOX News. I would like to say thanks to some at CBS. I would like to say thanks to Charles Krauthammer and the handful of people who kept this alive when the ``mainstream media'' not only wanted to bury it but subjected, of course, as Senator Graham just mentioned, him and me to ridicule.

I wish to go back for a second to this email. In response to questions yesterday by Mr. Carney, the White House Press spokesperson, if we look at this email and then look at what Mr. Carney said, it is an absolute falsehood. It is a total departure from reality. How does the President's spokesperson tell the American people something that is patently false?

The President's spokesperson, in regard to this email that says to show ``these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy''--what was he talking about? He says Rhodes' email ``was explicitly not about Benghazi.'' Well, then what was it about?

Then he goes on to say:

The fact of the matter is, there were protests in the

region.

The talking points cited protests at that facility.

They didn't. The talking points did not cite protests at that facility--i.e, Benghazi.

The connection between protests and video--and the video

turned out not to be the case--

It turned out not to be the case because it was never the case and no one ever believed it--

but it was based on the best information that we had.

He had no information that there was a spontaneous demonstration sparked by a video. That was manufactured somewhere. The American people and we need to know where those talking points came from that Susan Rice gave.

He goes on to say:

If you look at that document, that document that we're

talking about today was about the overall environment in the

Muslim world.

How could he say that and look at this email here? Talking about events in the Muslim world?

And of course he goes on to say, talking about Susan Rice:

She relied on her--for her answers on Benghazi, on the

document prepared by the CIA, as did members of Congress.

Mr. Morell, the deputy head of the CIA at that time, said he was astonished to hear that there was reference made on all five Sunday morning shows that there was a hateful video involved.

So Mr. Carney is saying things that are absolutely false. The American people deserve better than that from the President's spokesperson whom they rely on for accurate information. When the bodies came home, and it was a moving event--I was there--the then- Secretary of State told members of the family and told me: We will get these people who were responsible for the hateful video.

That was a number of days later when it was absolutely proven to anyone's satisfaction there was no hateful video, and of course we still don't know what the final version of the talking points was that Susan Rice used on all the morning talk shows, who was the final arbiter of it. We know now that Mr. Rhodes played a very key role in that, and we need to know who gave her those talking points because they are patently false. If someone gave her those talking points, then why in the world did that person manufacture out of whole cloth information that was told to the American people?

There are a lot of points here, and we can get into some of the details, but the fact is that this is a coverup of a situation which was politically motivated in order to further the Presidential ambitions of the President of the United States. That is what this is all about. That is why comments and instructions were given in this email, because the narrative was: The tide of war is receding, Osama bin Laden is dead.

Secretary Susan Rice said at the time: Al Qaeda is decimated and the Embassy is safe and secure. None of those facts were true. Most importantly, we have five Americans who were killed. It is very clear that should not have happened, would not have happened if proper actions had been taken.

Most important now or just as important now is the fact that for the last 19 months this White House has been engaged in a coverup. It calls for a select committee to examine all of the facts, and as always happens in these kinds of scandals, the coverup is equally or sometimes worse than the actual action itself. The American people deserve to know the truth.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, it is often said that foreign aid from America is to project American power and what America believes in. Unfortunately, over decades, the only thing consistent about foreign aid is that the money continues to flow regardless of the behavior of the recipients. This is extraordinary, and we have seen this decade after decade.

Studies will often show that 75 percent of foreign aid throughout many continents is simply stolen, taken in graft. The Mubarak family in Egypt is an example.

The point I would like to make today is if we are going to project what America stands for, if we want our money to go to people who are supporting activities that America is for, we should write that into the law. We have made attempts at this in the past.

Several years ago Senator Leahy attached an amendment to foreign aid that says that countries need to be evolving towards democracy or showing an ability to go forward towards democracy. The problem is that every time we have restrictions on foreign aid, they are evaded. We always give an out. The President always has an out.

This week in Egypt, 683 people were condemned to death in one trial. Yet your money still flows to Egypt without interruption.

We have another contingency that says: If a country has a military takeover--if you have an election and then you have a military junta or a military takeover of the government--our aid should end. It didn't happen in Egypt when there was a military takeover.

The only consistency about foreign aid is that it flows to all countries regardless of behavior. It is the opposite of what many of the proponents say. Many of the proponents say that we do this so we can modulate behavior and try to improve and make things better around the world. Yet they steadfastly oppose restrictions on foreign aid.

I have a bill that I am going to ask--in a few minutes--for the Senate to unanimously approve. This is a bill that should be an easy lift for most Senators. This is a bill to support our ally Israel and to say to the Palestinian Authority that if you wish to continue to take American money--and many people don't realize this, but the American taxpayer gives hundreds of millions of dollars every year to the Palestinian Authority, and we supposedly have restrictions, but there is always an out. Guess what. They always get their money regardless of behavior.

What have I have been saying is, let's have some restrictions. If we are going to give money to the Palestinian Authority, shouldn't they agree to recognize the State of Israel? Shouldn't that be part of what goes on with this?

We now have a problem--and the reason this has become a more pertinent issue and something that has come to the forefront--because Hamas, a terrorist group in Gaza, is now aligning them with Fatah, the people who run the Palestinian Authority.

My question is: Are we now going to send money to a unity government? Part of the charter of Hamas is not only not to recognize Israel, but they are actually for the destruction of Israel.

This is what I would ask Americans and those who will object to the bill--because there will be an objection to my bill: How can you object to something that calls for the recognition of Israel as a state? How can you object to this and how can you continue to allow the flow of money to a group that calls for the destruction of Israel? They will say: Well, we have contingencies for that or we will stop it if they become part of or control the West Bank.

When I was in Israel a year ago, I asked everybody that question. I met

with the Prime Minister of Israel, the President of Israel, the King of Jordan, and with the leader of the West Bank, Abbas. I met with all of these people and asked them: Can there be a separate peace? Can there be peace with the West Bank and peace with Gaza--a separate peace?

They all said: No, it has to be one peace.

I said to the Israeli side: If they are unified, will you negotiate with Hamas?

They said: No. They lob missiles at us. They are at war with us. They don't recognize our right to exist as a state. Not only that, they openly advocate for the destruction of Israel.

Realize that in the objection you will hear today, you will hear an objection that despite arguments to the contrary we will allow money to go to a unity government that will include Hamas.

I am simply asking that if we are going to send good money after bad--frankly, it is money we don't have. We have $1 trillion in debt. We have bridges falling down in our own country, and your government is sending hundreds of millions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority-- which is now going to be unified with Hamas, without restrictions or with restrictions that have a hole so big you can drive a truck through them. This always happens.

Every contingency and every limitation on foreign aid that you think would be practical and reasonable always has an exception for the President to overcome. The President always does it so the only thing consistent about foreign aid is that money continues to flow.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we pass my bill, S. 2265, Stand With Israel. I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be discharged from further consideration of S. 2265 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask that the bill be read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

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

The Republican-led filibuster of the minimum wage bill-- which would raise the Federal minimum wage from $7.75 per hour to $10.10 per hour--means that an estimated 27.8 million Americans, including 91,000 Rhode Islanders, will not get a raise. It also means, according to estimates from the Economic Policy Institute, that our economy will miss out on a GDP boost of $22 billion by 2016, which would have supported over 84,000 additional full-time jobs.

Those 27.8 million workers who would have received a raise would have spent it at local businesses, helping their local communities and spurring economic growth. Typically, minimum wage workers are those who, when they receive an increase in their paychecks, go out and buy things that are necessary. They are the ones who really provide the kind of local stimulus we need to grow the economy.

The Federal minimum wage has not been increased since 2009. Today an individual who works 40 hours per week 52 weeks a year at the Federal minimum wage earns $15,080 per year, and that is nearly $5,000 below the Federal poverty level for a family of three and almost $9,000 below the poverty level for a family of four. That means we have hard-working Americans putting in full-time work every week for the entire year and yet still living in poverty. That is not fair to these families who are just looking for a fair shot.

People who work hard for a living shouldn't have to live in poverty. That was not the case in the sixties when the minimum wage was such that it would lift you out of poverty, and that is what we have to do today.

When Congress last passed legislation to raise the minimum wage in 2007, it was a bipartisan undertaking, and 44 Republican Senators joined Democrats to send President Bush a bill that raised the minimum wage to its current level. That bipartisan effort should be emulated today in this Senate. In fact, one could argue that the needs are more pressing; that American workers have fallen further behind; and that the same logic that compelled President Bush to sign this bill and a bipartisan Congress to send it to him is even more compelling today.

Our constituents sent us here to work together to grow the economy and create jobs. It is disappointing that this bill to provide millions of hard-working Americans a raise--a raise they deserve through their own efforts--has been filibustered.

I hope my colleagues on the other side would find a way to work with us on this issue and come together to strengthen our economic recovery. I was particularly gratified, working with my colleagues on emergency unemployment insurance, that we did get bipartisan support to pass sensible and fiscally responsible legislation. Unfortunately, now it is in the House and it is not moving there. I hope it does.

But we have to do more of that, focus on what will actually help Americans individually and collectively move and grow our economy. We have worked together on emergency unemployment insurance and other issues, such as immigration reform. We can work together on this issue, and we must.

Again, I am at this point very disappointed that same bipartisan effort has not been translated into action by the House of Representatives when it comes to restoring emergency unemployment insurance. Speaker Boehner could call up our bill, which is fully paid for and which will affect, at this point, about 2.6 million Americans-- and their families, so it is many more Americans who will benefit--and under the rules of the House could quickly have a vote within probably 24 hours. I am convinced and so is my colleague Senator Heller of Nevada, who is my chief cosponsor, that bill would pass in the House today on a bipartisan basis. We have had Republican Representatives who have written to the Speaker and said: Bring it up for a vote. That would help. It would help not only 2.6 million Americans--and that grows each day--but it would also help our economy.

So, again, in a similar vein, we need bipartisan action on raising the minimum wage in the Senate, emulating the bipartisan action we took with respect to emergency unemployment insurance, and then we need that same bipartisanship in the House of Representatives to move these measures to the President for his signature.

Raising the minimum wage and restoring jobless benefits are the right things to do for the American people and for the American economy. I hope these policies, which traditionally have enjoyed strong bipartisan support, will eventually prevail in both the Senate and the House and be signed into law by the President of the United States.

Once again, I think it is important to emphasize that the last time we raised the minimum wage, it was a bipartisan effort signed by a Republican President. This is not an issue or should not be an issue of political ideology or political posturing. This should be an issue of what helps the American worker make his or her way through a very difficult economy. Viewed in that logic, it is clear to me that we should pass this legislation, not filibuster it, and that the House should pass quickly the emergency unemployment insurance compensation bill.

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.