Baltic Defense and Deterrence Act

Mr. President, last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee was busy. We met for over 30 hours to consider the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court.

During the meeting of the committee, hundreds of questions were posed to Judge Jackson. She spoke thoughtfully and at length about her years in public service, and, most importantly, she really imparted to the committee--and to America that has watched--what she thought about this great Nation, her pride in being an American, the opportunities which were given to her, and opportunities which she used to make this a better place for many.

I was one of the millions who came away from last week's hearing deeply impressed with Judge Jackson. It proved to me during the course of her testimony that the words over the steps of the Supreme Court, ``Equal Justice Under Law,'' are a personal challenge and an invitation to a person just like Judge Jackson.

But it appears some of our Republican colleagues are more reluctant to support her at this moment. She is still making the rounds. Over 50 Senators have received personal visits, and even more will during the course of this week. They have reservations, and I have spoken to some of them and listened to their statements. They say that they don't have any question about her qualifications or experience. Well, thank goodness. She has a stellar resume. Anyone who is a lawyer in this Nation would look at her with envy to think what she has achieved against the odds in her life.

Unfortunately, some of the members of the committee misrepresented her record on several issues. I would like to try to set it straight at this moment.

There seems to be this passion amongst some Republicans to get this nominee to state in a word or two her judicial philosophy. I find that interesting. If a person came up to one of my colleagues and said, ``What is your political philosophy?'' there are a number of things a person might say. They might say, for example, ``I am a fiscal conservative.''

You might then ask, ``Well, then why did you vote for the Trump tax cuts that gave tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans and added almost $2 trillion to the national debt? And if you are a fiscal conservative, why is it that you only preach for a balanced budget amendment when there is a Democrat in the White House and never when there is a Republican?''

Basically what you are saying is, ``I can hear you and your declaration, but I want to know what you have done.''

When it comes to Judge Jackson, those who seek her judicial philosophy and want a simple label one way or the other just haven't done their homework. She has almost 600 published opinions. This woman, this jurist, has not held back in explaining, in case after case, how she views the law. It is there for the reading. Every Member of the Senate and the public has access to that information to get the true measure of a judicial philosophy.

What she said over and over again at the hearing was, I believe in judicial restraint. I think that is exactly what we need in a judge, personally. That is exactly what you will find when you review the hundreds of opinions she has written to date.

Then there is this litmus test question that meant so much to Senator McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, that he led off his opposition to Judge Jackson on the issue. And the issue, quite simply, is whether or not Judge Jackson is willing to say what her position is on increasing the number of Justices serving on the Supreme Court-- interesting question.

Most Americans think it has been nine for all time, but that is not true. I believe it was in 1869 that that number was established. Before then, it was a fewer number of Justices. It hasn't been changed since. There is speculation among some political quarters that people are thinking about changing it in the future.

So when it came to Senator McConnell's opposition to Judge Jackson because she said it is a policy matter to be decided by Congress, not to be decided by the Court, as to the composition and number on the Supreme Court, Senator McConnell went on to say that that disqualified her; that was the leading disqualification.

Well, you might ask Senator McConnell: How did the previous nominee, Amy Coney Barrett--you went to great lengths in maintaining a vacancy on the Court so that a Republican judge could fill the vacancy--how did she answer this probing threshold question when it came to the future composition of the Supreme Court?

She said virtually exactly what Judge Jackson said: It is a matter for Congress to decide, not for the courts. That was an acceptable answer with Amy Coney Barrett, but for Senator McConnell, it is an unacceptable answer when it comes to Judge Jackson.

The other questions that were raised were about her legal representation. Those of us who have practiced law understand that you don't necessarily agree with the legal position of every client who walks in the office, and sometimes you have no choice. If the court appoints you as a defender or as an attorney to represent someone who is an indigent client, you often have a client before you--not necessarily a savory character--who might have some questionable background. Your job is to be a zealous advocate for that client but never to lie to the court, stick with the truth, do your best, and represent them in the course of litigation.

That is what Judge Jackson has done in her private practice and her years working for the Federal public defender. Most attorneys get it. Most of them understand that the client you are representing is not necessarily espousing your point of view, nor, really, boasting a lifestyle that you admire, but you have a professional obligation to do your best as a lawyer to represent them before the court of law.

Some of them were opposed to Judge Jackson because she represented detainees at Guantanamo Bay. That is curious because these same lawmakers once claimed that judicial nominees should not be held accountable for the views and actions of their clients.

It was the junior Senator from Missouri who not that long ago argued that litigators ``do not necessarily share the views of the people [they represent]'' but must ``represent them effectively and fairly.'' He was right then, and he ought to remember it now.

Consider the words of the junior Senator from Texas, who told us in September of 2019:

Saying that the views of your clients or the positions of

your clients are necessarily your own personal views is no

more accurate than saying a criminal defense lawyer who

represents capital defendants is advancing the cause of

murder.

That is the quote from the junior Senator from Texas.

Finally, some of our Republican colleagues have accused Judge Jackson of being soft on crime. We had an interesting panel the last day when we considered the judge, and on that panel was a gentleman who is the president of the Black law enforcement organization known as NOBLE.

I asked him point blank: We know the Fraternal Order of Police has endorsed Judge Jackson's aspiration to the Court. We know that the International Association of Chiefs of Police also endorsed her. You, NOBLE, representing Black law enforcement agents across the Nation, have endorsed her. Would you or any of these organizations have even considered the endorsement if you thought she was soft on crime or wanted to defund the police? He was unequivocal. No, he wouldn't have considered her. But her critics ignore that reality.

I want to make it clear that any Senator considering her nomination has the right to make their own choice in this process. They can also look beyond the fact that she comes from a law enforcement family to her actual decisionmaking and sentencing. But to claim, as a few have-- only a few--that somehow Judge Jackson was soft when it came to child predators or endangering children is just inaccurate and, frankly, insulting.

Look at the facts. Judge Jackson is well within the judicial mainstream of 70 to 80 percent of sentences by Federal judges when it comes to child pornography offenders--not out of the mainstream, in it--and she has put many

behind bars for decades. Her approach to these cases is comparable to that of many of President Trump's nominees on the bench today.

Independent fact checkers have exposed these baseless attacks for what they are. I can't say it any better than the conservative Federal prosecutor who wrote in a conservative magazine, the National Review, that this line of attack against Judge Jackson is ``meritless to the point of demagoguery.''

Let's be clear. None--absolutely none--of the attacks that have been leveled against Judge Jackson stand up to scrutiny. I assume that is why only a few of my Republican colleagues have spoken out in support of them.

So I want to thank the majority of Republican Judiciary Committee members who treated last week's hearing with dignity and respect. They posed challenging, probing questions to Judge Jackson, and that was their responsibility to do so. Judge Jackson's forthright responses showed the American public why she deserves this historic opportunity.

She is a brilliant jurist, evenhanded, with a model temperament. There were so many moments--for those who followed the hearing, they know what I am speaking of--when I looked up and saw her sitting at the table, thinking that she could stand up at this very moment and say ``Enough. My family and I are leaving.'' But she didn't. She had the strength and the grace and the dignity and determination to weather even that political firestorm.

I am honored to support Judge Jackson. I look forward to our Judiciary Committee vote on her nomination next Monday.

(The remarks of Mr. Durbin pertaining to the introduction of S. 3950 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, on another matter, Senator Rob Portman of Ohio and I are cochairs of the bipartisan Senate Ukraine Caucus. Tomorrow, we are hosting a meeting for Senators with members of the Ukrainian Parliament. The Parliament there is known as the Rada. They are coming to Washington to discuss how we can help even more in assisting the valiant people of Ukraine defending against this barbaric invasion by Vladimir Putin. I hope our colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join us to send a clear message to Ukraine that we stand united in their efforts.

Putin's unprovoked and unconscionable war on Ukraine has revealed what he is really all about. He is a tyrant seething with resentment, driven by delusions of great mother Russia, willing to slaughter innocent men, women, and children to restore a lost Russian Empire.

We know from his current ravings and his past actions, Putin's ruthless pursuit of Russia's lost empire didn't begin with this war, and if we don't do something about it, it won't end there either.

In 2003, the people of Georgia--another Soviet Republic--waged a Rose Revolution to claim a place among the family of democratic nations. Putin's aggrieved response was to send troops into that country to occupy portions of it--South Ossetia and Abkhazia--to redraw Georgia's national boundaries by force. I traveled to that area in 2012 and saw firsthand what Putin's occupation of that tiny nation meant.

In 2014, the people of Ukraine rose up to demand change as well--the Revolution of Dignity, they called it. They succeeded and threw out the deeply corrupt Russian-backed President. They ousted him from Parliament. When they did, he fled to Moscow, his real home. Putin's revenge months later was to send Russian troops to invade and annex the Crimean peninsula and the Donbas regions of eastern Ukraine by force. They have continued to wage that war.

I have mentioned many times my concern for this region, and I guess it is attached to the fact that my mother was born in Lithuania and came here as a little girl. Her family fled from the oppression of czarist Russia, which then controlled the Baltic States and far beyond.

During World War II, the Baltic States endured brutal Nazi occupation, and after the war, they were held captive behind the Iron Curtain by the USSR.

In August 1989, 2 months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, 2 million people in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia physically, literally, joined hands in a peaceful protest. They formed a human chain, declared that they wanted to join Europe and be part of the family of democracies.

Two years later, the Baltics threw off Russian occupiers and reclaimed their independence. It was a festive day. I was honored to be a witness to part of it. They worked to achieve the reform fundamental to democracies, to weed out corruption, establish market economies, and encourage the growth of civil society.

In 2004, in a historic moment, a live-or-die moment for the Baltics, they became part of NATO. It was the first time--the very first time that NATO had opened its doors to nations that had been part of the Soviet Union. Over the years, the Baltic States strengthened their militaries to prove they would be assets and not liabilities to the alliance.

Today, the Baltics provide a home to activists and dissidents from Russia and Belarus and are a beacon of democracy. And I say that with personal pride to have any association with these great nations.

In 2008, after Russia had annexed parts of Georgia, the President of Poland visited Georgia's capital of Tbilisi and warned of the threat posed by Russia to the entire region. He said:

Today Georgia, tomorrow Ukraine, the day after tomorrow--

the Baltic States and, later, perhaps, time will come for

[his] country, Poland.

Well, today, Senator Grassley and I are introducing a bill to discourage Russia from extending Putin's war into NATO territory and forcing the alliance to invoke its article 5 collective security commitment.

Our bill is called the Baltic Defense and Deterrence Act. It directs the Department of State and the Department of Defense to establish and implement economic and security initiatives to deepen U.S. ties with the Baltic States. Our bill will strengthen our strong partnership. It will enhance the capability of the region's critical allies in NATO's eastern flank to respond to threats, including Russia's misinformation and disinformation, their cyber warfare, and, in Lithuania's case, growing economic pressure.

Cosponsors come from both sides of the aisle: Senators Stabenow, King, Feinstein, Blunt, Blumenthal, Baldwin, Duckworth, Booker, and Senator Scott of Florida. Representatives Ruben Gallego and Don Bacon are cosponsoring a bipartisan companion bill in the House.

In conclusion, in 1997, Russian President Boris Yeltsin offered the Baltic States unilateral security guarantees if they would give up aspirations to join NATO. They refused. They were determined to become their own sovereign states, their own democracy, and they have succeeded.

Kurt Volker, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO and former U.S. Special Representative to Ukraine, has said that, far from being a burden on NATO, the admission of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia has reinvigorated the alliance. In his words, the Baltic States turned out to be ``the best democratic and economic reformers, the ones most committed to build fresh new militaries, and the ones willing to support the U.S. in other fora.''

They have sent troops on costly U.S. missions, and their troops have fought and died alongside NATO forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. By securing America's economic and security partnerships with the Baltics, our bill will help deter Vladimir Putin from extending his barbaric war into NATO territory.

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

Mr. President, on another matter, Senator Rob Portman of Ohio and I are cochairs of the bipartisan Senate Ukraine Caucus. Tomorrow, we are hosting a meeting for Senators with members of the Ukrainian Parliament. The Parliament there is known as the Rada. They are coming to Washington to discuss how we can help even more in assisting the valiant people of Ukraine defending against this barbaric invasion by Vladimir Putin. I hope our colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join us to send a clear message to Ukraine that we stand united in their efforts.

Putin's unprovoked and unconscionable war on Ukraine has revealed what he is really all about. He is a tyrant seething with resentment, driven by delusions of great mother Russia, willing to slaughter innocent men, women, and children to restore a lost Russian Empire.

We know from his current ravings and his past actions, Putin's ruthless pursuit of Russia's lost empire didn't begin with this war, and if we don't do something about it, it won't end there either.

In 2003, the people of Georgia--another Soviet Republic--waged a Rose Revolution to claim a place among the family of democratic nations. Putin's aggrieved response was to send troops into that country to occupy portions of it--South Ossetia and Abkhazia--to redraw Georgia's national boundaries by force. I traveled to that area in 2012 and saw firsthand what Putin's occupation of that tiny nation meant.

In 2014, the people of Ukraine rose up to demand change as well--the Revolution of Dignity, they called it. They succeeded and threw out the deeply corrupt Russian-backed President. They ousted him from Parliament. When they did, he fled to Moscow, his real home. Putin's revenge months later was to send Russian troops to invade and annex the Crimean peninsula and the Donbas regions of eastern Ukraine by force. They have continued to wage that war.

I have mentioned many times my concern for this region, and I guess it is attached to the fact that my mother was born in Lithuania and came here as a little girl. Her family fled from the oppression of czarist Russia, which then controlled the Baltic States and far beyond.

During World War II, the Baltic States endured brutal Nazi occupation, and after the war, they were held captive behind the Iron Curtain by the USSR.

In August 1989, 2 months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, 2 million people in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia physically, literally, joined hands in a peaceful protest. They formed a human chain, declared that they wanted to join Europe and be part of the family of democracies.

Two years later, the Baltics threw off Russian occupiers and reclaimed their independence. It was a festive day. I was honored to be a witness to part of it. They worked to achieve the reform fundamental to democracies, to weed out corruption, establish market economies, and encourage the growth of civil society.

In 2004, in a historic moment, a live-or-die moment for the Baltics, they became part of NATO. It was the first time--the very first time that NATO had opened its doors to nations that had been part of the Soviet Union. Over the years, the Baltic States strengthened their militaries to prove they would be assets and not liabilities to the alliance.

Today, the Baltics provide a home to activists and dissidents from Russia and Belarus and are a beacon of democracy. And I say that with personal pride to have any association with these great nations.

In 2008, after Russia had annexed parts of Georgia, the President of Poland visited Georgia's capital of Tbilisi and warned of the threat posed by Russia to the entire region. He said:

Today Georgia, tomorrow Ukraine, the day after tomorrow--

the Baltic States and, later, perhaps, time will come for

[his] country, Poland.

Well, today, Senator Grassley and I are introducing a bill to discourage Russia from extending Putin's war into NATO territory and forcing the alliance to invoke its article 5 collective security commitment.

Our bill is called the Baltic Defense and Deterrence Act. It directs the Department of State and the Department of Defense to establish and implement economic and security initiatives to deepen U.S. ties with the Baltic States. Our bill will strengthen our strong partnership. It will enhance the capability of the region's critical allies in NATO's eastern flank to respond to threats, including Russia's misinformation and disinformation, their cyber warfare, and, in Lithuania's case, growing economic pressure.

Cosponsors come from both sides of the aisle: Senators Stabenow, King, Feinstein, Blunt, Blumenthal, Baldwin, Duckworth, Booker, and Senator Scott of Florida. Representatives Ruben Gallego and Don Bacon are cosponsoring a bipartisan companion bill in the House.

In conclusion, in 1997, Russian President Boris Yeltsin offered the Baltic States unilateral security guarantees if they would give up aspirations to join NATO. They refused. They were determined to become their own sovereign states, their own democracy, and they have succeeded.

Kurt Volker, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO and former U.S. Special Representative to Ukraine, has said that, far from being a burden on NATO, the admission of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia has reinvigorated the alliance. In his words, the Baltic States turned out to be ``the best democratic and economic reformers, the ones most committed to build fresh new militaries, and the ones willing to support the U.S. in other fora.''

They have sent troops on costly U.S. missions, and their troops have fought and died alongside NATO forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. By securing America's economic and security partnerships with the Baltics, our bill will help deter Vladimir Putin from extending his barbaric war into NATO territory.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for the legislative activities report of the Committee on Rules and Administration during the 116th Congress be printed in the Congressional Record.