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Mr. President, next week, the Senate will vote on the confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to serve as a member of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Since Judge Jackson's nomination was announced, I made it clear that I would go into this process with an open mind, just as I have tried to do with each Supreme Court nominee who has come before the Judiciary Committee during my time in the Senate. This is now my eighth Supreme Court Justice to participate in the confirmation of.

Now, I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to judicial confirmation hearings, and I know that some people expressed concerns about the tough questions that Judge Jackson fielded. I thought she did a credible job answering those questions. She is obviously incredibly smart, but I found her personally very charming as well.

Judge Jackson has received two degrees from Harvard, completed a Supreme Court clerkship, and served on the Federal bench for nearly a decade. I hear no one questioning Judge Jackson's legal credentials, but a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court requires a lot more than just the right resume. Our constitutional Republic requires judges who rule based on the law, not based on their personal policy preferences or beliefs and certainly not based on a result and working your way back to a justification for that particular result. Judges are required to go wherever the law may lead them.

Justice Scalia, during his lifetime, said: If you haven't made a decision as a judge that you personally disagree with because the law compels it, you are really probably not doing your job as a judge. And I think there is a lot of truth to that. As I say, the job is not to start with the desired result and work backwards and cherry-pick the legal reasoning to justify the decision.

The question we tried to answer--those of us who serve on the Judiciary Committee--last week is, Where would Judge Jackson fit in this mold if confirmed to the Supreme Court? Would she be an impartial umpire who follows the letter of the law or would she attempt to legislate from the bench? The reason that is important is because, under our Constitution, Members of the Senate are supposed to legislate. But that is also the reason why we run for election, and we are held accountable each election for the votes we take and the policy positions we embrace. That is how public policy in America is supposed to be made, not by judges who serve for a lifetime and whom the voters cannot unelect, like they can Members of the Senate. That is why their job is very different.

Before Judge Jackson was named as the nominee for this seat, President Biden outlined what he was looking for in a candidate. Among the many qualities and beliefs that he specified, the President said, tellingly, he wanted someone with a judicial philosophy that ``suggests that there are unenumerated rights in the Constitution, and all the amendments mean something, including the Ninth Amendment.'' Those are code words, and let me explain.

This wasn't a one-off comment by President Biden. He even said on the campaign trail that he would not nominate somebody for the Supreme Court who did not have a view that unenumerated rights exist in the Constitution. Now, translated into English, that is tantamount to saying that judges shouldn't be bound by a written Constitution.

You might wonder, if they are not bound by the text and the words of the Constitution, where does their authority come from?

The President stated and restated a litmus test for his desired Supreme Court candidate, and he has clearly determined that Judge Jackson fits the bill. So I spent my time during the Judiciary Committee hearing asking her about unenumerated or what you might call invisible rights during her confirmation hearing--invisible because they are not in the text.

I told Judge Jackson it is deeply concerning to me and to the people I represent that five unelected and unaccountable Justices could upend the will of the people by invalidating laws or inventing a new right out of whole cloth. We talked a lot about substantive due process. I suggested that she and I nerd out together, since that is not a topic that people typically talk about around the kitchen table, but maybe they do in a sense I will talk about in a moment.

Substantive due process is this theory that somehow, when you combine the 5th Amendment due process clause with the 14th Amendment due process clause, that out of that formula, unwritten and invisible rights can suddenly appear. This is really just judge-made law.

We have seen many examples of this. For example, in Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court established the shameful doctrine of separate but equal when it came to the treatment of African Americans in our country. Thankfully, that was later overruled by Brown v. Board of Education. But it is an example of the sort of horrific outcomes that can occur when judges--five judges, unelected, lifetime tenured-- decide to become policymakers in their own right.

Perhaps most famous in legal circles--certainly in law school--you learn about Lochner v. New York. That was another example of substantive due process where the Supreme Court invalidated some labor regulations with regard to how long bakers could work. In that, the Supreme Court discovered a freedom to contract right--again, nowhere written in the Constitution but another example of a result-oriented outcome based on unwritten constitutional rights.

Now, one of the most famous examples is Roe v. Wade in which the Supreme Court found a constitutional right to an abortion. I asked Judge Jackson if the word ``abortion'' or the word ``marriage'' was found anywhere in the Constitution, and she agreed with me that, no, they are not mentioned in the Constitution.

Now, here is my point. It is not the outcome necessarily, because substantive due process can be used for good or for ill. In other words, the good is when I agree with the outcome, and the ill is when I disagree. But the main problem is that unelected judges are making policy, binding the entire country under the guise of substantive due process, which is nothing but judicial lawmaking. So this doctrine of substantive due process can be used for things you agree with and things you disagree with.

The point is that this has, I think, helped us hone in on the limitless abilities of five Justices to discover new rights that aren't even mentioned in the Constitution and then to eliminate any sort of debate or democratic process where people actually get to vote on public policies because essentially the Supreme Court has taken the issue out of the public square. They said: We have already decided it, and we don't really care what you think.

Even Justice Hugo Black, a noted liberal in the classical sense, said the due process clause itself in the 5th and 14th Amendments was designed to make certain that men would be governed by law, not the arbitrary fiat of the man or men in power. And you would have to update to say ``man or woman,'' obviously.

We all know judges on the Supreme Court and on the Federal bench are unelected and therefore unaccountable to the people. Federal judges discovering rights that do not exist in the written Constitution essentially provides a rudderless and, I would argue, eventually lawless authority to the Supreme Court.

The very nature of our three branches of government is to divide responsibilities among those branches.

As I mentioned, the political branches are the executive branch, the President; legislative branch, obviously that is Congress, the House and the Senate. Our job is far different, and it is important to have judges understand their limited but vital role under the Constitution. Their job is to interpret the laws as written, not to make them up as you go along or to use a smokescreen, like substantive due process, to identify new rights that do not appear anywhere in the Constitution.

If the American people want to amend the Constitution, which they have done 27 times during our Nation's history, there is a way to do that. Sure, it is a tough battle. You have to win a supermajority of both Houses, and you have to get it ratified by the States. But you can do it, and it has been done 27 times.

But there are people who want to take a shortcut, and they want judges to abuse their authority by identifying these unwritten rights.

Well, what is at stake when that happens? When judges invent new rights, decide issues that are not in their lane, as Judge Jackson liked to say--she would say ``making policy is not in my lane''--or when a judge acts as a policymaker, like Congress is supposed to do, like the executive branch is supposed to do, when judges act that way, they necessarily undermine the American people's right to choose.

The Declaration of Independence notes that the authority of government is derived from the consent of the governed. But how do judges, when they identify unmentioned rights out of whole cloth, how do we, as the American people, get to consent or withhold that consent? Thus, it is easy to see how judge-made law and these smokescreens, like substantive due process, are really methods by which some members of the judiciary undermine the basic and fundamental premise and legitimacy of our laws because the consent of the governed to those judges is irrelevant.

Now, one unfortunate consequence of judge-made law that is not in the Constitution as written, is that anybody who disagrees with you--and this act of judicial activism--can easily be accused of discrimination or even labeled a bigot, even if their belief is derived from religious conviction, which is expressly protected by the Constitution. This is what happens when invisible rights conflict with rights that are actually written into the Constitution, like the First Amendment, like the right to religious liberty.

President Biden assured the American people that he would nominate somebody who believed in unenumerated rights, so I asked Judge Jackson a logical question: What unenumerated rights are there?

The American people deserve to know. Certainly, in casting our vote for or against a nomination, the Senate deserves to know. But she refused to provide an answer.

This isn't the only place where Judge Jackson was less than candid. My colleagues and I repeatedly asked Judge Jackson about her judicial philosophy, a standard question during these confirmation hearings. Now, Judge Jackson has a marvelous legal education. She has vast practical experience because she was a public defender, a Federal district judge, a circuit court judge, and now will serve on the Supreme Court.

So when you ask a judge with that sort of pedigree, ``Tell us about the way you decide cases: What is your judicial philosophy?'' Well, it is not a trap or a trick question. It is something that every Supreme Court nominee has been asked to describe.

Most recently, Judge Barrett identified her judicial philosophy, describing herself as a ``textualist'' and an ``originalist.'' Now, those are awkward terms, but I think what that means is she believes in interpreting the law as written and as understood at the time it was written. That is what she refers to as a ``written Constitution.''

Judge Jackson previously suggested she didn't have a judicial philosophy at all--something I find impossible to believe with somebody with this sort of experience and background and incredibly impressive education.

During her confirmation hearing, she failed to provide much clarity beyond offering vague statements about her methodology. But her methodology is not a philosophy. We need a clear understanding of how Judge Jackson views judge-made law and the invisible--you might say ``unenumerated,'' in the words of President Biden--rights that she finds in the Constitution.

In order for me to fulfill my responsibility as a Member of the Senate to provide advice and consent, I need to know and understand how Judge Jackson interprets the law and the Constitution, not asking her to make specific commitments on results or outcomes. I would never do that because judges are supposed to interpret, apply the law to a case- by-case method. But after repeated questioning, the judge refused to answer that question.

The prism or philosophy through which a Supreme Court nominee views the law and interprets the Constitution is a critical indicator for determining if the judge will ``stay in her lane''--again, those were the terms that Judge Jackson used--or whether she will become a policymaker that President Biden and outside groups like Demand Justice want her to be.

Demand Justice is an advocacy group that advocates defunding the police and progressive solutions to society's problems. They don't want her calling balls and strikes; they want her putting her thumb on their side of the scale and judging in a results-oriented fashion.

As I reviewed Judge Jackson's record, I saw some examples of activism bleeding through her decisions. One of Judge Jackson's opinions from her time on the DC district court demonstrates the serious concerns that I have about her ability to follow the letter of the law as expressed by Congress as opposed to her personal preferences.

In the case Make the Road New York v. McAleenan, a progressive organization challenged the Trump administration's regulation of expedited removal proceedings for people who illegally enter our country without the appropriate paperwork. The Immigration and Nationality Act gives the Department of Homeland Security ``sole and unreviewable discretion'' to apply expedited removal proceedings. Expedited removal is actually a deterrent for illegal immigration because if migrants realize that without authorization they enter the country and they are going to be removed on an expedited basis, a whole lot of them won't spend the money and take the time on that dangerous journey from their home to our shores or to our border if they know they are not going to be successful. So this was not a minor matter. But the Immigration and Nationality Act doesn't leave any gray area for interpretation. Sole and unreviewable discretion is as clear as it comes.

Judge Jackson, who presided over this case, decidedly did not stay in her lane. She went beyond the unambiguous text to deliver a political win to a progressive group and, in the process, entered an injunction barring the use of this tool that is needed by our Border Patrol and immigration authorities in order to deter people from violating our immigration laws.

Unsurprisingly, her decision was appealed and ultimately overturned by the DC circuit court. I think this is a clear-cut example of Judge Jackson ignoring the law as written in order to achieve a result that she preferred.

The critical point to underscore is that as Members of Congress, we are elected and accountable. We can get elected, and we can get unelected when our constituents don't like what we are doing. But our authority comes from the electoral process, which is another way of saying the consent of the governed, as I mentioned, in the Declaration of Independence.

With each bill that is signed into law, we are interacting with the will of our constituents. And if they don't like what we are doing, you can bet we hear from them and certainly will in the next election, if not before.

But by ignoring these laws passed by Congress and signed by the President, Judge Jackson is doing more than just disregarding Congress; she is rejecting the right of the American people to govern themselves, to consent to the laws or withhold their consent.

If given a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, I have to wonder: How many other laws would Judge Jackson ignore? How many other precedents would she seek to overturn simply because she doesn't agree with them? How far would she go to achieve

a specific result by discovering unenumerated and, hence, invisible rights, whether it relates to immigration, abortion, religion, the Second Amendment, or anything else you might imagine that the Supreme Court might consider?

The separation of powers between the three coequal branches of government is a central feature of our constitutional democracy. Not only do we have three branches, we also have multiple levels of Federal, State, and local governments--a Federal system. That is because the Founders of this great country and the people who ratified the Constitution believed that the best way to protect their liberty was by enacting checks and balances on the authority of government because they didn't trust any person to stay in their lane. They wanted checks and balances to make sure there was a method of enforcing elected officials, including judges, to stay in their lane.

Sixth Circuit Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton recently wrote a book whose title sums up the overarching debate with a single, succinct question. Ultimately, this is a question of who decides. Do we the people decide? Do our elected representatives whom we delegate the authority to make decisions on our behalf, do they decide or do unelected, lifetime- tenured, unaccountable Federal judges--are they free to be roaming policymakers, enacting judge-made law, which actually contradicts or conflicts with the will of the American people, as evidenced by the laws passed by their elected representatives? When there is a conflict between the different levels or branches of government, who decides is how we determine who holds the power to make decisions that impact every citizen in this country. And as I said, all power, political and government authority, is derived from the people.

Voters select Senators, Congressmen, even the President of the United States, but they have no direct say in the process of selecting Supreme Court Justices. That is why our responsibility, part of the Constitution known as advice and consent--that is why our constitutional obligation is so important.

We have the responsibility to determine whether a nominee understands the important but limited role of Federal judges and can be expected to act with restraint, fairness, impartiality, and ultimately in the best interest of the American people.

Ultimately, I fear Judge Jackson has a blind spot when it comes to judge-made law, and she would use her seat on the Supreme Court to create new rights out of whole cloth and engage in result-oriented decision making.

For that reason, I will oppose Judge Jackson's confirmation to the Supreme Court of the United States.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to mark a moment in history for the First State, your neighboring State, to celebrate the first U.S. Navy vessel to be named after Delaware in more than 100 years.

In 2 days, I will be joined by the Secretary of the Navy, the First Lady of the United States, and what will feel like half of Delaware at the Port of Wilmington to commemorate the commissioning of the Virginia Class of nuclear submarine, the USS Delaware.

And while the vessel was first officially commissioned underwater and underway on a mission at sea due to the COVID restrictions on April 4, 2020--a first in Navy history--a first in Navy history--this weekend, we will get to give the USS Delaware, its crew, and the people of Delaware a fitting celebration above the surface of the water.

It has been a long time coming for the USS Delaware. So many people across Delaware and in the Navy have worked hard not just for weeks, not just for months, but for years to make this weekend a reality for our State and the crew.

I would be remiss not to mention my wingman in the U.S. Senate, Senator Chris Coons, and our wing-woman in the U.S. House of Representatives, Lisa Blunt Rochester, as well as our Governor John Carney for their long-standing support for the USS Delaware. They will be joining us on Saturday to celebrate.

You probably wouldn't be surprised to learn that SSN 791--that is the number assigned to the USS Delaware, is not the first Navy vessel to bear the name ``Delaware.''

The first USS Delaware was launched in 1776. Its role? Delaying the British Fleet's approach to Philadelphia and thus impeding the ability of the British to resupply their army in our War of Independence. That was the first USS Delaware.

The sixth USS Delaware was completed in April of 1910. Armed with ten 12-inch guns, it was the most powerful battleship in the world at the time. Over 100 years would pass before another US Naval vessel would bear the name ``Delaware.''

Then, one day in 2012, I came across a letter to the editor from a constituent in Delaware whose name is Steven Llanso. He wrote to the editor. He said: You know, it has been a long time since a ship was built and named after the State of Delaware. Maybe somebody should do something about it.

I thought about it for a while. I thought about it for a couple of weeks, actually. I pulled my staff together and said, ``Why don't we do something about this?'' And they said ``Let's do,'' and we did.

The next week, I was on the phone with then-Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, former Governor of Mississippi--us both being former Governors-- and a long-time friend, and he would go on to become the longest serving Secretary of the Navy in the history of our country.

I explained the situation to Secretary Mabus. He graciously heard me out and agreed 100 years was a long time. Before we hung up, he said to me, ``Let me think about it, Tom. I will get back to you in a couple of months.'' And true to his word, 3 months later, he gave me a call and said that over the next several years, the Navy would begin construction on not one, not two, but three, maybe four Virginia Class nuclear submarines, and the first one off the line would be named the USS Delaware.

Now, I was talking on a mobile phone, but if I had a landline--if I was talking with him through a landline, I could have reached through the landline and kissed him. I was so happy. And I didn't do that. But it was a wonderful moment, one that I relished in, and I certainly do today. He is a great friend, a great leader of the Navy then and a patriot, and he has done so many things for our country. So thank you, Ray.

So this weekend, almost a decade since I first spoke with then- Secretary Mabus, I will have the honor of finally introducing the newest USS Delaware to the people of Delaware. And there is a whole lot of it to take in.

The USS Delaware is a Virginia Class U.S. nuclear submarine. The Delaware will carry 26 MK-48 torpedoes, which enable it to conduct the sub's more traditional role of tracking and, if necessary, sinking enemy submarines, as well as a wide range of surface vessels.

The Delaware is also designed for versatile operations in shallow water, closer to land, performing reconnaissance activities, delivering Special Forces. It is also configured to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles which can be launched while the Delaware is on patrol. The Tomahawk can strike targets nearly 1,000 miles away with pinpoint-- pinpoint--accuracy.

This is one hell of a fighting machine. You know, they have a saying down in Texas you have probably heard. It says ``Don't mess with

Texas,'' and I would just add to that, to our adversaries, ``Don't mess with the USS Delaware because, if you do, we will eat your lunch. I promise.''

And, oh, yes. There are 136 crewmembers aboard the USS Delaware. They hail from 20 States across our country. Almost half of the States are represented in the crew of our sub. The crew also includes 15 officers and 121 enlisted men, a dozen or so who are chief petty officers. My dad was a chief petty officer for nearly 30 years, World War II and beyond. And he always told me when I was a midshipman, he used to say, ``Tom, the chiefs run the Navy.'' And you know, they did, and my guess is they still do.

But in addition to having an opportunity to introduce the crew of the USS Delaware to the people of Delaware this weekend, we will also have an opportunity to introduce Delaware to the crew of the State that they are representing.

With tongue in cheek, I like to describe Delaware as the 49th largest State in the Union, and it is comprised of three counties and 1 million people. We are about 100 miles from north to south and about 50 miles from east to west along our southern border with Maryland, the Presiding Officer's State.

Native Americans, including the Lenape Indians, lived in Delaware for hundreds of years before the Dutch arrived some 400 years ago and established Lewes, DE, the first town in the first State, located where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Delaware Bay.

A quick story: The Dutch were not all that kind to these Native Americans who lived in that greater area which is now Lewes. And the Native Americans literally wiped out the Dutch colony. Later on, the Dutch would come back in greater numbers, be more kind to the Native Americans, and the colony of Lewes grew and prospered.

The British looked askance at this and worried about the growth of this Dutch colony surrounded by British settlements and forces. One night, the Dutch went to bed to sleep in Lewes, DE, and the Brits burned the town to the ground. The next morning, when the Dutch surveyed what happened, there was one house still standing, the Ryves Holt House, believed to be maybe the oldest permanently standing house in North America. The Ryves Holt House is now a part of a national park.

Later on, in 1631, the first Swedes and Finns sailed by what would become the Port of Wilmington. Their sailing ships--the Kalmar Nyckel and the Fogel Grip--took a turn to the west for a couple miles on a smaller river that they named the Christina after Sweden's 12-year-old child queen. Along its banks, they established the colony of New Sweden, where Wilmington stands today. The church they built there is believed to be perhaps the longest continuously serving church in North America--Old Swedes church--and believe it or not, there are now more Swedish-Americans than there are Swedes in Sweden.

Fifty-one years later, William Penn would sail up the Delaware, past Wilmington, past the Port of Wilmington now, to what is called Penn's Landing, about 25 miles north of Wilmington, and carried with him the deeds from the King of England to what would later become the Colony of Pennsylvania and something called ``the Lower Three Counties.'' That would be us, Delaware. But the real Penn's Landing, ironically, was in what is now New Castle, DE--not Pennsylvania, but New Castle, DE.

And there is a legend. Legend has it that not only did he stop there, but he spent the night in Delaware. And later on, he was asked why did he stop in Delaware, and he said, ``Tax-free shopping.'' ``Tax-free shopping.''

A few hundred years later, up the Christina River, 10,000 shipbuilders, mostly women, would build many of the ships, including destroyer escorts and troop landing ships that enabled us to emerge victorious in World War II. And that is only part of the storied history that the USS Delaware joins today.

Throughout Delaware history, the letter ``C'' has figured prominently. Our first settlers planted corn--a lot of it. They raised chickens, a lot of them, and fed them corn. Our State bird is, believe it or not, the ``fightin''' blue hen. Today, there are nearly 300 chickens for every person who lives in the First State of Delaware. Later, we become known as the ``Chemical Capital of the World.'' Thank you, DuPont, for hundreds of amazing, amazing inventions. Delaware's coastline is not large, but the last I checked, it was home to the most five-star beaches than any other State coastline in America--and one of them is Rehoboth. And Rehoboth is a name that is translated to mean ``room for all.''

Not long ago, we built more cars in Delaware per capita than any other State. Not surprising is that they were Chryslers and Chevrolets.

And while we have no sales tax, Delaware is the home of incorporation of half the Fortune 500 and half the New York Stock Exchange. So corporations are important to us. While I don't know what credit card is in the wallet of most of the people on the floor today, there is a good chance it is issued by a bank with operations in Delaware.

Now, that is a lot of C's, but even our political leaders have gotten into the act with names like Carvel, former Governor; Castle, former Governor; Carney, current Governor; Coons, our senior Senator; and Carper, his wingman. And even though Joe Biden didn't start out as one of the C-boys, he was close, just off by one letter. Joe Biden has ended up, as you know, as our Nation's Commander-in-Chief. That is a lot of C's put together in a very nice way. Not bad for a scrappy kid from Scranton, PA.

By far, the greatest contribution that Delaware has made since the founding of our country occurred on December 7, 1787, when Delaware became the first State to ratify our Constitution. I like to say we are the first to ratify, followed shortly thereafter by Maryland, Pennsylvania, and others; but for 1 whole week, Delaware was the entire United States of America. We opened it up and let others in. And I think for the most part, it turned out pretty well, at least until now. But the Constitution that we ratified on December 7, 1787, would become the most enduring Constitution in the history of the world and by far the most replicated.

You know, none of us are perfect--certainly not me--and our Constitution was not perfect either; but over time, we have made it better, a lot better. Along with the Bill of Rights, it provides a framework, if you will, and a path that has made our country the envy of much of the rest of the world.

But at the end of the day, our Constitution and our Declaration of Independence are words on a piece of paper without the resolve made real by the commitment and sacrifice of men and women who wear and have worn the uniform of our country.

Let me end with this. I suspect that most of my colleagues remember studying the Constitution in school--maybe in grade school, maybe in middle school. I remember it. In fact, my sister and I had to learn and actually recite the Preamble in middle school. As you know, it begins with something like this:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more

perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic

Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the

general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to

ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this

Constitution of the United States of America.

The Preamble of our Constitution doesn't say ``in order to form a perfect Union''; it says ``a more perfect Union.'' Why is that? Because as citizens of our great country, it is up to each of us to do our part to ensure that the arc of American history bends toward perfection and justice, even knowing that we will probably never fully achieve it.

The men who serve and will serve aboard the USS Delaware will bear our State's namesake literally for decades to come, maybe a half- century or more, in defense of our Nation. The crewmembers are answering the call of our Nation written over 230 years ago. Through their sacrifice, through their service, may we grow even closer to that more perfect Union. We are--I know I am--grateful for their service today.

May God bless and protect the crew of the USS Delaware, both now and in the decades to come, and may each of us live our own lives in ways to ensure

that America remains a nation worthy of their sacrifice so that a government of the people, by the people, and for the people will not perish from this Earth.

USS Delaware, long may she sail.

And before I yield back my time, I guess we have been joined on the floor by our friend and colleague, John Cornyn from Texas. And Senator Cornyn, I think maybe before he arrived, I used the phrase--I acknowledged the phrase, ``Don't mess with Texas.'' ``Don't mess with Texas.'' And I went on to explain all the weapons systems that the USS Delaware has on board. It is a pretty amazing, incredible submarine. And I said: It is all right not to mess with Texas, but you better not mess--for our adversaries, you better not mess with Delaware, either.

With that, I yield the floor to my friend from Texas, Senator Cornyn.

Madam President, before I get underway with the business that brings me to the floor, I would like to take a moment to say farewell and thank you to a member of my staff who is going on to other pursuits. Her name is Leah Seigle. She is right behind me, and she was my scheduler for many, many years.

As every Senator knows, there is a special relationship between a Senator and a scheduler. They have to be on duty, more or less, 24/7 when we are up and about. They have to deal with our day-to-day life and how it integrates with our offices. They very often are close to and involved with our families, because of having to deal with keeping our family time extant and busy schedules.

So I want to say a word of appreciation to Leah.

I don't know how many speeches she has scheduled me here on the floor for--all the ``Scheme'' speeches, probably all of the ``Time to Wake Up'' speeches, and this one today. This one today she actually gets to be here for and doesn't have to watch on television.

So to Leah Seigle, thank you very much, and to schedulers everywhere, you are important to us.

Nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson

Madam President, the reason I am here is to announce my intention to vote for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and to congratulate her on the grace and dignity with which she withstood what Chairman Durbin called her ``trial by ordeal'' in the Judiciary Committee.

Last week, Judge Jackson set the gold standard for patience and courtesy from a Supreme Court nominee. She demonstrated, hour after hour after often-agonizing hour, in plain view the qualities that Rhode Islander and Reagan First Circuit appointee Judge Bruce Selya has praised in her, an outstanding legal mind, an exemplary judiciary temperament, and a depth of experience in the courtroom that none of the sitting Justices possesses.

Judge Jackson reminded us, through her personal story of perseverance and hope, how historic and important it is to have a Black woman about to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. That story of perseverance and hope stretches back beyond Judge Jackson's own life and work into the experience of Black women through American history, and it illuminates a brighter American future. So I will be proud to cast my vote for her confirmation.

During the Judiciary Committee hearing, there were persistent efforts to rewrite Judge Jackson's own history, to assign to her beliefs she has never espoused. She dispensed with those attempts so effectively that I won't dwell on them here. But there were other attempts in that hearing to rewrite history that I feel obliged to correct here today.

The first is the notion that a Justice must have a ``judicial philosophy.'' That is news to me. If a nominee has a judicial philosophy, it is definitely fair game. It is important to explore that, and it is particularly important to explore that because predisposition can come masked as judicial philosophy. But I don't see where a nominee has to have one, and I would actually suggest we are better off if judges don't, because judicial philosophy can so easily be code for predisposition.

Republicans persisted in that ``judicial philosophy'' quest, asking about ``judicial philosophy'' over 50 times. The favored theme appeared to be the so-called judicial philosophies of originalism and textualism, doctrines which illustrate my concern about predisposition.

The big, dark money donors who ushered the last three Justices onto the Supreme Court love the backward look of originalism. A backward look to an era when industry regulation did not exist because big industry did not exist. Moreover, Republican Justices completely ignore originalism when it suits them. As I pointed out in committee, the entire vast structure of corporate political power in America erected by Republican Justices over years is a continuing affront to originalism.

There was no corporate role in politics in the Constitution or the Philadelphia debates or the Federalist papers. Any of the customary wellsprings of originalism would say that this is a country to be run by we the people. But how happy--how happy--corporate political power makes big Republican donors. So originalism goes out the window, and corporate power gets baked into our system.

Unlike those judicial philosophies of predisposition and of convenience, Judge Jackson said her judicial philosophy is her methodology--``consistently appl[y]'' the ``same level of analytical rigor'' to a case ``no matter who or what is involved in the legal action.'' For a judge, following your oath of office, the constitutional precedents of the Court, and the text of the Constitution itself should suffice. You don't need a judicial philosophy.

So where did this Republican fascination with judicial philosophy come from? Here are talking points distributed by twinned rightwing, dark money influence groups, the so-called Independent Women's Law Center and the affiliated so-called Independent Women's Voice. These groups are tied in with Leonard Leo's massive, secretive $580 million- plus archipelago of front groups, like these, that make up the rightwing donors' Court-capture operation.

They sent these talking points to Republican Senators even before Judge Jackson was selected. These dark money groups noted that ``this nominee is likely to be a woman of color'' and urged the Republicans not argue, ``that the president's selection process led him to choose someone who may not be the best person for the job.''

They said:

It is . . . important that you focus not on the selection

process or on the nominee's paper qualifications, but rather

on the need to learn more about the nominee's judicial

philosophy.

The marching orders were clear, and 50 efforts at ``judicial philosophy'' discussion later, we saw these talking points play out in that hearing.

This rewrite of history, to presume that every nominee should have a judicial philosophy, just because rightwing nominees have a fake judicial philosophy of originalism that turns out to be sourced to rightwing dark money talking points, it seems to me to be an effort to erase the dangers of having a judicial philosophy, particularly a judicial philosophy that masks predisposition and is selectively applied.

Another rewrite of history came through the witness chosen to highlight Judge Jackson's amicus brief defending a 2000 Massachusetts law establishing buffer zones for protests around abortion clinics.

The witness was a sidewalk counselor, someone who encourages women not to go in and exercise their rights. She seemed like a very nice woman, and she testified that she acted with compassion and love. But history and

my experience don't align with that image of clinic protesters, as I recall personally.

Crowds outside of clinics in Rhode Island in those years leading up to the 2000 law were hostile and intimidating, screaming and accusing of murder, to the point where patients coming in required security escorts to protect them.

I remember pink sweatshirts that safety escorts wore outside Planned Parenthood so that patients could identify who was there to help them and then pass safely.

Activists went back and forth between Massachusetts and Rhode Island to protest outside of clinics.

On the morning of December 30, 1994, bad went to worse. A man walked into a pair of abortion clinics in Brookline, MA. At the first clinic, he shot and killed the receptionist with a modified semiautomatic rifle, then turned on others present--patients, their accompanying partners, staff. He left that clinic and traveled to the second clinic and there continued the slaughter. The man killed two people and wounded five others in this rampage, which shook New England to the core.

I was the U.S. attorney when word came out of these shootings at clinics just 1 hour up the road and that the shooter was still at large. I thought Rhode Island might very well be next. So I went and stood outside the Planned Parenthood clinic just off the highway with my friend and Federal law enforcement colleague U.S. Marshal Jack Leyden, and we stood there on that cold morning until a police cruiser could be posted outside.

I will just say that the environment that led to Massachusetts' buffer zone law passing in 2000 was not an atmosphere of compassion and love, and it is a disservice to the facts to try to rewrite history and pretend that it was.

Another rewrite of history that took place in this hearing was a rewrite of the Brett Kavanaugh hearings.

The Judiciary Committee had been provided evidence in those hearings that young Brett Kavanaugh was an out-of-control drinker with a bad history of behavior around women--most particularly the testimony of this woman that she had been physically assaulted as a young woman.

You would never know of her testimony from the history rewrite offered by Republicans in the recent hearings. You would never know that she came to the Judiciary Committee; that she testified under oath and intense public scrutiny; that she weathered the attentions of a professional prosecutor hired by the Republicans; that she was calm and credible.

And you would never know that the FBI tanked its supplemental background investigation into these allegations, including a tip line whose tips received zero FBI investigation. I have described it before as a tip dump, not a tip line.

The tips related to the nominee were segregated from the regular stream of tips in the FBI tip line and sent, without investigation, to the White House.

Republicans sought to erase all of that by rewriting Kavanaugh hearing history during this Supreme Court hearing. Well, she has a face and she has a name: Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.

And the big rewrite--the big rewrite is to ignore all the evidence that our Supreme Court is now a captured Court, captured in the same way that Agencies and Commissions are sometimes captured by big special interests.

There is a whole literature in administrative law, there is a whole literature in economics about Agency capture or regulatory capture.

Well, even before the Trump Presidency, big, powerful, rightwing donor interests began spending massive sums of money to install Justices on the Supreme Court whom they expected to rule reliably in their favor.

Very often, as the Presiding Officer knows, if you can pick the judges, you can pick the winner.

The 5-to-4 and now 6-to-3 Republican majority on the Court has been steadily delivering for those big donors; over 80--eight, zero--80 5- to-4 partisan wins for big corporate and partisan donor interests under Chief Justice Roberts.

In those 5-to-4 partisan decisions, by the way, where there was an identifiable Republican donor interest involved, it wasn't just the 80 decisions that stood out; it was the fact that the score was 80-to-0. Every single one went their way.

Dark money lurked behind the Federalist Society turnstile that picked the Justices. Dark money lurked behind the secretive Agency down the hall from the Federalist Society that ran the ads for them. Dark money lurks behind the flotillas of front group amici curiae that tell the Justices, in orchestrated chorus, how to rule.

You would never know any of this from our Republican friends in the committee.

But the American people have seen those decisions, and more and more they understand that the Court is rigged; that it is now the Court that dark money built.

Judge Jackson, by contrast, is a walking reminder of what the Court ought to be. She didn't pass through the dark money-funded turnstile at the Federalist Society. She arrived after a lifetime of accomplishment, against unimaginable odds, through a fair and honest selection process, through her merit and abilities.

The attacks on her in the committee were unseemly, but there is no need to dwell on that because at the end of the day, they were sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Judge Jackson will excel on the Supreme Court, and I will proudly cast my vote to put her there.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, Donald Trump relit the fuse that leads to an Iranian nuclear bomb by abandoning the Iran nuclear deal. Now Republicans are urging President Joe Biden to let it go boom.

President Barack Obama crafted the Iran nuclear deal in 2015 to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon. He had inherited two quagmires in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he was right to prioritize diplomacy to prevent us from falling into a third quagmire.

Donald Trump's unilateral exit from the Iranian deal in 2013 created a nuclear crisis where one did not exist. In the years since that withdrawal, Iran has crept closer to a bomb, restricted access to international inspectors, and set us on a potential collision course to war with Iran.

Our European allies wanted to build upon the Iran nuclear deal, but President Trump and his arms control assassin, John Bolton, used it as target practice, leaving the Biden administration and our allies to pick up the pieces.

On the Republicans' watch, Iran's breakout time, or time required to build enough nuclear material for its first nuclear bomb, went from more than 1 year down to just weeks.

There is simply no good alternative to reentering the Iran nuclear deal. Trump has already tried the alternative. It has failed miserably and made the United States more vulnerable and made the Middle East more vulnerable.

Then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo laid out a series of demands for Iran in 2018 that read more like a fantasy novel than a foreign policy speech. And where did it get us? Absolutely nowhere, except it got Iran closer to a nuclear weapon than it has ever been before.

No, the reality is that the alternative to diplomacy, our Plan B, is likely to include more sanctions which will lead to more enrichment of uranium and the prospect of another Middle East conflagration. In short, Plan B stands for ``Plan Bad.'' That is what is being urged by the Republican Party, by the Trump supporters. ``Plan Bad'' would endorse Trump's disastrous policy of ``maximum pressure,'' one that gave us maximum enrichment of uranium and other activities prohibited under the Iran nuclear deal.

Plan B means that China's reported work to give Saudi Arabia--Iran's nemesis--the building blocks for a nuclear weapon will only accelerate, and other Gulf countries will jump into the race for a nuclear bomb as well.

Plan B means that Iran's nuclear facilities that are above ground will go underground.

Plan B means that cameras and international inspectors that keep a continuous eye on Iran's facilities will be shuttered permanently, leaving us in the dark about Iran's nuclear intentions.

Under Trump, we saw ``maximum pressure'' generate ``maximum tension'' that put us on a perilous path to war. Trump's Plan B to diplomacy was and continues to be a complete failure.

Indeed, we saw this in 2019, when tensions rose to a decades-long high with the assassinations of Qasem Soleimani, followed by Iran's retaliatory strike that injured 200 U.S. troops at an Air Force base in Iraq. Never had we been closer to a war with Iran.

If the sides currently negotiating a new Iran deal are unable to get to yes on a deal, I fear that we will see increasing calls from my Republican colleagues to take military action against Iran. That is not a good option.

My Republican colleagues need to be honest with the war-weary American people that doubling down on the failed policies of the Trump era will likely lead Iran to retaliate by lobbing greater numbers of missiles at our troops or at the region's energy infrastructure. Iran will double down on these failed policies, and that may lead to Iran creating a sea wall to stop traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, creating more of a supply chain pain. And my colleagues need to be honest that doubling down on these policies risks adding to the number of Gold Star mothers who have lost children to unnecessary wars far from home. And, perhaps, most importantly, my colleagues should be honest with the American people that these failed policies have led Iran closer to a nuclear weapon--not further away from a nuclear weapon, closer to a nuclear weapon--day by day, week by week that we have followed the Trump plan.

These are life-and-death stakes. Doubling down on the failed policies of Trump and expecting a different result in Iran is truly the definition of insanity.

The Iran nuclear deal is not a panacea nor was it ever intended to be a panacea. What it is, is a verifiable agreement that cuts off each of Iran's three pathways to a nuclear bomb.

First, Iran will, again, have to cap its enrichment level and ship out its stock of enriched uranium that would otherwise be potential feedstock for a nuclear bomb.

Second, Iran will finish the conversion of its Arak reactor, which will close off its plutonium path to a nuclear bomb.

And, third, and most importantly, inspectors from the international watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, will once again get access to the soup to nuts of Iran's nuclear fuel cycle.

If we listen to the same voices who rejected a good deal in search of the impossible, who preached brinksmanship over diplomacy, we will find ourselves stuck, as we are today, with an Iran that could have the ultimate weapon to back its coercion--a nuclear bomb.

Fortunately, this screenplay does not have to end with American men and women marching off to another war in the Middle East, and it does not have to end with Iran entering the worst of exclusive clubs, those with nuclear weapons.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent nuclear saber rattling has brought home the stakes of nuclear diplomacy with Iran. A homicidal leader armed with weapons of annihilation is a threat to global peace.

When Putin ordered an increase in the alert level of Russia's nuclear forces a couple of weeks ago, he postponed U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile tests for fear that, in the fog of war, Russia could misinterpret an ICBM launch off the coast of California as a first nuclear strike against Russia. That also explains President Biden's reticence to impose a NATO-enforced no-fly zone over Ukraine.

Putin is failing. Ukraine and its people are winning, with our help. Every fabricated justification for Putin's senseless and illegal war has crumbled. But a direct U.S.-NATO military intervention would pull the world's two largest nuclear powers closer to a war. No simulation, no exercise, no war game can assure us that such a war does not metastasize to engulf all of Europe and lead to the use of nuclear weapons.

Mr. President, here is the scary reality: Vladimir Putin could kill millions upon millions of Americans right now using a fraction of his 4,500 nuclear weapons. That is the perennial threat of nuclear arms.

Conventional logic says that we are safe because a Russian nuclear strike would be both homicidal and suicidal for Putin, but we cannot bank on the fact that Putin, the pariah, has a moral basement. President George W. Bush famously said he looked into Vladimir Putin's eyes and he saw his soul. Thank goodness President Biden sees it for the dark space that it is.

As a result, Russia's war in Ukraine calls on us to challenge tired, old Cold War assumptions that basing our nuclear posture on the balance of terror and relying on the rationality of our leaders will keep the peace--no, it will not. That assumption has to be completely reanalyzed in view of what Putin is doing right now, that pursuing President Reagan's star wars fantasy to knock out nuclear-tipped missiles in space before they fall on American cities is wise; it is not. There is no guarantee that some of those nuclear weapons would not come and destroy American cities and that we should spend a quarter of a trillion dollars to replace the very same U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles that the President won't even test during a conflict due to fears of escalation; we should not.

Unfortunately, our American democracy and Russia's autocracy do share one major thing in common: Both our systems give the United States and Russian Presidents the God-like powers known as sole authority to end life on the planet as we know it by ordering a nuclear first strike.

As President Richard Nixon grimly described these powers once:

I can go into my office and pick up the telephone and in 25

minutes, 70 million people will be dead.

We know all too well that American Presidents are not infallible, neither is our early warning system, which is why we need an emergency break to ensure that a case of mistaken identity--a false missile launch--or a President gone wild does not trigger the unthinkable.

We cannot uninvent the atom, its military applications, and technological know-how. The nuclear Pandora's box is sadly forever opened. We must, however, do everything in our power to be able to look the next generation in the eye and say that we did everything-- everything--in our power to avert the unfathomable, a nuclear war on this planet; and that includes supporting negotiations that not only end Russia's war in Ukraine, but also future negotiations to end the budding 21st century nuclear arms race which is spinning out of control.

Mr. President, I was a teenager during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Had President Kennedy listened to his generals rather than to his better angels, we might not be here today. This building might not be here. ``Bert the Turtle'' public service advertisements told us to duck and cover under our school desks. Backpack nukes designed to repel the Soviet advance on West Germany rolled off the assembly lines. U.S. and Soviet leaders were awoken in the middle of the night to false alarms of nuclear Armageddon. These events must forever belong to our past, not to our future.

A future held together by the fear of annihilation is a burden, not an inspiration. But Congress can shape a safer more inspiring future by supporting President Biden's efforts to reenter a good Iran nuclear deal, and we can and we must hold ourselves to a higher standard than Russia when it comes to resting the fate of humanity in the hands of just one human being.

This is a subject that should command the attention of every single American. We have to move further away from the threat of a nuclear catastrophe, not get closer to it; and that is why we must support a reentry into a good Iran nuclear deal. The alternative is frightening for the future, not just of the Middle East, but for our country and the entire planet.

Mr. President, as the pandemic began, Congress, on a bipartisan basis, made sure our schools and our summer meal programs had easy-to-use flexibilities so they could continue to feed hungry children who were no longer physically in school or no longer able to go to a meal site in the summer because of COVID.

All across America now, because of a lot of hard work on a lot of people's part, our kids are now back in school, which is great. But 90 percent of our schools are still struggling to provide children healthy food as a result of higher food prices, less available staff, and more supply chain delays and shortages that we know about all the time. In fact, part of that relates to this bill which was just passed on shipping. This is part of the supply chain breakdown that has affected the ability for our schools to be able to get what they need for our children.

We have 90 percent--all this in red, across the country--of the States saying: We need these flexibilities that have been in place from the very beginning of COVID. We extended the flexibilities before, and they need them to continue to be able to feed children in our country. School cafeterias, summer meal providers--everybody is working as hard as they can to get back to normal, but they need time to transition so our children aren't hurt in the process. The USDA, school administrators, local mayors, even school food suppliers themselves have said they need these flexibilities to continue for another year.

Back in January, the Agricultural Secretary, Secretary Vilsack, called on Congress to once again extend what we call the nutrition waivers so that schools and meal providers had the flexibility they need to feed hungry children who may have their only meal at school or their only breakfast or their only lunch at school or, in the summer, through the feeding programs.

We have been working in good faith, as we always do, across the aisle to make this extension happens. We were working on having that happen as part of the omnibus. It was a real shock to me and to many of the Senators who care deeply about our children when Republican Leader McConnell refused to agree to extending the school nutrition flexibilities as part of the omnibus bill that we just passed, that we know was critically important to pass. We don't want the government to shut down. We had essential, critical resources for Ukraine and so many other issues. But our kids were left behind in this one, and it is not right. We need to fix it.

We are in a critical transition period right now, but we are not out of the pandemic yet. Without having these flexibilities extended, without this support, up to 30 million children who get their food, their only healthy meals at school will see their breakfast and lunch disrupted, and that makes absolutely no sense. Millions of kids will show up at their summer meal program this July and could very well see a ``closed'' sign.

That is why, today, Senator Lisa Murkowski and I are introducing the Support Kids Not Red Tape Act, along with Senator Collins and all 50 Members of our Democratic caucus.

Let me stress that this is a temporary extension with a clear end date and a lot of procedures put in place to safely get schools and summer meal programs back to normal operations. We want to give them time to transition.

I am so grateful for our colleagues' support--52 colleagues. We only need eight more. We only need eight more Republicans to join us to get this done right away, just like we did the shipping bill.

Our schools need time. Our kids need time right now rather than having this abruptly end June 30, which is not very far away. So let's be clear. To abruptly pull the lunch tray away from hungry kids at the end of June is just plain wrong.

Since the pandemic started in March 2020, food insecurity for families and their children has jumped by nearly two-thirds. We all know the stories. We have all seen the lines. People across the country are engaging to support each other. One in five kids comes to school hungry, and school and summer programs may be the only meal that they get. During the pandemic, it was even worse. Now, because of all the challenges continuing, we are not out of the woods on this yet in terms of feeding our children.

How have these flexibilities helped our children be able to get healthy meals? One example is in Rapid City, SD, where the local school district has partnered with Meals on Wheels in the summer to deliver meals to where the kids are. It makes sense. This has been a lifesaver for hungry children in their rural communities who had no way to get to the one school meal site that was miles and miles away.

In Arkansas, the food insecurity rate among children skyrocketed to over 32 percent during the pandemic, 32 percent of the children being food insecure, not being able to have a healthy meal.

Fayetteville and Bentonville schools' summer meals programs have provided weekly meal pack pickups with a week's worth of breakfast and lunch. So rather than a parent who is working trying to figure out, how do I get my child to a place to get a healthy breakfast, and by the way, I may have to take them back again for a healthy lunch--by the way, in the rural community, there is not a lot of public transportation. It certainly affects everyone in urban areas, suburban areas, and rural areas, but the distances in rural communities are an extra burden oftentimes. So they put together the capacity to do a week's worth. Those were the flexibilities we gave them that we want to continue.

In Edgecombe County, NC, resourceful schools found a way to get meals to 100 kids during the summer by using

the schoolbus. The schoolbus wasn't being used, so they put the food on a schoolbus and went out to the neighborhoods, out to the kids.

As a result of these flexibilities, twice as many kids got summer meals during the pandemic, which is something we also need to learn from. Just as we have learned the importance of high-speed internet after the pandemic, and we have addressed that, which is great, we have now learned that we need to rethink some of these things here, in terms of the flexibilities for our schools and how we deliver summer meals, how we address schools during the school year.

So it goes to show you what a big difference it makes for hungry kids when we don't make them or their families or their meal providers jump through all kinds of hoops to get something as basic as a healthy meal.

In schools across Kentucky, from smalltown Madison County to metropolis Jefferson County, these flexibilities have kept kids from getting caught in the redtape and going hungry if their struggling parent just missed one piece of paper on a form.

It has been a relief to school food service directors in small towns who are already working with half the staff, twice the stress of putting together healthy meals with all the food and supply chain shortages we have talked about.

Right now, school food service directors in Utah are placing orders for next year, knowing that many of the items they need are currently not available and the ones they can find have doubled in price.

The flexibilities and increased funding to deal with these costs--the things we have given them to deal with this--have made it possible to make substitutions when basic items like ground beef are not available or fruit is not available, to be able to put together something healthy in a different way.

Losing these flexibilities will cut their budgets by 40 percent and force meal providers to make pretty dire choices on which children to feed and how schools are going to pay for it.

Without our bill to support kids and cut redtape, all of these desperately needed flexibilities are going to go away at the end of June. They are just going to go away--all the support for schools, all the support for children, all the new creative things that have been able to be done to help children get healthy meals, done.

School meals, summer programs will have to scale back. Some will have to stop feeding kids altogether. Children will once again go hungry because of paperwork and bureaucracy outside of their control. I mean, you think about this: Are we on the side of bureaucracy or are we on the side of kids?

This legislation is on the side of kids. My colleagues supporting this bill and sponsoring this are on the side of kids, not redtape.

The unnecessary stress is going to be felt by families in every part of our country, from small towns to big cities, to suburban areas. So our bill gives us a clear, easy path forward to make sure children and to make sure schools have the time and the support they need to get back on their feet as we recover from the pandemic and to be able to plan for how this phases out. Schools across the country are telling us that these flexibilities are critical to continuing--absolutely critical.

So it is time for us to listen to them and to do the right thing for our children. I urge my colleagues to pass the Support Kids Not Red Tape Act as soon as possible.