Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005. As both a lawyer and a citizen, I am a strong believer in class actions as a way for ordinary people who have been wronged by a corporation to band together and seek justice. Some of our great advances in civil rights and consumer protections have come from these actions.

But there is overwhelming evidence that there are abuses in the class action system that should be addressed. When multimillion dollar settlements are handed down and all the victims get are coupons for a free product, justice is not being served. And when cases are tried in counties only because it's known that those judges will award big payoffs, you get quick settlements without ever finding out who's right and who's wrong.

Every American deserves their day in court. This bill, while not perfect, gives people that day while still providing the reasonable reforms necessary to safeguard against the most blatant abuses of the system. I also hope that the Federal judiciary takes seriously their expanded role in class action litigation, and upholds their responsibility to fairly certify class actions so that they may protect our civil and consumer rights. Senator Specter has pledged to work on these issues and address these serious concerns in the future, and I look forward to joining him so we can improve this law.

Mr. President, I speak today to recognize three gifted students from the State of Illinois: Alison Nichols, Brittany Saltiel, and Sara Siegal, all students at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, IL.

These three students created a National History Day project on the Mississippi Burning legal case. Alison, Brittany, and Sara's efforts to examine the circumstances of this case have led to not only a reopening of the case but also the overdue indictment of Edgar Ray Killen for the murder of three young civil rights activists: James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner.

As a former civil rights attorney and constitutional law lecturer, I know firsthand the importance of ensuring that justice and the principles of our Constitution are always upheld. I am proud to represent Alison, Brittany, and Sara in the Senate as they serve as a reminder of why all of us have committed our lives to public service.

These students have demonstrated their tremendous potential in scholarship and leadership in public affairs. They serve as shining examples for our Nation's young people of how a small group of committed individuals can truly change a community, nation, and the world. Alison, Brittany, and Sara deserve not only our congratulations; they deserve our gratitude for making this country stronger.

Mr. President, I rise to recognize the life and service of Mr. Warren V. Hileman, who passed away recently at the Illinois Veterans Home in Anna.

Last week, the Southern Illinoisan reported that the State believes Mr. Hileman was the last World War I veteran to have lived in Illinois.

He joined the U.S. Army in 1919, and served with the American Expeditionary Force in Siberia from September of 1919 to March 1920. Traveling thousands of miles across Siberia in temperatures that often reached 30 below, Mr. Hileman and the 27th infantry served long after the Armistice was signed in Europe.

In Posolskaya, their unit was involved in a hostile encounter that later won Mr. Hileman the World War I Victory Medal, which he was awarded in January of 2004.

After the war, he came home to Illinois where he worked in a North Chicago veterans hospital. Later, he and his wife moved back down south to Union County, where they spent the rest of their lives.

Warren was only 17 years old when he first landed in Vladivostok, Russia. Perhaps he was anxious about the war ahead of him; perhaps he already missed the home that lay behind. But above all, he was ready and eager to serve this country. At just 17, he was ready to make the ultimate sacrifice in the defense of freedom.

Today, we honor his service and remember a man who returned from war to live over a century on this Earth. Through more wars and depression, through great advances for civil rights and great struggles for freedom, Mr. Hileman was there--a patriot who had proudly written his own page in the story of 20th century America.

It is said that whether a life is long or short, its completeness depends on what it was lived for. And so, while Warren Hileman left us at the age of 103, the true completeness of his life comes from what he lived it for--for his friends, for his family, and for the defense of the country he loved. May his memory serve as a reminder for all of us to keep faith with our Nation's veterans, and may Warren Hileman rest in eternal peace.

Mr. President, a few days ago, the world watched as the seeds of democracy began to take root in Iraq. As a result of the sheer courage of the Iraqi people and the untold sacrifices of American soldiers, the success of the elections showed just how

far people will go to achieve self-government and rule of law.

As Americans, we can take enormous pride in the fact that this kind of courage has been inspired by our own struggle for freedom, by the tradition of democratic law secured by our forefathers and enshrined in our Constitution. It is a tradition that says all men are created equal under the law and that no one is above it.

That is why even within the executive branch there is an office dedicated to enforcing the law of the land and applying it to people and to Presidents alike.

In this sense, the Attorney General is not like the other Cabinet posts. Unlike the Secretary of State, who is the public face of the President's foreign policy, or the Secretary of Education, whose job it is to carry out the President's education policy, the Attorney General's job is not just to enforce the President's laws, it is to tell the President what the law is. The job is not simply to facilitate the President's power, it is to speak truth to that power as well.

The job is to protect and defend the laws of freedoms for which so many have sacrificed so much.

The President is not the Attorney General's client; the people are. And so the true test of an Attorney General nominee is whether that person is ready to put the Constitution of the people before the political agenda of the President. As such, I cannot approach this nomination for Attorney General the same way I approached that of Secretary of State Rice or Veterans Affairs Secretary Nicholson or any other Cabinet position. The standard is simply higher.

Like the previous speaker, Senator Dodd, I wanted to give Alberto Gonzales the benefit of the doubt when we began this process. His story is inspiring, especially for so many of us--like me--who shared in achieving the American dream. I have no question that as White House Counsel, he has served his President and his country to the best of his ability. But in my judgment, these positive qualities alone are not sufficient to warrant confirmation as the top law enforcement officer in the land.

I had hoped that during his hearings, Judge Gonzales would ease my concerns about some of the legal advice he gave to the President, and I had hoped he would prove that he has the ability to distance himself from his role as the President's lawyer so that he could perform his new role as the people's lawyer.

Unfortunately, rather than full explanations during these hearings, I heard equivocation. Rather than independence, I heard an unyielding insistence on protecting the President's prerogative.

I did not hear Judge Gonzales repudiate 2\1/2\ years of what appears to be official U.S. policy that has defined torture so narrowly that only organ failure and death would qualify, a policy that he himself appears to have helped develop and at least has condoned.

Imagine that, if the entire world accepted the definition contained in the Department of Justice memos, we can only imagine what atrocities might befall our American POWs. How in the world, without such basic constraints, would we feel about sending our sons and daughters off to war? How, if we are willing to rationalize torture through legalisms and semantics, can we claim to our children and the children of the world that America is different and represents a higher moral standard?

This policy is not just a moral failure, it is a violation of half a century of international law. Yet while Judge Gonzales's job was White House Counsel, he said nothing to that effect to the President of the United States. He did not show an ability to speak with responsible moral clarity then, and he has indicated that he still has no intention to speak such truths now.

During his recent testimony, he refused to refute a conclusion in the torture memo which stated that the President has the power to override our laws when acting as Commander in Chief. Think about this. The Nation's top law enforcement officer telling its most powerful citizen that if the situation warrants, the President can break the law from time to time.

The truth is, Mr. Gonzales has raised serious doubts about whether, given the choice between the Constitution and the President's political agenda, he would put our Constitution first. And that is why I simply cannot support his nomination for Attorney General.

I understand that Judge Gonzales will most likely be confirmed, and I look forward to working with him in that new role. But I also hope that once in office, he will take the lessons of this debate to heart.

Before serving in this distinguished body, I had the privilege of teaching law for 10 years at the University of Chicago. Among the brilliant minds to leave that institution for Government service was a former dean of the law school named Edward Levi, a man of impeccable integrity who was committed to the rule of law before politics.

Edward Levi was chosen by President Ford to serve as Attorney General in the wake of Watergate. The President courageously chose to appoint him not because Dean Levi was a yes man, not because he was a loyal political soldier, but so that he could restore the public's confidence in a badly damaged Justice Department, so that he could restore the public's trust and the ability of our leaders to follow the law.

While he has raised serious doubts about his ability to follow this example, Judge Gonzales can still choose to restore our trust. He can still choose to put the Constitution first. I hope for our country's sake that he will, and part of the reason I am speaking in this Chamber today is to suggest three steps that he can take upon assuming his role that would help restore that trust.

First, he can immediately repudiate the terror memos in question and ensure that the Department of Defense is not using any of its recommendations to craft interrogation policies.

Second, Judge Gonzales can restore the credibility of his former position as legal counsel by appointing an independent-minded, universally respected lawyer to the post.

And third, he can provide this Congress regular detailed reports on his efforts to live up to the President's stated zero tolerance policy with respect to torture.

Today we are engaged in a deadly global struggle for those who would intimidate, torture, and murder people for exercising the most basic freedoms. If we are to win this struggle and spread those freedoms, we must keep our own moral compass pointed in a true direction. The Attorney General is one figure charged with doing this, but to do it well, he must demonstrate a higher loyalty than just to the President. He must demonstrate a loyalty to the ideals that inspire a nation and, hopefully, the world.

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, I did not anticipate speaking today, but the importance of this issue is enough for me to address this body.

During the election, I had the occasion of meeting a woman who had supported me in my campaign. She decided to come to shake my hand and take a photograph. She is a wonderful woman. She was not asking for anything. I was very grateful that she took time to come by. It was an unexceptional moment except for the fact that she was born in 1894. Her name is Marguerite Lewis, an African-American woman who had been born in Louisiana, born in the shadow of slavery, born at a time when lynchings were commonplace, born at a time when African Americans and women could not vote. Yet, over the course of decades she had participated in broadening our democracy and ensuring that, in fact, at some point, if not herself, then her children, her grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren would be in a position in which they could, too, call themselves citizens of the United States and make certain that this Government works not just on behalf of the mighty and the powerful but also on behalf of people like her.

So the fact that she voted and her vote was counted in this election was of supreme importance to her and it is the memory of talking to her and shaking her hand that causes me to rise on this occasion.

I am absolutely convinced that the President of the United States, George Bush, won this election. I also believe he got more votes in Ohio. As has already been said by some of the speakers in this body, this is not an issue in which we are challenging the outcome of the election. It is important for us to separate the issue of the election outcome with the election process.

I was not in this body 4 years ago, but what I observed as a voter and as a citizen of Illinois 4 years ago was troubling evidence of the fact that not every vote was being counted. It is unfortunate that 4 years later we continue to see circumstances in which people who believe they have the right to vote, who show up at the polls, still continue to confront the sort of problems that have been documented as taking place not just in Ohio but places all across the country.

I strongly urge that this Chamber, as well as the House of Representatives, take it upon itself once and for all to reform this system.

There is no reason, at a time when we have enormous battles taking place ideologically all across the globe, at a time when we try to make certain we encourage democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places throughout the world, that we have the legitimacy of our elections challenged--rightly or wrongly--by people who are not certain as to whether our processes are fair and just.

This is something we can fix. We have experts on both sides of the aisle who know how to fix it. What we have lacked is the political will.

I strongly urge that, in a circumstance in which too many voters have stood in long lines for hours, in which too many voters have cast votes on machines that jam or malfunction or suck the votes without a trace, in which too many voters try to register to vote only to discover that their names don't appear on the roles or that partisan political interests and those that serve them have worked hard to throw up every barrier to recognize them as lawful, in which too many voters will know that there are different elections for different parts of the country and that these differences turn shamefully on differences of wealth or of race, in which too many voters have to contend with State officials, servants of the public, who put partisan or personal political interests ahead of the public in administering our elections--in such circumstances, we have an obligation to fix the problem.

I have to add this is not a problem unique to this election, and it is not a partisan problem. Keep in mind, I come from Cook County, from Chicago, in which there is a long record of these kinds of problems taking place and disadvantaging Republicans as well as Democrats. So I ask that all of us rise up and use this occasion to amend this problem.