Floor Statements

Would the Senator yield through the Chair for a colloquy?

First I wish to say how proud I am to listen to the Senator's words, to have him on the committee I am so honored to chair.

To learn today that the Senator made over 50----

Fifty-six presentations on the floor of the Senate, regardless of the hour, regardless of his other pressing needs, the Senator is making the record that we must act to prevent the worst and most catastrophic occurrences from climate change.

I wish to ask of the Senator a few questions because we have gone through a lot of these battles in the committee, and I think it is time that people knew what happened. I am going to see if we can put something in the Record.

The Senator pointed out putting a price on carbons as the way we need to move. The Senator also pointed out that many countries outside of the United States support it. Would the Senator please tell us, because he has mentioned this before, who are some of the leaders of the Republican Party?

True.

The point I am making is the Senator points out one very prominent Republican, but there are many more. I remember when I started out in politics, I was a county supervisor. The environment was the one issue--one or two, the other one was a woman's right to choose. Those two issues were so bipartisan that we all came together. When we ran for county supervisor, we didn't have a label. We ran just as an independent person. But everyone backed the constitutionally protected right to choose and everyone backed cleaning up the environment.

So the Senator has described what has happened and he has used some very colorful language from time to time, but I thought one of the things he recently said--and I want to make sure I quote it right--is that it is like this Capitol is surrounded by the lies of the polluters and we can't get the truth into this Chamber.

The Senator actually says it better.

Right. The dilemma we face is the window to act is closing in on us. The Senator showed some extraordinary photos. One is up there now. We see that already climate change is creating climate refugees.

There was a movie done called ``Climate Refugees,'' and it went out to the island nations of the world that many people never even knew existed. The folks there, because of the sea level change and the change in the weather and the fact that they can't grow the crops they used to and they can't rely on water, et cetera, have to be leaving their homes they have lived in for generations.

What the Senator is saying is so sad and shocking. It looks to me as though he is having that in his own State.

Senator Whitehouse raises the name of John Chafee and Lincoln Chafee. I was friendly with both of those Chafees, John being my chairman, a role model for me. I literally learned from him. Not only was he a leader on the environment, he was a leader on so many other issues: sensible gun laws--sensible gun laws.

Something has happened to the Grand Old Party. Somebody once said maybe they are the formerly Grand Old Party. But I have hope they will return and be the Grand Old Party, because I was here when we had leadership on the other side for a climate bill. We fell just a few votes short. If we hadn't had a filibuster, we would have nailed it.

Putting a price on carbon is the only way to go, and my colleague makes the case because there is a cost. What is the cost? We see it. This is the cost. Yet those who are putting this dangerous pollution in the air don't pay anything for it. As a matter of fact, they get subsidies still.

The Senator and I sometimes talk offline here, and we say we are very calm when we speak here because we know we have to have a sense of decorum, but inside a lot of us are churning, because we love our children and we love our grandchildren and we love this Nation and we want to be leaders and we want our Nation to lead. Yet we are having a terrible time. We have a situation where 97 percent of scientists say climate change is happening and we know exactly why. It is human behavior.

Our friend Angus King gave a remarkable presentation to the caucus the other day, making the point that Senator Whitehouse made, which is that this isn't conjecture, this is science. This is measurement. You measure it. You see it. You know what is happening. This isn't like when you are hit with a tragedy and you don't want to look at it; you lose somebody and you are in denial about it. We understand that, how the human mind would do that. But this is science, and it is very difficult.

I wanted to ask a couple more questions. I am truly enjoying this colloquy. It reminds me of the old days when this used to happen more in the Senate.

My friend mentioned the President's Climate Action Plan, and he talked a little bit about it yesterday. He said some very good important things about it. But I want to know if my friend is aware there has already been filed by the minority leader here, the Republican leader, a CRA--that is the Congressional Review Act--to overturn a rule that would in fact put in place some very important pollution controls on new powerplants.

Does my friend, A, know he has filed this? Does my friend also know the rule isn't even finalized, yet the Republican leader has filed this? What does the Senator make of that?

Absolutely. I think the other point the Senator made is tying this all to Citizens United and the fact that these polluters are only focused on this: They do not want competition. Let us be clear. These multinationals do not want competition. The fact is they see solar on the horizon, wind, geothermal, clean energy. They even see natural gas, which has, if it is done right, half of the carbon pollution, and they are holding on through this ride of the century. They will not work with us. It is more than sad.

But I will say this in closing my remarks tonight. We have a new energy, if you will, in this body. We have more than 20 percent of this Senate that has formed together in our action task force that Senator Whitehouse and I are heading. We are going to take action. We are going to be heard. We are going to wake the Congress, which is what has to happen.

I want to say to my friend how much it means to me--someone who felt pretty much isolated on these issues for a while--and how important it is that even though my colleague said--and I quote him--you were sick of coming down and speaking, I hope you will not get sick of it. I hope you will not get tired of it. I will predict, and the Senator knows I am right, a lot of us are going to be joining him pretty soon. So not only will my colleague's voice be heard but many other voices will be heard and that will echo around this Nation.

There are so many issues we have to deal with. Lord knows, we so agree with the President on strengthening the middle class. We so agree that we need to confront the challenges of deficits and jobs and education and health care. By the way, from my State, that is going gang busters--the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare. We are signing up thousands of people a day. It is moving the country forward. But with all these issues we have to deal with, we have to save the planet. We have to save the planet.

I do have another question for my friend. Some of our colleagues say: Oh, you see this freezing cold and all the snow, this proves there is no climate change. There is no global warming. It is freezing. Of course, the scientists I talk to are telling me they predicted extreme weather. That is what they predicted.

Look at what happened in poor Atlanta today, where there is this schoolbus that has been sitting out on the road, somebody said, from 4 yesterday until 8 this morning. These people are stuck because of an unexpected icy snowfall. Here is the thing. It is called a vortex. The reason it happens, as explained to me by the scientists--and one of them just came onto the floor now--is that the jet stream has changed so much because of the warming in the Arctic so that instead of holding up that cold air in the Arctic, the cold air is turning around and coming back down, and we haven't seen that in a while.

So you can't just say it is cold today, there is no climate change. If there is extreme weather--and we have it in California. We have a drought we have never, ever, ever seen. I went through the one in the 1970s. I remember that, where we used the water in the tub to flush the toilets and we tried to recycle the water from our dishwashers and washing machines. But we have a worse situation, and it was predicted.

So I wish to ask my friend, because he has done so much reading, is it not true this extreme weather was predicted in the U.N. reports and in many other reports?

It is so because it was 7 years ago when I took the panel. I think it was 7 years ago that I took the gavel--I don't even remember; time goes so fast when you are having fun--I took that gavel and the first thing we did is we had a hearing on climate.

By the way, I urge my colleague, you should see--we put together a Green Book of all of my colleagues' statements--how many Republicans were with us then. Olympia Snowe had a great piece in there. John McCain had a great piece in there. Judd Gregg had a great piece.

John Warner had a great piece in there, and others. It made me so proud.

At that hearing we had all these experts talk about the fact that, over time, temperatures would go up. But in between, as you say, it is not a matter of the weather that day, but it is the pattern over time and what happens over time. You have these extremes but over time the warmth kicks in. We are seeing it happening. The American people are smart. They get it.

We are just not going to let up. As calm as we sound now, that belies what we feel inside and the obligation that we have to act. I guess this is as good a time as any to tell the American people they will see more of us, and more colleagues will work on this.

I thank Senator Reid because Senator Reid has elevated this issue in our caucus, devoting more time to this issue. He cares about this. He is a wonderful family man with a lot of grandchildren. He wants to give them what so many of us have had--the beauty of this country, the livability of this country. There will be more of this to follow.

I ask my colleague if he wants to close, and I yield to him.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I appreciate the fact that Senator Grassley has given us his view of how the Senate ought to work. When the Senator says more deliberative and knowing how many filibusters have been supported on that side, that is what it says to me. As someone who didn't want to change the filibuster rules because I thought maybe we would come to some agreement, and we wouldn't be facing historic numbers of filibusters, let me say what the majority leader did was the right thing. It was the right thing.

I have been in Washington a long time. I came to the House in 1983. The Senate worked well. It isn't working well.

What the majority leader said is how can we have a President, be he or she Republican or Democratic, how can we have that President function without a team in place, a team, their team. One person can't run a country; they need a team. One Senator can't run our offices; we need a team.

My God, what if we were told that we couldn't put our team together unless we had a vote that wasn't a majority vote, it had to be a supermajority? We would never get anything done. We would be running in circles. It would be very difficult.

It sounds to me as if my friend wants to go back to the bad old days where we would have all of these nominees objected to, stalled. It took 154 days to get the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

My view, having been here, loved this institution, loved my work, and enjoyed my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, the Senate has changed because the parties have moved so far apart. Let's call it what it is. In my eyes Republicans have moved so far to the right that, unlike years ago when I came, it is very difficult to get anything done legislatively.

That is why today is one of those bright, rare moments. My hat is off to Senator Mikulski, Senator Shelby, and their House counterparts. We actually got something done. Half of the Republicans joined all of the Democrats to pass an Omnibus appropriations bill. This is a good thing for America. No side got everything it wanted, we know that. Do you know what the American people received? They got compromise, they got security, and they got stability. In the near future we are not going to have shutdowns, shouting matches, and debates through the night on whether we should have a government.

We need more legislating such as this. That is why I so look forward to getting the Water Resources Development Act done. This is so important to so many of our States. We need to do flood control. We need to do adaptation. We need to make sure there is recreation on our wetlands and so on. We need dredging in our ports. Those are the economic engines of our Nation.

We have a bill we passed. Over in the House they have a bill. We are now in the middle of trying to conference the differences, and I am very hopeful we are going to get it done. Senator Vitter and I are working together to get it done. It is a little slower than we would like in terms of progress, but I am convinced we are going to have a bill before this body. We need to take care of the people's business.

Guess what. The President of the United States has a right to get his team in place. It is as simple as it is.

The people know it. I go home and the people say: Hooray, thank God you people are doing something. You are getting people confirmed.

Then we have the courts. We have courts where the judgeships are vacant. Justice delayed is justice denied. We need those judges in their places. The Senator from Iowa, I remember, made a big, eloquent speech about how we wanted to ``pack'' the courts. Anyone who knows anything about history knows pack the courts means wanting to add more judges and put your people in it. It doesn't mean filling vacancies. I think he got off that. But that was something to listen to.

We need to take care of the people's business and not play politics depending on who is in the White House. Unemployment insurance was a perfect example of this.

Under George W. Bush, between putting in place the unemployment insurance and extending it, we did it five times, no offsets. Now all of a sudden the Republicans--people are struggling. I am stunned that we couldn't come together and extend unemployment insurance for the 1.5 million people right

now and the 250,000 Californians included in that 1.5 million who have run out of hope.

The Republicans said: Pay for it, even though the deficit has been cut in half. They have suddenly noticed the deficit. After George Bush it was $1.4 trillion. They put two wars on the credit card, and they put a huge tax cut for millionaires on the credit card. Oh, no problem. Now they have discovered the deficit even though it has been cut in half by this President. Oh, we have to pay for it.

OK, we said, we have to pay for it, we will pay for it. We gave them an offset that we took out of Paul Ryan's budget. It wasn't good enough for them. Then they said: We want amendments. We have to have amendments, just give us some amendments. I will give you some unemployment insurance for these struggling people.

Then Harry Reid: Twenty amendments, OK; 5 a side and 5 side-by-sides, 20 amendments.

Oh, no, that wasn't good enough.

It is childish. People are struggling. They are deciding whether they can put heat on in their house. They are wondering whether they can pay the rent, whether they are going to lose their homes, whether they are going to have to beg other family members for their help. This is outrageous. Outrageous.

Income inequality is outrageous.

Does the Presiding Officer know that 400 families are worth more in wealth than 150 million Americans? Let me say that again: Four hundred families in America are worth more than half the United States of America. And when there were tax cuts for those people, I never heard one word from one Republican about a pay-for. The deficit soared. They all voted to go to war. No problem. But we want to help these families who are desperate--middle-class families, people who have paid into the workers unemployment insurance fund, people who are looking for work because they can't get that extended unemployment unless they can prove that--and no. Nobody is home over there.

I appreciate that some of my colleagues made a speech about poverty. Great. How about doing something about it? How about doing something about it, and not just speechifying? Where are they in raising the minimum wage? I don't know, maybe they will come with us. I don't see it. I really don't see it. I hope so. I pray so. I do. So far, I don't see it.

In the last Presidential election of 2012, the Republican leader said his top priority was defeating President Obama. That is what the Republican leader said--not working for the people of this country, not passing legislation to make their life better, not moving forward and making sure the air we breathe is clean, the water we drink is safe, not making sure our kids have a good education and workers get job training--no. Top priority: Defeating President Obama. President Obama won; so why don't you wake up and smell the roses and understand we need to work together. You have to accept reality.

Look. I have had my candidates in the past win and lose. I have been here through tough elections. We lost the Senate, then we won the Senate. We lost the House, then we won the House. We won the Presidency, then we lost it. Guess what. I had to understand that when it comes to legislating, we put that aside. We fight hard during an election, but once it is over you don't carry that over. You work together.

But too many on the other side are politically motivated. All they want to do is hurt our President, day in and day out criticizing him endlessly, not working with him. He has offered that olive branch over and over, whether it is on economic recovery, jobs, health care, the environment, income inequality--even foreign policy--day after day.

Here is the thing you never hear from the other side, so I am going to talk about it tonight. When President Obama took office, the economy was losing over 700,000 jobs a month. Now we have added 8 million private-sector jobs in the past 45 months. How does that compare to George W. Bush? After 8 years in office, President Bush's record was that we lost 665,000 private-sector jobs. So far we have added 8 million private-sector jobs in the past 45 months.

When President Obama took office--we remember those days, frightening days with the stock market collapsing. Now the stock market has gone up 10,000 points. That is unbelievable. The GDP--gross domestic product-- was contracting at a rate of 8.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 as we said goodbye to George W. Bush. Now we just learned that the GDP grew by 4.1 percent in the third quarter. Is this President satisfied? Are we? No. But have we turned it around? Yes. Does the President ever get one ounce of credit for any of this? No. No.

How about looking at our deficit. Let's look at that, something the Republicans claim is a very central part of it. This is it--a $1.4 trillion deficit down now to 680, going down to 560, and falling at the fastest rate in many, many years, just as health care costs are not rising the way they used to. Do you think we would hear one word about it from the other side? No. No.

Even on foreign policy, even on foreign policy, politics used to stop at the water's edge. Senator Grassley has a historic perspective. I do too. Politics used to stop at the water's edge when it came to foreign policy. No more. No more.

But you would never know the deficit has been cut in half, and you would never know that 8 million private-sector jobs have been created if you listen to my friends on the other side because they can't give any credit to President Obama. But history will. History will.

The last thing I am going to talk about is health care. I listened to my colleague Senator Cruz go after this President and the Democrats on health care. So let us look at a few things.

First fact: Even though we had a horrible roll-out of the health care site--not in California but the Federal site, healthcare.gov--and a couple of States had a horrible roll-out, let's put that aside. This is what we know.

There are more now, but I didn't have a chance to make a new chart. We are getting to 10 million Americans, but over 9 million Americans have new, secure health insurance; 3 million young adults have stayed on their parents insurance policies; 3.9 million are on Medicaid; and there are 2.1 million exchange plans, the private plans.

Let me show this another way on the private plans--the 2.1 million. Now we think it is more. It is a little bit more. Here we are. Very, very tough roll-out. Nothing worked. Now it is working, and it is spiking, and it is only going to get better.

But you wouldn't know that because Senator Cruz keeps saying over and over: What have the Democrats in the Senate done to protect the people from ObamaCare? I have to protect the people from him because if he had his way, he would repeal ObamaCare. I ask you: What is going to happen to those young people if Senator Cruz has his way and we repeal ObamaCare? What happens to the 3 million young adults? They are back on their own. They have no insurance. They are back at the emergency room. What happens to those on expanded Medicaid? Forget it. What happens to the exchanges? They would be gone.

So while Senator Cruz says we have done nothing to protect the people, the opposite is true. We stand in support of the people--the people's right to get affordable health care. Do we have the perfect answer on every front? No. Do we have to make corrections? Of course.

We had a meeting with the President yesterday. He is reaching out his hand to the Republicans and Democrats. If we can fix this in any way and make it work better, we will.

Let's look at some of our other charts as far as what our Republican colleagues want to do when they say repeal ObamaCare. I am telling you, 400,000 Californians have enrolled, and now it is 500,000. It is 500,000 Californians who have enrolled in an exchange plan through-- coveredCA.com. This is working in my State. It is working.

I am not going to allow Senator Cruz to take the benefits away from my people who are writing me letters--and I have some of them here, and I will read a little bit of those stories.

John Nunnemacher is a 43-year-old freelance graphic artist from San Jose, and the last time he had health insurance was 15 years ago, when his employer paid for coverage. But as of January 1, John is covered by a plan he can finally afford. This is what he told the San Jose Mercury News:

I hoped this day would come. I worried that it wouldn't.

And I'm very glad that it finally has.

So he is happy, and I am not going to let Senator Cruz take away his insurance. Let's be clear. Let's be clear. He waited for a long time, and I am not going back. We can't go back to those days when there was no insurance for our young people. We can't go back to the days when being a woman was a preexisting condition, and you got charged double that of a man. We can't go back to the days where kids were thrown off their parents' policies. We just can't go back.

Amy Torregrossa, 27, is from San Francisco. She had been without insurance since July, when coverage through her partner's company ended because he changed jobs. She has a congenital heart defect and a history of high blood pressure. She no longer runs because she says ``if I twist my ankle or get hit by a car . . . any doctor visit is so expensive.''

She signed up on Covered California for a silver plan costing $310 a month. She made sure her cardiologist was in the insurer's network and plans to schedule a checkup for early this year.

Amy, I am not going to let anyone take this away from you. I am not.

Michelle Strong, 57, is a self-employed product designer. For many years she could not afford any insurance at all because of a false- positive--a false positive--test for lupus, which incorrectly flagged her as having a preexisting condition. For the past 15 years she could only afford catastrophic insurance. Now, thanks to a tax credit, she will pay $55 a month, with no deductible, and a $3 copay. Here is what she said:

It just blows my mind that I can get health insurance at

this price. I can finally afford checkups, tests, and age-

related visits.

Michelle, I am not going to let anyone take your insurance away from you. You deserve it.

Elaine Post, 64, from West Hills, CA. She told CNN:

When I first got laid off, I tried to get private insurance

through the big companies. They all rejected me . . . wanted

to charge me really, really high premiums for not very good

insurance.

Now Elaine has coverage through a bronze plan through Covered California that costs $461 a month.

Elaine, you are going to keep your insurance and we are going to protect you.

Judith Silverstein, 49, is a Californian who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2007. Her family helps her pay the $750 monthly cost of her existing plan--which she only had because of Federal law requiring that insurers who provide employer-based insurance continue to offer coverage if the employer goes out of business, as hers did; otherwise, she would be uninsured because of her MS. ``I researched the options,'' she says. ``Nobody's going to sell you insurance in the individual market if you have MS.'' But next year she will get a subsidy that will get her a silver level plan for $50 a month.

Last summer Ellen Holzman and Meredith Vezina, a married couple in San Diego County, got kicked off their long-term Kaiser health plan, for which they had been paying more than $1,300 a month. When they applied for a plan with a new insurer, they couldn't get coverage because Ellen disclosed that she might have carpal tunnel syndrome. Through Covered California, they found a plan through Sharp Healthcare that will cover them both with a subsidy for a total premium of $142 a month. Holzman says, ``If not for the Affordable Care Act, our ability to get insurance would be very limited, if we could get it at all.''

Jason Noble, 44, who has his own property management firm in Southern California, found a gold plan that will cover his wife and their three children for a little less than $1,300 a month. That is slightly more than they would be paying this year for the plan they had in 2013, but the benefits are much greater, including pediatric dental coverage. Their family deductible will fall from $3,400 to zero. Last year, the family had a health scare that ran them $1,800 in out-of-pocket expenses, but next year, a similar event would cost them nothing. ``It's definitely a good deal,'' Noble says.

Barbara Neff of Santa Monica, who had been stuck in a bad plan because of a preexisting condition, said she is relieved that under Obamacare, she will get life-saving preventive care at no cost. Neff said, ``I have been paying for my mammograms out of pocket, and that's $400 to $450 per year,'' Neff says. ``That type of care is 100 percent covered under this new policy.''

Rakesh Rikhi of San Jose, CA, paid $950 a month last year to insure himself, his wife and two children with Kaiser. Through Covered California, he will be able to get a similar Kaiser plan that saves his family $400 a month.

Tim Wilsbach, a 40-year-old TV editor who lives in Culver City with his family, had been paying for a bare bones policy with an $11,000 deductible for himself and his 4-year-old son, and another policy with a $5,000 deductible for his wife. Wilsbach checked out his options on the Covered California website, and was pleased to find a plan for the whole family that offers broader coverage, a much lower $4,000 deductible and a more affordable monthly premium. ``Our premium went down, not quite 100 bucks, and just looking through what the plan covers versus what used to be covered, yeah, I'm quite happy about it,'' Wilsbach said.

Allan Pacela, from Santa Maria, CA, is a retired engineer on Medicare. His wife was insured through Cigna, under a group plan offered by her husband's engineers' society, and because of preexisting conditions, could not leave the plan even though premiums had gone up to $20,000 per year, because no other plan would take her. This year, her insurer canceled her entire plan, leaving her with no insurance. ``So we turned to Obamacare,'' Allan told his local paper. ``She found it simple and easy to sign up through an agent in a 10-minute phone call. She obtained their best plan, providing much, much better coverage than in the past. . . . My wife would not have insurance coverage at all as of January 1, if not for Obamacare. And, here's the kicker--we now are saving $8,000 per year, for a very much better plan.''

Megan Foster, from Kern County, CA, said, ``My mom is finally able to get health insurance after being denied for so long because of her Crohn's disease and epilepsy, and it's for an affordable price. She works full time but her job doesn't offer benefits and she can't work without her medicine. It's not a perfect solution, but I am happy that my mom doesn't have to choose any more between medicine or groceries.''

Lori Greenstein Bremner is a cancer survivor, a single mother and a self-employed real estate agent in Sonoma, CA. Before the Affordable Care Act, she struggled to obtain and afford health insurance because of her pre-existing condition. Now Lori says, ``In January, for the first time since my diagnosis 36 years ago, I will have an individual health plan that offers quality coverage for me and my family. I will save $628 every month on premiums. Best of all--I wasn't even asked if I've ever had cancer.''

Mr. President, I just want to say that when you listen to the naysayers and the bad news bears and everyone who comes here and starts criticizing, you should get to the bottom of it. Look at this 9 million number, headed toward 10 million, and understand what is happening in our Nation. People are getting health coverage.

Here is the deal. The way we did it, ObamaCare, is just like it was in Massachusetts when Governor Romney put it through. That is where the ideas came from. We did not do another plan. We did that type of plan, and it is working in Massachusetts where I believe 95 percent of the people are covered.

Now, I will close with a couple of other protections that are in effect, so that you can see why, when Ted Cruz and my other Republican colleagues and friends come to the floor who want to repeal ObamaCare, I'm saying: No way. You want to work with us to make it better? Absolutely. But I am not going to let my constituents lose their insurance. You want to tell your constituents they can lose their insurance, that is your business, but don't mess with California.

Look here: Already in effect, 3 million young adults insured through their parents' plans; 71 million Americans are getting free preventive care, such as checkups and birth control and immunizations.

You want to take that away from Texans, be my guest. You are not going to do it because we are not going to let you do it.

Health reforms in effect: 17 million kids with preexisting conditions, such as asthma and diabetes, cannot be denied coverage. Insurers cannot cancel

your health insurance because you get sick. No lifetime limits on coverage. No annual limits on coverage.

You can't deny coverage or charge more for preexisting conditions. You can't charge women more than men. You can't put annual limits on a plan.

Women. Women. Two-thirds of women are on the minimum wage. Two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women. So if you don't support raising the minimum wage, you are taking on the women, and that is a fact. They are not students. They are not youngsters.

Look. Women now can get contraception so they can plan their families. Well-women visits, STD screening, breastfeeding support, domestic violence screening, gestational diabetes screening, HIV screening, HPV testing, this is all happening because of ObamaCare.

So I say to anyone within the sound of my voice--if I haven't put you to sleep--when anyone gets on the floor and starts complaining about ObamaCare and wanting to repeal it, just say to them: Why do you want to hurt the people of this country who have waited so long to get health insurance, who have suffered so much, who have gone bankrupt because somebody had the misfortune of getting cancer? Why do you want to go back to those days? That is not good for America. Just because it was President Obama who signed the bill?

The Affordable Care Act is now called ObamaCare. What a wonderful thing for this President. Anyone who stands and says they want to take away these benefits is hurting the American people and I am going to collect these stories and I am going to come to the floor and read them. This is about real people getting secure insurance for the first time in their lives, and it is affordable. No one is going to turn back the clock. We can't go back to those days.

So we have to deal with making this health care bill work the best it can. We have to work on income inequality. We have to come back and still work for unemployment insurance extension for the 1.5 million Americans who desperately need help. We have to work on making sure there is a bright future for our families.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring the life of Jose Montoya, a husband, father, professor, activist, artist, and poet. Jose Montoya passed away on September 25, 2013. He was 81 years old.

Jose Montoya was born in Escobosa, NM and grew up in the farm towns of California's Central Valley. He served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War before earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the California College of the Arts and a Master of Fine Arts from California State University, Sacramento.

Cognizant of the plight of farm workers because of his own experience picking grapes as a boy in the fields of Delano and Fowler, Jose Montoya became an advocate for the rights of farmworkers. In 1969, Mr. Montoya co-founded the Rebel Chicano Art Front--later known as the Royal Chicano Air Force--a highly influential collaboration of artists who worked alongside Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta to generate public awareness of the struggles of migrant farmworkers.

Mr. Montoya also touched the lives of thousands of students during his 27-year tenure as a professor of art, photography, and education at California State University, Sacramento, where he created the Barrio Art Program. Designed to provide students with hands-on experience working with communities in the arts, this program continues to serve as a model for arts-based service learning programs at

other universities. In addition to his contributions as an artist, activist, and educator, Montoya was an accomplished poet who was selected as the city of Sacramento's Poet Laureate in 2002.

Jose Montoya's legacy was eloquently summarized by his son Richard in an op-ed written for The Sacramento Bee: ``Jose Montoya was a cultural front liner and first responder. A doer. A creator who brought levity, defiance and satirical wit to the bloody fields of the San Joaquin as well as to the frigid halls of academe, all the way to the State Capitol and beyond.''

He is survived by his wife, Juanita Jue, along with eight children, 19 grandchildren and one great-granddaughter. My heart goes out to his family and loved ones, and my thoughts and prayers are with them. We are indebted to him for his dedication to social justice and his immeasurable contributions to the community and our society.

I think it is wonderful to hear the Republican Senator Mr. Moran talk about job creation. It is really music to my ears, especially when he talks about addressing the importance of immigration, which clearly needs to be addressed and is clearly a job- creation issue. That is why I have been hoping Speaker Boehner would take up the Senate's immigration bill, which is comprehensive; and, as President Obama said, if you can't do that, bring up a series of bills and let's get moving.

Believe me, I have seen every report there is, and Senator Moran is right--immigration reform is necessary for us. It is an economic issue. It would be an economic boon to our country in terms of jobs and GDP.

I also think it very important that we not turn our backs on an American value we have had in this country since the 1950s in which Republicans and Democrats in the Congress and Republicans and Democrats in the White House have agreed that when there is a great recession and people are out of work, they need to have unemployment compensation, which is an insurance program to keep them from falling apart. This is an American value.

We talk about bipartisanship, but sometimes we just can't seem to get there. I have looked back, and since the 1950s, two-thirds of the time we passed an extension of unemployment compensation--many times to help people the Chair has worked so hard to represent, the mine workers and others who were hit with hard times, we did so in a bipartisan way--and two-thirds of the time with no pay-for. Since 1958, two-thirds of the time we extended it with no pay-for.

Under George W. Bush we extended unemployment compensation--the extended unemployment compensation paid for by the Federal Government-- three times with no pay-for because it was an emergency. And we did it even though in those days deficits were raging.

Here we have cut the deficit in half, and we don't like that. We want to cut it more. I want to see it balanced. But

we surely should do what we just tried to do, which is to extend unemployment compensation for a long period of time with a pay-for-- that is what we tried to do--or for a short period of time without a pay-for and help people keep their lives together.

We have had this American value since the 1950s. Yet, for the first time I can tell, we had one party--with the exception of one person-- vote lockstep against extending unemployment compensation to hard- working Americans who are looking for work every week, every day. And I have their stories, which I am going to put in the Record. They have turned their backs on 1.5 million Americans--in my State, 250,000 people.

Now, here is the thing--and I don't like to come and make these speeches, but the facts speak for themselves. Leader Reid, the majority leader, just offered a very important deal in broad daylight to the Republicans. And I am going to make a parliamentary inquiry, if I might, Mr. President.

Here it is. Is it true that Majority Leader Reid offered the Republicans five related amendments to the unemployment compensation bill, those amendments to be of their own choosing? Is that correct?

Is it further true that he offered Democrats five related amendments of their own choosing?

Is it further correct that he also said each side could offer an additional five amendments as side-by-sides, if they wanted to, of their own choosing? Is that correct?

Is it also true that he offered time agreements of 1 hour per amendment and then to be followed by passage of the bill?

OK. The reason I wanted to put this in the record in a simple way is because sometimes when we have the back-and-forth and the ``I object'' and ``reserving the right to object,'' people lose track of exactly what happened.

We offered the Republicans everything they said they wanted. They wanted amendments. They were offered amendments of their own choosing. Up to 20 amendments could have been voted on under the agreement. They said they wanted pay-fors. We gave them a pay-for that actually came out of Paul Ryan's budget, a structural change that would have paid for 10\1/2\ months of unemployment benefits. The Republicans just can't say yes. They demanded amendments. We gave them amendments. They demanded pay-fors. We gave them pay-fors.

I believe something else is going on, and I have to say what I think is going on. They do not want to extend unemployment compensation to the long-term unemployed. That is a dramatic change that is occurring in the culture of this country, in the compassion of this country, in the consensus in this country, in the values of this country. We are talking about 1.5 million Americans--250,000 Californians. I am frankly stunned.

I know Senator Mikulski is here, and I so much want to hear from her, so I will skip some of the other history about how it has been over the years and how we have done this where we have come together, Republicans and Democrats. We have extended unemployment compensation benefits more times under Republican Presidents than under Democratic Presidents, and Democrats didn't stand there and say: Gee, there is a Republican in the White House. Maybe this will help him look good or maybe this will add two-tenths of 1 percent to the GDP. Maybe we better say no.

No. We said yes because we are a party that believes people need to keep hearth and home together.

The long-term unemployment rate is twice as high as it was at any other time when these extended benefits were allowed to expire. There are almost three unemployed people for every job opening nationwide.

I am going to close with a few little stories from my constituents because one has to hear the voices of people. In this Senate, we should be representing the middle class and the working poor of this country. We should be fighting for them because, guess what, everyone else benefits. The billionaires and millionaires are doing fine. They do better when we have a strong middle class.

The Presiding Officer is a fighter for economic justice, and I know this statistic is something the Senator has probably used many times. But the fact is that 450 families are worth more than 150 million Americans. I can guarantee you, those 450 families are just fine and their children and their grandchildren and their children's children's children. And good for them. Fine. But what about the people who are now cut off at the knees because they are not getting $300 a week to live? Here is one of them. One woman wrote to me:

I am 58 years old and am receiving unemployment benefits

for the first time in my life. I am currently receiving my

first federal extension.

Which, by the way, she has now been cut off from.

I was laid off because the non-profit I was working for

lost a major portion of its state funding.

Getting unemployment benefits is not preventing me from

looking for work. In fact, people getting extended

unemployment benefits are required to prove that they're

looking for work. I spend hours every week filling out

applications and posting my resume without results.

And then she says to me:

Tell me, how am I, and thousands like me supposed to pay

rent and eat? I agree that Washington should ``focus on job

creation'' but that should be in addition to, not instead of,

extending benefits. I beg you, please extend unemployment

benefits.

Then there is Kaitlyn Smith of Twentynine Palms. She lost her benefit when the Federal extension expired. A Marine Corps veteran and the mother of two, Smith says: Work is hard to come by. They can't move because her husband, a vet of the Afghanistan-Iraq wars, must remain near the combat center until he is discharged in July.

Listen to this:

I have to keep the house at 55 degrees even though I have

two little girls, ages 2\1/2\ and 1\1/2\.

That is what she told the L.A. Times in December.

How do my Republican friends--except for the one who voted with us at the end of the day--look themselves in the mirror and think about this courageous woman whose family put their life on the line for the country and who is freezing in their home, because they are playing parliamentary games on process?

Last, Cindy Snow of Beaumont:

Why are they using us as pawns? They're playing games with

people's lives.

Referring to politicians in Washington. That appeared in Bloomberg News.

Laura Walker, a 63-year-old paralegal, has been looking for

work since January, when she was laid off from a California

law firm. She counted on $450 a week in federal unemployment

benefits for help that have now run out.

``Not all of us have savings and a lot of us have to take

care of family because of what happened in the economy,''

said Walker, of Santa Clarita, who said she has applied for a

least three jobs a week and shares an apartment with her

unemployed son, his wife and two children. ``It's going to

put my family and me out on the streets.''

That is from the Bloomberg News of December 30, 2013

Cindy Snow, of Beaumont, CA, lost her job as a social

worker in April when the San Bernardino school system

terminated the child-care program where she worked. Her

husband, employed in the construction industry, has been

without a job since 2009. They have been relying on

assistance from the California Housing Finance Agency to

cover a $1,424-a-month payment on their home.

When she loses her unemployment benefits, she said, the

family will no longer qualify for the housing assistance.

``Why are they using us as pawns? They're playing games with

people's lives,'' Snow said, referring to politicians in

Washington.

This is also from Bloomberg News of December 30, 2013

Ethelyn Holmes, a software engineer who lives in Mission

Hills, is one of 18,720 San Diego County residents about to

lose the weekly payments. Holmes said her $450 weekly

unemployment payment goes to food, dental insurance and other

living necessities.

Holmes, in her 40s, said she's tried zealously to find

work. She's joined the Project Management Institute of San

Diego, volunteered, attended meetings, cold called and

written letters. Now, she said she'd like to find a

retraining program to help her become more marketable. ``. .

. I have not been sitting here watching soap operas,'' she

said. ``I would go to work tomorrow, or today. I really am

tired of this.''

That is from the San Diego Union-Tribune dated December 28, 2013.

Steven Swanson of Madera Ranchos, CA, worked for 33 years

in wholesale, mostly in beverage sales, before losing his job

in 2011. Since then, he estimates that he's submitted resumes

for more than 500 positions and in the last six months filled

out more than 200 job applications--all to no avail.

``I want a job, I want to work,'' said Swanson whose

daughter and son-in-law live with him and pay rent to help

him keep up the mortgage on the house he owns. ``As a

taxpayer, I paid into the system for a lot of years. For them

to just shut it off and say, `These people need to get weaned

off and get a job'--well, yeah, I need to get a job. But for

them to suggest that I just go get welfare or go get food

stamps--that's why I'm frustrated with the Republican Party.

They just don't get it.''

That is from the Fresno Bee of January 2, 2014.

In addition to helping people get by while they look for jobs, extending unemployment insurance will help the economy.

A new study by the Council of Economic Advisers and the U.S. Department of Labor estimates that extending unemployment insurance will prevent the loss of 240,000 jobs in 2014, including 46,441 in California.

CBO has said that another year-long extension would add two-tenths of a percent to our GDP.

CBO has found that when unemployment is high, extending unemployment insurance is one of the most cost-effective ways to grow the economy and create jobs.

This will help us reduce our deficit in the long term. Already, our annual deficit has been cut in half. For 2009, when President Obama took office, it was $1.4 trillion. For 2013 it was $680 billion, and for 2014 the forecast is only $560 billion.

We are making progress, and extending unemployment benefits will help us grow our GDP and reduce our deficit even more.

So I say to my colleagues, the answer is obvious. Stop blocking this bill. It will save jobs, grow the economy, and provide help to our families while they get on their feet.

There are a lot of games played around here, and sometimes it is time to call the bluff of the people who are playing cruel games. Leader Reid called the bluff of my friends on the other side. He said: You want amendments? You got them. You want to pay for this extension? We have done it. What did they do? They walked away. And who is suffering? People like the people I just told you about, ordinary folks who want nothing more than to get a decent job, who are caught in a situation where we are recovering from the worst recession since the Great Depression. And this is what we give them, a bunch of gobbledygook about: I wanted more of my amendments so I can be proud and offer amendments.

There is a time and a place for filibusters, even though they do far too many. There is a time and a place to argue about process. This is not the time. This is not the place. This is wrong. I applaud Leader Reid for his leadership. I applaud Jack Reed for his leadership.

Before Senator Mikulski takes the microphone, I wish to thank her publicly. What a hard job she had to sit down and negotiate an appropriations bill, an omnibus bill which covers everything we do. It was so hard. But she did it in the right spirit of bipartisanship. So did her colleague, whom she dealt with and had to deal with, Congressman Rogers. As a result, we are going to do something good here and give stability to the American people.

Why can't that same spirit of cooperation take over when we have offered the Republicans everything they wanted in order to get them to vote for unemployment compensation? I am distressed about it, and we will keep fighting on this issue.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object.

Mr. President, talk about fiddling while Rome burns. If you are one of the 1.3 million people in this country, 222,000 in my State, whose house is burning down because they are going to lose the safety net of $300 a week to feed their family, to take care of their kids, to heat their homes, and my colleague talks about letters? I will tell you about a letter I got from a woman who sets her thermostat at 55 degrees and she has a 2-year-old and a 1-year-old, and all they do on that side is complain that their amendments, they are so important-- 24 of them. They know they are all partisan.

We are trying to work on a bipartisan solution. Somebody explain to me why the Republicans never objected to extending unemployment so many times when George W. Bush was President. Not a one. It was fine.

So do we make economic policy by who is in the White House or by the needs of our people?

This idea of going after children is one of the worst ideas I have ever heard, and I am shocked. I am shocked. You are going to hurt children. You are going to take food out of their mouths. It is outrageous. If there are abuses, I say to my friend, put those people in jail.

If there were one corrupt Senator--and there could be and there might be and there was in the past--and every one of us got painted with that brush, which is what the Senator did in her speech, is to taint every poor child who happens to benefit from that credit. Let us not go down that partisan route. Let us support our leader and let us work through the weekend to come up with a plan. I think the majority leader has one.

I object.

Mr. President, I was unable to attend the roll call vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the nomination of Robert Wilkins to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the D.C. Circuit. Had I been present for this vote and the two related procedural votes, I would have voted aye.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

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

Mr. President, I am so pleased that six Republicans--six out of all the Republicans--joined with us--every Democrat present--to reach that magic 60 votes we needed to proceed to consider the unemployment compensation bill.

I think it is so important to recognize that Federal unemployment programs have been extended no less than 28 times since 1958--15 times under Republican Presidents and 13 times under Democratic Presidents. So this is nothing new--this is nothing new--and the fact that it has been made such a big deal is incomprehensible given the circumstances of us recovering from the greatest recession since the Great Depression, with a very special number, a very large number. The fact is we have a long-term unemployment rate that is very high, way higher than normal.

The fact is, since we have extended Federal unemployment benefits so many times it should not be a problem, it is shocking it is a problem. In November 2008, unemployment insurance was extended with bipartisan support without an offset, which seems to be the excuse the Republicans have for not voting with us.

What is very interesting about that is these are the same Republicans who voted to go to war twice and put those wars on the credit card-- never paid for them. These are the same Republicans who voted for tax cuts to billionaires and multimillionaires and never paid for it. Yet still, when it comes to the middle class, oh, they cannot possibly extend unemployment benefits without paying for it. If anyone knows anything about economics, they should know that when we are trying to stimulate jobs and stimulate the economy--not depress jobs and lose jobs--we do not contract spending.

We have already dealt with deficits, and we continue to deal with deficits. I want to show the progress we have made under President Obama. This is something we never hear from the Republicans. They would make us feel deficits are raging, as they were under George W. Bush.

When President Obama took over, he inherited a $1.4 trillion deficit from George Bush. George Bush inherited surpluses from Bill Clinton. It took him--and I am exaggerating--15 minutes to change it: two wars on a credit card, no problem, no offsets; tax cuts to billionaires, no problem, no offsets--and the deficits soared to $1.4 trillion.

When President Obama came in, he not only had to deal with raging deficits, he had to deal with the worst recession since the Great Depression, and all we hear from the Republican side is: This President did not do enough here, did not do enough there. Nothing is enough.

We are now in a situation where this deficit has been cut in half-- cut in half--down to $560 billion, and we want to see it disappear, just as we did when Bill Clinton was President and the Democrats passed a budget that balanced and set in motion a surplus, which was destroyed when George W. Bush was President. Let's be clear on the history. There are facts. There are stubborn things. They are real. These are the facts.

Now we come to a place where we want to extend long-term unemployment benefits for those who got deeply hurt in this great recession, and we hear that we have to offset it, which goes against the economic experts who say it is important that we stimulate this economy and keep these jobs rolling.

Remember, in the President George W. Bush recession, we had a similar extended benefit. It was not offset. It was extended twice in 2003 with strong bipartisan support and no offset. So why is it when a Republican is President the Republicans say: OK, let's help the unemployed without an offset, without spending cuts. But when a Democrat is President, oh no, we could not do it?

Honestly, it just is so political on its face. Democrats have been consistent. Whether a Republican is President or a Democrat is President, we want to help the middle class. We want to help the unemployed. That is the difference between the parties. I say God bless those six Republicans who joined with us today so we can do our job and help the long-term unemployed.

The long-term unemployment rate is 2.6 percent--the long-term unemployment rate, twice as high as it was at any other time that these extended unemployment benefits were allowed to expire. Let me say that again, how urgent this is. The long-term unemployment rate--that means people who have been out of work for a long time, 6 months or more, is 2.6 percent, twice as high as it was at any other time in our history where we have extended unemployment benefits.

There are almost three unemployed people for every job opening nationwide. Let me repeat. There are almost three unemployed people for every job opening nationwide. We need to understand, while some of our Republican colleagues are blaming the unemployed and saying it is a disservice to give them unemployment compensation, that these folks are actively looking for jobs. That is part of the deal.

First of all, this is insurance. Second of all, they are looking for work. Third of all, they are stuck in the situation where it is not their fault. A Christmas present was given by the Republicans to the 1.3 million unemployed. That Christmas present was: Sorry, you are not getting your unemployment benefits. We left here without being able to deal with it.

But today we have a chance, a chance to do the right thing. In California, my State alone, there are 222,000 people who have lost their extended unemployment benefits. An additional 1.9 million people are projected to lose their benefits over the next 6 months if unemployment insurance is not extended.

What are these grandiose amounts of money that people get when they are long-term unemployed: $300 a week, on average--$300 a week, on average. So for our colleagues to say that people want to be purposefully unemployed to collect $300 a week, could I tell you, try living on $300 a week. If you are lucky, you can keep a roof over your head but you have to be pretty lucky. If you are lucky, you can get maybe a little bit of nutrition. That $300 a week is a lifeline. They can put some groceries on the table, pay their rent, and cover the expenses they have in looking for a job.

This keeps American families afloat at a critical time. I want to give you a few stories from my home State of the real face of long-term unemployment and why we have to vote to extend these benefits. One woman wrote:

I am 58 years old and am receiving unemployment benefits

for the first time in my life. I am currently receiving my

first federal extension. I was laid off because the non-

profit I was working for lost a major portion of its state

funding.

Getting unemployment benefits is not preventing me from

looking for work. In fact, people getting extended

unemployment benefits are required to prove they're looking

for work. I spend hours every week filling out applications

and posting my resume without result.

Tell me, how am I, and thousands like me supposed to pay my

rent and eat? I agree that Washington should ``focus on job

creation'' but that should be in addition to, not instead of,

extending benefits. I beg you,--

She writes to me--

Please extend unemployment benefits. Thank you.

Another Californian wrote from Los Angeles:

After working 27 years for one employer, the bad economy

finally led to my layoff and my first time ever on

unemployment.

Remember, this person worked 27 years for one employer.

I was told that because of the bad economy, I would get up

to 63 weeks with the Federal Extension. Now I'm being told

without further action from Congress and the President, my

benefits end at the end of the year even though that leaves

me 3 months short. After paying into the system for 32 years,

this is the only time I have ever asked for anything back and

this is how I'm treated.

There are other stories. Kaitlyn of Twentynine Palms, 24 years old, lost her $450-a-week benefit when the Federal extension expired. She is a Marine Corps veteran, the mother of two young kids. She has been searching for work. The family cannot move because her husband, a veteran of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars must remain near the combat center until he is discharged from the Marines.

The loss of her benefits will cut deeply into the couple's income. Smith said, ``The family is already skimping on basics, including heat.''

Including heat.

``I have to keep the house at 55 degrees even though I have two little girls, ages 2\1/2\ and 1\1/2\.''

Keeping the house at 55 degrees. That is a story which appeared in the Los Angeles Times on New Year's Eve.

Laura Walker, a 63-year-old paralegal has been looking for work since January when she was laid off from a California law firm. She counted on her benefits that have now run out.

Not all of us have savings and a lot of us have to take

care of family because of what happened in the economy, said

Walker, of Santa Clarita, who said she has applied for at

least three jobs a week and shares an apartment with her

unemployed son, his wife and two children. It's going to put

my family and me out on the streets.

That appeared in Bloomberg News on December 31.

We have a story of a software engineer who lives in San Diego County. She is one of 18,000 San Diego County residents to lose their payments. She says her $450 weekly unemployment payment goes to food, dental insurance, and other living necessities. She has tried zealously to find work. She has volunteered. She has attended meetings. She has cold called. She has written letters. She has joined the Project Management Institute of San Diego. She said:

I haven't been sitting here watching soap operas. I would

go to work tomorrow, or today. I really am tired of this.

That story appeared in the San Diego Tribune. I ask unanimous consent that several additional stories be printed in the Record.

So here you have the facts. I will just recap them. We have a situation where the long-term unemployment rate--those looking for work and out of work for more than 6 months is higher than it has ever been, 2.6 percent.

We have a situation where we are coming out of the worst recession since the Great Depression. Even though President Obama has done an amazing job on job creation, creating 8 million private sector jobs in his time--8 million private sector jobs under President Obama. We lost more than 600 million private sector jobs by the end of 8 years under George W. Bush. But we still have a problem. How many private sector jobs were lost in the recession? More than 8 million. So we need to restore those jobs.

So this is not the time--when you go for a job and there are three applicants for one job--to tell people they are cut off from unemployment.

Here is the issue. In a State that has a really good economy with a very low unemployment rate, less than about 5 percent, the full extension does not go forward. It only goes forward to States that have a high unemployment rate. So it is targeted. It is not going to States where there is a boom going on or a really strong economy. It goes to States that have a tough unemployment rate, and have all these people coming for one job opening.

In some States it is five to one. Remember, the average is almost three to one, three people for every job. In some States they are doing better. Maybe there is just two people for every job. But there are three nationally. In some States it is way higher. So we are just saying at this particular point in time: Let's extend this for a 3- month period. Do it without offsets, because when you offset you cut something else and you constrict the economy at a time when you should be expanding it. Two-thirds of the time we have never paid for unemployment extensions. Under George W. Bush, who started the current program, we never did--at least in the beginning we did not.

We care about jobs in this country. Everybody does. If we extend unemployment insurance, we would prevent the loss of 240,000 jobs. You say: Why? That is because when folks get their checks, what do they do with it? They go down to the store, and they spend it buying food for their families. They do not hold back. They pay their rent. The landlord gets that check and spends that check. So it is an immediate boon to the economy and an immediate fact that we can definitely prove that jobs are not lost because economic activity in those communities goes down.

We are talking, in my State, of 46,000 jobs that will be lost if we do not correct this problem. The Congressional Budget Office has said another year-long extension, if we do this and do it for a year--this particular bill is only a few months extension--if we did it for a year, we would add two-tenths of 1 percent to our gross domestic product.

Extending unemployment insurance is one of the most cost effective ways to grow the economy and create jobs. In the end, that reduces the deficit. So all of this talk to cut this and cut that to pay for this, it is counterproductive because you will pull back on gross domestic product growth, and there will be less revenue coming into the government.

So I do not see how this extension of unemployment is anything but a win-win. It is an obvious win-win. If you took the politics out of it, you would do the right thing, Republicans, because you have done it in the past. When Republicans were President, you did it without an offset. You did not hold up a bill. You passed it. You stimulated the economy. You create more jobs. The deficit then goes down even faster than it is going down. Look at how it is coming down.

There is no reason why we have to cut something that then depresses spending over here, while doing unemployment over here. It does not make sense. I was an economics major a long time ago. So I am not saying that I am up to date on the latest theories. But one thing we know makes sense: When you are trying to create jobs, when you are trying to get out of a recession, you do not turn to austerity, especially since we have wrapped our arms around this deficit. It has been hard to do. But who would have thought we could have done it. We did it.

So we do not have to say now that, while we give an unemployment extension on the one hand, we are going to cut something on the other hand and lose those jobs over there. It does not make sense. Then you put those people on unemployment. It really does not make sense.

Would I vote to give a little higher tax rate to the billionaires? I just watched a documentary called ``Park Avenue.'' This is what they said. I have not fact-checked it, so we have to fact check this. But this is what the documentary said: Approximately 400 or 500 families are worth more than 150 million Americans--net worth. That is what they said. We are going to fact-check it this afternoon. If I am wrong, I will correct the Record.

That is what the movie said: 450, 500 families have more net worth than half the population of America.

That is the income inequality.

So would I pay for this by putting a little tax on the billionaires? Oh, yes, I would. But I don't wish to start cutting programs: education, housing, health care, whatever they come up with, which then means people would be laid off.

We can do this. We are not afraid to cut spending. We are not afraid to reduce the deficit. We did it under Bill Clinton. We got a surplus, and we are doing it under Barack Obama.

I defy any Republican to show me how this shapes up in a bad way with the Bush record, which was taking surpluses that George Bush inherited and turning it into massive deficits and literally no job creation. It was 1.1 million jobs created, compared to cutting

the deficit in half after President Barack Obama inherited the worst recession since the Great Depression, creating 8 million new jobs in the private sector alone and reducing the deficit by half.

We know what we are doing, despite what they say, and it is OK, because at the end of the day the facts are the facts. I didn't make up this chart. This is a chart that comes from the Congressional Budget Office. These are their numbers.

The stories I have told and that I have put in the Record are poignant. There are people out there who are at their wit's end holding their lives together, keeping their homes at 55 degrees when they have little children in them, not knowing if they can pay the rent, not knowing if they can go to the grocery store, not knowing if they will be homeless, not knowing what the future holds.

The least we can do, the least we can do in this Chamber is stand and fight for them.

What are we here for anyway? Are we here for the Koch brothers? I hope not. The billionaires are doing just fine. This country is a great country. It is a great country because everyone can dream to go to the top. But if we lose the middle class and we are not there with the safety net when they fall, we will lose everything and this country will not resemble the America I grew up in and that I knew. I had nothing and my husband had nothing. He lost his father when he was only a young boy. His mother was a school crossing guard and raised three boys.

In this country, my husband went to college, to law school, and started his own law firm, his own small business. That is what America is.

But when we were in trouble when we were young, we knew we had the hope and the dream. It was real. It wasn't unreachable. It was reachable because there was a safety net, and part of that safety net is unemployment insurance. Part of that safety net is extending it for the long-term unemployed.

I am going to close with a couple of facts about health care because I am so tired of the ``bad news bears'' coming out here every day whining about ObamaCare. I wish to tell everyone some of the good news about health care because we don't hear it enough.

Across this country, over 2.1 million Americans have enrolled through the exchanges in private health insurance--2.1. It is pretty amazing, and I wish to state some more facts.

In California, I wish to tell you what is happening. We have our own exchange, Covered California, coveredCA.com. What has happened so far we don't hear around the beltway. All we hear is: ObamaCare is bad. ObamaCare is bad.

I wish to tell some stories of what is truly happening and these facts will catch up as well, such as 400,000 Californians now have coverage through the California exchange, private coverage.

We have more than 200,000 Californians on Medi-Cal, which is California's Medicaid Program.

A truly great number is more than 1 million California families--not people, families, so we are talking about probably a few million people--have begun the process of applying for coverage.

Across the country, I can state--and we know we have had our bumps in the road--today we are resolving some of those bumps. We had about 2 percent of the people who wound up in a problem where they couldn't get the insurance they wanted. President Obama fixed that problem.

Now we have that 2-percent problem down to way less than .2 percent, very few families. Let's get that clear. Will there be more bumps? Yes. Will we fix them, yes. Are we still worried about the few thousand families who need our help? Yes. We will fix it.

I don't shy away from this. If we have a problem, we fix it. Somebody point out to me any business that doesn't have a few problems in the rollout, and I will say that is pretty amazing.

We had problems with the rollout. It was bad. We are fixing it, and the proof is in the pudding. Today, 9 million Americans have new secure health insurance; 2.1 million, on that other chart, have received it through all the different exchanges, 2.1 million; 3.9 million have enrolled in Medicaid; and 3 million young adults can now stay on their parents' plans. There were bumps in the road, we fixed them, and we will continue to do so, but this is a good story.

I wish to read from some constituents who have written to me about the Affordable Care Act. These are real people speaking, not politicians, not I--them.

Mary Natwick of Monrovia signed up for a platinum plan for her family of three through the Covered California Web site. Even though she makes too much to qualify for a subsidy and even though she purchased the highest level plan, she is saving $1,000 a month on her premiums and she has a lower deductible.

Mary wrote:

Needless to say, we are thrilled beyond belief. Please

accept our gratitude, and pass on our thanks to all who voted

for this bill.

This is a constituent who likes ObamaCare and she thanks the Senator from Oregon, Mr. Merkley.

David Specter of Ventura and his wife are young retirees, 62 and 58. Their old premiums cost $882 a month. Now because David and his wife qualify for subsidized premiums on the Covered California exchange, they will pay a total of $434 a month with lower deductibles. That is $400 a month in savings. Calculate what that means in 1 year, $400 a month. They can spend it in the neighborhood, in the movies, at a restaurant, in the grocery store, on a vacation, gifts for their grandkids.

David wrote:

Thank you so much for supporting the Affordable Care Act.

It may not be perfect, but it sure makes a big difference for

us.

I think that sums it up for me. The Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare, may not be perfect, but it sure is making a difference for Americans-- so far 9 million strong, and it will be way more than that.

Maya Walls of San Diego was diagnosed with breast cancer at 27 years of age. Since that diagnosis 20 years ago, she has either kept working to maintain insurance or paid very high COBRA premiums in between her jobs to keep her coverage and to avoid preexisting condition exclusions. That is because, as we know, until ObamaCare became the law of the land, insurers could walk out on people once they got sick.

Two years ago, Maya lost her job. In September she held her breath and went without coverage. On October 1, she found out she finally qualified for California's new expanded Medicaid Program, which she had never qualified for before.

She wrote:

Please do not give an inch on the ACA. This is the first

time I have taken a deep breath in 20 years. Thank you.

I see we have a new Presiding Officer, and I wish to retell this story.

This is a story of one of my constituents who was diagnosed with breast cancer at 27 years of age. Since that diagnosis she was so scared she would lose her insurance because of her preexisting condition that she kept paying very high COBRA premiums. When she finally ran out of options, she lost her insurance and just found out she qualifies for the new expanded Medicaid.

She wrote:

Please do not give an inch on the ACA. This is the first

time I have taken a deep breath in 20 years.

I say to the American people--I hope a few will hear my voice-- nothing in life is perfect. No bill is perfect. No business is perfect. No one is perfect; no individual, no President, no Senator for sure. But we see a problem, and we do our best to step up to the plate.

If things go wrong, as it did with the rollout, we get mad about it, but we fix it, and we don't go back to the problems we had before of kids being kicked off their parents' insurance and having no insurance, of people being told: Sorry. You have asthma or you have cancer or you have high blood pressure. We can't help you.

Those days are over. Being a woman was a preexisting condition. Having been a victim of sexual assault was a preexisting condition. If someone was in an abusive relationship, they said: You are just too high of a risk, and they walked away.

There were lifetime caps on our policies. There were annual caps on our policies, gender discrimination, preexisting condition discrimination, all of that.

I am going to say anyone who wants to repeal ObamaCare or the Affordable Care Act will go back to those days.

I will never forget reading a New American Foundation study that said,

if we hadn't changed health care in this country, we were getting to a place where premiums would have risen to about 50 percent of our incomes, on average, for at least half of American households. At that point, who is going to be able to afford insurance?

I met people who were praying on their hands and knees to turn 65. As we get older we say: Oh, my God. I want to stay young.

People were saying: Let me get to my 65th birthday so I can get Medicare because I have no insurance.

That is what I heard from my constituents.

What I hear may not be perfect, but it is saving their lives: Fix what is a problem, Senator. You can.

I thank the President for acting to make sure the people who got those cancellation notices--it was about 2 percent of all Americans-- were able to stay on similar insurance for an extended period of time.

Yes, we will fix what the problems are, but we will also rejoice when we get letters such as I am getting from all over my State. I ask unanimous consent to have three additional stories printed in the Record.

Mr. President, we will tell those stories and we will counteract the stories we hear.

In closing, I wish to say--because I know the Senator from Oregon has been waiting patiently--the reason I took to the floor to talk about health care is to make the point that it is the middle class and the working poor who are truly being helped--that is so important in this time of income inequality--and make the point that we make sure we extend the unemployment compensation to the long-term unemployed as they, through no fault of their own, are trying to keep their house and home together, which is so critical.

I thank my six Republican colleagues who showed courage, stepped up, and allowed us to get on this bill. I hope we pass it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to pay tribute to eight servicemembers from California or based in California who have died while serving our country in Operation Enduring Freedom since I last entered names into the record on July 10, 2013. This brings to 410 the number of servicemembers either from California or based in California who have been killed while serving our country in Afghanistan. This represents 18 percent of all U.S. deaths in Afghanistan:

LCpl Benjamin W. Tuttle, 19, of Gentry, AR, died July 14, 2013, at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center following a medical evacuation from the aircraft carrier the USS Nimitz, CVN 68, during a scheduled port visit in the 5th Fleet Area of Responsibility. Lance Corporal Tuttle was assigned to Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 323, Marine Aircraft Group 11, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, CA.

SPC Nicholas B. Burley, 22, of Red Bluff, CA, died July 30, 2013, in Pul-E-Alam, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained when enemy forces attacked his unit with indirect fire. Specialist Burley was assigned to the 6th Squadron, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, GA.

SPC Kenneth Clifford Alvarez, 23, of Santa Maria, CA, died August 23, 2013, in Haft Asiab, Afghanistan, from wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device during combat operations. Specialist Alvarez was assigned to 2nd Engineer Battalion, 36th Engineer Brigade, White Sands Missile Range, NM.

SSG Robert E. Thomas Jr., 24, of Fontana, CA, died September 13, 2013, at Brooke Army Medical Center, Fort Sam Houston, TX, of wounds suffered during a non-combat related incident on April 21, 2013, in Maiwand, Afghanistan. Staff Sergeant Thomas was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 36th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, Fort Bliss,

I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table.

I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I am so pleased that the National Defense Authorization Act includes important reforms to article 32 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, UCMJ, which are based on an amendment I authored with Senator Graham.

I thank Senator Graham for working with me on this issue. I also thank Chairman Levin and Ranking Member Inhofe for working so closely with us. Without their support, these critical reforms would not have been incorporated into this bill.

These reforms will help end the abusive and invasive questioning of sexual assault victims during pretrial article 32 proceedings.

Article 32 proceedings are the military's equivalent of preliminary hearings in the civilian criminal justice system. However, article 32 proceedings have become their own trials where the defense counsel can harass and intimidate sexual assault victims and ask questions that would never be permitted in civilian courts. No victim should ever have to endure this type of abuse.

Our military justice system should encourage sexual assault victims to report these crimes and pursue justice by prosecuting perpetrators. Tragically, the article 32 process does just the opposite.

Roger Canaff--a former prosecutor who has worked with the military as a legal consultant on sexual assault cases--says that article 32 proceedings are so difficult for victims that ``a lot of cases die there as a result.'' In fact, the military's own statistics show that nearly 30 percent of sexual assault victims who originally agree to help prosecute their alleged offenders change their minds before trial.

The National Defense Authorization Act addresses this serious problem by bringing article 32 proceedings more in line with how preliminary hearings are conducted in the civilian criminal justice system.

Specifically, the bill limits the scope of article 32 proceedings to the question of probable cause. This will help ensure that article 32 proceedings do not turn into fishing expeditions that serve only to discredit and humiliate victims.

It also requires article 32 proceedings to be presided over by an impartial military lawyer except in extraordinary circumstances.

In addition, the bill requires all article 32 proceedings to be recorded--putting in place a uniform standard across all of the services. It also gives victims access to the recording.

Furthermore, it prevents victims from being forced to testify in article 32 proceedings. Instead, alternative forms of testimony, including sworn statements, could be used. This will ensure that victims are not revictimized during article 32 proceedings.

These commonsense reforms will help ensure that victims of sexual assault are not put on trial simply for making the courageous decision to pursue justice. And this change has broad support from survivors, military leaders and military law experts.

Karalen Morthole--who was raped by a master sergeant at a bar on the grounds of the Marine barracks in Washington, DC--supports reforming the article 32 process: ``People always say, `This is why so many people don't come forward.' I agree. The process should be changed so survivors of rape feel confident rather than discouraged when trying to pursue justice.''

MG Vaughn Ary--the staff judge advocate to the commandant of the Marine Corps--agrees that ``there is room for change in article 32.''

In addition, Eugene Fidell--a professor of military justice at Yale Law School and a former Coast Guard judge advocate--has said that article 32 proceedings have ``become bloated'' and ``should be replaced by a simple probable cause hearing.''

I am so pleased that there is a clear consensus on the need to reform the article 32 process to better protect victims of sexual assault. This is an important step forward in addressing the epidemic of sexual assault in our military.

But let me be clear. There is only one fundamental change that will give sexual assault survivors the confidence to report these heinous crimes knowing that justice will be served--the bipartisan Military Justice Improvement Act.

I am deeply disappointed that this important bill was not included in the National Defense Authorization Act because until vicious crimes like sexual assault are handled outside the chain of command, we will not have truly fixed our broken military justice system.

That is why I look forward to proudly casting my vote in support of Senator Gillibrand's bill in January, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring the memory of Dr. Ray Dolby, a trailblazing engineer, entrepreneur, and pioneer in the field of sound who passed away on September 12, 2013. He was 80 years old.

Born in Portland, OR and raised in the San Francisco Bay area, Ray Dolby was a dedicated tinkerer from a young age, always curious about how things worked. As a high school student, he worked after school for the electronics company Ampex Corporation, playing a key role in developing Quadruplex, the world's first commercially successful video tape recorder, which revolutionized the world of television broadcasting.

After graduating from Stanford University with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, Ray began a doctoral program in physics at Cambridge University in England, receiving his doctorate in 1961. The next year, his life changed: He met the love of his life, Dagmar, who was also at Cambridge studying as a summer student, and the two married in 1966 and had two beautiful sons, Tom and David.

In search of adventure, Ray spent 2 years traversing India as a technical adviser for the United Nations, working with the Indian Government to establish a new national laboratory focusing on the development of scientific and industrial instruments. Buoyed by his research in India, Dolby returned to England in 1965 and founded Dolby Laboratories, which he moved to San Francisco in 1976.

Throughout his career, Ray Dolby pioneered many of the most significant developments in sound and audio design. Early on, he invented noise-reduction technology that eliminated the hiss that had marred earlier forms of tape recorded sound and in the 1970s introduced Dolby Stereo, which allowed movie studios to record films in multichannel surround sound. The innovation of surround sound played a pivotal role in allowing theater goers around the world to enjoy the sound effects in such groundbreaking movies as ``Close Encounters of the Third Kind'' and ``Star Wars'' and innumerable other popular films produced in the decades that followed. Since then, Ray Dolby and Dolby Laboratories have pioneered a multitude of technologies in noise reduction, audio and video processing, live sound, and digital cinema, and won multiple Emmys and Academy Awards for their work.

While Ray is often recognized first and foremost for his revolutionary work in the field of sound, he and his wife Dagmar are also known as leaders in San Francisco's philanthropic community. They gave generously to numerous causes and organizations, supporting everything from stem cell research to community parks to the performing arts. I extend my deepest condolences to Ray's loving wife Dagmar; his children, Tom and David, and their spouses; and his four grandchildren. Dr. Ray Dolby will be deeply missed, but his legacy of generosity and innovation will live on in the countless lives he touched.

Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring the memory of Elizabeth ``Libby'' Denebeim, a pillar of the San Francisco community, who passed away on November 15, 2013. She was 83 years old.

Libby was born and raised in the Midwest and graduated from the University of Missouri, where she met the love of her life, Robert Denebeim. After getting married, Libby went on to obtain a master's degree in education and taught elementary school in Tampa, FL, while Robert completed his service in the U.S. Air Force.

In 1956, the couple moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. Libby had always been dedicated to public service, and in San Francisco she became a leader in the community. She worked on behalf of so many agencies and organizations dedicated to improving education, mental health, the arts, and family services, including the San Francisco Board of Education; the San Francisco Mental Health Association; the Mayor's Advisory Council on Families, Children and Youth; the Mayor's Criminal Justice Council; San Francisco Head Start; and Jewish Family and Children's Services.

Libby was also a fierce advocate for the LGBT community. She fought to end the definition of homosexuality as a ``mental illness'' and remove it from the National Psychiatric Association's Manual of Mental Disorders. She campaigned against California Proposition 6, the Briggs Initiative, which sought to ban gays and lesbians from working in California's public schools, and also served on the San Francisco Health Department's Committee on Services for People with AIDS, the Mayor's HIV Task Force, and the NAMES Project.

Those lucky enough to know Libby recognized her as a vibrant, inspiring and generous woman who gave selflessly to her community. Through the years, she was honored by organizations ranging from the United Way to the Pacific Medical Center to the California State Legislature. Her contributions to the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond will be remembered fondly by everyone whose lives she touched. She will be deeply missed. I extend my heartfelt condolences to Libby's children, Robert, Nancy, David, William, Thomas, and Edward, and their spouses; her grandchildren, Daniel, Kathleen, Jack, Robert, Catherine, Allton, and Samuel; and her sisters-in-law, Beverley and Helene, brother-in-law Dart, their 13 children, and grandchildren.

Madam President, I was unable to attend the rollcall vote on the nomination of Heather Anne Higginbottom to be Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources and the rollcall vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the nomination of Anne W. Patterson to be an Assistant Secretary of State. Had I been present for these two votes, I would have voted ``aye.''

Madam President, last week the world lost a true hero with the passing of Nelson Mandela. His determined and courageous advocacy helped end South Africa's disgraceful system of apartheid, while his enlightened leadership set an example for national reconciliation.

Apartheid was a policy of hate. It was a severe form of segregation that denied the non-White population their basic human rights. Millions of non-Whites lost their homes and were forced from their lands.

In order to travel or work in a restricted White area, special passes were necessary. Non-Whites could not participate in national government and were segregated in almost every way imaginable--from education to transportation to health care.

Nelson Mandela dedicated much of his life to ending this injustice. After years of protesting the harsh policies of the South African Government, he was imprisoned for 27 years--18 of which were spent at the infamous maximum security prison on Robben Island that was surrounded by shark-infested waters.

There he suffered in a cell that he described as ``perpetually damp'' and only measured 7 feet by 8 feet.

From prison, Nelson Mandela was an inspiration to those fighting apartheid both inside South Africa and throughout the world. And as pressure grew, the South African Government initiated secret talks with Mandela for the first time in 1986.

That same year, I was a Member of the House of Representatives when Congress voted to impose sanctions against the South Africa Government--overriding a Presidential veto to do so.

Two months before that historic and long overdue vote, the President gave a speech opposing comprehensive sanctions against South Africa. That same day, I went to the House floor to respond, asking:

How many children have to die? How many funeral mourners

have to die? How much bloodshed will be spent before the

President decides that words are no longer enough--that

`constructive engagement' has done nothing to prevent 2,000

deaths since late 1984?

In that same statement, I spoke about the ``concerned citizens all over the country who have emphasized the need to do something specific to demonstrate our abhorrence of the policies of the South African government.'' Those concerned citizens included the Solano County board of supervisors, who sent me a resolution in 1985 that declared, ``Acquiescence to South Africa's apartheid policy, whatever the rationalization would be a rejection of the ultimate sacrifices made by those who died to ensure justice for all human beings . . .''

It was the grassroots movement against apartheid in the 1980s that pushed Congress to enact sanctions, and this grassroots movement was inspired by the example of Nelson Mandela.

In 1990, Nelson Mandela was finally released from prison, and in 1994 he was elected as South Africa's first Black President.

Despite more than 40 years of suffering under the brutality of apartheid, Nelson Mandela chose reconciliation over resentment.

During his inauguration, he declared, ``The time for the healing of the wounds has come . . . the moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come. The time to build is upon us.''

The legacy of Nelson Mandela lies not just in his courage to fight repression but in his courage to forgive his enemies.

In his words, ``Courageous people do not fear forgiving for the sake of peace.''

My deepest sympathies go out to Nelson Mandela's family, the nation of South Africa, and all those who are mourning the loss of this great man.

I understand Senator Lee is on his way to the floor. I will yield to him when he arrives.

I came to the floor today to say what a good debate we are having. Let us be clear, there is only one amendment that puts in place a fundamental change; that is the Gillibrand amendment.

We have had 20 years of promises that this problem would be fixed. I have a chart I will bring out later to show that every Secretary of Defense for 20 years, Republican and Democratic, has said exactly what Senator Ayotte has said: Oh, we are going to fix this, and it is going to be fine.

We are picking up steam in our support. I wish to state the reason we are picking up steam. It is because, with all due respect, every single victims' organization that I know of supports the Gillibrand amendment. When victims say to me the reason I don't report is because I don't want to take it to my commander, I think we ought to listen.

With all due respect, I love the Senators on the other side and I have great respect for the people in the military, but they are not the victims. The victims are standing behind the Gillibrand amendment.

The committee that advises the Pentagon on the treatment of women in the military is called DACOWITS. This committee came out overwhelmingly in favor of the Gillibrand amendment.

My colleagues are saying don't make this fundamental change. But the one committee that advises the military--made up of retired military members and civilians--had a chance to say go with the status quo or go with the Gillibrand amendment. They voted without a single dissent in favor of the Gillibrand amendment.

When one stands here and defends the status quo in terms of the way this is decided, we have to understand they are in essence saying a 10- percent reporting of these incidents is OK with them. Otherwise they would vote to change it.

They can think they know why more people aren't reporting and fix it around the edges. I am so pleased we have some reforms in the bill. But the main, major reform and the reason the victims' rights groups are so behind the Gillibrand amendment is because it is the only fundamental change that is in the bill.

I compliment my colleagues for what they have done. It is wonderful, but they don't get to the heart of it, which is why we have a 90- percent problem. Of 26,000 cases, only 10 percent are reported. I thought it was bad in the civilian world where 50 percent are reported.

I say to my colleagues, we all have staffs and we run a workplace. I don't know how many people each of us has in their offices. I say to my colleagues, suppose there was a horrible sexual assault that took place in our workplace. We knew the alleged perpetrator, and we knew the alleged victim. We would call the police. We wouldn't become the decider. We wouldn't become the jury, the judge, as these commanders do.

What is really interesting is Senator Gillibrand called a press conference, and we had a commander who commanded troops in Iraq, and he said: Honestly, the last thing I wanted as I was getting my troops ready to fight and win battles was to deal with some horrible incident that occurred among those I was commanding. I wanted to get a professional in there.

The Gillibrand amendment is important not only for the victims but, yes, for good order and discipline. How can people stand here and say there is good order and discipline when there are 26,000 incidents of sexual assault and only 10 percent are reported? There are thousands of people walking around the military not being charged, and sometimes the deal they get is to get kicked out.

I will tell a story of one of my constituents because I think it is instructive. She joined the Marines. She was out with friends, and she was drugged. She was brutally raped. She was tossed on the street in the early morning hours. She woke up dazed. She reported it to her commander. Let me tell you what happened. The perpetrator got

out of the military--probably to continue his rampage on the streets of some city we represent--and my constituent was investigated by the military for drug use because she was drugged that night and abandoned on the street.

So I hope the people who support the status quo will hear that story and hear the other stories. We have a 90-percent problem; 90 percent do not report. We have DACOWITS advising the military it is made up of former military members and civilians saying support Gillibrand. We have every victims' rights group I know supporting Gillibrand. I will just say that if a minority of this Senate stops us today, we are going nowhere. We had a press conference yesterday where we revealed the new Republican on our team; today, a new Democrat. We want to have the best servicemembers in the world. We want our commanders concentrating on what they have to concentrate on. We have men and women being assaulted, and we have a plan in front of the Senate, and that plan is the Gillibrand amendment. It is smart, and it has strong bipartisan support.

Believe me, I was at a press conference with Senator Grassley, Senator Cruz, Senator Paul, Senator Shaheen, of course, Senator Gillibrand, Senator Hirono, and our group is growing. So if a minority of the Senate stops this, I will hearken back to the many reforms that have been made--whether it is don't ask, don't tell, gays in the military--you can just name them. Yes, it may take us a time or two. I remember having an amendment that lost that said you can't take convicted felons into the military if they have been convicted of a sex crime. I lost. I lost. But years later I won, and now you cannot take these felons into the military. So these reforms are hard. This one is 20 years in the making. History will record who stood on the side of positive change, who stood with the victims, and who obstructed.

I know everybody is doing it for reasons, and I respect that, OK. Let's be clear. But I am passionate about this because I have been here before. I was in the Congress during the Tailhook scandal, and I said to myself after that was publicized: This will never happen again. We won't see harassment. We will see a reduction in rapes.

Remember, half of the victims are men. This is a crime of violence. This is a crime of terror. We have to make sure there is justice, and that means trained people making the decision of whether to go forward, trained people running the trial and not putting this on the commanders. At the end of the day, when you talk to them--and I haven't talked to all of them, but I have talked to many of them--they say the last thing they want is this power.

No one can tell me there is good discipline when we have a 10-percent reporting record here--10 percent of the crimes are reported. It just can't be. That isn't good discipline. That isn't good order when you have rapists walking around because people are too scared to go to their commander.

I know my colleagues are trying to do the best for this country, but listen to the victims. We don't know better than the victims. We don't know better. We should be humble. We should listen to the victims.

Our allies have gone this way, and they have been pummeled here today, saying they have bad records and the rest of it. I think the reputation of the Israeli military is second to none. They have taken this outside the chain of command. Many of our other allies and friends--Australia. I visited there and talked about this. Frankly, this is the way to go.

Sixty percent of the American people support the Gillibrand amendment--60 percent in a poll that just came out. So the people are for the Gillibrand amendment, the victims are for the Gillibrand amendment, and the one committee that advises the Pentagon on women's rights in the military is for the Gillibrand amendment.

I praise everyone who has worked on so many other reforms in this bill. I am so proud. This is a reform bill. But I beg my colleagues to make that fundamental change we need to make and have the professionals decide whether there is a case from beginning to end. That is what justice really is.

I will close with this. There is a woman who has been put up for Under Secretary of the Navy. I have a hold on her nomination. I don't believe in secret holds. This is from the Obama administration. She was asked about the Gillibrand proposal, and do you know what she said, Mr. President? Here is what she said: If you take this outside the chain of command, decisions on this crime will be made based on the evidence, not on good order and discipline.

Can you believe that? This is the truth. We don't have decisions being made based on the evidence. This woman was honest, I give her that. She said that if we took this outside the chain of command, decisions on these crimes would be made based on the evidence. Well, she made our case, and I am proud to stand with a very strong bipartisan coalition in favor of the Gillibrand amendment.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, what we have just seen on this floor tonight is just more and more of the same obstruction. This is now the fourth DC Circuit judge the Republicans have filibustered. That means they have not allowed us to have an up-or-down vote.

I am not going to go into the qualifications of these people; they are stellar. We will have more time to debate that. But it is extraordinary. We never heard that the DC court should become a smaller court when George Bush was President, or any other President. Now, all of a sudden they want to shrink the court when, in fact, this is probably--I would say it is the most important circuit in the country, and it has a very important caseload.

First we see that obstructionism, the filibuster of the court nominees, and then we see my dear friend the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee I think reluctantly object to moving forward with two amendments that are essential to the bill. There are two amendments; one has to do with Guantanamo, one has to do with sexual assault in the military.

My friend from Oklahoma, representing the Republicans, said: We want an open amendment process. Just so people know what that means, when someone says: We want an open amendment process, it means they want to offer amendments that have nothing to do with the Defense bill, to this particular bill. Again, we are stymied.

I was just home. People are saying: Why don't you guys get along? Why don't you get things done?

We are trying. We did not have one Democrat filibuster the judges. We didn't have one Democrat oppose moving forward with two critical amendments.

Mr. President, we see obstructionism here from my Republican friends. They are my friends. They are my friends, but I do not get this. This is a military bill. This is a dangerous world. We are bringing our troops back from hot spots around the world. They are still in great danger. We have sexual assault in the military that I am going to talk about that is rampant. We have so many issues we want to address. Yet we hear objection.

We can only hope that in the light of day tomorrow, cooler heads will prevail and we can begin debating and voting on these critical amendments. It is puzzling. It took us days and days to do the compounding bill, which is a bill necessary to make sure the pharmaceutical outlets that compound drugs are safe. It passed the House. It is uncontroversial--days and days because a Senator wants to talk about the health care of Members of Congress.

We better start doing the work of the people because that is why we are here.

We cannot go down any lower in public opinion. It is embarrassing--9 percent of the people think we are doing a good job. At first I thought it is our families, but now I am even doubting they think we are doing a good job. I don't know who the 9 percent is, but thank you, thank you, thank you. It will get better when we start working together.

I am very hopeful. I am going to chair the Water Resources Development Act conference. We are going to conference on that bill. It is 500,000 jobs. A bill passed the House. We have a good bill here in the Senate that passed. We hope to iron out our differences. I know Senator Murray and Paul Ryan are trying to bring us agreement on the budget. I pray they get that done.

Meanwhile, we have a bill that should bring us together, the Defense Authorization Act. Yet what happens? Stymied. We have supremely qualified judges for the circuit court. What happens? They are filibustered. We cannot vote on them and they are left out there hanging, with all their qualifications. It is ridiculous.

Something has to give.

Amendment No. 2181

There are a couple of issues I have worked hard on in terms of this bill. I have a number of amendments, but I want to talk about two with which I have been very involved. One is my own amendment No. 2181, which is based on a bill I wrote with Senator Graham, Lindsey Graham. The bill is quite bipartisan. We have an amazing list of cosponsors. I am going to read them in alphabetical order: Ayotte, Baucus, Blumenthal, Blunt, Cardin, Chambliss, Collins, Coons, Donnelly, Fischer, Gillibrand, Graham, Hirono, Klobuchar, McCain, McCaskill, Murkowski, Shaheen, Tester, and Warner. This is wonderful.

The amendment I have written is going to reform what we call the article 32 proceeding. In the military, when there is a sexual assault and the decision is made to move forward with a trial, there is first a pretrial investigation. This is called an article 32 proceeding. It is the equivalent of a civilian pretrial hearing. Even though there is supposed to be a rape shield law in place, it does not work. What is happening is these article 32 proceedings have become their own trials, an opportunity for the defense counsel to harass and intimidate sexual assault victims. In fact, according to the DOD, 30 percent of sexual assault victims who originally agree to help prosecute their offenders change their minds before the trial because they know and they told us they are revictimized by the process. I am going to give a few examples.

In April 2012, a 20-year-old female midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy was raped by three football players at an off-campus party. The young woman testified during the article 32 proceeding, where she was forced to endure roughly 30 hours of relentless questioning by attorneys for her attackers. The questioning included graphic questions about her sexual history and even what she was wearing under her clothes. Anyone who knows anything about the civilian legal system knows this would never, ever be allowed--never.

In October 2008, while stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, Elizabeth Lyman was raped in her barracks by another marine. She was 11 weeks pregnant at the time. She was forced to testify at two article 32 proceedings before her case was sent to a court-martial. This is what she said:

My rapist hired a civilian attorney who asked me outrageous

questions. . . . These questions were extremely upsetting to

me. I had just been discharged from the hospital when I was

told I had to take the stand for a second time and I was told

I had no choice if I wanted the charges to go forward. This

is what has become of the procedure for article 32.

I went to Senator Lindsey Graham because he is an expert and indeed an attorney. He has served in the position of counsel, and right away he said it was revictimization. It is wrong, it is a runaway train, and we have to fix it. I am so grateful to him for helping us.

In July 2012, a 23-year-old marine named Karalen Morthole was raped by a master sergeant in a bar on the grounds of the Marine Barracks in Washington, DC. Earlier this year she testified in an article 32 proceeding against her alleged attacker. According to her, ``The overall experience was painful. It was the first time since the night of the rape that I saw the man who hurt me. It was a terrifying and uncomfortable experience. I felt dehumanized being made out as a liar, and blamed for everything that happened to me. . . The intimidation tactics, the blaming, all in front of the man who raped me were completely overwhelming.''

She supports this bipartisan amendment to reform article 32. She said people don't come forward because they know they are going to be revictimized, and so they walk away.

I am very pleased we have strong bipartisan support for this amendment. I know we have a very big debate going on and everybody is torn asunder on the other issue of whether to keep the prosecution decisions in the chain of command for serious offenses. But on this one--limiting the scope of article 32--we have broad support. I am proud to say that I even have support of Chairman Levin and Senator Inhofe. We have a tremendous group of people who have helped us.

We will have these proceedings presided over by a military lawyer when possible. The proceedings are going to be recorded. We will prevent victims from being forced to testify in these proceedings. They can have alternative forms of testimony instead. So these are the basic commonsense reforms.

I am very happy to say that with the strong support we have from so many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, as well as the support of Chairman Levin, I feel very positive. But to get this done and stop this revictimization of people who are distraught after having been attacked and brutally raped and hurt, we need a bill to come up, and we don't need objections so we can move forward. We need to move forward with this bill, and I truly hope we can.

This article 32 reform brings us all together. It brings Claire McCaskill and Kirsten Gillibrand together. It brings Senator Blunt and myself together. It is a very bipartisan reform. There are already several reforms in this bill we are proud of. Senator Mikulski is organizing us tomorrow to talk about those reforms, and this is one more we can add.

In closing my remarks tonight, I wish to take on the issue of the Gillibrand amendment No. 2099. I am so very proud to stand with a very bipartisan group of colleagues in support of Kirsten Gillibrand's amendment. These colleagues perhaps don't agree on much. When I am on the same side as Ted Cruz, that is something; right? When Kirsten Gillibrand is on the same side as Rand Paul, that is something. It goes on and on down the line. We also have Senator Grassley's support.

By the way, 17 of 20 women Senators support the Gillibrand amendment. I hope that is a message--that this is the right way to go, and I am going to explain it.

My involvement in this is deep and long. Twenty years ago we were all outraged to learn that nearly 100 women and men had been sexually harassed and assaulted by a group of naval aviators during a convention of the Tailhook Association. I think a lot of us who were around then remember that. I was a new Senator at the time, and I was completely shocked at what happened. They had a gauntlet that people walked through. They were harassed, hurt, and distraught when it was over.

In the wake of the Tailhook scandal, senior military leaders promised to crack down on the crime of sexual assault with then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney declaring a zero tolerance policy.

I will show how many times different Secretaries of Defense--Democrat and Republican--have promised they were going to take care of this. When the military comes to lobby us against this, I say to them: When are you going to embrace true reform? Because for 20 years we have been hearing this baloney, and I will read now.

Secretary Rumsfeld, who served from January 2001 to December 2006, said: ``Sexual assault will not be tolerated in the Department of Defense.''

Secretary William Cohen, who served from January 1997 to January 2001, said: ``I intend to enforce a strict policy of zero tolerance of hazing, of sexual harassment, and of racism.'' He said that on January 31, 1997.

Secretary William Perry, who served from February 1994 until January 1997,

said: ``For all of these reasons, therefore, we have zero tolerance for sexual harassment.''

Secretary Cheney, who served from 1989 until 1993, said: ``Well, we've got a major effort underway to try to educate everybody, to let them know that we've got a zero-tolerance policy where sexual harassment's involved.''

I wish to correct the Record.

When Tailhook happened, I was in the House. I got to the Senate right after that because it was 1991, and I was elected in 1992. I continued my work on this when I got to the Senate. I have to be honest and say I believed the military when they said it would never happen again. I said: Well, that is it. This thing is out and it will never happen again. I was wrong. By the way, that is the worst thing a politician ever wants to say: I was wrong. Those are three words you never want to say: I was wrong.

I believed the Pentagon. I thought they would take care of it. They have never taken care of it. Now we have Chuck Hagel, who, to my knowledge, is now lobbying against the Kirsten Gillibrand approach.

Secretary Hagel said:

It's not good enough to say we have a zero tolerance

policy. We do, but what does that mean? How does that

translate into changing anything? I want to know.

He wants to know. I will tell him. Support the Kirsten Gillibrand amendment. Change and reform this. Take these serious offenses outside of the chain of command. It is not working.

Leon Panetta, who served from July 2011 until February 2013, said: ``We have absolutely no tolerance for any form of sexual assault.'' He didn't take anything outside the chain of command either.

Secretary Robert Gates, who served from 2006 until 2011, said: ``This is a matter of grave concern. I have zero tolerance for sexual assault.''

Really? Every one of these men had zero tolerance for sexual assault. Yet not one of them ever lived up to the promise. Sexual assault is running rampant. We have 26,000 cases a year, and do you know what percent get reported? Ten percent get reported. Do you know what percent of cases don't get reported? Ninety percent. We have a 90- percent problem. There are 26,000 cases and only 10 percent get reported. Ninety percent don't get reported.

So then you say: Why? Why is it? The answer comes back from the victims: Nothing will happen. We will be revictimized. We will get blamed. They will blame us. We will get kicked out. We have to go to our commander. He is not trained in this. Please change it.

If a whole group of people who have been victimized tell you the reason why they will not report the crime, you ought to listen. They know better than any Senator. They know better than any Defense Department blue ribbon panel.

Speaking of panels, there is a panel that has a funny name called DACOWITS, which stands for Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services. They have one job; that is to provide recommendations on policies relating to women in the military. Guess what. They endorsed the Gillibrand amendment. There was not one vote against it.

How can Senators--and I have friends on both sides of the aisle-- stand with a straight face and say we can keep the status quo, when all the victims are saying no, and the one committee that has advised the military on women for over 60 years says no. I say listen to the victims, listen to the military's advisory committee. Don't listen to the top brass who are running around, going to everybody's offices trying to undermine us. Just for the record, they have not come to my office because they know where I stand.

If they came to my office, the first thing I would do is look at them and say: What would you do if this happened to your daughter? What would you do? Would you tell her to report it to a commander who may be very friendly with the guy who did this?

Let me tell you, there is a moment in time when you see an issue clearly, and it happens in funny ways. The woman who has been nominated to be Under Secretary of the Navy made a statement about this issue. When I read this statement, you will understand why the victims are so right.

I know the Presiding Officer has worked hard on this issue as well. Dr. Jo Ann Rooney, the nominee to be Under Secretary of the Navy was asked the following question: In your view, what would be the impact of requiring a judge advocate outside the chain of command to determine whether allegations of sexual assault should be prosecuted?

In other words, she was asked about the Gillibrand amendment. Should we take the prosecution of military sexual assault and other serious crimes outside the chain of command? Listen to her answer. This is the advertisement for the Gillibrand amendment.

She said:

A judge advocate outside the chain of command will be

looking at a case through a different lens than a military

commander. I believe the impact would be decisions based on

evidence . . .

Can you believe that? She said: ``I believe the impact would be decisions based on evidence . . . ''

I ask rhetorically: Isn't that what justice is about, decisions based on the evidence? She goes on to say, `` . . . rather than the interest in preserving good order and discipline.'' I would argue, A, you base these decisions on the evidence; and, B, there is no good order and discipline when there are 26,000 cases of sexual assault and only 10 percent are reported.

What kind of order is that? We have thousands of perpetrators running around the military, and there are thousands of victims scared to death. They are brokenhearted, broken down, and their spirit is broken. How do Senators actually stand here and say: We are going to just keep it the way it is. We are going to turn our backs on these victims.

Listen to this story from a young woman in my State. I stood next to her and held her hand when she told this story. Stacey Thompson was drugged and brutally raped by a male sergeant while stationed in Okinawa, Japan. She reported the rape to her superiors, but her allegations were swept under the rug. While her attacker was allowed to leave the Marine Corps without ever facing trial, Stacey became the target of a drug investigation, and this is why. Her perpetrator drugged her and he dumped her on the street. He left her on the street after being raped and drugged. He gets out of the military scot-free and they start an investigation on her drug use, even though she never used drugs, except the drugs her perpetrator gave her.

I stood next to this young woman. She had never told her story until--and it happened in 1999--until Kirsten Gillibrand put her bill forward.

I want to make this point: Half of the victims are men. When I talk about 26,000 victims, half of them are men. These are violent crimes.

So here is the story of Amando Javier. He was serving in the Marine Corps in 1993. He was brutally raped and physically assaulted by a group of fellow marines. Ashamed and fearing for his life, he kept his rape a secret for 15 years. When he finally found the courage to share the story with a friend, he wrote it down, and I will read some of his words:

My experience left me torn apart physically, mentally, and

spiritually. I was dehumanized and treated with ultimate

cruelty, by my perpetrators . . . I was embarrassed and

ashamed and didn't know what to do. I was young at that time.

And being part of an elite organization that values

brotherhood, integrity and faithfulness made it hard to come

forward and reveal what happened.

So it is two decades later, and not one person--not one--has been held accountable for this heinous crime. The perpetrators are still out there and they are able to recommit these horrific crimes again.

Ariana Klay. Here is the last story. She graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy. She joined the Marines. She deployed to Iraq in 2008. Following her return from Iraq, she was selected to serve at the Marine Barracks in Washington, a very prestigious post. It is right down the street from here. At the Marine Barracks, Ariana was subjected to constant sexual harassment. When she tried to report it, do my colleagues know what her chain of command told her? ``Deal with it.'' That is akin to telling a little child who is being abused somewhere to deal with it.

That is the culture my colleagues want to keep--``deal with it''? No. It is a crime. Help the person. Go after the perpetrator. Get a trained prosecutor in there to find out if it is true and if it is true, prosecute to the hilt.

In August 2010, she was gang-raped by a senior Marine officer and his friend who broke into her home. Ariana, despite all the warning signs, reported her assault. But a Marine Corps investigation determined she had welcomed the harassment. Do my colleagues know why? This is what they said: She wore makeup and she exercised in shorts and tank tops. What?

The Marine Corps did court-martial one of Ariana's rapists, but they never convicted him of rape. Do my colleagues know what he was convicted of? Adultery and indecent language. Please. How could anyone who listens to the victims say they are not going to vote for the Gillibrand amendment?

I stood with Ariana along with a large group of colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, right here the other day. Her husband is a former Marine Corps officer and he spoke at the press conference. This is what he said. It is so important to listen to what he said:

The first step to addressing sexual assault in the military

is to remove its prosecution from the chain of command. It is

unfair to expect commanders to be able to maintain good order

and discipline as long as their justice system incentivizes

and empowers them to deny their units' worst disciplinary

failures ever happened.

In his statement--and it is on YouTube and I hope people will listen to it. In his statement, he talks about the fact that he was a commander and he was in the middle of war. He said, as a commander, I have one job to do; that is, to have a fighting machine that is second to none. I want you to know, when I am told to deal with sexual harassment or a crime of any sort, I am not trained to do it. It is a distraction.

I will read the exact quote so my colleagues don't think I am exaggerating. He said:

I used to feel a commander's disinterest in the law, too.

During my training and deployments to Iraq, I focused on

fighting. My life and those of my Marines depended on it.

Legal issues were divisive, distracting, and confusing; they

made me resent those who brought them to my attention, and

feel bias as strong as my relationships with those involved.

Commanders can be forgiven for thinking war is their most

important job, and it should be expected that they'll manage

the judicial process as a side-show and an annoyance.

This is someone who served as a commander and is telling us it is not right to keep loading these commanders up with all of these different responsibilities when their main responsibility is to fight and win wars.

So our amendment, the Kirsten Gillibrand amendment, would take the decision about whether to prosecute serious crimes such as sexual assault out of the hands of commanders and give it to professionally trained military prosecutors outside the chain of command. If something, God forbid, were to happen in the Presiding Officer's office or my office--something very bad, some crime, upstairs in a room somewhere in our office--we are not trained to deal with that. We would immediately call law enforcement to deal with it, wouldn't we? We are not going to decide who is right and wrong. One person is saying he did it. The other one is saying she did it. People are crying and yelling in our office. We are not going to. It is not right. It has to be taken outside our office to the trained prosecutors to determine who was at fault. The chips will fall where they may. Maybe a Senator has a favorite of the two people involved in the altercation. We are not objective, and we are not trained for that--at least I am not. It would be similar to saying a CEO of a corporation should make a decision about whether one or more of her employees should be prosecuted for rape. That is not right. We don't have the decision made within the organization. It has to be outside.

Under our amendment, complex legal decisions would be made by experienced and impartial legal experts because the decision to prosecute serious crimes should be based on evidence. Nothing else should enter into it except evidence. Jo Ann Rooney made the point for us. She said, essentially, watch out if you take it outside the chain of command, it will be based on evidence, not on discipline. Some discipline. Some discipline: 26,000 cases and 90 percent go unreported. What kind of discipline is that? It is not discipline. People are getting away with it. They are getting away with it.

The men and women who risk their lives every day deserve a better system. I can't tell my colleagues how many victims I have met. They were destroyed by the system. They were destroyed by that culture. Men and women are begging us to act.

Tonight we had a chance to agree we would begin debate and voting on this important amendment. It was objected to by the Republicans. We need to get to the vote. I hope when we do that we will have the votes necessary.

I wish to make another point: There is a filibuster going on here. We are going to need 60 votes. We have over 50. Let's be clear. We have over 50. I am very sorry we have to get to 60, but there are those on both sides who are demanding that we get to 60. It is 20 years after Tailhook. This is our moment to make the change we should have made back then. It is time to stand up to all the people who say status quo, status quo, status quo. If the status quo was working, I would support it. If the status quo was working, the victims would come forward. They wouldn't run away and say: I can't deal with this.

Think about the thousands of perpetrators who are running around the military doing this over and over. Think about when they get out and now they are on the street in civilian life doing it over and over again. If they think they can get away with this behavior--this abuse of power, this violence, this hurt--they are going to continue.

I hope colleagues will make the decision to stand with us, with our terrific bipartisan group we have lined up behind this amendment, this Gillibrand amendment. I am very proud to have been working on this for a long time, and I think we are moving in the right direction. We are very close to 60 votes. I urge any colleague who might be within the sound of my voice, if they haven't decided, meet with a victim, meet with a victims' group, listen to their pleas. Listen to how smart they are. They understand what happened to them and they are begging us to stand up to the status quo, to the powerful Pentagon. We are taking on the most powerful organization in the world. But on this, they are wrong. They are right on a lot of other things, but on this they are wrong.

I look forward to proudly casting my vote for the Gillibrand amendment.