Floor Statements

Mr. President, today, I am introducing the Health Insurance Tax Relief Act to help our Nation's working families deal with the recent dramatic increases in health care costs. The legislation would allow taxpayers to deduct up to $2000 in out-of- pocket health insurance costs per year.

While this small Federal contribution to assist families with the health care costs they bear will not solve all of the problems in our health care system, it will provide immediate help for working families who have seen health care costs explode. In 2001, the last year for which we have data, the cost of health care for employer sponsored insurance rose 11 percent. To deal with this increase, 75 percent of large employers and 42 percent of small business employers said they were likely to increase employee premium costs.

In addition, according to the Center for Health System Change, employers will likely be raising deductibles and co-payments and perhaps using more coinsurance, where patients pay a percentage of the cost of their care rather than a fixed dollar amount. And, some businesses are dropping health insurance benefits entirely.

This is an issue of fairness. We already provide a tax break for small business owners who provide health insurance, and we also provide one for individuals who are self-employed. But currently there is no provision that allows for employees, who are faced with additional financial responsibility for their premium costs, to take a tax deduction on their out-of-pocket expenses. This legislation rectifies that unfairness and will help families meet rising health care costs.

The need for this legislation is particularly important for employees in small businesses, many of which sought to minimize premium increases by adding or increasing deductibles, co-payments and coinsurance. But this shifting of health insurance costs from employers to employees is not limited to small firms. The California Public Employees' Retirement System, CalPERS, the second-largest purchaser of health care after the Federal Government, approved a 25 percent increase in health insurance premiums for 2003. CalPERS provides retirement and health benefit services to more than 1.3 million members and nearly 2,500 employers. These are hard working Americans struggling to make ends meet in a weak economy.

That is why, we should provide some targeted assistance to help families pay for health care. I urge my colleagues to support my legislation.

Mr. President, today, I am introducing the Health Insurance Tax Relief Act to help our Nation's working families deal with the recent dramatic increases in health care costs. The legislation would allow taxpayers to deduct up to $2000 in out-of- pocket health insurance costs per year.

While this small Federal contribution to assist families with the health care costs they bear will not solve all of the problems in our health care system, it will provide immediate help for working families who have seen health care costs explode. In 2001, the last year for which we have data, the cost of health care for employer sponsored insurance rose 11 percent. To deal with this increase, 75 percent of large employers and 42 percent of small business employers said they were likely to increase employee premium costs.

In addition, according to the Center for Health System Change, employers will likely be raising deductibles and co-payments and perhaps using more coinsurance, where patients pay a percentage of the cost of their care rather than a fixed dollar amount. And, some businesses are dropping health insurance benefits entirely.

This is an issue of fairness. We already provide a tax break for small business owners who provide health insurance, and we also provide one for individuals who are self-employed. But currently there is no provision that allows for employees, who are faced with additional financial responsibility for their premium costs, to take a tax deduction on their out-of-pocket expenses. This legislation rectifies that unfairness and will help families meet rising health care costs.

The need for this legislation is particularly important for employees in small businesses, many of which sought to minimize premium increases by adding or increasing deductibles, co-payments and coinsurance. But this shifting of health insurance costs from employers to employees is not limited to small firms. The California Public Employees' Retirement System, CalPERS, the second-largest purchaser of health care after the Federal Government, approved a 25 percent increase in health insurance premiums for 2003. CalPERS provides retirement and health benefit services to more than 1.3 million members and nearly 2,500 employers. These are hard working Americans struggling to make ends meet in a weak economy.

That is why, we should provide some targeted assistance to help families pay for health care. I urge my colleagues to support my legislation.

Mr. President, I am pleased to be re-introducing today a bill that will take an important first step in restoring the San Gabriel River, which runs through Los Angeles, CA. During the 107th Congress, this bill received unanimous support from the House of Representatives and from the Senate as part of an omnibus California Parks bill. However, due to a technical error, unrelated to this legislation, the bill was never sent to the President. I am hopeful that this legislation will quickly receive the consideration it deserves so it can be enacted into law.

The San Gabriel River has suffered from years of abuse and neglect and needs our help. For far too long, we have channeled, redirected, constricted, polluted, and simply ignored it. The result is that substantial portions of the river look nothing like its natural form. Instead of soft bottoms covered with aquatic grasses, stream banks lined with trees and bushes, and waters teaming with fish, these rivers have cement bottoms, cement banks, and little remaining wildlife.

Today, we begin what will be a long, slow process in turning the tide for this urban watershed. This bill directs the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a study of the San Gabriel River watershed to consider various mechanisms for providing federal protection and assistance to this river and its watershed.

It is particularly important to restore the San Gabriel River so it can serve as a source of outdoor recreation for one of our Nation's most congested urban areas. Most communities in Los Angeles are desperate for open space. They seek outdoor areas where children can play, adults can meet, and people of all ages can find respite from the daily hustle and bustle of some of our most economically and socially stressed neighborhoods. The San Gabriel River system can and should provide that to them.

This vision is shared by Congresswoman Hilda Solis, who first introduced this bill in the House of Representatives in the last Congress. I look forward to working with her on passing this bill quickly and then taking the additional steps needed to restore the San Gabriel River.

Mr. President, I am pleased to be re-introducing today a bill that will take an important first step in restoring the San Gabriel River, which runs through Los Angeles, CA. During the 107th Congress, this bill received unanimous support from the House of Representatives and from the Senate as part of an omnibus California Parks bill. However, due to a technical error, unrelated to this legislation, the bill was never sent to the President. I am hopeful that this legislation will quickly receive the consideration it deserves so it can be enacted into law.

The San Gabriel River has suffered from years of abuse and neglect and needs our help. For far too long, we have channeled, redirected, constricted, polluted, and simply ignored it. The result is that substantial portions of the river look nothing like its natural form. Instead of soft bottoms covered with aquatic grasses, stream banks lined with trees and bushes, and waters teaming with fish, these rivers have cement bottoms, cement banks, and little remaining wildlife.

Today, we begin what will be a long, slow process in turning the tide for this urban watershed. This bill directs the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a study of the San Gabriel River watershed to consider various mechanisms for providing federal protection and assistance to this river and its watershed.

It is particularly important to restore the San Gabriel River so it can serve as a source of outdoor recreation for one of our Nation's most congested urban areas. Most communities in Los Angeles are desperate for open space. They seek outdoor areas where children can play, adults can meet, and people of all ages can find respite from the daily hustle and bustle of some of our most economically and socially stressed neighborhoods. The San Gabriel River system can and should provide that to them.

This vision is shared by Congresswoman Hilda Solis, who first introduced this bill in the House of Representatives in the last Congress. I look forward to working with her on passing this bill quickly and then taking the additional steps needed to restore the San Gabriel River.

Mr. President, I send a motion to the desk, and I ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, this straightforward motion essentially says it is important that this bill receive the guidance and the wisdom of the Judiciary Committee, since issues have been raised at the Supreme Court that have not been addressed in this bill.

When I raised this in the beginning of the debate, a Senator on the other side said: We have debated this many times. Why do you want to go back to the committee?

Well, there is a big difference between the three previous occasions that we have debated this bill and this time, and that is, the Supreme Court has spoken. In June 2000, in the case of Stenberg v. Carhart, the Supreme Court ruled Nebraska's so-called partial-birth abortion law is unconstitutional. I am told very clearly by the lawyers who were involved in that case that the current bill before us, S. 3, is legally identical to the Nebraska bill.

The Supreme Court ruled that bill unconstitutional for two reasons. I would like to see the chart there. First, the bill contains no health exception. This is what the Supreme Court said:

The governing standard requires an exception where it is

necessary in the appropriate medical judgment for the

preservation of the life or health of the mother. Our cases

repeatedly invalidated statutes that, in the process of

regulating the methods of abortion, imposed significant

health risks.

Mr. President, this bill contains no health exceptions. I am very pleased Senator Durbin will be offering a health exception today, as well as Senator Feinstein later, and there may be others. But the bottom line is the bill itself, as it stands, contains no health exception. It makes it unconstitutional.

The second reason the legally identical bill was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court is that it imposed an undue burden on women because the definition in the law is too vague. It covers more than one procedure. This is what the Supreme Court said:

Even if the statute's basic aim is to ban D&X--

By the way, there is no such mention of D&X in S. 3.

its language makes clear that it also covers a much broader

category of procedures.

Therefore, it is putting an undue burden on the woman, Mr. President. With the Supreme Court's decision, we should at least have a bill before us that will pass constitutional muster.

If I may see the other chart that summarizes the two.

Here you see the summary of the problems with S. 3. Exactly the same as Stenberg: Undue burden on women because the definition is vague, and no exception to protect women's health.

I believe we have a responsibility to make sure this bill is constitutional, and I would think that those of my colleagues who support this bill, even without a health exception, which I think is cruel to a woman and I think goes against the American value of caring about mothers and caring about their health--even if you support that, without a health exception, you ought to care about this being constitutional. It should be our responsibility because what is the point of all this--the President said he is going to sign it--if, in fact, the Court turns around and says it is the same problem all over again?

You hear from others that this problem has been remedied and we have taken care of this in the findings, and they are tweaking some of the words, but the people who argued this law the last time said that clearly it is legally identical. I placed those letters in the Record, and I will read from them again.

So we are spending time on the bill that experts tell us is unconstitutional. Yet we have so many other matters we should be addressing. If we want to address this bill, at least send it to the Judiciary Committee so that when it comes back, they will have looked at this question of constitutionality. In the meantime, we are not looking at the loss of jobs in this country.

Yesterday, my colleagues on the other side voted down health insurance for poor, pregnant women--the ability for women to have contraceptives so they would avoid unintended pregnancies. Oh, this is amazing to me. These are the issues people confront every single day.

So we have 14 pages of findings that basically say the Supreme Court found this, found that, and we find this, we find that; therefore, essentially, what we are doing is constitutional. It is amazing to me the authors of this bill would bypass the committee their own party controls and bring this bill straight to the floor without stopping in the committee of jurisdiction after the Court has very clearly spoken that this S. 3--because it is identical to Stenberg in a legal sense-- is unconstitutional. No health exception. How can anyone who has ever read the Stenberg case or, for that matter, case law regarding abortions since many years ago, argue that if you don't have a health exception, you are meeting the constitutional standard?

I guess the Justices have felt all these years that a woman's health is important, and I guess some people in this body don't feel that way. That is your choice. But it is not constitutional. I think a hearing would be salutary. We could hear from the scholars, hear from the people who were involved in the Stenberg case. We could once again hear from the women who have gone through this procedure, many of whom I have shown you on the floor of the Senate. They call themselves very religious, very pro-life. Yet they chose to have a procedure that their doctors told them was necessary to preserve their fertility, to make sure they would not wind up being paralyzed.

I am looking forward to Senator Durbin's amendment. I want to hear people argue against Senator Durbin's amendment when he spells out the health impact that could occur to a woman if this type of procedure is not available to her. We have a committee system and it ought to be used. I want to let the Senate know that this idea of taking a bill to committee is certainly not a new idea.

Let's see what some of the Republican leaders said about sending bills to committee. This is March 6, 2002. This is Senator Don Nickles on bringing a bill directly to the floor and bypassing the committee, which is exactly what is happening today. This bill bypassed the committee of jurisdiction, the Judiciary Committee, and was brought to the floor. Let's hear what Senator Nickles said:

Where is the committee report? One of the reasons we have

markups in committees is to have everybody on the committee

who has expertise on the issue to have input, to support it

or oppose it--to issue a committee report so we can find out

what is in it, so you can read what is in it in English, not

just the legislative language, which is difficult to

decipher. Our competent and capable staff prepare a committee

report explaining in English, here is what this provision

does, here is what this provision means.

This is why it is important to send bills to committee, particularly on a subject the Supreme Court has taken up and has found terrible problems, constitutional problems, with a similar, if not legally identical, bill.

Let's look at what else has been said. This is another statement by Senator Nickles on bringing a bill directly to the floor and bypassing the committee:

I think that bypassing the committee and bringing a bill

directly to the floor is a violation of Senate protocol--

spirit, basically

telling the minority they don't matter. It doesn't make any

difference if there are 49 members on the Republican side,

you don't matter; you have no input.

I think this is quite amazing. And we have more statements as to why bills should go to committee by the Republicans who have bypassed committees just a year later--not even a year later.

Senator Frank Murkowski, now Governor of Alaska. He said this on bringing a bill directly to the floor and bypassing a committee:

The question is, why in the normal course of events would a

bill under the jurisdiction of the committee not be referred

to that committee? To suggest that there is an effort to

obstruct the process by giving members input on the bill

through the normal process of amendments is a travesty of the

process associated with the traditions of the Senate.

That was February 5, 2002.

That is a statement of Senator Murkowski, Republican, now Governor of Alaska. ``It is a travesty of the process to bypass a committee.'' And this is about a bill that has, by the way, no constitutional problem as far as anyone knew, and here we are talking about a bill that comes out after a Supreme Court case and acting as if it never happened, in my view, because the operative language of the bill still does not meet the constitutional challenges laid out by the Court.

This is another statement on bringing a bill directly to the floor and bypassing the committee, by Senator Nickles:

I am very disappointed in this process. This process should

not be repeated. It should not be repeated by Democrats or

Republicans.

Let me say that again:

This process should not be repeated by Democrats or

Republicans. We have committees for a purpose. We have

committees for a purpose: So we can have bipartisan input, so

we can have the legislative process work, so we can have

hearings on legislation so people can know what they are

voting on, to where they can try to improve it, to where any

member of the committee has an opportunity to read the bill

and to amend it, to change it--win or lose, at least they

have the opportunity to try.

We have a bill before us that should have gone to the Judiciary Committee. Senator Trent Lott's comments on bringing a bill directly to the floor and bypassing the committee:

If we bring these important issues to the Senate floor

without them having been worked through committee, it is a

prescription for a real problem.

What do we have? A bill that never went through the committee, a changed bill that never had a hearing at Judiciary, about a subject that is as important as life and death. Unbelievable.

So my motion to commit this bill to the committee--where, by the way, the Republicans have control--is a proposal that is not partisan and that is sincere because I believe, with all the problems we have in the world, the last thing we need to do is pass a bill that is unconstitutional and then have it brought back again, where we have to start all over, we have to have pictures that some of my constituents told me they could not even look at.

The Supreme Court said you must have a health exception:

The governing standard requires an exception where it is

necessary, in the appropriate medical judgment for the

preservation of the life or health of the mother.

My colleagues want to put themselves in the doctor's shoes and decide they know what is best in an operating room. They know. They may not have gone to medical school, but they know.

The Supreme Court wrote:

Our cases have repeatedly invalidated statutes that, in the

process of regulating the methods of abortion, imposed

significant health risks [to the mother].

The Supreme Court wrote:

Even if the statute's basic aim is to ban D&X, its language

makes it clear it also covers a much broader category of

procedures.

What I have presented in my opening statement is the following: We have a bill that deals with a subject of life and death. We have a bill that, if it passes, makes no exception for the health of the mother. We have a bill that legal experts say is legally identical to the law that was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

We have a bill that affects real people. We heard their cases, and we will hear them more when Senator Durbin presents his amendment. At a minimum, could we have a little humility and send a bill such as that to the appropriate committee? Could we have a little humility? Could we be a little humble?

Senators are playing doctor, and that is wrong. Senators are ignoring a Supreme Court decision that says there must be an exception for the health of the mother. That is wrong.

My mother always said to me, there is right and there is wrong. You should be humble, and you should care about other people. Those are the values I grew up with.

As a mother of two children, having had two premature babies and, thank God--in those years it was not easy--they made it, with God's help, and as a grandmother who saw a daughter have a very challenging pregnancy, I know these things do not always go smoothly. And I know, because I have lived long enough to know, that if a doctor says to a mother or a father of a daughter or a husband of a daughter or family members of a woman, she could have a hemorrhage and die if we do not use this procedure, she could have a uterine rupture, she could be made infertile, she could have a blood clot, she could have an embolism, she could have a stroke, she could have damage to her nearby organs and she could be paralyzed for life if she does not have a procedure, it is a very serious matter.

This is not a list that was made up by anyone. It comes from physicians. I have the letter, and I have placed it in the Record. There are other things, such as a coma, that I did not put on the list.

I am saying to my colleagues, be a little humble. At the minimum, send this bill to the committee. Have these doctors come forward. Create a health exception that is fair. Do not give us a bill with no health exception because that is cruel, it is wrong, and it goes against American values of caring about each other.

I hope we will have a good vote and that this bill, S. 3, will go to the Judiciary Committee. Senator Santorum can appear before them. He can tell them why he believes he has met the Supreme Court case, the challenges that were laid down in Stenberg. I could be there, Senator Feinstein, other colleagues who feel another way. We could present our witnesses, we could talk about it, and then the committee could decide which way to go on it.

I would be happy to yield.

Yes. In addition, I say to my friend, have the lawyers who are familiar with the Stenberg case.

This chart shows the differences between this bill and the Stenberg case in terms of the legalese. Basically, they are identical. What we have is the Stenberg case that ruled that the Nebraska statute was unconstitutional because it placed an undue burden on women because the definition is vague and there is no exception to protect women's health.

Lawyers and constitutional experts tell us that the same problem exists in S. 3. So my friend is right. We would bring the legal people together. We would bring the women back. We could have another debate and then, regardless of how one feels--and I know the Senator and I may come down differently on this in the end--that is fine. I do not expect my position to prevail, let's be clear. But I think the Senate should, at the minimum, have the humility to hold a hearing and find out how they ought to draft this bill.

Absolutely.

That is correct.

Clearly, we are trying to get an in-depth knowledge of the issues and the challenges. We want to make sure the bills we present to the full Senate, or the full House on the other side, are carefully thought out; they make sense; there are no unintended consequences that could occur. It is for all of those reasons. Of course, it becomes a place for the public to get involved, because right now--Senator Frist, who is a doctor, his expertise is heart surgery and transplantation--we do not have anyone in the Senate who is an OB/GYN.

The other point I want to make while my colleague is in the Chamber, in addition to the fact that there is no health exception, is to bring out one of the things Senator Nickles said last year about bypassing the committee.

This is a statement made by Don Nickles when a bill bypassed the committee of jurisdiction and came straight to the floor. He said:

I am very disappointed in this process. This process should

not be repeated. It should not be repeated by Democrats or

Republicans. We have committees for a purpose. We have

committees for a purpose: So we can have bipartisan input, so

we can have the legislative process work, so we can have

hearings on legislation so people can know what they are

voting on, to where they can try to improve it, to where any

member of the committee has an opportunity to read the bill

and to amend it, to change it--win or lose, at least they

have the opportunity to try.

That goes directly to my friend's question about why we have committees and what their purposes are.

I am happy to yield.

Yes. This is not a motion to recommit; it is a motion to commit.

Senator Lott said, on bringing the bill to the floor and bypassing the committee:

If we bring these important issues to the Senate floor

without them having been worked through committee, it is a

prescription for a real problem.

I say to my friend, Senator Reid, you may be interested in this statement of Senator Murkowski:

The question is, why in the normal course of events would a

bill under the jurisdiction of the committee not be referred

to that committee? To suggest that there is an effort to

obstruct the process by giving Members input on the bill

through the normal process of amendments is a travesty of the

process associated with the traditions of the Senate.

It is very unusual for me to bring out statements made by the other party when arguing for a position. I am not saying it any more eloquently than they said it.

I say to my friend, our assistant Democratic leader, what they are referring to is the energy bill. That never really had a constitutional question. We have here a situation where we have the Supreme Court ruling on a legally identical bill that this is unconstitutional.

I hope we will have support. I look forward to the remainder of the debate. I also look forward to Senator Durbin's presentation on making sure we get a health exception. I hope colleagues will support that. That is what they ought to do if they really care about families and women and women's health, and we can move on, complete this bill, and have it, hopefully, committed to the Judiciary Committee where they can look at the constitutional questions and call on the doctors, have a good debate, and bring this back to the floor having had the benefit of the wisdom of the members of the Judiciary Committee, both Democratic and Republican.

I retain the remainder of my time and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, we have reached a point of this debate where there has been screaming and yelling on the Senate floor. I will try to react to those screams as calmly as I can and say that this bill doesn't protect the health of women. It puts our daughters in harm's way. That is not groups saying that. That is 45,000 OB/GYNs. Talk about loving hands; they are saying that. It is women who have had the procedure. They are saying that. And guess what. The Supreme Court says that. Because of that, we need to send this bill back. Actually it is not back to committee; it never went to committee.

I never said it was identical. I said it was legally identical to the Stenberg case. I have said that over and over.

This morning we have been listening to a series of lectures about medicine. I guess I find that odd on the Senate floor, especially the one about breech babies because my daughter was delivered breech. I understand that. I don't need to be lectured about that, about what it is, about what the risks were to me or my baby because I lived it.

I do know one thing: My constituents are right to look away from this drawing. No one wants to look at abortion. We want abortion to be rare. We want it to be safe. We want it to be legal. The vast majority of people in the State I represent, a State of 35 million people, support Roe v. Wade because it is a moderate decision that balances all the interests. Yes, the health and life of the mother always, and the interest of the fetus where, after the first 3 months, States can in fact set the rules of abortion, but always, always with the life and health of the mother at the forefront.

This bill does not do that. Therefore, this bill is unconstitutional, in addition to being cruel, in addition to being dangerous, in addition to putting women in jeopardy.

Again, I say to my colleague that he has chosen to put this drawing here. I could have chosen to put a drawing of a woman having a hemorrhage behind me. I could have chosen to put a drawing of a woman's uterus rupturing and everyone running around in the emergency room desperately trying to save her. I could have chosen a drawing of a woman slipping into a coma, having an embolism. I could have put a drawing of a woman paralyzed for life because perhaps she couldn't get this procedure which my colleague has decided doctors say they don't need. That is false on its face, and that is the reason we need to have a hearing.

We have letters from doctors. We have letters that lay out why, in fact, this procedure is necessary and why this bill is unconstitutional. A letter from the University of California, San Francisco, signed by Felicia Stewart. She says this bill:

. . . fails to protect women's health by omitting an

exception for women's health; it menaces medical practice

with the threat of criminal prosecution; it encompasses a

range of abortion procedures; it puts women in jeopardy.

She names the various abortion procedures which could be outlawed.

I would like to have this bill go to the Judiciary Committee because I would like to know why one procedure wasn't mentioned in the bill ever. It is on purpose because it is meant to cover more than one procedure. That is another unconstitutional provision.

By the way, the proponents of this said before that the laws before the court would be deemed constitutional. They were not. They were wrong then; they are wrong now. And surely if they think they are so right, why don't they want to take the time and have this bill go through the Judiciary Committee.

Dr. Stewart says:

If the safest medical procedures are not available to

terminate a pregnancy, severe adverse health consequences are

possible . . .

And she lists them. They are even more than what is behind me.

The individual who argued the Supreme Court case that we are talking about, Stenberg, says the new Federal bill, S. 3 ``contains the same two flaws of the Nebraska bill that was ruled unconstitutional.'' And she goes on to explain why. I don't want to be terribly repetitive, but there were two problems in the Stenberg case. The ban was too vague and, therefore, there was an undue burden on the woman because she could be denied all kinds of procedures. Secondly, there was no health exception.

So, yes, I could have had a drawing that showed a woman in severe crisis and constituents would have turned away from that as well. That is why Roe v. Wade is such an important decision because it knows that this issue is so difficult. It weighed the competing interests and it said, in the first 3 months of a pregnancy, government stay out. A woman and her doctor can decide. Senator Santorum should not decide, although in his opinion, I know

he wants Roe v. Wade overturned. He thinks government should decide. I take issue with that. But there is no difference on the rest because I do believe later in a pregnancy, the State has a right to set the rules, always making an exception for the life and health of the mother.

I don't know what all the yelling is about because I could tell my colleague that we could probably get, if the leaders on his side of the anti-choice would agree, we could get a bill that could ban all late- term abortions--all--except for life and health of the mother. Wouldn't that be something we could do?

We will have the chance because, as I understand it, Senator Feinstein will be offering that very bill. Let's see how our colleagues feel. They will have a chance to ban all late-term abortions with the life and health exception.

My colleague said, in answer to Senator Nickles' comments about how important it is to send bills to the committee of jurisdiction--I wrote down what he said--they were talking about a complex piece of legislation, major complex piece of legislation. They were talking about a big piece of legislation, many pages. Well, I ask the question: What could be more important for the Senate Judiciary Committee to look at than a matter that deals with life and health? What could be more important for the Judiciary Committee to look at than a possible ban on a procedure that has no health exception, which could lead a woman into a life where she is paralyzed, where she has a stroke, where she cannot bear children anymore, where, in essence, she is taken away from her family? What could be more important to take 2 days on?

Are women not worth a couple of days of hearings here? Are women not worth it? They are your mother, they are your sister, they are your wife, they are our daughters.

Yes.

It is legally the same. There are a couple of tweaks in the language, and there are a series of findings, but the lawyers who argued the other case tell us it is legally the same because there is no health exception and the language is so vague that it creates an undue burden.

I have behind me on a chart the two reasons the Court found that Stenberg was sufficient. Those issues remain in S. 3. That is why this motion to commit is an attempt to do the right thing by the women in this country, and for the children of this country, and for the families in this country, and for anybody who cares about this matter, and to have a couple of days of hearings to see if we can get a bill that would pass constitutional muster.

Correct.

Yes. I thank my friend. As an attorney, as he is, and as a member of the Judiciary Committee, he understands that this is in fact a wasted amount of time because there are so many other issues we could be dealing with here regarding the people of our country, who are struggling now under terrible economic times and are worried about foreign policy problems; and we are spending time on an extremely emotional issue. There is no question it is very difficult for this Senator to be here talking about it, because it deals with a situation where I believe the health of women could be jeopardized and doctors could be put in jail for trying to do the best for their patients. The other side gets very emotional as well. In the end, we have a piece of legislation that doesn't pass constitutional muster and this will be brought back again.

So it seems to me the intelligent thing to do is to bring it to the committee and make sure that this bill, as Senator Santorum says, meets the constitutional issues that were raised. Experts tell me it does not. The record is replete with references that colleagues on the other side thought the Nebraska case would pass constitutional muster and it did not either.

I also would like my friend to see a comment made by Senator Nickles regarding the importance of going to committee because I think it stands out here as a way to make the point that, whether you are a Democrat or Republican, you should respect the fact that we have committees for a reason. When a bill bypassed the committee, he said he was very disappointed in this process, and this process should not be repeated, so that we can have bipartisan input, have the legislative process work, have hearings so people know what they are voting on, et cetera.

I think what we are doing makes a lot of sense because it impacts the health of women, the lives of women, and life and death itself, and it ought to go back.

I say to my friend that that is the whole point. When you are dealing with these emotional, difficult, terrible issues, you have to look at all of that. That is why, on our side, we are willing to say we would ban all late-term abortions, as the Senator's bill would do, except for life of the mother and, in your case, a health exception which is a pretty tough health exception.

I am going to support you. I am also going to support Senator Feinstein's, which gives a little more leeway to the patient and the doctor. The point is that is the right approach to balance the fetus's rights and the mother's rights.

That is the whole point of Roe and why it was such a reasoned, reasonable, and moderate decision because all of this is difficult. For us to outlaw medical procedures which doctors tell us are necessary-- and my colleague keeps saying they do not. I put in the Record the letter from the OB/GYNs, 45,000 strong, who say do not do away with this procedure and, if you do, make a health exception.

I have told stories and I want to quickly go through one--how much time do I have remaining on my side?

Can I be told when I have 5 minutes remaining?

I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I say to my friend, he posed a very good rhetorical question which was: Does the Senator believe if people could hear these stories of the women and their families who are going through these choices, would they not also be touched and be moved? The answer is clearly yes.

I wish to tell my colleague about Coreen Costello who went through this procedure. I want to tell you how she defines her own ideology and religion. She says:

We are Christians and conservative. We believe strongly in

the rights, value, and sanctity of the unborn. Abortion was

simply not an option we would ever consider.

She was told the muscles of the baby she was carrying had stopped growing and her vital organs were failing. Her lungs were so underdeveloped they barely existed. Her head was swollen with fluid and her little body was stiff and rigid. She was unable to swallow and, as a result, the excess fluids were puddling in her uterus. They tried desperately to save the pregnancy.

She said:

We wanted our baby to come on God's time, and we didn't

want to interfere. We chose to go into labor naturally.

Eventually she was told if she did that, she could die.

We asked our pastor to baptize her in utero. We named her

Catherine Grace, Catherine meaning ``pure'' and Grace

representing God's mercy.

We talk about the problems families face. These families are desperate to do the right thing for the family, for the child in utero, and eventually she had to have this procedure that the Senator wants to outlaw. She said it saved her life and it saved her health, and it was the only choice she had to save her fertility. She said:

Losing our daughter was the hardest thing we ever

experienced.

She said it has been difficult to come to Washington and tell her story.

Yes.

I say to my friend, no one can be more eloquent than he. I think this whole debate is about Senators thinking they know more than families, doctors, the ability of families to sit around and choose the safest option in a real emergency situation.

My colleagues say it is not an emergency; the procedure takes 3 days. That does not even make sense to me. I think if you find out you are going to have a cancer operation and it takes a long time, it still is an emergency. The fact the procedure takes a while probably indicates it is even more of an emergency.

We have a lot to do. We have a lot of responsibilities. I do not want to do harm. I think that by sending this bill to the committee of jurisdiction to further explore the constitutional ramifications of this bill, which is legally identical to a law that was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, is the right thing to do. To listen, again, to some of the people who have lived through this is the right thing to do.

To do no harm is the minimum we should be doing. I think when the Senator offers his amendment to have a pretty narrowly drawn health exception, it ought to win because how do we stand here and say we have a heart when we ignore stories like Vikki Stella's?

I absolutely supported the Murray-Reid amendment, as did my colleague. I was stunned at how many people on the other side of the aisle, who stood up and defended the rights of the fetus, somehow cannot defend the rights of a child. It is a stunning thing to me to see people, who are speaking so eloquently on this, vote against the Murray-Reid amendment to help poor children get the help they need, to help them get the medical attention they need.

We ought to think about the pictures of these women, with their families, who faced this. This is not an issue that is an abstraction. It is an issue about real families struggling. And being told that to save the woman, to save her ability to have future children, to make sure she does not wind up paralyzed or with a stroke, that she have a chance, this Senate is going to move to outlaw this procedure, that could do that for this woman without a health exception--I think it is cruel. I think it is wrong. I think it is sad. I think it shows a lack of humility. And I hope the people of this country will understand what we are talking about: The willingness of the pro-choice Members of this Senate to outlaw all late-term abortion as long as the life and the health of the mother are excepted.

I thank my colleagues for listening, and I retain the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I want to start by answering Senator Fitzgerald, who complimented me on my work. We have worked together on saving dolphin and others. But since he couched it in the form of an attack, I think I would like to respond in this way.

My whole life has been dedicated to protecting children, women, the elderly, the infirm, and that is what my current position on this issue reflects. I want to ensure pregnancies are safe, that women have prenatal care so they have healthy babies and, yes, when a woman faces a crisis pregnancy, that she can be saved--women, like some of the women in the Senator's own State of Illinois, who have to choose this particular procedure that would be banned by his vote, without even an exception for the health of a woman. I find that position to be inhumane.

I want abortions to be safe, legal, and rare. I have to say to my colleague from Illinois, if he wants to go back to the days when abortions were illegal, I could share some stories about people I knew who were made infertile, and many whom I have read about who died. If you want to go there, we will talk about it.

But right now we are talking about a bill that is a very important bill because it bans a procedure that women need to have available to them on rare occasions. Because we are talking about a bill that is legally identical--if I didn't use the term ``legally identical'' in every case, I apologize--we are talking about a bill that is legally identical to the bill that was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Senator Leahy agrees. He is the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. I will ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record, if it has not been done so, his statement.

He says:

Senators deserve the benefit of full consideration and

vigorous debate before they are asked to cast a vote on such

a significant and complicated issue.

He says:

The Judiciary Committee has not had an opportunity to fully

debate the pros and cons of this issue in a hearing since

1997.

I would say to my colleagues, to heed the words of their own leaders--Senator Don Nickles, who excoriated Democrats for bypassing the committees instead of bringing a bill to the floor, in which he said:

Bypassing the committee should not be repeated by Democrats

or Republicans. We have committees for a purpose so we can

have bipartisan input, so we can have the legislative process

work, so we can have hearings on legislation so people can

know what they are voting on.

It is the height of irresponsibility, it seems to me, when we are talking about a bill that would deny a procedure that 45,000 OB/GYNs say is sometimes necessary to save the health of the mother, not to have a hearing on this particular piece of legislation since we have not had one in a very long time and the Supreme Court chastised those who wrote the Nebraska law because, they said, it did not really make any exception for the health of the woman even though the kinds of risks that she faces are very serious.

Let's take a look at the risks that doctors tell us women face: Hemorrhage, uterine rupture, blood clots, embolism, stroke, damage to nearby organs, and paralysis.

So I say to my friends who come here with such compassion in their heart, to be compassionate toward the mothers, too, to understand what they may face. Let's send this to the Judiciary Committee. That is where it should be. Let them take a look at it and bring it back up.

I yield the floor.

First, anyone who reads Roe v. Wade knows it is not an unfettered right. Clearly, at the later stages, Government can in fact restrict abortion. Secondly, the kind of talk we just heard on the Senate floor, where two Supreme Court Justices were essentially called murderers--if one reads back the words, it is essentially calling them murderers--I think is beyond inflammatory. I think it is dangerous rhetoric. It is wrong, and I am very sad that the debate has deteriorated to this point.

Mr. President, regardless of the vote on final passage of this bill, I think you ought to think about why it is important to commit this bill to the Judiciary Committee. Since we last debated this bill, the Supreme Court has ruled that an identical bill is unconstitutional based on two principles that I have here behind me.

Mr. President, since we last debated this bill, the Supreme Court has ruled an identical bill unconstitutional based on two principles: No. 1, there was a health exception; and this bill has none; and, No. 2, because of an undue burden on women because the procedure ban is so vaguely defined that it banned more than one procedure.

It has those same flaws and should be examined by the committee of jurisdiction.

The ranking member of the committee, Senator Leahy, agrees. In his statement, Senator Leahy said: ``Senators deserve the benefit of full consideration''----

I will take another 30 seconds.

--``of full consideration and vigorous debate before they are asked to cast a vote on such a significant and complicated issue.''

We are talking about--and I will show a picture of one of them--women such as Coreen Costello, a religious, self-described pro-life conservative woman who had no other option but this procedure if she wanted to preserve her health and have more children.

I retain those 30 seconds.

Mr. President, women such as the one shown in this picture deserve to have another hearing. These are the things that could go wrong if a woman is denied this procedure without a health exception: They could hemorrhage; they could have a uterine rupture, blood clots, an embolism, a stroke, have damage to nearby organs, or have paralysis.

We have not had a hearing on this bill since 1997, my friends. We have since had a Supreme Court decision that faults the bill because it does not have a health exception. At least vote with us, please, to commit this to the Judiciary Committee.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, it is really very interesting when we talk about disabled children that the man offering this amendment to reaffirm Roe v. Wade is the champion for the disabled. He has fought for the disabled all his life.

To somehow put out the idea that those who are pro-choice are not for the disabled is another terrible thing to say in this Senate. I have been in many of these debates over the years, and the comments made by some of my colleagues on the other side of this issue--in terms of their view toward women, women who want more than anything else to bear healthy children and have those children and, yes, even bear them if they are disabled--are extremely disturbing. The kind of comments we have heard about Supreme Court Justices border on, worse than inflammatory, dangerous comments. The comments we have heard about doctors and health professionals are very disturbing to me.

Let me reiterate that the AMA opposes this bill--my colleague keeps talking about the AMA--and they oppose it because it imposes criminal penalties on physicians who they say perform these procedures. So they are not in agreement with this bill at all. They find that S. 3 is something they must oppose.

The Senator from Pennsylvania keeps asking for specific cases of women who were told that this procedure was necessary as the safest procedure to save their health and their life. He keeps saying no one has come up with these.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the full text of 10 statements by 10 women who so testified.

I am going to just read a paragraph out of each of their stories. The first is Viki Wilson, who writes:

Losing Abigail was the hardest thing that has ever happened

to us in our lives, but I am grateful that Bill and I were

able to make this difficult decision ourselves and that we

were given all of our medical options. There will be families

in the future faced with this tragedy. Please allow us to

have access to the medical procedures we need. Do not

complicate the tragedies we already face.

Coreen Costello writes movingly. All of these are so moving that I would say if every American could read these, they would know that what we are about to do is wrong because it makes no health exception. She says:

Losing our daughter was the hardest thing we have

experienced. It has been difficult [to talk about our loss].

And it's ironic that I, with my profound pro-life views,

would be defending an abortion procedure. God knows I pray

for the day when no other woman needs this procedure. But

until [then] . . . women must have access to this important

medical option.

Claudia Crown Ades, at the end of her beautiful statement, writes:

Though I hope and pray that no one has to go through what

my husband and I have, there are people who will. It can

happen to anyone--to you, your wife, your sister, your

daughter, your friends. All women should have the protection,

the guidance and the access that modern medicine allows.

All of these women were told by their physician that the safest procedure is the one that the Senator is going to outlaw here, without any exception.

Then there is Vikki Stella. She is a diabetic. She was told she absolutely needed this. We went through her story.

Then there are a number for whom I do not have photographs. Audrey Eisen--she says: ``Along with my sadness came a realization that if such legislation passed,'' tragedy would happen to ``those women who come after me.'' Outlawing these procedures, ``I don't know how these women will endure; I don't know how I would have endured.''

Erica Fox said:

This procedure is not about murder. It's about finding way

to go on. In the end, it's about life. A good life. A healthy

life. The life I see every day shining at me in the eyes of

my son.

Tammy Watts:

I understand the Senate is considering legislation that

would ban the kind of surgery that I just had. . . .

She goes on to talk about this terrible decision. She begs us not to outlaw this procedure. She says:

I can't imagine where I would have been without [my doctor

who performed this procedure.] He saved my family. . . . [He

saved] my life. I couldn't have made it through this without

him, and I know there are a great many women out there who

feel the same way.

Theresa Tauchi writes us on October 11, 2000:

I know that it can happen to us again and that we will need

to revisit the same heartbreaking decision every time--a

choice that rightfully belongs to us and to us alone.

Kim Koster wrote to us. She said:

The reality is that this is a terrible law [this S. 3], a

grievous interference between doctor and patient, and would

only compound the tragedy and the heartache faced by families

like us. Please protect [our] . . . families.

Miriam Kleiman; this is the last one I have.

It is my hope that someday in the future when my doctor and

his staff face the harsh rhetoric from the so-called ``right

to life'' movement . . . they will not see the anger of the

anti-choice activists, but will envision instead the face of

our healthy son whose picture adorns their wall and will know

that what they did for my family--and so many others--was

right and they helped us reach this day.

The reason Senator Harkin's amendment is so important is that under Roe v. Wade, the right to choose is guaranteed to a woman in the beginning of a pregnancy, the first few months. And after that we can restrict, but always with an exception for the life and health of the mother. That is Roe.

Let me tell you why it was important that that decision be made. Because before Roe, 5,000 women a year died from back-alley illegal abortions. I don't hear anything about these women. It chokes me up.

Women had to go and have back-alley abortions in other places--not a clean hospital, not a State-licensed facility, no practitioner who knew what he or she was doing. Money was slipped across the table, and 5,000 women a year died. That is why this vote is so important. We must not go back. We cannot go back to those dark days before Roe.

Yes, I yield.

I haven't seen any recent polls. I wonder if my friend could inform me. I assume overwhelmingly the people of this country support Roe because it is a moderate decision, a moderate mainstream decision.

Absolutely. I think people are horrified at the thought that a Senator would make such a personal, private decision. Our colleague from Pennsylvania wants to see Roe v. Wade overturned, and that is exactly what would happen. Government would be put in the middle of the lives, the private lives, of the people of this country. The people would no longer be trusted to make these decisions.

I say to my friend, he is absolutely right. Because there is no health exception in S. 3, it is a complete reversal from Roe.

What is shocking is my colleagues on the other side won't even make a health exception that was narrowly drawn by Senator Durbin. They couldn't even go that far. We all know what could happen to a woman if she does not have this safe procedure. Doctors are telling us. We put those statements in writing. They could have a hemorrhage, their uterus could rupture, they could have blood clots, embolism, stroke, damage to nearby organs, and paralysis. Yet S. 3 comes to us without a health exception.

I say to my friend, the rest of the time is his. I have concluded my remarks. I am very proud to stand with him. I think it will be a close vote, but I am hoping a winning vote, so the message can go out from here that Roe v. Wade, which balanced all the interests--the family interests, the interests of the fetus, and the interests of the mother, which said that previability a woman has a right to choose, she will make that decision with her God and her doctor and her loved ones--that should stand. Certainly later in the pregnancy there can, in fact, be restrictions, and always exceptions for the life and health of the woman.

I thank my colleague for again offering this amendment. I think it is very important. I hope people of the country will watch the vote and will think about the ramifications.

I yield the floor. Senator Harkin retains the balance of time.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

I appreciate that. I have two questions for the Senator. Is the Senator aware that 78,000 women a year around the world die of illegal abortions? And since he stated that the other figure I put out is false, I went back and got the World Health Organization number. Is the Senator aware of this?

The second question I have is: The Senator, in having a debate with Senator Clinton, which I thought was probably one of the more instructive things that has happened this afternoon, talked eloquently about the rights of the disabled, and I wondered why the Senator, in the two last votes that we had, voted against the Individuals with Disability Education Act, IDEA funding, which would fund education for children with disabilities.

This is appropriations. These are two votes.

No.

I appreciate the Senator has not seen it.

These are two votes for 2 years in a row.

I ask unanimous consent that the record of these votes be printed in the Record.

Ten minutes.

Will the Chair please inform me when I have a minute left?

Mr. President, when a bill that deals with a medical procedure comes before the Senate, that in itself is very rare. When a bill comes before the Senate that bans a medical procedure that many women have stated saved their lives, preserved their fertility, stopped them from having a severe health impact, I think it is important to turn to the people who know the most about this, and that is the OB/ GYNs who choose, as their way of life, delivering children, who get their satisfaction in their work by staying close to a pregnant woman and seeing her through a pregnancy.

Hearing Senator Frist's comments is very interesting to me, but I have to say I have read his bio, and there is nothing in here about delivering babies. Maybe he did when he was in school or as a resident. But what we are talking about here is OB/GYNs. What do they think? Why is that important? Because that is their life.

Let me tell my colleagues what the OB/GYNs say:

Partial-birth abortion does not exist.

They are not the only ones who say that. The fact is the Supreme Court said that. They said the bill is so

vague; it made up a term, ``partial-birth abortion.''

There is no such thing as partial-birth abortion, a very emotional term. But what we are talking about is a procedure that is used in a situation where any other procedure might cause grave harm to the woman.

Now, the AMA does not support S. 3. I hope Senator Frist is aware of this. He is busy talking, which is fine, but I ask unanimous consent that the AMA statement that says they do not support S. 3 because it includes a provision that would impose a criminal penalty on physicians be printed in the Record.

Then I want to tell a story. My colleagues have an artist's rendering, but I want to show a photograph of a woman named Coreen Costello. I want my colleagues to listen to this because it is not a made-up picture. It is a real picture of a real family and a real woman. Why don't my colleagues listen to it because I think this is what we are supposed to be about, real people facing real problems and what we are about to do by passing radical legislation, which is unconstitutional on its face. It did not even go to the committee. I say to my friends, it did not even go to the Judiciary Committee, although the Supreme Court said it was unconstitutional. The least they could have done was bring it back to the committee and look at what the Court said, that the definition was broad, it was vague, it could ban more than one procedure and that it had no exception for the health of a woman.

Listen to the story of Coreen Costello. She says:

I am writing to you on behalf of my family. I have

testified before both the Senate and the House concerning the

so-called partial-birth abortion ban. I have personal

experience with this issue for at 30 weeks pregnant I had a

procedure that would be banned by this legislation. When I

was 7 months pregnant, an ultrasound revealed that our third

child, a darling baby girl, was dying. She had a lethal

neurological disorder and had been unable to move any part of

her tiny body for almost 2 months. Her muscles had stopped

growing and her vital organs were failing. Her lungs were so

undeveloped, they barely existed. Her head was swollen with

fluid and her little body was stiff and rigid. She was unable

to swallow amniotic fluid and as a result, the excess fluid

was puddling in my uterus. When we learned about our baby's

condition, we sought out many specialists and educated

ourselves. Our doctors, five in all, agreed that our little

girl would come prematurely and there was no doubt that she

would not survive. It was not a matter of our daughter being

affected by a severe disability--her condition was fatal. Our

physicians discussed our options with us. When they mentioned

terminating the pregnancy, we rejected it out of hand.

I want my colleagues to hear this, and I ask that there be order in the Chamber.

I have listened to my colleagues, and I would appreciate it if they would hear a story of a woman named Coreen Costello, because if this procedure were to be banned--and I see that Dr. Frist has left the floor--this woman could have died. But they leave the floor, and that is their prerogative.

This is what Careen Costello writes:

We are Christians and we are conservative. We believe

strongly in the rights, value and sanctity of the unborn.

Abortion was simply not an option we would ever consider.

This was our daughter. Instead, we wanted our baby to come in

God's time and we did not want to interfere. We chose to go

into labor naturally. It was difficult to face life knowing

we were going to lose our baby but it became our mission to

make the last days of her life as special as possible. We

asked our pastor to baptize her in utero. We named her

Katherine Grace. Another ultrasound determined Katherine's

position in my womb. It was not conducive for delivery. Her

spine was so contorted it was as if she was doing a swan

dive, the back of her feet almost touching the back of her

head. Her head and feet were at the top of my uterus. Her

stomach was over my cervix. Due to swelling, her head was

already larger than that of a full-term baby.

I say to my friends, this is real life. This is a situation of a woman who never, ever wanted an abortion. She said:

As my condition worsened, we again considered our options.

Natural birth or induced labor were not possible. We

considered a cesarean but the experts felt the risk to my

health and my life were too great.

We have a bill before us that makes no exception for the health of the woman. I was in the Chamber yesterday. We had a very tough debate, and the question was asked, How low can we sink? I have to say, when we hear stories such as this, that happen to real people--and if this were our daughter or our wife or our aunt, would we not say, save her life and her health?

The bottom line is this: This woman had the procedure that would have been banned with this bill. I ask unanimous consent that the entire letter be printed in the Record.

She concludes:

Losing our daughter was the hardest thing we have ever

experienced. It has been difficult to come to Washington and

relive our loss. And it's ironic that I, with my profoundly

pro-life views, would be defending an abortion procedure. God

knows I pray for the day when no other woman will need this

procedure, but until there is a cure for the cruel disorders

that can affect babies, women must have access to this

important medical option.

In conclusion, in my last minute, I have told this story because what we are about to do, unless we adopt several of the amendments we will be offering, would mean that another woman such as this, another beautiful family such as this, might find that the woman has life-threatening illnesses if, in fact, she cannot have the procedure: hemorrhaging, uterine rupture, blood clots, embolism, stroke, damage to nearby organs, paralysis. This is what physicians tell us happens to women.

So my colleagues have a picture, and that is fine, although I have to say I hope the pages who feel a little queasy on this will not be forced to stay in the Chamber, but we are dealing with a circumstance that affects real people and these are the things that can happen to these women. I believe we have to have a voice, and the Murray amendment should pass because the Murray amendment would mean that women can have access to contraception and that abortion would become safe, legal, and rare.

I yield the floor back to Senator Byrd, who I believe has the time.

Madam President, I want to take 5 minutes to thank my friend from Washington, Senator Murray, for her extraordinary leadership on women's health. The fact that this amendment is being debated is very encouraging to me, because when people stand up and say we want to prohibit a procedure that doctors tell us, OB/GYNs tell us is absolutely necessary in some cases in order for a woman to have her life saved or her health preserved, that is not something we should be doing here. We are not physicians; we are Senators.

What we would be doing is making sure that every woman in this country, when faced with a very difficult life-threatening or a health- threatening pregnancy can make decisions based on the best advice that she can get, the best science, because if we look at these families-- and I have been showing these portraits of real women. This is a woman who, in her own words, said, ``I am a conservative pro-life Christian.'' Those are her words. She said, ``Abortion, to me, is something unthinkable.'' Yet she said in her own words, far more eloquent than mine, that had she not been able to have the procedure that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to ban, she might not have been able to bear another child. In fact, the possible health impacts of her not being able to have the procedure have been spelled out by physicians.

I am so happy to see my friend from Illinois in the Chamber because he is going to be offering an amendment to make sure that if this bad law moves forward, there is an exception, so that women won't hemorrhage, won't have uteruses rupture, won't suffer blood clots, won't have embolism or strokes, or won't suffer damage to nearby organs or have paralysis. Can you imagine us doing something that could lead to a woman--like this beautiful woman and the others I have talked about having to suffer one of those consequences--being ripped away from her family?

I am happy to yield.

My friend has put it in a very stark way--that what is happening in this Chamber, and as my friend, Senator Murray, has eloquently pointed out, as we are amassed to go to war in Iraq, as we have a building crisis in North Korea, as we have the worst economy I have seen in decades, what is on this floor is banning a procedure that your constituent--is she yours?

That your constituent needed in order to spare her son horrific health consequences. And the fact that somebody would say that is not a crisis, when you have described the status of this pregnancy, is stunning to me. I know people around here have big egos. I don't doubt that. We all have----

I ask for an additional 3 minutes.

I know that most politicians--and we are all included-- think we really know a lot, and we are really pretty smart, and we have to work hard at our jobs, and we feel confident and comfortable in our work, but when we start doing things such as this--outlawing a medical procedure that OB/GYNs tell us is necessary to preserve the health of a woman, and when we start telling women such as this woman here, and others I have shown, that they don't know what they are talking about, they were not in crisis, this isn't an emergency--I actually heard someone on the floor today say this isn't an emergency situation if it takes 3 days.

Well, let me tell you, it may take 3 days because of these complications that we are talking about. These are very complicated, difficult situations that are delicate. If it takes 3 days, it is because it is delicate.

I have to say, if we wind up banning this procedure--which, by the way, the way the bill as written is unconstitutional because the lawyers who have fought the previous case said it is legally identical to the case that the Supreme Court said was unconstitutional--and it is upheld because of a change in the Court, or whatever, we are going to find some tragedies that we are going to bring to the floor.

I don't want to see that day come. Doctors take an oath to do no harm. I wish we can take that same oath to do no harm. Roe v. Wade was a very important decision. It said in the first few months of a pregnancy, before viability, a woman has a right to choose what she wants to do with the pregnancy. That is Roe. After viability, we all support restrictions--but always with an exception for the life or the health of the mother.

This bill is so radical, it has no exception for health. The women I have brought to you have told me they could have suffered any one of these on this list of problems. How we can stand here on the floor, when physicians are telling us these are the problems--the hemorrhages, blood clots, strokes, paralysis--that could result If this particular method is banned, it seems to me we are doing harm. We are doing harm to the women of this country.

I would like to see us finish this bill. I would like to see these amendments pass. Senator Murray's amendment is so important. They are so important because what they will do if they pass and are signed into law is make abortion rare because it is talked about in every aspect of contraception being available to women. That is what we ought to be doing so we don't have to have this debate on abortion.

I yield the floor at this time.

Will the Senator yield for an answer to the question?

I assume I am answering on my friend's time.

Yes, I would like to submit for the record a letter from the University of California, San Francisco, Dr. Felicia Stewart, in which she says very clearly that this bill:

. . . fails to protect women's health by omitting an

exception for women's health; it menaces medical practice

with the threat of criminal prosecution; it encompasses a

range of abortion procedures; and it leaves women in need of

second trimester abortions with far less safe medical

options: hysterotomy and hysterectomy.

The proposed ban would potentially encompass several

abortion methods.

She goes on:

If the safest medical procedures are not available to

terminate a pregnancy, severe adverse health consequences are

possible for some women who have underlying medical

conditions.

And she says here is what happened to them: Death, infertility, paralysis----

Coma, stroke, hemorrhage, brain damage, infection, liver damage, and kidney damage.

Today, Senator Ensign and I are introducing the Invest in the U.S.A. Act of 2003 along with Senators Smith, Allen, Enzi, and Bayh. This economic stimulus legislation would create a one-year incentive for corporations to bring the profits they have made overseas back to the United States and invest them in creating jobs.

The act lowers the effective corporate tax rate on the foreign earnings of American companies from 35 percent to 5.25 percent for one year. By lowering that rate for one year, we will encourage companies to bring an estimated $135 billion from abroad back home to invest in the United States. Getting this capital into the domestic economy is particularly necessary in light of the difficulties firms are having raising money in this tough economy. By making this capital available for domestic investment, we will minimize the spending cuts that companies have been announcing for the coming year.

The Invest in the U.S.A. Act would constitute a true economic stimulus by encouraging investment and job creation right away in such activities as worker hiring and training, research and development, and new plants.

Our proposal is also fiscally responsible, unlike other proposals that fail to give the economy the shot in the arm it needs. It will result in job creation rather than deficit creation by enabling a tremendous amount of investment in our economy in the short term with only a small cost in the long term. For Government, the funds brought back to the United States will generate $4.1 billion in revenues in the first year and is expected to cost $3.9 billion over 10 years.

I want to thank Senator Ensign for his active, engaged leadership on this legislation. I particularly appreciate Senator Ensign's focus on ensuring that these funds will be targeted at creating jobs and stimulating our economy right away.

Mr. President, we will work hard to ensure that the provisions in this act are included in any economic growth package that the Senate considers because our workers need the opportunities it would create and our economy needs the capital it would generate.

Today, Senator Ensign and I are introducing the Invest in the U.S.A. Act of 2003 along with Senators Smith, Allen, Enzi, and Bayh. This economic stimulus legislation would create a one-year incentive for corporations to bring the profits they have made overseas back to the United States and invest them in creating jobs.

The act lowers the effective corporate tax rate on the foreign earnings of American companies from 35 percent to 5.25 percent for one year. By lowering that rate for one year, we will encourage companies to bring an estimated $135 billion from abroad back home to invest in the United States. Getting this capital into the domestic economy is particularly necessary in light of the difficulties firms are having raising money in this tough economy. By making this capital available for domestic investment, we will minimize the spending cuts that companies have been announcing for the coming year.

The Invest in the U.S.A. Act would constitute a true economic stimulus by encouraging investment and job creation right away in such activities as worker hiring and training, research and development, and new plants.

Our proposal is also fiscally responsible, unlike other proposals that fail to give the economy the shot in the arm it needs. It will result in job creation rather than deficit creation by enabling a tremendous amount of investment in our economy in the short term with only a small cost in the long term. For Government, the funds brought back to the United States will generate $4.1 billion in revenues in the first year and is expected to cost $3.9 billion over 10 years.

I want to thank Senator Ensign for his active, engaged leadership on this legislation. I particularly appreciate Senator Ensign's focus on ensuring that these funds will be targeted at creating jobs and stimulating our economy right away.

Mr. President, we will work hard to ensure that the provisions in this act are included in any economic growth package that the Senate considers because our workers need the opportunities it would create and our economy needs the capital it would generate.

Mr. President, could you advise me when I have used 9 minutes.

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, there have been so many misstatements made on this floor right now in just a few minutes that I don't know where to start.

Why don't I start with the whole point that we have made over and over again. We are Senators. We are not doctors. With all due respect to my friend from Pennsylvania, if my daughter were in trouble with pregnancy, I wouldn't go to him. I would go to her OB-GYN. And I would say, Tell us what do we have to do to make sure this birth goes well, and tell us what we have to do to make sure our daughter's life will not end and that her health will not be impaired forever. I would not go to the Senator from Pennsylvania in that circumstance.

There are many arguments that we will lay out. Today, we only have a few very short minutes. Senator Murray and I are going to share the time. We have a number of amendments that we are going to offer during this week to talk about what we think is very important for women's health, and, frankly, the health of their families and their children.

This bill, S. 3, is called the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. It should be called the following: The ``Criminalizing Medically Necessary Procedures Act,'' because the procedures that are banned are necessary to save the life and the health of a woman facing a medical emergency during a pregnancy.

My friend from Pennsylvania makes light of it. Oh, this doesn't hurt women. This is fine for women. Let me tell you who agrees with us and who disagrees with the Senator from Pennsylvania.

To start, I have a letter that I ask unanimous consent be printed in the Record from Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health.

Mr. President, in fact, they say the so-called partial- birth abortion does not exist. There is no mention of the term ``partial-birth abortion'' in any medical literature.

Let me say once again for my colleagues that there is no mention of the term ``partial-birth abortion'' in any medical literature. Physicians are never taught a technique called partial-birth abortion and, therefore, are unable to medically define the procedure.

These physicians who are charged with protecting the life and health of women and babies--I might add that what is described in the legislation could ban all abortions. What this bill describes can be interpreted as any abortion.

We have a bill called the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, and there is no such thing as partial-birth abortions. What this does is criminalize a medically necessary procedure. So let us get that on the table.

Why then would this be before us? I think the answer lies in this letter from OB-GYNs. It is an attempt to outlaw all abortions, to take away the rights of women to choose--not only to chip away at that right, but to take it away, and, by the way, criminalize abortions.

What follows from that? Women and doctors will be in jail. That is what follows from that. And if you read behind and between the lines here, when you hear my colleagues stand up, they have been fighting all their lives to outlaw abortion and to overturn Roe v. Wade. So let us get it on the table. That is what this is about.

There is a further quote in this letter that I think is worth mentioning.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecology,

representing 45,000 OB-GYNs, agrees: ``The intervention of

legislative bodies into medical decision-making is

inappropriate, ill-advised and dangerous.''

Let me repeat that. These are the doctors who birth our children.

I find it very interesting because a lot of men come out here and talk about this, and women who have had pregnancies, who understand the relationship that you develop with your doctor--your doctor is your friend. Your doctor advises you. Your doctor tells you what your risks are. Your doctor, more than anything, wants a healthy child to be the end result of a pregnancy. That is why they go into medicine. People here would put them in jail if they tried to save your life by using a procedure that they know is the safest one in an emergency.

So repeating:

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecology,

representing 45,000 ob-gyn's, [says]: ``The intervention of

legislative bodies into medical decision making is

inappropriate, ill advised, and dangerous.''

The American Medical Women's Association, women who go into healing-- women who go into healing--what do they say, 10,000 female physicians? They are opposed to this ban because it ``represents a serious impingement on the rights of physicians to determine appropriate medical management for individual patients.''

So here we are, with everything else happening in the world, playing doctor--playing doctor--and putting women's lives at risk. It is very upsetting.

I go home every weekend. That is why I could not begin this debate on Saturday because I go home and I listen to my constituents. They come up to me--as I know my friend from Washington goes home every weekend-- and they tug at my sleeve. Do you know what they are saying to me? Not ban medical procedures that doctors think might be necessary to save the life and health of a woman, no.

They are saying: Senator Boxer, we are worried. We have 250,000 troops ready to go to war. We are worried. Can we avoid war? We are worried. We are losing our retirement nest eggs. We are worried. We have lost our jobs.

I have a chart in the Chamber to just put this into context; that we are standing here debating a procedure that, if you take the definition of D&X, impacts one-tenth of 1 percent of all abortions. I do not happen to agree that is what the bill does, but let's take the advocates' point of view. They say it is this D&X, and that is one- tenth of 1 percent of all abortions, when these are the things people want us to work on:

In the last 2 years, 2.5 million private-sector jobs have disappeared. And I know some of those families. And 8.5 million people are unemployed in the United States of America; 1.1 million in California.

Thank you, Mr. President. I will continue. Will the Chair let me know when I have used 11 minutes, please?

Two additional minutes, and then I intend to yield back to my friend. And then Senator Murray will seek recognition.

Mr. President, people are unemployed. Mortgage foreclosures have reached a record high. Forty-one million Americans have no health insurance--no health insurance--whatsoever. Nine million children do not have health insurance coverage; 1.6 million children in California have no coverage.

Over 15 million Medicare beneficiaries have no prescription drug coverage. And 1.5 million violent crimes were reported in the U.S. in 2001. The crime rate is going up again, along with the unemployment rate.

We are talking about banning a medical procedure--or more than one, because the Supreme Court, by the way, in its ruling, claims the wording actually bans more than one procedure--we are doing that instead of this.

Mr. President, 13.5 million eligible children do not have child care assistance. And 280,000 children in California are on waiting lists to receive assistance.

There is a lot of passion about kids here. I share the passion. I share the love. I share the anxiety for those children. Let's do something to help them.

Mr. President, 15 million children have no access to afterschool programs, and the President cut the afterschool program by 40 percent.

One million children live within 1 mile of a toxic Superfund site, and the Superfund is in danger, and Superfund

cleanups are now cut in half. Talk about how it affects children. Why don't we do our job instead of trying to be doctors? If we do our job, we will have healthy children, get the parents health insurance, and the rest.

Mr. President, 17 million Americans have asthma; 6 million are children. I will tell you, if you go to any school and ask the kids to raise their hand, a third of them will say they have had asthma.

And 11.6 million children are living in poverty.

Mr. President, I ask for 30 more seconds, and then I will stop.

Bottom line: We are here in a situation where we are making a decision that is going to harm women. And through this debate I will show you the real faces of the women who have had this procedure. Some are very religious Catholics. Some are very conservative Republicans. And they are fighting against this with all their heart.

So I do look forward to this debate because, frankly, if we can take this love we all share for children and put it to good use for all of these things I have talked about, maybe something good will come out of it.

I thank the Chair very much and reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, we are talking about polls. I will give you a very late poll. This is an L.A. Times poll of the Nation: 45 percent think we ought to be working on strengthening the economy; 28 percent, fighting terrorism; 26 percent, dealing with health care costs; at that time, 25 percent dealing with Iraq; 18 percent, protecting Social Security; 7 percent dealing with tax cuts; and 7 percent dealing with late-term abortion.

The people are exactly where the Senator from Washington says, but we are willing to debate this and we are looking forward to a good debate.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object, I want to ask my friend how long he intends to speak tonight? I will not object.

That is fine. I just wanted to know if we were going to be here for an hour or two. Thank you.

I will speak just as long as my friend speaks.

Mr. President, the question asked very eloquently by my friend is: How low have we sunk? I say pretty low, when we have a bill before us that doesn't even have an exception for the health of a woman. I get caught up in my throat when I think about it. Women like Viki Wilson, women who are religious, women who desperately want children, women who were told, as she was--and I will read her story-- that if she didn't have a procedure outlawed in this bill, she could never have a child again, and worse. So I think we sink pretty low when we write a bill that doesn't even have an exception that has been the law of this land since 1973 in a Supreme Court case that is still upheld, which says, yes, we can act to limit abortion, but we always have to make an exception for the life and the health of a woman. That is my position.

I have said on this floor, along with many of my pro-choice colleagues who are Democrats and Republicans, we would ban all late- term abortions, except for the life and health of the woman. My view is anyone who comes to this floor to ban a medical procedure that could save the life and health of a woman and doesn't have that exception, is sinking very low. It shows a lack of respect for women, a lack of respect for their lives, their future ability to have children, to love children, and for their future as healthy women.

I will show you a list of problems that could develop in women if they don't have the procedures that are banned in this bill. Show me that list of what could happen. This comes from various physician letters, which I will ask to print in the Record later in the debate. This is what can happen to women if there is no health exception in the bill, which there is not. There are 15 pages of findings, but no health exceptions.

The Supreme Court already ruled on this very same bill--the Nebraska law--and sent it back and said you cannot come to us with a bill that doesn't make an exception for the health of a woman. Why? Because they see that a woman could hemorrhage and die; a woman's uterus could rupture and she could die; a woman could get a blood clot and she could die; she could have an embolism and she could die; she could have a stroke and she could die; she could have damage to nearby organs and, in some cases, she would have to live paralyzed.

How low have we sunk that we cannot make a exception for the health of a woman? Pretty low. Pretty low. When I started this debate, I made the point that there is no such thing as partial-birth abortion. It is a phrase that is used by the proponents of this bill in order to essentially make abortion illegal one procedure at a time. Every one of my friends who is on the floor time and time again, if you ask them, they will be honest and they will say they don't like Roe v. Wade; they don't think abortion should be legal; it ought to be criminalized. This is the way they are going--one procedure at a time.

By the way, if you read the Supreme Court case--put up the chart that shows what the Court said. We are talking about more than one procedure banned, although our friends will tell you it is one procedure. Look at what the case says.

First of all, there is no health exception. I will go to this chart. The Supreme Court said in the Nebraska case, a legally identical bill:

Even if the statute's basic aim is to ban D and X, its

language makes clear it also covers a much broader category

of procedures.

So let there be no mistake, those voting for this bill are not just outlawing one procedure, but many procedures, which fits right into the agenda of my friends who are here tonight and who will be here in the next several days debating with us, because they want no abortion--even though, if you ask the American people, should a woman have a right to choose, should Government stay out of that private decision, a vast majority will say yes, because it is out of respect for women to make a decision with their physician and with their God. It is a decision that has a lot of components to it, one they discuss with their families. It is a tough decision. But I don't personally think any Senator ought to be put in the bedroom of any of our people making these decisions, or in a doctor's office.

If my daughter had a problem pregnancy and her health was threatened, just as Viki Wilson's was, I don't think that I would go to a U.S. Senator--not even the one who is a doctor, because he is a heart surgeon. If she had a heart problem, absolutely. I think it is important to see what the American Medical Association says about this. I say to my friends on the other side of the aisle that they are very holier than thou about this and they have every right to their opinions. They do not know more than doctors. It is not their job to protect the life and health of women. They don't even know what they are talking about. Listen to the AMA. The AMA, American Medical Association, has previously stated their opposition to this bill:

We oppose legislation that would criminalize a medical

practice or procedure. Since S. 3 includes a provision that

would impose a criminal penalty on physicians performing

intact dilation extraction, the AMA does not support this

bill.

Even though they don't like the procedure, they would not support this bill. The letters I have had printed in the Record from practicing OB/GYNs--those are the doctors women go to. They don't go to ``Dr. Santorum,'' they don't go to ``Dr. DeWine,'' they don't go to ``Dr. Boxer,'' they don't go to ``Dr. Murray;'' they go to their OB/GYN.

What do they say?

We urge you to stand in defense of women's reproductive

health and vote against S. 3, legislation regarding so-called

partial-birth abortion.

There is no mention of the term ``partial-birth abortion'' in any medical literature. There is no such term, I say to my friends. Physicians are never taught a technique called ``partial-birth abortion'' so, therefore, they are unable to medically define it. What is described in the legislation, they say, could ban all abortions.

Why don't my colleagues just come out and say, ``Let's ban all abortions''? Let's have that debate. You lose it, at least with the American people. I do not know how the votes line up here. We are going to have a chance to vote on whether to overturn Roe v. Wade. We are going to offer that up. We will have a debate about that. Let's see where people stand on that one. But to do it in this way, making up a term and doing it in a way that is so vague that the Supreme Court basically says it covers a much broader category of procedures, is absolutely a fraud on the people. I do not know what else to call it. The Supreme Court said in an identical bill it is far broader than just one procedure.

What did it say about the health of a woman? It also said:

Our cases have repeatedly invalidated statutes that in the

process of regulating the methods of abortion, imposed

significant health risks.

In other words, there is no health exception in this bill. Senator Santorum added 15 pages of language, but the operative part of the bill makes no exception for health.

Let's be clear on what we are talking about. First of all, a partial- birth abortion, which there is none, is a vague term which could ban all abortions and many abortions. There is no health exception whatsoever in the bill. Without a health exception, if a doctor fears a hemorrhage or a uterine rupture, or a blood clot or an embolism or a stroke or damage to nearby organs or even paralysis, it is not enough for my friends on the other side. How low have we sunk--I want to talk about that. If your daughter is told if she does not get this particular procedure, she may be paralyzed for life and you will not make an exception, how far have we sunk? I think that is a fair question.

The debate we are having is not the real debate. The real debate is outlawing abortion completely and doing it one procedure at a time and making people think this particular procedure, A, is real, which there is no such thing as a partial-birth abortion--it is not in any dictionary; it is made up--and B, making them think you really are banning one procedure when the Supreme Court said, no, there are many procedures and maybe all abortions are banned.

So why not come here like a man--and I say ``a man'' because it is the men on the other side who brought this to us. Maybe we will have some women debating it tomorrow, but so far we have seen the same men come down here, and they are saying they are after this partial-birth abortion when we know every one of them wants to ban all abortions, does not believe in a woman's right to choose, wants to criminalize women who would have an abortion, criminalize doctors, and have a constitutional amendment to make it illegal.

I remember those days. Women died during those days. How low have we sunk? Women were made infertile in those days. All the points we see here--serious health consequences of banning safe procedures--all of that I remember in those days. Finally, the Supreme Court got enlightened in 1973 and said: Government, keep your nose out of this; it is a health issue; and if you legislate to clamp down on abortions in the late term--which, by the way, I agree with, but always have a life and health exception so we do not force women into a situation where they can lose their ability to function for their families.

Let's put Viki's picture up again. I will tell you her story. She says:

I urge you to oppose S. 3. I understand this bill is very

broad and would ban a wide range of abortion procedures. Mine

is one example of the many families that could be harmed by

legislation like this.

In the spring of 1994, I was pregnant and expecting

Abigail, my third child, on Mother's Day. The nursery was

ready and our family was ecstatic. My husband, Bill, an

emergency room physician, had delivered our other children

and he would do it again this time. John, our older, would

cut the cord. Katie, our younger, would be the first to hold

the baby. Abigail had already become an important part of our

family.

At 36 weeks of pregnancy, however, all of our dreams and

happy expectations came crashing down around us.

This is Viki. She says:

My doctor ordered an ultrasound and detected what all of my

previous prenatal testing had failed to detect. Two-thirds of

my daughter's brain had formed outside her skull. What I

thought were big healthy, strong movements were, in fact,

seizures. My doctor sent me to several specialists. We were

in a desperate attempt to find a way to save her.

``A desperate attempt to find a way to save her,'' and yet my colleagues come down here and make everyone believe that these women who have had this procedure were callous about it. ``A desperate attempt to save her.''

Everyone agreed she would not survive outside my body. They

also feared that as the pregnancy progressed before I went

into labor, she would die from the increased compression in

her brain. The doctors feared that my uterus might rupture in

the birthing process, rendering me sterile. The doctor

recommended against C section because they could not justify

the risks to my health.

What were the risks to her health? Let's look at it again and again and again. What could have happened to Viki if she had to live under this cruel law that has no health exception? She could have hemorrhaged. Her uterus could have ruptured. She could have had blood clots, an embolism, or a stroke. She could have become paralyzed. Her organs nearby could have been damaged.

When people come down here and say ``how low have we sunk,'' I agree: How low have we sunk to have a bill come before this body with a name that is not even a real procedure, that could outlaw a broad range of procedures, and that makes no exception for a woman's health and could consign her to live the rest of her life, if she survives it, in a horrific situation which could be so detrimental to her other children.

I see my colleague has come to the floor. I am not going to go on much longer because I have a lot more to say on this and a lot more cases to share with my colleagues tomorrow. We have pictures and pictures and pictures of women and their children, women who are deeply religious, women who tried every way to save their pregnancy, women who wanted to live to try to have another child.

Is that a crime? Is that being made a crime? Yes, it is being made a crime. I feel heavy in my heart that with all of the issues that face us, 250,000 troops--talk about killing. I have 5,000 National Guard on the border of Iraq, with another couple of thousand having been notified. I have young people over there, people who have left their families, who are going to face God knows what, and we are debating a procedure that would be banned, which does not even make an exception for the health of a woman such as Viki, and the many others I will bring to light.

It is so callous. We have children who are uninsured who cannot even get medicine. We are not talking about that. We have the most unemployed people we have seen in decades, the worst economy we have seen in 50 years. The stock market plunged again today, and people have to work another 5 or 10 years because their dreams are gone. And we are talking about banning a procedure without making a health exception. I am amazed.

Debate it we will, and we will offer amendments to try to bring health to women, to children, and to women who are pregnant. We hope our friends will be as eloquent in supporting those as they are eloquent tonight.

We will have the chance to speak out on Roe v. Wade and see how many of our colleagues really support a woman's right to choose, as the Supreme Court laid it out, in the early stages of a pregnancy. And, yes, in the later stages one may not have an abortion unless it is to save the life and health of a woman. That is the law.

This will set a dangerous precedent. It will send a message that the health of the mother does not matter. Every time I put up a picture, my friends will say, because they did it last time, oh, these women, they could have had it, there is no problem with them. Wrong. These women have come to us and told us they had the procedure that my colleagues want to ban, and had they not had it, they might not have lived to tell the tale or they would have had serious adverse health consequences.

So how low have we come? That is for the people of America to decide. As far as I am concerned, anyone who comes to this floor and puts forward a bill that is so callous as to say that if a woman's health is threatened and she could suffer one of these terrible consequences, she cannot even have a procedure that her OB/GYN says she needs to have--it is callous, and I am going to speak out against it. I hope we will finish this in due course, have a good debate and move on, but we will be heard on our side. We did not bring this up, but we will be heard.

I yield the floor.

I take a minute to rebut my friend before I listen to my colleague from Ohio. I find it very interesting that because a procedure could take 3 days, it is not an emergency. If my daughter is undergoing a procedure and on the third day she dies, because perhaps something went wrong, she was in an emergency, even though it took 3 days. If someone has cancer and rushes into the hospital and it may take some intensive work over a period of days to save their life, the procedures used there are used because this is an emergency. To say it is not an emergency because it took 3 days to try to save a woman's life is, on its face, counterintuitive.

I say again, my friend, with all due respect, absolutely knows this procedure he wants to ban without exception for health, he knows it is not the safest procedure.

Well, I don't know what medical school he went to. Listen to the physicians. They are writing to us. They are stating over and over again, don't tie our hands; we may be forced to use this procedure. Don't tie our hands; a woman can suffer irreparable harm.

I would love to believe in everything my friend----

I'm sorry?

I will.

I have not read what my friend is reading from. I wonder whether he has read what the obstetricians and gynecologists----

Send it over to me. I will be glad to. You are asking, do I agree with this doctor. I don't know who he is. I am telling you what I am agreeing with. I agree with the OB/GYN, the women physicians, the physicians who were dealing with these difficult pregnancies all the time.

But I am happy--the time is mine, if I might, I say to my friend.

I didn't say I would not yield for another question.

I asked you to send over the letter to which you are referring so I can answer the question with intelligence. I have not seen the letter. I am not asking my friend to comment on the OB/GYN because I don't know that he has seen it. I don't think that is right to do in an intelligent debate. I am happy to look at it and at that time I will be happy to answer the question.

We have a situation where we are being told by doctors over and over again, thousands of doctors, 45,000 doctors, that they may well have to use this procedure. All they want is a health exception. My friends are not interested in giving us a health exception. They will have a chance to vote it down because we will offer up an exception that talks about the terrible things that can happen to a woman. If they want to vote it down and say no, that is fine. They have to live with that. That is fine.

I don't want to have to face a Viki Wilson. I don't want to have to face the women who have told me this procedure that they want to ban saved them. I don't want to face them when they are sitting in a wheelchair and paralyzed or suffering from a stroke because my friends decided we were sinking so low that we would fight for an exception for health. Imagine. Just imagine.

I rise tonight, and I will do so at every turn, because the facts simply are not on the side of those who want to get this through the Senate and outlaw a set of procedures the court said--by the way, my friend argues that the bill took care of the problem; it is very specific.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a legal analysis by the Center for Reproductive Rights which says very clearly that this bill is legally identical to the one that the court found unconstitutional.

My friend did say, and I appreciate that, that he heard a lot of witnesses come forward to talk about this. That was a couple of years ago. For some reason, they have the time to do this but they did not have the time to send this bill to the Judiciary Committee where they could have looked at this issue.

This is an amazing situation. We had a Supreme Court that argues that the Stenberg case, the legally identical bill to this, is unconstitutional on its face on two grounds--no health exception and a very vague definition. Here it is. Unconstitutional. This is what the Supreme Court said in a legally identical bill, and I have just placed in the Record a letter from the attorney who argued that case. She read the Santorum bill and says it is legally identical to the case that was declared unconstitutional. This is what the Court said. Unconstitutional because it put an undue burden on women because the definition is vague. Undue burden--very important words. You cannot put an undue burden on a woman because abortion under Roe is legal and in the late stages it is not legal if the State says it isn't, except for life and health. But it puts an undue burden because we don't know at what stage the woman is going to get this abortion and whether this procedure applies to it or not.

No exception to protect a woman's health, that is the one that breaks my heart. After all of this, the Court sending it back, please make an exception for women's health, my friends do not even have it in their heart to make an exception for a woman's health. I find it difficult. So S. 3, the bill before us, and Stenberg are legally identical according to the lawyers who won the case.

I argue the life exception is very narrow. It does not just say you can use it if a woman's life is threatened. It says the woman has to have this preexisting condition. I argue that.

But clearly my purpose tonight is to say to my friends on the other side, as we offer these amendments on women's health, be with us; as we offer these amendments on children's health, be with us; as we offer these amendments on prenatal care, be with us. Because you care about children, that is why you are here. So be with us. Be with us on these.

I say be with us on Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade is a modest decision that said to government, take your nose outside of privacy. You cannot make a decision in an early stage of a pregnancy. Be with us on that. Be with us if we suggest that the Judiciary Committee ought to take a look at this in light of the Stenberg case. We offer our hand to you. Be with us when Senator Durbin offers a health exception. If you care about women and their families, be with us when we say make an exception if a woman is told she could be paralyzed if she does not have this or be prepared to face the consequences if this does become the law of the land and the Supreme Court does change. It is bringing pain and suffering to a lot of our families in America.

We will give you the chance to offer up these amendments. We look forward to joining with you. We hope we will win a couple here. We have a few people already on your side of the aisle who are pro-choice who are going to be with us on some of these amendments. We hope we can expand that. We hope we can have a good vote on the health exception. I think we are getting close to winning that one. That would be a good day for women.

Just remember the most important thing of all: This is about real people, real women like Viki. She is just one. These are religious women, caring women, loving women, who wanted these babies more than anyone could say but who knew if they didn't have the procedure that you want to ban, they could well die, be made infertile, have a blood clot, be paralyzed. We can't do this to women. We should not do this. We should respect women.

We should act as Senators, not OB/GYNs. I think it is important.

In closing, I want to say my friend, Senator Santorum, when I was out of the Chamber, said: Well, Senator Boxer said we should not ban procedures, but she voted to ban a medical procedure that would have allowed women's genitals to be mutilated.

I just want to set the record straight. You are darned right I did. That is not a medical procedure; that is torture. That is torture. We are talking here about a medical procedure which doctors say is necessary to save the life and health of a woman in certain abortions. That's quite different. So I wanted to set the record straight.

This debate is emotional. This debate is difficult. There is no doubt about it. But I am so proud to stand tonight, to call on my friends to be honest about what their true goal is. If it is to ban one procedure, then name it in the bill. They do not do that. It is vague. Therefore, according to the Court, it could ban all abortion. That is what the Supreme Court said.

If that is what they are about, then be man enough to come over here and say they believe abortion should be banned, and then let's have at it and talk about the right of families, of women, to make a decision like this--with their doctor, with their God, with their conscience, with their family. But I say: Not with their Senator. I don't think I have that right. I have more humility than that.

I try hard to be a good Senator. I try hard. I come here, I try to fight for the American dream for people. I fight for children, fight for families, fight for jobs. God knows we have trouble in this land. We have troubles in this land. Retirements are up in smoke. People are being forced to work longer and harder. I mean, there are a lot of issues that adversely impact on children and their families. But we will stand here and we will have a point/counterpoint as long as they want to do that.

I thank you and yield the floor.

Mr. President, my friend talked about the joy of childbirth. He is so right. I have a magnificent grandchild. I have two beautiful children, a boy and girl. They were

both premature. It was very scary, and they made it. It was wonderful. I absolutely can say there is no greater joy in my life. As I stand here today, it is because I am pro-children. I am pro-family. I am for healthy families. I am for women not having to face a situation where they could be paralyzed for life if a certain procedure is banned.

My friend says it is not about Roe v. Wade. Nothing could be further from the truth. None other than the Supreme Court said on an identical bill in Nebraska that, in fact, it was against Roe v. Wade--that because there was no exception for the health of the mother in which you have the same situation here. You have salutary language in findings. But the operative language makes no exception for health. That is against Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade was a very carefully crafted bill that has withstood time since 1973. Even this Supreme Court, which is new, as we well know, and to the right, has supported Roe very recently.

It says to me, if you look at the case that just came down, you have two problems with this bill that goes against Roe: No health exception. Everyone agrees there is no health exception. The fact is that the terminology used is very vague. Therefore, it puts an undue burden on a woman because it could ban all abortion procedures.

Having said that, it seems to me puzzling why this bill didn't go back to the Judiciary Committee. I will tell you why. It is not as if nothing has changed since we looked at this the last time. Everything changed. The Supreme Court said the partial-birth abortion ban, as the Senator calls it, was unconstitutional in Nebraska because they had no health exception and it put an undue burden on women because the definition is vague. That has not been cured here.

This is going to go right back to the Supreme Court. I am sure the President will sign this bill because he definitely said he is looking forward to doing that. And it will go to the Court, and I believe it will be struck down because it hasn't met the problems the Court found.

It is puzzling to me why we wouldn't send it back to the Judiciary Committee to discuss the problems the Court found with a legally identical bill. I have had printed in the Record a letter from attorneys who say, in fact, this is a legally identical bill.

I want to close tonight for my part and talk about another case because my friend was very eloquent, and I appreciate his eloquence about children and families.

I certainly will.

Absolutely, it has been, but not since the Supreme Court case which struck down a legally identical bill. That is why I believe it should go back to Judiciary.

With all due respect to my friend, we have a Judiciary Committee that is supposed to make those judgments. So I am sure you think it is fine. You thought the other one was fine, the Stenberg case. You thought the Nebraska case met the Roe v. Wade requirements as well. You were wrong and you were faulty.

So I believe if there is sincerity here--this isn't about politics or whatever--it is really about meeting the constitutional requirements of Roe, it should have gone back.

But I agree with my friend, sure, it has been debated quite a bit, but not since this latest case.

Mr. VOINOVICH addressed the Chair.

I am not going to yield the floor back to you, but I am happy to yield for a question.

Was that a question?

Let me say to my friend, I appreciate his sincerity. I do not question it for one minute. But I also have studied this. I also have cared about this, because I care about women who I am going to be talking about here tonight, and many of whom have come to see me in California and here. They are begging me to fight this because it does not have a health exception. Even though my friend thinks you have written it in a way to have a health exception, it isn't in the bill.

Here is another story about Claudia Crown Ades, who, in 1992, was in the 26th week of a desperately wanted pregnancy. Claudia and her husband, Richard, were told, after an ultrasound, that their son had a genetic condition called trisomy 13. His anomalies included extensive brain damage due to a fluid-filled nonfunctional brain and a malformed heart with a large hole between the chambers. He also had developed liver, kidney, and intestinal malformations. He did not have normal blood flow.

They were told his condition was incompatible with life. She was told if she did not have this procedure she could suffer a number of problems, which I have talked about before, that we have been told by doctors can occur if the procedure is not available.

Her loving family got together, and they decided to have this procedure. It saved her. She did not have to suffer the potential of having a hemorrhage, a blood clot, an embolism, stroke, or paralysis.

So I know my friend worked hard on this bill. I am just saying, it would not take that much effort to get the Judiciary Committee to take a look at it since the stakes are so high for the women of this country to outlaw a procedure, to not have a health exception, and to have such a vaguely drawn phrase about a procedure that is a nonexistent medical procedure. It was given to a procedure that I have already put in the Record.

Maybe my friend did not hear me, but several physicians, representing 45,000 OB/GYNs, say there is no such thing as this, and that these procedures could be far more than one.

So I am going to close my statement here tonight.

Does my friend have a question?

I am glad to yield for a question.

Thank God, we have had so many advances. In my own family we had a circumstance where we were very fearful we were going to lose a pregnancy of one of my children. And because of these incredible advances, she held on, and long enough to have a healthy baby.

What a miracle that is. That is the reason why I support banning all late-term abortions across the board. I think that is consistent with Roe. But for the life and health of a woman, which always must be, it seems to me, considered in a civilized country, we need to make sure women are not facing these kinds of serious problems.

So yes, I say to my friend, I could not be more excited about the incredible progress we have made.

Does my friend have another question?

I am happy to yield.

Let me say to my friend, he keeps referring to partial- birth abortions: ``There would be less partial-birth abortions.'' I would defy my friend to show me where there is a list of so-called partial-birth abortions. Because there are none. This is a made-up term. I will read to you again--because having a debate about partial- birth abortion, I do not know that you take care of these women on a daily basis, as do physicians, but I want to answer my friend.

I would like to answer my friend's question. He is asking me a question, whether I disagree with the premise. The premise is, there is a procedure called partial-birth abortion. Physicians are telling me--and I believe them, I hate to tell you, over you, because this is their life's work. These are OB/GYNs. They are saying, there is no such technique as partial-birth abortion.

Reclaiming my time, I am going to conclude in this way: I have shown you a couple of cases. My friends say: Oh, they are a couple of anomalies. There are many more I am going to share--many, many more-- many more photographs, many more stories, compelling stories of loving, religious, caring families that made a decision based on the facts as they were laid out, so that a woman could live and be a mother to her other children, so she could go on with her life, where she could have been in a circumstance where she could have absolutely been in peril for her whole family for the rest of her life.

I think we have a lot of power here in the Senate. That is why I am so proud the people of California sent me here. And my friend feels so proud the people of Ohio sent him here, as my friend, who is sitting in the Chair, feels so proud the people of Nevada sent him here.

We work hard to get here. And I do not shrink from responsibility. I am very happy to take on whatever responsibility that I have.

I do not see it in the Constitution that I should outlaw a medical procedure that doctors are saying to me is necessary to save the life and health of a woman.

I think that harms families. If my friends would like to offer a health exception, we would have a lot of support. Dick Durbin will do that. I hope a lot of you will join us.

I will conclude my remarks because this is what I really think about this. I don't think this about my friends who are on the floor, but I think if you look around for the past 2 years, you see what has happened to women who want to exercise their right to choose, their right to family planning, and you see what has happened to women in this country. So I am going to conclude with the chart that will go through what has happened to women's rights in this country in terms of a right to choose, which is so important, it seems to me.

First, we have a situation where the administration says pregnant women won't be eligible for health benefits; their fetus will--not them. Keep in mind what we have here. This is a circumstance where we have a bill that will outlaw a procedure that doctors tell us they need to save the life and health of a woman. Put that into perspective with what has been happening lately to women's rights. So a woman is ignored by this administration. They are going to give the prenatal care to the fetus, not to the woman. What does that say about women, by the way? We are not entities; we are just here to exist. People can look right by us. That is not right. That in and of itself is an insult, a lack of respect, it seems to me, for women.

Pushing legislation recognizing an embryo as a person with rights separate and apart from the woman's: Again, what does that say about women?

Moving legislation forcing some young women to make reproductive health choices alone, and criminalizing caring adults who help them: That will hit us soon in this debate.

Attempts to block women's access to RU486, a drug proven safe and effective by the FDA, which will avoid abortion procedures: We have trouble with that. By the way, women all over the world have this, and we have fought hard to get our women to have nonsurgical abortion, which is safer. It has been a fight. So far we have won it. It is under attack.

Attempts to block access to emergency contraception: We are going to have a chance to vote on that during the course of this debate.

Denial of Roe v. Wade's protections to Federal employees; low-income women who rely on the Federal Government for their health care; poor women who live in the District of Columbia--in other words, women, including U.S. servicewomen, who pay out of their own pocket for a procedure cannot even use a Federal facility, with our women abroad, in difficult places all over the world--again, a lack of respect.

Why am I bringing this up now? Because I see what we are doing here as a continuation of what I would call a basic assault on a woman's right to choose, which I consider to be a fundamental right that has been articulated in Roe v. Wade and stands for respect of a woman.

We have seen starving funding for family planning programs, and international family planning is basically impounded by this administration, $34 million. That money can save, by the way, tens of thousands in abortions. If a woman has family planning, she will hopefully plan her family and not be in a circumstance where she might seek an abortion. Tell me how that makes any sense. I don't really see it.

Attempts to channel taxpayer funds to deceptive crisis pregnancy centers that intimidate and withhold information from women; pushing legislation to gag doctors from providing abortion referrals; placing a gag rule on international family planning providers; push for youth programs that censor discussion of contraception benefits; censorship, then revision of medical information on Government Web sites about condoms, and the unproven ``link'' between abortion and breast cancer; attempt to fund Federal research on the unproven link between abortion and breast cancer; key Cabinet appointments who oppose the constitutionally protected right to choose; campaign to pack courts with judges hostile to women's rights; refusal to hold perpetrators of violence, intimidation, and harassment at reproductive health clinics responsible for their illegal acts; refusal to act on international women's rights treaty. I am involved in that, the convention to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women. We are standing with countries such as Angola because somebody says that may mean we support a woman's right to choose. Heaven forbid. So we cannot even sign onto a treaty. It is stunning to me; enactment of 335 antichoice State measures into law since 1995.

So what I am suggesting to you is there is an agenda here--and this is part of it--to ill-define a procedure so it could, in fact, relate to more than one. The court says it could effectively ban all abortion, without really saying they are doing that and not having a health exception, so that women could face all kinds of horrible problems. It is just part of this campaign, if you will, this assault that I see happening, that I feel is very sad for the women in this country.

This is the 21st century. We should allow women to make very private, very difficult choices, as long as these decisions are in accord with the guidelines sent down in 1973.

I will close by saying that Roe v. Wade is a very logical, moderate position. It says in the very beginning of a pregnancy that a woman has a right to choose to have an abortion, without the interference in that decision by government. Then it says after that time, government cannot come in and put in restrictions--but always an exception for the life and health of the mother. I think that is a balance.

The problem with this bill, it bans procedures--and maybe all procedures--many procedures, except some that are very dangerous to a woman, and procedures that could be used at any stage of abortion. That is what the court said, and it makes no exception for her health. I argue the life exception is very narrowly drawn, but we don't have time to go into that tonight.

Thank you very much. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, last week in the Senate, I indicated that with the exception of Supreme Court nominees, I believed that if a judicial nominee answers the questions posed to him or her and provides the Senate with the information needed in order for us to perform our constitutional role of advice and consent, I would not engage in a filibuster on the nomination.

I made this remark expecting that the so-called blue slip process would be honored. That is, if a Senator from the nominee's home State did not return a blue slip, that nominee would not have a hearing, would not be considered in the Judiciary Committee, and would never even come before the full Senate. A filibuster would not be possible because the nomination would not leave the Committee.

After my remarks, however, something happened that makes me question that assumption. I heard on good authority that hearings are being considered on nominees for whom a blue slip has not been returned.

Given this development, it is possible that the Senate could, in the very near future, be asked to vote on a nominee for whom a blue slip was never returned. At the time of my statement last week, I was not aware that such an abrupt change in Senate practice was being contemplated so seriously and so quickly.

Therefore, Mr. President, if a nominee were to come before the full Senate without a blue slip having been returned by a home State Senator, I reserve the right to participate in a filibuster on that nomination.

Furthermore, after I gave my statement last week, an incident occurred in the Senate Judiciary Committee that is of great concern to me and should be to the entire Senate. The rules of the Judiciary Committee require at least one Member of the minority party to agree to end debate on a matter before the Committee. Despite this rule, and despite the fact that no one on the Democratic side voted to end debate, the Committee held a vote on two circuit court nominees anyway.

If Committee rules are going to be ignored--if the rights of the minority party and the interests of the minority party are trampled upon--this process is going to break down. It may take a filibuster in the full Senate to ensure that the rules are followed.

Finally, Mr. President, when President Bush was elected, he pledged to govern from the center. Judicial candidates who are not moderate, mainstream nominees violate that pledge. I want to hold President Bush to his pledge, so I also reserve the right to filibuster a nominee who is far outside the mainstream.

Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation to protect drinking water from contamination by the toxic chemical perchlorate. My bill will require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish a standard for perchlorate contamination in drinking water supplies by July 1, 2004. Under EPA's current schedule, 2006 is the earliest date a standard would be finalized.

Perchlorate is a clear and present danger to California's public health. We cannot wait 4 more years to address this threat. EPA needs to get moving and protect our drinking water sooner rather than later.

Drinking water sources for at least 7 million Californians and millions of other Americans are contaminated with perchlorate. Perchlorate is the main ingredient in rocket fuel, which accounts for 90 percent of its use. Perchlorate is also used for ammunition, fireworks, highway safety flares, air bags, and fertilizers. It dissolves readily in many liquids, including water, and moves easily and quickly through cracks and water.

Perchlorate was first discovered in drinking water in 1957, although it was rarely listed as a contaminant of concern as late as the mid- 1900s. Since 1997, when California's Department of Health Services developed a new, more sensitive analytical testing method that can detect perchlorate down to 4 parts per billion, perchlorate has been found in soil, groundwater, and surface water throughout the U.S.

Perchlorate poses a variety of serious health risks relating to thyroid function, especially in newborns, children, and pregnant women. Exposure to perchlorate interferes with the thyroid gland's ability to produce the hormones needed for normal prenatal development. This can cause both physical and mental retardation. Perchlorate is also linked to thyroid cancer.

Californians face special threats from perchlorate contamination because so many rockets and missiles were built and tested in the state during World War II and the cold war. Groundwater can become contaminated wherever the chemical is manufactured, used, disposed of, or stored.

Alarming levels of perchlorate have been discovered in Lake Mead and the Colorado River, the drinking water source for millions of Southern Californians. Communities in the Inland Empire, San Gabriel Valley, Santa Clara Valley, and the Sacramento area are also grappling with perchlorate contamination. In addition, more than 20 million Americans in at least 19 states drink water contaminated with perchlorate.

My bill will ensure that EPA acts swiftly to address this threat to our health and welfare. I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass this important piece of legislation.

Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation to protect drinking water from contamination by the toxic chemical perchlorate. My bill will require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish a standard for perchlorate contamination in drinking water supplies by July 1, 2004. Under EPA's current schedule, 2006 is the earliest date a standard would be finalized.

Perchlorate is a clear and present danger to California's public health. We cannot wait 4 more years to address this threat. EPA needs to get moving and protect our drinking water sooner rather than later.

Drinking water sources for at least 7 million Californians and millions of other Americans are contaminated with perchlorate. Perchlorate is the main ingredient in rocket fuel, which accounts for 90 percent of its use. Perchlorate is also used for ammunition, fireworks, highway safety flares, air bags, and fertilizers. It dissolves readily in many liquids, including water, and moves easily and quickly through cracks and water.

Perchlorate was first discovered in drinking water in 1957, although it was rarely listed as a contaminant of concern as late as the mid- 1900s. Since 1997, when California's Department of Health Services developed a new, more sensitive analytical testing method that can detect perchlorate down to 4 parts per billion, perchlorate has been found in soil, groundwater, and surface water throughout the U.S.

Perchlorate poses a variety of serious health risks relating to thyroid function, especially in newborns, children, and pregnant women. Exposure to perchlorate interferes with the thyroid gland's ability to produce the hormones needed for normal prenatal development. This can cause both physical and mental retardation. Perchlorate is also linked to thyroid cancer.

Californians face special threats from perchlorate contamination because so many rockets and missiles were built and tested in the state during World War II and the cold war. Groundwater can become contaminated wherever the chemical is manufactured, used, disposed of, or stored.

Alarming levels of perchlorate have been discovered in Lake Mead and the Colorado River, the drinking water source for millions of Southern Californians. Communities in the Inland Empire, San Gabriel Valley, Santa Clara Valley, and the Sacramento area are also grappling with perchlorate contamination. In addition, more than 20 million Americans in at least 19 states drink water contaminated with perchlorate.

My bill will ensure that EPA acts swiftly to address this threat to our health and welfare. I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass this important piece of legislation.

Madam President, will my friend yield briefly for a followup to Senator Sarbanes' questions?

I thank my friend. I wish to add my voice to that of Senator Sarbanes and thank the Senator from West Virginia for his great leadership. I want him to know that in California, my constituents have talked to me about the Senator's statements many times. I spent the week in California, and they have received through e-mail a copy of the most recent statement Senator Byrd made on the Senate floor. It gives them hope to know that he is out here with all his years, his sage years here, and it really helps. It is a great help to me as well as a newer Senator, although one who has been here for 10 years and 10 years on the other side.

I wish to pick up on the questions of, as we look at the costs of this war, to set aside the human costs, about which I have spoken at length and about which the Senator from West Virginia has continually been so eloquent, there is also the cost, for example, of payments to our friend and ally, Turkey, which, as I understand it, also is not in the budget request; am I correct?

We are hearing everything from $6 billion in cash to an additional $10 billion to $20 billion in loan guarantees, and yet not a word in the budget. I wish to ask a final question of my friend, and that is, I was amazed to read that our friend, Carl Levin, on

the Armed Services Committee, was asking questions of the Pentagon about how many troops would be needed in the aftermath of war, immediately following perhaps for 2 years, perhaps longer, the number of troops that need to be put out there. The answer was 200,000 troops, and it took the breath of many of our colleagues. Again, I ask my friend a question: Is there any mention of that fact in the 2004 budget and the impact of that on our budget?

Does my friend know what they are talking about in terms of the number of troops? I suppose a lot would depend upon whether we have a lot of our allies with us, would it not?

In closing, I again thank my friend very much. The fact that a general, a very highly placed general, would come out with a number that is not correct, is in itself astounding. It means he certainly is not informed either. Not only are we uninformed, but he is uninformed, and this should give even more pause about this whole situation. I thank my friend for the energy he is putting into this issue. Again, my people in California are very grateful for what the Senator from West Virginia is doing.

Madam President, I take this opportunity to address the Estrada nomination and a couple of other issues that the people in my State care a lot about.

Before he leaves, I wanted to say to my friend from Minnesota that I know he was not in the Senate during the last filibuster on the court nominee--actually, there were two including the Abe Fortas nomination in the 1960s--and they occurred in the year 2000. They were launched by Members of the Republican side of the aisle, and they were directed at a woman named Marcia Berzon and a man named Richard Paez.

In addition to the filibuster----

I would be delighted to.

My friend is incorrect. Here is what happened. It took 4 years, I say to my colleague, to get the Republicans to bring the nomination of Richard Paez to the floor of this Senate. How do I know? Because I had recommended Judge Paez first for the district court, where he got immediate approval.

I would like to answer my friend before I yield, and I will be glad to yield to my friend all night long, believe me, if he wants to stay and engage. So relax and we will get to his questions.

My friend was not here. It took 4 long years to get the Republicans to relent. This is Republicans, the Senator's party, who voted to seat him on the district court unanimously. When he was nominated for the circuit court, it took 4 years. There was extensive questioning back and forth, written questions, oral questions. Then there was a filibuster. My friend says it only lasted 2 days. It was 4 years and 2 days.

I say to my friend, the only reason in the world that filibuster was ended is because we had the votes to stop it. The Senator does not have the votes to stop this filibuster. If he did, it could be done in a minute. The reason there are not the votes is because this man will not answer questions, despite the fact that my friend read some answers. I have a lot of other things to put in the Record tonight that will challenge that.

Before he leaves, I say to my friend, in answer to his question and before I yield further, this was a clear filibuster. I am going to give a quote.

I must confess to being somewhat baffled that after a

filibuster is cut off by cloture the Senate could still delay

a final vote on the nomination.

I say to my friend, who called what happened to Richard Paez a filibuster? None other than the Senator's chairman, Orrin Hatch. It is in the Congressional Record.

I am glad to yield to my friend for a further question.

I say to my friend, the day this nomination was brought to the floor, the Republican side could have filed cloture, just as we did, but they are choosing not to do it. There can be a vote on cloture today. It could be tomorrow.

Not only that, when this man answers questions, the vote is going to be won. The Senator is going to have his vote.

I have been around a long time in public life, 10 years in the House, and 10 years in the Senate. I have never seen such a systematic plan not to answer basic questions. Can anyone imagine a man who cannot answer a question if there was ever a Supreme Court case that he disagreed with? I daresay I do not know anyone in the country, lawyer or not, who agrees with the Dred Scott decision. I do not know any person who is willing to say now that he believes separate but equal, Plessey v. Ferguson, was rightly decided.

This man cannot even say which Justice, dead or alive, he would emulate most. It is unbelievable. Except when it is put in the context of who was advising this man, and we have seen it time and again on the floor. They basically said: Do not answer any questions. This is a lifetime appointment. Do not blow it.

Absolutely.

The bottom line is who can file cloture? The Democrats can file cloture on this nomination. The question is, Was there a filibuster? My friend stood up and said there has been no filibuster since Abe Fortas in the

1960s, when his own chairman, Orrin Hatch said:

I must confess to be somewhat baffled that after a

filibuster is cut off by cloture the Senate can still delay a

final vote on the nomination.

By the way, there was a filibuster on Marsha Berzon. My friend ought to know, in addition to the filibuster, after we had won the cloture vote on the Paez nomination, there was an incredible motion filed to indefinitely postpone the vote on the nomination. Imagine, there is this fight; it lasted 4 years and several days on a filibuster. We win this, we get the votes, and then there is a motion from a Republican to indefinitely delay the vote, and even Senator Hatch was stunned. He said he was baffled that could even happen.

So for the Senator to say there has not been a filibuster since the 1960s on a judge is false. His own chairman admitted there was a filibuster.

Not only did his side launch a filibuster--my friend was not here; I don't mean to take it out on you--but as someone who knew how fine these two nominees were, they faced that filibuster. They answered the questions over and over again and finally got a vote.

That is the system here. It is misleading to the American public to hear this day in and day out. ``This is unprecedented to have a filibuster.'' What is unprecedented is that we have the votes to keep it going. You did not have the votes on your side to keep it going.

If my friend has no further questions, I will return to my original statement.

I thank my friend.

The point I make tonight, among several, is that we have been charged--those who want more answers from Miguel Estrada--with doing something that has never been done before when, in fact, in the year 2000, two nominees to the Ninth Circuit Court were filibustered and one of the two was not only filibustered, but after he won cloture there was a motion to indefinitely postpone the actual vote on his nomination. I had never seen that. I hope I never see it again. The fact is, there have been two filibusters led by Republican Members and those were defeated.

The second fact is that one of those particular individuals was the first Mexican American to serve on the Central District Court of California and the Republicans held him up for 4 years before we were able to break the filibuster.

It was quite a situation. My friend from Minnesota said--I don't want to misquote him--something like ``the judicial philosophy of this nominee is an open book,'' I think is what he said. It may be an open book, but it looks like this. This is the book. There is nothing on it.

When a candidate cannot say if there was ever a Supreme Court case with which they disagreed, this is going above and beyond stonewalling; or cannot say what Justice, dead or alive, he would emulate most, this is beyond stonewalling.

In my State we are very fortunate. We have reached agreement with Republicans in our State. We have a wonderful selection process for judicial nominees for the district court. Those individuals come before us and are screened by a joint committee. It is a great process. They answer questions. There are votes taken. Then Senator Feinstein and I make a recommendation. It is a bipartisan process.

This is the point: It is working. And it is a participatory process from both parties and both branches of government. I believe questions ought to be asked and answered and Senators have a right to ask questions and Senators have a right to have those questions answered. It is pretty simple.

I started to talk about Judge Paez who made history as a Hispanic because I wanted to make the point for the Senate that he was treated in a way that was totally outrageous, having to wait 4 years to get a vote. He hung on because of his true grit--hearing after hearing; 7 months his nomination languished in 1998. The Republican majority refused to bring him up for a vote. All we were asking for was a vote. And we were refused.

In 1999, Judge Paez was nominated for the third time, and 6 months later the Judiciary Committee approved his nomination, but again we could not get the nomination up for a vote. Finally, when the nomination was brought up after more than 1,500 days, it was filibustered.

My colleagues say again and again it was not. Senator Hatch, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said it and it is in the Congressional Record. This was a filibuster. We had to get cloture. When you have to get cloture, there is a filibuster. That is as simple as it is. We had to get 60 votes.

If my Republican friends want to end this, tell the nominee to answer the questions. And believe me, he will get an up-or-down vote and the chips will fall where they fall.

It is very clear to me when I look at the way Judge Paez was treated, Marsha Berzon, Margaret Morrow, and a whole slew of others who were nominated and eventually confirmed, they had to answer question after question after question. I will get to that in a minute, the type of questions that Margaret Morrow had to answer just to become a district court judge.

Let's go to the floor of the Senate and take you back to the year 2000 to this filibuster against Marsha Berzon and against Judge Paez. Let me quote Senator Smith, that is Bob Smith, of New Hampshire, then Senator: ``it is no secret that I have been the person who has filibustered these two nominations, Judge Berzon and Judge Paez.''

And he goes on to say: ``So don't tell me we haven't filibustered judges and that we don't have the right to filibuster judges on the floor of the Senate. Of course we do. That is our constitutional role.''

This is a Republican, leading the filibuster, against Clinton nominees for the circuit court. He says: ``don't criticize our right to do these things and don't say things didn't happen that did happen.''

And he goes on, more Bob Smith, Republican from New Hampshire, one of the leaders of the filibuster, along with Senator Allard, Senator Brownback, Senator Bunning, Senator Craig, Senators DeWine, Enzi, Frist, Graham, Helms, Hutchinson, Inhofe, Murkowski, and Shelby. And Bob Smith said:

Don't come here on the floor and tell me that if I want to

block Judge Paez or Judge Berzon, somehow I'm going down some

new path. I am not going down any new path. I am following

the tradition and precedent of this Senate.

That was Republican Bob Smith, one of the leaders of the filibuster, against two judges, one Hispanic, nominated by President Bill Clinton for the Ninth Circuit Court.

Senator Bob Smith continues:

We have a responsibility to make darn sure these judges are

going to represent the views of the majority of the American

people in terms of the law. I intend to do that as long as I

can stand here to do it.

And the Republican Bob Smith continues, one of the leaders of the filibuster, against Hispanic judge Richard Paez. It took him 4 years to get a vote. Bob Smith, Republican:

When a nominee has some controversy about him or her, if it

gets to the floor, there are normally quite a few

discussions; i.e., a filibuster.

Now this goes on. I am shocked that my friends on the other side of the aisle didn't read recent history--in the year 2000. Here it goes on. What were the reasons for the filibuster? According to Senator Smith, it was because--what? He didn't get answers to questions.

Let me quote former Senator Smith again, leading a filibuster against a Hispanic judge and Marsha Berzon, two qualified appointees. They got the top rating. They were put up by Bill Clinton.

I think those questions ought to be answered. I think we

should know the answers to those questions about what

happened before we put this person on the circuit court.

Let me say that again. A Republican colleague of yours, that side of the aisle, leading the charge against these Clinton nominees, leading a filibuster:

I think those questions ought to be answered. I think we

should know the answers to those questions about what

happened before we put this person on the circuit court.

More quotes from Bob Smith, in the Congressional Record:

Filibuster in the Senate has a purpose. It is not simply to

delay for the sake of delay. It is to get information.

It is to get information. And do you know what? I disagreed with the filibuster that was led then. It went on

and on until they didn't have the votes anymore and we had the votes. You could say: What goes around comes around.

Senators on the other side of the aisle launched a filibuster against two of President Clinton's nominees for the Ninth Circuit Court, with the highest qualifications, and there were those on the other side of the aisle who believed they didn't answer questions. They launched a filibuster on that ground, and we had to get the votes. And you have to get the votes. That is the way it is here.

We were able to get the votes because--guess what--our nominees answered the questions. They answered the questions, every question. I had worked to help get Margaret Morrow to a district court judgeship. I want to tell you, Margaret Morrow waited 2 to 3 years to get a vote for district court. Do you know what she was asked? She was asked a question that was so abhorrent, I could not believe it. She was asked by one of the Senators on the Republican side of the aisle how she voted for the last 10 years on referenda that were on the ballot in California.

Madam President, I know you are not an expert on California. I can tell you, there were hundreds and hundreds of these referenda, and they were on some tough issues for everything you can imagine.

No. 1, I always thought this was a secret ballot. When you go in the voting booth it is between you and yourself; you are going to decide these issues. That is No. 1.

No. 2, this was an impossible request. How could you even remember all these issues, how you voted on them?

So we went to this particular Senator and said: Senator, this is not fair. This is a secret ballot--please. But he wouldn't relent. But he relented to this degree. He said: OK, we won't go back 10 years, just give us the 10 most controversial votes.

She did. She did. She respected the process enough, she even went so far as to answer those questions which, in my opinion--I don't know what I personally would have done. I truly don't know. But I know I told her, if she felt she could do it, do it, because a Senator was asking.

That is an amazing comparison, compared to: Can you name any Supreme Court Justice who would emulate or any Supreme Court case that you disagree with? Those are conventional questions asked over and over again.

As far as memoranda from the Solicitor General's Office are concerned, there is precedent for that. There is precedent for that. I will give you the people who turned over these previously confidential internal documents. I give the names for the record: Robert Bork, William Bradford Reynolds, Benjamin Civiletti, Stephen Trott, Judge William Rehnquist. These people turned over previously confidential internal documents. Do you know why? I think they respected the Senate enough to say: Do you know what? I could just argue legalese with you, but you have a very important job of advice and consent, and we are willing to give you these memoranda. So there is precedent for that.

I am stunned. We went through the Record and my staff pointed out the comments that were made on this floor by Senators over and over again, referring to the fact that they were filibustering Judge Paez, they were filibustering Marsha Berzon. And then to hear there hasn't been a filibuster here since the 1960's--I don't know what to say. It is stunning to me.

The fact that we beat it back, that means it is not a filibuster? You get the votes, you beat it back; is it then not going to be a filibuster? I have taken to the floor tonight because I am incredulous on the point. After seeing these words in the Record myself, with my own eyes, after hearing Senator Hatch, who is leading the charge and telling us this is unprecedented, what we are doing, this is unfair to someone, he himself referring to what happened to Richard Paez as a filibuster.

Bob Smith not only referred to it as a filibuster that he was actually leading, but that he was leading in order to get information. You could say we took a page out of the book of the Republicans. We didn't. Because we are willing to say we will vote for cloture when he turns over the information. I never heard, frankly, any of them at that time say they were willing to allow a vote if there were more questions answered because, frankly, every question was answered that you could come up with. There wasn't anything else you could know about those nominees--what they thought, or what they dreamed about, or what they wanted to do, or what they believed, or whom they admired, or what meetings they went to. It was extraordinary.

I think it was Marsha Berzon who was asked the question--she was on the board of an organization. They said to her: We want to know everything that happened at every meeting of that organization, whether you went to the meeting or not.

It took her hours. Why? She respected the role of the Senate to advise and consent. It is in the Constitution, and she understood that, and Miguel Estrada should understand that. I don't care who trained him not to say anything. We have those quotes all over the place. I have seen one saying: Don't answer any of these questions; this is a lifetime opportunity; don't let them see who you are. He was trained not to answer questions.

He ought to respect the Senate. I know the members of the Judiciary Committee on our side of the aisle, and I know the members on the other side. I know they work hard. They have a lot of pressure on them on both sides. When my colleagues tell me they were stunned at the stonewalling they received, I believe them because, by the way, I read some of the answers Miguel Estrada put into the record. I will give you questions and answers here. These are questions asked by Senator Schumer:

Question:

Other than cases in which you were an advocate, please tell

us of three cases from the last 40 years of Supreme Court

jurisprudence you are most critical of.

Answer:

I'm not even sure that I could think of three that I would

be--that I would have a sort of adverse reaction to, if

that's what you are getting at.

Question:

So, with all of your legal background and your immersion in

the legal world, you can't think of three, or even one single

case that the Supreme Court has decided that you disagree

with?

Answer:

I don't know that I'm in a position to say that I disagree

with any case that the Supreme Court has ever ruled on or

that I think the court got it right.

Question:

I'm not asking how you approach cases. That's a legitimate

question and some have asked it. I want to know how you feel

about cases. And you have said more broadly than any other

witness I have come across--you have given us virtually no

opinion on anything because it might come up in the future.

Answer:

But the problem is the same, Senator Schumer, because

taking case A and looking at whether the court got it right

or whether I think they got it right I have only the benefit

of the opinions. I haven't seen the litigants.

The litigants have been dead for a long time in Dred Scott. But, for God's sake, we ought to know. You can't say that slavery is wrong; that you disagree with that decision? You can't say separate but equal was wrong because you didn't know the litigants?

Where are we? I am stunned.

He said the case is ruled on but he didn't get to see what made it into the opinion.

This is outrageous. He didn't see what made it into the opinion; the court ruled that slavery was constitutional and he didn't disagree with it? He has to meet the litigants? I am stunned.

The Senate has a very sacred job. It is in the Constitution. It doesn't say roll over and play dead when a President picks a nominee to a court. In fact, the Founders disagreed over who should have the responsibility to choose justices. And they came out with this very balanced decision of equal power. Presidents do not like that. I can tell you. I don't know one President who likes the fact we have this advise and consent role. It is very annoying to the executive branch that we are here. I don't care whether they are Democrats and Republicans.

I say that when our constituents sent us here they want us to do the job we swear to do. We hold up our hand here on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution. The Constitution says advise and consent on judicial nominees.

It doesn't say roll over and play dead. It doesn't say, oh, give them a break. It doesn't say that. We have a lot of other things to do. It doesn't say that. It says the Senate shall advise and consent.

At home in California, the way people pick district court nominees, it is true--we advise and consent. I have to say there are a lot of people who do not like it. Some conservative groups in California are saying they do not like the way we are doing it. But it is fair. We are appointing moderate Republican judges to the district bench. That is the way the President said he wanted to do it. We are able to do it because in our State we have an agreement where Democrats and Republicans sit side by side and choose. We have two Democratic Senators. That is why this happens.

But if the President is going to send us judicial nominees who won't answer questions, he is not going to get very far. It isn't going to work. Frankly, from my perspective, if people are off the charts on the right wing, I am not going to vote for them. I will not filibuster them. Once they give us the information, I am ready to vote. I will retain my right for a Supreme Court Justice, however, on that point on the filibuster. But, in general, if people answer questions, I will vote no. But I want the answers. I don't want a judicial selection process that excludes the Senate. It is the worst thing that can happen in this country.

If you look around, it is the courts that have stood up for the rights of our people--free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, civil rights, human rights, environmental rights, so many rights that we hold dear, and the right to choose.

Madam President, you and I have worked hard on that. If we didn't have a court that found in the early stages of a pregnancy a woman has the right to choose, I don't even know where we would be for women. The courts have held the line. We know it is very shaky right now.

The courts play a very important role. It is part of the check and balance in our society. It seems to me, if we think that we don't have enough information and just sit back and say it would be a lot easier to let it go, I will vote no to let it go. I don't think that is right for those who come here.

Bob Smith, a Republican from New Hampshire, said he didn't have enough information. I disagreed with him. We beat him on the filibuster. But there was a filibuster. I think recent history is showing us that there is precedent for asking the important questions.

I wish to say one more thing about the Paez nomination. After we won on the filibuster of both Marsha Berzon and Richard Paez, there was a motion made by a Republican Senator to indefinitely postpone the final vote on one of the two, the Hispanic, Richard Paez. It was stunning. It was unprecedented.

Let me make a statement. I believe it is a precedent that never should be occurring here again because the whole purpose of a filibuster is to determine whether you are going to move ahead on a vote. Once there is no filibuster, you have to have a vote. Then we had this intervening motion about indefinitely postponing the vote. It just undercuts what cloture is supposed to be about. I thought that was unbelievable.

Basically a Senator wanted to kill the nomination even after we had won cloture. That was so unprecedented that Senator Hatch himself said he had never seen it. He had never heard of it, and he was perplexed. He was baffled by it.

Let me quote Senator Sessions who moved to stop the final vote on this Hispanic Judge, Richard Paez, after we won cloture. He said:

I move in a postcloture environment to postpone

indefinitely the nomination of Richard Paez--

Listen to this--

in order for this body to get the answers I believe every

Senator deserves with regard to the concerns I have raised

about Judge Paez over the last several days.

On Judge Paez, because this Senator thought he didn't have the information after 4 years, after pages of questions, after cloture was invoked then he did something unprecedented and moved to indefinitely postpone the final vote.

At that time, Senator Hatch was perplexed. I was certainly perplexed. Colleagues were amazed. And here is in full what Senator Hatch said at that time.

I have served a number of years in the Senate, and I have

never seen a ``motion to postpone indefinitely'' that was

brought to delay the consideration of a judicial nomination

post-cloture. Indeed, I must confess to being somewhat

baffled that, after the filibuster is cut off by cloture, the

Senate could still delay a final vote on a nomination.

Senator Hatch was right on the point. He called the filibuster a filibuster at that time. He was baffled by the kind of a postfilibuster-filibuster in the guise of postponing the final vote. Clearly, we had to get the votes for Judge Paez, and we did. And he is serving and doing us all proud, I might say, on the Ninth Circuit right now.

Iraq

Madam President, I have a couple of things to say about another subject in a brief period. It has to do with the issue of Iraq.

I spent a week during the last break in California and doing several events--many events, doing the normal things you do when you go home; going shopping, taking a walk in the park and around the neighborhood. I don't think I have ever seen my people in California as distressed and on edge and anxious as they are at this particular point in our history.

I want to tell you that this cuts across party lines.

As a matter of fact, there was a poll in the paper today about the views of Californians very much concerned about going to war. My constituents are saying: Senator, is there any way in your mind that the President will not take this country into war? And my answer-- because I am searching for it; the President says he has not made a decision--but to be as honest as I can, I say: Here is what I think on that matter. If the true goal is to disarm Saddam Hussein and Iraq, then there is a chance that this could be resolved short of war. But if the true desire is to replace Saddam Hussein, have a regime change, unless Saddam Hussein agrees to go--which would be a wonderful prospect--I do not see how you get there.

The people in my State are very concerned.

Then they say: Well, Senator, do inspections really work? And I tell them that the facts are out there, that in fact there were more weapons of mass destruction dismantled after the gulf war than there were by our bombs.

I asked for the list of weapons of mass destruction that were in fact destroyed after the Gulf war. I am going to read the list of weapons that were destroyed during the inspections.

In the missile area: 48 operational long-range missiles, 14 conventional missile warheads, 6 operational mobile launchers, 28 operational fixed launchpads, 32 fixed launchpads under construction, 30 missile chemical warheads, other missile support equipment and materiel, supervision of the destruction of a variety of assembled and nonassembled supergun components.

In the chemical area: 38,537 filled and empty chemical munitions were destroyed by the inspectors, 690 tons of chemical weapons agent, more than 3,000 tons of precursor chemicals, 426 pieces of chemical weapons production equipment, 91 pieces of related analytical instruments.

In the biological area: an entire biological weapons production facility called Al-Hakam, a variety of biological weapons production equipment and materiel.

So the fact is, the inspectors discovered and dismantled more weapons of mass destruction than were in fact destroyed by our bombs.

Sadly, there was a period where there were no inspectors in Iraq. And I do not trust, for a minute, that Iraq did not start to rebuild these stocks. The fact is, Saddam Hussein must be disarmed. That is why I supported the Levin resolution that said he must be disarmed--but not for us to go it alone, without the world with us, as the world was with us in the first gulf war.

My constituents are coming up to me and saying: What happened here? Everything feels out of control. Why? The world isn't even with us anymore. We are having fights and sniping with our allies. What happened?

I started to think about that. And I will never forget--none of us will ever forget where we were on 9/11, when we were attacked by al- Qaida. Osama bin Laden, remember his name? He attacked us. He hurt us on our own

shores. I will never forget that. And I will never forget, on 9/12, that the whole world was with us.

There is a song called ``He Has the Whole World in His Hands.'' It is a beautiful song. President Bush had the whole world in his hands on 9/ 12. Countries around the world--every one of them; even some that we really do not have such a close relationship with--expressed that they were with us. We had the world in our hands. Yes, we were the leader of the free world before 9/11, but on 9/12 the world was so with us and against terror. And somehow, some way, this has been squandered. This has been squandered. There has been this intensity on Iraq and what I call a designed neglect of the rest of the world.

Even in our own hemisphere, we see what is happening in Colombia, in Venezuela. I met with the Mexican Foreign Minister, I say to my friend from Nevada, who has a good-sized Hispanic population in his State. And the Mexican Foreign Minister told me: We had such high hopes when this administration took office, and we see nothing. We are getting no attention for our issues. We must work with your country. And, actually, he quit his post because there was no communication.

We then see what is happening in North Korea, amazing developments in North Korea. And we cannot seem to get the administration to focus on it at all.

Let me tell you, those of us on the west coast, yes, that is why my constituents are coming up to me in the supermarket and pulling at my sleeve, because the North Koreans have a missile that can reach America. They already have the nuclear weapon. They already have kicked out the inspectors. And what is the answer? When the President put them in the ``axis of evil,'' I asked, from my seat on the Foreign Relations Committee, the State Department: Before the President put North Korea in the ``axis of evil,'' was there a conversation about the ramifications of that? And the answer came back to me, I say to my friend: Well, we did go in and we did see the President--this is the highest levels of the State Department--and we said we agreed that North Korea deserved to be on the ``axis of evil.''

I said: That was not my question. There are a lot of people who could be termed evil in this world. My question was, did you discuss the ramifications? The answer was: No, we did not.

I asked: Well, did you call up our friends, our allies, with whom we share classified information every day--South Korea, Japan--to talk to them about the ramifications of putting North Korea in the ``axis of evil''? Oh, no, came the answer, we do not share State of the Union speeches with other countries.

Well, that was not the point about the State of the Union speech. It is South Korea that looks across the line at North Korea. I have been on that line, that DMZ. By the way, what a failure to humankind that situation is--one people divided. It is just the saddest situation, one of the saddest failures of humanity.

So we had the situation on 9/12/01, where the whole world was with us--the whole world. And after that, that whole situation has been squandered.

I heard Senator Leahy make similar remarks today about this. I think we have to understand where we are today. And we need to understand there are problems all over this globe, and that for us to go it alone--or almost alone--in a war with Iraq will make matters worse, I am afraid. As a leader, you have to win over your friends, and others, through your reasoning, through your evidence, through your power of persuasion, not just buying people off or giving them money.

There has been a lot of talk about what we are going to give Turkey for their cooperation. Look, I understand an ally is an ally, a friend is a friend, and so on; but this thing is still not resolved, and the costs go up. I don't think the American people understand that this is their tax dollars we are talking about--$5 billion in grants, when we are about to kick off the rolls almost 600,000 children from afterschool programs, according to the President's budget, and not fully funding our disabled kids in school, and the cleanup of only 40 Superfund sites instead of the 87 President Clinton did during his tenure.

These things just don't come about in a vacuum. I thought Senator Byrd was so well spoken when he made the point that we don't even know the cost. Remember Larry Lindsey, I say to my friend from Nevada, the President's economic advisor? He put out--I think last summer--a statement saying it is going to cost us between $100 billion and $200 billion for a war in Iraq.

Fired, let go.

It is going to cost between $100 billion and $200 billion. Now they are saying it is $95 billion. They started off saying it was going to be $30 billion, $40 billion, $50 billion, or $60 billion, but that doesn't count what they want to pay to Turkey. When you add in the loan guarantees and the rest, some people are saying that is $26 billion. And we are not reimbursing our States for the work our local police, our firemen, and our emergency workers are doing. We are neglecting port security.

I read today--and this is close to my heart--a little article, which I will send to my colleagues. It is very important. It says that many terrorist groups now have stinger missiles, shoulder-fired missiles. We have seen five, six, seven examples of terrorist groups over the years aiming at commercial aircraft. Admiral Loy's Deputy has said this is worrisome. It is going to cost money to prepare our commercial fleet, to have an antimissile system put on, just as the Israelis reportedly do. The technology is there. Yes, it is going to cost a million dollars per plane, but we are busy giving money out around the world. We are busy giving money out. We don't hear the name Osama bin Laden. One of my colleagues, Senator Dorgan, calls him Osama ``been forgotten'' because you don't hear anything about him.

Yes.

My staff mentioned that they had watched it. I did not see it myself.

(Mr. ALEXANDER assumed the Chair.)

I say to my friend, if we are to be relevant--this is the word the President talks about when referring to the U.N.--that is what we ought to be doing because, when I went home, people wanted to talk about this because they are nervous about it. Frankly, they don't want us to go it alone. At least the vast majority of people in my State feel that way. They are asking me what it is going to cost. I say I have my own guess, but we really have no idea. A man got fired because he said it would cost between $100 billion and $200 billion. Now they are saying $95 billion. And now they are offering Turkey $26 billion. One general said they will need to stay there with 200,000 troops for years. Another general said that was wrong. We cannot get an answer to that.

We don't know if Saddam Hussein will use these weapons of mass destruction, or what he will do with the oil fields if we go in there. My own view on this is that the American people are very concerned. I agree with my friend. We are spending a whole lot of time on the nomination of one judicial nominee who, frankly, in my view, cannot really want the job that much because he won't answer the questions. He will not answer the questions. If he answers the questions, we would say immediately, vote cloture, then give him a vote, and that is the end of it.

Of course.

My friend, the Democratic whip, is absolutely correct. Our records show that the first gulf war cost $61 billion. Remember that we stopped well short of Baghdad, when you are thinking what this war will cost. That is a long time ago and there has been inflation. It was $61 billion then, and $54 billion was paid for by our friends around the world. That is more than 80 percent, when you figure it all out.

I further say to my friend that we had many countries sending troops, over 20. In this case, the administration is telling us we need 250,000 troops for this war, and Britain is sending in 26,000 troops. That is about right, 26,000 troops and 250,000. That is pretty much in terms of combat troops. That's it.

Yes.

It is an unprecedented handout type of situation, which is offensive to me in many ways. This is a go-it-alone situation where it stands today.

I will finish where I started this conversation about Iraq. We had everyone with us after 9/11--the whole world. We lost that. People around the world are looking at us, and many are saying this was something the President had decided and he just went to the United Nations because he was kind of pushed there--and as one of the people who pushed him there, I am glad he went there. Believe me, I give credit where credit is due. I give credit to Colin Powell. But going there and winking and nodding and saying, I am going to go to the U.N.--but really I know what I want to do--I will give a particular case in point.

Whenever there is a little progress in finding some of these weapons, the President says things such as: Oh, that is the tip of the iceberg, and he may be right. But wouldn't it be better to say something such as: This is the tip of the iceberg, Saddam Hussein, and I am asking you to give us the rest of the iceberg, to do it now to avoid war, to avoid bloodshed. The world is watching.

We do not seem to hear those words. What we really hear is: Inspections mean nothing. Maybe it means nothing, and if it means nothing, then the U.N. eventually is going to call this guy on it. They are going to call him on it, just like they did before. By the way, these weapons are a threat to the world, and a lot of the world is a lot closer to him than we are, and a lot of the world could potentially be reached by his missiles.

The question for me, as one Senator, has never been should Saddam be disarmed--absolutely he should. Back in August when the President was saying we are going to go to war, I said: Wait a minute, the issue is weapons of mass destruction; let's see if we can get intrusive inspections back in there and pick up where we left off with the inspections which destroyed--and I read the list into the Record already--more weapons of mass destruction than we did with our bombs. If this is really about that, then we know the proven way to do it. And if Saddam ever so much as kicks the inspectors out, does not cooperate with them, thwarts them, we will know it, and we will be on the moral high ground. We will have the whole world back in our hands, and we can move forward with the world community, just as my friend pointed out happened in 1990.

I thank the Presiding Officer.

I will be glad to yield to the Senator from Nevada for another question.

I heard of the group. I do not know of the poll.

Correct.

I say to my friend, this does not surprise me. We are seeing the worst economic record of any administration in 50 years in terms of jobs lost, in terms of mortgages defaulted, in terms of loss of stock market value. We are talking $8 trillion of loss, in terms of fear about retirement, fear about losing health care, fear about the cost of health care, fear about cost of prescription drugs, fear about being able to afford to send your kids to get an education. My friend has given me a number that makes eminent sense, and I say it is going to continue to plummet because every plan this President comes up with is giving tax breaks to the wealthiest among us in the hopes they will trickle down to the working people. It never worked before, and it is not going to work.

I am very worried, and that is why people also are very anxious in my State about the war and about the economy. It is a two-front challenge we face.

Absolutely.

I left that out in the list of items that have gone wrong. A $7 trillion surplus disappeared, and we have deficits as far as the eye can see. The last deficit I remember under George Bush 1 was headed to $300 billion. As I remember, it was up to $290 billion. We all pulled together and said this is an outrage. We worked hard under Bill Clinton for 8 years and got that down to a surplus which was healthy for our economy, and we had the biggest economic boom in years. It

has all been squandered. World opinion has been squandered. The surplus has been squandered.

My friend is telling me something I was not aware of. I did not see the poll, but again, I think it becomes very clear to the people that every policy that comes down, whether it is taxation of dividends, tax breaks for the people at the top of the economic ladder, that we are, in essence, seeing a plan to get this economy revived which is going to do nothing but put money in the pockets of people whose pockets are stuffed with money. We do not need to do that.

I was in California with people who were telling me: Senator, we do not need a tax break. We are doing fine. Worry about homeland security. Worry about nuclear powerplants getting protected. Worry about the chemical plants being protected. Worry about the homeland security first responders.

I say to my friend, if, God forbid, we are attacked anywhere in our country, people are going to dial 9-1-1, they are not going to dial the President, they are not going to dial Senator Reid, Senator Boxer, or Senator Hatch. They are going to dial 9-1-1. Those very people are telling us they have not received a penny, and it is a very sad situation.

Yes.

My friend is right. As a matter of fact, the Commerce Committee is holding a hearing to address this problem of people dialing 911 from a cell phone. We have had people who are in the midst of being a victim of a crime dialing 911 and the law enforcement did not know where it was from. It is a crucial matter that has to be resolved.

What is amazing is this administration has money to give tax breaks to people at the top. The people who earn over a million dollars a year are going to get back, oh, gosh, an average of about $80,000 a year just from the dividend tax break alone, not to mention an income tax break. They have the money for that, but they do not have the money to help our homeland defense.

They have money to give to Turkey--they are talking turkey with Turkey--that is for sure. Reports of an aid package for Turkey started off as a few billion, then it was $6, then $10, then $16. Now I hear it is $26 billion. I think it was Senator Dorgan or Senator Durbin who said maybe our States should change their name to Turkey and they will do better than they are doing now.

My friend is right. I have to use a sense of humor because you get upset about these things and you cannot keep being outraged.

I am happy to yield before I close.

I am absolutely aware of this. I say to my friend, I went through the litany at the beginning of my talk about how other nominees have answered a multitude of questions, and as a matter of fact some have sent previously confidential opinions that they have written. All the other side has to do is say to Mr. Estrada, answer the questions, and then there can be a vote.

When my friend raises the environment, I will take a minute to say that we finally got a report that has been languishing in the administration since June. Surprise, surprise, it was leaked to the Wall Street Journal, and after it was leaked, then the administration released it. It has some horrific statistics about what is happening to young people and women of childbearing age in terms of ingestion of mercury through mercury-tainted fish, and the fact that mercury is now emerging as a leading cause of neurological damage and I predict will become an issue in this Senate just the way lead was an issue in other Senates. We finally got this report. We begged for it and then got it.

My friend is right: What could be more important than getting this economy going than protecting the health of our children by bringing that report up for debate and open for discussion? Senator Jeffords has a great plan, the Clean Power Act, that will take that mercury out of the air, that will save these children from getting neurological damage. Let's debate it. Let's debate Senator Daschle's plan, his economic stimulus plan, that gives the stimulus to the working people, versus the Bush plan that gives it to the people who do not even have to work because they live off their dividends. I would like to see that debate.

If Miguel Estrada really wants this job, he will do what Margaret Morrow did, he will do what Judge Paez did, he will do what Marsha Berzon did, and answer the questions. There were 4 years of questions to Judge Paez. He answered them all. We had to break their filibuster, I say to my friend, and we did.

Senator Smith at the time was proud to launch the filibuster. Senator Bob Smith said--and I read it into the Record--this is a filibuster launched because we need to get questions answered, and it is the right thing to do.

Yes.

Correct.

I did. I said it. I said there was precedent, and I read off the five cases where previously confidential memos were released. I named the gentlemen--they happened to be all men--who were willing to release it in order to get a vote on their confirmation.

So there is adequate precedent for that. There is adequate precedent for

answering the questions, and if the Senate has any respect for our work and for the Constitution of the United States, which we have been sworn to uphold, then we will not roll over when any President, this one or any future President, sends a nominee down who cannot even tell if there is one Supreme Court case, in all the hundreds of years, that he disagrees with, cannot even name what jurist he would most emulate. It is beyond the pale, the questions Mr. Estrada refused to answer, because clearly he has been told and trained not to answer any questions.

I was proud to come to this Chamber, after my diligent staff went back through the Record and got the quotes of Bob Smith who helped lead the filibuster, who got the quotes of Senator Sessions who then said we should have, after we broke the filibuster, yet another vote to indefinitely delay a vote.

It is extraordinary what has happened. In the Record tonight, for all who will read, we have the quotes of Senator Hatch, who called what happened to Paez a filibuster, who called what Senator Sessions tried to do unprecedented. We have the quotes of Senator Smith who said: All I am doing is asking questions to get answers, and now let the people decide.

They are going to run some kind of ads in my State saying: Barbara Boxer, shame; she does not like Hispanic nominees.

Do you want to know something? To say that is like saying I do not support women's rights and there is going to be a backlash on that. I am the person who recommended the first Mexican-American to sit on a district court in Los Angeles, the person who stood on her feet day after day trying to get Richard Paez his seat.

They can do all they want because I think the American people understand we are standing on a principle. If I were the only one on my feet, I would stay on my feet because I think it is wrong to stonewall the Senate and members of the Judiciary Committee who in good will have approved, by the way, an enormous number of judges--and who were just simply saying: Answer the questions; give us the memos; we do not know who you are; we want to have a record; we want to make an informed decision. This is the right thing to do.

I dare say to my constituents--and I did when I was home; I said: You may be hearing about this, but I want you to know that you sent me here not to be part of the wallpaper behind me--that is pretty easy--not to go along to get along, but to stand up and do my job as a Senator, and that is not to vote on a judicial nominee who has refused to hand over documents, who has refused to answer questions, who has absolutely no record on which to judge what he is going to do. Once we have that information, I am happy to have a vote and let the chips fall where they may.

Iraq

On Iraq, I make a rhetorical plea to the administration: You had the whole world in your hand on 9/12; you don't have it in your hand now. Let's get back to being a true leader. Lay out a path for peace. That is an American value, to lay out a path for peace. Lay out a path for peace, not just the path for war.

Get this man disarmed, Saddam Hussein, in a way that does not lead to the loss of life and blood of our people and innocent people. And if we do that, we will be back to where we were on 9/12. If we pay attention to other problems in the world, we will be back to where we were on 9/ 12.

I yield the floor.